alternative hippopotamus

progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital

April 11, 2006

The Joys of Being 7 (Or, at Least Acting That Way)

by AltHippo @ 2:17 pm. Filed under Uncategorized

I wanted to talk about “Challenging Empire” by Phyllis Bennis. She’s going to be our guest this Thursday at DCDL, so I’ve been trying to finish reading her book.

So, I wanted to talk about her book, but I left it at Hippo Manor this morning. For right now I’ll just say it’s a really good read, and I’ll post more tomorrow.

Instead, I wanted to make a different kind of comment about the talk. On one hand you might think that inviting a noted author over to an event to discuss her latest book on Middle East policy– well, all this sounds very adult. Dare I say it, even urbane. And, if it were anyone besides me, I would agree.

But, since it is me, I can testify that it still feels like I’m in second grade, and I’m inviting the boys and girls from school over to play. Granted, Sam Adams draft wasn’t part of the 2nd grade society, but you get the idea.

Speaking of people who act like they’re 7, just how stupid are the boys and girls at NRO? For instance, I notice that Cliff May has this WaPo bit up to rebut charges that Zarqawi is being propped up as a propaganda tool:

“More than 90 percent of the suicide attacks in Iraq are carried out by fighters recruited, trained and equipped by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, a U.S. military spokesman said Monday.”

That’s a fairly slippery statement, but that’s not what I wanted to emphasize. Instead, my point is that the spokesman, Maj Gen Rick Lynch, is not exactly separate from the folks that are being accused of over-hyping Zarqawi. (to be completely accurate, some have gone way further than saying it’s hype. Robert Fisk, for instance, thinks there’s a credible case that Zarqawi is dead.)

If anything, Lynch is in the thick of the whole propaganda operation. You may remember this article (BBC) from last December:

The Los Angeles Times said the Pentagon had secretly paid Iraqi newspapers to run articles reflecting well on the US.

Many stories are being presented as independent accounts, the paper said.

Questioned about the issue, a US spokesman in Baghdad said Iraq’s most-wanted militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was also using the media.

“He [Zarqawi] is conducting these kidnappings, these beheadings, these explosions, so that he gets international coverage to look like he has more capability than he truly has,” Maj Gen Rick Lynch said in Baghdad.

Note the difference in what Lynch is saying now versus what he said then. Then he was saying that the US needs to have a propaganda shop because Zarqawi has a propaganda shop. In fact, Lynch believed that Zarqawi was using his propaganda shop to make himself look more dangerous than he really is. Now, he’s saying that Zarqawi is really dangerous, and anyone who calls it propaganda is just itching for a fight.

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hip·po·pot·a·mus n. A notion, perhaps distinct from conventional wisdom, that needs to be verified by reality-based scrutiny.

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