War / Peace

Pacifica Foundation vice chairman Ken Ford is playing the "terrorist card" at the formerly progressive radio network, currently in a financial crisis as it faces mounting bills from lawyers and PR firms. Outside vendors are not being paid, employee paychecks are in question, and four lawsuits alleging everything from financial malfeasance to by-law violations are scheduled to go to trial in January. Responding to charges of mismanagement, Ford characterized critics of Pacifica as "zealots," adding, "I see parallels between this group and al Qaeda, the terrorists who bombed New York.

The New York Times reports that Hollywood executives and White House officials discussed recently how the entertainment industry can help the Bush administration's war effort. "Bryce Zabel, the chairman of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, said there was a strong sense among executives at the meeting that the United States needed to do more to highlight its strengths internationally. The United States, Mr. Zabel said, is losing the propaganda war abroad because so many people are willing to line up against it.

Thanks to the spread of the internet, the war in Afghanistan may mark the first time that U.S. citizens have been able to widely access news about a war directly from countries in the region. Here are some websites for English-language daily newspapers published in Israel and the Muslim world:

Military analysts say propaganda is especially critical in a war against those isolated from Western views and infused with a dogmatic hatred for the United States. But is the military up to the task? A Pentagon report commissioned after psyops failures in the 1999 Kosovo conflict criticized the military for failing to keep pace with advances in electronic communications. It also called the equipment the Air Force is now using to broadcast radio and perhaps TV messages to Afghans "outdated and inadequate."