Iraq

No Shame

Photoshopped propaganda imageThanks to PR Watch forums contributor "El Gringo" for calling our attention to a really atrocious example of dishonest propaganda. The graphic at right is by Linda Eddy, an artist for the website, IowaPresidentialWatch.com. Owned by Roger Hughes, chairman of the Republican Party in Hamilton County, Iowa, the website spent the recent U.S. presidential election calling Democratic candidate John Kerry a habitual liar and comparing him to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels -- which is awfully ironic in light of its own promotion of a big lie.

The image you see here might lead you to believe that the child in the picture has been made "glad" and secure thanks to the U.S. troop presence in Iraq. As "El Gringo" discovered, however, Lindy Eddy doctored the photograph. The original photo, taken by a journalist, depicted a young girl who had just received bullet wounds during a firefight in which her mother was killed and her father was wounded. Eddy doctored the photo by erasing the little girl's own face (which carries the listless expression you would expect from an injured child) and replacing it with someone else's face to make her look positively radiant and adoring.

A Trying-Not-To-Be-Captive Audience

Submitted by Diane Farsetta on

"Most Western reporters have determined that their only option is to turn to the U.S. and British embassies for transportation help," writes the Los Angeles Times' Alissa Rubin from Iraq. "The embassies, with the power to commandeer military helicopters, armed with gunners and personal security details, allow journalists to leapfrog the ring of danger around Baghdad and visit the rest of the country. ... But with the mobility come some hindrances.

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Main Source: 
Los Angeles Times, January 23, 2005
Topics: 
Iraq
Media

The American Dream

Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on

"In all of Iraq, Jumana Hanna was the bravest witness to the horror of Saddam's regime, telling the Americans of torture, rape, and mass murder," writes Sara Solovitch. Paul Wolfowitz recounted her story to the Senate Foreign Relations Commitee. Her suffering was described in agonizing detail in a Washington Post story by Peter Finn.

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Main Source: 
Esquire, January 2005
Topics: 
Iraq
Human Rights

An Insurgency by Any Other Name

Submitted by Diane Farsetta on

"Our military commanders and political leaders must be careful that in using language to deceive the enemy, to propagandize or to persuade, they do not obscure their own thinking," warns Michael Keane. "Before the coalition's recent attack on enemy forces in Fallouja, the American commander there changed the rules of engagement from 'capture or kill' to 'kill or capture.' ... And there are the changing names for the enemy in Iraq. U.S.

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Main Source: 
Los Angeles Times, January 18, 2005
Topics: 
Iraq
Public Relations

Blog Trolling Iraq?

Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on

Joseph Mailander of the Martini Republic weblog wonders if the U.S. government is "blog trolling" in Iraq: "touting the 'right' messengers with a mix of above-board, official recognition and below-board, ideology-based, sustained pump-priming, to generate a following for propagandistic messengers far beyond their natural level of interest." IraqTheModel, featuring two brothers in Baghdad, has become popular to the point that the brothers are touring the U.S., meeting President Bush and other prominent pro-war figures.

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Main Source: 
Martini Republic weblog, December 12, 2004
Topics: 
Iraq

Americans Shielded From Iraq's Brutal Realities

Submitted by Laura Miller on

"In the end, the war in Iraq did not have the decisive impact on the election that many had expected," Michael Massing writes in the New York Review of Books. Why? Massing suggests that the American public may not have been "aware of just how bad things had gotten in Iraq." Of the many factors that shielded Americans from the "most brutal realities of Iraq," Fox News stands out. "The most striking feature of its coverage of the war in Iraq was, in fact, its lack of coverage," Massing writes.

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Main Source: 
New York Review of Books, December 16, 2004
Topics: 
Iraq
Media

PR Meets Psy-Ops in War on Terror

Submitted by Laura Miller on

A U.S. military spokesman deliberately misled CNN as part of "an elaborate psychological operation - or 'psy-op' - intended to dupe insurgents in Fallouja," the Los Angeles Times reports. Hoping to prompt a reaction from guerrillas, the Marines told CNN on Oct. 14 that "Troops crossed the line of departure," indicating the start of the Fallouja offensive. In reality, the offensive did not begin until three weeks later. "Officials at the Pentagon and other U.S.

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Main Source: 
Los Angeles Times, December 1, 2004
Topics: 
Iraq
Propaganda
U.S. Government

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