Glenn Greenwald links to Josh Marshall, who published an e-mail from a reader “who identifies what is one of the most astonishing instances of mindless, pro-government ‘reporting’ yet”:
It’s a curious thing that, over the past 10 – 12 days, the news from Iraq refers to the combatants there as “al-Qaida” fighters. When did that happen?
Until a few days ago, the combatants in Iraq were “insurgents” or they were referred to as “Sunni” or “Shia’a” fighters in the Iraq Civil War. Suddenly, without evidence, without proof, without any semblance of fact, the US military command is referring to these combatants as “al-Qaida”.
Welcome to the latest in Iraq propaganda.
Here’s what Greenwald has to say about this newest Bush strategy for concocting an enemy in Iraq:
That the Bush administration, and specifically its military commanders, decided to begin using the term “Al Qaeda” to designate “anyone and everyone we fight against or kill in Iraq” is obvious. All of a sudden, every time one of the top military commanders describes our latest operations or quantifies how many we killed, the enemy is referred to, almost exclusively now, as “Al Qaeda.”
But what is even more notable is that the establishment press has followed right along, just as enthusiastically.
This has been going on for more than the past two weeks. For many months now, the Bush administration has been blaming suicide bombings on "al Qaida in Iraq" without any shred of supporting evidence. All part of the lies and paranoia that flows out of the White House.
The MSM is now actively participating in Bush's al-Qaida propaganda. Just yesterday, I saw a television report on CBS that ran for about 2-3 minutes. It talked about the ongoing violence in Iraq, and it mentioned al-Qaida a total of six times, attributing to them ALL of the bombing activities that had taken place that day. The report never once mentioned insurgents, underground Iraqi Republican Guard troops, Iranians, or any other group likely to be spreading havoc in Iraq. Perhaps I've just never paid so much attention to the MSM, but I have never in my life seen it be such a lapdog to the Executive branch of our government, and certainly never when said branch is demonstrably corrupt and dishonest. Just when I think I am beyond being shocked by the MSM's complicity, it finds a way to shock me again.
The propaganda just keeps rolling along. Today on the news, a reporter described the car-bomb found in London as "al-Qaida inspired." Seriously, these MSM reporters will do ANYTHING to hang the 'al-Qaida name' on a terrorist activity, even when the activity has nothing to do with Osama bin Laden.
Indeed, al-Qaida is not even an organization, nor is Osama bin Laden the head of it. Nobody is getting orders via cell phone from a cave in Afganistan. People are just bombing things on their own and claiming they are part of al-Qaida, but they're basically all acting independently. In fact, evidence indicates that bin Laden didn't even use the 'al-Qaida' name until after he heard Bush use it — i.e., the Bush adminstration invented the name so it would have a more tangible and frightening-seeming opponent, and bin Laden merely picked up the ball and ran with it.
I really wonder what we will learn in the future about the Bush administration's lies concerning the Iraq invasion whenever we finally have a chance to clear away all the BS that pours out of Bush's mouth and the White House press office. I have a hunch there won't be any hard evidence, but there certainly is a profound lack of evidence to support virtually everything Bush has said for the past six years. This thing could make Watergate look like a child's tea party. Remember: Cheney & Rumsfeld were staffers for Nixon, so they had front row seats to all the mistakes that cost Nixon his job. Those guys aren't stupid. No doubt they learned how to be just as criminal as Nixon, but without getting caught — as we have seen with their illegal torture, illegal rendition, illegal wiretapping, illegal imprisonment of detainees, illegal invasion, stolen elections, etc. Only time will tell how deep the corruption goes if and when we can peel back the skin and see what's inside the Bush/Cheney cesspool.
As befits its right-wing propaganda roots, Fox "News" today went a step farther than anyone else and reported that the London bombers "had links to al-Qaida." I have yet to see that assertion confirmed by any reputable source, including Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff, who expressly declined to support it.