- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
I find myself being torn between being aghast at what moral and legal guidelines the U.S. military was willing to stomp over and being impressed at how well they were able to do it. All this does suggest a level of dedicated competence which we don't normally associate with the Pentagon.
Yes and no. As a commenter pointed out towards the end of yesterday's thread, it wasn't like they had to overcome some huge resistance on the part of the media in order to ensure that these messages dominated. After all, the establishment press is the establishment press because that's their function. They were almost all even more enthralled to the war machine than usual after 9/11 and with the glory of Shock and Awe and Mission Accomplished Day. They revere military leaders and -- for all sorts of reasons -- excluded any real anti-government and anti-war perspectives anyway.
I'd say that this program simply exploited an opportunity arising from the realities of how these networks function, rather than created any new opportunities. Having said that, you're right in your basic point -- they did do this with more competence than one generally expects, certainly more than was demonstrated by the war managers.
