A story ran on the front page of our local paper yesterday With the headline, "A View from the war zone," the reporter passed on an email sent to him a local marine stationed in Iraq. The email described his conversation with a local Iraqi businessman. This immediately made me think of the identical emails supposedly sent by soldiers to local papers a while ago describing how wonderful things were in Iraq. With the third anniversary of the invasion rapidly approaching, could this be another organized propaganda campaign?
"A Business owner known as Mr. Safaa, a former colonel in the Iraqi air force, said he believes the fighting is political and won't last, according to (*) a marine from Eureka. "This is only temporary,...Osama bin Laden and Zarquawi, they threatened to start a civil war. With a permanent new government, Iraq will get better." After describing how his business of performing maintenance on US vehicles on a marine base, The Iraqi goes on to report "Families are happy... I hire brothers, Sunnis, Shiites. I hire them for their work, not where they come from."
This immediately made me think of the identical emails supposedly sent by soldiers to local papers a while ago describing how wonderful things were in Iraq. With the third anniversary of the invasion rapidly approaching, could this be another organized propaganda campaign? Rather than just be annoyed at the paper allowing itself to be manipulated in such a fashion, I decided to check in with folks to see if such spontaneous missives are manifesting elsewhere.
Has anyone else seen similar letters?