Yum yum yum. More bullshit to swallow from the Pentagon, and yes ...
you, my fellow taxpayer, get to foot the bill for this faster-food meal, served up to spin the 24-hour news cycle:
Pentagon memo reveals launch of new PR war
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is buttressing its public relations staff and starting an operation akin to a political campaign war room as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld faces intensifying criticism over the Iraq war.
In a memo obtained by the Associated Press, Dorrance Smith, assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, said new teams of people will "develop messages" for the 24-hour news cycle and "correct the record."
...Another branch would coordinate "surrogates." In political campaigns, surrogates are usually high-level politicians or key interest groups who speak or travel on behalf of a candidate or an issue.
The plan would focus more resources on so-called new media, such as the Internet and Weblogs. It would also include new workers to book civilian and military guests on television and radio shows.
Whatever happened to trusting private enterprise and the free market - this one trading in information - when it comes to news, my devout laissez-faire friends? Why not throw reporters of all political stripes into the Iraqi fray and let stories emerge and compete for attention?
And how about this for a suggestion from a humble taxpayer: Let's put money into actually protecting our troops and providing them the equipment they need instead of into ... you know ... massaging the truth about what's going on over there. Unique idea, no? Pay for actual real-life results instead of creating a whole new payroll to pretend we're succeeding. Or if you insist on going the "pretend we're winning" route, just cancel the ground operations in Iraq and stage a fake war on a Fox News soundstage to keep the American people riled up and fearful.
As a bonus ridiculous point, the AP story cited above was covered by the BBC and contained this amazing observation from Rumsfeld:
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said media manipulation by enemies of the US is the only thing keeping him awake at night.
Seriously? More than 2,800 American troops dead, tens (or hundreds) of thousands Iraqis dead, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis displaced as refugees, tens of thousands of wounded American soldiers (many with serious brain injuries), a raging civil war ... and what keeps our secretary of defense awake is the use of media by our enemies?
Cripes.