Not just propaganda, but damn expensive propaganda

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

http://nytimes.com/2005/12/01/international/middleeast/01cnd-prop.html?hp&ex=1133499600&en=495f0aa6dcecc29e&ei=5094&partner=homepage

"But far from being the heartfelt opinion of an Iraqi writer, as its language implied, the article was prepared by the United States military as part of a multimillion-dollar covert campaign to plant paid propaganda in the Iraqi news media and pay friendly Iraqi journalists monthly stipends, military contractors and officials said
Even as the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development pay contractors millions of dollars to help train journalists and promote a professional and independent Iraqi media, the Pentagon is paying millions more to the Lincoln Group for work that appears to violate fundamental principles of Western journalism . . .

In addition to paying newspapers to print government propaganda, Lincoln has paid about a dozen Iraqi journalists each several hundred dollars a month, a person who had been told of the transactions said. Those journalists were chosen because their past coverage had not been antagonistic to the United States, said the person, who is being granted anonymity because of fears for the safety of those involved. In addition, the military storyboards have in some cases copied verbatim text from copyrighted publications and passed it on to be printed in the Iraqi press without attribution, documents and interviews indicated."


Ok, just count in those two paragraphs of this story how many times the word "millions" is used.

This story will ultimately not just be about propaganda and its uses or abuses, but it will also be about the fleecing of the American taxpayer yet once again. You can pay a shitload of Iraqui journalists "several hundred" dollars a month for MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of dollars!!! How about some accounting for the rest of the MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of dollars that is being spent here?! Why doesn't someone just set up a VALPAK coupon franchise? It would be a hell of a lot cheaper and probably generate more goodwill than this F!@#$ed up program.

This program is just another part of the LEECH (Let's Enrich Entrenched Co-horts Handsomely) program that is so much a part of this administration.

And of course, these are the same folks who can't cough up anything additional for our fellow citizen Katrina sufferers to stay a little longer at the Motel 6 while we fail to DNA their relatives, rebuild the levees or fix their houses.

[texpatriot2004]

1. The * Admin. - Catapulting the propaganda around the world nt