Warfare continues to become more professional and dehumanized every day.

The purpose of Extraordinary Edition is being revisited for winter, headed into 2013. U.S. foreign policy, Central Asia and the Middle East remain key focal points. Economics and culture on your front doorstep are coming into focus here.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Glenn Greenwald on war propaganda, Afghanistan and the NY Times

Salon.com article posted to commondreams.org
by Glenn Greenwald April 28, 2010

Excerpt--The Independent declared on February 9, 2010, that General McChrystal wants the Marjah offensive to "be one of the most significant in the country since the fall of the Taliban in 2001" and, of Obama's war strategy, said that "Marjah looks like being its first major -- and possibly decisive -- test." The BBC quoted a NATO official who proclaimed that Marjah "was 'probably the definitive operation' of the counter-insurgency strategy" and "this operation could potentially define the tipping point, the crucial momentum aspect in the counter-insurgency." Time helpfully informed us that "U.S. officials believe it will mark a turning point in the war."

Now that that "make-or-break decisive test" has failed (or, at best, has produced very muddled outcomes), did the Government and media follow through and declare the war effort broken and the strategy a failure? No; they just pretend it never happened and declare the next, latest, glorious Battle the real "make-or-break decisive test" -- until that one fails and the next one is portrayed that way, in an endless tidal wave of war propaganda intended to justify our staying for as long as we want, no matter how pointless and counter-productive it is.

commondreams.org

No comments: