Polls show that the majority of Americans now believe that the war in Iraq was a mistake. There were, of course, no weapons of mass destruction. Before our invasion, there were no Al Queda connections. Saddam was no democratic leader, but he was not planning and coordinating terrorist attacks against the United States. Iraq was not a training field for radical Islamic terrorists who planned to expand into Pakistan, Syria and other nations.There are still no weapons of mass destruction, but our invasion and occupation have made Iraq into a breeding ground for terrorism. Toppling Saddam also changed a situation of relative stability among ethnic groups into an unstable situation of near civil war between the three factions. Our continuing occupation engenders more ill will.
In this period of clear dissent from the Bush unilateral militarism, the Bush administration arranged a live telecast with U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Not unsurprisingly, given this administration's history of using staged events where every member of the audience is preselected to be supportive of Mr. Bush and of attempting to manipulate media coverage by using "video news releases" of government propaganda presented deceptively as though it is independent journalism, the administration carefully prepared the soldiers for their "spontaneous" session with Mr. Bush. Before the actual telecast, the questions were gone over, and specific soldiers picked to handle each subject area. A description of the telecast preparations is available here. The story of the prepping of the soldiers does not sit well in the context of an administration that consistently attempts to manipulate the news to provide good PR for itself and its partisan objectives.
Others must have noticed, since the Defense Department even provided a news release, available on their web site, defending the rehearsing of the troops for their "conversation" with Mr. Bush. You can read the release here. The release claims that "U.S. soldiers are proud of their service in Iraq" and goes on to justify rehearsing the statements of the soldiers during the "live" telecast as follows:
No one intended to tell them what to think or how to express themselves; going through likely questions in advance was meant solely to help the troops feel at ease during an obviously unique experience.
This event, and the DOD release, suggest that this Administration and the Department of Defense continue to adhere to the belief that if you repeat something often enough, it is just as good as true. It is up to the mainstream media to enlighten the administration by exposing these attempts to control the information available to Americans--a telecast of a command performance before the Commander in Chief of handpicked soldiers who are rehearsed on their answers to questions about their tasks in Iraq is simply not a credible interview of soldiers at war. America is no longer in the market for spin.