Weapons of Mass Media
Our local (Bristol, UK) rag, the Evening Pest, is typical of the fantasy rolling war-war-war coverage that had very little fact. Take the Tuesday 8th April headline 'Saddam Hussein is Dead', not wishing to bother with journalism and finding out if it was true or more coalition spin, hey launched a front page blitz. The next day most of the papers reported that the 'intelligence' services think they missed Saddam when they bombed a Baghdad suburb. Then, when something news-worthy actually happens - they missed it: So when Baghdad falls, the Evening Pest's front page is a story about Concorde being phased out. Whoops. Maybe they should let the national press do Iraq, and stick to Bristol?

Ever since the much touted pulling down of statues of Saddam, there have been rumours that some of events were staged. A typical example would be Voxfux ranting about this, "Reminiscent of the staged mock pro war rallies here in the United States, the CIA with their public relations giants staged a patently mock liberation rally. If it wasn’t so phony it would be laughable, but it was disgusting - It’s a lie." I had been dismissing this stuff as people who said that the Iraqis would not welcome the US, clutching at straws....

...and then I saw a piccy of an overhead shot of the scene Nasiriyah on informationclearinghouse.info. And photos of a jubilant Iraq who's part of the pulling down of the state, and he bears an uncanny resemblance to once of the bodyguards of Iraqi National Congress founder & wanted fraudster Ahmed Chalabi, the Pentagon's man. Not that this is conclusive proof, but is making me think...