Propaganda Twists

[Once you recognize the complicity of American authorities in the 9/11 attacks, the Patriot Act takes on a whole new meaning. The attack on civil liberties is not a lesser evil, a regrettable compromise with harsh new realities, a defense against laxity in the face of foreign dangers. No, domestic repression is among the dearest goals of the plotters. Fact: "they" hate our freedom. Forbidden fact: "they" were in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center on Black Tuesday, drinking Coca Cola and directing the day's events.

Here Larry Chin looks at the recent tape from the Great Satan and finds smoke, and mirrors, and "them." - JAH]


New Osama Tape, Deeper
Propaganda Twists

by

Larry Chin

January 12, 2004, PST 0800 (FTW) -- On December 16, 2004, another new Osama bin Laden video hit the air waves. Like previous productions, the tape was conveniently timed to reinforce and invigorate Washington's expanding war agenda, keep the populations of Western nations fearfully compliant and supportive of the Bush administration's "war on terrorism," further provoke anti-Western sentiment in the Middle East, and distract from exploding political and economic fault lines all over the world, from Ukraine and Kuwait, to the financial markets and tension within the Bush administration itself ("wag the dog").

Although the (never to be trusted) CIA has expressed "high confidence" that the voice is that of Bin Laden, the tape was not dated and, according to the Reuters report, "its authenticity could not be verified."

Analysis of previous alleged Osama bin Laden videos, and other loudly-promoted "terror tapes," "arrests," and "trials" have been exposed as propaganda, likely produced by operatives of the Bush administration. We can logically conclude that this work is more of the same.

If the case can be made that the tapes are, in fact, manufactured by US intelligence agencies, it stands to reason that the words out of the mouth of the Osama image have also been conceived, written and planted by these same agencies. It is therefore foolish to "read" the tapes without this likely framework in mind.

What is telling about the new tape, and the previous (October 29, pre-presidential election) Osama product, is the specific content, planted amidst other intentionally deceptive gibberish, that seems to confirm and forecast US/Bush administration policy and geostrategy.

Before getting into these details, it is useful to remind oneself of the perfect Orwellian dynamics that expert propaganda ministries seek to create: Lies become truth. Truths become lies.

One need only look at present conditions to see that this dynamic is in full flower. Western political leaders, and every member of the Bush administration and their agencies, tell lies on a daily basis, in front of cameras and microphones. Americans are conditioned to embrace these repeated lies as truth. At the same time, these same agencies, and the US corporate media, portray (real and manufactured) opponents of US war policy as liars, regardless of what they say (or are made to say).

An "image of evil" is the central element. For propaganda purposes, the US has typically hung out despotic former US allies and intelligence assets who have outlived their usefulness (Noriega, Saddam Hussein) and/or long-time US intelligence assets who, for war purposes, must remain at large (Osama bin Laden, Zarqawi, etc. etc.).

With the Osama image, propaganda manufacturers have created a demonic and lurid icon designed to divide and provoke. With repetition, the Osama image has become a universal icon of "evil" in American culture. Indoctrinated, brainwashed and ill-informed individuals in the US, viewing the image, have had their thinking shaped to think: "Whatever this image is saying is evil and untrue. Therefore, I support whatever is the opposite."

So what happens when propaganda ministers broadcast "evil images" that speak factual truths? Targeted populations who "hate" the image, believing that the words are lies, oppose truth and deny facts.

Against this model ("anything that 'Osama' wants, we're against; anything that 'Osama' doesn't want, we're for"), consider what the evil "Osama" image was made to speak, and the response that US propaganda ministers likely want:

1. The Osama image issues a specific comment about oil: "Stop the Americans from getting hold of the oil. Concentrate your operations on the oil, in particular in Iraq and the Gulf."

It is a fact, that the current world war (and the "war on terrorism") has been waged for the purpose of seizing, occupying and controlling key energy and resource regions in preparation for the worldwide depletion crisis known as Peak Oil (see the extensive analysis of Peak Oil at From The Wilderness).

The effect of the Osama image's statement, then, is to make US/Western populations support "American efforts to get the oil in Iraq and the Gulf" as a way to "fight bin Laden and 'terrorists.'"

Gradual manipulation of public opinion that spoon-feeds the idea of Peak Oil has already begun over the past year (evidenced by increasing media acknowledgement of energy depletion in mainstream publications and networks, after years of denial or silence).

This will certainly be followed by the planting of the idea that it is acceptable for the US and the West to control remaining world energy supplies "at any cost" - therefore, making the current Iraq war - and probable future wars in Iran, Saudi Arabia Latin America and elsewhere " acceptable." What better anti-messenger than "Osama"?

2. The Osama image accuses the Saudi regime of forging an alliance with the "infidel" world led by US President George W. Bush, while calling the rulers of the world's largest oil exporter "corrupt and oppressive US agents."

Both statements are true. But because "Osama says so," American and Western populations will be disposed to dismiss the idea of a corrupt alliance between Saudi Arabia and the US, and to rally around "the good guys." This was the case during the first Gulf War (with Saddam Hussein playing the "bad guy," Israel and Saudi Arabia as "good guys"), and it is also true now.

3. The Osama image warns that Saudi rulers should be toppled like the Shah of Iran.

It is a fact, that the Saudi regime (like that of the Shah of Iran) is an outpost of the American empire, one that simmers on the brink of implosion and civil war - ripe for intervention. It is also a fact that (1) Saudi Arabia holds the world's largest oil reserves; (2) US efforts to get oil from everywhere else, including Iraq, Central Asia, etc. have so far been unsuccessful, resisted or botched; (3) the world economy is teetering on the brink of collapse because cheap oil is no longer flowing, and (4) the Bush administration knows that they need, and must have, Saudi Arabia and its oil. It is not a question of if, but when.

Propaganda ministers are setting up Western public opinion with the idea that the House of Saud will indeed fall - but it must not be allowed to get into the hands of "Osama" and Islamist fanatics (such as those perceived to have toppled the Shah of Iran). This plants the idea in American minds that a US military intervention, an "anti-terror" occupation, will "save" the Saudi regime.

4. The Osama image says: "Muslims are determined to recover their rights, whatever the price. Either you give them back what they entrusted you with (power), by allowing them to choose their rulers, or you refuse to give power back to them."

It is true that these sentiments reflect the dominant opinion of Muslims throughout the Middle East and around the world. Certainly, it is the majority opinion within war-ravaged Iraq, where sham elections are about to be forced upon a nation that the Bush administration continues to try to beat and bomb into submission.

But because "Osama" is saying it, the Western public will reflexively dismiss the words as "radical fundamentalist hatred," and then rally around the opposite: Bush, continuing war and genocide against Muslims, and the absolute denial of power and rights to Muslims in occupied regions.

The lasting effect of Bush administration propaganda has been to fool mass populations around US/Bush administration policies that are based on criminal falsehoods, cover-up, and the absolute denial of political realities. At the very least, they seek to plant the notion that the alternative is even worse.

Going back to a telling piece of the previous propaganda tape of October 29, the Osama image spoke about how George W. Bush sat in a Florida schoolroom on 9/11, and read from a storybook about a pet goat, while the 9/11 atrocity happened.

Another fact.

But the Osama image said it. Therefore, it is "patriotic" to say "it didn't happen"- and fully embrace the lies of 9/11 cover-up operations such as the 9/11 Commission.

In the minds of indoctrinated masses in the United States and the West, whatever the Osama image says is a lie. It is a neat trick.

In Crossing the Rubicon, Mike Ruppert writes:

"I believe that bin Laden was, and remains, a CIA/US government/Wall Street asset. This would explain why he has never been caught. There are still wars to fight. He can't be caught for a variety of reasons, including his family's enormous and diverse financial connections to the same elites that control the United States financial system, and his close interrelationship with a Saudi ruling class that could pull the plug on the US economy even before Peak Oil does. Osama bin Laden also knows way too much, and without him, the Bush administration would have had no excuse for any of what it has done over the last four years. From a strategic point of view, Osama is Dick Cheney's best friend."

And Osama videos are the CIA's best weapons.

It is not a stretch to expect future bin Laden tapes to issue more specific planted facts about a variety of issues that the Bush administration wants American citizens to oppose.


--- Todd Richardson "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. We will not be silent." - Martin Luther King