It appears that Rumsfeld reads neo-neocon
According to Reuters (and who am I to doubt them?):
The United States lags dangerously behind al Qaeda and other enemies in getting out information in the digital media age and must update its old-fashioned methods, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Friday.
Let’s see, I post it on Tuesday, Rumsfeld says it on Friday–works for me.
Then he even cites blogs:
The Pentagon chief said today’s weapons of war included e-mail, Blackberries, instant messaging, digital cameras and Web logs, or blogs.
Here’s the text of Rumsfeld’s entire speech (at RealClearPolitics). Well, perhaps he’s not reading neo-neocon after all.
You’ll notice that, although the headline of the Reuters article is “US lags in propaganda war: Rumsfeld,” he does not actually utter the word “propaganda” during the speech. Instead, Rumsfeld speaks many times of “communication” and “communications,” and of truth. It’s not surprising that Rumsfeld is reluctant to use the “p” word; propaganda has gotten a bad name. But, as I wrote in my previous post on the subject, it by no means precludes telling the truth; on the contrary.
You may also notice that Rumsfeld’s speech deal entirely with foreign propaganda (“communications”) rather than domestic, which he ignores. Ah, well.
What happened to the Jews in the ISA?
Are there any IEDs in the ISA?
The Very Proper Gander
by James Thurber
Not so very long ago there was a very fine gander. He was strong and smooth and beautiful and he spent most of his time singing to his wife and children. One day somebody who saw him strutting up and down in his yard and singing remarked, “There is a very proper gander.” An old hen overheard this and told her husband about it that night in the roost. “They said something about propaganda,” she said. “I have always suspected that,” said the rooster, and he went around the barnyard next day telling everybody that the very fine gander was a dangerous bird, more than likely a hawk in gander’s clothing. A small brown hen remembered a time when at a great distance she had seen the gander talking with some hawks in the forest. “They were up to no good,” she said. A duck remembered that the gander had once told him he did not believe in anything. “He said to hell with the flag, too,” said the duck. A guinea hen recalled that she had once seen somebody who looked very much like the gander throw something that looked a great deal like a bomb. Finally everybody snatched up sticks and stones and descended on the gander’s house. He was strutting in his front yard, singing to his children and his wife. “There he is!” everybody cried. “Hawk-lover! Unbeliever! Flag-hater! Bomb-thrower!” So they set upon him and drove him out of the country.
Moral: Anybody who you or your wife thinks is going to overthrow the government by violence must be driven out of the country.
Interesting year. If you reverse the results of the media war, it would be pretty close to Prayers for the Assassin.
Where the Arabs win and the US is called the ISA, the Islamic States of America.
I also noticed Rumsfeld has been reading your blog.
My fantasy scenario:
Scene: A boy and his Grandfather, fishing, in the year 2042:
Boy: “What did you do in the War on Terror Grandaddy?”
Grandad: “Well, Timmy, I was in the Military Media in the famous Baghdad Media Battle. We took mortar fire and sniper fire as we filed our reports. We out-disseminated Al Jazeera all over the globe – CNN and NBC, too. Our stories were picked up and run by world media outlets more than 20 times as often as Al Jazeera’s. And our stories were run more than 6 times as often on Middle Eastern networks. It was the decisive Media Battle of the Iraq War, which happened way back in the first part of the century. Let me tell ya about this one time, when our satellite link went down….”
This is why Rumsfeld needs Special Forces to do his propaganda. But since you can’t use US military against United States citizens, the defense secretary worries more about attack the enemies than defending our citizens against enemy propaganda… now does calling the Secretary of Defense and not the Sec of War make any sense now?