Propaganda Tai Chi

Unlike the tao, the chien relies on internal power (soft, nonviolent movement). It is the smoothness in motion which is the sword's forte. This is another reason why only those who have studied tai chi chuan for many years should study sword, for its techniques are similar to "push hands." Push hands, sometimes called "Joined hands," is the foundation of tai chi free fighting. It is a sensitivity teaching technique in which one learns to "feel" the opponent's power and fine changes of movement. One learns to "stick" to the opponent and, later, to use the opponent’s energy against him, rather than expend one's own energy in defense. Source

If you remember in the run up to the Iraq war the “liberal media” were as much part of the propaganda effort, at times even more so, as the right wing TV and radio. Judit Miller's stories were front page items on New York times.

My impression is that the stories that are planted in the “liberal media” tends to be more sophisticated. To feed the fear you have the usual suspects of anonymous sources, unnamed officials, and/or intelligent sources but the plot is usually more hidden. It is not unlike the difference between a Rambo (Fox news) to Hitchcok classic (NPR, New York times..). There is a common theme, real factual data (such as report from UN inspectors) are either completely missing, or discounted in favor of the un-verified information by unnamed “intelligent sources”.

To see the war marketing logic, you first have to see the reality as is today. Then look for potential growth areas. As far as war machinery is concern, the war in Iraq has started and every one is convienced that it must go on until "mission is [again] accopmplished"; It is money in the bank! The war machinery is willing to concede error in the run up on that war if it can get a new war started. It has nothing to lose, so what that so-and-so lied. The misson must go one, and growth is the name of the game, it can give reputation of a politician as long as it helps the bottom line.


It seems to me that the new war is positioned as tool to end the Iranian nuclear weapons program. But there is no real data to back the claims of a real nuclear weapons program. So you have the orthodox Iranian Predsident remarks, which by itself is not enough. It would be kind of strange to say you need to go to war with a country because its president doesn't have the same unerstanding of European history as you would like. Never know, may be this is "War to Teach History". But you don't want to get too fancy here, you need to go back to the basics, and that is to get the project off the gound nothing works like "mushroom cloud" fear, with a few they are Hitler, we are Churchil analogies. There is just one minor problem!

Fact is that IAEA inspectors have been looking at the Iranian nuclear program and haven't concluded that Iran is working on weapons program. So what is the propaganda to do? How about this: “Outed CIA officer [Valerie Plame Wilson] was working on Iran, intelligence sources say”. This is very clever move. My first impression is that there has been a serious improvement in the Bush administration's propaganda war. The nature of propaganda against Iran, at least some of them, tend to be more sophisticated that the ones against Iraq, and this is cream of the crop! The first two paragraph of the article says:

The unmasking of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson by White House officials in 2003 caused significant damage to U.S. national security and its ability to counter nuclear proliferation abroad, RAW STORY has learned.
According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran.
....

This is Tai Chi of propaganda, use the opponent's force (agenda) against itself. The "Liberals" want to get Bush, so why not plant a story, theb use their energy to promote the next war. It is a masterfull use of the “liberal media” to propagate the myth. And already others have jumped on the bandwagon: Valerie Plame Leak Sabotaged America's Iran-Watching Intelligence Effort


When you read the original article, at minimum the conclusions are:

there is a significant damage to ability of the CIA to monitor the Iranian activities. Conclusion: We can't trust the CIA assessments, in a way you have (or “it is prudent”) to assume the worst. This is very much like claims that we don't have enough Arabic translators, my guess is that source of weaknesses in the translation department are the neocon circles. If there are not enough translators, then wouldn't you it coause doubts to any analysis that doesn't enforce fear. There is no way you can say Iraq doesn't have WMD, since the other side soon says that you don't have enough translators, it is there you just haven't found the document. Reality is that all the real intelligence and predictions on Iraq were accurate, but the neocons are not interested in reality. They are only after creating an enviornment where their war agenda is promoted.

Reading the article, one would also conclude that Iran must be working on some weapons program. Eevnthough it never says so, it makes arguments taking this assumtion for granted.

Both of which is exactly what the war machinery would like to establish. It enforces the "mushroom cloud" fear, without ever saying it. That is TahiChi!

IAEA has been investigatinvg Iran for last 3 years, they would have known about any nuclear programs Iran may have had. The best they can come up with is that there are some drawings that could be used to build a nuclear weapons. But this was the whole point of NPT (non-prolifiration threaty), it was obvious that you could not keep the information secret, so countries signed treaties so that it would not develop nuclear weapons.

May be Ms Palmer was working on the Iran nuclear issues, I don't know. But one thing I can see is that this story and the timing of it is too fishy. If it writes like Judit Miller, talks like Judit Miller.... Then it is a Judit Miller.