Anyone who reads this site regularly knows that both Hugh Fitzgerald and I have some disagreements with the President about the most effective ways to defend the United States and the West against the global jihad, and the role of the Iraq war in that defense. But both his and my considerations on this question are worlds away from the appeasement strategy favored by so many on the Left, and I have nothing but contempt for the New York Times' continual attempt to kneecap our defense against the jihad by exposing covert operations.
This whole article sounds as if it could have been written by Al-Jazeera, starting with the headline, "Muslim Scholars Were Paid to Aid U.S. Propaganda."
U.S. what? Well, as it turns out, U.S. efforts to convince Iraqis not to support the jihadists and to participate in the elections. Should the U.S. pay Islamic scholars to try to convince Muslims to reject the jihad? I don't see why not, as a temporary measure, if Islamic scholars are willing to be paid. Of course, the larger questions of whether they reject the jihad ideology of expansionism, supremacism and subjugation would ultimately have to be addressed, and I am of course still unconvinced that just getting people in Iraq to participate in voting will actually solve anything, but certainly I favor the dissemination of anti-jihad ideas, however limited.
Would Pinch Sulzberger have the U.S. engage in no covert ops whatsoever? Is he unaware of the vastness and sophistication of such efforts by the jihadists? Would he have us stand as a lamb in a world of wolves?
WASHINGTON, Jan. 1 - A Pentagon contractor that paid Iraqi newspapers to print positive articles written by American soldiers has also been compensating Sunni religious scholars in Iraq in return for assistance with its propaganda work, according to current and former employees.The Lincoln Group, a Washington-based public relations company, was told early in 2005 by the Pentagon to identify religious leaders who could help produce messages that would persuade Sunnis in violence-ridden Anbar Province to participate in national elections and reject the insurgency, according to a former employee.
Since then, the company has retained three or four Sunni religious scholars to offer advice and write reports for military commanders on the content of propaganda campaigns, the former employee said. But documents and Lincoln executives say the company's ties to religious leaders and dozens of other prominent Iraqis is aimed also at enabling it to exercise influence in Iraqi communities on behalf of clients, including the military.
"We do reach out to clerics," Paige Craig, a Lincoln executive vice president, said in an interview. "We meet with local government officials and with local businessmen. We need to have relationships that are broad enough and deep enough that we can touch all the various aspects of society." He declined to discuss specific projects the company has with the military or commercial clients.
"We have on staff people who are experts in religious and cultural matters," Mr. Craig said. "We meet with a wide variety of people to get their input. Most of the people we meet with overseas don't want or need compensation, they want a dialogue."
Internal company financial records show that Lincoln spent about $144,000 on the program from May to September. It is unclear how much of this money, if any, went to the religious scholars, whose identities could not be learned. The amount is a tiny portion of the contracts, worth tens of millions, that Lincoln has received from the military for "information operations," but the effort is especially sensitive.
Sunni religious scholars are considered highly influential within the country's minority Sunni population. Sunnis form the core of the insurgency.
Each of the religious scholars underwent vetting before being brought into the program to ensure that they were not involved in the insurgency, said a former employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Lincoln's Pentagon contract prohibits workers from discussing their activities. The identities of the Sunni scholars have been kept secret to prevent insurgent reprisals, and they were never taken to Camp Victory, the American base outside Baghdad where Lincoln employees work with military personnel....
Mr. Rubin was quoted last month in The New York Times about Lincoln's work for the Pentagon placing articles in Iraqi publications: "I'm not surprised this goes on," he said, without disclosing his work for Lincoln. "Especially in an atmosphere where terrorists and insurgents - replete with oil boom cash - do the same. We need an even playing field, but cannot fight with both hands tied behind our backs."
Much as the New Duranty Times would like to tie them.
I guess they would do anything for a story even selling us out.
Wonder what the real agenda there is??????
Amen Robert.
Meanwhile, who the hell is leaking all this information about covert operations? It's no less damaging than if Al Qaeda had a mole in the heart of the Defense establishment.
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You can't turn on the TV without seeing the endless re-running of the commercial for subscription. The "beautiful people" reading their copies in beautiful poses, so far above, so obviously so much MORE than the common swine. Elite humans so achingly advanced that only the Times will do, ("It keeps me inspired").
You are like them too, aren't you? You DESERVE their company, their association, their badge of knowing, tucked under YOUR arm too, don't you? Damn it, you too are a superior, highly evolved individual, because you too can see it all so clearly, you too see the shame of the West, you too see how there is nothing good here, how it's all a lie built on the rampant wrongness, no, CRIMES of an evil West. Most can't see it, but you can, and those like you, because you're special, and being special, you deserve special things that only a special person can appreciate.
Subscribe now, you won't even have to get dressed. It will be right there in the hall.
Meanwhile, circulation falls, but the afflicted need their fix against reality. It is too important that the great social illusion be maintained, lest someone be forced to look at themselves. Cultural perceptions can't be wrong if we beat the drums of relevance and equivalence loud enough. So give'm what they want, give'm what they need, "cost" is such a judgemental term.
Treason? Dead Americans? Bah! There are far more important things in life, and "right and wrong" ain't one of them, pal. At least not THEIR version. Or should I say "construct"? There are no universal truths anymore, unless we proclaim them. "Where YOU been?"
So subscribe, and we will make sure that when you come knocking at the peephole with shaking hands, itching and scratching and whimpering, "I'm sick, man", we will have your dime-bag ready. We won't let you down. After all, you're special.
A quarter-century ago, I responded to NY Times telephone solicitors with, "No. I might as well subscribe to Pravda."
Fifteen years ago, I changed it to "... the Beijing Chronicles."
Now, I think it would be more appropriat to just say, "I'd rather strap a suicide belt on and visit your editorial offices." What scum!
IN war there are three pillars of the enemy you are trying to destroy.
1. Political (if your people) dont support the war you are goingto have a hard time trying to win.
2. Economic (By Destroying the enemies) economy and funds you effectivly cut off his supplies and means to resist..
3. Military (you activly destroy) All enemy units forcing them to your terms of battle...
When i look at the Press in the USA.
I dont see Americans now i see Agents of the Enemy working hard to try and destroy pillar #1
I dont see Patriots i see Traitors activly telling our soldiers to disobey orders and to shoot their officers (tyring to destroy) pillar #3
When i see the News media working hard to convince the american public that the economy is in bad shape trying to destroy (pillar #2)
With ALL of the evidence of the Medias Treasonist activities i really do believe it is time to bring them up on Charges in public...
When i see and hear of
Reporters meeting with the enemy so they can get video footage of our soldiers being ambushed...
I AM OUTRAGED...
This is NOT Freedom of the press it is
Freedom to abuse the press to help our ENEMIES
ACHIVE VICTORY...
Call me old fashioned, but this smells like
treason to me.
The media which has become the mouthpiece of the Democrats, have such a hatred for Bush that they are willing to destroy the country to get at Bush. The sad part is only the other media, such as the internet, and talk radio can educate people now! the stories the US military paid to have put into the news in Iraq are based on truth. so they had to pay for it, at least it is truthful! With the leftist media who needs enemies!
Howabout this headline? :
NEW YORK TIMES SEEKS TO ASSIST FANATICAL DESPOTIC ISLAMICISTS TO EVENTUAL VICTORY OVER FREE WORLD BY UNDERMINING ITS OWN INTELLIGENCE SERVICES
(I guess that news isn't "fit to print".)
It might be handy to have a movement to "SEND A KORAN TO THE NEW YORK TIMES"- since they have obviously forgotten to read the source material for the endless 'holy' war that dogmatic Islam has declared on the dissenting world.
They remind me of the follies of the 1930's where pacifistic sentimentalists in the America insisted on keeping the military weak in order not to provoke the rising fascist states.
(That strategy worked so well, I guess the NYT wants to try it again.)
Merry
Your Pravda memory ties in nicely with an article of Hughe's in the archive I was reading on the metro today. It cracked me up so loudly the good folks around all looked at me as if saying, "You had one too many." It's when Hugh reports what the Muscovites were saying about their Pravda: "fit for whiping," or, in other, more explicit renditions, "fit for whiping your ass with." Every single nation behind the Curtain had an equivalent saying about their local party rag, given the chronic shortage of toilet paper wherever you went, Sofia, Moscow, Warsaw, Bucharest, Belgrade.
The Commintern's slogan "Proletarians of the World, Unite!" inscribed on the frontispiece of each commie newspaper, managed in the end to unite the slave nations in one scatological sentiment.
A fit ending for that scum of history, I would say, and I hope the NYT goes the same way.
Aid and comfort to the enemy. Dare we use the "tru" word, (And it ain't "truthful!"), to describe the New York Times. Unfortunately this periodical lives up to its unofficial monkiter: The New Duranty Times. The stupidity and cupidity of the ownership and editorial staff is beyond words.
sheik yer'mami,
I can testify to the truth that it's not. It's so rough it has traces of wood in it (no kiddin', splinter-like pieces of wood, and a brown color our GreenPeacers would love), and it's the same all over the region until you reach Budapest and Prague: Oh, the old, mythical Austro-Hungarian luxury, melting pastries in your mouth, the Art Deco hotel rooms for which you end up paying twice as much you've bargained for, the cabbies who charge twice as much as in the travel pamphlets, nervously looking at you in the mirror afraid you might not have the dough,
and back in the former Soviet Republic of Moldova, in the capital city, Kishinev, and the rest of the mostly peasant country, poverty on a scale I don't deign to describe for fear I would not do justice to it.
Good night you all
"It's when Hugh reports what the Muscovites were saying about their Pravda: "fit for whiping...
-- from a posting above
I don't think I would have used that phrase; it just doesn't sound like something I would do. I probably mentioned that one might translate the phrase "Pravda goditsya na podtirky" demurely as "I find Pravda very absorbing." Or have I misremembered?
Yes, I did misremember. I googled and found that I did put the phrase parenthetically but apparently unembarrassedly in, by way of translating "goditsya na podtirku." Oops. Prosti. Won't happen again.
Anyone have the email address of the New York Times, or other media outlets. I have pages of verses from the Quran which I would like to post to them to show them just how many verses that this military book (the Quran) has in it to show what they intend to do with us...unless we submit, and how mohammad did his dirty work with his merry men. I can also post to anyone who wants them...
The New York Times is jealous that it was not solicited or paid to engage in the propaganda exercise. After all, its credentials to manipulate and propagandize news and opinion are legendary!
The New York/Jihad Times has it's own agenda. Stop America at all costs as long as President Bush is in office. It dosen't matter if this agenda gets US soldiers ,sailors, airmen, or Marines killed. All that matters is making our President look bad!!! Treason is what this is called. Too bad our government is too chicken hearted to bring the New/Jihad Times on charges of treason. This thing of "freedom of the press" does not apply if the security of this country is in jepardy. And besides, the Constitution gives "we the people" freedom of speech. The press used to be the instrument for that. Now only the liberals, jihadists, and communists can use our mainstream press.
I try to avoid the NYT, but there it was it all its glory with another hit piece apparently designed to get the appeasers riled up with classified information obtained from their network of traitorous insiders in the Pentagon and intelligence services. As I read, I was baffled by what the writer was trying to convey. Was there something amiss, something untoward being perpetrated on us by our own government again? Was the U.S. to summarily be condemed for paying a contractor to engage in activities that were unseemingly, perhaps repugnant to our sensibilties? But no matter how hard I tried, and I re-read to make sure I didn't miss anything, I could not fathom the point or the significance of the article. Surely it's page one prominence signaled that immediate aention was required, but I just could not get it. But thanks to Jihadwatch readers, I now feel assured that I am not suffering a decline in my cognitive abilities and what I have experienced is the journalisitic hoax that propogates a non-story that appears significant, but is not and only serves to promote the ongoing agenda to discredit the administration and to undermine our ability to distinguish between truth and fiction in the battle for our lives. So, the question is, who is the real propogandist in this scenario?
Ironman Hondo, it is the same in all so called western countries, the left has taken over most of the media... I have always said that if you want to control the thinking of the people, dont become a President, simply own the media...
I do wish however that people would say the left wing, instead of liberal, as Liberal in Australia, is the right wing party. The left wing parties consist of Labor, democrats and the greenies, along with many of the independent politicians who are encouraged to stand by labor to catch the votes of people who are disgruntled with the major parties...
We dont have must of a chance of wining many elections now, with vote rigging being done by the left, the dole bludgers, the solo parents, the immigrants (who dont realise that the left are socialist, communist), the gays, the feminists, most of the catholics, the abortionists, the get rid of god people, and the left winged media and its lies, I cannot see how the right can win. It generally takes two terms of bad management by the left, before it becomes obvious to the people and they wake up, and by then, the country will be in a mess again.