Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bushs War on Iraq > Customer Review #1:
Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain
Theres a hilarious bit in an old movie where a wife comes home early and catches her husband in bed with another woman. As she stands there, gaping and furious, the husband and the other woman calmly get dressed. They completely ignore the wife. The woman leaves and the husband goes to the living room, sits in a chair and begins reading a newspaper. The wife eventually shrugs and begins to doubt that she saw what she clearly saw.
George Bush is currently playing the part of the husband and We The People are cast in the role of the wife. Our president has been caught wrong so many times that he no longer even tries to justify his deceptions-he just ignores them and calls us unpatriotic for noticing.
Rampton and Stauber have noticed the lies and documented them. In "Weapons of Mass Deception" they give a lucid account of how the Bush White House spun gold from straw with the help of highly paid public relations proffessionals to create the "need" for war where none existed.
The Bushfolk cooked the intelligence books to come up with a three-pronged rationale for the invasion of Iraq-that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and was actively seeking to develop a nuclear bomb (..."uranium from Africa"), that Hussein was in league with and actively supporting the al-Qaeda terrorists, and that Iraq posed a clear and present danger to the security of the United States-Iraq was an "imminent threat". Bushs PR people then set about selling this to the country in the same manner that laundry detergent is marketed. We wanted "whiter whites" and "sparkling freshness". Stauber and Rampton shred the administrations stated reasons for war as false from the beginning and lay bare the public relations campaign that enabled them to sell Congress and the public a complete bill of goods.
Once everyone caught on that there were no weapons of mass destruction, that the "uranium from Africa" story was completely bogus, that there was no al-Qaeda link and our skies never darkened with Iraqi warplanes, then the Bush rationale for war shifted. For a while the chant was that Saddam Hussein was a bad man and the Iraqi people are better off without him. True enough, but the same could be said about a dozen other dictators in a dozen other countries who just dont happen to be siting on top of one of the worlds largest oil reserves. Now, our president seems content to ignore the entire original (fraudulent) reasons that he used to take us to war the same way that he is ignoring those coffins that arrive at Dover Air Force Base daily.
It is an old truism that "In war, truth is the first casualty". But what the Bush people have done here defies description. They have kdnapped the truth, tortured it, killed it, and now deny the truth ever existed. Bravo to the authors of this important work for sounding the alarm.
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Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bushs War on Iraq > Customer Review #2:
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How the War was Spun
In this extremely well researched book, authors Sheldon Rempton and John Stauber argue that the Bush Regime generated public support for the invasion of Iraq by using a calculated public relations campaign and a series of flagrant lies. The authors base their argument on easily verifiable documents from the media, the PR industry, and a variety of respected government and research organizations. Whether or not you agree with the invasion or Iraq it is important that you understand that the Bush Regime felt the only way it could get support for this policy was to lie. There is simply no question, as this book proves, that the Bush Regime deliberately set out to lie to the American people and to the world about why it wanted to invade and occupy Iraq.
BRANDING AMERICA
The first chapter of this book explains how the Bush Regime set out to change public opinion about the America in the Middle East by running a brand campaign. The regime hired a PR specialist essentially to brand America and to promote that brand in the Middle East the same way one might promote Budweiser or KFC. The problem with Brand promotion strategies, however is that they are more about manipulation and forceful persuasion than about understanding and working with your target audience. Is it any wonder that this policy failed so spectacularly?
WAR IS SELL
The books second chapter describes the numerous mechanisms of persuasion the Bush Regime employed to convince you and me that the war on Iraq was necessary. These included timing the drive to war like a product launch, publicizing the invasion-friendly views of right-wing think tanks that were recast as foreign policy experts, promoting the CIA funded Iraqi National Congress as liberators. Funny how none of these strategies had anything to do with telling the truth.
TRUE LIES
As its title implies, the books third chapter provides the nuts and bolts of Remptons and Staubers argument. Here the authors demonstrate how the Bush Regime falsely claimed that Saddam Hussein had direct ties to al Quaeda (he and bin Laden are sworn enemies), lied about Iraqs weapons capability, and created the false impression that Iraq is a major sponsor of global terrorism. Oddly enough our principal Middle Eastern ally, Saudi Arabia provides much more sponsorship for global terrorism than Iraq. Fifteen of the nineteen September 11th hijackers were Saudi and none were Iraqi. Let me repeat that for you: none were Iraqi.
THE USES OF FEAR
Perhaps the most important part of this book is its fifth chapter entitled "The Uses of Fear." Here, the authors argue that the mass media, PR industry and advertising-all of which were used by the Bush Regime to promote the war in Iraq-and terrorism all share a common mindset best described as "the propaganda model." This model, according the authors aims to indoctrinate the audience with a pre-defined set of beliefs rather than to engage in the kind of critical thinking and communication that characterize a democracy. Put another way, the process that the Bush Regime used to persuade you and me that invading Iraq was a really cool thing was anti-democratic in nature. Where democracy is based on the premise that the people are capable of rational self-governance, argue Rempton and Stauber, propagandists regard rationality as an obstacle to efficient indoctrination. In other words, the Bush Regime could not permit a reasonable national discussion to take place about the invasion of Iraq. Instead it needed to indoctrinate us with the same false themes again and again and again, until by virtue of consistent reinforcement they became a truth in themselves. The most distressing part of this process, as the authors point out, is not only how the Bush Regime used fear to promote false concepts to the American people but also how they did so to justify withholding information from us.
THE AIR WARS
The authors also demonstrate that the Bush Regime-largley through corporate cronies-used the air waves both to promote the war and to censor or punish any pubic opposition to it. Pro war rallies were launched by Clear Channel a radio monopoly owned by a long time Bush business partners and campaign contributor.
After reading this book, I hope that people-regardless of their political beliefs-will ask themselves some hard questions about what they know about their government and more importantly, how they know it. Now, more than ever, it is essential for us to distance ourselves from our personal feelings, and especially our sense of fear, in order to take a good hard look at the facts. We may not have the authors resources or expertise, but we can read this book and others like it and we can verify its source material most of which is publicly accessible. It may not be a fun or easy process, but when we do this, we begin to take control of our lives and to see things as they are instead of how powerful interests want us to see them. This book and others like it do much more than exposing the mendacity of the Bush Regimes drive for war. It shows us how we can begin to think for ourselves and in the process it frees us from indoctrination.
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Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bushs War on Iraq > Customer Review #3:
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Just try some truth for a change
Americans were misled repeatedly by the Bush administration. We were propagandized into a state of pro-war hysteria. If we didnt blindly support the president, we werent supporting the troops.
Tell that to the Americans who died so this desperate chickenhawk president can win a second term. Phony flight suit militarism from a man who ducked even his National Guard service after getting a bye from the draft through string-pulling. Other Americans died in the service of their country while this brat was doing his military duty without ever showing up. He was too busy working on political campaigns.
After months of linking Iraq to Al Queda and the WTC attack, they said theyd never said anything like that. Just as Bush said those sailors put up the "Mission Accomplished" sign -- even though both the Navy and the White House say the White House provided the sign.
Dont get me wrong. The American military has done a good job, especially given the inept political leadership of this administration.
We had a well-definied mission in Afghanistan. Track down the people responsible for bombing the WTC. Getting Osama. But then the Chickenhawk-in-Chief gets sidetracked talking about folks who threatened to kill his daddy.
So far, as a result, weve had hundreds of Americans die and the Middle East is in more turmoil than ever. The walk-in-the-park liberation has turned into a mess. We cant get out, but we certainly need someone who can keep his or her eye on the target.
Osama first including the people who DIRECTLY supported him. Then we need to sit down and think about American security in the new age. It shouldnt be so different. Our freedoms are more important that the need for dysfunctional presidents to display their delayed onset manhood.
Bushs father was a decent man who made some mistakes and took some positive steps. His son is a posturing fratboy, surrounded by sycophants who tell him what he wants to hear ... and who lie about more than just weapons of mass destruction.
http://www.history-us.com/Weapons_of_Mass_Deception_The_Uses_of_Propaganda_in_Bushs_War_on_Iraq_1585422762.html