"Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks."
~ David Barstow, the "Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand".
~ David Barstow, the "Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand".
Over the weekend, Turkish propagandist Seymour Hersh came out with a new article on US plans for Iran in The New Yorker. The relevant part, for our purposes, is as follows:
The C.I.A. and Special Operations communities also have long-standing ties to two other dissident groups in Iran: the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, known in the West as the M.E.K., and a Kurdish separatist group, the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan, or PJAK.
[ . . . ]
The Kurdish party, PJAK, which has also been reported to be covertly supported by the United States, has been operating against Iran from bases in northern Iraq for at least three years. (Iran, like Iraq and Turkey, has a Kurdish minority, and PJAK and other groups have sought self-rule in territory that is now part of each of those countries.) In recent weeks, according to Sam Gardiner, the military strategist, there has been a marked increase in the number of PJAK armed engagements with Iranians and terrorist attacks on Iranian targets. In early June, the news agency Fars reported that a dozen PJAK members and four Iranian border guards were killed in a clash near the Iraq border; a similar attack in May killed three Revolutionary Guards and nine PJAK fighters. PJAK has also subjected Turkey, a member of NATO, to repeated terrorist attacks, and reports of American support for the group have been a source of friction between the two governments.
First of all, PJAK has not and does not operate in Turkey, so the statement that "PJAK has also subjected Turkey, a member of NATO, to repeated terrorist attacks" is a bald-faced lie. PJAK operates in Iranian-occupied Kurdistan, not in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan. Hersh must have gotten this nugget from his buddies in the Turkish general staff or, if he's using Pentagon "expert" Gardiner as his source, then Gardiner got it from his buddies in the Turkish general staff. Either way, it's an example of how TSK's Information Support Activity Action Plan is being implemented in the US.
Think about it: Gardiner quotes Iranian Fars News Agency for some alleged skirmishes but fails to mention the joint US-Turkey-Iran-Iraq military operations against PJAK. He fails to mention that the US is supplying intelligence to Iran, via Turkey or directly, against PJAK. He fails to mention the 92 pasdars that PJAK sent to hell in early June or the 51 pasdars that PJAK sent packing after their 92 comrades in mid-June . . . all without the support of anyone save the Kurdish people themselves.
Retired US Air Force Colonel Gardiner is enough of an expert in psychological warfare to write a 56-page analysis titled, "Truth from These Podia. Summary of a Study of Strategic Influence, Perception Management, Strategic Information Warfare and Strategic Psychological Operations in Gulf II," links to which are available through Sourcewatch. Gardiner's been pushing the potential Iran war thing in earnest on worthless American TV since at least September 2006, although he'd been working at it for several months before, as this Socialist Worker article shows. As he was making the worthless American TV rounds in September, though, he was certain that the US would begin a war with Iran in 18 months and he was playing back-up for the moronic Hersh even then. Unfortunately for Gardiner's credibility, the 18-month guess was a milestone passed with not even a whimper in March 2008.
In September 2004, Gardiner war-gamed a strike against Iran with players from the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institute, among others. Naturally the game was one of Gardiner's own making. The game was commissioned by a member of the worthless American media--The Atlantic Monthly. In April 2008, Gardiner feigned outrage over the report in the NY Times that explained the obvious: The Pentagon was paying retired military "experts" to propagandize the Iraq war. A month previously, Wired News carried an item about Pentagon plans to co-opt or even hire bloggers to work its propaganda.
Naturally Gardiner is johnny-on-the-spot to feign outrage over the Pentagon's own version of the TSK's Information Support Activity Action Plan, since Gardiner's one of the Pentagon's propagandists, and that's why you won't hear anything about the joint US-Turkey-Iran-Iraq military operation against PJAK and PKK--not from the moronic Hersh, not from the professional propagandist Gardiner, and not from the worthless American media. After all, if Gardiner is so smart, so in-the-loop, so concerned about "truth" then why doesn't he mention the joint ops against PJAK or why doesn't he mention PJAK's big, recent body counts? Simple: The truth would expose him for what he is.
As a friend's mom in Amed always says when she hears bullshit: "Befr, befr, befr."
The whole thing is funny in a sick sort of way because everyone in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan knows that the US is providing intelligence to both Turkey and Iran, and none of them are stupid enough to fall for a couple of glorified bullshitters like Hersh and Gardiner.
2 comments:
You know for all my support, I see the US as selling the Kurds down the river. I hope I am wrong.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
There really is no basis for trust here, and I think that since US support for Turkish bombing of Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as the land invasion, Turkish Kurds, at least, have seen the light.
At one time a window of opportunity was open; not so anymore.
Wasted, wasted, wasted.
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