By Cheryl Seal

As the Bush War escalates, so does the intensity and wantonness of the propaganda disseminated by the corporate media. Overnight, it has cross the line from exaggeration, suppression, and calculated spin to outright lies and the total repression of meaningful coverage of dissent. To prevent the truth from being known is to permit opinions to be formed and decisions to be made on false pretexts. These opinions and decisions, in turn, are leading to the promotion of an illegal war and the deaths, dismemberment and permanent scarring of tens of thousands of human beings. Thereby, I believe that any news outlet or newscaster that knowingly disseminates false information or suppressed true information prior to and during a war - acts we will collectively refer to as disinformation - are guilty of war crimes and crimes, in general, against humanity, and should be held accountable. This regularly updated report will present evidence of these crimes and alerts to the schemes used by the perpetrators. DAmerican Media DISINFORMATION HIGHLIGHTS for 3/23

MEDIA Propaganda:

U.S. is pushing ahead, meeting little resistance from a cowed Iraqi military force, making it obvious that we are being greeted as welcomed "liberators."

TRUTH:

As of Saturday, 3/22, the U.S. force had not even reached the boundary of the southern No Fly Zone, a line which runs the 32nd parallel and approximately through the town of An Najaf, about 100 miles south of Bagdhad. So, in reality, the U.S. troops have been crossing territory that has, for years, been essentially secured by air coverage. In short, the U.S. troops have not yet begun to fight.

MEDIA DISINFORMATION:

All troops and military families are enthusiastic supporters of the Bush War and view any casualties as "American heroes." This lie helps to "keep the warm bodies coming" and make potential military dissents afraid to speak out.

TRUTH:

A growing number of military families are rebelling against Bush. One group of military wives has started a "Bush Countdown" campaign through the Internet, that ticks off the days until Bush leaves office, on which occasion they plan to throw an nationwide party. They also plan to organize against Bush in the next election to make sure he is defeated and can no longer needlessly threaten the lives of their loved ones.

When a young Baltimore marine was killed, on the morning of 3/22, the Today Show was trying to present the usual spin - fallen warrior as hero, his family was proud he gave his life, etc. But the local news station got the real story, which, of course was suppressed. This is from WBAL Baltimore: "As he held a picture of his son, Waters-Bey's father, Michael, (pictured, left), said: "I want President Bush to get a good look at this, really good look here. This is the only son I had, only son." He then walked away in tears, with his family behind him. Kenneth, the Marine's only son, was with the family." Next to this paragraph is a photo of Mr. Waters-Bey holding a photo of his hansome young son up to the camera. The father's expression clearly says, "Do you see him, Bush? Do you give a damn?"

Of course, Waters-Bey is black...as a disproportionate number of front line casualties are likely to be. http://www.thewbalchannel.com/news/2056537/detail.html (NOTE: on 3/23 in the morning, Katie Couric interviewed Waters-Bey on the Today Show...trying to wring patriotic schmaltz from the grieving family, who sat on the couch with stony faces...resisting her efforts. Then, later in the day, Waters-Bey made a Dixie Chicks-style apology....sorry he lashed out at Bush. What kind of threats do you suppose were made between the evening of 3/22 and the afternoon of 3/24?

According to a USA Today report on 3/22, some soldiers are saying they will refuse to fight because they believe this is an immoral, wrong war. In its coverage, USA Today commits a war crime by, in essence, calling in its headline for these soldiers to be condemned as cowards. The headline was changed by evening, 3/23, with the "critics condemn act as cowardly" deleted, undoubtedly due to a wave of enraged callers.

DISINFORMATION ALERT!!!!
THE 50-50 LIE

This classic disinformation technique is used to inflate the opinion the corporate media wants to promote, while minimizing any dissent against that opinion. To add an even more egregious dimension of cynical fraud to this crime, it is billed by the perpetrators as "unbiased news."

In the 50-50 lie, instead of reporting the actual fact that the number of people moved to take to the streets to protest the war totally overwhelms those willing to protest in favor, the networks or newspapers report that "protests both for and against the war are being staged." Conspicuously absent from such reports is any mention of comparative numbers of protests and protestors involved. The implication is everything, the truth nothing. Here's a classic example: At the height of this week's international protests involving millions, one headline on AOL's mainpage (AOL is the FOX of the Internet), described this historic situation as a "Mixed reaction to war around the world." Mixed reaction? That's like calling Vermont, which has the fewest non-white residents of all the states, a melting pot. This isn't unbiased reporting, this is lying by implication and it is a crime.

The reality is, the number of anti-war protestors outnumbers the number of pro-war protestors by, at the LEAST, about 100,000 to 100. The largest protest the pro-war people have mustered is about 6,000, near Valley Forge in PA. And, it was recently revealed that these protests had been funded by the corporate media giant, CLEAR CHANNEL I.e, they were a rightwing corporate sham and hardly a grassroots movement. On 3/22 as FOX TV showed the hundreds of thousands of protestors in NYC that that filled all of Broadway south of Times Square, across the bottom, the banner headline said "protests for and against the war across the country." On NBC (Nazi Broadcasting Corporation) 3/23 nightly news, the footage was so slanted it was stomach-turning. The New York protests - over 200,000 people of all ages, colors, and backbrounds, was juxtaposed in a 50-50 way with a tiny protest in an ultra-rightwing, very white community in California. Then the protest in London - over 500,000 strong! - was (can you believe it?!) downplayed as being not as big as expected...HUH? Then heavily edited clips (edited to slant) of protests elsewhere were shown. A Beirut anti-war protest was billed as "Pro-Saddam Hussein" by the NBC commentator - even though the signs shown in the sea of protestors all read "NO WAR." Then, at the close of this farce, Tom Brokaw says what proof this is of a "world deeply divided." Since when is 6 billion people in several hundred nations united against a few million rightwingers in, essentially, two countries, a "DIVIDED WORLD." It isn't - and that is the truth Brokaw and his pals in the Bush Corporate Empire do not want people to see.

Another 50-50 technique is to present an equal number of pro and con statements on an issue - even if the cons (or pros, depending on the case) represent a tiny minority. In truly unbiased, accurate reporting, the number of statements presented reflect the reality of your sample. If your sampling of "men on the street" includes 10 pros and one con, then you present several pros and one con, without spin or judgement. That accurately reflects reality. You do not select the weakest or flakiest pro statement and pair it with the only con - which is what the media now does.

DISINFORMATION BRIEFS 3/23

FOX Ad: Running over and over, and always (from witness reports) directly after footage of protests. This slick package of an ad shows five scrubbed looking college students saying... "We speak..we listen..we unite...support our troops...." At the end of the ad, no attribution is given at all, which is suspicious, to say the least. Afterall, even Phillip Morris has to stick on an attribution at the end of its "anti-smoking public service ads). So who paid for the FOX ad? The Charitable Rumsfeld Foundation?

Just before 2:00 pm, TV news reports journalists being fired on. Suddenly, the networks cut back to regular programming." I.e., a blackout. I learn online later that at least 6 journalists have been killed in a "secured town." In times gone by, a disaster such as this would have triggered an intensive round of coverage...minute to minute. Now, because it works against propaganda, it is scrubbed until an appropriate spin can be constructed.

Meanwhile, AOL is running headlines (throughout the afternoon of 3.23) straight out of fantasy land: "Franks says fight is "on our terms." Do those terms include the slaughter of journalists? I wonder.... Another AOL headline: "U.S. won't use Turkish bases. " This wording, of course, implies that we have CHOSEN not to use the bases. The fact is, their use has been denied by the Turkish parliament. Here's the real story: http://www.canada.com/vancouver/story.asp?id=90C727C7-29D3-4AFB-8F9B-CCDBCAD4263B