Posted on 12/12/2004 9:26:56 AM PST by No Surrender Monkey
THE hardest fighting in places like Fallujah and An Najaf has been concluded — for now. The casualties for American forces would, even for a campaign in Korea or Vietnam, be termed "light" — unless, of course the killed and wounded are your friends and family, in which case there is no such thing as a "light" casualty rate. This may be part of the problem for the United States. It's tough in the middle of a war to maintain a sense of perspective, a sense of the "big picture."
We have a number of reporters who spend a great deal of time down at the combat infantry level — what we used to refer to as "where the rubber meets the road" or, where it "hits the fan."
We also have a number of people covering what happens in Washington, D.C. — and other world capitals. Few of these reporters, if their comments are to be taken at face value, are very keen on or perceptive of what it is that we're trying to accomplish.
WHAT we seem to be miss ing are the mid- level view and the long view.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
WHAT we’re missing is a large, multi-lingual, multimedia state of the art press/propaganda effort to promote that mid-level and long term view. We have cinematic skills that lead the world, but our leadership has not pulled that together to promote our war efforts across the world.
If you recall, we tried to. When we did, we were accused of preparing to lie to the American people, which was the furthest from the truth.
None of our TV media seem to care about this:
..."...Where are the images of average Iraqi citizens busily at work rebuilding their lives and their businesses?
Where are the images of Iraqi soldiers and policemen working hard at re-establishing a stable and prosperous society? We don't see many of those images..."...
Not even from the most over-rated FOX. FOX has become a copycat network, preying after gullible conservatives. FOX is Ringling Brothers with more "quickly--we're running out of time" segments than other MSM.
Maybe there are NO TV images of good things????????
I remember, seems that it was run out of the pentagon rather than state or homeland security. If our WOT PR organization couldn’t put together a good PR effort for it’s own creation, it was miss managed from the beginning.
Work with me here. It'll be M-Iraq-ulous. I say go ahead, put the Iraq back in miracle. (hey, who knows, it could happen - hope those elections go ok, though).
No, it was leaked with a distorted description of its mission by some public affairs bubbas in the Pentagon who felt their rice bowl was being invaded. That office never had a chance. Too bad the PA guys can't pull the same kind of coup in SUPPORT of the war effort. They really blew Abu Ghraib, for instance.
I don’t know what happened. If it can be proven who leaked and distorted, they should be finishing their career in Iceland.
If the PR unit couldn’t battle that, it wasn’t fit to battle al-Jazeera. There must be dozens of ways to organize, promote and defend it without having it become a liability.
Al Hurra’s a start, but only a fraction of what’s needed in order to avoid paying more militarily. We need a top to bottom effort to recruit and develop talent, even if it means opening dozens of offices around the ME to employ overpaid representative, flying them back and forth to promote our culture, including hiring many for language and cultural training of agents here. We need leadership in this regard.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.