Posted on 10/18/2006 6:06:28 AM PDT by rhombus
Soldiers, sailors, and airmen once determined the outcome of warfare, but no longer. Today, television producers, columnists, preachers, and politicians have the pivotal role in deciding how well the West fights. This shift has deep implications.
In a conventional conflict like World War II, fighting had two premises so basic, they went nearly unnoticed.
The first: Conventional armed forces engage in an all-out fight for victory. The opposing sides deploy serried ranks of soldiers, lines of tanks, fleets of ships, and squadrons of aircraft. Millions of youth go to war as civilians endure privations. Strategy and intelligence matter, but the size of one's population, economy, and arsenal count even more. An observer can assess the progress of war by keeping tabs of such objective factors as steel output, oil stocks, ship construction, and control of land.
Second assumption: Each side's population loyally backs its national leadership. To be sure, traitors and dissidents need to be rooted out, but a wide consensus backs the rulers. This was especially noteworthy in the Soviet Union, where even Stalin's demented mass-murdering did not stop the population from giving its all for "Mother Russia."
Both aspects of this paradigm are now defunct in the West. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
He's hitting the nail on the head. This war will be won as much by successful propaganda as by force of arms.
The really sad part is that many of the best propagandists work for the other side in the entertainment and media businesses.
A perfect example was how a PR firm (I think Hill, Knowlton) was successful in demonizing the Serbs who were after all just fighting Islamic terrorists in their own native land. The PR firm did this by inflaming Western attitudes, by exaggerating the number of deaths in the Bosnian civil war by a factor of 10 and in Kosovo-Metohija by a factor of 100, and attributing ALL of them to the Serbs, who in fact were the primary victims, AND who had suffered a million deaths in World War II at the hands of the same pro-Nazi Islamic propulation.
The WH needs to do a much better job in presenting the role of US forces in Iraq to the American public.
Every time the president does speak out, support for the war increases. Why Mr. Bush does not do this more is, well, strange.
Good things are happening in Iraq for our side, and those things need to be highlighted.
Viva Bush and our troops!
If we have to rely on the DBM and the judiciary to fight this war, we have already lost.
Only the new media and a strong executive can get the job done!
That's why we're in the shape we're in in Iraq. If the propagandists were on our side, we as a nation would have the political will to do what is necessary in Iraq. It'd be over in a few weeks once we gave our troops the thumbs up to kick butt and not bother with taking names.
Well there's only 2 years left for THIS White House. Perhaps we should keep the need for better public relations in mind as we select the next nominee.
We use words, they use improvised explosive devices.
But our words impact whether or not we have the will to search out and destroy those making the IEDs.
Look at the leftist twit in Michigan. The Klintoon stooge who gave TRAITOR Stewart 28 stinking months in lieu of 30 years. Look at all the leftist 'judges' over turning laws (State and Fed) left and right to promote their commie agenda.
So for 2008 -- it's about the JUDGES stupid.
(and I don't want some gun grabbing, gay loving, baby killing, phony, sanctuary for all illegals, empty suit 'ex' Democrat who has the morals of an alley cat and whose claim to fame is getting hookers out of Times Square (whoopee!!), picking them!!)
blog this for me, baby.
This is relativist nonsense. Usually it is peddled under the sklogan, "perception is reality." That is, of course, a lie. It i a self-serving lie designed to enhance the power of the self-important media which is poorly regarded. consider, if you want, the much hyped Mid East Peace process. Because it ignored the reality of Hamas power it floundered, in spite of international hype.
There is a Fifth Column in America, and much of the Main Stream Media is a part of it. Far too many Americans want regime change in America and American defeat and withdrawal every bit as much as Osama bin Laden does.
Who conducts counter-psyops to mitigate the effects of psyops directed at American domestic target audiences?
Don't for a minute think that it controls or influences what the dictators we oppo9se think. This is an exaggeration of quantum theory that argues particles only come on, if they are oberved. That works in a lab, but in real life you can get mugged from behind by someone you have not seen. Don't buy the argument that media controls reality. They have a small and very skeptical and cynical audience. Sure, there is a 5th column and they recruited, promoted and hyped Cindy Sheehan. Last I saw her she was sitting at an empty table for booksigning and had 12 people join her at the UN. Yhoe who argued for her moral autoirty might as well have been whistling in the wind.
America is not only riddled with "intellectual"-looking islamist fifth columnists like Cherif Bassiouni, but also with New World Order fifth columnists like Thomas Friedman, that Serbophobe group at the Harvard Kennedy School, "Arabists" like Michel Sells and Esposito at Georgetown, and the "peace" lobby (e.g., James Carroll). Worst of all is the Soros NWO "Shadow Party"!!!
If it weren't for the NWO fifth columnists, we not only wouldn't have as much undermining of our war efforts, but we wouldn't get into unneccessary and counterproductive wars (e.g., "Kosovo") in the first place!!!!
I'm stepping on it here, but, I discovered that we supported and helped to orchestrate communism in the early 1900's, supported and enabled nazi's to take over and start WWII, and lied, lied lied about the Balkans.....with some exception because the Serbian paramilitaries did get out of hand. However, the massacres and rapes were greatly exaggerated...it's causing me some problems.......I stand by God, Country and Corps...God means Truth before country and Corps....
Long story short, you are correct.
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.