Pixelated Semantics

Building up the information war effort

The US is planning "a new escalation of its information war against Islamic extremism", by expanding its "Persian-language satellite-television broadcasts" [sic] to Iran according to The Australian today. The chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors inadvertantly places the action in a familar template, stating that "Iran is an information-deprived society, much like the former Soviet Union" - by using the tried and true capitalist model of fulfilling an apparent need, depicting the Iranians as "thirsting for information" is the newest justification for what amounts to clear propaganda efforts against that country's interests. However, one "propaganda expert" observed that "people could see it as a sign that an invasion is coming. It's the sort of thing that happens before nations build up their war effort". The "opportunity" codeword gets a decent workout as well, with the bald statement that "US officials believe [...] broadcasts could chip away at Iran's unpopular religious leadership over time by emphasising issues of economic and political opportunity", followed closely by the chairman's line that "we're trying get people to say ... what do we want opportunity to be in Iran?". And the effort dovetails nicely with the tried and tested model of military enforcement before the arrival of capitalist "opportunities" (such as Irak and Halliburton), as revealled by the reporter's observation that "the administration is seeking money for the expanded telecast in Bush's $81 billion supplemental budget request for military operations".

Item posted by AutoEditor at 12:23 pm ::