Wag the Dog

The LA Times has reported “As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq.” This should not be a surprise to anyone as the US government is mired in story planting and media manipulation. What is interesting is that they actually contracted a “firm” called Lincoln Group, formerly Iraqex, in Washington to do the dirty work of misrepresenting the source of the stories to Iraqi papers. It is clear that they see the news as an advertising and public relations medium for the state, i.e. propaganda. This is exactly how communist governments see the news media. Is it not curious that the conservative US government just keep looking more and more like its old sworn enemy?