HOW TO DETECT PROPAGANDA by Clyde Raymond Miller

HOW TO DETECT PROPAGANDA

Clyde Raymond Miller

If American citizens are to have clear understanding of present-day conditions and what to do about them, they must be able to recognize propaganda, to analyze it, and to appraise it.

But, what is propaganda?

As generally understood, propaganda is expression of opinion or action by individuals or groups deliberately designed to influence opinions or actions of other individuals or groups with reference to predetermined ends.

Thus, propaganda differs from scientific analysis. The propagandist is trying to “put something across,” good or bad, whereas the scientist is trying to discover truth and fact. Often, the propagandist does not want careful scrutiny and criticism; he wants to bring about a specific action. Because the action may be socially beneficial or socially harmful to millions of people, it is necessary to focus upon the propagandist and his activities the searchlight of scientific scrutiny. Socially desirable propaganda will not suffer from such examination, but the opposite type will be detected and revealed for what it is.

We are fooled by propaganda chiefly because we don’t recognize it when we see it. It may be fun to be fooled but, as the cigarette ads used to say, it is more fun to know. We can more easily recognize propaganda when we see it if we are familiar with the seven common propaganda devices. These are:

1. The Name Calling Device

2. The Glittering Generalities Device

3. The Transfer Device

4. The Testimonial Device

5. The Plain Folks Device

6. The Card Stacking Device

7. The Band Wagon Device

Why are we fooled by these devices? Because they appeal to our emotions rather than to our reason. They make us believe and do something we would not believe or do if we thought about it calmly, dispassionately. In examining these devices, note that they work most effectively at those times when we are too lazy to think for ourselves; also, they tie into emotions which sway us to be “for” or “against” nations, races, religions, ideals, economic and political policies and practices, and so on through automobiles, cigarettes, radios, toothpastes, presidents, and wars. With our emotions stirred, it may be fun and infinitely more to our own interests to know how they work.

Lincoln must have had in mind citizens who could balance their emotions with intelligence when he made his remark: “… but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”

NAME CALLING

“Name Calling” is a device to make us form a judgment without examining the evidence on which it should be based. Here the propagandist appeals to our hate and fear. He does this by giving “bad names” to those individuals, groups, nations, races, policies, practices, beliefs, and ideals which he would have us condemn and reject. For centuries the name “heretic” was bad. Thousands were oppressed, tortured, or put to death as heretics. Anybody who dissented from popular or group belief or practice was in danger of being called a heretic. In the light of today’s knowledge, some heresies were bad and some were good. Many of the pioneers of modern science were called heretics; witness the cases of Copernicus, Galileo, Bruno. Today’s bad names include: Fascist, demagogue, dictator, Red, financial oligarchy, Communist, muckraker, alien, outside agitator, economic royalist, Utopian, rabble-rouser, trouble-maker, Tory, Constitution wrecker.

“Al” Smith called (Franklin D.) Roosevelt a Communist by implication when he said in his Liberty League speech, “There can only be one capital, Washington or Moscow.” When “Al” Smith was running for the presidency many called him a tool of the pope, saying in effect, “We must choose between Washington and Rome.” That implied that Mr. Smith, if elected president, would take his orders from the pope. Likewise, Mr. Justice Hugo Black has been associated with a bad name, Ku Klux Klan. In these cases some propagandists have tried to make us form judgments without examining essential evidence and implications. “Al Smith is a Catholic. He must never be president.” “Roosevelt is a Red. Defeat his program.” “Hugo Black is or was a Klansman. Take him out of the Supreme Court.”

Use of “bad names” without presentation of their essential meaning, without all their pertinent implications, comprises perhaps the most common of all propaganda devices. Those who want to maintain the status quo apply bad names to those who would change it. For example, the (William Randolph) Hearst press applies bad names to Communists and Socialists. Those who want to change the status quo apply bad names to those who would maintain it. For example, the Daily Worker and the American Guardian apply bad names to conservative Republicans and Democrats.

GLITTERING GENERALITIES

“Glittering Generalities” is a device by which the propagandist identifies his program with virtue by use of “virtue words.” Here, he appeals to our emotions of love, generosity, and brotherhood. He uses words like truth, freedom, honor, liberty, social justice, public service, the right to work, loyalty, progress, democracy, the American way, Constitution defender. These words suggest shining ideals. All persons of good will believe in these ideals. Hence, the propagandist, by identifying his individual group, nation, race, policy, practice, or belief with such ideals, seeks to win us to his cause. As Name Calling is a device to make us form a judgment to reject and condemn, without examining the evidence, Glittering Generalities is a device to make us accept and approve, without examining the evidence.

For example, use of the phrases, “the right to work” and “social justice,” may be a device to make us accept programs for meeting the labor-capital problem which, if we examined them critically, we would not accept at all.

In the Name Calling and Glittering Generalities devices, words are used to stir up our emotions and to befog our thinking. In one device “bad words” are used to make us mad; in the other, “good words” are used to make us glad.

The propagandist is most effective in the use of these devices when his words make us create devils to fight or gods to adore. By his use of the “bad words,” we personify as a “devil” some nation, race, group, individual, policy, practice, or ideal; we are made fighting mad to destroy it. By use of “good words,” we personify as a godlike idol some nation, race, group, etc. Words which are “bad” to some are “good” to others, or may be made so. Thus, to some the New Deal is “a prophecy of social salvation” while to others it is “an omen of social disaster.”

From consideration of names, “bad” and “good,” we pass to institutions and symbols, also “bad” and “good.” We see these in the next device.

TRANSFER

“Transfer” is a device by which the propagandist carries over the authority, sanction, and prestige of something we respect and revere to something he would have us accept. For example, most of us respect and revere our church and our nation. If the propagandist succeeds in getting church or nation to approve a campaign in behalf of some program, he thereby transfers its authority, sanction, and prestige to that program. Thus, we may accept something which otherwise we might reject.

In the Transfer device, symbols are constantly used. The cross represents the Christian Church. The flag represents the nation. Cartoons like Uncle Sam represent a consensus of public opinion. These symbols stir emotions. At their very sight, with the speed of light, is aroused the whole complex of feelings we have with respect to church or nation. A cartoonist by having Uncle Sam disapprove a budget for unemployment relief would have us feel that the whole United States disapproves relief costs. By drawing an Uncle Sam who approves the same budget, the cartoonist would have us feel that the American people approve it. Thus, the Transfer device is used both for and against causes and ideas.

TESTIMONIAL

The “Testimonial” is a device to make us accept anything from a patent medicine or a cigarette to a program of national policy. In this device the propagandist makes use of testimonials. “When I feel tired, I smoke a Camel and get the grandest ‘lift.’” “We believe the John L. Lewis plan of labor organization is splendid; the CIO should be supported.” This device works in reverse also; counter-testimonials may be employed. Seldom are these used against commercial products like patent medicines and cigarettes, but they are constantly employed in social, economic, and political issues. “We believe that the John L. Lewis plan of labor organization is bad; the CIO should not be supported.” (BJ: I would only note here that famous people are often used in the testimonial device, like actress Sally Field selling us bone-strengthening medicine.)

PLAIN FOLKS

“Plain Folks” is a device used by politicians, labor leaders, businessmen, and even by ministers and educators to win our confidence by appearing to be people like ourselves – “just plain folks among the neighbors.” In election years especially do candidates show their devotion to little children and the common, homey things of life. They have front porch campaigns. For the newspaper men, they raid the kitchen cupboard, finding there some of the good wife’s apple pie. They go to country picnics; they attend service at the old frame church; they pitch hay and go fishing; they show their belief in home and mother. In short, they would win our votes by showing that they’re just as common as the rest of us – “just plain folks,” – and therefore, wise and good. Business men often are “plain folks” with the factory hands. Even distillers use the device. “It’s our family’s whiskey, neighbor; and neighbor, it’s your price.”

CARD STACKING

“Card Stacking” is a device in which the propagandist employs all the arts of deception to win our support for himself, his group, nation, race, policy, practice, belief, or ideal. He stacks the cards against the truth. He uses under-emphasis and over-emphasis to dodge issues and evade facts. He resorts to lies, censorship, and distortion. He omits facts. He offers false testimony. He creates a smoke screen of clamor by raising a new issue when he wants an embarrassing matter forgotten. He draws a “red herring” across the trail to confuse and divert those in quest of facts he does not want revealed. He makes the unreal appear real and the real appear unreal. He lets half-truth masquerade as truth. By the Card Stacking device, a mediocre candidate, through the “build-up,” is made to appear an intellectual titan; an ordinary prize fighter a probable world champion; a worthless patent medicine a beneficent cure. By means of this device propagandists would convince us that a ruthless war of aggression is a crusade for righteousness. Some member nations of the Non-Intervention Committee send their troops to intervene in Spain. Card Stacking employs sham, hypocrisy, effrontery. (BJ: “The Big Lie” falls into this category: if you tell a lie often enough people will believe it. The release of falsified documents is included in “The Big Lie.”)

THE BAND WAGON

The “Band Wagon” is a device to make us follow the crowd, to accept the propagandist’s program en masse. Here his theme is: “Everybody’s doing it.” His techniques range from those of medicine show to dramatic spectacle. He hires a hall, fills a great stadium, marches a million men in parade. He employs symbols, colors, music, movement, all the dramatic arts. He appeals to the desire, common to most of us, to “follow the crowd.” Because he wants us to “follow the crowd” in masses, he directs his appeal to groups held together by common ties of nationality, religion, race, environment, sex, vocation. Thus, propagandists campaigning for or against a program will appeal to us as Catholics, Protestants or Jews; as members of the Nordic race or as Negroes; as farmers or as school teachers; as housewives or as miners. All the artifices of flattery are used to harness the fears and hatreds, prejudices and biases, convictions and ideals common to the group; thus, emotion is made to push and pull the group on to the Band Wagon. In newspaper articles and in the spoken word this device is also found. “Don’t throw your vote away. Vote for our candidate. He’s sure to win.” Nearly every candidate wins in every election – before the votes are in. (BJ: It is my fervent prayer that “one day a lemming will fly.”)

PROPAGANDA AND EMOTION

Observe that in all these devices our emotion is the stuff with which propagandists work. Without it, they are helpless; with it, harnessing it to their purposes, they can make us glow with pride or burn with hatred, they can make us zealots in behalf of the program they espouse. As we said at the beginning, propaganda as generally understood is expression of opinion or action by individuals or groups with reference to predetermined ends. Without the appeal to our emotion – to our fears and to our courage, to our selfishness and unselfishness, to our loves and to our hates – propagandists would influence few opinions and few actions.

To say this is not to condemn emotion, an essential part of life, or to assert that all predetermined ends of propagandists are “bad.” What we mean is that the intelligent citizen does not want propagandists to utilize his emotions, even to the attainment of “good” ends, without knowing what is going on. He does not want to be “used” in the attainment of ends he may later consider “bad.” He does not want to be gullible. He does not want to be fooled. He does not want to be duped, even in a “good” cause. He wants to know the facts and among these is included the fact of the utilization of his emotions.

Keeping in mind the seven common propaganda devices, turn to today’s newspapers and almost immediately you can spot examples of them all. At election time or during any campaign, Plain Folks and Band Wagon are common. Card Stacking is hardest to detect, because it is adroitly executed or because we lack the information necessary to nail the lie. A little practice with the daily newspapers in detecting these propaganda devices soon enables us to detect them elsewhere – in radio, newsreels, books, magazines, and in expression of labor unions, business groups, churches, schools, political parties.

The One Certain Truth of 9/11

Whilst I am well informed of a broad range of suggestions I am highly resistant to advancing any alternative ideas with certainty as to how the events of 9/11 came about, none of them are based in solid, indisputable, factual evidence. None of them stack-up as unquestionable. And that includes the, so called, official theory. The official theory is full of inconsistencies that defy belief too.

There is just one thing I am certain of as regards 9/11 and that is we do not know, beyond any reasonable doubt, the truth of the events of the day. And we certainly do not understand the mechanisms by which any of the WTC towers structurally collapsed and how then so much of their residue had greatly disappeared. It defies logic and science.

Basing ones confidence just on the indisputably of the word of the US government and the main-stream media is not enough to 'hang your hat' on that as being fact. Take that notion out of the equation and the house of cards upon which the narrative is built collapses to the ground in a moment leaving nothing but dust blowing in the wind.

Defending a Stateless Society from Military Attack

If we had a fully voluntary society, without any form of state, there would be considerable change, clearly, and so to predict how these changes will in reality manifest is interesting perhaps but most likely will be ludicrously wrong in the actual event.

People will pay for that which represents value.  I would insure my home with an insurance company that had a nationwide emergency service offering police protection, disaster and medical response teams.  I would insure with the best company but not at any price.  It would be the company who offered the best balance between service and price.

It is not inconceivable that these insurance companies would, maybe jointly cooperating, expand their emergency services to include a form of 'home-defence' military.  If that was a real concern to people would the majority not see a value?  What is the faster at meaningfully reacting to new challenges:  the public sector or the private sector?

From the insurance company's perspective it may be they find a strong demand for insurance cover to compensate against the threat of invasion, subsequent loss and damage.  Now, if there were enough policies up for grabs, would it not be economic to invest in protection from the threat occurring?

So some folk then think they will not bother with insurance offering cover against war.  Good luck to them - in the event of an attack they will be the ones pushing the handcarts full of all they own.

On the whole I think of the entire idea of a stateless society being racked with war as being absolutely improbable since, so far in the whole history of humanity, it has only been the state that has waged actual war and against another state too.

I think a stateless society would become, rapidly, so successful that any other remaining state's populations, or leaders even, would see the results of the model as desirable but imposable to takeover by war because, to capture a prosperous nation, you have to have a nation to take over - with a state to tax the people and so gather the tithe. 

A stateless society is by definition not actually a 'nation' at all.  Just a lump of land upon which people muddle along the best they can and coexist within their own independently developed and codified rule of law.

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.
--Josph Goebbels, Nazi propaganda minister

The Dark Heart of the Union

I frankly, genuinely, do not doubt the sincerity of some, many, the majority even, of those involved within the European project.

There is bound to be corruption and ineptness when a new order is devised and implemented so quickly. This is typical of all governments, all public offices, all forms of authority. There will be abuse. Cookies will get stolen. It happens.

What people do not understand, including this gaggle of well intention and committed friends, is there is a covert darkness behind the whole enterprise and all are caused to be just playing right into it hands.

Too often the meaning of 'darkness' and of especially 'the occult' are completely misunderstood. This is not unintentional. 'To occult' means simply to hide and this is the clue to understanding what the occult is really about. Clearly it is the same inference with darkness.

Truth, clarity, openness. These are the sort of words one does not readily associate with darkness and the occult.

I think the truth of the EU has been hidden in darkness, occulted, from the minds of all but those who work to seek-out the hidden truth and actual meaning.

This is how states, of all forms, have conducted themselves to control and manipulate the people from time immemorial. And this, the oldest established legacy of prehistoric-mankind to still remain, the state and its utter dependency upon deception to function, needs to be seen for what it is and cast-out, got rid-off, ended for ever.

9/11 programming

Following the destruction of the World Trade Buildings I was unquestioning of the explanation that this was the action of Al Qaeda, a group of Islamic terrorists of who I had no previous knowledge. A few days later whist motoring in an open-top on a cold evening a large aircraft flew low overhead as I drove and as it did so water vapour plumed from it's wings. My immediate assumption was that this was a poison attack and I had been directly subjected to it. Fortunately I have survived.

Subsequently a friend e-mailed, just as a curio, a link to 'Spot the Boeing' the French website questioning the nature of the damage to the Pentagon and, right or wrong in every detail of it's thesis, it was this alternative view that made me start to examine the official explanation of these and other related events. That journey has lead me to the understanding that, upon the balance of probability, these events are all a part of an ongoing series of deceptions to control the minds of the majority.

One detail that I consider to be very telling is the date of the attack. 911 does not mean much to people in the UK, for a start we write our dates the other way around: 11.9.01. But for Americans this number being also the emergency phone number has deep set subliminal inferences. The number has connotations of fear, injury, loss and so on.

But most significantly, to use the 911 phone number (999 in the UK) is for a citizen to willingly capitulate responsibility to authority. I do not see how reference to this effect would contribute to the aims of Al Qaeda. And if one is supposed to think Al Qaeda did not realise the dates subliminal significance, why would they want to reference it and reinforced it's effect with the Madrid bombing being 911 days after '911' ?

I consider Al Qaeda would not want the people to abdicate authority to government, they would want people to reject authority as inept and powerless. Al Qaeda would want people to capitulate to them.

911 is the date of choice for a government that wants it as a memorable and fear invoking 'trigger' to be referred to daily, in one way and another, repeatedly to reminded the public of it's old and new meanings.

Indeed 911 was referenced by '311', the Madrid train bombings, and less commonly realised 311 occurred just a little over 911 days after Sept the 11th 2001 (Between the collapse of the second of the Twin Towers, the North Tower Building, and the first train's departure to Madrid there was - within less than 5 minuets - 911 days, 911 minutes and perhaps 911 seconds).

The Bali ONE took place 999 days before the London 7/7 attack. (999 is the UK emergency number).

Bali TWO took place on 1/10 - ( 110 is the police telephone number in Bali).

10:10 Climate Change Death Threat Video

This is the NASTY 10:10 climate change death threat video.  Produced by film director Richard Curtis who is married to and works with Emma Freud,  great-granddaughter of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Her younger brother is Matthew Freud, the husband of Rupert Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth Murdoch.



Don't tell me these people are stupid or do not understand the power and meaning of this production.  It sends a deep subliminal message; a serious threat.  Very nasty and very dangerous.

It looks like it backfired - the 10:10 campaign took down the video and 'apologised' for its content, but I would have thought they could have worked-out the stupidity of the theme from the outset.

I am crediting them with a modicum of brains I know, but my suspicion is:

a) they knew the video would have to be pulled but between times it would make a splash and draw the subject a greater level of attention than if it was just scientific and balanced.

b) they wanted to make a subliminal violent threat to people - especially children - to make them fear the social consequences of not accepting and submitting to the great GLOBAL WARMING HOAX.  They made fully considered death threats to children.

Teaching our children 'man-made climate change' theory in school is political indoctrination - not science.  And the problem is exacerbated by teachers who think it is fact based rather than conceive, even momentarily, that they are teaching a false and faulty theory.

If they talk about CO2 induced climate change they should also discuss with equal gravity the detail and arguments against the theory.  But they do not even start to understand the real science AND POLITICS behind the subject they pontificate on.

They lap-up the ready-made resources and spew them out as facts.



Here is another video, this was paid for by OUR GOVERNMENT.



This advert was directed specifically at our children. I tell a lie. This is not OUR GOVERNMENT any-more - it is just a part of the governmental enforcement arm of the global corporate, we are set to become tax slaves and CO2 taxation is how they intend to sell this rubbish to the human herd.


Here is another paid for by the UN who will be taking the carbon taxes and building their planned world government with this funding:




Here is one from PlaneStupid (a fully infiltrated stooge organisation) again aimed squarely at children:




This is a joyous contribution from Greenpeace - this lad needs more sleep:

The Green Happy-Clappers

The green happy clappers do not think 'critically'.  This is very like a religion.  They take the doctrine eat it up and swallow it all.  It makes them feel a little righteous, sanctimonious even, whilst also wicked, guilty and sinful all at the same time (sexual repression I'll bet). 

They beg for crushing CO2 taxation and spitefully want it brought about to punish all - make all kneel, pay homage and sacrifice at the alter of St.AlGore.

It is earth worship in the most negative way - they think people are the problem and believe population reduction the solution.  It is fundamentalist anti-humanity-ism.  It is a death cult.

They are so often the same bunch who once would have said a great big NO to nuclear power but now shrug and say well it is better than 'global warming'.  At least Fukushima Daiichi has stuffed the truth of that notion in their face - if they care to pay attention to the under-the-carpet facts.

Yet the money and opportunity is stolen away from the oil-bearing nations. They are ruined instead, by favoured despots or war, precluded from being free to capitalise on their period of wealth; for fear they could become today and tomorrow's masters.

Instead; the opportunity is handed to India and China, amongst others too, to be lifted to economic parity - a parity that includes draining the wealth out of the western nations - us lot. All with help from the sleight of hand of the carbon credits sham.

This is an interesting aspect of 'green happy clapper' syndrome.  They feel like they are the modern thinkers and the people who deride their 'pre-packaged hip save-the-world life-style-choice - ready-to-wear on the sleeve - pulp' are just dumb old fashioned stick-in-muds.  Antiquated 'flat-earthers'- give me a break!.

But what the 'green happy clappers' do not get is they have been sold one giant pup.  They love it so much, it is so much a part of what they are, it is their 'big-eyed life-style brand-of-choice' that they fail to open their minds to the fact that they have been duped.  They are the product of mass media indoctrination, subliminal brainwashing, propaganda - call it what you like.

Instead, like the green evangelists they are, they want to convert all, they want to live their life in the green way, they want to make sacrifices.  They are lost in a false paradigm and any hint they have been fooled makes them just hunker down deeper into denial.

Why is 'thinking for yourself' antiquated?  Because part of the 'ready-made' conclusion they have absorbed is this CO2 idea is fresh, young, feisty, its edgy to be green.  Suckers!

By the time people awake, to really see what is happening and why, we risk being too weak and too controlled, by authoritarianism and propaganda, to save our nations and our hides.

IMF top job mind games

How about Saif al-Islam Gaddaf (son of the bad one) for the IMF job?

He is good with money; Libya has 141 tons of gold, worth USD 7 billion, sitting in (or near) their independent central bank.  The Libyan Investment Authority, his baby, is said to be worth £50-60bn.  He has a PhD from the LSE (honorary I think $£$£) .  At one point or another he has been 'in bed' with Nicolas Sarkozy, Condoleezza Rice and knows his way around the royal family, Blair (remember him?), Mandy and the Rothschild family - he was pals with Nathaniel.

His first big sin is not towing the USD line by hinting Libya would like to sell oil for gold and dump the USD. 

His lady friend has often been reported to be ultra-'glamorous' Israeli actor Orly Weinerman - and 'Mustard' agent no doubt. 

So he is no fool but I guess he will not be offered the job because;
1. of who his daddy is and
2. because he is not a lackey to the agenda of debt-based central banks, global governance and the drive towards a 'new world order'.

Joking apart.  I think any suggestion that Machiavellian-Mandy or Bilous-Brown could be seriously considered for the role of IMF big cheese is in the same vein as was the disgusting concept Baloney-Blair may have become Supremo No1 of the European Soviet Union.

The idea is to think of the most vile individual who could be parachuted into this throne of anti-democracy - make everyone fume with rage - and then pop some unknown toady into the role after which we will all go back to sleep without a care in the world.

Who knows what is in a man’s heart?

To judge if there has been ’success in Iraq’ one would need to understand what the underlying objective was of those who worked so hard to bring the attack into being.

It is reasonable to assume that the prime objective was not because of the threat of (so called) WMD. This tissue of lies was patently cooked-up to attempt justify an otherwise unjustifiable attack.
It is reasonable to assume it was not carried-out to serve any interest of the civilian population of Iraq. They are in a manifold worse situation now, as a result of our attacking, and we cannot even answer how many innocents have died as a result (the murder and manslaughter of between 110,000 IBC to 1,100,000 Lancet).

If the object is thought to be related to ‘the war on terrorism’ this is manifestly false. Any form or threat of terrorism has only occurred as a result of attacking Iraq.

We can assume that these solemn truths will never be fully or broadly recognised because the resulting reparations due to and deserved by the people of Iraq would bankrupt us.

If the objective was related to the interests of Private Military Contractors, the complex of industries supplying Military requirements, oil production interests, central bankers and such; all their interests have been served, and served at the expense of the taxpaying public along with the populous of Iraq since and into the future. It has been a successful enterprise.

If the objective was to strengthen the security of Israel in a Middle East hostile to their presence and actions, as argued by Mark Weber here in: ‘Iraq-A War For Israel’ http://bit.ly/ccII7m then the outcome has been to reduce the threat to Israel considerably.

If the objective was to break a middle east nation that, whilst held together by a grossly unpalatable and harsh regime, did have a high standard of education, health care, women’s rights, self-determination and enterprise, a nation that had the potential to utilise its own petrochemical (and water) resource and enter the world-stage of developed nations, the attack and subsequent CPA mandate has achieved this aim.

If the objective was to demonstrate that disobedience towards the US/CIA imperialistic interests, such as that demonstrated by Iraq under Saddam Hussain, will not pass unpunished, that aim has been succinctly dealt.

For all those involved the British and American attack of Iraq has been a failure. But for all those who have stood-by whilst these events have taken place and subsequently reaped the rewards it certainly can be painted as a success.
But; who knows what is in a man’s heart?

I fancy that, however it may have been achieved, GW Bush was steered absolutely by those who advised him, those who were also a part of the political lobby group known as the Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

To read those named on the PNAC founding Statement of Principles is illuminating: http://bit.ly/9gOQcJ – The names included Jeb Bush (brother of GW), Dick Cheney, I. Lewis Libby (Scooter), Dan Quayle, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz amongst others.

PNAC’s stated aim was to make the case and rally support for: “American global leadership, [to] shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire”.
To President Clinton they wrote: ‘The only acceptable strategy is one that [removes] Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy. http://bit.ly/a82Sr9

In their report ‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses’ http://bit.ly/bU2a0F (PDF file) they wrote: ‘Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor. (Report-P51 PDF-P63)
On the 11th of September 2001 Robert Kagan, co-founder of PNAC, wrote in The Washington Post a piece titled ‘We Must Fight This War’ proclaiming “an attack far more awful than Pearl Harbor” http://bit.ly/9HvCSZ

It is against this background that we must comprehend Britain’s part is cast. It would be clear that the US was primed to react to the attack of 9/11 in the manner prescribed by those who dominated the political administration and in a manner that had too been expressed with resounding clarity.
For Blair here was a simple choice. Would we have stopped them? I doubt it. Would the world be a better place with the US operating in isolation, without seeking any backing from the UN, without the veil of credence offered by its old comrade and diplomatic good cop. Take Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, extraordinary rendition, water-boarding, torture by proxy, shock and awe, black sites, depleted uranium, cluster bombs for some examples and imagine how the US would have behaved if utterly unrestrained.

If Blair had stood-back and demanded a clear UN mandate to attack, how would the situation have stood if then Britain was immediately struck by its own ‘Pearl Harbour’ and perhaps one of even more devastating effect?

The true controversy over the Hutton Inquiry

Lord Hutton is wrongly suggesting that controversy over his report is because he had white-washed the truth of how Tony Blair took our nation to war in Iraq. This question was not specifically relevant to his terms of reference.

The true controversy is over how the Hutton Inquiry supplanted the process of the Coroner's Inquest, commencing instead on the basis of an assumed premise for Dr David Kelly cause of death and then, without sound investigation or due legal process, inappropriately coming to a finding that his death was suicide, whilst deflecting national attention with the shenanigans between Downing Street and the BBC.

Lord Hutton has whitewash on his hands.

Kelly Inquest Quitter Coroner Helps Avoid Enquiry into Dead Solders

Because the bodies of service personnel killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan are flown to RAF Brize Norton, Oxon, it is the Oxfordshire coroner Nicholas Garner who should have been conducting the backlog of 111 inquests now due.

Nicholas Garner was the coroner who aborted his inquest into the death of Dr David Kelly. Under the 1999 section 17A amendment to the 1988 Coroners Act, provision was made that if the Lord Chancellor tells a coroner there is to be a public enquiry (into the events surrounding the death) before the coroner's inquest is likely to be completed, the coroner shall adjourn their inquest. This is only if the Lord Chancellor considers it is 'likely' the cause of death will also be investigated by the inquiry and that there is an absence of any exceptional reason to the contrary.

The Lord Chancellor was wrong to allow the presumption that Dr David Kelly's cause of death would be adequately investigated within the terms of the inquiry he had called for 'to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death' and with witness evidence not to be taken under oath. The coroner Nicholas Gardiner should have recognised the 'exceptional reason to the contrary' within the inquiry's terms and procedures allotted and hence should not have adjourned his inquest before establishing cause of death.

The same Coroners Act section 17A amendment could now be legitimately deployed to save the Oxfordshire coroner Nicholas Garner conducting these multiple individual inquests, supplanting that process with an all encompassing inquiry into 'the circumstances leading to and surrounding the deaths of these 111 servicemen'. There is not so much doubts as to how each of these men were killed but a honest answer to how they were caused to go to war would be revealing.

Who says the Pentagon did not have a plan for post-war Iraq?

Who says the Pentagon did not have a plan for post-war Iraq? Everything appears to be proceeding swimmingly to plan - the plan to allow Iraq to disintegrate into civil war so to fragment the nation into a series of weaker states that individually, on the balance of probabilities, will be easier to influence and control.

Iraq's autocratic rulers, the Bathists under Saddam Hussein, were emboldened, by the wealth of oil and autonomous power, to resist the coercions of foreign powers. Having previously succumbed, in their fruitless war with Iran, they learnt to resist the hand of their master with which they used to be fed.

The frustration of such indiscipline lead those who thought themselves to still be Iraq's masters to beat and eventually destroy their once useful hound. And to ensure that Iraq would not resurrect, phantom like, it's corpse was to be dismembered. Should one of the new smaller Iraqi states fail to tow the line (as is probable) it's power and strategic regional threat posed (to you know who) will be much diminished from that considered to exist with Saddam's Iraq and mixing it up yet again, in the hope of a preferable fresh outcome, an easier task.

As Henry Ford said "Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs"