Old News Kills

Listening to the use that has been made in the blathosphere - aka the Congress - of that story breaking some time back, that released detainees from Gitmo had come back to haunt us, it occured to me that that is a repeating gimmick.

Oh, yes, this 'story' was something like the Iranian-supplied weapons. Convenient, and arguing that the war machine was on the right track, a story was sprung from the depths of unsourced intel. Your Pentagon has used paid operatives to plant stories in our domestic and M.E. newspapers that favored this war on Iraq.

Originally, the war machine released the Insurgent Detainee story, to be jumped on by our eager press. It grabbed headlines in October of 2004.

U.S. military officials say that despite being freed in exchange for signing pledges to renounce violence, at least seven former prisoners of the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have returned to terrorism, at times with deadly consequences.

The right wing was gleeful, of course, those accused of evil were guilty! guilty! and the armed camp mentality was our friend.

It wasn't long after I started googling around for the original stories that I found another blogger whose antennae had tingled at the story, too. And this one had tracked down the origins as I had, to Pentagon sources.

Anyway, needless to say , this article left us very confused and suspicious. It seemed to us that Pentagon spokespeople, who were used as sources for most of the information in the article, might be feeding this unsubstantiated story to the press in order to justify keeping people locked up at Guantánamo, and the reporters were just running with it. It also seemed to us that there might be a serious policy flaw in the Guantánamo release process.
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The other interesting tidbit that came up as a result of our conversations with international lawyers is a reminder that it is not illegal for people to fight in war. As long as a combatant adheres to the rules of war and fights other armed soldiers, they cannot be tried and punished. They can be detained until the war is over, but they must be released when the conflict ends.

This bears pointing out because the administration’s policies and the media’s reporting of them have created an atmosphere in the US where it seems perfectly justified to hold indefinitely as criminals Taliban troops who were captured while battling international forces during the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. But if that were the case, it would be OK for foreign governments to detain indefinitely US soldiers who are legally engaged in defending their own country from foreign invasion or threat.
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But in this case, what we see is the utter failure of mainstream news outlets to follow a story to its logical conclusions. In the race to be first to publish a news story that pleases advertisers, investors and government sources, so much is missed, glossed over, saved for a rainy day or downright distorted. It often takes a special eye to discern the real story and a special type of media organization to tell it properly.

The original story-propelled news surge is exactly what our cretin in chief can count on to get his arguments for war into the public's hands. While we who are aware and on top of the war machine, and the forces behind , are not going to accept the propaganda, media weakness is exactly what the right wing counts on. Once the news has made headlines, the wingers can spout it without fear of contradiction.

On Wednesday, Sen. Graham spouted confidently on the floor of the Senate that he is protecting our troops by denying habeas corpus to those who are accused of terrorist activities. That use of planted stories kills people, and ruins the U.S. standing abroad.

The U.S. is getting too wary after several of these incidents to accept those headlines, however. When "Pentagon spokesmen" without attribution were again used to put out stories, that weapons supplied by Iran were being used against our troops, it didn't sell. The media has been burned too often, and the public won't take any more manipulation.

Once burned, twice shy, even with the media racing pell mell to get out its scoops. This time the media reported these events with the reservations they should always hold onto.

This has carried over into the 'surge' - a military action that has too obviously failed before. TPM on February 5 showed how this is being reported, with the utmost cynicism.

As it stands now, however, the surge possesses no such harmony. Even one of its intellectual architects, retired Army General Jack Keane, testified on January 25 that "it makes no sense to you, it makes no sense to me, but that's exactly what we're going to do, and that'll be a problem for Petraeus and his commanders to sort out."

To all appearances, the repeated use of propaganda tactics has become its own antidote. Too many lives have been thrown away for this to be satisfying. But a press, and public, that has seen convenience instead of truth characterize news from the war machine - no longer is swallowing it.