Evil Iraqis Murder Babies

Stinger, what seems to you an audacious lie, is a normal practice of PR in the Arab world. This time one Arab country launched such a campaign against another one (Kuwait vs. Iraq). Israel gets such PR attacks from the very moment of her having declared independence. Up to date a lie about Israelis scattering booby traps in shape of toys in the Palestinian refugee camps is circulating both on- and offline.
And claims of Palestinians that in Jenin in April 2002 were killed more than 500 civilians? The independent commission proved death of only 52 people, absolute majority being armed militants.
PR necessities lead even to staging funerals. An Israeli surveillance drone once located a funeral procession in one of the refugee camps; the body of a teenager on the stretcher was on its way to the cemetery in heavy presence of the Palestinian employees of the international news agencies. The participants of the funeral confused a drone to a combat plane and started escaping. The stretcher fell; the "dead teenager" got up and ran together with everyone...
If Palestinians find it possible to stage evidences, why should not the Kuwaitis use the standard Mideastern PR technique?

Stinger, Ah yes, the unquestionable right wing valueset. Only in America can we find such quality values and impeccable morals, all outlined for us by the moral right.

I guess, in this situation American right fell victim to Kuwaiti lies. They took these seriously.

steissd

I didn't say that the Kuwaitis should refrain from using propaganda. All countries indulge in the dissemination of propaganda, especially in times of war. Including the USA, Israel, the UK, Iraq, Iran.....everywhere. Propaganda is not a new idea. Although the conduits are a little more high-tech than they used to be!

However, I still think that it's educational for people to study the art of propaganda. To understand that sometimes, the 'reality' they see on TV, is just an illusion. Or that a story on the front page of their newspaper, was fabricated by a propaganda department, and planted in the news media.

The examples that you provided are very interesting, but I don't think that your comments, will be of much comfort to anyone who feels that they were lied to by propagandists, in situations such as the one detailed in the 'Incubator murder' scam. Maybe that's just an assumption on my part, but I think that generally, people prefer to reach a decision on important matters such as supporting a war, based on facts, rather than on which side has the best psyops. The fact that Palestinians tell lies too, doesn't really ease the irritation that many people undoubtably feel, in relation to the US / Kuwaiti propaganda operation.

With the prospect of another war in the Middle East, some people may now be a little suspicious about the 'facts' they are told by the news media. That's one of the downsides to propaganda. When a lie is discovered, the credibility of it's source, is damaged. People become distrustful.

Have you noticed the large anti-war demos across the world? Many of those people, simply don't know who to trust. They are suspicious of the motivations for war. Basically, they are tired of being lied to, and now, they can't be sure if they are being told the truth.

If the people learn the real truth, I am afraid, their psyche will not be able to cope with it, and it will collapse, making them mentally sick. Truth is much more horrible than all the propaganda tricks we are fed with.
And I am not sure that the anti-war movement leaders tell the people all the truth; they employ manipulations with public conscience in the same way the governments do it.

Stinger, The American right wing tends to WANT to believe whatever will give it a reason to go to war, especially if there is financial gain involved.

Steissd

I still think that the public would prefer to hear the truth, rather than fabricated stories about Iraqis killing babies. On balance, I think the baby killing story is a little sicker than telling the truth.

But then, maybe I'm just old fashioned. Perhaps some people now prefer being lied to. Whoever they are, I would really love to meet them. I have some shares in an oil field that they may be interested in buying.

People do not want to be openly lied to. But neither do they want to know all the truth. They want to know the part of truth that is in limits of their ability to perceive. All that exceeds this is considered being a lie, even if it has a hundred percent coincidence with reality.

Steissd, what truth do you believe will make us all mentally ill?

Stinger - babies DO seem to form a common theme in propaganda - I always think of the evil Hun soldiers being accused of bayoneting Belgian babies in WW I....one of the propaganda triumphs that made it so hard to believe what the Nazis actually WERE doing a generation later.

I was stunned when I saw your story, as, at first, I believed, another little girl was being used for THIS war!

steissd

Yeah, that's how government officials usually rationalize telling lies to the public.

"The public say they want to hear the truth......but what they REALLY want to hear, is whatever WE decide to tell them, since we know what is best for them. Even if it means manipulating them into supporting a war."

Some people might think that's a dangerous way to operate in a supposedly open and free democracy. Sadly, some members of the public, accept it.

Nazis bayonetted Belgian babies? When and where did they do such a thing? I am not the biggest possible admirer of Hitler, but it seems to me that this statement is also a propagandist trick...

You got that from where, steissd?

But I must agree that children sufferings, both real and imaginative, are often being abused by propaganda of different countries and political movements.

From the response of DLowan:

Well, Dlowan spoke about 'Huns' and WWI.

I really certain that in WWI-times there haven't been any Nazis in Germany. Right wings, of course.
And the Emperor-period might have led to the Nazi regime indeed as well.
But Nazis, as it is generally understood - no!

Dear me Steissd - how shall I untangle this coil!

Now - in World War I the British propaganda machine published accounts - and posters - of German troops committing various atrocities - including bayoneting Belgian babies.

They never did it.

When the public discovered the extent of the lies by government propaganda they were naturally upset.

In the lead-up to WW II, and during it, some accounts of the activities of the Nazi government and the fate of people in concentration camps trickled out - many people, stung and sceptical because of WW I propaganda, were loath to believe such horrors - there is some evidence that such scepticism contributed to the between wars pacifist movement and the reluctance of governments to confront the reality of the threat presented by Germany at that time.

I am unaware of any accounts of German troops bayoneting Belgian babies during WW II!

This is one of the problems of governments and pressure groups telling whoppers - 'tis like the little boy who cried wolf - nobody knows what to believe and what not to - and sometimes the bad things ARE true.

Ah, sorry, Dlowan, I just misunderstood your statement. Of course, people tended to disbelieve information on the Nazi atrocities after the British propaganda lied about trespasses of the German Army during the WWI.

Hopefully the thread has recovered from this little trip back in time, and can proceed normally!

And I am sure that there were no Nazis in Germany or elsewhere in 1914-18; the first party of such a type appeared, if I remember well, in 1919, and Hitler was not its founder.