Sunday, December 21, 2003

If I were the US government, I would hire a propaganda Tsar to coordinate all the propaganda lies of the government in order to send a unified message. The incoherence and inconsistencies of US propaganda as of late are really bad for the image of this global empire. It looks like what I read in the Arabic press, I now read in the US press, but days later. Now they are reporting that the Kurds may in fact have captured Saddam, before surrendering him to the Americans to reap the propaganda benefits. And remember how we were earlier told that Saddam was cooperating from the beginning with US troops? (Say: Yes, we do remember, Oh, Angry Arab. Why do you ask?) Well, now Newsweek is reporting that, far from cooperating with his captors, Saddam spat on the soldiers, and had to be forcibly subdued before being taken away. What else will we learn next week? Do you see why Arabs sometimes--OK, often--resort to conspiracy theories? They have a congenital distrust of governments' propaganda. I also get upset when I hear Saddam's daughter speaking about her father's rights and his need for legal defense. Where were her concerns for the rule of law during daddy's brutal rule? And while I understand Amnestry International's defense for the principles of international law, I wish that they would devote their energies for the defence of prisoners in Iraq (especially whose who have not committed crimes and have not been charged with crimes) instead of worrying about Saddam's welfare. Saddam should be the LAST prisoner in the world that Amnesty International should worry about.