Just how does the Pentagon conduct its PR exercises? It takes skill and millions of dollars in the Middle East and Central Asia to contribute to a fall in America's international standing. Iraq, Guantanamo, Afghanistan, torture, Abu Ghraib and "rendition" may have something to do with it, as well.
Who ya gonna call? The Rendon Group is the answer.
Who ya gonna call? The Rendon Group is the answer.
5 Comments:
AL
Countries have used PR and waged politically conscious military operations since the Trrojan wars. What else is new?
The money received by Rendon is surprisingly small. You may have heard of the US Information Service, and the (CIA's) Voice of America whose budgets go into billions.
Re Afganistan (specifically). How do you expect the US should have responded to having 3,000+ of its people murdered in a day? Wasn't seeking out bin Laden and international trainee terrorists in Afghanistaan a good idea? Do you expect the US to await a peace committee decision?
Methinks you see the US as less than wonderful and I don't make that criticm lightly.
Of course, govts have used PR to sell their message for ever. Nothing new there. It is, however, interesting to see how a rogue superpower tries to convince oppressed people in the Middle East that they come in peace etc, when evidence is huge to counter that view.
I didn't support the Afghan invasion. And I don't see the US as a liberated nation, sorry to disappoint.
Terrorism is asymetric war by other means.
In a situation where terrorists have pledged to fight to the death for a cause (eg by suicide bombing) shooting them first is a legitimate wartime response. They would do the same to the soldiers fighting for a state. Trials sound nice, but not in war, in a warzone.
This is well understood by those who govern, of most political shades - right and left.
While I think the invasion of Iraq was an unjust, oil grab, the invasion of Afghanistan was mainly to kill terrorists and in that country the US was justified.
Shab
We seem to agree about Afghanistan.
But I'd say that so little war is morally legitimate that the distinction between state organised war fighting and terrorism for a cause is often blurred. Civilians are the main casualties of both.
This is not to say that I see any moral equivalency concerning would-be terrorists contemplating action in Australia. ASIO etc should hunt down the bastards and, as this is not a warzone, put them on trial.
Anheuser Busch spent over US$500 million on advertising in 2004, with over US$50 million spent on adverstising directed at Hispanics alone. Sort of makes the money given to Rendon seem like small peanuts, now don't it?
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