Cross-posted from my diary at DailyKos.com

Almost prophetically, I published a diary entry called Zarqawi Jumps the Shark just one night before the Washington Post revealed that Zarqawi’s identity was used as part of an elaborate PsyOp (Psychological Operation) by the Pentagon.

Now, I present the second installment in the two part series…

Late last night, there was confirmation from Washington Post that identity of Zarqawi was indeed used for a Psyop by the US Military.

A few days prior to publishing Zarqawi Jumps the Shark, I had published Zarqawi is a Hoax for the first time on Daily Kos.

How did I know it was a hoax?

I’m not a Arabic speaker and Middle-East expert like Juan Cole
I’m not a weapons inspector and I’ve never been to Iraq like Scott Ritter

I’ve never been to Pakistan like Pepe Escobar of Asia Times
I have no access to scoops from inside the military like Washington Post

I knew it because there were GOP talking points embedded in the rhetoric of the audio clips alledgely released by Zarqawi.
Secondly, I knew it because Zarqawi only released audio, never video, and every mention of Zarqawi allegedly by Bin Laden or Zawahiri was also audio or text.

Who else knew? What details? How long ago?

Juan Cole knew the Zawahiri Letter was fake. It was so obvious, I came to this conclusion independently of and prior to reading Juan Cole. Reading his Informed Comment further strengthened my conviction that the letter was fake.

Juan Cole
Zawahiri Letter to Zarqawi: A Shiite Forgery?
Friday, October 14, 2005

Scott Ritter knew Zarqawi was a “red herring” being used to mislead the US public about the character of the Iraqi “insurgency”.

Scott Ritter on Al Jazeera
The risks of the al-Zarqawi myth
Friday 07 January 2005

Pepe Escobar recalls that the Zarqawi psyop began before the war started. Pepe Escobar reminds us that Colin Powell first used the Zarqawi Myth to make his case for the invasion of Iraq.

Pepe Escobar
Zarqawi – Bush’s man for all seasons
February 2004

Jennifer Schultz knew.
Claim: U.S. Created al-Zarqawi Myth
Washington (UPI) Nov 10, 2005

What’s true and what is misleading in the Washington Post article?

We’ve made a major step forward with the news from Washington Post, but the perception management by the corporate media still continues. This article reveals a lot, but it doesn’t convey an entirely plausible narrative on certain aspects of this case.

Here I challenge specific claims by Army Col. James A. Treadwell in the Washington Post article.

From the Washington Post article:

“Some senior intelligence officers believe Zarqawi’s role may have been overemphasized by the propaganda campaign, which has included leaflets, radio and television broadcasts, Internet postings and at least one leak to an American journalist.”

“U.S. psychological operations soldiers produced a video disc that not only was widely disseminated inside Iraq, but also was ‘seen on Fox News.’”

Washington Post doesn’t specifically mention the audio clips. The audio clips, the Zawahiri/Zarqawi letter, and Bush’s speeches are the reason I concluded it was a PsyOp.

From the Washington Post article:

“U.S. military policy is not to aim psychological operations at Americans, said Army Col. James A. Treadwell, who commanded the U.S. military psyops unit in Iraq in 2003. “It is ingrained in U.S.: You don’t psyop Americans. We just don’t do it,” said Treadwell.”

“With satellite television, e-mail and the Internet, it is impossible to prevent some carryover from propaganda campaigns overseas into the U.S. media, said Treadwell, who is now director of a new project at the U.S. Special Operations Command that focuses on “trans-regional” media issues. Such carryover is “not blowback, it’s bleed-over,” he said. ‘There’s always going to be a certain amount of bleed-over with the global information environment.’”

“The military’s propaganda program largely has been aimed at Iraqis, but seems to have spilled over into the U.S. media. One briefing slide about U.S. “strategic communications” in Iraq, prepared for Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top U.S. commander in Iraq, describes the “home audience” as one of six major targets of the American side of the war.”

I challenge the assertion that it was “bleed-over”.
I assert that it was a primarily a domestic PsyOp campaign.
This PsyOps campaign was obviously meant for the domestic audience because Bush and his friends kept hammering away on these talking points when a fake Zarqawi audio clip was released, each time, making references to the fake audio clips.
The denials from Army Col. James A. Treadwell just don’t satisfy a reasonable observer.

What unique findings have I presented?

Hear me now and believe me later:

1. Most if not all Zarqawi audio is fake.
2. Remember the “October Suprise” audio clip allegedly from Bin Laden, in which he endorses John Kerry, right before the election?
3. Remember the audio clip allegedly from Bin Laden, in which he claims Zarqawi and gives an endorsement of the Book Rogue State?

Both Bin Laden audio clips FAKE, obviously!

Now where’s my Peabody Award?

On a side note,

I’d like to give a shout out to DHinMI who wrote these comments in response to my diary entry Zarqawi Jumps the Shark:

“Thus, to argue that Zarqawi is a creation of DC spooks … [blah blah blah]… is preposterous.”

“Some people have been saying all along that Zarqawi was a hoax. Some people also say Bin Laden is a hoax, that fluouride saps our nations precious bodily fluids, and that the moonshot was filmed on a Hollywood soundstage.”

“Don’t Fucking Lie, OK?”

“So, I’ll apologize for accusing you of lying if in fact you’re just too dumb to have ever noticed any press reports about Zarqawi.”

“Jeeze, the more you type, the clearer it is that you really don’t know much. Or, to quote you, ‘were you paying attention to that?’”

To DHinMI , I responded with this:

“I guess you’re a bit bent that you’ve been wasting a lot of keystrokes on Zarqawi as if he were alive.”

“You disagree with 83% of the Kossacks who answered my poll and who believe Zarqawi is a hoax.”

I was curious to see the state of modern American Communism, so I spoke to a humorless woman who carried a communist banner. I spoke to her about Karl Marx, whom I have a lot of respect for. My tempered and qualified appreciation for Marx was not enough to cut through the ice with this woman. She was a hardcore communist who would not agree to any criticism of totalitarian communist regimes.
Later, I spoke to a young man who was the organizer of a local WorldCantWait.net chapter. I spoke to him about communism and the American left. From him, I found the same thing – A rigid adherence to communist doctrine, the lumping together of Marx, Lenin and Mao.

I challenged him on some specifics about Chairman Mao. I mentioned Mao had embraced Stalin. I asked him if he didn't think Stalin had serious problems.

He would hear none of it. He was a staunch advocate for big communism as exemplified by the Soviet Union and Mao's China.

At the time, I was already familiar at the time with the connection between Sunsara Taylor of WorldCantWait.net and Bob Avakian, Chairman of the RCP (Revolutionary Communist Party of America). That's why I was probing them with my questions.

I've noticed how O'rielly likes to have Sunsara Taylor as a frequent commentator. I think he believes it to the advantage of the American right to have a well-known apologist for totalitarian Communism. I believe O'rielly is right, and it does work to his advantage.

I notice there is an element to our anti-war protests which is taking us beyond anti-war, pro-democracy, beyond social justice and into uncharted territory.

I believe this is undermining the anti-war movement with political baggage we should not be willing carry. I'm not even willing to associate myself with it.

Just for the record, I'm a big fan of Howard Zinn, Gore Vidal and other members of WorldCantWait.net.

I'm also a big fan of Hugo Chavez and I'm excited about the progress of democratic socialism in Latin America. But I put my emphasis on DEMOCRATIC socialism and I am a critic of apologists of totalitarian communism.

I discussed this at DailyKos

Alpha manly men get armpit kisses from their submissive beta counterparts. McCain will never be president, because he gave too much Beta Man-love to Bush.

Sean Hannity would have to gay-marry Anne (The Man) Coulter and Hannity would have to wear the burka.
Chris Matthews would be forced to gay-marry Tim Russert. They sould both have to wear Burkas at their wedding.

Bill O’Rielly would have to marry Rush Limbaugh, and Limbaugh would wear the burka.

“The time has come to abolish reservations for the good of the people who live on them.”

White Man knows what’s good for Native Americans. End their sovereignty.

The name of John J. Miller should not soon be forgotten. This is a corporate ‘fatwah’ against Indigenous American sovereignty.

Since when do Evangelicals believe in science? As Evangelicals, they’re still waiting for the rapture. They don’t actually give a rat’s ass about the environment.

Their leaders are gay-bashing televangelists who deceive old ladies with promises of faith-healing if they’ll only just send their last twenty dollars. They lose no sleep if she’s got nothing left to eat but dog food.

What the Evangelicals bring to the table of this crony-alliance is their perception management resources – A vast network of mega-churches within which consent can be manufactured for just about anything, no matter how perverse (torture, warantless spying, wars of aggression, planned misery). Their ability to achieve results is undeniable. They’ve delivered many political victories to the most morally-bankrupt politicians alive.

Since when do CEOs of oil companies care for anything beyond the next quarter’s profits? These guys have made record profits during wartime while working families are gouged at the gas pump.

Now that they’ve finally realized that there’s a global movement which will only increase in scale, scope, and funding, they want a piece of the action. I remain unconvinced they actually understand the problem from a scientific perspective or that they would actually care if they did understand.

I’m confident they’re doing this because they’re anticipating getting a cut of federal funding (Just as Pat Robertson intercepted funds for Katrina victims), coopting the environmental movement, watering down the response, spreading misinformation, and generally sabotaging the response to the global environmental crisis.

We know this from experience. Some of us have been paying attention to the response to hurricane Katrina and to Bush’s war crimes in Iraq. All they can see is an opportunity to profit from the suffering of others, and to further consolidate power.

We remember Mike Brown, FEMA, the deliberate neglect of the Katrina victims, the deliberate gentrification of New Orleans, Halliburton’s no-bid contracts in Iraq and New Orleans, $60 hammers, $25 each for crappy MREs, dirty water pumped from the Euphrates and served as drinking water to our soldiers in Iraq, other contractors delivered defective body-armor.

I’ll never trust a bunch of war-profiteering CEOs and war-mongering Evangelical TV preachers. This whole initiative is just a fig-leaf for the worst criminals in the world: pollluters, war-profiteers, price-gouging oil companies, religious con-men, Bush-collaborators.

I’m convinced their coalition is pit of vipers. I’ll give them credit for one thing: they’ve got the best public relations consultants money can buy. We’ll be keeping an eye on them.

Here’s an excerpt from their website:

Does addressing climate change mean we’re becoming liberals?

No.
…
Climate change is not a liberal issue. It is a profound problem for people Jesus loves, people Jesus died to save.

Are we working with environmentalists?

No. While we are not working with environmentalists, and are critical of some of their views and approaches, we also feel that once we have established our own voice on this issue we should use this as an opportunity to share the gospel with those who care about “environmental” issues…

Here’s the thread where they clipped everything I said. I  used not one curse word, no personal hostility, just a bit of political self-expression which cannot be tolerated.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364×331883

I sent the following emails to all the admins at D.U.

admin@democraticunderground.com, skinner@democraticunderground.com, earlg@democraticunderground.com, elad@democraticunderground.com

I’m not really troubled by your censorship, I’m only really troubled by your censorship of my discussion of your censorship policy and how it’s interpreted. I’m also troubled by having my email ignored afterward. You must be willing to defend your censorship and openly discuss it, or you have no credibility.

Balzac

On 2/3/06, Balzac wrote:

I can understand if you don’t want excessive profanity. I can understand if you don’t want to lose your christian democrats, so you delete blasphemy. After all, this site is to serve the interests of Democrats.

But you deleted every mention I made of your censorship. You should at least be able to discuss your censorship policy, rather than squelch conversation on that topic. I didn’t see anything in your policy about comments about your censorship policy. That was undeniably a heavy-handed response to my criticism.

Furthermore, I busted a guy who was enthusiastically pushing an ultra-right wing book, and I called him a Republican. You guys let freepers get away with waaay too much on DU. But you deleted some of those messages too, and suspended my account.

I think it might be more appropriate to call yourselves DLC Underground. Either that, or just take away the word ‘Underground’ from your name.

The underground of the democratic party is belongs to those of us who refuse to respect religious fundamentalism and show little patience for DLC Democrats.