Myth Management

Billmon writes about the Pentagon's latest batch of BS about the alleged Zarqawi, alleged leader of the alleged al Qaeda in Iraq. Here's how they translated one of the supposed AQ in Iraq documents:

The actions of the Iraqi Security Forces are having a significant negative impact on the Mujahideen’s ability to operate in Baghdad. Al Qaida in Iraq attacks Mosques and other public places to draw media attention and is having difficulty recruiting members because the people of Iraq do not support its cause.

That's just like terrorist fanatics, isn't it? Confess to your crimes, admit that no one agrees with you, and that everything the enemy is doing is working.

The "captured" AQ materials included the videotapes of alleged Zarqawi in tenny shoes not knowing how to use a rifle, and other inanities. We already know that the Pentagon has used "selective leaks" to make AQ in Iraq and Zarqawi seem much more important than they really are. Now, they once again use the long-running technique of putting words in the "terrorists'" mouths about how effective US policy has been in making their (the "terrorists") lives difficult.

Billmon points out that even the lapdog media is no longer falling, at least completely, for this crap. The only ones left lapping it up are the right-wingnut bloggers:

For the pro-regime bitter enders (ours) this is a forlorn flash of light in a sky that otherwise seems to be rapidly darkening towards Das Gotterdammerung -- or a Democratic Congress, which is even worse. So of course they're all talking about the story, in much the same way that ultra conservatives of another era and a different country once spoke of miracle weapons.
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You'd think that for the money the Pentagon is shelling out for this crap, they could come up with something more believable than Salafist jihadis who praise democracy and refer to themselves (again, according to Centcom, in a direct quote) as: "groups of assassins without any organized military capabilities." I mean, please.

Then again, the stuff's apparently good enough to keep the diehards chattering away about final victory, even though the biggest problem facing Operation Iraqi Fiasco isn't al-Zarqawi and his band of religious lunatics, but the fact that everybody in the freaking country now hates the other modules.