Sunday, November 27, 2005

MANIPULATED PERCEPTION

There's a very interesting article in Rolling Stone magazine by James Bamford. He outlines how we were manipulated into believing in this war.

In the article he claims that Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri a 43 year old Iraqi who had fled his homeland in Kurdistan and was now determined to bring down Sadaam Hussein. They had him on a lie detector and were asking him questions in relation to hidden weapons of mass destruction. He gave locations such as subterranean wells, in private villas and even under the Sadaam Hussein Hotel. This was just the stuff the Bush administration needed to justify the war. But there was a little problem. According to the lie detector it was all a lie.

This is where the main character in this story comes into play -- John Rendon, who in his own words said; "I am a politician, a person who uses communication to meet public-policy or corporate-policy objectives. In fact, I am an information warrior and a perception manager." He explained his philosophy in the words of Hunter S. Thompson, when he wrote, 'When things turn weird, the weird turn pro.'

An analogy brought up in the article it said. "It was as if John F. Kennedy had outsourced the Bay of Pigs operation to the advertising and public-relations firm of J. Walter Thompson.

According to Francis Brooke, the Iraqi National Congress (INC) 's man in WEashington and himself a former Rendon employee, the goal of the al-Haideri operation was simple: pressure the United States to attack Iraq and overthrow Sadaam Hussein.

This is an extremely interesting article, click on link to read full text.

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