by Gary Sudborough
Tuesday, Mar. 18, 2003 at 5:12 PM
IconoclastGS@aol.com
The great utility of repetition as a propaganda tool and my small effort to use it in a truthful manner back at the warmongers
Every advertising executive knows that repetition is a key factor in influencing people's minds. Government propagandists know this fact also. How many times do they repeat that Iraq is in violation of UN resolution 1441 and needs to disarm? How many times do they repeat the phrase weapons of mass destruction in an attempt to instill fear in the American people?
Concerning UN resolutions, Israel is in violation of many of them dating back to the 1967 war and the occupation of Arab land. Turkey is in violation of several resolutions for its military occupation of part of Cyprus, and Morocco is in violation of another UN resolution for its invasion of Western Sahara. The United States is not threatening war against Israel, Turkey or Morocco for these violations. It is selectively choosing to focus on Iraq. Why? Here is the truthful word which the corporate media are afraid to speak, but that should be repeated over and over-oil, oil, oil!
Israel, Pakistan and India have weapons of mass destruction and are led by governments which have records of gross human rights violations. The United States is not bribing and coercing countries all over the world to join in a coalition to invade Israel, Pakistan or India. Why? Like an advertiser, I am going to repeat the magic word-oil, oil, oil!
President George W. Bush in his recent television address continually stated that Saddam Hussein and Iraq were a danger to the American people. Conservative commentators and the Bush administration constantly compare Iraq with Nazi Germany and say that dictators can't be appeased. If Iraq had anywhere near the military power of Nazi Germany, the American destroyers and aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea and Persian Gulf would be in grave danger of ending up on the bottom of the sea due to submarine or air attack. Anyone who believes that a weak Third World country like Iraq, whose industrial capacity has been bombed into oblivion and is subject to an embargo, inspections and continual air bombardment, is a military threat to the greatest superpower ever to exist on Earth should see their psychiatrist and get some medication. They are definitely living in fantasy land. The fact that some Americans can be made to believe such illogical baloney illustrates the great power of repetition.
The real danger to the American people are imperialists like those in the Bush administration, who would spend billions of dollars (better spent on health care, education and other human needs) for war and shed the blood of young Americans for the profits of the oil companies and those corporations producing weapons in order to enlarge an American empire, which will suck wealth out of this country for generations and lead to untold suffering here and abroad.