The Underground Conservative

The MSM succeeded in getting Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff–the highest ranking military man in the U.S. military (remember, he’s outranked by SECDEF and CINC/POTUS)–to admit that he thinks the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay should be closed.

Asked why he thinks Gitmo should be closed, Admiral Mullen says: “I believe that from the standpoint of how it reflects on us that it’s been pretty damaging.”

Not mentioned by the MSM, nor presumably known by Admiral Mullen–nor by millions of Americans–is the reason why Gitmo has been “pretty damaging” to our image around the world, as stated in testimony before a Senate subcommittee by Debra Burlingame, former lawyer and sister to a 9/11 victim:

As I wrote in the Wall Street Journal, the Kuwaiti 12 case is a primer on the anatomy of a guerilla PR offensive, packaged and sold to the public as a fight for the “rule of law” and “America’s core principles.” Begin with flimsy information, generate stories that are spun from uncorroborated double or triple hearsay uttered by interested parties that are hard to confirm from halfway around the world. Feed the phonied-up stories to friendly media who write credulous reports and emotional human interest features, post them on a Web site where they will then be read and used as sources by other lazy (or busy) media from all over the world. In short, create one giant echo chamber.

The Wall Street Journal article mentioned by Ms. Burlingame goes into greater detail about the public relations campaign run on behalf of the Gitmo prisoners by high-priced PR firms in the US. It is an eye-opener, to say the least.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 13th, 2008 at 9:50 pm and is filed under Middle East, War on Terror, Media, Politics, Military, Current Affairs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.