# Isn't this a stupid thing for the US to do? \[Secretly paying for Iraqi press stories\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 30, 2005, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-this-a-stupid-thing-for-the-us-to-do-secretly-paying-for-iraqi-press-stories/333422 "2005-11-30T18:49:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Frostillicus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Frostillicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frostillicus)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2005, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-this-a-stupid-thing-for-the-us-to-do-secretly-paying-for-iraqi-press-stories/333422/21 "2005-12-01T03:12:33Z")
\*\*Isn’t this a stupid thing for the US to do? [Secretly paying for Iraqi press stories] \*\* Only if we get caught. Oops! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2005, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-this-a-stupid-thing-for-the-us-to-do-secretly-paying-for-iraqi-press-stories/333422/22 "2005-12-01T03:49:32Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Cite? For instance, what’s the current rate of unemployment? Can Iraqis (living in one of the world’s major oil-producing countries) now buy gasoline without waiting line for hours? Can most of them get clean water? A reliable supply of food? Health care? Of course we can find a favorable cite. It will have been written by the U.S. drones. Which was fed to the iraqi newspapers and picked up by places like FOX news as examples of all the wonderful things we are doing in country. Was it yesterday or the day before that Rumsfeldt was praising the honest press of Iraq? Which novel was it where war was peace and truth was a lie? ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2005, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-this-a-stupid-thing-for-the-us-to-do-secretly-paying-for-iraqi-press-stories/333422/23 "2005-12-01T12:23:19Z")
> [@TV time](#): > > Of course we can find a favorable cite. It will have been written by the U.S. drones. Which was fed to the iraqi newspapers and picked up by places like FOX news as examples of all the wonderful things we are doing in country. > > Was it yesterday or the day before that Rumsfeldt was praising the honest press of Iraq? > > Which novel was it where war was peace and truth was a lie? Well at least we now know that we can treat any cite of good news that does not come direct from a reputable source, preferable a reporter on the ground, as bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2005, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-this-a-stupid-thing-for-the-us-to-do-secretly-paying-for-iraqi-press-stories/333422/24 "2005-12-01T12:37:38Z")
> [@smiling bandit](#): > > Guys (and gals), this is pretty much SOP miliary propaganda. Not really different than similar work in WWI, II, Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, etc. Heck, right now it’s not really that far from SOP for everyday ad companies or special interest groups. Many stories these days are written by some political group and quietly handed out to reporters. Agreed. I am surprised that people are surprised. And it isn’t stupid…it WORKS!!..Unless you get caught. But fewer people will read _that_ than the good ‘news’. In 3 years it will be forgotten and everyone will fall for the same propaganda traps again. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2005, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-this-a-stupid-thing-for-the-us-to-do-secretly-paying-for-iraqi-press-stories/333422/25 "2005-12-01T14:16:59Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > Agreed. > > I am surprised that people are surprised. > > And it isn’t stupid…it WORKS!!..Unless you get caught. > But fewer people will read _that_ than the good ‘news’. > In 3 years it will be forgotten and everyone will fall for the same propaganda traps again. You could very well be right. Similar to the “big lie” technique, in time people will cite the “good things that happened last time” as justification for another such adventure and it will work. People will refuse to believe that the good news was planted, “after all _some_ of it must have been true.” ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2005, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-this-a-stupid-thing-for-the-us-to-do-secretly-paying-for-iraqi-press-stories/333422/26 "2005-12-01T15:07:45Z")
> [@](#): > > by **David Simmons** > And we have to pay the people who are the recipients of these better things to say so? There isn’t exactly a strong tradition of independant reporting in Iraq. Heck, there isn’t any tradition of independant reporting in Iraq. Just being factually correct is a huge step up. > [@](#): > > by **Brainglutton** > I’ve read a lot of stories painting a really horrible picture of a totally dysfunctional society and a hopelessly crippled economy, but those stories are, IIRC, at least several months out of date. There are problems; many of them (you don’t rebuild an economy ruined over 20 years in 2. It’s certainly not up to U.S. standards. But things are getting better. Even small things, like new cars and cellphones, are becoming common. Electricity is coming back online. In most areas, attacks are rare (being confined mostly to one corridor of Iraq). A variety of sources confirms that progress is being made. [http://usinfo.state.gov/mena/Archive/2004/Nov/29-55405.html](http://usinfo.state.gov/mena/Archive/2004/Nov/29-55405.html) > **[In a Sign of Optimism, Iraqis Spending More](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-nov-02-fg-eid2-story.html)** > > Many merchants report better business leading up to the Eid holiday, but Sunni Arabs are mostly pessimistic. Inflation is a concern. [http://www.iraqfoundation.org/reports/pol/2005/sr138.pdf](http://www.iraqfoundation.org/reports/pol/2005/sr138.pdf) And the legislature is certainly working on the problem. [http://foreign.senate.gov/hearings/2005/hrg050720a.html](http://foreign.senate.gov/hearings/2005/hrg050720a.html) Off the top of my head, the power systems are back up and running to prewar levels and are being expanded, oil production is rising (though crude prices aren’t as high as they were this summer), the government is getting many new applications for construction licenses, and they’re refilling some of the old marshes which Saddam drained in a hissy fit. That’s no small feat. No, the real problem in Iraq is not economic, or even the foreign guerrillas and terrorists, but that it isn’t a nation in the sense we might think of. The Iraqis may choose to stay together, but there’s a lot of bad blood (and the Sunnis even now are often willfully ignorant about the fact they profited personally from stomping on the rest of Iraq). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2005, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-this-a-stupid-thing-for-the-us-to-do-secretly-paying-for-iraqi-press-stories/333422/27 "2005-12-01T16:03:13Z")
> [@smiling bandit](#): > > There are problems; many of them (you don’t rebuild an economy ruined over 20 years in 2. I think you might be putting too much on Hussein. He wasted a lot of his country’s resources on pointless wars, but otherwise, I get the impression (no cite) that Iraq, at the time of the first Gulf War, was a richer country than it had been when Hussein came to power. > [@smiling bandit](#): > > The Iraqis may choose to stay together, but there’s a lot of bad blood (and the Sunnis even now are often willfully ignorant about the fact they profited personally from stomping on the rest of Iraq). Not only that but – I think a Doper in an Iraq-related thread provided a cite on this – the Sunnis are willfully ignorant about the fact that they constitute a numerical minority in the country. They think they’re the **majority.** Thus, any electoral result that does not put them in control seems a perversion of reality, to them. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2005, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-this-a-stupid-thing-for-the-us-to-do-secretly-paying-for-iraqi-press-stories/333422/28 "2005-12-01T16:10:18Z")
> [@smiling bandit](#): > > There isn’t exactly a strong tradition of independant reporting in Iraq. Heck, there isn’t any tradition of independant reporting in Iraq. Just being factually correct is a huge step up. > > There are problems; many of them (you don’t rebuild an economy ruined over 20 years in 2. It’s certainly not up to U.S. standards. But things are getting better. Even small things, like new cars and cellphones, are becoming common. Electricity is coming back online. In most areas, attacks are rare (being confined mostly to one corridor of Iraq). > > A variety of sources confirms that progress is being made. > > [http://usinfo.state.gov/mena/Archive/2004/Nov/29-55405.html](http://usinfo.state.gov/mena/Archive/2004/Nov/29-55405.html) > > [http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-eid2nov02,1,348679.story?coll=la-news-a\_section&ctrack=1&cset=true](http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-eid2nov02,1,348679.story?coll=la-news-a_section&ctrack=1&cset=true) > > [http://www.iraqfoundation.org/reports/pol/2005/sr138.pdf](http://www.iraqfoundation.org/reports/pol/2005/sr138.pdf) > > And the legislature is certainly working on the problem. > > [http://foreign.senate.gov/hearings/2005/hrg050720a.html](http://foreign.senate.gov/hearings/2005/hrg050720a.html) > > Off the top of my head, the power systems are back up and running to prewar levels and are being expanded, oil production is rising (though crude prices aren’t as high as they were this summer), the government is getting many new applications for construction licenses, and they’re refilling some of the old marshes which Saddam drained in a hissy fit. That’s no small feat. > No, the real problem in Iraq is not economic, or even the foreign guerrillas and terrorists, but that it isn’t a nation in the sense we might think of. The Iraqis may choose to stay together, but there’s a lot of bad blood (and the Sunnis even now are often willfully ignorant about the fact they profited personally from stomping on the rest of Iraq). And my point was that the US is paying for the planting of good news. The poor security in Iraq means that journalists aren’t really free to thoroughly investigate claims about how things are there. So how do we know that these cites aren’t ultimately derived from faulty sources? ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2005, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-this-a-stupid-thing-for-the-us-to-do-secretly-paying-for-iraqi-press-stories/333422/29 "2005-12-01T21:40:56Z")
But things are pretty OK in most of the country. Shi’a and Kurd territory is pretty peaceful, and that comprises most of the country. Sunni territory, including Bagdad, is the problem. I will hapily agree that it has had little economic success. I do agree it was potentially foolish, but not that it was unusual or particularly stupid. It is, if anything, simply an old tactic that has been rendered less adequate given modern information dominance. But promoting somewhat biased articles is not something I’m going to get freaky over. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-this-a-stupid-thing-for-the-us-to-do-secretly-paying-for-iraqi-press-stories/333422.md?page=1)