CT Blue

Further proof that Bushco considers Orwell’s 1984 a How-To book.

Yesterday, I read this post on Josh Marshall’s site, in which he showcased a comment that noted the fact that the people fighting us in Iraq are now being called Al Qaeda by the media. In this morning’s Times the observation is borne out:

The operational commander of troops battling to drive fighters with Al Qaeda from Baquba said Friday that 80 percent of the top Qaeda leaders in the city fled before the American-led offensive began earlier this week. He compared their flight with the escape of Qaeda leaders from Falluja ahead of an American offensive that recaptured that city in 2004. (Emphasis added)

I have a nifty little program, in which I store newspaper articles and other things of interest in various electronic notebooks. I spent a little time today to verify my recollection, which coincided with the commenter’s, that the folks in Falluja were not identified as members of Al Qaeda in 2004. As an example there was this article in the Washington Post, in which a Fallujah resident expressed support for the fighters:

Karim speaks fondly of the insurgents, many of whom are Fallujans themselves, saying they were defending the city against non-Muslim troops

Some might remember that what is now Al Qaeda was known once as “insurgents”. In fact, there is a group in Iraq that has called itself Al Qaeda is Iraq. However, as Billmon, reporting on a lecture by Juan Cole in 2005 remarked:

Juan Cole doesn’t claim that Zarqawi and his group are complete fictions, although the “Al Qaeda in Iraq” label appears to be a flagrant violation of Bin Ladin’s intellectual property rights, possibly perpetuated by some Internet wannabes who don’t have any connection to either crew. But Cole does make the case that the strength and influence of “foreign fighters” in Iraq has been even more exaggerated than I assumed, and that the key underground networks sustaining the insurgency are all probably run by remnants of the old Ba’ath security services.

I’m not going to try to document this anymore, because for anyone actually following what’s been going on in Iraq, this is old news. What is new news is the decision on the part of someone (Karl, are you there?) to start calling one party in the Iraq civil war Al Qaeda. One would think that we would want to avoid giving Osama more credit than he’s due, but as was observed in another context, everything these Mayberry Machiavellis do is done with an eye toward domestic political consumption. If Osama’s reputation is unnecessarily burnished, then that’s just collateral damage hardly worth a thought. What’s important is that we ratchet up fear at home and attempt, by any means possible, to buttress the idea that we are fighting them there to avoid fighting them here and to reintroduce or reinforce the idea that the war in Iraq is connected to the “global war on terror”.

What’s distressing, of course, is that the media has accepted this terminology without breaking stride. Nothing in the article appears to question the use of the term. Once again, despite its editorial policy, the Times is the willing enabler of Administration policy and propaganda.

Update: This subject is treated exhaustively be Glenn Greenwald here.