The Seven Deadly Spins: Exposing the Lies Behind U.S. War Propaganda

BOOK REVIEW The Seven Deadly Spins: Exposing the Lies Behind U.S. War Propaganda By Mickey Z Common Courage Press Monroe, Maine USA, 2004 www.mickeyz.net Reviewed by Ken Setter

The myth makers would have us believe America is akin to a sleeping giant, benign and happily minding its own business, yet when awakened by surprise events and unprovoked hostilities, is ready to defend democracy, freedom and justice. The giant, always alert, slumbers with one eye open, in order to defend freedom he has developed smart technologies and billion-dollar weapons that can, by some modern day magic, differentiate between the guilty and the innocent.

So, who would be dumb enough to offend the benevolent giant?

Why the Godless communists, the Japanese, those sub human, gooks, chinks, butchers, terrorists, the evildoers, and, of course, the next Hitler. At such times all American’s are expected to rally around the flag, even when the giant plays a little rough. Final victory comes when the evildoers are brought to justice before war crime tribunals for doing all those ‘nasty things’ America would never do.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Mickey Z’s latest book The Seven Deadly Spins, exposes the myth.

This is a book full of quotable quotes, facts, and references. The reader can open at any page with confidence of being informed, educated and armed with enough information to fend off the most ferocious talk back host. It is a most useful handbook for anyone trying to separate truth from propaganda. In today’s parlance, he joins the dots.

Who is this sleeping giant?

He won’t be found among the 25% of Americans who go to bed hungry each night; he doesn’t live in a trailer home. He will not be among the elderly, whose only medical care comes from being an experimental subject for a drug company and he will not need to join the military to get and education.

In a recent interview Mickey put it this way; ‘its not any individual or political party, it’s institutional. Call it "corporate America" if you like, but we're talking about an entrenched global financial system unburdened by national borders or allegiances. Bush may be the public face of this predatory paradigm for the next four years, but he is as interchangeable as any corporate CEO. Sorry to mix metaphors here, but he's gotta keep those shareholders and board of directors happy.’

Giants have bumper stickers that read Happiness is a Golden Egg

The Golden Egg keeps Corporate America happy. As the song says

There’s plenty of money to be made

Selling arms is good for trade

Making plenty profits, drop the bomb

So much of Corporate America is mixed with the military budget that the American economy more closely resembles a form of ‘National Socialism’ than the free market. For Corporate America, peace is not an option. It operates as a government within a government, visible yet unseen. It rules through myth, spin, propaganda, and entertainment, so supple we have been coned into paying for our own brainwashing.

Here is an example how the spin works.

During the first Gulf War a distressed 15‑year‑old Kuwaiti "refugee" named Nayirah captured the hearts of millions as she informed her worldwide TV audience that Iraqi troops were stealing incubators from hospitals; 312 babies had been left on the cold floor to die. Tearfully she told of working as a volunteer in a Kuwait hospital and witnessing these barbaric acts. 

Outraged we ask ourselves, ‘what kind of people do such things?’

But it was all lies, Nayirah's testimony was false. She had never worked as a volunteer at a Kuwaiti hospital; she had never left Washington, she never witnessed any such atrocity. She was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador in Washington. 

Lies on such a scale do not flow naturally from the mouths of 15 year old girls. They were part of a well-orchestrated $10 million propaganda campaign, managed by the American public relations firm Hill & Knowlton, and funded by the Government of Kuwait.

In time the lies were exposed "We didn't know it wasn't true at the time," said Brent Scowcroft, President George H.W Bush's national security adviser. But, he admitted, “it was useful in mobilizing public opinion”

Considering the closeness of the PR industry and the US Government, who’s kidding who?

"One of the striking features of war in the 21^st century has been the degree to which it has become closely integrated with sophisticated public relations, to the degree that military strategy itself has been transformed,"

As a result a whole new Orwellian language has developed by both business and the military. For propaganda reasons war has been redefined, cleansed and sanitized by using a new terminology. War becomes a 'police action' or 'limited engagement. 'The dead have become 'casualties’, 'missing in action,' or the result of 'collateral damage' and 'friendly fire.’ The military ever mindful of public sensitivity to dead Americans refined its terms. ‘Coffins’, became ‘body bags,’ later changed to ‘human remains pouches’ the latest mutation is  ‘transfer pouches.’ A child who suffers horrendous injuries is deemed to have experienced an   ‘adverse impact.’

Decades of conditioning have had the cumulative effect of facilitating this new terminology ... and despite the current "war on terror" facade, the media is full of false claims about the presence of non-existent weapons of mass destruction. A heady mixture of lies, distortion and abusive conversations the preferred formula for the media cable networks.

Sometimes it was an outright official fabrication. At other times, government officials would deliberately not correct a lie gaining currency in the street. There were unofficial leaks and stories planted on background. Finally, there were black operations, where false documents may have been forged in elaborate schemes to smear and deceive.

Specialists Public Relations Corporations such as Hill & Knowlton and The Rendon Group have become the ‘shock troops’ for the Bush administrations ‘war on terror’. John Rendon, is a self‑described 'Information warrior" who has worked on Iraq‑related issues for clients including the Pentagon and CIA. He was instrumental in setting up the Iraqi National Congress in 1992, securing the channelling of $12 million from the CIA to the group between 1992 and 1996. As a time-tested warrior the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence naturally retained Rendon for the invasion of Iraq.

Speaking at a July 2003 conference in London about the propaganda effort around the invasion. John Rendon praised the embedding of journalists as a great idea that worked according to plan. It was the war version of reality television, and for the most part, they did not lose control of the story." What few mistakes were made’, he noted, ‘have to be fixed before the next war.’ With such forward thinking is it any wonder the Pentagon paid him $397,000 for just four‑month work to make the military look good during the bombing Afghanistan.

However the resourceful Spin-doctors are they do not have it all their own way, there are always some eyewitnesses with courage and humanity to reveal the truth. These are the words of Paul Sullivan a combat veteran from Operation Desert Storm who went on to create the National Gulf War Resource Center.