Saturday, February 18, 2006

RUMSFELD ADMITS LOSING WAR

In the battle of wits...we don't have the weapons!

Washinton (WPI) - In a bizarre admission Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld yesterday admitted that the US had bungled the prosecution of the War in Iraq. Admitting that the US is losing to al Qaeda and other enemies in, "getting out information in the digital media age," he admitted that the “propaganda war” had failed.

The ramp-up to the war was perfect,” Rumsfeld said, “We developed our information carefully and precisely. We rolled it out, first to US citizens then to the world, on a carefully prepared schedule. We employed the right talent- who can forget the performance by Colon Powell at the UN- and stayed on message. We achieved both “reach,” and “frequency.” Advertising terms for measuring the potential for effectiveness in message delivery to a target audience.

We sold the product but now, we’ve let the competition eat our lunch!”

Rumsfled was ruminating on American propaganda exploits in a joint meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations, advertising executives and US Public Affairs Officers from various branches of intelligence and the military.

The Secretary bemoaned the terribly antiquated methods and equipment at the US disposal. He claimed that American is, “Badly outgunned on the media battlefield. Al Qaeda and our other enemies have many times the high-tech ordinance needed to prosecute this complicated war.”

Rumsfeld called for millions more to be allocated for the distribution of, “e-mail, Blackberries, instant messaging, digital cameras and Web logs, or blogs.”


We actually have procurement officers who don’t know where to buy these ‘blogs!'” Rumsfeld exclaimed, gesturing wildly with his hands in a struggle to communicate these complicated issues.

"Modernization is crucial to winning the hearts and minds of Muslims worldwide who are bombarded with negative images of the West bombarding them," Rumsfeld claimed.

"Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but ... our country has not adapted," Rumsfeld sighed.

Seemingly to lighten the mood Rumsfeld asserted, "For the most part, the U.S. government still functions as a 'five and dime' store in an eBay world," referring to old-fashioned U.S. retail stores and the online auction house, respectively. Many in the audience appeared confused.

“A lot is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. A lot of ‘negativity’ has been generated by this prison stuff and the accidental rocket attacks. It is being quickly exploited by the enemy. When Al Jeezeera plays a slide show of American servicemen torturing every prisoner at Gitmo, then we must respond immediately with graphic images of something evil that Saddam Hussein did! It’s only fair. What's right is right. We need to counter their negative images with images of the evil we are fighting!” Rumsfeld argued.

He claimed that, "The military's information offices still operate mostly eight hours a day, five or six days a week while the challenges they faces occur 24 hours a day, seven days a week." Rumsfeld called that a "dangerous deficiency."

Only the Fox Network is doing its job properly,” Rumsfeld asserted. “What’s the matter with the rest of you?”

Lamenting the past superiority of US propaganda forces he said, "I just wish we were as effective today as we were when we started the war. I just don’t know what the difference is.”

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