Suspicious timing comment, American news
Feb. 15th, 2003 09:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphiasJust a thought:
The United States Military formed a Department of Disinformation, designed to feed fake news stories to foreign news organizations. They announced that they had the ability to fake all kinds of stuff.
After public outcry, they disbanded the department as a department, but kept all the abilities that they said they had.
Sec. Colin Powell makes an announcement that al-Jazeera, a Qatari TV station, has a tape with a statement from Osama bin Laden, proving a link to Iraq.
al-Jazeera says, "No, we don't -- we have no such tape."
Later, al-Jazeera says, "Hey, we just got a tape that's exactly like the one that Sec. Powell said we'd get!"
So, here's my question: given that Sec. Powell knew what was on the tape before al-Jazeera got the tape, and that Sec. Powell knew the tape was going to al-Jazeera before al-Jazeera knew they were going to get a tape, and that the United States military announced that they have the ability and the mandate to make fake tapes to give to foreign news organizations like al-Jazeera, and that Osama's words on that tape say exactly what the US wanted Osama to say, even though it's completely out of character for him and against what he had been saying previously, who made the tape?
The United States Military formed a Department of Disinformation, designed to feed fake news stories to foreign news organizations. They announced that they had the ability to fake all kinds of stuff.
After public outcry, they disbanded the department as a department, but kept all the abilities that they said they had.
Sec. Colin Powell makes an announcement that al-Jazeera, a Qatari TV station, has a tape with a statement from Osama bin Laden, proving a link to Iraq.
al-Jazeera says, "No, we don't -- we have no such tape."
Later, al-Jazeera says, "Hey, we just got a tape that's exactly like the one that Sec. Powell said we'd get!"
So, here's my question: given that Sec. Powell knew what was on the tape before al-Jazeera got the tape, and that Sec. Powell knew the tape was going to al-Jazeera before al-Jazeera knew they were going to get a tape, and that the United States military announced that they have the ability and the mandate to make fake tapes to give to foreign news organizations like al-Jazeera, and that Osama's words on that tape say exactly what the US wanted Osama to say, even though it's completely out of character for him and against what he had been saying previously, who made the tape?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-15 07:31 am (UTC)Shoot, I've suspected that we've been making those tapes ourselves since they first started appearing.
Why? Because if I were in a LARP and wanted to manipulate a whole pile of people, that's exactly what I'd do. And for that matter, I have. ("He was always right before-- now he says this happened? It must be true!")
In fact, in a certain LARP where I wanted to sieze power and wanted to look like a hero while doing it, I secretly hired an assassin (who had already assassinated somebody else in the game was was being sought by others-- I figured out who it was before anyone else found him) to take out my major ally, so I could step up in her place...
Is it any wonder I'm cynical about politics?