People may recall how leading up to the war against iraq, there were stories of saddam feet shredders, this sent a collective shudder thru the gullible masses, who trust their media would never lie, and so helped launch the war. The same tactics are evident in the war against Zimbabwe

FYI on the saddam feet shredder story…pity it was investigated to late to prevent > 1 million people being killed by the ‘Democracy (regd TM) Promoters’:

‘In the buildup to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein had created new torture methods and he used industrial shredding machines to do away with his enemies. The leading supporter of this allegation was British Labour MP Ann Clwyd. On March 18, 2003, days before the military actions began, the British newspaper The Times ran an article written by her that was titled, “See men shredded, then you say you don’t back war.”

Three days before the invasion, Clwyd spoke in the House of Commons and described how male prisoners in Iraq were dropped into a machine “designed for shredding plastic,” and their minced remains were “placed in plastic bags” and later used as “fish food.” She alleged that sometimes, the victims were dropped in the machines feet-first so they could briefly view their own mutilation before death.

Australian Prime Minister Howard used the story to his great advantage. He supported the war and was about to send troops, despite overwhelming opposition from his public. After the story appeared in The Times, he addressed his nation and said he wanted to stop the ongoing crimes of the Ba’athist regime in Iraq including the “human shredding machine” that was used “as a vehicle for putting to death critics of Saddam Hussein.”

Others used this story for anti-Saddam fodder. Andrew Sullivan of the Sunday Times of Great Britain stated that Clwyd’s report showed “clearly, unforgettably, indelibly” that “the Saddam regime is evil.” Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips described the shredder in which “bodies got chewed up from foot to head.” In The Telegraph, Mark Steyn criticized the anti-war movement with these words:

If it’s a choice between letting some carbonated beverage crony of Dick Cheney get a piece of the Nasiriyah soft-drinks market or allowing Saddam to go on feeding his subjects feet-first into the industrial shredder for another decade or three, then the “peace” activists will take the lesser of two evils — i.e., crank up the shredder.
…
‘When Ann Clwyd was asked about her sources of information, she said that she had interviewed an Iraqi in northern Iraq. She was eventually asked who the person was and if he was telling the truth. Clwyd told journalist Brendan O’Neill of The Spectator, “We heard it from a victim; we heard it and we believed it.” When O’Neill asked her if anything was done to check the victim’s statement against other witness statements or other evidence for a shredding machine, she replied, “Well, no.”

The incidents supposedly took place at Abu Ghraib Prison, an institution made world famous by prisoner torture; torture perpetrated by the U.S. against Iraqi inmates. When all was said and done, the shredding incidents that received worldwide publicity amounted to the uncorroborated story of one person interviewed in northern Iraq. This, in itself, is hardly evidence to use to send a country to war.

O’Neill began to track down people who could either corroborate or deny the legitimacy of shredders being used to kill prisoners. He found an Iraqi doctor who worked at the hospital attached to the prison at Abu Ghraib in 1997 and 1998. The doctor’s job was to attend to those prisoners who had been executed. He told O’Neill, “We had to see the dead prisoners to make sure that they were dead. Then we would write a death certificate for them.”

This doctor refuted any stories about the shredding machines. O’Neill asked him if he ever attended or heard of prisoners who had been shredded. He replied, “No.” Then, he was asked if any of the other doctors at the prison spoke of a shredding machine used to execute prisoners. The doctor responded, “No, no, never. The method of execution was hanging; as far as I know, that was the only form of execution used at Abu Ghraib.”
etc
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=35343

The game hasn’t changed – it’s just more in your face.