Another Casualty in Rumsfeld’s Information War
by Mike Whitney
www.dissidentvoice.org
July 18, 2005



 

Another chapter was added to Donald Rumsfeld’s booklet of “Information warfare” on Saturday when blogger Khalid Jarrar was picked up by Iraqi Secret Service (Mukhabarat) agents and taken to an undisclosed location. Jarrar has not been formally charged with a crime, but he is author of a popular blog, Tell Me a Secret, that provides valuable information to people outside of Iraq who are curious to know the real details of the ongoing crisis.

In Iraq today the truth itself is in the crosshairs. Any bit of information that is not processed through the “embedded” media filter is considered a threat to the continuing occupation. The most recent example of this was the premeditated execution of Knight-Ridder reporter Yasser Salihee, who was assassinated in a perfectly timed gangland-style hit a few miles from his Baghdad home. He was struck by a single bullet to the head by an American sniper. (He leaves a 6-month-old baby daughter behind) Salihee’s murder resulted from his extensive coverage of the torture and murder of “suspected insurgents” by US-backed death-squads (see “The Rumsfeld Solution: Liberating Iraq, One Journalist at a Time,” Dissident Voice).

The arrest of Jarrar expands Rumsfeld’s information war beyond the conventional parameters of the mainstream press to even minor players whose views are incompatible with the objectives of subjugation and “iron-fisted” American rule. His detention is a clear message to independent journalists whose perspective has not yet been corrupted by the coercive influence of the Pentagon. (Are you listening Dahr Jamail?) It is a signal to one and all that the war on terror has become an open conflagration against both free speech and the truth itself.

The curtains are being pulled over Iraq one blogger at a time, so that the atrocities of the occupier can be perpetrated with complete impunity. When Jarrar was hastily trundled off to prison, we lost a vital set of eyes to chronicle the horrors of Bush’s “preemptive” war and the ensuing suffering of the Iraqi people. Who will fill his shoes?

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state, and can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com.

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Other Articles by Mike Whitney

* Genesis of an American Gestapo
* Bush's Orgy of Carnage
* Goodbye to Sandra Day O’ Connor . . . and Good Riddance
* The Rumsfeld Solution: “Liberating Iraq, One Journalist at a Time”
* Show Your Independence on the 4th -- Burn a Flag
* "Up in Smoke": Bush Flops in Prime Time
* More Rumsfeld Lies About Insurgent Meetings
* Incinerating Iraqis: The Napalm Cover-Up
* Guantanamo: The New-World Icon
* The Bush Radio Address: More Delusional Blather While Iraq Bleeds
* The Friedman Solution: Reinstate the Draft
* Body Slamming the 4th Amendment
* Operation Desperation: Rumsfeld’s Baghdad Fiasco
* The EU Constitution: Don’t Believe the BS
* Protecting the Plutocrats
* What Was Laura Bush Doing at the Al Aqsa Mosque?
* Free Jose Padilla!
* Alberto Gonzales’ Kristallnacht: Purges for a Safer America
* Tom Friedman: The Imperial Chronicler
* Gods, Gays, and George Bernard Shaw
* A Tentative Strategy for Ending the War
* The Specter of Violence in America
* Free Speech in the Crosshairs
* Why America Needs to be Defeated in Iraq
* More Madness at the Bush News Conference
* Ratzinger’s Plan to Hide the Pedophiles
* Let’s Let Atheists Back into Politics
* Pope Ratzinger: More “Pie-in-the-Sky” for the Struggling Masses
* The Purveyors of Violence: The NY Times in Falluja
* Screw You, Paul Volker!
* Pope TV and the New World Media
* The Economic Tsunami: Sooner Than You Think
* Destroy Abu Ghraib!
* Terri Schiavo and the Battered Judiciary
* Railroading Moussaoui
* The Wolfowitz Appointment: A Red Flag for the Coming Wars
* “Economic Meltdown” -- Sorry, but We’re Toast
* John Bolton and the Road to Tehran
* Clearing the Way for the American Police State
* Challenging the Language of Violence
* Jose Padilla and the 10 Commandments
* Crushing the UN for a Stronger America
* Europe to Bush: “Hands Off Iran”?
* The Incredible Shrinking Dollar
* Assassinating Al-Hariri Fits Washington’s Plan
* Washington’s Plan to Foment Civil War in Iraq
* Condi’s Euro-Tour
* Folksy Tom Friedman and New Age Imperialism
* Government Without Consent
* The Desperate State of the Union
* Iraq’s Election Fiasco
* Boarding Up the “Window of Opportunity”
* KGB Chieftain Finds Home at Homeland Security
* Bush’s Grand Plan: Incite Civil War
* Pink Slips at CBS

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