"Biggest" Air Attack in Iraq Turns Out to be Bush PR Stunt

Why bother spending billions of dollars on big corporate mainstream media reporters when they could just as easily have the Pentagon supply the stories and footage directly?

They already do in most cases.

Take the breathlessly "covered" air attack in Iraq. "Largest Air Attack in Iraq War Launched Against Insurgents," read one big city headline we saw. And television was right there, providing lead stories on the massive "air attack."

Only, of course, it turned out to be a PR stunt to boost Bush's poll ratings at home and divert attention from the civil war in Iraq, as if the U.S. presence was accomplishing something.

It turned out that this air blitz was just a bunch of helicopters that flew up to a pretty sparsely populated area, where 40 poor shlubs that happened to be around were detained. There was no shooting, no injuries, no deaths. It was all just show time.

But did the mainstream media expose the stunt? Are you kidding? They just dutifully reported it as if it were some vital military strategic assault.

Soviet propaganda fulfilled the same function as "reporting" like this. The mainstream press has been lobotomized by a corporate culture that doesn't want to "upset" the administration by practicing actual journalism.

Most television news and print coverage fulfill the same role as public relations agencies for the administration, with some exceptions for whistleblowing stories that are shoved in the media's face.

But the "massive air attack" fell into the former category. The mainstream media might as well have had the Pentagon press office or Karl Rove's shop writing their material. Maybe they did.