Propaganda Redux

[Roscoe]

Propaganda Redux

Take it from this old KGB hand: The left is abetting America's enemies with its intemperate attacks on President Bush.

BY ION MIHAI PACEPA
Tuesday, August 7, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

(Lt. Gen. Pacepa is the highest-ranking intelligence official ever to have defected from the Soviet bloc.)

Sowing the seeds of anti-Americanism by discrediting the American president was one of the main tasks of the Soviet-bloc intelligence community during the years I worked at its top levels. This same strategy is at work today, but it is regarded as bad manners to point out the Soviet parallels. For communists, only the leader counted, no matter the country, friend or foe. At home, they deified their own ruler--as to a certain extent still holds true in Russia. Abroad, they asserted that a fish starts smelling from the head, and they did everything in their power to make the head of the Free World stink.
The communist effort to generate hatred for the American president began soon after President Truman set up NATO and propelled the three Western occupation forces to unite their zones to form a new West German nation. We were tasked to take advantage of the reawakened patriotic feelings stirring in the European countries that had been subjugated by the Nazis, in order to shift their hatred for Hitler over into hatred for Truman--the leader of the new "occupation power." Western Europe was still grateful to the U.S. for having restored its freedom, but it had strong leftist movements that we secretly financed. They were like putty in our hands.

The European leftists, like any totalitarians, needed a tangible enemy, and we gave them one. In no time they began beating their drums decrying President Truman as the "butcher of Hiroshima." We went on to spend many years and many billions of dollars disparaging subsequent presidents: Eisenhower as a war-mongering "shark" run by the military-industrial complex, Johnson as a mafia boss who had bumped off his predecessor, Nixon as a petty tyrant, Ford as a dimwitted football player and Jimmy Carter as a bumbling peanut farmer. In 1978, when I left Romania for good, the bloc intelligence community had already collected 700 million signatures on a "Yankees-Go-Home" petition, at the same time launching the slogan "Europe for the Europeans."

During the Vietnam War we spread vitriolic stories around the world, pretending that America's presidents sent Genghis Khan-style barbarian soldiers to Vietnam who raped at random, taped electrical wires to human genitals, cut off limbs, blew up bodies and razed entire villages. Those weren't facts. They were our tales, but some seven million Americans ended up being convinced their own president, not communism, was the enemy. As Yuri Andropov, who conceived this dezinformatsiya war against the U.S., used to tell me, people are more willing to believe smut than holiness.

Sound familiar? Now finish your assignment: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editor...l?id=110010438

[sllib]

Roscoe;
Amen. Anyone who thinks the international communist movement died with the USSR needs to open their eyes. And read (or reread) "1984"
Bill Stradtner

[BeanCounter]

Wow, I didn't know VRM was KGB.

[Wes Tausend]

...

There isn't much we can do about foreign newspapers. Spread nasty stories about their leadership, I guess?


...

[VRM]

Bernie, Roscoe,
Brilliant...Keep on fighting the wars of the last century. No wonder we are losing.

Bernie,
Oh, and lets hear form one of my fellow KGB conspirators, Brent Scowcroft. http://www.opinionjournal.com/editor...l?id=110002133

If you are so conservative, then why is what Scowcroft says wrong? Don't you value loyalty over competence? I guess Scowcroft must have stepped out of line by accurately predicting exactly what was going to happen. Not that you neocon types have ever let the truth get in the way of your reality.

Oh, and if you are still terrified of commies - maybe you should worry more about China than Russia. The Chinese playu a much better game than the Russians do.

Steve

[BeanCounter]

Steve,

I'm not worried about the commies. I'm more worried about people like YOU. The ones who are destroying this country from the inside. You just don't get it do you? By the way, what rank did you hold in the KGB?

And when are you and Obama invading Pakistan to get Osama?

Bernie

[Roscoe]

VMR,

Ahhh....WHAT?

[VRM]

Hey Bernie and Roscoe,

Why don't you try telling me why Scowcroft is wrong instead?

Steve

[BeanCounter]

Ah, Steve, if you can't figure out that the "wars of the last century" was only 8 years ago then I fully understand why you can't figure out anything else.

What was it PeeWee said? "I know you are but what am I?"

[VRM]

Originally Posted by BeanCounter

Ah, Steve, if you can't figure out that the "wars of the last century" was only 8 years ago then I fully understand why you can't figure out anything else.

What was it PeeWee said? "I know you are but what am I?"

Whats wrong Bernie? Can't actually defend your position with a real argument so you have to resort to your comment above?

Oh, and technically, the last centuries wars would be anything from 1900 to 1999, and not just 8 years ago. I hope that is not what they taught you in CPA school.

Steve