Mind Games: Army Stage-Managed Fall of Hussein Statue

I had a debate this weekend about the toppling of Saddam’s statue. My friend 100% refused to believe that this event was staged propaganda. Here are my sources: an article from the LA Times and pictures of the mostly empty square during the toppling.

Published on Saturday, July 3, 2004 by the Los Angeles Times Army Stage-Managed Fall of Hussein Statue

“… The Army’s internal study of the war in Iraq criticizes some efforts by its own psychological operations units, but one spur-of-the-moment effort last year produced the most memorable image of the invasion.

As the Iraqi regime was collapsing on April 9, 2003, Marines converged on Firdos Square in central Baghdad, site of an enormous statue of Saddam Hussein. It was a Marine colonel ? not joyous Iraqi civilians, as was widely assumed from the TV images ? who decided to topple the statue, the Army report said. And it was a quick-thinking Army psychological operations team that made it appear to be a spontaneous Iraqi undertaking. After the colonel ? who was not named in the report ? selected the statue as a “target of opportunity,” the psychological team used loudspeakers to encourage Iraqi civilians to assist, according to an account by a unit member.”

… Ultimately, a Marine recovery vehicle toppled the statue with a chain, but the effort appeared to be Iraqi-inspired because the psychological team had managed to pack the vehicle with cheering Iraqi children.

There is photo evidence that one image of this event which was seen by over 400,000 Americans was doctored to fake a crowd by copying the same few people into the picture in different places. Click thumbnails for photos of the statue toppling.

So, yes, psyops is real. Our military does mind game stuff. Are these thought weapons of ours currently used for political ends against our own US civilian population? Perhaps. One possibility is that fear based propaganda is being used to get us to pay for endless war. Although distateful, I understand the need for some of this type of thing in the big picture to protect our interests. I think it explains some UFO mysteries, in fact.

When behavior-changing lies are used resulting in the loss of citizen’s Constitutional rights our military is supposed to be protecting, however, then something has gone wrong with the system. Where are the checks and balances?

Okay, anyway… The acutal odds of any American dying from a terror attack are close to zero, at present. Would you give up your Constitutional rights in hopes of avoiding death by lightening which is 983 times more likely to kill you than a terrorist? Yes, there are real terrorists. There are also real sharks. Neither is statistically much of a threat, even after 9/11.

” In fact, your chance of being killed by a falling vending machine, (yes, a vending machine) is more than double that of being killed by a terrorist!” – ws

Snakes on a Plane, the Sequel

If they make a sequel to Snakes on a Plane, they should use only two headed snakes. Photo from article on MSNBC.

Snakes on a Plane

I saw Snakes on a Plane last night (Friday ). Here are my friends who got dressed up as pilots and flight attendants … with plenty of rubber snakes! This was a pretty gross and funny movie.

Greetings from scenic Xena

OUR SOLAR SYSTEM turns out to be a whole lot messier than we once thought.

For generations, schoolchildren were taught that the sun had precisely nine planets revolving around it. Anyone who could memorize the phrase “My Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets ” could (maybe) remember their names.

But reality is more complex. And this week, a committee of the International Astronomical Union defined “planet” in a way that would take in three more heavenly bodies. Earthlings, meet Ceres, Charon, and Xena.

According to the panel, a planet is any spherical object that orbits the sun and has a diameter of roughly 250 to 500 miles or larger. If the astronomical union adopts that proposal, it’s bound to cause a stir in the general public. Being told that there are 12 planets in the solar system rather than nine is like finding out that your own home has a few more rooms that you’d somehow overlooked. Once you get past the cognitive dissonance, it’s interesting to contemplate what you might do with all the extra space. … in the last several years, astronomers have discovered plenty of new real estate in the outskirts of the solar system.

One such object is Xena, first observed in 2003 and named unofficially for the television character played by Lucy Lawless. (Let’s hope that the name sticks.) Under the committee’s new definition, it supplants Pluto as the most distant planet in the solar system. – boston