Paris under the Occupation, in color.
posted on Jul 12, 2008 - View this thread

The Sound of Music War
posted on Feb 2, 2008 - View this thread

"Japanese Relocation" - A short propaganda film created by the US government & the "Office of War Information - Bureau of Motion Pictures." The subject has been much discussed previously on MetaFilter. Here and here, among other threads.
posted on Jul 25, 2007 - View this thread

The "same people who attacked us on 9/11"? It may be the very latest talking point from the Administration, but it's actually true--altho it's not Al Qaeda in Iraq, but Saudis. Although Bush administration officials have frequently lashed out at Syria and Iran, accusing it of helping insurgents and militias here, the largest number of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq come from a third neighbor, Saudi Arabia ... A historical note: 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis.
posted on Jul 16, 2007 - View this thread

Al Hurra television, the U.S. government's $63 million-a-year effort at public diplomacy broadcasting in the Middle East, is run by executives and officials who cannot speak Arabic, according to a senior official who oversees the program. That might explain why critics say the service has recently been caught broadcasting terrorist messages, ... from their About US page: Alhurra is operated by non-profit corporation “The Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc.” (MBN). MBN is financed by the American people through the U.S Congress. US Govt. Accountability Office abstract about other MBN problems here.
posted on May 22, 2007 - View this thread

War vs. Democracy: Untold Stories from the Lynch / Tillman Hearing -- ...U.S. soldiers whose injuries or deaths remain mired in secrecy. Pat Tillman's brother and fellow Army Ranger Kevin Tillman advocated strongly for other families still waiting for answers. ... "The family was told, it was -- quote -- 'an ambush by insurgents.' Two years later, they found out that those -- quote -- 'insurgents' happened to be the same Iraqi troops that he was training. Before his death, he told his chain of command that these same troops that he was training were trying to kill him and his team. He was told to keep his mouth shut." ... Thorough and eye-opening examination of the many ways the military spun, lied, withheld information on soldier deaths and injuries for propaganda purposes (and even delayed action until cameras were present in the Jessica Lynch rescue).
posted on May 12, 2007 - View this thread

Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted. A newly declassified report (PDF) by the Pentagon's inspector general claims that Iraq was not working with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion and that the intelligence was manipulated by then-Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith. On the same day as the report came out, Dick Cheney claimed that they did have a relationship via Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Zarqawi may be dead, but he's still useful. [Via TalkLeft.]
posted on Apr 6, 2007 - View this thread

How To Put Your Thumb on the Scales of World Opinion. In the past week nearly 5,000 members of the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) have downloaded special “megaphone” software that alerts them to anti-Israeli chatrooms or internet polls to enable them to post contrary viewpoints. A student team in Jerusalem combs the web in a host of different languages to flag the sites so that those who have signed up can influence an opinion survey or the course of a debate.
posted on Jul 31, 2006 - View this thread

World War II Posters from the large collection at the Northwestern University Library.
posted on May 30, 2006 - View this thread

In Memoriam and in Protest --why not use an online deathmatch as a pedestal for speaking out against a war? Artist/Professor uses US Govt-developed America's Army (...placing Soldiering front and center within popular culture and showcasing the roles training, teamwork and technology play in the Army. ... ) as protest and art space. DeLappe's homepage (and jpgs) here
posted on May 30, 2006 - View this thread

Why We Fight, the BBC documentary from Eugene Jarecki about the American military-industrial complex and its origins (trailer@apple). For some reason its up in full at Google Video, so if you didn't get a chance to see it in the theaters, well, here it is! 1hr,40m - save it for later, perhaps. It's named after a series of war propaganda newsreels, directed by Frank Capra, demonstrating the need to enter WWII. These too are available on GV, as well as archive.org - to your surprise and delight. And for your convenience: Reels One, Two, Three, Four, Five parts 1 and 2, Six, and Seven
posted on May 6, 2006 - View this thread

Their view is that psyops can be directed toward global transregional audiences. My view is that that’s not possible because it directs psyops against our own friends and allies and even at our own public. ... In Mind Games, Columbia Journalism Review thoroughly examines the disintegrating lines between Public Affairs, Psy-Ops, IO, the public, and the truth. Some old friends are mentioned too: the Lincoln Group, the Rendon Group, the Pentagon, our own media, and others. If truth is our greatest weapon, as Rumsfeld has said, how can the administration hope to prevail in an information war when it is not honest with itself?
posted on May 1, 2006 - View this thread

Education for Death. (YouTubefilter.) Disney-produced anti-Nazi cartoon short from 1943. Look for Hitler's Satanic horns. More weirdness from WWII: Warner Bros Snafuperman, starring Pvt. Snafu (originally created by Dr. Seuss!), who also deals with spies, all while jabbering away in a voice that sounds disconcertingly like that of a certain cwazy wabbit. From Archive. org -- Pvt. Snafu learns about booby traps, in one case literally. Bugs himself joined the Air Force, and was faced with gremlins for his trouble. Superman himself got in on the act, battling Japoteurs. After all, during the War we were plenty worried about those canny Japanese.
posted on Mar 23, 2006 - View this thread

Niger Venezuela is planning to sell uranium to Iraq Iran.
posted on Mar 14, 2006 - View this thread

an example of Operation Homefront? --this news report about a Reservist back from Iraq is apparently part of a new Pentagon propaganda operation aimed at us. ...Did Diaz return to the U.S. on emergency leave with an agenda -- to offer a positive spin that could help counter growing concerns among Americans about the U.S. exit strategy? How do we know that's not his strategy, especially after he discloses that superior officers encouraged him to talk about his experiences in Iraq? ...
posted on Jan 4, 2006 - View this thread

The Rendon Group -- covert perception managers using our taxpayer money to start wars. ... the product of a clandestine operation -- part espionage, part PR campaign -- that had been set up and funded by the CIA and the Pentagon for the express purpose of selling the world a war. ... it was hired by the CIA to help "create the conditions for the removal of Hussein from power." Working under this extraordinary transfer of secret authority, Rendon assembled a group of anti-Saddam militants, personally gave them their name -- the Iraqi National Congress -- and served as their media guru and "senior adviser" as they set out to engineer an uprising against Saddam. ... Rolling Stone thoroughly documents the way we pay to be lied into war and one of the people who do it. From Noriega and Panama through to Chalabi, Miller, al-Haideri, Bush, and you.
posted on Nov 19, 2005 - View this thread

Animated video broadcast on Iran's IRIB state television, apparently aimed at children, seemingly promotes the virtues of becoming a suicide bomber. Coralized wmv link, transcript.
posted on Nov 6, 2005 - View this thread

The Art of War is a beautiful British National Archives online exhibit of propaganda illustrations, posters, and films (Dance, Nazis! Dance!) by the Ministry of Information during World War II. Related: more posters, and Alfred Hitchcock also did propaganda films.
posted on Jun 3, 2005 - View this thread

Aerial Propaganda Leaflet Database. Propaganda from WWI to Operation Iraqi Freedom, including many safe conduct passes. Also, leaflets from the Korean War & Vietnam, Sefton Delmer's "Black Propaganda Radio, and even some NSFW (work, not war) propaganda. Come On Boys, Himmler For President!
posted on Mar 9, 2005 - View this thread

German Propaganda Archive.
posted on Mar 26, 2004 - View this thread

Rumors of rape fan anti-American flames "They are raping our women!" - This is the eternal tribalistic cry and lament, often all too true but also often used as a baseless or exaggerated claim for war propaganda, to incite to hatred of a "barbaric" enemy who commits unspeakable acts ( see The "Rape of Kuwait"). The history of Rape in Warfare is long and may be instinctually driven, at least in part. Now, mass rumors spreading through Turkey - which seem to have inspired a recent indigenous Turkish terrorist car bombing - allege mass rapes of Iraqi women by American troops. "There are more than 4000 rape events on the record" claimed the Turkish journal Yeni Safak, on October 22, "citing" (though the purported supporting citation contains nothing about such atrocities) internet sex therapist Dr. Susan Block's piece on the metaphorical "Rape of Iraq"[ Warning : preceding link is NSFW ! Here's the work-safe CounterPunch version]. Having more or less invented modern PR and propaganda techniques (see Ed. Bernays, Ivy Lee) - handy during both war and peace - Americans are now on the receiving end of Propaganda's use of the shameless lie. (identification of "mystery meat" links inside)
posted on Jan 7, 2004 - View this thread

The U.S. government launches Hi, a new Arabic-language lifestyle magazine targeted at 18-35 year olds in Middle Eastern countries. Story ideas for the first issue.
posted on Jul 18, 2003 - View this thread

Though you won’t hear about them , there are dozens of Pentagon P.R. officers embedded with reporters in Iraq.
posted on Apr 2, 2003 - View this thread

The Information War: "Every few minutes, another burst of satellite imagery and Internet information impacts among an interactive global audience. Ambushed by info, U.S. military commanders confident in their overwhelming firepower are increasingly expressing concern that the 'velocity of information' is spinning out of their control." [more inside]
posted on Mar 30, 2003 - View this thread

The return of the Movietone? "We fell on this idea of recreating films that looked like and were the length of the old Movietone forms of the 1940s," said Marine Lt. Col. Jim Kuhn, military producer for the undertaking called the Movietone Newsreel Project. Kuhn says the objective is to put together a short film that combines the commentary of real-life soldiers with the kind of footage civilian journalists would be unable to get. (more inside)
posted on Mar 13, 2003 - View this thread

Saigon Poster Art. "A Growing Collection of Pictures"
posted on Mar 12, 2003 - View this thread

Media covers massive D.C. (and world) Anti-War protests, discounts numbers - Backflash: NPR and the NYT later issued apologies for their drastic undercounting of the Oct. 26 D.C. Anti-War protest - later admitted to be between 100,000 and 200,000 in size "...It was not as large as the organizers of the protest had predicted. They had said there would be 100,000 people here. I'd say there are fewer than 10,000"(NPR's Nancy Marshall) Last saturday's D.C. AntiWar protest received far more media coverage but a similar discounting of the numbers. IndyMedia (above link) provided numbers more in line with D.C. Police statements. Many media outlets ran the same AP news feed. [NYT, NPR , CNN, ABC, AP] and claimed..."Thousands" or "tens of thousands" of protesters. But in the words of those who witnessed it (as I did - 2.5 times size of Oct. 26 protest, from what I saw): 'D.C. police chief Charles Ramsey said, "It's one of the biggest ones we've had, certainly in recent times." U.S. Capitol Police chief Terrance Gainer said, "I know everyone is skittish about saying a number, but this was big. An impressive number." A C-SPAN cameraman I spoke to spent the entire protest on the roof of a cargo truck just to the side of the stage. He told me that he had covered dozens of protests in his time, and that the crowd on Saturday was the biggest he had ever seen.' (story) and organizers claimed 500,000 marched in DC meanwhile, a new poll shows support for a war on Iraq is slipping in the US and also dropping at the UN
posted on Jan 20, 2003 - View this thread

Propaganda - Disinformation: The Masters of the Lie What if the U.S. projected a holographic image of Allah floating over Baghdad urging the Iraqi people and Army to rise up against Saddam, a senior Air Force officer asked in 1990? The hubris and racism of American Psyops, who knows what the military is plotting now?
posted on Nov 15, 2002 - View this thread

Iraq's Aziz Says U.S. Attack Would Fail This is a news story? What is the Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz supposed to say? "W. has been right all along, Saddam is a tyrant. We need to get him out. Even Saddam agrees he has gone to far." or "Now that you mention it, our military is a mess, the stuff we have bought is junk and your tanks will rip it to shreds."
posted on Aug 20, 2002 - View this thread

Gallery of anti-war propaganda posters remixed from old wartime posters. Some are perhaps over the top, but its very thought provoking work. Some of these posters really drive the point home that we are not that far removed from from the grisly battles of that past regardless of the government spin and all the high-tech military toys. This one is especially moving.
posted on Aug 14, 2002 - View this thread

Wars and propaganda in gaming: you've all heard of America's Army by now, but what about Under Ash where you can fight the IDF (no civilians targets here) as a palestinian rambo? Perhaps you'd prefer a more spiritual route, and want to convert heathens? Or the truly repulsive Ethnic Cleansing game? Artists are getting into too with the likes of Cultural Revolution Doom, and some politicians considered doing it the direct way. Clearly, folks with an agenda have realized that games are a way to get their message out, and maybe noticed the success of "realistic" but largely apolitical shooters.
Fortunately for gaming peaceniks (kill pixels not people!), the games mostly suck.
posted on Jul 26, 2002 - View this thread

Cartoon Network has taken some heat lately for being too P.C., even here on MetaFilter. Well, here's their chance to redeem the network. Sunday evening, 9:00 - 10:00 PM Eastern/Pacific, ToonHeads Goes To War, including four rarely-seen wartime cartoons in their entirety: "Blitz Wolf" where the three little pigs face off against a treaty-breaking, German-speaking wolf; "Scrap Happy Daffy" featuring Daffy promoting the recycling of scrap metal and butting heads with a goat that bears a striking resemblance to Adolf Hitler; "Herr Meets Hare," where Bugs Bunny tangles with Nazi minister Hermann Goering; and in "Russian Rhapsody", a plane full of "gremlins from the Kremlin" attack a bomber piloted by the Nazi leader himself.
posted on May 24, 2002 - View this thread

Art Fights Back — an exhibit of poster art at Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Des Moines, Iowa — displays images dedicated to the memory of September 11 and support of the Unites States and its troops. Seems like a typical thing to do around war time, right?

Take a close look at the actual poster design. Don't they seem rather non-American in their artistic style? In fact, they recall an era of poster design for a dramatically different context than what was typically thought of as U.S. patriotism.
posted on Mar 11, 2002 - View this thread

Pentagon Readies Efforts to Sway Sentiment Abroad The latest in our propaganda war. Why not simply hire such notables as Britney Spears and other worthies to entertain, free, in countries that do not seem to appreciate what democracy and capitalism are able to showcase as why our system is so good?
posted on Feb 19, 2002 - View this thread

US planes rain dollars on Afghanistan Brings a whole new dimension to the term "throwing away taxpayers' money". What kind of logic does the US govt put behind a stunt like this?
posted on Feb 16, 2002 - View this thread

Captures from a video of an attack on a Taliban BMP. All I have to say is "holy crap." Graphic. Interesting. Discuss amongst yourselves.
posted on Jan 25, 2002 - View this thread

"It's not propaganda, it's the truth" Rumsfeld declared. OK, but leaflets with radio broadcasts, and Information Programs, is this the best we can do? How about some Daffy Goes to War, even some inspirational Soviet and Cuban communist posters, as we do battle on the psyops war front?
posted on Nov 29, 2001 - View this thread

A brief look at the propaganda leaflets of recent wars, from the Psywar Society.
posted on Nov 24, 2001 - View this thread

Infinite Justice is out, Enduring Freedom is in. "The change was made after the initial name -- 'Operation Infinite Justice' -- last week ran into objections from some Islamic scholars on grounds that only God, or Allah, could mete out infinite justice in their view."
posted on Sep 26, 2001 - View this thread

On the art of Propaganda Propaganda is a vital part of warfare and we're about to see a lot of it. This site analyzes the techniques of propaganda and discusses specific examples from history.
posted on Sep 25, 2001 - View this thread

BUY WAR BONDS! An archive of vintage WWII posters, in case you've got a hankerin' for a little bit of that ol' timey propaganda.
posted on Sep 15, 2001 - View this thread

"No Sir, I Am Not A Monkey" (But I play one on TV.)
posted on Dec 15, 2000 - View this thread