US officials announced today the arrests of three Pakistanis, two in the Boston area and one in Maine, arrests which Attorney General Eric Holder linked to the failed Times Square bombing attack earlier this month.
The exact link was unclear, as though there were reports they may have provided funding for the attempt officials were detaining them only on immigration violations and had not charged them with any actual crimes yet.
Officials were quick to concede that though they believed the men may have been involved in financial transactions with the suspect, Faisal Shahzad, they were not sure if the men were accomplices in any way.
Perhaps a more promising lead was an arrest today in Pakistan of a man which has reportedly claimed he helped Shahad with the plot. US officials are claiming that the man, whose name has yet to be released, is providing evidence tying the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to the plot. Pakistan is said to have arrested another man as well, though exactly what his connection was is unclear.
Quite apart from any specifics, it is clear that the propaganda mill is revved up to a pitch and range not seen since Goebbels.
The warmongers and "Terrorist" hysteria crew are using a version of Bernays' swarming tactics, with planted stories, rumors, etc.
Almost nothing untendentious is getting though in the mainstream media about Iran or Pakistan.
It is very Neo-Con in gist.
Besides Bernays, one might also look at the career of John B. Watson, one of the pioneers of behavioral psychology who went into advertising after he left academia under a cloud. He supposedly invented the "coffee break" for example–word and thing, for Maxwell House Coffee. He also advanced the "testimonial" though he did not invent it.
He worked for Walter Thompson.
In fact, after Bernays' success with pseudo-Freudian images and tactics (Freud was his uncle), psychologists and psychiatrists were hired in droves by advertising and propaganda agencies.
Bernays did Public Relations, advertising, and outright political propaganda, including orchestrating the campaign against Arbenz in Guatemala-which was all transparent lies supplemented by terror.
Watson, as far as one knows, only advertising.
Many Americans think they are immune to these tactics, but they are very naive. The same old, same old keeps working. In fact a part of the method is to memory.
But the methods are all the same.
Goebbels had the volume of Bernays on propaganda in an honored place in his library.
I think the coffee break is a swell idea.
"part of the method is to destroy memory"
The story will go on Faisal as the US govt. needs. It,s a pity to use these agents for their political purpose and for me it will kontinue as midterm elections are approaching and such news will help the Govt. as his predesor did before election or any problem Osama or Alzawari tape was there.
It is sad to use such criminal as their agant,s for political use.
There problem is world wide US India and Pakistan itself use it for their purpose. To be a CIA agent is very sweat but to pay back as an agent is difficult.
This is modern democracy.
Seem if the UN functioned as it should, the World Court would be issuing warrants for anyone who was helping to make and plant bombs, not limited to IEDs and vehicle bombs, also for the people who design, build and use drones to blow up people on the other side of the planet.
Seems to me we American's like separate good and bad in odd ways
Bad
McVeigh bombing the Federal Building, Lt. Calley at My Lai, Bin Laden striking the WTC, Hitler bombing Coventry and London England.
Good
Bush and Obama's Drone strikes in Afghanistan, Area bombing with high exploses and incendaries of Dresden, Berlin, Tokyo. Atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima
Bad Nations/Leaders Nazi Germany/Hitler, Cuba/Castro, Vietnam post 1975
Good Nations/leaders, Cambodia/Pol Pot–Well never mind all those people he killed, the weren't Americans, and he was against Communist Vietnam