50 lies

One of the surprising things about the Iraq War is that there sometimes appear to be two different wars underway here -- the one that the US is winning, according to the right wing press and bloggers, and the one they are losing, in reality.
While poking around the internet this morning, I saw this Kos diary (which credits an unlinked Digby post.) Anyway, it refers to an old story which may explain some of the dicotomy.
Eighteen months ago, in November 2003, this story reported on an investigation by a USAF Colonel (Ret.) Sam Gardiner which he called "Truth from These Podia: Summary of a Study of Strategic Influence, Perception Management, Strategic Information Warfare and Strategic Psychological Operations in Gulf II". His report identified fifty news stories about the Iraq war that were faked up to sell the Iraq War. The texts of the Gardiner report are here in pdf files: Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, and part 6 -- each of these is about 10 pages long, so I don't really understand why the report wasn't posted in a single document.
Anway, here is a list of the stories which Gardiner says were faked to create and maintain support for the Iraq War:
• Iraq was connected to terrorism and 9/11
• Lt. Commander Speicher might still be alive
• Iraq had drones
• Mohammad Atta met with Iraqi
• Ansar al-Salm had a poison factory
• Chemical and biological weapons: Quantities, Location, Delivery readiness
• Iraq had Weapons labs
• Iraq had WMD cluster bombs
• Iraq's Scuds
• Saddam punished people by cutting off ears
• Cyber war capability
• The nuclear materials from Niger story
• The aluminum tubes story
• Iraq developing nuclear weapons
• Iraq developing dirty bombs
• Troops handing out food; humanitarian operations
• US did not attack the power grid
• Surrender of the 507th
• US troops approaching the 'Red Zone' where WMD would be used.
• US troops fighting the 51st Iraqi Mechanized Division & commander
• The 'uprising' in Basrah supporting the invasion
• 'Liberations' of Umm Qasr and Basrah
• Iraqi white flag incidents (pretending to surrender)
• US and UK uniforms to commit atrocities
• Iraqis were executing prisoners
• The 'Salman Pak' terrorist training facility
• Private Lynch story: language (eg, described as an "ambush")
• Iraq using children soldiers
• The 1000-vehicle attack from Baghdad
• How few civilian casualties
• Saddam hung a woman for waving at troops
• WMD locations: Moved to Syria, Hidden, Just-in-time program
• Changing descriptions of the post-conflict enemy
• The status of infrastructure repairs
• French stories (as punishment for not supporting the war): High precision switches, Smallpox strains, Signing long term oil contracts, Spare parts for aircraft, Roland missiles, Passport for Iraqi leaders
• Russian stories (also punishment): Signing long term oil contracts, Night-vision goggles, GPS Jamming equipment, Saddam in embassy
• British Parliamentarian punishment (Galloway)

Imagine how f*cked your brain would be if you still believed some or all of these stories? And, accepting these as true, imagine how amazed you would be that anyone would not be 100 per cent behind the Iraq War? Why, you would be in a parallel universe, the one where the US won the war in Iraq but the darned Main Stream Media and those crazy bloggers just wouldn't admit it.