Wednesday, August 09, 2006

They who win the propaganda war win the world

Mosque with smoke in Beiruit The more we read or see on the Israel-Lebanon conflict the more we see people who aren't in Israel, Lebanon, or nearby, tending to side with the whoever is currently winning the propaganda war. Okay, perhaps it's not all propaganda. Perhaps there is some fact buried beneath the spin and partisan slant &ndash not to mention endless opinion. Either way, the current situation is the best confirmation I've ever seen of the old maxim that the pen is mightier than sword. Or, put another way, media-brokers are the foot-soldiers that win or lose the war.

Before I start, note that I'll use the acronym POSBT to mean "pro-or-slightly-biased-towards". Now let's see... In the short time since Israel entered Lebanon, we've seen/heard: Beiruit burning, as photoshopped by Adnan Hajj
Certainly, I can see far far more POBST-Israel content on the web, but that's likely to simply reflect the United States' domination of the Internet in general. More access to information makes it much easier to see shades of grey. I confess I don't see much value in my earlier POBST-Israel post (here), because it's written from the point of view of someone trying to create white from a thousand shades of grey.

Mosque with smoke image credit: AP/Hussein Malla
Israel girls image credit: AP/Sebastian Scheiner
Beiruit burning images credit: Reuters/Adnan Hajj

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