Marketing a war is not unlike marketing any other product. First, you need a plan to build grassroots support. Then you follow-up with a multi-pronged marketing strategy to build off of the grass-root efforts.
You have undoubtedly heard about Iran’s harassment of US Navy ships in the Persian Gulf. The Pentagon released 2 videos of the incident. The second included a direct threat in a bogus accent that claimed the US Navy ships would blow up. The Navy Capitans took this threat so seriously that they did nothing. That’s right. A US Navy ship got a direct threat from what they’d like us to believe was 5 Iranian Revolutionary Guard speedboats and they simply did nothing. Nothing, except try to use the blown-up and potentially partly falsified incident as part of War Marketing.
In the past few months, the US has done the following war-marketing grassroots efforts:
- Added the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to the known list of terrorist organizations. Combined with previous laws this administration has passed, this gives the administration the green light to use military force against terrorist organizations wherever they might be.
- Within a few months, all of a sudden there was a “New Threat” that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRG), a now well-known terrorist group (after all, we just put them on the list, duh!), has taken over control of Iran’s Naval control of the Persian Gulf.
- Then two months later, the group they warned us about happens to be harassing and threatening US Naval ships.
The Iran War Marketing is on an accelerated timeline. First, they add the IRG, essentially a military component of a sovereign nation, to list of terrorist organizations. An unprecedented event. Then, they warn that this reckless terrorist group has taken over operations of monitoring the Persian Gulf from the Iranian Navy. Then, the same group, which identifies itself as “Iranian Navy,” is responsible for harassment and direct threat against US Naval ships.
Except, the bullshit doesn’t stick on #3. The incident is eerily similar to the Gulf of Tonkin incident (a made-up naval incident with Vietnam) that helped build the case to go into war with Vietnam. Without any legs to stand on, the Pentagon immediately backed away from the claim that the threat “You will blow up in a few minutes” was from the Iranians. Now, they admit, they have no clue. It could have been another officer on the Naval ship playing a prank.
What’s amazing about this stuff is that it’s not the major news networks like CNN, Fox or ABC that call this administration’s bullshit. It’s individual bloggers and civilians who are paying attention.
Here are some videos regarding the incidents:
In November, US Warns of an Iranian threat that the IRG has taken control of Iranian operations in the Persian Gulf:
Assuming this transition of “monitoring the gulf” went from the Iranian Navy to the IRG, the real question here should be “so what?” How is this threatening to the US Naval fleet? The only way this news conference makes any sense is when you combine it with the recent event about the IRG boats harassing Naval ships. It’s the execution of a war marketing plan!
Less than 2 months after the above event, we have this event:
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