The Redhunter

It all sounds good to me. Bravo to the military, I say. Glad to see that we're not just fixated on the military aspects of fighting an insurgency, but realize that we're in an information war too.

What does the Post want? Would they be happy if our government shut up and let the terrorists have the media to themselves? Or are they just frightened that they don't have a monopoly on shaping opinion like they did just 10 years ago?

I'd be amazed if we weren't conducting a propaganda offensive designed to marginalize al Qaeda. Is't that what we're supposed to be doing? Liberals are always telling us that we can't win it militarily.

Back to the Post article. As if the leading headline was not enough, here's the editorializing

Some senior intelligence officers believe Zarqawi's role may have been overemphasized by the propaganda campaign...

Although Zarqawi and other foreign insurgents in Iraq have conducted deadly bombing attacks, they remain "a very small part of the actual numbers,"...

"The long-term threat is not Zarqawi or religious extremists, but these former regime types and their friends," Col. Derek Harvey, who served as a military intelligence officer in Iraq and then was one of the top officers handling Iraq intelligence issues on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told an Army meeting at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., last summer.

Oh for heavens sake. Yes we're all quite aware that the insurgency is made up of three groups; 1) ex-Ba'athists, or "regime dead-enders", 2) Rejectionists, non-Ba'athists who simply hate the idea of a Western democracy, and 3) al-Qaeda in Iraq.

But anyone who has not been living in a cave knows that the while al Qaeda is the smallest of the three groups, it is also the most deadly.

And, as Cliff May pointed out, the purpose of quoting Col Harvey is to insinuate "that the U.S. military’s communications effort is dishonest."

A US military spokesman made this clear yesterday, the AP reported in a Post story today

More than 90 percent of the suicide attacks in Iraq are carried out by fighters recruited, trained and equipped by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, a U.S. military spokesman said Monday.

Zarqawi and al-Qaeda in Iraq "are real threats to the citizens, security and stability of Iraq. And we continue to conduct aggressive operations to eliminate the threat they pose not only to Iraq, but also to the rest of the region," Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch said in a statement.

I think that General Lynch has it about right.

Stephen Spruiell looks at the subheadline in the Post story and asks

Are we to believe that, absent the military's efforts to warn us, we would all be laboring under the illusion that Zarqawi is a gentle peacemaker who's just trying to get out the vote?

Scott Johnson of Powerline sums the whole thing up nicely

So here's the situation: (1) Zarqawi, a foreign terrorist, indisputably is conducting deadly bombing attacks, (2) there's disagreement about his precise level of activity and overall significance, (3) playing up his role is reasonably calculated to create deadly conflict among Iraqi terrorist-insurgents. Under these circumstances, should the U.S. "play up" Zarqawi's role or give him the benefit of the doubt? Unless one is on Zarqawi's side or is suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome, the question answers itself.

Sure does.