Naked Capitalism Link of the Day

Today's link: McClatchy: How bin Laden died: PsyOps in Action?.  This is straight out of the Republican playbook:

White House counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan provided the gripping detail Monday, when he told reporters that bin Laden used his wife as a human shield during the raid. The account gave the perfect hook for story after story after story after story. Every story, of course, furthered the fatal final image of the coward Osama bin Laden, cowering in fear. As Slate's estimable David Weigle put it:

"So, the admirer of bin Laden has to reckon with the idea that he spent his last moments hiding behind his wife."

Perfect! One couldn't ask for a better image!
Now, it turns out this vivid detail is, well, false. So maybe Brennan erred in the heat  of battle, right?
Or, maybe he did his job: planting in the public's mind the notion of bin Laden dying a coward's death, like James Cagney in that movie about the gangster going to the electric chair. It's always the first impression that lasts, so the after-the-fact corrections really won't unsettle what the public already "knows" about the event.
Bin Laden=coward, for all time.
Undermining the manhood of one's enemy is standard practice in the psychological operations playbook; witness, e.g., rumors that Panama's Manuel Noriega was fleeing U.S. forces while dressed as a woman, way back in the day. Assignment: come up with other examples of how Iraqi and Al Qaeda leaders have been belittled at their moment of capture or death.
Or, maybe it's more complicated than manipulation. Maybe the error really a case of what they say about war -- the first reports are always wrong -- combined with the juiciness of the details that matched what Brrennan wanted to believe. 

The example of that in the Iraq War:  Saddam Hussein's massive underground complex and dozens of body doubles.  We got television graphics of the underground bunker he would supposedly be hiding in, but after the troops got to town, we saw a lot of palaces, but I never was able to find actual photos of this massive bunker.  Likewise with the body doubles.  Supposedly there were dozens, but I never heard of an instance where we ever found one or interviewed one.  I believed then and still believe it was all propaganda to convince the American peopel he was a coward.

Correction:  Saddam's bunker.  Not exactly the bunker built at the Greenbriar.

Also, Yves highlights this:

U.S. Regulators Face Budget Pinch as Mandates Widen New York Times. This is pathetic:

On a recent trip to New York to tour a trading floor, a group of employees from the commodities watchdog [CFTC] rode Mega Bus both ways, arriving late to their meeting despite a 5:30 a.m. departure. The bus, which cost $30 a person round trip, saved the agency roughly $1,000 over Amtrak.

No wonder businesses rob this country blind, Republicans want them to.