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Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Looking to the Future

This is Steven Petrick Posting.

It is February 2008. In November of 2008 we will go to the polls to elect our new president. This event is not solely of concern to us, but to our friends, and our enemies.

At this juncture, looking to the future, I am convinced that we can expect Al Qaida to husband its resources in Iraq and Afghanistan to launch maximum efforts to kill and wound as many people as they can in October.

Why?

To influence us. To convince us through the images they can count on our News Media to introduce into our living rooms that "the surge has failed".

Perception is often more important than reality, and if they can create with the aid of our media a perception that they are not defeated for just a few days, they can have an impact all out of proportion to their true status on us.

And the Media will go along with them because the Media cannot imagine that they will do such a thing, cannot be part of preparing and warning us that this desperate ploy may be tried by Al Qaida. Rather, the Media will espouse shock and announce once more that we have lost as they have so often in the past because the Media works on two levels:

If it bleeds, it leads

and

Bad News Sells.

Long term consequences and trends are irrelevant to the need to have bloody bad news blasting into American living rooms.