The “Surge” Protection Racket

The Hedgemony is full marketing and PR mode to protect its “uninterruptible money supply” from the sheep in Congress. They are busy shoveling the agitprop into the catapults to rain down on the gullible.

Lurch of Main and Central found a prime of example of preemptive propaganda for the Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected [MRAP] vehicles at a Pentagon dog-and-pony show.

IRAQSlogger has the pictures of the megabuck 4WD vehicles: MRAPs Show Force Through Mud, Not IEDs, but the real purpose of the event is made clear in David Axe’s article, MRAPs = “Symbolic Targets”:

[Brigadier General Mike Brogan, USMC] would not discuss operational details, and pointed out that all the press attention on this potentially $20-billion program was providing intel to insurgents and even encouraging propaganda-motivated attacks on MRAPs. “Because of what you’re doing, these are becoming symbolic targets.”

Understand what is going on here: The Pentagon has staged a press event to show off these vehicles, and then told the media that if they do any reporting on them it will aid the enemies of “truth, justice, and the American way.”

The problem, you see, is that if the Pentagon had shipped these vehicles 2½ years ago when the field commanders requested them, they would have been able to handle the IEDs [Improvised Explosive Devices] then in use by the “insurgents.” In the intervening time frame the “insurgents” have upgraded to EFPs [Explosively Formed Penetrators] capable of going through an Abrams tank. The military knows that MRAPs are going to be destroyed in Iraq and they want to blame this on the media, rather than the Department of Defense’s failure to support the troops with adequate weapons and protection.

These vehicles are not built by the government, but by corporations. Many of the suppliers are multinationals or totally foreign-based companies. Many of the vehicles have been available for years and on display at defense-related trade shows during that time.

BGen Brogan is arranging a preemptive excuse for problems. The Pentagon’s own study shows that Pentagon PR is the biggest OpSec [Operational Security] problem they have.