WAG THE GASSED DOG

08/19/02 "WAG THE GASSED DOG" This is the purest war propaganda. One video of what may be Osama bin Laden plus a video of a dog being gassed which could have been created anywhere equals the US sinking to new lows trying to manufacture support for a war nobody but the oil companies want. This dog-video reminds me of Hill & Knowlton's much ballyhooed claim that Iraqi troops were stealing incubators from Kuwait hospitals and leaving premature babies to die on the floor. That was a hoax to sell a war. And until proven otherwise, the safest course is to assume this latest "shock video" is just another hoax by the public relations firms which grow rich and fat off of your tax dollars by lying to you for the US Government. Anonymous US officials have declared this to be "unquestionable" evidence that al Qaeda has chemical weapons. I find it very questionable. For one thing, compare the quality of the dog video with that of the famous Osama "confession" tape or even the most recent Osama tape. Why does a dog get much better video quality than the boss? Add to that the cuteness of the dog, as if intentionally selected by central casting to provoke the greatest feelings of sympathy in the viewer, instead of just grabbing any old mangy stray mongrel to use in such a test. Yes, this video is shocking, but the shock is intended to shock people past questioning the claims of where the video came from. All day long the media has been blasting the "Arabs kill puppy dogs" story all over the airwaves, trying to create a linkage between Arabs and chemical weapons where none can be proven to factually exist. Given the sensitization to chemical weapons contained in this media barrage, I have to wonder if the next stage provocation, intended to further the war against Iraq, will also involve chemical weapons.