question: when did it become the "anbar awakening"?? I don't remember hearing that term when this

[niyad]

event was happening--and just what in the hell is it supposed to mean?

[Muttocracy]

1. been that way for months - I heard it in April via SFRC hearings

foreign.senate.gov - hearings on April 2, 2008

look for Nir Rosen on Democracy Now website.

edit to add - I also posted this recently from Gen. Wm Odom - he discusses the topic - not sure if he uses the term
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=6532516&mesg_id=6532516

[SoCalDem]

2. They are trying to romaticize it by linking it to "Prague Spring"

Making it sound like a grassroots, uprising.. Too bad they don't know history...or have "the google".. That movement did NOT turn out well..

and Anbar is only "working" because we are handing out cash (along with the Saudis).

and Al Sadr decided to give his soldiers a vacation while we brought more soldiers in.. They WILL be back, and HE will be the new leader, eventually..

[bemildred]

3. It became that when the Mighty Wurlitzer decided to call it that.

Stalin and Goebbels had nothing on the guys running the US corporate media.

[Selatius]

4. Goebbels speculated he could build a better propaganda machine by mimicking dissent.

That is, by narrowing the scope of debate down to one corner and have two sides argue over relatively minor differences. Of course, in Nazi Germany, that wasn't really possible because all the outlets were now state-run, so there was no other side to argue differences. With corporate news outlets like the US, they have achieved what Goebbels wanted because the networks are not owned by the state but by corporations themselves, insulating themselves from charges that the government has taken over the media. They can still claim that news and information is free when it is no longer the case. This is why in the US you hardly ever see Noam Chomsky or Howard Zinn on television much but see folks from the American Enterprise Institute or the Heritage Foundation on almost weekly.

Of course, the difference between the US and Nazi Germany is that the Nazis set up a one-party system, while the US is ostensibly a two-party oligarchy dominated by corporate interests.

[bemildred]

5. Never wise up a chump. -- W. C. Fields

It is always better if the Rubes are distracted by fake issues, then you avoid even discussing the real goals of the game. This has been SOP in US politics since forever.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

6. AKA "The Splurge"

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/19/pentagon.surge/index.html

(CNN) -- On the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq, with nearly 4,000 American lives lost, is Iraq really on a path to peace? Three factors are often cited in explaining the improvement in security: the U.S. troop surge, the political "awakening" of the Iraqi people, and the cease fire ordered by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. But some say a controversial fourth dynamic is at play as well -- cash, being doled out by the barrelful.

It's a truth many hold to be self-evident that more American troops translate into less Iraqi violence. As President Bush said in January's State of the Union speech, "Some may deny the surge is working, but among the terrorists there is no doubt." But some military experts do have doubts, arguing there's actually a mightier force at work -- hundreds of millions in cash given to Iraqis, for everything from picking up garbage to taking up arms against al Qaeda.

[applegrove]

7. So the "state" is giving money to people in exchange for work. Sounds

like "privitization" didn't work in Iraq either. Oh and neocons are assholes for the social engineering they like so much and engage in.