Promoting Pentagon Propaganda

Analysis:

This is a rather short news clip, being less than half a minute long. It starts out with the newsreader stating that “US forces on a major offensive to route out insurgents in Iraq, Operation Quick strike is unfolding north west of Baghdad where 22 marines were killed just last week.” Rather than providing any more information about this operation, the rest of the story is some grainy aerial footage of what is described as insurgents firing a mortar and then being destroyed by a missile fired by a US drone. In the report it is noted that the footage is provided by the pentagon. This footage is available online at the DVIDS website, which is a site run by the military providing news stories and footage to news agencies. On the DVIDS website this same footage is available but it is identified as “Aerial Imagery of insurgents detonating a car bomb”, a very different description than what is offered in the story. Looking at the footage it’s hard to tell which is the accurate description of events. Also worth noting is that according to the DVIDS site, this clip was filmed on Aug 2. Operation Quick Strike, which is what the story is supposed to be about, was launched on August 5th, three days later, so this footage actually is not related to this operation.

Story:

WXMI 17 Newsreader – US forces on a major offensive to route out insurgents in Iraq, Operation Quick Strike is unfolding northwest of Baghdad where twenty two marines were killed just last week. Tonight the Pentagon is releasing some video from one of those UAV remote control spy planes. It spots some insurgents firing mortar rounds from a school yard. They escaped in a car but the unmanned drone then follows them to a safe house and then launches a hellfire missile at the building, killing all the terrorists inside.

Total Time: 25 seconds