Well, in keeping with this piece I wrote a while back on Rummy’s fixation with the threat of information and the written word I see on today’s CNN website home page this article that ramps up his concern over this apparently very serious threat to American Power^tm now apparently affecting our own media as well. [my bold]

Rumsfeld did acknowledge that violence is slowing Iraq’s progress and that militias pose problems for the government.

He said the terrorist group al Qaeda “has media committees” and tutors people on how to “manipulate” news organizations.

“Now I can’t take a string and tie it to a news report and then trace it back to an al Qaeda media committee meeting. I’m not able to do that at all,” he said.

“We do know that their goal is to try to break the will; that they consider the center of gravity of this not to be in Iraq, because they know they can’t win a battle out there; they consider it to be in Washington, D.C., and in London and in the capitals of the Western world.”

Ah yes, notice how even as he acknowledges the reports that violence and the militias are in fact causing problems he immediately “balances” it with a not very subtle charge that our media are in league with terrorists to undermine our efforts in Iraq. There really is no other way to read that because we all know what message both wingnuttia and those of the public who are less attentive to subtletly will take from that, namely: The Media is Working with Terrorists!

It’s merely another version of the old “don’t let anyone tell you to be afraid” game which is really effective at getting people to be very afraid indeed, especially if it is repeated often enough in the context of discussions about terrorism.

But look at what else Rummy is doing here that slips under most people’s radar. He’s admitting, rather blatantly, that his Pentagon and Military hierarchy with all their missiles, bombs and guns, is powerless to defeat someone who is armed only with a pen and a piece of paper, digital or literal. He is, again, playing the self-contradictory game of “we’re the most powerful military in the world and we’re being defeated by words”.

If we had a real opposition party in this country you’d think they might take advantage of that little contradiction that runs through all claims of not just the terror threat itself but our inability to deal with it.