I routinely monitor photographs posted on Flickr by ISAFMedia for recent photos of actions and people in Afghanistan. The latest photo in their stream is nothing short of a ridiculous propaganda ploy aimed at rehabilitating the image of Stanley McChrystal. As can be seen from the diaries I’ve posted, I’m no fan of McChrystal and ascribe many bad and illegal acts to him, especially when he was in charge of JSOC and seemed to operate as Cheney’s personal wrecking crew. Here is the photo:

McChrystal propaganda pic
From ISAFMedia on Flickr

How subtle! We have "law" emanating from McChrystal’s shoulder. He’s standing in front of a PowerPoint slide that appears to tout his claim "that values underpin our ef[forts]" and to say that something is "mora[l]" and possibly even [ethic]al, as well. We are supposed to feel good about McChrystal because of all those warm, fuzzy words surrounding him.

This is a propaganda ploy perfected by the Bush administration and continued by the Obama administration. For any message that is wanted, all that is needed is to get a picture of the fearless leader standing in front of banners conveying the message. Here is Bush at a speech at the Naval Academy in 2005, assuring us that he had a "Plan for Victory" (in wars that continue five years later):

Bush
From WikiMedia Commons.

Getting back to the McChrystal photo, we see that a bit more cryptically, McChrystal has drawn a fine-looking stick figure and appears to have said that we need a ten-fold increase in stick figures.

In the end, though, the truth wins out, because emanating from McChrystal’s mouth is a zero. That zero perfectly describes the relationship between his previous actions and the warm fuzzy words surrounding him.