[Peace-discuss] Pro-war ads

[C. G. Estabrook]

[At last night's meeting, "astro-turfing" was mentioned in
regard to the discussion of Darfur.  Here's an example from an
article in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune.  --CGE]

   Last update: February 17, 2006 – 10:12 AM
   Nick Coleman: New pro-war ad cynically 
   exploits families' grief

Another pro-war ad is getting a trial run on some Twin Cities
TV stations, repackaging the same deceptions that I
deconstructed last Sunday. The first ad was bad enough, but
the newest installment in this expensive effort to shore up
support for the war in Iraq is not honest about a mother's grief.

Ad No. 2 began airing Wednesday and features the mothers and
fathers of four dead soldiers. The final mother figure in the
ad tells the camera: "We have to finish this job to remember
Erik's sacrifice, and all of the other fallen heroes." She is
identified as M. J. Kesterson, and many viewers will assume
she is the mother of Chief Warrant Officer Erik Kesterson, 29,
a helicopter pilot killed in 2003 who figures prominently in
the ad.

But she's not his mom.

M.J. Kesterson is married to Erik's father, who also appears
in the ad, and she's Erik's stepmother. His mother is Dolores
Kesterson, and the distinction is important because Dolores
Kesterson is opposed to a war in which she believes her son
died to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction that
did not exist and to avenge 9/11, which was not connected to Iraq.

Dolores, who is a member of Gold Star Families for Peace,
voiced her opposition when she was granted a brief meeting
with President Bush in 2004 and gave Bush a letter in which
she wrote: "The label 'Iraqi Freedom' doesn't work for me.
Iraq is not free. It is occupied, and now, after all the loss
of life on both sides, they don't want us there."

Bush didn't want to hear it. Neither did a soft-money group
called Progress for America, which raised almost $40 million
for the Bush campaign in 2004 and is spending half a million
dollars or more here to test whether pro-war propaganda can
stop the slide in public support for the war (the latest
CNN/USA Today Poll shows 56 percent of Americans oppose the war).

I could tell you more about Progress for America and
"Astro-turfing" (artificially created "grass-roots" politics)
if the Washington-based group had answered e-mailed requests
for information. But it didn't. Nevertheless, according to the
conservative and helpful National Journal (which is where the
half-million-dollar figure for the Twin Cities TV ads comes
from), Progress for America set up a local group of Iraq war
veterans and families in January and now is using them to
front for its commercials, calling them Midwest Heroes. (Half
of the soldiers in the ad, including Kesterson, hailed from
Oregon, so the group should be called "Pacific Midwest Heroes.")

Let's pause for a second.

My intent here is to expose the agitprop tactics of a
political group campaigning on the bodies of fallen soldiers
in a transparent attempt to cover the war's lies. It is not my
desire to discount the grief of the families -- including the
stepmothers -- of the 2,274 soldiers who have died following
orders.

Folks who would do that kind of despicable thing are the folks
who attacked Cindy Sheehan as a "tragedy pimp" and mocked her
grief over the loss of her soldier son, Casey.

Americans are divided about this war. But there are patriots
on all sides of the debate and there are many families,
including those in mourning, praying for an end to it.

These cynical ads ignore that. They exploit the fallen and are
a disservice to the troops. More than that, they are lies.

Nick Coleman • ncoleman at startribune.com.

©2006 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.