IN THE FIRST THREE PARTS of this series, I explained a technique called "conflation" and described the beginning of a right-wing propaganda email that used it heavily.

Today I'll examine the way the conflation is achieved in the reader's mind.

But first, I'll keep the promise I made in the previous post.

The propaganda email, after establishing a completely false picture of what the liberal and conservative positions on the troops and on torture really are, produced a photo of U.S. soldiers playing on a see-saw with Iraqis.

The implied purpose of this picture was to prove the imagined "anti-troop liberals" wrong, and show that our troops are good people. The real purpose of the picture was to cement the false ideas about liberals in the reader's mind.

Presenting such a charming and hope-filled picture as a reply to the liberal position, gives a strong but subconscious impression that liberals would hate this picture, because it would prove them wrong.

In fact, liberals love this picture because it proves them right.

I speak as one of those liberals.

I find these pictures just as charming and hope-filled as the propagandist does. In fact, I find them more so, because they are prime examples of the entire liberal approach to the mideast.

It's liberals who think that Iraqis are people just like us, and that the best way to approach them is on that basis. It was conservatives who wanted to invade their country and bomb the hell out of it—remember?

The reason this picture is so hopeful is that, in political terms, these soldiers are acting like liberals.

But also, the attitude that the picture, and the email, takes toward the common soldier—that they are not the problem—is the attitude of the political left. Remember, it's Cheney and all those guys who want everyone to believe that the torturing in Iraq was entirely the fault of the troops involved—that the White House policies had nothing to do with it.

It should take no effort at all to realize all this. It's plain as day after only a moment's thought.

And yet, the email is very persuasive if you don't stop to think it carefully through. That's the power of conflation, especially when it is manipulated this skillfully.

The subtitle of the picture reads:

"Armed American Troops Force Iraqis to Seesaw Until They Talk!"

The skill of the propagandist is really evident here. There is no direct mention of liberals at all. That's left for the reader to supply, so that it will be all the easier to believe.

But the implication is inescapable.

Here's how it works.

The heavy sarcasm of the quote makes no sense at all unless we assume that it is aimed at someone—someone who believes that armed American troops actually do horrible things to Iraqis on a regular basis.

The line is obviously intended to be funny, but only the set of assumptions the propagandist wants you to make will make it funny.

So you have to make the same assumptions just to get the joke.

If there were only one picture, you might, at that point, question the assumptions. But the propagandist doesn't give you time for that:

Another picture follows immediately—this one adorable enough to thoroughly distract you from any questioning you might be doing...

Iraqi Child Bites GI In Self Defense After Obvious Torture!

There are eight of these pictures in all.

Each one drives any doubts your rational mind might have about the subtly implied message of the email deeper.

Each caption implies that these pictures are answers to those troop-hating liberals, and manages to create the impression that it was liberals, not conservatives, who wanted to blame the torture in Iraq on the ground troops.

So that's how it's done. After eight pictures, the reader—if susceptible at all—has completely accepted the conflation, and come to believe that there are only two categories of people in America:

1. Liberals, who hate the troops, and blame them all for torturing Iraqis, and
2. Conservatives, who love the troops, and deny that they tortured anyone.

The facts that the only troop-blaming has been done by conservatives, and that it has been liberals who think the real blame should go elsewhere have been completely repressed.

But it doesn't stop there. This series of conflations merely forms the basis for several more.

I'll explain those in part five...