Freedom's Watch Focus Groups War with Iran

Freedom's Watch Focus Groups War with Iran
The hawkish advocacy group recently rolled out a multi-million dollar ad blitz in support of the troop surge in Iraq. It's now test marketing language that could be used to sell a war with Iran.

Laura Rozen
November 19 , 2007

Laura Sonnenmark is a focus group regular. "I've been asked to talk about orange juice, cell phone service, furniture," the Fairfax County, Virginia-based children's book author and Democratic Party volunteer says. But when she was called by a focus group organizer for a prospective assignment earlier this month, she was told the questions this time would be about something "political."

On the appointed day, she drove to the offices of Martin Focus Groups in Alexandria, Virginia, knowing she would be paid $150 for two hours of her time. After joining a half dozen other women in a conference room, she found, to her surprise, that she had been called in to help some of the country's most prominent hawks test-market language that could be used to sell a war against Iran to the American public. "The whole basis of the whole thing was, 'we're going to go into Iran and what do we have to do to get you guys to along with it,'" Sonnenmark, 49, tells Mother Jones.

The client paying for the focus group session, according to Sonnemark, was Freedom's Watch, a high-powered, well-connected advocacy group that launched a $15 million ad campaign this summer in support of the surge of American troops in Iraq. Among the group's leadership: former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer and Bradley A. Blakeman, a former deputy assistant to President Bush. The focus group session suggests that Freedom's Watch may be looking beyond Iraq and expanding its mission to building support for military action against Iran.

Sonnemark says she only learned of the organization's involvement after members of her politically mixed group were handed a flier bearing a bald headed eagle—its insignia. "I saw Freedom's Watch's logo on the bottom of the flier," Sonnenmark recalls. She says she vaguely knew Freedom's Watch was a pro-war organization at the time of the focus group and was aware of its recent pro-surge television ads. But as the leader of the group began the discussion, she found that his main focus was not Iraq. "He was asking questions about Ahmadinejad going to speak at Columbia University, how terrible it was that he was able to go to Columbia and was invited," Sonnemark says. "And he used lots of catch phrases, like 'victory' and 'failure is not an option.'"

"Of all the focus groups I've ever been to," Sonnenmark wrote in an email to a group of fellow volunteers for the 2006 Senate campaign of Jim Webb, "I've never seen a moderator who was so persistent in manipulating and leading the participants."(Webb, for his part, is lead author of a Senate letter warning President Bush not to attack Iran without direct congressional approval; see here and here.)

The upshot of the November focus group? "After two hours, asked three final questions," Sonnemark recalls: "How would you feel if Hillary bombed Iran? How would you feel if George Bush bombed Iran? And how would you feel if Israel bombed Iran?" Sonnenmark says she responded, "It would depend on the circumstances.... What is the situation in Iraq? Do we have international support?"

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http://motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2007/11/freedoms-watch-iran.html

It is really sad, if not incredibly disturbing, that some people (thanks to Bush/Cheney and their tireless advocacy of their "preventative war" doctrine not to mention their use of relentless media campaigns to promote their agenda) have become so obsessed with pushing war and INTENTIONALLY creating/escalating international conflict that the only thing about it that's important to them is how they can best "sell" it to the public (as though it were a brand name cell phone) and not whether bombing another country and killing scores of people (some of whom will undoubtedly be innocent civilians) is necessary or, even more importantly, morally just. This just turns my stomach. Kudos to Mother Jones for shedding light on this scary and morally bankrupt organization! K & R!
:puke:

I thnk we should start renaming all newspeak: "FASCIST' watch is what this is, since going after Iran will bring about true fascism and martial law in this country. These groups are actually a danger to our National Security, threatening another country illegally is treasonous behavior.
Such strange use of language, I remember thousands of Iraq peace demonstrators being dismissed as a 'focus group' back in '03.

I wonder what lovely gifts the participants got for their time?

Right out there in the open. They are going in to Iran, we all know it, and they don't care how openly they prepare they propaganda barrage.

In many ways, living through what is similar on many levels (except violence, Thank God) Hitler's Early Rise (before the mass killings began 1933-37) these last seven years has made it very hard for me to be amazed by anything.

But something comes along, something small, something so casually hideous and monstrous just plopped right out there for anywone to see that it is obvious the America we all grew up in has been obliterated, except for a hollow shell and those millions of us who remember what real freedom was like (on a day-to-day level, a lot like now, actually...for the moment).

A pre-war Focus Group on how to sell it properly. What could Goebbels have done with the modern sub-science of marketing research and the Nazi Focus Group.

"Listen, we really want to come up with a good idea on how we can properly present the extermination of the Jews to the German People so we can feel good about it."

Yes, sometimes the madness still takes my breath away, for a moment. Just a moment, though, then I am more desensitized to the Big Lie that is life in Bush-Occupied Imperial Amerika.