Will Comical Ali make a come back in Libya conflab?
Telling it like it's not was Comical Ali's calling card during the Iraq war. Are the Libyan authorities going down the same road, asks Dougal Paver.
"Are the American forces in Baghdad yet?"
"No, those filthy dogs are dying in the desert."
"So who are those blokes over there in American tanks, then?"
"They are Iraqis, cunningly disguised."
I paraphrase, of course, but not much: such were the delusional qualities of Iraq's head of communications, who quickly earned the sobriquet 'Comical Ali'.
In short, he failed the most basic tennet of PR, which is that you must present the facts first and that any embellishment must be in the realms of reality, no more sinful than "mere puff", to cite a famous legal case.
It seems that in Libya the government has ignored this lesson. Even potential Arab partners are baulking at their claims.
Another example, were it needed, that in today's age of media saturation nothing but the truth will do.
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