Pentagon used psychological operation on US public, documents show

[kpete]

Source: Raw Story

Pentagon used psychological operation on US public, documents show

By Brad Jacobson
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 -- 10:12 am


Pentagon used psychological operation on US public, documents show
Figure in Bush propaganda operation remains Pentagon spokesman

In Part I of this series, Raw Story revealed that Bryan Whitman, the current deputy assistant secretary of defense for media operations, was an active senior participant in a Bush administration covert Pentagon program that used retired military analysts to generate positive wartime news coverage.

A months-long review of documents and interviews with Pentagon personnel has revealed that the Bush Administration's military analyst program -- aimed at selling the Iraq war to the American people -- operated through a secretive collaboration between the Defense Department's press and community relations offices.

Raw Story has also uncovered evidence that directly ties the activities undertaken in the military analyst program to an official US military document’s definition of psychological operations -- propaganda that is only supposed to be directed toward foreign audiences.

The investigation of Pentagon documents and interviews with Defense Department officials and experts in public relations found that the decision to fold the military analyst program into community relations and portray it as “outreach” served to obscure the intent of the project as well as that office’s partnership with the press office. It also helped shield its senior supervisor, Bryan Whitman, assistant secretary of defense for media operations, whose role was unknown when the original story of the analyst program broke.

Read more: http://rawstory.com/2009/10/bryan-whitman-2/

[HCE SuiGeneris]

1. Heil to Herr Rove

:grr: May these a-holes burn in hell for the lives they destroyed.

[Enthusiast]

46. Lives were one thing,

they destroyed the fucking country too. This was treason!

[sasquuatch55]

56. No Doubt.

nt

[Divine Discontent]

65. Apparently! He must be the secret czar of the country. WHY is the spokesperson still there & WHY

do we have the same sec. of defense?

It is a horrible and unfortunate situation considering these people are the constitution's enemies!


MISTER PRESIDENT, CAN THEM!

[lovuian]

2. Well tell us something we didn't know

the WMD campaign was a disaster

[Luminous Animal]

3. And it was a good thing it was a disaster...

Otherwise, we would have invaded Iraq.

[Enthusiast]

47. I believe you mean Iran?

If so, I think you're correct.

[Luminous Animal]

92. Nope. I mean that the majority of the population and our DEM reps bought...

hook, line, and sinker, the propaganda of WMDs in Iraq. Thus the WMD propaganda was wildly successful. From the conquerors point of view.

[Enthusiast]

93. Okay, thanks. Understood. nt

[Stumbler]

8. Wrong. The WMD campaign was hugely successful..

... the effects of it's success were disastrous, and that was the point.

[SergeStorms]

53. I think there's........

something like 30% of the U.S. population that, to this day, believes Iraq HAD WMDs when Bush invaded, all evidence to the contrary. These nut cases still believe that there are bunkers of WMDs somewhere in Iraq, waiting for the resurrection of Saddam so they can use them against the U.S., I guess. :crazy:
There are a great many extremely stupid, STUPID people in this country. :banghead:

[Kermitt Gribble]

67. Exactly -

like the 60% that still believe Iraq was involved with 9/11.

[LiberalFighter]

69. If Saddam had been resurrected that would had scared a lot of people.

Thankfully, the 3 days have passed.

[fascisthunter]

4. and all the dumb ass dittoheads fell for it

because like all narrow-minded pea-brains, they are easier to lie to... all these folks needed was emotional red meat and they just follow that "pied-piper" wherever he goes.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

6. This is why FoxNoise was created...

Nothing like "Dumbing down America"

[fascisthunter]

10. yup... and also why Republicans don't want public education to succeed

[NoSheep]

28. DING DING AND ANOTHER DING!

[freebrew]

62. That's the whole point of

the Republic's philosophy on education. I have been saying this since the Vietnam war ended. The RW saw for the first time what an educated middle class can accomplish and it scared the hell out of them. Since that time, they have been working HARD to undermine our public education system.

[KansDem]

77. "...they have been working HARD to undermine our public education system."

I don't doubt this for a minute, but could you provide some examples? I know generally that the GOPers are "anti-tax" and that hurts public education, but some concrete examples (stats, legislation, etc.) would be helpful.

I work in a field where I see the tragedies of minimal education. I see daily lives wasting away due to what I believe is under-education.

I would like to have a few examples to research and throw out to neo-con colleagues.

Thanks! :hi:

edited for parenthesis

[Wednesdays]

79. Let's begin with the whole NCLB concept

Taking money away from "failure" schools.

The whole "home schooling movement." (People homeschool for different reasons, but the major push towards it is by rightwing fundies.)

Vouchers.

Charter schools.


That's just off the top of my head...

[RaleighNCDUer]

81. Secretary of Education, for one thing.

The post was created by Jimmy Carter, and none of the 4 secretaries who served immediately after, under Reagan/Bush, believed the position was legitimate. They did their job if it suited them, but did nothing to enhance public education and often spoke out against their own job. These republican SoE's were treading a fine line in that they advocated for private school vouchers to undermine public schools and at the same time took no strong effort to use their position to put prayer back in the curriculum - which the fundies wanted them to do, but doing so would not only cause a backlash but would eliminate its viability as a campaign issue.

[The Hope Mobile]

84. The economy has made it much harder to get higher education.

The public education system deteriorated greatly under Bush. Teaching to the test under NCLB leads to less critical thinking skill development. This leads to people being much more susceptible to propaganda.

No value was placed on music and art programs at schools so they were greatly curtailed if not eliminated. These can be ways for kids to develop higher thinking and also, if they get good enough, they can be a way out of poverty.

There is a lot of propaganda out there that says that if you send your kid to college they'll be corrupted by ungodly liberal thinking on Christian radio, etc..

There is/was the propaganda about the over-educated liberal elite being un-cool, destroying America and not caring about the average American. ie Who would you rather have a beer with George Bush or John Kerry? The partier not the smart guy.

Decrease in sex ed increases teen pregnancy also making it much harder to go for higher education.

Kids are more likely to be needed to help with the family's financial situation - needing to work instead of go to school. Since there are few decent paying jobs, the military becomes a much more appealing option. More poor babies, more soldiers.

I could be wrong but I think I've read student loans were much harder to get. Decreased funding for early education programs.

These are mostly pretty vague generalities but I've seen hard evidence. I need to dig a little further but I wanted to share what I remember on the subject. Its definitely an intentional effort to dumb down America and overall, its worked very well.

[ieoeja]

86. How about the bullshit "public education is failing"?

If public education is so bad in the United States, then why do we still lead the world in technical innovation?

Richard Feynmann, head of computing staff at Los Alamos during the building of the first A-bomb, was invited to Brazil where he found high-school kids scoring just as well as US college students on the standard tests for physics -- that would be the tests in the back of the teacher's copy of the textbook. "Why then," he asked himself, "are there so few famous Brazilian physicists?"

He wrote his own tests that the students should be able to solve if they understood the material they were being taught. Those same US college students did just fine. 100% of those Brazilian high school students failed. Most Brazilian college students also failed the test.

Turns out the Brazilians were simply memorizing the physics books instead of learning the physics.

So the Rightists here in the United States have used the standardized tests to "proof" that American public education is failing. Yet, we continue dominating the world in technical innovation. So clearly our public education was not failing. It probably is now as we have forced our teachers to get their students to pass the standardized tests. And the easiest way to get the maximum number of students to pass that test is to have them memorize the answers instead of solving the problems.

John Adams first became famous in the 1760s for fighting the anti-public education** views of the man King George III appointed to the highest court in North America. The judge's stated reasons for opposing public education was that it was failing and could be done better by private schools (sound familiar?). Decades later with all the principles safely in their graves, letters were found between the King's court and the judge in which they discuss education causing people to be disatisfied listening to "their betters".

"Public education is failing," was Rightist propaganda in 1760. And it was still Rightist propaganda in 2000.


**Any Rightists reading this: we had public education even before the US was founded, so you can take your "all schools were private" propaganda and shove that too.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

31. That network should be prohibited from holding itself out as a "news" network.

Corporacratic advocacy is NOT NEWS.

[No Elephants]

49. Faux sucks, but MOST outlets co-operated with Bushco to one degree or another. FAUX is perhaps

the least insidious bc it is known to be pro-Republican. If Faux News never existed, there still would have been a huge problem. Still is, in fact. For instance, we should be hearing on every evening news show and reading in every paper what went on that day in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have daily news about every other war in which we have been engaged since probably the American Revolution.

Fox is by far not the only issue.

If you misdiagnose, you mistreat; and, if you mistreat, you are a lot less likely to improve anything.

[SpiralHawk]

42. The dittoehead Republicons STILL believe it

So strong is their 'belief' in their Chickenhawk Diaper-clad 'Family Values' borrow-and-spend oil-crony phony 'leaders'

[caseymoz]

68. And will still fall for it, even now that it has been exposed.

They'll attribute the exposure to just liberal propaganda, and they'll parrot back that this was just an effort to "inform the public." They'll say that the "liberal media" is attacking the our military.

They've been too well groomed by years of conservative media propagandists. Limbaugh most especially.

[Ahpook]

83. I'd be willing to bet some know its all bullshit

They just went with it so wesza could be bombing us some ayrabs?

They watch that shit likes its a motherfucking football game.

[DungBeetle]

95. Just be honest for a second

Can't we all just be honest for a second?

Virtually everyone thought there were WMD's.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/wmdquotes.asp

[Name removed]

96. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[AllieB]

97. Most Fox News viewers fell for it. Most well-informed Americans didn't.

[newspeak]

98. um, no some didn't fall for it

you can go back on DU and see that some didn't fall for it. Remember Scott Ritter was speaking out since he was there as one of the monitors. Also, Phil Donahue was on MSNBC at that time, and had discussions on the WMD lies and invading Iraq. NBC got rid of him, since he refused to do the "attack Iraq" dance. He didn't lockstep like the other enthusiastic talking heads. And, my personal belief--I don't think many of those concresscritters were fooled. Nope, I think that once Pandora's Box was opened, that they knew war wasn't going to be shoved back in the box any time soon. Perpetual war that enriches a few at the expense of the many. You can see the consequences right now. Deterioration of our infrastructure-don't have enough for health care for the people, but we damn sure have enough for more perpetual war. Nothing coming back to the citizens who paid for the war, it just keeps enriching the war profiteers, the oil cartels. The best scam ever perpetrated on the people--more costly than the S&L debacle, and when they're through, more costly than what we've forked out to the greedy banks.

[Octafish]

105. Not on DU.

Bush lied America into war.

Just like his Poppy.

That's the honest truth.

[newspeak]

101. look at Germany

Because of 9/11-fear was created and exploited by the administration with the help of the MSM. That event helped catapult their agenda, and that agenda, was preemptive aggression against Iraq. Now most of the German people were considered educated and cultured, but the country was in economic turmoil and when the Reichstag fire happened, it was easy for Hitler to pander to the fears and preconceived prejudices of certain Germans. As our neo-con talking heads pander to the fear and prejudices of our people. It's about utilizing propaganda, setting the stage for compliance and repetition of lies. It worked on most of the German people; why would we think it wouldn't work on us? The one thing we have going for us, though, is we're more diverse than the German people.

[liberalmuse]

5. Why aren't the lot of them at The Hague again?

I mean, we all knew this stuff was going on, but to see it in print makes me disgusted and angry all over again. Honestly? Rove, W, Rice, Wolfowitz, Feith, Rumsfeld and Cheney all need to be punished to the full extent of International Law.

[Betty Karlson]

25. The lot of them are not in The Hague because of invasion threats

Remember, in 2002? President Bush bullied an act through congress and senate that gave the president unchallenged permission to invade any country that held Americans prisoner - and here's the scary bit - without asking congress/ senate for permission/ approval.

[No Elephants]

52. Why did so many Democrats vote for it and why the law remain in effect

after 2006? Blaming everything on Bush, Republicans and/or Fox is enjoyable, though not necessarily accurate or helpful

The law well may be unconstitutional, but I can't see how anyone but someone in the House or Senate can bring a suit--and how likely is that?

[Betty Karlson]

94. Ask the Democrats!

Eligeability could have played a role too. 2002 was not a good year to be critical of the administration.

Even so, the Dutch government is still not amused about that law. Representative Hoekstra has been petitioned quite a few times.

[Mike K]

59. The Answer To Your Question In Five Words Is --

--ignorance, stupidity, apathy, complacency and inertia.

Because the majority of our political representatives are totally corrupted by money and an exaggerated sense of their own power, nothing short of an imminently violent revolution will motivate them to act on behalf of the interests of the People. Unfortunately, by the time the political and economic circumstances deteriorate sufficiently to provoke such radical action by the majority of Americans it will be too late.

[No Elephants]

61. I thought the answer was that Obama immediately said, "We're going to look forward, not

back." And put the screws to Spain, when it wanted to prosecute.

Prosecuting and international relations are functions of the Executive Branch. The Legislative Branch certainly has many mega issues, but I would not lay this particular one on "most of our elected representatives."

[paparush]

66. Add wiretaps to that list. God only knows what dirt RoveCheney had dug up

on members and their families.

Political blackmail.

[RaleighNCDUer]

82. I sometimes wonder if blackmail was common knowledge -

and that explains the weird activities of members on the right - they thought they had a free pass because they knew that dems were being blackmailed for their transgressions into voting with the repugs, but they could not be blackmailed because they were already voting the 'right' way.

Fundie thinkers believe that people only act on reward/punishment, and if they believe no punishment is forthcoming they have license to do whatever they want. They don't believe in god because of the moral and ethical teachings of the bible - they believe because if they don't believe they will burn in eternal damnation.

Remove the fear of punishment and you get diapers and whores and bathroom trysts and long walks to Argentina.

[newspeak]

99. and, add in the anthrax attacks

remember who was targeted. To me, it was a shot across the bow. The question is, who fired it?

[Sinti]

7. LOL - this is being reported like it's a shocking bit of news

War is sold like sugary cereals on your television EVERYDAY. They sell it through fear and ignorance. We've been buying it for years. It's a concerted effort. The outrage is that tax dollars got used for it. It's demand generation for War, Inc. The war profiteers would pay for it if the Pentagon didn't. What good is a product if you can't sell it.

edited for clarification

[No Elephants]

54. Bushco concealed the source of government propaganda, making it seem as though it

was coming from the media outlets themselves, as opposed to making it obvious that it was propaganda. The media outlets are responsible, too, but there was an unprecedent blurring of the lines between government propaganda, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, private reporting/analysis/commentary/opinion.

There was also manipulation. One well known example was planting a story in the NYT, then Cheney going on Republican friendly Meet the Press to make a lot of claims, pointing to that same planted story as proof of his points.

[Sinti]

71. "There was also manipulation" - they don't see it as such

It's public relations, they don't want you to have a bad opinion of the military and the war, generally. Negative feelings about the war among the civilian population can have a negative impact on the outcome.

So not they send out press releases that paint the war in a positive light, using high level sales psychology principles. Also, every word that was/is spoken on the TV about the military and the war is transcribed and sent to analysts within 20 minutes of it being aired - sooner if possible. The Pentagon then has professionals come up with counters to any potential arguments against war that come up - even if the news model didn't say anything specifically negative.

It's just like sales, you figure out what the objections are to your product both before the initial sales pitch and then as an ongoing matter as new ones arise, if they arise. Anyone in sales knows this, or I feel bad for their children, because they're hungry at night. Most big companies have this function, it's called public relations and marketing. What we call planting a story is really just a Press Release, and it's far from illegal. Halliburton could hire a PR firm to beat the drums of war, it would be completely legal, and no one would be the wiser. PR can be a very subtle art.

Before "Mission Accomplished" day I personally worked on such things (in my minor capacity as a scribe) - then it was just too much, I'd rather starve in the street. :evilfrown:

[SlingBlade]

9. The Pentagon is a nest of vipers

And should be shut down. Our forefathers warned us about such abuses

[SpiralHawk]

11. "Smirk." - xCommander AWOL (R)

[SpiralHawk]

12. "Sneer." - xVP Dickie 'Five-Military-Deferments' Cheney (R - Chickenhawk)

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_haR0YHoRdfY/Rl50PN2eMAI/AAAAAAAAAeA/_JWpIGdbPrc/s400/Chickenhawk+Cheney.jpg

[valerief]

13. But we the people ARE foreign to our puppetmasters. They live in a different world

and have different values. They would sell their own mothers to slavers for an extra coin of gold.

[ixion]

14. and it was obvious and lame

to anyone who was actually paying attention.

[seafan]

15. Now 549 days since the NYT exposed the Pentagon's TV propaganda using retired generals.

39 days since NYT exposed Pentagon's domestic TV propaganda program using retired generals..., May 29, 2008


And we have been screaming about this for 18 months.



In this Raw Story report today:


Pentagon used psychological operation on US public, documents show, October 21, 2009

A months-long review of documents and interviews with Pentagon personnel has revealed that the Bush Administration's military analyst program -- aimed at selling the Iraq war to the American people -- operated through a secretive collaboration between the Defense Department's press and community relations offices.

.....

The investigation of Pentagon documents and interviews with Defense Department officials and experts in public relations found that the decision to fold the military analyst program into community relations and portray it as “outreach” served to obscure the intent of the project as well as that office’s partnership with the press office. It also helped shield its senior supervisor, Bryan Whitman, assistant secretary of defense for media operations, whose role was unknown when the original story of the analyst program broke.

.....

In a nearly hour-long phone interview, Whitman asserted that since the program was not run from his office, he was neither involved nor culpable. Exposure of the collaboration between the Pentagon press and community relations offices on this program, however, as well as an effort to characterize it as a mere community outreach project, belie Whitman’s claim that he bears no responsibility for the program’s activities.

.....

When the military analyst program was first revealed by The New York Times in 2008, retired US Army Col. Ken Allard described it as “PSYOPS on steroids.”
It turns out this was far from a casual reference. Raw Story has discovered new evidence that directly exposes this stealth media project and the activities of its participants as matching the US government’s own definition of psychological operations, or PSYOPS.

The US Army Civil Affairs & Psychological Operations Command fact sheet, which states that PSYOPS should be directed “to foreign audiences” only, includes the following description:
“Used during peacetime, contingencies and declared war, these activities are not forms of force, but are force multipliers that use nonviolent means in often violent environments.”

Pentagon public affairs officials referred to the military analysts as “message force multipliers” in documented communications.

A prime example is a May 2006 memorandum from then community relations chief Allison Barber in which she proposes sending the military analysts on another trip to Iraq:
“Based on past trips, I would suggest limiting the group to 10 analysts, those with the greatest ability to serve as message force multipliers.”

.....

We knew in real time what these people were up to. And that was before these retired generals polluted our media in selling the illegal invasion of Iraq to the American people.



We need to have a house-cleaning at the Pentagon, Mr. President. We cannot allow these rogue elements to continue their mission to undermine your presidency.

[Overseas]

16. K&R -- good reminder of how much the Bush Gang used manufactured news items. //nt

[Wizard777]

17. It appears that We The People have become the enemy of the US Government.

Bush did tell the absolute truth on one thing. It was during his 9/11 speech when he said, "The war on terrorism will be a lot like the war on drugs." Both these Republican declared wars have made We The People the enemy of our government. Now I'm wondering at what point We The People place those people responsible on trial for treason, convict them, and HANG THEIR ASSES! I'll bet they won't try anything even remotely close to that ever again. The Republican will straighten up and fly right. Otherwise they will continue to betray We The People and not rest until they have managed to completely overthrow our Constitutional form of Government. It's really that simple.

[Enthusiast]

50. Excellent point on what

'Bush the stupid' said "The war on terrorism will be a lot like the war on drugs."

That might be the only truth he told in eight years.

[woo me with science]

18. Um,....this is normal. nt

[lebkuchen]

19. The GAO report on the "America Supports You" program is late

Claire McCaskill had sent a no-uncertain-terms letter to Sec. Gates investigating this propaganda arm of the DoD, which had funneled money through Stars & Stripes.

Where's the report?

[bobthedrummer]

20. K&R

[optimator]

21. good thing we got a new Sec of Defense

to clean out the......WHOOOOOOPS

[deminks]

40. Good thing we have a new Pentagon spokesperson...

Double oopsy, Bryan Whitman is still there? Tell me it ain't so, Mr. President!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6658496&mesg_id=6658496

[Enthusiast]

51. "Change we can believe in." nt

[SammyWinstonJack]

74. +1

:evilgrin:

[Divine Discontent]

64. exactly.. this is sad...

[ieoeja]

90. Yes, it is a good thing Rumsfeld was replaced.

Dubya would have taken us to war with Iran had Rumsfeld not been forced out, and his replacement, Gates, spoken forcibly, and publicly, against war with Iran.

[girl gone mad]

22. I'm sure it didn't stop there.

Remember Jessica Lynch?

[Rage for Order]

23. Yet another immoral act begun under the Bush administration

Oh, wait a minute...






Governments distributing propaganda is hardly a new development

[No Elephants]

55. No, but the tactics Bushco used were new. When you see a poster saying

"Uncle Sam wants you," you understand that it is government speaking to you. If you don't like it, you have the ability to call it out and/or vote against it.

Bushco, however, went out of its way to blur the lines between government propaganda and private news/opinion/commentary. Please see Replies ##s 48, 52 and 54--and I've posted only the tip of the iceberg.

Democracy gives you no recourse against NBC or Meet the Press. (Maybe the free market does, but that is different from democracy, much as Republicans conflate the two.) And neither democracy nor the free market give you recourse against stuff that is concealed from you.

[mule_train]

24. about 10 years ago, I read a 1979 Army PsyOps manual .pdf online

and got a really chilly feeling 'what if they used this on US?'

i've felt, that they have off and on, regarding 911, iraq war, stock market propaganda, bailouts, guest workers (H-1b) etc

the whole debacle is one big PsyOp, never ending lies spewed in the media

frustrating as hell for people trying to tell the truth to people who may be innocently parroting lies

even once you get the truth across, the party using psyops has done so much damage that they've already won

[conscious evolution]

60. Do ypu still have a copy?

It would really be informative.

[mule_train]

80. .some of the leaders in psyops came from madison avenue advertising

in the 1950s i kid you not

'it's toasted'

[peacetalksforall]

26. Exquisitely orchestrated. They are masters at orchestration. They are not masters in

subsequent revelations. No one ever is.

Question - were the top brass at the Republican networks (all seven of them) paid by the barons who ordered all of this? Or did we pay for their rewards - just like we paid for the coalition partners to send soldiers, provide the prisons, fuel stops, military bases and who knows how many other products and services. I doubt that we bought the British since they were partners with the barons all along.

[DemBones DemBones]

43. Don't forget that those "Republican networks"

were for the most part in love with Barack Obama in 2008. They are really the corporatist networks and most Democrats are as corporatist as the GOP is. We've got a Dem president and a Dem Congress and can't get real health care reform or numerous other things we should have with Dems in power. Democrats have really changed since LBJ was president and pushed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and Medicare through Congress. Sure, he escalated the war in Viet Nam but we're at war now, about to escalate Afghanistan, and not getting the domestic progress we got with Johnson. It depresses the hell out of me to see how my party has fallen.

[No Elephants]

57. I agree that they are corporatist, but they are much more Republican controlled and Republican

leaning than they are in for Obama or any other Democrat or Democratic policy.

I agree that Democrats are too corporatist, but that is a different issue from where the networks lean.

[DemBones DemBones]

63. The owners probably are all Republican but CNN and MSNBC

pushed Obama as hard as they did Bush when he ran. It was surprising to see because they never gave Gore or Kerry a fair shake, much less praise. FOX is pro-GOP, of course, and I didn't watch CBS, NBC, or ABC enough to say how they leant. Newspapers were in Obama's corner, too, so apparently most of the powers that be saw him as more favorable to their corporatist agenda than McCain.

[peacetalksforall]

73. I think positive statements about him were just that. I haven't yet

analyzed why they did that, but it didn't last. I think it means that

They were back in stride when the assault was launched.

I think it was a time-out. It was probably more expedient to show spots of support for Obama then try to analyze and defend the end of the Executive era of Cheney.

I know what you mean by party has fallen.

We don't know yet if it applies to the WH. It sure applies to enough in Congress to hurt us. They bow to those leading the corpocracy who haven't changed one goal since Cheney.

And my personal gripe, the DLC, is still alive and too involved. And Dean is still getting smeared and attacked.

[rucky]

27. Office of Special Plans

doesn't anyone remember that? It got leaked & then they said they scrapped it.

Same with Total Information Awareness which was later discovered to be active.

[ConcernedCanuk]

29. "DOH"

.
.
.

The Warmongers in the USA have been doing this for decades . . .

but ya gotta read HISTORY to know this.

And what the USA publishes as "real" history . . :shrug: ???

'nuff said

[No Elephants]

58. Please see Reply # 55. And I don't know that the US has been any worse about history

than other countries. I very much doubt it. In fact, judging by this board, Americans seem more self analytical, more self critical and more tolerant of criticism from others.

[Vidar]

30. K&R

[sofa king]

32. No blowback, there.

The best known definition of blowback is unwanted consequences as a result of foreign intelligence operations, like training and using Osama bin Laden, then having him attack you.

But before that, "blowback" used to mean when the U.S. press accidentally (or "accidentally") picked up disinformation and propaganda stories planted by American intelligence in the foreign press. The fact that it had been happening was considered one of the more damaging disclosures revealed by the Church Committee in the 1970s.

This, on the other hand, goes right past that violation and heads straight into deceiving the home public with propaganda and, we now know, disinformation.

[many a good man]

33. Col. Sam Gardiner nailed in 2003

Truth from These Podia
Summary of a Study of Strategic Influence, Perception Management,
Strategic Information Warfare and Strategic Psychological Operations
in Gulf II
Sam Gardiner
Colonel, USAF (Retired)
October 8, 2003

Summary


* Clearly, the assumption of some in the government is the people
of the United States and the United Kingdom will come to a
wrong decision if they are the given truth.
* We probably have taken “Information Warfare” too far.
* We allowed strategic psychological operations to.
become part of public affairs.
* We failed to make adequate distinction between strategic
influence stuff and intelligence.
* Message became more important than performance.


The concepts of warfare got all mixed up in this war. I’ll come back to this
subject later, but what has happened is that information warfare, strategic influence,
strategic psychological operations pushed their way into the important process of
informing the peoples of our two democracies. The United States and the UK got too
good at the concepts they had been developing for future warfare.

...

More from my 2003 post here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4116816#4119319

Editied to fix links in original post:

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/whispers/documents/truth_1.pdf
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/whispers/documents/truth_2.pdf
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/whispers/documents/truth_3.pdf
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/whispers/documents/truth_4.pdf
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/whispers/documents/truth_5.pdf
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/whispers/documents/truth_6.pdf

More on retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner:

Sam Gardiner is a retired Air Force Colonel and described as "an expert in military strategy and an expert on strategic games." <1> At one time Gardiner taught at the National War College. <2>

Gardiner estimated that that some 50 media stories backing the push for war in Iraq media orignated from what was to be called the Office of Strategic Influence. FAIR noted that Rumsfeld stated that while the Office of Strategic Influence was killed in name, it's activities were going to be carried out. <3>

Some of the stories he identified included that of the 'rescue' of Private Jessica Lynch and one in which defense officials claimed that the "first Iraqi unit marines encountered, the 51st Mechanized Infantry Division, had surrendered four days before it actually did." Gardiner said that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers gave bad or deliberately incomplete info on several topics. "Never before have so many stories been created to sell a war. And they probably didn't need it," he told US News. <4>

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sam_Gardiner

[annabanana]

41. +1. .Thanks for the links. . . n/t

[newspeak]

100. remember when the first gulf war

I believe it was the Rendall Corp, PR firm, to push the war to the public? Then, there was the "Kuwait incubator lie". The televised war looked like a damn video game-to me, it was sterilized-like an attempt not to show the pain, suffering and death of real people. Then, I found out later that Iraqi soldiers who were retreating, going home were intentionally killed from behind. Because there is only embedded reporters, and those reporters who are independent (many have been killed), what do we really know about what's going on over there? They feed us shite and we gobble it down.

And, our soldiers who have died over there, some questionably. Pat Tillman, the young woman in the AF in Afghanistan, the Army ethicist, and others. I think some soldiers who tell the truth or go into conscience overload may be a risk to the "war is great" crowd. Look what happened to Jessica Lynch-they attempted to demoralize her when they couldn't use her, but they failed. She stuck to the truth and refused to be used as a propaganda tool.

[waiting for hope]

34. Rumsfeld's snowflakes -

and bumper sticker slogans ... all wrapped up in a bow.

[troubledamerican]

35. How much is Beck/FOX getting paid for the current psyop that DUers

won't believe exists until after the plane crashes into the Capitol Dome and the military coup is ushered in?

[newspeak]

102. funny you should say that

because to this day, I believe that flight 73 that crashed was heading for congress. Why do I think that? Well, I think congress was in session at that time. I might be wrong, but I think of the implications if that plane would have hit there. It is too scary to comprehend.

[harry_pothead]

36. Psychological Operation = If you don't support Bush and the invasion, then you're unpatriotic

Straight from Hermann Goering's playbook.

[Sancho]

37. What will Glenn Beck say (after a good cry)?

:wtf:

[NecklyTyler]

38. Using taxpayer's money to sell the war which lined the pockets of the defense contractors

These companies would like to extend a big 'Thank You' to Bush 43 for keeping the last eight years some of the most profitable in history:

1 Lockheed Martin
2 Boeing
3 BAE Systems
4 Northrop Grumman
5 Raytheon
6 General Dynamics
7 EADS
8 L-3 Communications
9 Finmeccanica
10 United Technologies
11 Thales
12 KBR
13 SAIC
14 General Electric
15 Honeywell
16 Rolls-Royce
17 ITT
18 DCNS
19 Computer Sciences Corp.
20 ATK
21 DRS Technologies
22 SAFRAN
23 Saab
24 Booz Allen Hamilton
25 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
26 Textron
27 Rockwell Collins
28 Almaz-Antei
29 EDS
30 Rheinmetall
31 Armor
32 URS
33 Israel Aerospace Industries
34 Hindustan Aeronautics
35 Dassault Aviation
36 QinetiQ
37 Goodrich
38 Harris
39 Elbit Systems
40 GKN Group
41 Krauss-Maffei Wegmann
42 Oshkosh Truck
43 CACI
44 Bechtel
45 VT Group
46 Cobham
47 Kawasaki
48 ManTech International
49 Rafael Armament Development Authority
50 Mitsubishi Electric
51 Nexter
52 Diehl Stiftung
53 Washington Group International
54 ST Engineering
55 Babcock International Group
56 Battelle
57 Indra Sistemas
58 Bharat Electronics
59 NEC
60 EDO
61 Tactical Missiles
62 Fincantieri
63 The Aerospace Corp.
64 Jacobs Engineering Group
65 Aviation Holding Company
66 Patria
67 Irkut
68 MiG
69 Tenix Defence
70 Teledyne Technologies
71 Cubic
72 AAI
74 Ultra Electronic Holdings
74 Russia’s Helicopters
75 Curtiss-Wright
76 Ufa Enginebuilding
77 Ruag Suisse
78 ARINC
79 Korea Aerospace Industries
80 Severnaya Verf
81 Aerospace Equipment
82 Meggitt
83 CAE
84 Israel Military Industries
85 Kongsberg Gruppen
86 Alion Science and Technology
87 BearingPoint
88 Ball
89 IHI Marine United
90 Fujitsu
91 KB Priborostroyeniya (Instrument Design Bureau)
92 Toshiba
93 Rotem Co.
94 MMPP Salyut
95 Orbital Sciences
96 IHI
97 Aselsan
98 Komatsu
99 Admiralteiskiye Verfi
100 Chemring

[NecklyTyler]

39. K&R

[Hubert Flottz]

44. Pentagon used psycho-logic when the repubs called the shots.

They left a lot of the psychos behind at the Pentagon, IMHO.

[Mari333]

45. heh. It didnt work on me . nt

[No Elephants]

48. Bushco made an effort to make it seem as though it's propaganda

originated with news outlets, rather than from governments. For instance, it sent media outlets packaged "news stories," which many ran as though they were their own news stories, rather than government generated propaganda. Bushco also "embedded" journalists reporting on its wars, thereby co-opting them. For instance, in the early days of the Iraq War, I heard reporters talking about "we" and "us," rather than U.S. forces or an Army unit, etc.

Both Bushco and media are to blame. And I don't know if anything has changed or ever will. It seems that once a President overreached, whatever he did became SOP for his successors.

[geckosfeet]

70. This should have been taken as a given for the bush criminal administration.

[OnyxCollie]

72. War is a racket.

Where the corporatists failed to convince Smedley Butler to lead their coup in the 30's, they succeed with these "military analysts" after 9/11.

I've gone through a lot of these propaganda statements. I've found statements where they've bragged about holding prisoners on ships in 2002, something they've denied when the Guardian reported it in 2007.

[pipi_k]

75. I knew something was strange from the very beginning when...

they never really said things outright but only made veiled references, or mentioned things in such a way that gullible people might be able to link two completely unrelated ideas to form a totally wrong "fact".

One of the most obvious, to me, was mentioning Iraq and Saddam Hussein in the same sentence with 9/11.

No connection whatsoever, but lots of people somehow made that connection and came to the wrong conclusion that Iraq was involved in 9/11, which it wasn't. It made me furious to see people being led around by the nose, and the worst of it was, nobody could actually say the Bushies were doing something nefarious because they weren't doing it outright.

made me want to scream

[lonestarnot]

76. Well that shit didn't work here.

[myrna minx]

78. K&R n/t

[Torn_Scorned_Ignored]

85. Tip of the iceberg

:redbox: :tv:

[lib2DaBone]

87. Every morning for 8 years the FAX went out from the Pentagon Press Room...

It was sent to Limpballs, Fox, CNN, MSNBC... where it was read as "Breaking News" , word-for-word.

47% of the American people still belive in the "offishul" (sic) version of 911, and see no problem in the fact that Bush dispatched a private plane to pick up members of the Bin Laden Family and secret them out of the country before they could be interviewed.

[The Court Jester]

88. The Government was lying to us and misleading us??????

Oh PLEEEEEEEEASE, say it ain't so!!!!

All this time I thought I could trust those two-bit scaliwags and self-serving charletans!

[katty]

89. geez, of course they did - for how long now...since WW2!

[cambie]

91. That's democracy.

No really. It is public opinion engineering that makes democracy possible. It is the technicians that implant most of what we believe including that nice, but silly, opinion that we actually run things. Democracy hasn't meant what we thought it did for a long time. In 1917 Benito Mussolini the journalist was working for MI5 doing the same thing.

[Nikki Stone1]

103. This is news? We knew this was going on. Rummy even told us it was.

Why is this news now?

[conscious evolution]

104. They used actor Gary Sinise in a psy/op

Remember the Army commercials where they used his voice?
It was done to remind you of the good Lt.Dan in Forest Gump.