Local psy-ops in a global world (George H W Bush edition)

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Our invasion of Panama was kind of the first draft of the second Iraq War. It was presented as being all about the need to neutralize a criminal individual (that we had a friendly history with back in the day) and we didn't even get the guy for a good while.

But we did get into Noriega's empty home. And we took pictures of it and released the pictures to the press. And we were sure to focus on Noreiga's prominently placed framed Hitler photo.

Of course Noriega didn't have a framed Hitler photo in his room. The CIA put it there to be photographed and released to the press.

First, it's nice knowing that we have black helicopters on stand-by loaded with framed pictures of Hitler... you know, just in case.

Second, when a stink was made about it the defense was that the CIA was doing a psychological operation for local consumption, to further turn Panama against Noriega. But it wasn't all that local, since everyone in the world saw it.

And the people of Panama were not the only folks whose opinion of Noreiga needed shaping... it was a political question in the United States. We get to have opinion of whether we ought to have just invaded a country and things like framed Hitler pictures do have an effect on public opinion.

The CIA might as well have been doing a Bush campaign commercial for all the practical distinction there is.

So I thought that sucked.

[EFerrari]

1. Yep. "The Panama Deception"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22YnJxDFUQE

A documentary well worth the time. It's on Netflix, too.