Pentagon Weighs Use of Deception in a Broad Arena

[KingChicken]

Pentagon Weighs Use of Deception in a Broad Arena
December 13, 2004

WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 - The Pentagon is engaged in bitter, high-level debate over how far it can and should go in managing or manipulating information to influence opinion abroad, senior Defense Department civilians and military officers say.

Such missions, if approved, could take the deceptive techniques endorsed for use on the battlefield to confuse an adversary and adopt them for covert propaganda campaigns aimed at neutral and even allied nations.

Critics of the proposals say such deceptive missions could shatter the Pentagon's credibility, leaving the American public and a world audience skeptical of anything the Defense Department and military say - a repeat of the credibility gap that roiled America during the Vietnam War.

The efforts under consideration risk blurring the traditional lines between public affairs programs in the Pentagon and military branches - whose charters call for giving truthful information to the media and the public - and the world of combat information campaigns or psychological operations.

The question is whether the Pentagon and military should undertake an official program that uses disinformation to shape perceptions abroad. But in a modern world wired by satellite television and the Internet, any misleading information and falsehoods could easily be repeated by American news outlets.


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/13/politics/13info.html?ei=1&en=02f26e0247f5d2ab&ex=1103944696&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1102957368-reh5GEcy7DrOrlleDuEscg

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. Well, we already have the White House Propaganda room....

Why not one in the Pentagon? Everyone must get one, it's all the rage this year. urp.

[Earth_First]

2. Read: Lying

it's all semantics, really.

[Just Me]

3. Psy-ops are NOT, NOT, NOT acceptable!

Particularly when those psy-ops are being used to also manipulate the masses of the American public.

It just makes me damned ill that the executive has gotten away with the level of psy-ops already waged against the American people and the world.

I thought this type of propaganda was strictly prohibited!

WTF?

[DulceDecorum]

5. The Return of PSYOPS to CNN

http://www.fair.org/press-releases/cnn-psyops-fallujah.html

Indeed, the presence of psychological operations personnel at CNN was first revealed at a PSYOPS conference in Arlington, Virginia by Col. Christopher St. John, commander of the Army's 4th PSYOPS Group (the unit to which the CNN interns belonged), who offered the internship program as an example of the type of "greater cooperation between the armed forces and media giants" which he hoped to see more of (Intelligence Newsletter, 2/17/00).
http://www.fair.org/activism/psyops-response.html

[54anickel]

4. Wow, I remember when I was a kid, propaganda was touted as

a dirty trick only those commies would use. The U.S. was above such tactics. We certainly wouldn't admit to it, now Rummy just flaunts it as some huge strategic ploy. Somehow we are supposed to continue to believe the tell us the truth, the known unknowns.

[el_gato]

6. talk about Moral Relativism

[Sara Beverley]

7. Deception is what got us into the Iraq invasion. What more do they need?

This administration is just the absolute lowest of the low.

[durutti]

8. And keep in mind that these stories are picked up in the U.S. media. n/t

[Demeter]

9. Truth Works Every Time--Deception Only Once

and these days, deception is revealed within minutes via that great Internet leak. Use Deception once, and neither truth nor deception will work again. Karma is a bitch.

[Massacure]

10. By this time 2008 Kim Jung Il will be more credible than us.