Pentagon and Bogus News: All Is Denied

[Say_What]

They already provide false news items... who do they think they're kidding?

<clips>

Early last year Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld disbanded the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence after it became known that the office was considering plans to provide false news items to unwitting foreign journalists to influence policymakers and public sentiment abroad.

But a couple of months ago, the Pentagon quietly awarded a $300,000 contract to SAIC, a major defense consultant, to study how the Defense Department could design an "effective strategic influence" campaign to combat global terror, according to an internal Pentagon document.

Sound familiar?

Senior Pentagon officials said Thursday that they were caught unawares by the contract and insisted its language was a "poor choice of words" by a low-level staffer. They said the work did not reflect any backdoor effort to resurrect the discredited office and was merely a study to understand Al Qaeda better and find ways to combat it.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/05/politics/05STRA.html?ex=1071593814&ei=1&en=0bc336f86648a55e>

[UpInArms]

1. Rummy is an habitual prevaricator

White House critics were quick to recognize that "strategic influence" was
a euphemism for disinformation. Rumsfeld had proposed establishing the
country's first Ministry of Propaganda.

The criticism was so severe that the White House backed away from the plan.
But on November 18, several months after the furor had died down, Rumsfeld
arrogantly announced that he had not been deterred. "If you want to savage
this thing, fine: I'll give you the corpse. There's the name. You can have
the name, but I'm gonna keep doing every single thing that needs to be done
-- and I have."

Gardiner's dogged research identified a long list of stories that passed
through Rumsfeld's propaganda mill. According to Gardiner, "there were over
50 stories manufactured or at least engineered that distorted the picture
of Gulf II for the American and British people." Those stories include:

... more at http://www.earthisland.org/project/newsPage2.cfm?newsID=491&pageID=177&subSiteID=44 ...

also see: http://www.pipeline.com/~psywarrior/

these people need to be behind bars for treason

[54anickel]

9. Wow! Another great one UIA Must read

Why is nothing being done on this crap!!!

According to Gardiner, "It was not bad intelligence" that lead to the quagmire in Iraq, "It was an orchestrated effort began before the war" that was designed to mislead the public and the world. Gardiner's research lead him to conclude that the US and Britain had conspired at the highest levels to plant "stories of strategic influence" that were known to be false.

The Times of London described the $200-million-plus US operation as a "meticulously planned strategy to persuade the public, the Congress, and the allies of the need to confront the threat from Saddam Hussein."

The multimillion-dollar propaganda campaign run out of the White House and Defense Department was, in Gardiner's final assessment "irresponsible in parts" and "might have been illegal."

[Mountainman]

10. The stupid freeps still believe and repeat everyone of these lies today

from:
America's Ministry of Propaganda Exposed -- Part One
By Gar Smith / The-Edge
November 7, 2003

* The link between terrorism, Iraq and 9/11
* Iraqi agents meeting with 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta
* Iraq's possession of chemical and biological weapons.
* Iraq's purchase of nuclear materials from Niger.
* Saddam Hussein's development of nuclear weapons.
* Aluminum tubes for nuclear weapons
* The existence of Iraqi drones, WMD cluster bombs and Scud missiles.
* Iraq's threat to target the US with cyber warfare attacks.
* The rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch.
* The surrender of a 5,000-man Iraqi brigade.
* Iraq executing Coalition POWs.
* Iraqi soldiers dressing in US and UK uniforms to commit atrocities.
* The exact location of WMD facilities
* WMDs moved to Syria.

[Say_What]

11. 'The US and Britain: The Axis of Disinformation'

LOL that's a good one. }(

There already has been a ministry of propaganda during the Iran Contra years. Headed by none other than Herr Otto REICH, it was called the Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean. He basically did what they're doing now, floated lies and propaganda to sway the general public opinion. The ad below is an example of what they were doing then.


Ad placed by the Young Republicans, one of the groups under the cognizance of the Office of Public Diplomacy and discussed by Oliver North in a March 20, 1985 memorandum

[Dover]

2. I think Rummy ought to be cast on the show "Survivor" where lies

are considered essential for winning. It's the new normal that Rumsfeld would like to establish. Greed AND Dishonesty are Good.

Or maybe Fantasy Island would be more appropriate....

"look boss...de terrorists, de terrorists!'

[grannylib]

3. Rummy's Personal Propaganda Machine...

remind you of Nazi days anyone??

[Dover]

4. I thought FOX was his personal propaganda machine

Are we supposed to assume that the only lie apparatus is within the walls of the Pentagon?

[Beetwasher]

5. How Many Times Are the Fuckers Going to be "Caught Unawares"?

How many times have we heard that it's the fault of low level staffers or overzealous aides?

Does anyone anywhere in this admin have a fucking clue about anything that anyone else does?

[justjones]

12. Yeah, it's the same low level staffer

in the "bowels" of the administration who didn't pass on to the senior administration that the information about Saddam trying to buy yellowcake was a load of crap?

[newyawker99]

15. Hi justjones!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[rock]

6. Only the Repukians would think they need a Department of Lies

and then name it that.

[many a good man]

7. "poor choice of words"

Yeah, the truth.

[zbdent]

8. Where's the confusion? They said that they set up an office specifically

to lie.

Then they said that it was closed.

Now, they had just pointed out that they were going to lie. Then they told "a truth".

The OSI was never closed.

[pinto]

13. SAIC, Deibold, Cheney, Carlucci, one of those "odd" convergences,

I'm no conspiracist, yet here's one of those background articles that keeps connecting the usual cast of charcters from this Admin....see:

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/082003Landes/082003landes.html

[Say_What]

14. Didn't know that Rummy was economis advisor to Tricky Dick...

<clips>

After serving as Republican Congressman through the turbulent sixties, Rumsfeld served Richard Nixon first as economic advisor and then as ambassador to NATO (1969 - 1973). When the Nixon administration folded (like a house of cards), he served Gerald Ford as Chief-of-Staff and Defense Secretary. During his brief tenure as Defense Secretary, he managed to shepherd into production an impressive array of weapons of mass destruction, including the MX missile, the Trident submarine and the B-1 bomber.

As the Ford administration gave way to the less fertile fields of the Carter administration, Rumsfeld used his wide-ranging management experience to return to the private sector, landing a number of high paying jobs in pharmaceuticals and technology. At the same time, he continued to serve in a variety of government posts - bearing nearly a dozen titles between 1982 to 2000, even as his bank account swelled from the fabulous growth of the drug industry and the high-tech sector.

His career as a public figure soared during the Reagan administration, when he was appointed Special Peace Envoy to the Middle East. This was where he met his soon-to-be friend and ally, Saddam Hussein. When the U.S. removed Iraq from its list of state sponsors of terrorism in 1982, at the height of the Iran-Iraq war, Rumsfeld payed the first of several visits to Baghdad, during which he told Iraqi officials that the U.S. would consider an Iraqi loss to Iran a major strategic defeat. In a personal meeting with Saddam Hussein in December 1983, Rumsfeld told the Butcher of Baghdad that the U.S. wanted to restore full diplomatic relations with Iraq. Rumsfeld later claimed that the purpose of this meeting was to warn Hussein to abandon the use of banned weapons - but that lofty goal is not reflected in the State Department's records from the meeting.

When the State Department declared that Iraq's victory in this war was in the best interests of regional stability, Rumsfeld was personally charged with giving Iraq the means to make that victory happen. Shortly thereafter, intelligence reports began to indicate that the Iraqis were using illegal chemical weapons against Iran "almost daily."


http://www.warprofiteers.com/cards/hearts/jack.html

[UpInArms]

16. did you also know

that Carlucci and Rumsfeld were college roommates?

http://www.evote.com/features/2002-05/050902carlyle.asp

Six Degrees Of Don Rumsfeld? The Defense Secretary and Carlyle Chairman Frank Carlucci, himself a former Defense Secretary, are ex- roommates.

[Say_What]

17. I guess I'm not surprised that the corruption stems from waaaay back

:-)

On edit: Imagine how much these guys must have on each other!

[pinto]

18. what burns me the most

is that Congress has essentially given this not-so-shadow government a blank check.

Checks and balances? All I see are checks.