America's Ministry of Propaganda Exposed

[Ms. Clio]

I read this here a couple of weeks ago, and it seems worth a repost in light of the Armstrong Williams revelations.

America's Ministry of Propaganda Exposed -
Part One
A Strategy of Lies:
How the White House Fed the Public a Steady Diet of Falsehoods
by Gar Smith

The 56-page investigation was assembled by USAF Colonel (Ret.) Sam Gardiner. "Truth from These Podia: Summary of a Study of Strategic Influence, Perception Management, Strategic Information Warfare and Strategic Psychological Operations in Gulf II" identifies more than 50 stories about the Iraq war that were faked by government propaganda artists in a covert campaign to "market" the military invasion of Iraq.

Gardiner has credentials. He has taught at the National War College, the Air War College and the Naval Warfare College and was a visiting scholar at the Swedish Defense College.

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."

More here: http://www.worldnewsstand.net/news/AMOP1.htm

This is a 4-part article, rather lengthy but I urge you to read all of it.

[Name removed]

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[rkc3]

2. Just call them whores - fewer syllables and more to the point.

[Ms. Clio]

3. Thanks, but this seems mostly about the neocons & the Bush admin

to me.

Unfortunately, Kerry would have been utterly destroyed by this same propaganda machine had he attempted to use this information. Think Hillary's "vast right wing conspiracy" x 1000.

[Name removed]

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[Ms. Clio]

5. Sometimes I do think they are just good cop/bad copping us

But the neocons and theocratic crazies just work so much harder and more obsessively at destroying Dems than vice versa.

[greendog]

6. Anyone remember Reagan's Office of Public Diplomacy?

This stuff has been going on for a long time.

Interesting article:
http://www.fair.org/extra/0204/osi.html

"The 4th PSYOPS group also staffed the National Security Council's now-notorious Office of Public Diplomacy (OPD), which in the 1980s planted stories in major U.S. media outlets supporting the Reagan administration's Central America policies (Extra!, 9-10/01). Described by a senior U.S. official as a "vast psychological warfare operation of the kind the military conducts to influence a population in enemy territory" (Miami Herald, 7/19/87), the OPD was shut down after the Iran-Contra investigations. George W. Bush’s recent recess appointment of former OPD head Otto Reich as assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs suggests, at best, a troubling indifference to the OPD’s deception of the American people."

Edited to add quote.