CIA paper reveals plans to manipulate European opinion on Afghanistan

[unhappycamper]

CIA paper reveals plans to manipulate European opinion on Afghanistan
By Daniel Tencer
Friday, March 26th, 2010 -- 3:41 pm

Evidently spooked by the collapse of the Dutch government over the country's involvement in Afghanistan, the CIA has put together a strategy proposal to prevent what it fears could be a "precipitous" collapse of support for the war in Afghanistan among European allies.

A document marked "confidential / not for foreign eyes," posted to the Wikileaks Web site, suggests strategies to manipulate European public opinion on the war, particularly in France and Germany.

The document doesn't propose any direct methods by which the CIA could achieve this -- there are no references to planting propaganda in the press, for example -- but it does lay out what it sees as the key talking points to changing hearts and minds on the war. Among its proposals, the policy paper suggests playing up the plight of Afghan women to French audiences, as the French public has shown concern for women's rights in Afghanistan.

For the German audience, the document suggests a measure of fear-mongering about the possible fallout of NATO failure in Afghanistan. "Germany’s exposure to terrorism, opium, and refugees might help to make the war more salient to skeptics," the document asserts.

Rest of disgusting article at: http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0326/cia-paper-reveals-strategies-manipulate-european-opinion-afghanistan/



unhappycamper comment: You can read the whole thing at http://file.wikileaks.org/file/cia-afghanistan.pdf

[Solly Mack]

1. k/r

[malaise]

2. No surprise here

Rec

[Fumesucker]

3. Right.. Because women in Iraq are sooooo much better off now the the US invasion is complete..

:eyes:

Iraq makes it quite clear that what the US is doing in Afghanistan has not a single fucking thing to do with women's rights.

[Robb]

4. For context on Red Cell:

US News & World Report article from 2004: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/040802/2intell.htm

Excerpt:

Twice each week, a top-secret report with distinctive red stripes lands on the desks of select policymakers in Washington. Called the "Red Cell," it is the work of a CIA unit by the same name, set up after the 9/11 attacks to think "outside the box." "Some of it is really wacky, even scary," says an insider. "Like bombing Iran." The "Red Cell," in a very real sense, is emblematic of the trouble the U.S. intelligence community finds itself in today. Its reports, in-house critics say, are getting stale. "There's not a lot of young blood," an analyst says, "and there's not enough turnover."

Edited to add: Red Cell is by definition tasked to think up ideas and directions not currently being followed or endorsed. This should be reassuring.

[bigtree]

5. highlights the tenuous hold they have on support

It's not going to get better by lying about it, or hyping it with the types of stories the Army press corp writes up everyday and disseminates. We've got a few folks here at DU who eat those contrived and cherry-picked stories up like candy. I guess it's too much to expect the military to listen to and respect the objections of these dissenting nations.

[Enthusiast]

6. They have been doing this for years.

Imagine the C.I.A. misinformation campaign leading up to the Iraq invasion.

[Echo In Light]

8. +1

[Bucky]

7. It seems to me that if they changed their name to the Central Ignorance Agency...

...they could keep their same monogrammed t-shirts in the gift shop.