When the Times actually reported news.
In honor of Don Rumsfeld and his recent appearance before Congress:
"Pentagon Weighs Use of Deception in a Broad Arena, Value of Disinformation; The Nation's Credibility is at Risk, Military Critics Contend" by Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt/New York Times December 13, 2004
"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.
[Too late! Military credibility is ALREADY SHATTERED!
The only one who believes what our military says now is the garbage MSM!
And they spew the script like they chew cud!
Military lies? See Pat Tillman!]
"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 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.
[And HERE at HOME, too!]
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.
[Which could easily be CIA front offices anyway!]
The military has faced these tough issues before. Nearly three years ago, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, under intense criticism, closed the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence, a short-lived operation to provide news items, possibly including false ones, to foreign journalists in an effort to influence overseas opinion.
[Nice paragraph. Makes you believe the OSI was shut down.
Then what about Lincoln? Notice the date of the L.A. Times piece: "Nov. 30, 2005!"]
Now, critics say, the missions of that discredited office are quietly being resurrected elsewhere in the military and in the Pentagon.
[Oh, so the d*** program NEVER WENT AWAY, huh?
Just like EVERYTHING the military does.
I bet they just CHANGED the NAME and sent it to another department!]
Pentagon and military officials directly involved in the debate say that such a secret program, for example, could include planting news stories in the foreign press or creating false documents and Web sites translated into Arabic as an effort to discredit and undermine the influence of mosques and religious schools that preach anti-American principles.
[Ohhhhh!! Plant false documents, huh?
Like Iraq trying to purchase yellow cake from Niger?
FALSE WEB SITES, huh?
Like the CIA “jihadi” websites using regurgitated video footage and hosted out of Texas or Maryland?
And just what anti-American principles are those Muslims teaching?
HONESTY?]
Some of those are in the Middle Eastern and South Asian countries like Pakistan, still considered a haven for operatives of Al Qaeda. But such a campaign could reach even to allied countries like Germany, for example, where some mosques have become crucibles for Islamic militancy and anti-Americanism.
Before the invasion of Iraq, the military's vast electronic-warfare arsenal was used to single out certain members of Saddam Hussein's inner circle with e-mail messages and cellphone calls in an effort to sway them to the American cause. Arguments have been made for similar efforts to be mounted at leadership circles in other nations where the United States is not at war.
[Oh, so we will LIE to LEADERSHIP all over the world, huh?
Yeah, I don't believe a word our LYING MILITARY says any more!
And haven't for years, for those who have my writings somewhere.
The U.S. military has been LYING FOREVER!]
During the Cold War, American intelligence agencies had journalists on their payrolls or operatives pose as journalists, particularly in Western Europe, with the aim of producing pro-American articles to influence the populations of those countries. But officials say that no one is considering using such tactics now.
[So the Times KNOWS ALL ABOUT Mockingbird, and it's just a ho-hum sentence in the piece.
Not considering such tactics now?
Don't have to!
The truth is THE PROGRAM NEVER STOPPED!
Judging by the MSM now, it is nothing but a GOVERNMENT-RUN MOUTHPIECE!
What happened to the "Al-CIA-Duh" scare?
Where's my daily dose of terror threat?
Seems like when Iraq is debated, the terror warnings were being screamed.
Cherty had a feeling in his gut.
So WHY SOFT-SELL the TERROR THREAT NOW?
So we can be SURPRISED AGAIN?!]
Suspicions about disinformation programs also arose in the 1980's when the White House was accused of using such a campaign to destabilize Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya.
[As with Iraq in 2002-2003 and Iran now!]
In the current debate, it is unclear how far along the other programs are or to what extent they are being carried out because of their largely classified nature.
[Lincoln?]
Within the Pentagon, some of the military's most powerful figures have expressed concerns at some of the steps taken that risk blurring the traditional lines between public affairs and the world of combat information operations.
These tensions were cast into stark relief this summer in Iraq when Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Iraq, approved the combining of the command's day-to-day public affairs operations with combat psychological and information operations into a single "strategic communications office."
In a rare expression of senior-level questions about such decisions, Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, issued a memorandum warning the military's regional combat commanders about the risks of mingling the military public affairs too closely with information operations.
"While organizations may be inclined to create physically integrated P.A/I.O. offices, such organizational constructs have the potential to compromise the commander's credibility with the media and the public," the memo said.
[Well, with the public, anyway.
MSM just REPEATS what government hands them]
But General Myers memo is not being followed, according to officers in Iraq, largely because commanders there believe they are safely separating the two operations and say they need all the flexibility possible to combat the insurgency.
[Including LYING to the American people!]
Indeed, senior military officials in Washington say public affairs officers in war zones might, by choice or under pressure, issue statements to world news media that, while having elements of truth, are clearly designed primarily to provoke a response from the enemy.
[You mean like the P20G program, whereby the U.S. will "launch secret operations aimed at "stimulating reactions" among terrorists and states possessing weapons of mass destruction -- that is, for instance, prodding terrorist cells into action."
Yup, HELP the "TERRORISTS" carry out attacks!
Well, dear reader, they ALREADY ARE and ALREADY HAVE!
Because TERROR ATTACKS are being carried out by WESTERN GOVERNMENTS!
That's right!
WESTERN GOVERNMENTS are carrying out the TERROR ATTACKS!
Ever hear of "Operation Gladio," reader?]
Administration officials say they are increasingly troubled that a nation that can so successfully market its cars and colas around the world, even to foreigners hostile to American policies, is failing to sell its democratic ideals, even as the insurgents they are battling are spreading falsehoods over mass media outlets like the Arab news satellite channel Al Jazeera.
[This is an incredible paragraph.
Yup, those dunderheads at the WH can't figure out why no one wants to but our "democracy."
First of all, they SEE THAT OUR POLITICAL SYSTEM is S***!!!
They ain't buyin 'cause the WHOLE WORLD KNOWS we sell s***!!
Ask Hamas about our ideas of "democracy."
And do you think MAYBE dropping BOMBS on their HEADS and MURDERING MILLIONS of them would affect the SALES PITCH?!
Yeah, never mind your lying eyes, Iraqi, just buy this plate of bulls*** we are serving you!
What MYOPIC S***HEADS in the WH?
And didn't Bush threaten to bomb Al Jazeera (as well as taking out press offices in Iraq and Afghanistan)?
As for falsehoods, NO ONE tops the U.S. MSM on that!
I know. I am an avid consumer!
"In the battle of perception management, where the enemy is clearly using the media to help manage perceptions of the general public, our job is not perception management but to counter the enemy's perception management," said the chief Pentagon spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita.
[What? Where is this "enemy" that dominates the media, yet lives in a cave in the hills of Pakistan or has an hour a day of power in Iraq?
WTF? It is the United States and the West that have the VAST PERCEPTION APPARATUS and the CONTROLLING CULTURAL MYTHS of our times.]
The battle lines in this debate have been drawn in a flurry of classified studies, secret operational guidance statements and internal requests from Mr. Rumsfeld. Some go to the concepts of information warfare, and some complkain about how the government's communications are organized.
The fervent debate today is focused most directly on a secret order signed by Mr. Rumsfeld late last year and called "Information Operations Roadmap." The 74-page directive, which remains classified but was described by officials who had read it, accelerated "a plan to advance the goal of information operations as a core military competency."
Noting the complexities and risks, he ordered studies to clarify the appropriate relationship between Pentagon and military public affairs -- whose job is to educate and inform the public with accurate and timely information -- and the practitioners of secret psychological operations and information campaigns to influence, deter or confuse adversaries.
[So the OSI concept continued with "operations and information campaigns to influence, deter or confuse adversaries," as well as the American public!]
In response, one far-reaching study conducted at the request of the strategic plans and policy branch of the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently produced a proposal to create a "director of central information." The director would have responsibility for budgeting and "authoratative control of messages" -- whether public or covert -- across all governmental operations that deal with national security and foreign policy.
The study, conducted by the National Defense University, was presented Oct. 20 to a panel of senior Pentagon officials and military officers, including Douglas J. Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy, whose organization set up the original Office of Strategic Influence.
[It was Feith who also ran the Office of Special Plans, the Lie Factory "intelligence" unit out of the Pentagon that put out the bulls*** propaganda about Iraq!]
No senior officer today better represents the debate over a changing world of military information than Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, an operational commander chosen to be the military's senior spokesman in Iraq after major combat operations shifted to counterinsurgency operations in the spring of 2003.
His role rankled many in the military's public affairs community who believed that the job should have gone to someone trained in the doctrine of Army communications and public affairs, rather than to an officer who had spent his career in combat arms.
"This is a tough business," said General Kimmit, who now serves as deputy director of plans for the American military command in the Middle East. "Are we trying to inform? Yes. Do we offer perspective? Yes. Do we offer military judgment? Yes. Must we tell the truth to stay credible? Yes. Is there a battlefield value in deceiving the enemy? Yes. Do we intentionally deceive the American people? No."
[Did Donald Rumsfeld teach you how to answer your own questions? Yes.
Never mind that Kimmit's command tenure was marked with CONSTANT LYING from Iraq.]
The rub, General Kimmit said, is operating among those sometimes conflicting principles.
"There is a gray area," he said. "Tactical and operational deception are proper and legal on the battlefield." But "in a worldwide media environment," he asked, "how do you prevent that deception from spilling out from the battlefield and inadvertently deceiving the American people?"
[The TRUTH is not a gray area, sir! And deception of the American people?
Was never a problem for them before, so?]
Mr. Di Rita said the scope of the issue had changed in recent years. "We have a unique challenge in this department," he said, "because four-star military officers are the face of the United States abroad in ways that are almost unprecedented since the end of World War II."
[Great. The FACE of AmeriKa to the world are now MILITARY GENERALS.
The New Reich! No wonder the world hates us!]
He added, "Communications is becoming a capability that combatant commanders have to factor in to the kinds of operations they are doing."
Much of the Pentagon's work in this new area falls under a relatively unknown field called Defense Support for Public Diplomacy. This new phrase is used to describe the Pentagon's work in governmentwide efforts to communicate with foreign audiences but that is separate from support for generals in the field.
[So they CHANGED the NAME, huh?]
At the Pentagon, that effort is managed by Ryan Henry, Mr. Feith's principal deputy for policy.
"With the pace of technology and such, and with the nature of the global war on terrorism, information has become much more a part of strategic victory, and to a certain extent tactical victory, than it ever was in the past," Mr. Henry said.
[Oh, so they just PASSED the program off to Feith's deputy, hanh?]
However, a senior military officer said that without clear guidance from the Pentagon, the military's psychological operations, information operations and public affairs programs are "coming together on the battlefield like never before, and as such, the lines are blurred."
[And this article was THREE YEARS AGO!!
The programs must be ONE by now!
So we are getting PURE PROP from our military. Great]
This has led to a situation where "proponents of these elements jockey for position to lead the overall communications effort," the officer said.
Debate also continues over proposed amendments to a classified Defense Department directive, titled "3600.1: Information Operations," which would lay down Pentagon policy in coming years. Previous versions of the directive allow aggressive information campaigns to affect enemy leaders, but not those of allies or neutral states. The current debate is over proposed revisions that would widen the target audience for such missions.
[So the OSI goes forward and EXPANDS as planned.
And yet this whole article has made it sound as if this WASN'T BEING DONE, ISN'T BEING DONE, and probably WON'T BE DONE.
What OBFUSCATING LIARS the U.S. MSM is!
Mr. Di Rita, the Pentagon spokesman, says that even though the government is wrestling with these issues, the standard is still to tell the truth.
[Even if we gotta LIE about it! Ha-ha-ha!]
"Our job is to put out information to the public that is accurate," he said, "and to put it out as quickly as we can."
[Then how come you guys are constantly getting it wrong and lying to us, Larry?
As for the MSM's role, I am sick of "Al-CIA-Duh's" fake videos with bad actors, fake terror events, fake WMD, fake reporters, fake events, fake intelligence, produced and written by sociopathic, remorseless, conscienceless, soulless madmen.
Clear now, reader?]
