| Subj: | US PSYOPS Group under new patronage |
| Date: | 2/21/02 12:58:24 PM Pacific Standard Time |
| From: APFN@apfn.org (American Patriot Friends
Network) Reply-to: apfn@apfn.org To: apfn@yahoogroups.com (APFN Yahoogroups), apfn@smartgroups.com (APFN SMARTGROUP) CC: davemull@alphalink.com.au |
|
From: Dave Muller <davemull@alphalink.com.au>
FAIR Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting 112 W.
27th Street
New York, NY 10001
MEDIA ADVISORY:
Pentagon Propaganda Plan Is Undemocratic, Possibly
Illegal
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=19002
February 19, 2002
The New York Times reported today that the Pentagons Office of
Strategic
Influence is developing plans to provide news items, possibly even
false
ones, to foreign media organizations in an effort to influence
public
sentiment and policy makers in both friendly and unfriendly
countries.
The OSI was created shortly after September 11 to publicize the
U.S.
governments perspective in Islamic countries and to generate support for
the U.S.s war on terror. This latest announcement raises grave concerns
that far from being an honest effort to explain U.S. policy, the OSI may
be
a profoundly undemocratic program devoted to spreading disinformation
and
misleading the public, both at home and abroad. At the same time,
involving
reporters in Pentagon disinformation puts the lives of working
journalists
at risk.
Despite the OSIs multi-million-dollar budget and its mandate to
propagandize throughout the Middle East, Asia and Western Europe, even
many senior Pentagon officials and Congressional military aides say
they
know almost nothing about its purpose and plans, according to the Times.
The Times reported that the OSIs latest announcement has
generated
opposition within the Pentagon among those who fear that it will
undermine
the Defense Departments credibility.
Tarnished credibility may be the least of the problems created by the
OSIs
new plan to manipulate media-the plan may compromise the free flow
of
information that democracy relies on. The government is barred by law
from
propagandizing within the U.S., but the OSIs new plan will likely lead
to
disinformation planted in a foreign news report being picked up by U.S.
news outlets. The war in Afghanistan has shown that the 24-hour news
cycle,
combined with cuts in the foreign news budgets across the U.S.,
make
overseas outlets like Al-Jazeera and Reuters key resources for
U.S.
reporters.
Any accidental propaganda fallout from the OSIs efforts is troubling
enough, but given the U.S. governments track record on domestic
propaganda, U.S. media should be pushing especially hard for
more
information about the operations other, intentional
policies.
According to the New York Times, one of the military units assigned to
carry out the policies of the Office of Strategic Influence is the
U.S.
Armys Psychological Operations Command (PSYOPS). The Times doesnt
mention, however, that PSYOPS has been accused of operating domestically
as
recently as the Kosovo war.
In February 2000, reports in Dutch and French newspapers revealed
that
several officers from the 4th PSYOPS Group had worked in the news
division
at CNN's Atlanta headquarters as part of an internship program starting
in the final days of the Kosovo War. Coverage of this disturbing story
was
scarce (see FAIRs Why Were Government Propaganda Experts Working on News
at CNN? 3/27/00), but after FAIR issued an Action Alert on the story,
CNN
stated that it had already terminated the program and acknowledged that
it
was inappropriate.
Even if the PSYOPS officers working in the newsroom did not
directly
influence news reporting, the question remains of whether CNN may
have
allowed the military to conduct an intelligence-gathering mission
against
the network itself. The idea isnt far-fetched-- according to
Intelligence
Newsletter (2/17/00), a rear admiral from the Special Operations
Command
told a PSYOPS conference that the military needed to find ways to
"gain
control" over commercial news satellites to help bring down
an
"informational cone of silence" over regions where special operations
were
taking place. One of CNNs PSYOPS interns worked in the networks
satellite division. (During the Afghanistan war the Pentagon found a
very
direct way to gain control-- it simply bought up all commercial
satellite
images of Afghanistan, in order to prevent media from accessing
them.)
Its worth noting that the 4th PSYOPS group is the same group that
staffed
the National Security Council's now notorious Office of Public
Diplomacy
(OPD), which planted stories in the U.S. media supporting the
Reagan
Administration's Central America policies during the 1980s. 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, but not before influencing coverage in major
outlets
including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington
Post
(Extra!, 9-10/01).
The OPD may be gone, but the Bush administrations recent recess
appointment of former OPD head Otto Reich as assistant secretary of
state
for Western Hemisphere affairs is not reassuring. It suggests, at best,
a
troubling indifference to Reichs role in orchestrating the OPDs deception
of the American people.
Indeed, as the Federation of American Scientists points out, the
Bush
Administrations insistent efforts to expand the scope of official
secrecy
have now been widely noted as a defining characteristic of the
Bush
presidency (Secrecy News, 2/18/02). The administrations refusal to
disclose Enron-related information to the General Accounting Office
is
perhaps the most publicized of these efforts; another is Attorney
General
John Ashcrofts October 12 memo urging federal agencies to resist Freedom
Of Information Act requests.
In addition, the Pentagons restrictive press policies throughout the war
in Afghanistan have been an ongoing problem. Most recently, Washington
Post
reporter Doug Struck claims that U.S. soldiers threatened to shoot him if
he proceeded with an attempt to investigate a site where civilians had
been
killed; Struck has stated that for him, the central question raised by
the
incident is whether the Pentagon is trying to cover up its actions and
why it wont allow access by reporters to determine what they're doing
here in Afghanistan (CBS, The Early Show, 2/13/02).
Taken together, these incidents and policies should raise alarm bells
for
media throughout the country. Democracy doesnt work if the public does
not
have access to full and accurate information about its
government.
[Non-text portions of this message have been
removed]
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