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| US constrained in propaganda war |
| 2006-02-03 |
| Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that the Pentagon had not done a good job in the information war against enemies like al Qaeda, saying US personnel felt constrained partly due to fear of criticism in the media. ''This is an area that we don't do well -- we know we don't do well,'' Rumsfeld told a Pentagon briefing yesterday, referring to information operations and psychological warfare aimed at foreign peoples and enemies. ''How do we compete in this struggle in a way that can counter the ability of the enemy to lie, which we can't do, (and) the ability of the enemy to not have a free media criticizing them? You don't see much criticizing of them.'' A debate is under way in America over what is permissible for the US government to do to spread its message to foreign audiences as it engages in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and in what it calls a global war against terrorism. The US military command in Iraq is investigating a military program that funneled money to some Iraqi newspapers to publish pro-American articles. The Pentagon in 2002 closed its Office of Strategic Influence after reports that it planned to plant false news stories with foreign media outlets. ''We're not going to lose wars or battles out there. The only place we can lose is if the country loses its will. And the determinant of that is what is played in the media,'' Rumsfeld said. ''And, therefore, the terrorists have media committees, and they plan it. And they manipulate and manage to influence what the media carries throughout the world. And they do it very successfully. They're good at it.'' But Rumsfeld said the risk of being criticized by the US news media had a chilling effect on the US military. ''And they (defense personnel) say, oh my goodness, if you do anything in that area, you get penalized because there's bad press, there's bad news, someone doesn't like it, there's a congressional hearing, the newspaper has it on the front page because it's about the media and the media likes to write about the media,'' Rumsfeld said. ''And our people are chilled and reticent and uncomfortable,'' Rumsfeld added. A document signed by Rumsfeld that was made public last week acknowledged that information spread by the Pentagon to influence foreign audiences increasingly seeps back home and is ''consumed by our domestic audience.'' The Pentagon is prohibited from targeting American audiences with these ''psychological operations.'' The Pentagon said the ''psychological operations'' information was truthful. But the research organization that obtained the document through the Freedom of Information Act described it as propaganda planted overseas that inevitably made its way back to the United States. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #12 Bobby, you may be on to something. Maybe we can apply for a grant to study that, lol! |
| Posted by: BA 2006-02-03 21:20 |
| #11 #8 - Studies? Yes, CS! That's the ticket! Come back in two (mebbe three) years when the "studies" have been completed! |
| Posted by: Bobby 2006-02-03 21:03 |
| #10 I meant to add, the MSM was all over that one, second guessing our boys (who BTW, in my mind, are being extremely merciful) about putting this goon down! Having MSM guys embedded with our troops, second guessing their ROEs in front of the entire country (especially when the jihadis are burning innocents and beheading captives on the internet) is beyond the pale! |
| Posted by: BA 2006-02-03 20:56 |
| #9 Oh yeah, CS, that's the ticket...It's BB all the time. I, for one, can think of 1 specific incident where the MSM "chilled" the military's action...the one where 1 of our boyz tapped the Islamonut who was laying on the floor shot with a bomb under him and moved (our troops thought he was dead or incapacitated enough to not move). This specific grunt's buddy had just been killed by the same action...jihadis playing opossum (or 'possum in the red states) with a bomb underneath and set it off when he bent down to check the jihadi. Thing is, our troops probably are checking their stats and getting them medical attention to boot! |
| Posted by: BA 2006-02-03 20:54 |
| #8 "But Rumsfield says that the risk of being criticized by the U.S. media had a chilling effect on the U.S. military. It makes our people chilled, reticient and uncomfortable." Does anyone have any proof that this is true? Have any studies been done to verify it? What is sounds like is Bush administration propaganda to kill off dissenting opinions about his "GWOT". |
| Posted by: Common Sense 2006-02-03 16:43 |
| #7 Bring back The Big Picture. :> Sunday afternoons after football season and before baseball season. |
| Posted by: 6 2006-02-03 10:25 |
| #6 On the complete other other end of the DOD's propaganda war, I doubt if any of us have a problem with the DOD publishing dis-information or slanted information to help our side, afterall it's WAR. Here's another example of a great war correspondent! All Activity - Simple View from Oct. 14, 2005 to Nov. 14, 2005 for Date Type To/From Name/Email Status Details Action Amount Oct. 31, 2005 Payment To bill roggio Completed Details -$200.00 USD |
| Posted by: RD 2006-02-03 09:50 |
| #5 The Pentagon is going to lose the information war. The DOD is so dumb they are jerking Michael Yon around. QED. Bring back The Big Picture. |
| Posted by: Clavins Glasing1850 2006-02-03 09:06 |
| #4 Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that the Pentagon had not done a good job in the information war against enemies like al Qaeda.. It's so bad how could you argue with Rumys assessment. just to add little more to one aspect of this. 1) Left unchallenged the MSM has religiously planted their anti-war anti-Bush agenda in almost every story without fail every day. 2) And surprise surprise, A-Q and its cousins release VIDEOS and MEMOS on a regular basis showing their handy work...suicide bombers, kidnappings, snipers, IEDs, VIBEDS etc. >unfortunately most of these go largely unanswered in an any effective way. [eg DOD anti terrorist vids or the capture splodydopes etc.] 3) A good starting point would be killing the policy of letting MSM media whores like Kevin Sykes embed with our Armed Forces. If the Pentagon is serious, it seems that Mil-blogs and the soldier/reporter embeds are a real good starting place. The system may need adjustments and fine tuning but from what I've see they are tremendous testimony for our side, America side. A pool of patriotic soldier/reporters could be encouraged and supported by the Pentagon instead of the aimless non policy of basically turning it over to the "MSM". |
| Posted by: RD 2006-02-03 07:47 |
| #3 I recall my father who served with the 2nd Marine Division in WWII use to joke that their fire team was composed of three men; one to shoot, one to loot, and one to take pictures. One of the bill payers in the Army's downsizing and 'modernization' has been the uniformed combat photographer. DoD decided to let the slack be picked up by the MSM. Great move. Napoleon said: "Morale is to the physical as three is to one". Time to rethink who takes the pictures and how they get to the public. Of course, this is when the CoS of the Army basically directs the troops effort on blogs, to be shut down. [Don't get technical. The company commanders don't want to spend the time to read the fine print, its just easier to shut them down.] |
| Posted by: Throth Angolunter6704 2006-02-03 06:20 |
| #2 Its unfortunately a problem with our senior uniform military. They still haven't learned that all wars are two front. There and at home. They refuse to fight the one at home. The narrow focus and "I don't want to be bothered by that" attitude unfortunately makes the sacrifices, of the men and women under them, for naught. They just don't get it and won't till someone with more balls than Rummey get around firing some of the "good o'boys" club. Then and only then will it get attention. Second, no President should be permitted to avoid using the power of DoJ to the maximum if and when anyone in the media crosses the line "providing aid and comfort". There is no right to scream FIRE in a crowded theater, there is no right to engage in treason in time of war. |
| Posted by: Whaising Hupains5119 2006-02-03 06:12 |
| #1 let's face it, AQ has kicked our tails in the information war. We've already lost it. What needs to be done is to educate the public as to who is in control of our media and where their sympathies and funding lie. There needs to be another news source - either a paper or a TV station that represents American interests. Fox isn't as bad, but it seems to me that all Fox ever does is hype the same stuff that the anti-American crowd hypes - but asks it in the form of a question. "Did President Bush break the law with spying?" "Is America losing the war in Iraq" "Should America bring it's soldiers home from Iraq?" "Should Ward Churchill be protected for unpopular speech?" You rarely see them proactive in hyping the good stuff going on - documentaries of the improvements in Iraq, just like CNN it's all IED's all the time. They touch on the Oil for Food scandals or the Nancy Pelosi/ John Murtha connections - but only with qualifiers, like...the GOP does it too... that weaken the story. They are stuck in the old mode. Americans are hungry for a good source of news. Someone will make a fortune if they can provide it. |
| Posted by: 2b 2006-02-03 03:50 |