In her book, Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers and the Media That Love Them, Amy Goodman describes how the Pentagon used psychological warfare against its own citizens to brainwash them into supporting the Iraq War. In case you were wondering, according to 1948 Smith-Mundt Act, U.S. military or CIA propaganda against its own citizens is illegal. For example, it is the legal firewall that prevents the Voice of America from broadcasting to its own citizens

Retired Colonel Sam Gardiner should know. He is an expert in psyops, and during the Iraq War, he began to see something which disturbed him - a recognizable pattern of military propaganda dispensed through the mainstream media networks to the American public. It had a familiar and disturbing ring to it. In fact, it sounded like the work that he once did in the military.

As Goodman relates, "Gardiner came around to a conclusion that horrified him. The Bush Administration had turned psychological operations against Americans. No longer were just foreign enemies being targeted for coercion and deception. Now the target was the U.S. public."

Gardiner wrote: "It was not bad intelligence. It was much worse. It was an orchestrated effort. It began before the war, was a major effort during the war, and continues as post-conflict distortions."

As a result, Gardiner published a fifty-six page report that describes in detail how Pentagon propaganda used Weapons of Mass Deception, in the form of an estimated $200,000,000 PR campaign (taxpayer-funded - against themselves) against American citizens during the Iraq War. "In the most basic sense, Washington and London did not trust the peoples of their democracies to come to right decisions," Gardiner wrote. "Truth became a casualty. When truth is a casualty, democracy receives collateral damage."

This issue of an orchestrated domestic propaganda campaign was acknowledged by Rumsfeld in the fall of 2002. When asked about the possibility of propaganda blowback, Rumsfeld declared that he would give up the name only (Office of Strategic Influence - military jargon for propaganda) but that he would continue to do "every single thing that needs to be done." No doubt, Rumsfeld and the Pentagon propaganda crew did execute its strategic influence to do quite a number on the American public, at their expense, in order to sell the war - and the corporate media, desperate to appear "patriotic" and "support the troops" (and their "dear leader"), was an eager partner in this disinformation and mass brainwashing campaign. Gardiner noted over 50 stories that were entirely manufactured or at least engineered to distort the way the news of the war was depicted thorugh the mass media.

The concept of an embedded media in which the military would have absolute control over, who would only be able to report news of the war from the perspective of the invading and occupying forces, literally "in bed" with the military, was also a part of the Strategic Influence campaign. However, as Goodman relates, the embedded concept was the culmination of "years of effort and experimentation by the Pentagon to control the media during war." Control of the media came about as a result of the American failure in Vietnam. In other words, as Goodman puts it, "It became an article of faith that 'the media lost Vietnam' - as if the American public would otherwise have gladly accepted the staggering toll of 58,000 Americans killed, 300,000 wounded, and at least 2 millian Vietnamese killed in a pointless war."

Since then, from the invasion of Grenada to the invasion of Panama to Gulf War I, the Pentagon used various tactics as it began to experiment with the ways in which it could control the media. In Granada, no coverage at all was allowed. In Panama, very restricted coverage was allowed only after the first few days of the invasion, which was a virtual bloodbath. In Gulf War I, during the initial assault, a news blackout was declared and later only allowed heavy-handed, very restricted coverage. Some reporters who attempted to report independently were arrested.

The embedded concept was the logical next step. The idea was "to give the appearance of access during the invasion of Iraq, but to maintain total control." Goodman continues, "Not surprisingly, the "in-beds" were simply a megaphone for the views of the military who were keeping them alive. The fawning reports became a grand display of the Stockholm syndrome, where hostages come to identify and sympathize with their captors." Of course, displays of comraderie and patriotism also played into the schemes of the corporate media who actively participated in the I'm-so-patriotic game to raise their ratings while, at the same time, limiting the perspective of what was really happening in Iraq.

Dan Rather commented on this propaganda campaign quite frankly on the BBC: "There has never been an American war, small or large, in which access has been so limited as this one. Limiting access, limiting information to cover the backsides of those who are in charge of the war, is extremely dangerous and cannot and should not be accepted." He then added, "Unfortunately, it has been accepted by the American people. And the current administration revels in that, they relish that, and they take refuge in that."

After making such a statement, which also implicated a complicit and willing media, one has to wonder whether Rather was, indeed, set-up in the forged memo scandal which occurred some time later.

Part of the $200 million that the Bush administration spent on its propaganda campaign was used to hire a PR firm called The Rendon Group. John Rendon spearheaded this group, which was instrumental in setting up the Iraqi National Congress in 1992 and funneled some $12 million from the CIA to the group between 1992 and 1996. At a July 2003 conference in London, Rendon spoke about the propaganda effort and the "great" embedded idea - that it worked just as it had in the test. "It was the war version of reality television, and for the most part, they did not lose control of the story."

As Goodman relates, the "themes of the propaganda effort were twofold. The war on terror is a fight between good and evil (and it didn't hurt to invoke images of a Christian crusade against Islam). And Iraq was responsible for the 9/11 attacks - 'what propaganda theorists would call the BIG LIE,' says Gardiner."

You can access the full documents of Gardiner's report (as pdf files) from this link that also features Paul Wolf's description of how the mnainstream media has continually distorted news from Iraq.

Also, feel free to forward this email. I think this report makes for good propaganda blowback. You may even want to consider posting the link on American military forums and blogs around the world. Let's call it: Operation Truth to the Military

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/thesePodia.html

Sorry man, this is conspiracy theory hoo-hah from people who don't understand information operations, PSYOP, and public affairs.

The reasons for going to war can be debated, and sure, there was a public affairs push to sell the war (there always is, patriotic propaganda has been around forever), but that doesn't equate to some massive illegal PSYOP scheme targeted at the US public.

And since when was the US media "complicit and willing" to the Bush administration?

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Bear


Texas Longhorns
2005 College World Series Champs
2005 NCAA Football Champs

I agree mostly with you bear, except for the media thing....Fox News. Whether one agrees with what's going on these days I guess is fine. that 1st Amendment thing comes to mind. There will be be books for and against this subject and definately pleanty of pundits to grab for the media crumbs. Unless there is 'overhelming' and 'compelling' primary evidence (reproduction of actual documents, tapes, photo stills, etc), there really no need to glorify rumors. God knows there enough out there now. Besides this looks kinda like Micheal Moore would do.

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BOOM, BOOM. Out goes the Lights

Yes, Fox is fairly conservative, and looks downright reactionary compared to the rest of the media. But just because that one network has a generally more positive reaction to the administration, I don't think that makes them "complicit and willing" in a widespread conspiracy to deceive the public. Like you said, there's no real evidence, just rumor.

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Bear


Texas Longhorns
2005 College World Series Champs
2005 NCAA Football Champs

Charges of "conspiracy theory" have become all-too-convenient forms of denial by those who wear ideological blinders. In other words, it's the contemporary "red herring" tactic.

So, are you claiming that Colonel Sam Gardiner, who spent much of his military career in PSYOPS, doesn't "understand PSYOPS" and that his fifty-six page report that describes in detail how Pentagon propaganda used Weapons of Mass Deception, in the form of an estimated $200,000,000 PR campaign (taxpayer-funded) leveled at American citizens during the Iraq War can be easily dismissed as conspiracy theory? What about the $12 million payout to the Rendon Group? Is that also conspiracy theory? What about Rummy's own admission to the domestic propaganda campaign in 2002? So what exactly is "The Office of Strategic Influence" all about? What is its purpose if not to distribute pro-war propaganda to the American public through its media organs? How do you think the false associations with Saddam and Al Qaeda and Saddam and 9-11 came about? Those associations have been proven false, and yet they continue to be repeated in the American corporate media over and over again.

Of course, no investigation into this question has occurred, so it's easy to just slough it off as "conspiracy theory."

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CH-47 SI

They must find it difficult...

Those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority. --Gerald Massey

KAF,
Like I said, there's a difference between propaganda and PSYOP. Propaganda's been around as long as war has, so it's not like that's some burning new story. Not a single US war has been fought without a campaign to develop popular support. Unfortunately, some (not all) of those reasons for this war have either proven to be wrong (not the same as a lie) or debatable. And yes, I can easily see hiring a PR group as part of the effort to build public support (though the amount of money being spent might be worth arguing against). The importance of public support can't be overestimated. But nothing has been shown to prove that any of this was intentionally false. And it has been a long time since I've heard the media take anything the President says as gospel truth (even Fox).
I guarantee the writers of this article don't understand PSYOP. They regularly jumble their usage of IO, PSYOP, and PA. I'll assume that Col. Gardiner does understand IO, based on the given credentials. This makes me believe that he is politically motivated to make this sound like more than it is.
Maybe this argument is just semantics? I have some IO experience, and to me, PSYOP and PA have different goals and are executed through distinctly different channels. I would agree that intentionally misleading the public to support the government is wrong, even if the end goal is positive. On the other hand, the fact that the government does attempt to influence the public to support the war effort seems pretty much like standard operating procedure. I guess I can see how people who didn't support the war from the beginning might not appreciate being influenced, though.
Certainly you'd agree, though, that those against the war have also engaged in an attempt to influence the public in their direction. Is that PSYOP on their part? Nope. I disagree with their conclusions, but that doesn't mean I think they're intentionally lying either.

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Bear


Texas Longhorns
2005 College World Series Champs
2005 NCAA Football Champs

One other thing I found interesting was the Rather quote:

In WWII, the US government stood up an Office of Censorship. See link here. Obviously, I'm not arguing in favor of such an office, but it puts the Rather remark into some context that he is either ignorant of media history (I would hope not) or he's doing a little "PSYOP" of his own.

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Bear


Texas Longhorns
2005 College World Series Champs
2005 NCAA Football Champs

Sounds like Retired Colonel Sam Gardiner is realizing that he needs some way to make a living and can't find a ligite job. Selling books that raise questions about things that your average American knows relatively little about and has no way of learning more (because of access) has always been a mainstay for people like this. Really now...do you think a bunch of the top guys sat around a table and deliberately planned out an information operation targeted at US citizens? Or is it more believable that the administration just wanted to rally us around the flag so we would support the troops that are over there? We ARE going to stay the course and finish what we started, regardless of the popularity of this war. It's better to have your public support you, though, and the only way to do that is to let everyone know about the threat, how we are dealing with them, and (against all other media reports) our successes in the region. So...conspiracy theory? I think the only conspiracy is with a couple of journalists getting together and figuring out ways to make more money.

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Joeninpo

The tyrant custom, most grave Senators,
Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
My thrice-driven bed of down