The New York Times is reporting that the Pentagon is considering the upside to providing false news stories to foreign media organizations. Call it how to win friends and influence people by lying to them. Or, if you can’t intimidate them, fib. It’s a pretty good fit for President Bush’s foreign policy. Some Pentagon officials oppose the plan on the grounds that the false news stories “might undermine the credibility of information that is openly distributed by the Defense Department’s public affairs officers.”
The U.S. military created the Office of Strategic Influence—the Times says that it is “small but well-financed”—just after the 11 Sep 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon out of a fear that the country was losing public support in foreign countries for its war on terrorism. Not to be outdone, in the same timeframe the U.S. Department of State hired an advertising executive as the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.
One of the more interesting tactics that is under consideration is to spam journalists with propaganda created by the U.S. military. According to the Times report, a source identified only as a senior Pentagon official said that “the return address will probably be a dot-com, not a dot-mil.”
There seems to be some indication that the propaganda machine has gone beyond the planning stages. The Pentagon has hired the Rendon Group—a consultancy known for its propaganda work in Arab countries - to help. To the tune of US$100,000 per month.
In a twist straight out of a Fox television series, the Times reports that some of the actual work done by the Office of Strategic Influence will be assigned to the Army’s Psychological Operations Command.
It’s important to note that the activities of the Office of Strategic Influence will be limited to playing offshore. It’s illegal for the Pentagon (or the CIA) to be involved with propaganda within the country’s borders. Breathing easier now?
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