Grim's Hall Outrage: discusses the fact that current Operating Procedure requires psychops, to therefore support the war effort with truthful stories. Grim disses the attitude: "You know, this is one of those things that wouldn't have happened if everyone weren't so eager to write boooks about their role in public affairs."
He's missing the point that by failing to disclose the US military source of the articles, it weakens their impact.
The US should have a "US military" designation after their articles. Maybe the US military should fund their own Iraqi newspaper--with only true articles. And lots of pictures of terrorist weapon caches, and blood smeared torture rooms.
1 Comments:
Actually, Tom, we do that. What you're missing here is the difference between Information Operations and Public Affairs.
What you're suggesting is a PA campaign. DOD operating doctrine requires that PA and IO be separate. So we have PA to talk to the press directly in the name of the US military, put out newspapers, etc.
IO is another "front" in the information war. Its job is to try to insert truthful, beneficial information into the media, to form and frame debates, and the like. It is required by doctrine to tell the truth, but it is allowed to go through what are called "third-party validators." The idea of 3PVs is that, instead of the US military being alone in talking up a point, you have someone else endorsing it also. This follows Chesterton's axiom (which I paraphrase) that a person will be better persuaded by a book, a letter and an old friend than he would be by three books.
So yes, we certainly need Public Affairs -- but we aren't neglecting it. It is a separate department with its own staff and budget in every command.
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