Phil Taylor's papers
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BACK TO : PROPAGANDA AND THE GWOT (NOW 'THE LONG WAR') Year 7 - 2008
Smith Mundt from Bling Cycle Blog Bling Cycle Blog 
Sunday, June 22, 2008 Smith Mundt In light of the Pentagon pundit scandal, it seems like a good time to revisit James Bamford's award-winning 2005 article for Rolling Stone, The Man Who Sold the War. One thing in particular caught my eye while reading it: By law, the Bush administration is expressly prohibited from disseminating government propaganda at home. But in an age of global communications, there is nothing to stop it from planting a phony pro-war story overseas -- knowing with certainty that it will reach American citizens almost instantly. As I have noted before, PSYOP are legal when they target foreign audiences. It is, however, illegal to disseminate PSYOP materials, which by definition are intended for foreign audiences, within the United States. The precedent for this is the 1948 Smith-Mundt act. To learn more about this law, visit Matt Armstrong's MountainRunner. Matt runs the blog about Smith-Mundt, and views it as a serious impediment to public diplomacy and the greater "war of ideas." Matt argues, correctly I think, that Smith-Mundt is outdated, as the existence of the internet makes it nearly impossible to guarantee that PSYOP materials will not reach the American public. The law, he argues, needs some updating. It seems to me, however, that any reworking of the law doesn't lend itself very well to compromise. If Smith-Mundt were actually enforced (which it is not, Matt argues it does not apply to DoD anyway), it would render virtually all PSYOP illegal, as the Internet can disseminate almost all PSYOP material to Americans. If it is repealed, or at least not enforced, then we get, well, what we're already got, which is, as Bamford notes, an administration that understands that, practically, foreign propaganda is as good as domestic. How then, to strike a compromise between protecting Americans from their own government, without cutting off vital public diplomacy (assuming it is, in fact, vital)? One suggestion I like comes from the 2003 DoD Information Operations Roadmap, which Bamford cites in his article, and George Washington University recently made available through a FOI request: The increasing ability of people in most parts of the globe to access international information sources makes targeting particular audiences more difficult. Today the distinction between foreign and domestic audiences becomes more a question of USG intent rather than information dissemination practices. I think this is a swell way to determine the permissibility of using PSYOP. 'Intent', I admit, is fairly difficult to nail down, but maybe not that difficult. Today everyone's been talking about al-Hurra, the hilariously misguided Arabic-language TV station for which the USG has shelled out $500 million. This is propaganda that is clearly aimed at a foreign audience that will probably not influence, or even be seen, by the American public. I would say most Americans didn't even know it existed before last night's 60 Minutes piece. This seems like justifiable (to the extent that any propaganda is justifiable), if terrifically ineffective, propaganda. When we look at the Pentagon's "message force multipliers", however, we get a clear picture of a propaganda campaign the intent of which was to target domestic audiences. The trickier middle ground is the targeting of friendly foreign audiences, which, as Bamford points out, acts as domestic propaganda, once removed. The 2003 IO Roadmap certainly had the importance of this in mind: Clear boundaries for PSYOP should be complemented by a more proactive public affairs effort that expands to include a broader set of foreign media and audiences. [. . .] Content should be primarily form third parties with greater credibility to foreign audiences than U.S. officials. In trying to figure out what kind of information operations are permissible, why not apply a system similar to that used to determine the black/white status of information operations? Chistopher Paul writes in his book Information Operations: All IO content has a location on each of two dimensions, attribution and veracity. Content can be "white", "gray", or "black" on either dimension; whichever dimension it is "darkest" on is how it should be considered overall. So, "white" veracity information with "black" attribution is black content. So when the IO Roadmap suggests that, "content should be primarily form third parties with greater credibility to foreign audiences than U.S. officials," this represents information that has a "white" veracity (because, as they always tell us, they don't lie), but because it misrepresents its source has "black" attribution, and is considered, overall, "black" (Let's forget for a moment that the Roadmap is suggesting that PA engage in "black" IO). When there is danger that this black information could reach the American public on a widespread scale, it should be considered impermissible. This is just a lot of thinking out loud of course. As the Pundit scandal has proven, there are no actual mechanisms to stop DoD from doing what it's not supposed to. Posted by Jeff at 9:11 PM 0 comments Links to this post Labels: Military, Politics, Propaganda, PSYOP, Public Affairs Saturday, June 21, 2008 Bush Proclaims National Flag Week American Forces Press Service: WASHINGTON, June 12, 2008 - President Bush issued a proclamation urging Americans to observe National Flag Week and Flag Day on June 14, and to recognize the sacrifices U.S. servicemembers have made through U.S. history to protect the freedoms for which the flag stands. The proclamation reads, in part, "Since the first days of our Republic, Americans have flown the flag to show their pride and appreciation for the freedoms they enjoy in this great nation. Every day, Americans pledge their allegiance to the flag of the United States, and our troops carry it before them as they defend the liberties for which it stands. "On Flag Day and during National Flag Week, we remember those in uniform whose courage and sacrifice inspire us here at home. We also remember the rich history of one of our oldest national symbols and reflect on our duty to carry our heritage of freedom into the future." Posted by Jeff at 7:59 PM 0 comments Links to this post Labels: Funny, Politics Pentagon targets local media 'America Supports You', is a Pentagon public relations campaign that describes itself as, a Department of Defense program that provides opportunities for citizens to show their support for the US Armed Forces. The program was launched in 2004 in an effort to highlight citizen support for our military men and women and communicate that support to the members of our Armed Forces at home and abroad. The campaign is contracted to PR firm Susan Davis International, with an annual price tag of $6.5 million. The following video from the 2008 'America Supports You' Summit, featuring several high ranking employees of Susan Davis, is entitled, "How to Target Local Media." In 1981, in response to two major Canadian papers going out of business, the government commissioned a report on the state of the newspaper industry. Commonly referred to as the Kent Commission, the report identified increasing media conglomeration as a direct threat to the public interest. Among other things, the commission recommended divestment of newspaper conglomerates. The report's suggestions were, of course, ignored, and media concentration steadily worsened, resulting in the current state of affairs. The easy targeting of local media by the Pentagon, among others, seems symptomatic of governments' failure to heed the warnings of this and similar reports. Consider these passages from the report: Like any business, [newspapers] must make a profit to survive. Like any business, it is subject to constraints on how it makes its profits. For many industries, those constraints have become, in a more urbanized, affluent and educated society, tighter than they were in the days of a freer-wheeling capitalism: pollution control, health and safety regulations are conspicuous examples. Newspapers, however, are a business unlike others. Once a daily has achieved a local monopoly, as most now have, the nature and quality of its specific product - its news content - ceases to be a close determinant of its revenue. [emphasis in original] It has to become very much worse before large numbers of people stop buying a newspaper at all; and there are few additional readers to be attracted by improving the news product. From a narrow business viewpoint, what is spent on the editorial content becomes simply a cost. The viewpoint was expressed most bluntly at our hearings by the publisher of the Winnipeg Free Press when he referred to the editorial department of his paper as "a non-revenue-producing department". . . Beyond a minimum, determined largely by habit and expectation in the local market, editorial expenditure is, from the strict business viewpoint, simply a cost: a deduction from profit. [. . . ] Cynicism and disillusionment are current in the newsroom because of the reluctance of publishers to encourage digging for news that goes beyond the very short term. In this connection, a reporter from a daily in the West noted that too often reporters are given assignments, such as press conferences, which will produce instant copy. No one wants to take a chance on investigative reporting or on a long and exacting research. Economic incentives on the news media favor pre-packaged, human interest news, which the America Supports You campaign seeks to provide. Also, the ease with which a profit-driven press can be manipulated by those in power, creates a disincentive for those in power to address the problem. I wonder where the Hodes amendment will stand on ASY. Posted by Jeff at 11:06 AM 0 comments Links to this post Labels: Media, Military, Propaganda, Public Relations Ploughshares into swords 'MacKay reveals details of military modernization' The Canadian Press. June 20, 2008 Conservatives unveil plan to increase military spending over 20 years by around 2% per annum, resulting in spending around $30 billion per year by 2028, up from the current $18 billion per year. On a side note, university is getting expensive. Maybe you should join the army instead, I hear they're hiring. Posted by Jeff at 10:52 AM 0 comments Links to this post Labels: Military, Politics Friday, June 20, 2008 Harper and Cabinet now immune from FOI 'Ministers' offices not subject to access law, court rules' Globe and Mail, June 20, 2008. Highlights: Canada's access-to-information law does not apply to the offices of the prime minister or cabinet ministers, Canada's Federal Court ruled yesterday. In a decision in an omnibus test case that some fear will dramatically reduce the scope of citizens' rights to obtain government documents, the court said some records created by ministers' aides could be disclosed when they are "controlled" by the bureaucracy, but are off limits in a minister's office or the PMO. Stephen Harper's Conservatives had promised to change the law to make it clear that it applied to ministers' offices and the PMO. But they flip-flopped after taking power. New Democratic MP Pat Martin, who has tabled a bill to amend the access law, said the ruling will give government incentive to hide controversial documents in ministers' offices: "This is a terrible setback for openness and transparency. It gives them a place to squirrel away any number of things. I'm sure if there's anything we really need to know, the PM will tell us. Posted by Jeff at 8:02 PM 2 comments Links to this post Labels: Media, Politics Older Posts Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) |