Office of Strategic Influence
Big Lie exposé bites Bush, Rumsfeld
By Leslie Feinberg
The Big Lie. It was the combustible octane that fueled the
Nazi propaganda machine. Joseph Goebbels, Minister of
Propaganda and Popular Enlightenment for the Third Reich,
broadcast it through radio waves, newspapers, pamphlets and
loudspeakers.
Today it's the brass hats in the Pentagon war room who want
to harness every high-tech medium to propagate painstakingly
manufactured lies across the oceans.
It's not as though the CIA or the Army Psychological
Operations Command hadn't done a damn good job of planting
prevarication all over the planet in recent decades. And Wall
Street and its top guns have come up with some pretty creative
pretexts for war since U.S. capitalism combatively expanded
beyond its borders in 1898. From the sinking of the Maine to
the Gulf of Tonkin, a lot of thought has obviously gone into
marketing the economic drive behind warfare as defensive
actions.
But Dubya's war-without-end is a tough sell. The ill-defined
"enemy" is whoever the president and his big business cohorts
point their finger at next.
So "Operation Endless Warfare" requires an unparalleled
propaganda operation beamed 'round the world. Hence, the
recently formed Office of Strategic Influence.
This ominous agency with an Orwellian title was created,
putatively in November, to disseminate the Big Lie so widely
that it would have made Goebbels slaver.
Its hush-hush, sky's-the-limit operating budget is drawn
from the $10-billion emergency bonus to the Pentagon
mega-budget that both parties in Congress rubber-stamped after
9/11. The OSI staff--15 hand-picked misinformation
specialists--would coordinate this war of words with the
National Security Council, all the instruments of the
Department of Defense, the State Department and other federal
agencies.
The OSI also has been working hand-in-hand with the new
counter-terrorism office in the White House run by retired Gen.
Wayne Downing--former head of the Special Operations command
that directs the military's covert information operations.
The Army "psy-op" command is one of the military units
assigned to carry out the policy mission.
To lend a hand, the State Department hired a former
advertising executive to run its public diplomacy office, and
the White House has set up a public information "war room."
The Pentagon also brought on board the Rendon Group--an
international consulting firm based in the Beltway--at reported
remuneration of $100,000 a month. John W. Rendon Jr., who heads
the firm, advised Jimmy Carter's successful race to the White
House. Since then, the CIA has funneled jobs his way. Rendon
Group ran a PR job to "sell" the Gulf War against Iraq to
neighboring Arab countries.
The OSI intends to employ other private companies to develop
propaganda and test its effectiveness, using techniques the
Republicans and Democrats use for their election battles,
including scientific polling and focus groups.
No expense is being spared. Pretense for war must be, above
all, believable.
A fly in the ointment
But these best-laid plans may have gone somewhat astray. The
administration disavowed the project after an apprehensive New
York Times editorial board decided to leak the existence and
objectives of this centralized apparatus in a Feb. 18 lead
front-page article.
The Times revealed that "One of the office's proposals calls
for planting news items with foreign media organizations
through outside concerns that might not have obvious ties to
the Pentagon, officials familiar with the proposal said."
The secret information warfare is aimed at U.S. allies, not
just those countries the Pentagon deems "hostile." As one can
imagine, they're hopping mad.
The language of "intelligence" has always been redolent with
racism. Air Force Brig. Gen. Simon P. Worden, who heads the
OSI, characterizes the worst lies as "black" and other covert
activities as "white." According to a senior Pentagon official
quoted in the Times, the broad mission of the OSI "goes from
the blackest of black to the whitest of white."
Another plan, the Times continued, "involves sending
journalists, civil leaders and foreign leaders email messages
that promote American views or attack unfriendly governments,
officials said." These emails would be disguised with a
civilian dot.com address, not a Pentagon dot.mil.
The Times gave voice to dissension in the ranks of the
military establishment about whether they can get away with the
scheme. None of those quoted were fretting about using
mendacity to justify wars for profit. The debate orbited around
a narrower axis: Will Pentagon credibility erode if war hawks
"cry Wolfowitz" too often?
The Times article said senior military officials "have
questioned whether the OSI mission is too broad and possibly
even illegal." Laws technically hamper the Pentagon and CIA
from sowing propaganda inside the United States. But they know
that once it's injected into the arteries of the world media,
there's no way to keep it from circulating back into the
domestic news industry.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the Times added, had
already lawyered up, asking Pentagon top attorney William J.
Haynes to review the OSI proposals.
The Times also noted that critics say "they are disturbed
that a single office might be authorized to use not only covert
operations like computer network attacks, psychological
activities and deception, but also the instruments and staff of
the military's globe-spanning public affairs apparatus."
Once the Times blew the lid on the project, defense
officials and politicians all the way up to Bush scrambled to
distance themselves from the centralized operation. They were
all "shocked" that anyone could suggest that the U.S. could or
would lie.
Rumsfeld hustled to control the damage and cover his tracks.
On Feb. 20, the DOD released a statement from him on its web
page: "Government officials, the Department of Defense, this
secretary and the people that work with me tell the American
people and the people of the world the truth. And to the extent
anyone says anything that at any time proves to have been not
accurate, they correct it at the earliest possible opportunity.
The charter of the [OSI] is still under development. However,
consistent with Defense Department policy, under no
circumstances will the office or its contractors knowingly or
deliberately disseminate false information to the American or
foreign media or publics."
Is he auditioning for a job at the OSI down the road? After
the Times exposé, Rumsfeld swore on the Feb. 24 NBC News
program "Meet the Press" that he had "never even seen the
charter for this office."
The following day the Times skewered him. It quoted OSI
Assistant for Operations Thomas A. Timmes--former Army colonel
and psy-ops officer--telling "a recent industry conference that
General Worden had briefed Mr. Rumsfeld on the purpose and
goals of the office at least twice, and that Mr. Rumsfeld had
given his general support."
With public beams of light illuminating this secret project,
Bush has formally, officially put the kibosh on it. (New York
Times, Feb. 26)
They'll all have to figure out a quieter way to carry out
the same goal.
No news is not good news
Reports of a U.S. blueprint to dupe its allies clearly could
not have played well in Reuters or French Press Agency
newsrooms. These big-business news bureaus, and the overall
ruling interests they serve, want to be a party to the weapons
of propaganda, not the bull's eye.
But perhaps those who took greatest umbrage were in the U.S.
news industry.
After all, haven't the anchor people and reporters pretty
much held their tongues and their typing about the mass
disappearing and detentions of unknown numbers of Arabs and
Asians in this country since Sept. 11?
Haven't they aided and abetted the racist profiling in
"trials by media" that bear no resemblance to the Perry Mason
television fiction of "innocent until proven guilty"? Newsprint
and sound bites assured the public there was an "airtight case"
against Algerian pilot Lotfi Raissi. The monopoly media claimed
he had been "lead trainer of the Sept. 11 hijackers." It's not
their fault that a London extradition court dropped charges
against Raissi on Feb. 14 due to lack of even a shred of
evidence provided by U.S. intelligence.
Won't the peddling of outright invention irreparably tarnish
their profession? Didn't Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld--whom television and newspapers and magazines made
into a star in Pentagon war briefings about
Afghanistan--promise just two weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks
never to lie to reporters? (Reuters, Feb. 19)
And when it turned out that U.S. bombers really did massacre
Afghani civilians and pound their villages and cities to
rubble, didn't editors here march to the orders of military
officials about when and what to print or not to print?
What do they have to show for their servile obedience?
Maureen Dowd writes in a Feb. 24 Times Op-Ed piece, "Military
reporters say they are more handcuffed now than during Desert
Storm. They have had only the most restricted and supervised
access to Special Operations units. Even reporters who went to
Afghanistan with the Marines found themselves quarantined in
warehouses and handed press releases from Central Command in
Tampa about casualties less than 100 yards away. Some who got
close to the action had film confiscated and guns pointed at
them by Special Operations soldiers or their mujahadeen
bullies."
Dowd adds that more journalists have died in Afghanistan
than the official number of GIs killed in combat there.
New 'theater' of war
And now, to add insult to injury, top Pentagon officials are
bypassing war correspondents by planning to air a ghoulish
"Survivor" made-for-television series. The 13-episode "reality"
program will star 60 soldiers in their own war movie made with
digital cameras.
In other words, Dowd complains, "The White House and the
Pentagon want to write the narrative of the war on terror, and
they are willing to use their own soldiers as cameramen and
actors in comic book versions of a messy, dirty war."
One ABC News executive complains that news reporters have
nagged the brass for months for "bare-bones access" to the war,
only to see "Pentagon officials roll out the camouflage carpet
now for ABC's entertainment division." (New York Times, Feb.
24)
An entertainment bigwig adds the Pentagon is eager to
produce this "Army recruiting film."
Dan Rather is fuming: "I'm outraged about the
Hollywoodization of the military. Somebody's got to question
whether it's a good idea to limit independent reporting on the
battlefield and access of journalists to U.S. military
personnel and then conspire with Hollywood."
Actually there's a militarization of Hollywood going on at
the same time. "Black Hawk Down." "Collateral Damage." Big
capital in Hollywood is looking to work hand-in-glove with the
Pentagon to make movies that enlist patriotism and soldiers.
According to a front-page article in the Dec. 23 New York
Times, industry moguls have formed Hollywood 9/11 to make the
"war on terrorism" into Blockbuster epics.
One hand washes the other. The Navy gave Jerry
Bruckheimer--producer of "Top Gun" and "Black Hawk Down"--one
of its aircraft carriers on which to hold the glittering
premier bash for the movie "Pearl Harbor." Now Bruckheimer and
Bertram van Munster--of the "Cops" television show infamy--have
been recruited by the Pentagon to make a TV docudrama about the
"war on terrorism."
Bruckheimer said his staged television program about GIs in
Afghanistan would not usurp war correspondents' access because
"Reporters are after breaking news. We're doing profiles."
Shouldn't these reporters be so angry that they'd lean out
the nearest window and shout, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not
going to take it any more"? But the media organizations are
careful to keep their criticism circumspect.
Surely there must be discomfort in the summits of the
military-industrial complex about the possibility of losing the
loyalty of print and television journalists. The business and
military elite certainly got a taste of the power of the
capitalist media when the Times bared the intent of the
OSI.
These reporters and news executives--and the politicians and
defense officials--are up in arms publicly about the proposed
mandate of the Office of Strategic Influence. But they do not
air substantive disagreement with the overall objectives of the
burgeoning U.S. war drive itself. They disagree on tactics, not
on overall strategic goals.
Nor does it seem there is enough dissension over Bush's war
plans in the top echelons of capitalist society at this time to
produce another "Pentagon Papers"--the DOD analysis of the
Vietnam War, showing consistent deception of the people, that
was published by the New York Times in 1971.
If the brass in the Pentagon war room have their way, their
lies will sprint around the globe while the truth is still
lacing its sneakers. That's not news.
Afraid you can't believe anything you read? Worried that the
information you're being force-fed with morning coffee and
evening meals could win a Pulitzer Prize for fiction?
Be skeptical--and keep reading this newspaper.
Reprinted from the March 7, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
HOME
:: U.S. NEWS ::
WORLD NEWS ::
EDITORIALS ::
SUBSCRIBE ::
DONATE
Email
this article
Printable
page