Wednesday, December 01, 2004
Psy-Ops
Looks like the OSI is alive and well:
I'm all for a Psy-Ops campaign, a successful propaganda battle is a major part of the war itself, but i'm more worried about this:
If we can't communicate our "policies" and "messages", how the hell can we ever expect to win the "War on Terror"?!? They don't hate us because of our freedom, they hate our policies. Our government knows there is a communication problem, will they fix it?
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On the evening of Oct. 14, a young Marine spokesman near Fallouja appeared on CNN and made a dramatic announcement.
"Troops crossed the line of departure," 1st Lt. Lyle Gilbert declared, using a common military expression signaling the start of a major campaign. "It's going to be a long night." CNN, which had been alerted to expect a major news development, reported that the long-awaited offensive to retake the Iraqi city of Fallouja had begun.
In fact, the Fallouja offensive would not kick off for another three weeks. Gilbert's carefully worded announcement was an elaborate psychological operation — or "psy-op" — intended to dupe insurgents in Fallouja and allow U.S. commanders to see how guerrillas would react if they believed U.S. troops were entering the city, according to several Pentagon officials.
I'm all for a Psy-Ops campaign, a successful propaganda battle is a major part of the war itself, but i'm more worried about this:
Di Rita said there was general agreement inside the Bush administration that the U.S. government was ill-equipped to communicate its policies and messages abroad in the current media climate.
"As a government, we're not very well organized to do that," he said.
If we can't communicate our "policies" and "messages", how the hell can we ever expect to win the "War on Terror"?!? They don't hate us because of our freedom, they hate our policies. Our government knows there is a communication problem, will they fix it?
