CNN's history of affliliated Military PsyOps (FAIR)

[chill_wind]

As I continue to watch the daily stream of news surrounding the U.S. Iraq Occupation and current Israel/Lebanon War coverage, I keep remembering this revelation from several years ago that I can't help feel is worth revisiting. It referenced an unofficial stategy military paper published in 1996 titled "Military Operations in the CNN World: Using the Media as a Force Multiplier")

Today, I would bet that we could probably take the "CNN World" as a euphemism for 24 hour news cable- Fox, CNN, MSNBC.. as a Force Multiplier.

Why Were Government Propaganda Experts Working On News At CNN?

3/27/00

Reports in the Dutch newspaper Trouw (2/21/00, 2/25/00) and France's Intelligence Newsletter (2/17/00) have revealed that several officers from the US Army's 4th Psychological Operations (PSYOPS) Group at Ft. Bragg worked in the news division at CNN's Atlanta headquarters last year, starting in the final days of the Kosovo War.

In the U.S. media, so far only Alexander Cockburn, columnist for The Nation and co-editor of the newsletter CounterPunch, has picked up on the story. Cockburn's column on the subject is available at www.counterpunch.org.

The story is disturbing. In the 1980s, officers from the 4th Army PSYOPS group staffed the National Security Council's Office of Public Diplomacy (OPD), a shadowy government propaganda agency that planted stories in the U.S. media supporting the Reagan Administration's Central America policies.

A senior US official described OPD as a "vast psychological warfare operation of the kind the military conducts to influence a population in enemy territory." (Miami Herald, 7/19/87) An investigation by the congressional General Accounting Office found that OPD had engaged in "prohibited, covert propaganda activities," and the office was soon shut down as a result of the Iran-Contra investigations. But the 4th PSYOPS group still operates.

more...


(bold-face and underscore mine)

the story was at FAIR: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1748

[chill_wind]

1. Update 2004 : Return of PsyOps; "We're going to lie about things."

Media Advisory

The Return of PSYOPS
Military's media manipulation demands more investigation

12/3/04

The Los Angeles Times revealed this week (12/1/04) that the U.S. military lied to CNN in the course of executing psychological warfare operations , or PSYOPS, in advance of the recent attack on Fallujah. This incident raises serious questions about government disinformation and journalistic credibility, but recent discussions of the government's propaganda plans have excluded some valuable context.

In an October 14 on-air interview, Marine Lt. Lyle Gilbert told CNN Pentagon reporter Jamie McIntyre that a U.S. military assault on Fallujah had begun. In fact, the offensive would not actually begin for another three weeks. The goal of the psychological operation, according to the Times , was to deceive Iraqi insurgents into revealing what they would do in the event of an actual offensive.

This operation raises obvious questions about the government's use of media to broadcast disinformation at home and abroad-- not to mention questions about journalistic gullibility and reluctance to question official claims . But the CNN story has received little pick-up so far from other news outlets-- and when it is covered, it's treated like an isolated episode, even though recent history shows that U.S. government plans to deceive journalists and the public are widespread and systematic, not aberrational.

Shortly before the launch of the "war on terror," an unnamed Pentagon war planner seemed to warn journalists everywhere when he told Washington Post reporter Howard Kurtz: "This is the most information-intensive war you can imagine... We're going to lie about things." (9/24/01)

more at
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1983

[xchrom]

2. this is part of an overall trend to control history.

the media represents a daily journal of history in the making -- the status quo instead of trying to rewrite history later -- i.e. republican obsession with rewriting viet nam --- is trying to control how history is written in the present.

[chill_wind]

5. To control history; to force policy; to extort public support nt

[xchrom]

11. they've wrapped it in a package.

BUT status quo dems are a part of this as well.

that's part of what makes this so bitter.

[Atman]

3. There is a fascinating old article floating around about CIA in the media

It might even have been by Ramsey Clark, but I'm not sure. I read it a few years ago, and it was written quite a while ago. Sixties, maybe even. It basically laid out the premise that the entire United States media machine doesn't make a move without the CIA directing it, whether they (or we) know it or not. Think about people like Valerie Plame...a person running a fake company under a fake identity for years. You and I couldn't very well pull it off, but with the resources of the Federal Government behind you, hey, the skies the limit. Now, let's say instead of wanting to start a fake front company to gather information, instead you want to disseminate information. Information favorable to you and your cause. You send in a CIA recruit with a cache of fake diplomas, letters of recommendation from the teevee stations he "used to" work at, references which can be checked. The guy's rep is so stellar, why, HR would be a fool to let him go and picked up by MSNBC or FOX. And after a couple of nice interviews and a pamphlet explaining CNN's benefit package, you have a CIA insider producing the news.

Seriously. How hard would that be? And why wouldn't the government do it? Cheap and easy...the covert op even turns in a nice annual salary to help offset the cost of his operation.

( :tinfoilhat: -- but not very much!)

[chill_wind]

4. CNN Rebuttal; FAIR rebuts the rebuttal

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1745

FAIR has 3 pages of archives on CNN/TimeWarner alone:

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=19&media_outlet_id=9&pager_start=0


This one is an especailly good read on Wolf Blitzer:

Extra! January/February 2003

Wolf Blitzer for the Defense (Department)
Making sure the official line is the last word

By Jim Naureckas
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1126

See FAIR's Archives for more on:

CNN/TimeWarner
Iraq
War and Militarism
Official Agendas

see links at the bottom left of the page
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1126

[Supersedeas]

25. Wolfie Blizt and Paul Wolfie are on the same page

[Sinti]

6. From Psyop to Mindwar - The Psychology of Victory - it's policy

It's supposed to be harmless. It saves lives. If you can get them to think in tune with your policies you don't have to kill them you see. Works abroad and at home, just using it overseas would not be properly effective.

Here's the Mindwar pdf:

http://oneheartbooks.com/resources/white_papers/mindwar.pdf

[chill_wind]

7. OH very interesting paper. Thanks Sinti.

One of *many* I've never seen, no doubt. When I read this one, it's clear my use of word "Psyop" is very much Old School. EM and ELF?? Oh boy.

Everyone should read it if they can. It's only 10 pages.

[Sinti]

8. Scary stuff - had me a little spooked. n/t

Edited to add:

Another good one to check out is "Century of the Self". It was a BBC program outlining the use of Freudian techniques in our ad culture for social control... more scary stuff IMO.

[chill_wind]

9. This is the stuff that would have had anti-Clinton Freepers

and guys like the RRR screaming their heads off had this all been better publicized many years ago.

How strange the sounds of silence.

[chill_wind]

10. Get on up.

The LGF crap on CNN tonite has me really hacked!!

[Lars39]

12. Recommended.

Sooo many people think CNN is still an upright organization.

[bobthedrummer]

13. Here's a related thread from the DU archives from January

"Reality vs. perception management: the tinfoil controversy"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x71919#top

Also, former Col. Michael Aquino was the primary promoter of a lot of the so called "mind war" psychological operations. When not on duty he spread the Church of Satan and then his Temple of Set ideology, initially to those that wanted to "justify" the worship of evil in the US military.
BFEE owes a lot to him for "faith based" fundamentalism from hell.

[chill_wind]

14. Thanks for link!

Et tu NPR?

[bobthedrummer]

27. Thanks for starting this thread. NPR was not immune.

[Nikki Stone 1]

15. Any more on acoustic based weapons?

There was an article from 1997 in that thread. Are there any from more current times?

[bobthedrummer]

21. Google "acoustic weapons contracts" for a starting point.

There are many sources of research and production of directed energy and exotic weapons-acoustic is but one category.

American Technology Corporation of San Diego has been awarded acoustic contracts by the Rumsfeld DoD.
http://www.atcsd.com/spotlight.html

[Nikki Stone 1]

29. Really? Are they hooked up with any university types?

Thx

[eridani]

16. It means that our rulers think of American citizens as their enemies n/t

[EFerrari]

17. You might like this. Voting machine companies connected

to slime is no news, right? What about voting machine companies connected to the AP? The Ahmanson family---> The Omaha World Herald AND ES&S. And, during 2004, the managing editor of the AP was from, voila! The Omaha World Herald.

What a small world this is. :)

[chill_wind]

19. I didn't know that connection! But now that you speak of it---

I remembered reading this anecdote in 2004:

(...)

Although I had arrived just shortly before the polls closed at 7 p.m., I was the only member of the public or the press around except for a couple Associated Press (AP) reporters in the far corner of the room. They were busy setting up their laptop to the ES&S computer in the backroom, which provided them with “direct feed” of the results.

I was surprised to see so few people attending such an important event. In France, scores of citizens watch the vote count in each polling station.

While the results were coming in, the AP “reporter” read a novel while her laptop did the communicating.

When I went to talk to the AP reporter, Burnham quickly appeared and told me to leave. “You should talk to AP,” he said.

“She is AP,” I replied.

“She just works for AP,” he said.

Clearly the subject of AP having direct data feed from the mainframe computer was something Burnham did not want me to discuss.

Dane Placko, a local reporter for the Fox News network, told AFP that, “Fox gets direct feed.”

from:
HOW A PRIVATE COMPANY COUNTS OUR VOTES ON ELECTION NIGHT
by Christopher Bollyn

http://www.votefraud.org/how_a_private_company_counts_our_votes.htm

[EFerrari]

22. I remember that one! After reading this thread, I was looking at

the Board of Directors at AP and also at APME (managing editors). I bet their BoD is more interesting than Carlysle. Unless of course, it is. :)

[chill_wind]

23. Aha!! Is this what you mean? Alarming list of bedfollows (SSU Report)

Board to Death
July 22, 2005

The myth of the mainstream media’s “liberal bias” has recently taken yet another hit after researchers at California’s Sonoma State University took a close look at the resumes of the 118 people who sit on the boards of directors of America’s ten largest media organizations. The research team is part of the Project Censored, which for nearly three decades has been exposing journalistic self-censorship — “the news that didn’t make the News.” They determined that the group of 118 board members in turn sit on the boards of 288 other major corporations. They also discovered that eight out of the ten media behemoths share common memberships in each other’s boardrooms.

Given that the job of the press is to help us to run the state, and not the other way around, the following makes for an alarming list of bedfellows:

1. New York Times: Carlyle Group, Eli Lilly, Ford, Johnson and Johnson, Hallmark, Lehman Brothers, Staples, Pepsi.

2. Washington Post: Lockheed Martin, Coca-Cola, Dun & Bradstreet, Gillette, G.E. Investments, J.P. Morgan, Moody's.

3. Knight-Ridder: Adobe Systems, Echelon, H&R Block, Kimberly-Clark, Starwood Hotels.

4. The Tribune (Chicago & LA Times): 3M, Allstate, Caterpillar, Conoco Phillips, Kraft, McDonalds, Pepsi, Quaker Oats, Shering Plough, Wells Fargo.

5. News Corp (Fox): British Airways, Rothschild Investments.

6. GE (NBC): Anheuser-Busch, Avon, Bechtel, Chevron/Texaco, Coca-Cola, Dell, GM, Home Depot, Kellogg, J.P. Morgan, Microsoft, Motorola, Procter & Gamble.

7. Disney (ABC): Boeing, Northwest Airlines, Clorox, Estee Lauder, FedEx, Gillette, Halliburton, Kmart, McKesson, Staples, Yahoo.

8. Viacom (CBS): American Express, Consolidated Edison, Oracle, Lafarge North America.

9. Gannett: AP, Lockheed-Martin, Continental Airlines, Goldman Sachs, Prudential, Target, Pepsi.

10. AOL-Time Warner (CNN): Citigroup, Estee Lauder, Colgate-Palmolive, Hilton.

(...)


Andrew Fleming

http://adbusters.org/blogs/Board_to_Death.html

[EFerrari]

26. Ahhh! Ack!

:wow:

You're good! And I'm glad you're on our side.

lol

[chill_wind]

28. Eternally yours, sfexpat2000 and all you good guys at DU :-) nt

[Vinnie From Indy]

18. The AP/Gannett Psyop Structure

It has been quite obvious to me that there is also a psyops operation by the US Govt. being conducted at the AP. The Gannett chain of newspapers and others have gone to a streamlined format for reporting news in each of their markets. After acquiring a newspaper, Gannett relies almost solely on the AP for national and international news. They are able to reduce costs by feeding all the national and international news from a central location. The stories in the Arizona Sun on the Iraq war are exactly the same as stories in Indianapolis Star. Being able to manipulate the AP allows the Pentagon and the BushCo regime to feed disinformation throughout the Gannett chain of newspapers. If you have a Gannett newspaper in your town, you are being offered national and international news that is tainted and manipulated.

[mom cat]

20. Great post! ... K&R

[SeattleRob]

24. K/R Thanks! NT