One big story of the last few weeks has the US military playing "mind
games" with civilian leaders in order to get greater support for the
war in Afghanistan. Sometimes these mind games have been called brainwashing. Another name for them is psyops or psychological operations.
According to the US Department of Defence
Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms,
"Psychological operations are planned propaganda operations to convey
selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence
their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the
behaviour of foreign governments, organizations, groups and
individuals."
Until now, there's been very little public complaint about the use of
psyops to influence foreigners. Not many -- outside of intelligence
services, those involved and their critics -- have even been aware that
such operations have been going on. Psyop activities include electronic warfare, computer network operations, military deception and operations security.
This is in concert with activities to influence, disrupt, corrupt or
usurp adversaries' decision making while protecting America's.
In short, US psyops amount to psychological warfare, which has a history that goes as far back as World War I.
What makes the latest use of planned propaganda operations a matter of public concern? According to Rolling Stone Magazine the military has been propagandizing civilian leaders.
The ritual relationship between the military and civilians in America
has traditionally kept the military under the control of a civilian
secretary of defence.
Recently, the US Army Times carried a story about how a psyops
sergeant broadcast the following message to the Taliban in order to
draw them out in the open by insulting them:
"Attention, Taliban, you are all cowardly dogs. You allowed your
fighters to be laid down facing west and burned. You are too scared to
retrieve their bodies. This just proves you are the lady boys we always
believed you to be."
The psyop soldiers responsible were trying to harass the enemy, a
common practice used by psyop teams in the past and widely publicized
during its employment in the 2004 battle for Fallujah in Iraq.
Psyops targeting US civilians leaders
The latest incident occurred in February 2011 when Rolling Stone Magazine
reported that Lieutenant-General. William Caldwell, a three-star
general in charge of training troops in Afghanistan, ordered the use of
psyops on United States senators.
The significance of this is not what Chris Matthews of MSNBC complained
of -- that the general exceeded his proper role of military
subservience to civilian leaders.
The real significance rests in the fact that the government is
consistently using and developing techniques to control people's minds.
Any tactic, psychological or otherwise, which can be seen as subverting
an individual's sense of control over their own thinking, behaviour,
emotions or decision making should be exposed.
In 1956, W. Howard Chase, President of the Public Relations Society of
America, wrote: "The very presumptuousness of moulding or affecting the
human mind through the techniques we use has created a deep sense of
uneasiness in our minds."
Chase was referring to techniques used to package and sell products through hidden persuaders in advertising.
Several movies have been made featuring psyop themes. However, as the
thinking goes, movies are fictional and therefore not a reflection of
reality.
The ability to contact millions through films, TV, newspapers,
magazines and the internet is reason to pause to examine the dangers of a
growing psyops culture.
The prospects are not encouraging: military information warfare extends
to political warfare expanding psychological warfare without defined
boundaries.
The best advice offered comes from James Thurber: "Let us not look back
in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness."
