The investigation into allegations that the Army was abusing Iraqi news outlets to “plant” good news articles is nearing complete. A couple of weeks ago, the L.A. Times reported that the U.S. military has been secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq.
Well hell, it obviously wasn’t that much of a secret if the L.A. Times wrote about it. I suspect that it wasn’t advertised, just as much of our psychological operations aren’t advertised, but does that necessarily make it a bad thing? I suppose it does if you don’t want to win this war. I have serious doubts that the Army directly paid newspapers to publish stories. I’d bet rather, that they did contract a service to translate stories and try to get them published, again, not necessarily a bad thing unless one has an agenda that includes our losing this war.
From the L.A. Times:
Though the articles are basically factual, they present only one side of events and omit information that might reflect poorly on the U.S. or Iraqi governments, officials said. Records and interviews indicate that the U.S. has paid Iraqi newspapers to run dozens of such articles, with headlines such as “Iraqis Insist on Living Despite Terrorism,” since the effort began this year.
Kind of like the pot calling the kettle black isn’t it? And what in the hell is wrong with focusing on the positive? Has our media really gotten to the point where good news is bad news?
Fortunately, the Army’s leaders have cooler heads than yours truly and have investigated the allegations made by the “pot.”
WASHINGTON, Dec. 16, 2005 – A preliminary investigation of alleged improprieties conducted by U.S. military information operations activities in Iraq hasn’t found any wrongdoing, the top U.S. officer in Iraq said today.
“We concluded that we were operating within our authorities and the appropriate legal procedures,” Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr. said from his headquarters in Iraq during a satellite news conference with Pentagon reporters.
To win the global war on terror, we’re going to have to engage the enemy on many levels, information operations is just one of those levels. Anyone remember “Tokyo Rose?” The difference here, of course, is that we aren’t disseminating lies. Sgt Hook out.
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This post is filed under: Army Times & Soap Box
