DOD Spends More on Domestic PsyOps Than On Foreign PsyOps
The AP just did a great investigation on how much money DOD is spending on PR and outreach (via Noah Shachtman). There are lots of nausea-inducing details in the story: that PR funds have grown 63% in the last five years, that DOD has almost as many people working in PR as the State Department employs altogether.
But what gets me is that DOD is spending more for Domestic PsyOps (otherwise known as Public Affairs) than it spends on Foreign PsyOps.
The biggest chunk of funds — about $1.6 billion — goes into recruitment and advertising. Another $547 million goes into public affairs, which reaches American audiences. And about $489 million more goes into what is known as psychological operations, which targets foreign audiences.
[snip]
Recruitment and advertising are the only two areas where Congress has authorized the military to influence the American public. Far more controversial is public affairs, because of the prohibition on propaganda to the American public.
"It’s not up to the Pentagon to sell policy to the American people," says Rep. Paul Hodes, D-N.H., who sponsored legislation in Congress last year reinforcing the ban.
Spending on public affairs has more than doubled since 2003. Robert Hastings, acting secretary of defense, says the growth reflects changes in the information market, along with the fact that the U.S. is now fighting two wars.
"The role of public affairs is to provide you the information so that you can make an informed decision yourself," Hastings says. "There is no place for spin at the Department of Defense."
But on Dec. 12, the Pentagon’s inspector general released an audit finding that the public affairs office may have crossed the line into propaganda. The audit found the Department of Defense "may appear to merge inappropriately" its public affairs with operations that try to influence audiences abroad. It also found that while only 89 positions were authorized for public affairs, 126 government employees and 31 contractors worked there.
And, surprise surprise, Rummy brought these two functions closer together.
I’m wondering if this misplaced focus on propagandizing Americans explains how General Petraeus got to flip that coin at the Super Bowl. How much does it cost to pre-empt the football heros for some General with an over-developed instinct for self-promotion?
sorry, having trouble getting past “The AP just did a great investigation…”
new favorite euphemism: “may appear to merge inappropriately”
And what purpose does propaganda serve in a democracy?
I wonder if Ike, in his nightmares about the military-industrial complex, ever saw this one coming. This is like dysfunctional futurist science fiction.
By “nausea” do you mean throat-scraping shouts of “Finally!!!”?
Thanks ew.
digg
Do you think it’s possible the private corporate side of Defense Advisory Board – Perle et al – managed to get Bush to agree that it was more cost-effective to get the neoconartistry done in house? Tho it’s a bit comic that private industry would urge this out of one side of its mouth while more generally grinding government for not being able to do anything. I suppose the product tends to argue in favor of the latter.
Anyway: overall it’s good news for those in favor of finding stuff to cut out of the budget. Of course, we can expect that to get spun by Little Green Footballs et al as stripping the troops of vital armory.
Gonna take a long time to fix this mess.
Sounds to me like some offices at the Pentagon need fumigating. The vermin have infested it pretty badly.
It’s just Psyop, not PsyOps. I used to be in the 2nd Psyop Group out of Parma OH. And the way I was taught to do Psyop bears no resemblance to what has been going on lately.
Can you say more about the distinction you’re making? I’m interested.
Sorry I took so long to get back.
It is the proper way to abbreviate it as per US Military doctrine. Some other countries throw the s on the end. It’s mostly something that drove most people in my unit nuts and I’m still automatically correcting people.
Psyop is just another word for propaganda, but propaganda has such a negative connotation. It’s really not all that different from advertising.
The way I learned military Psyop was that the operation was always “white”. The information we spread was to be true and sourced back to our unit and the US Military.
The point was to save lives. If we can get the other side to stop resisting (surrendering is soooo negative sounding) then we don’t have to fight them anymore and more of our guys would live. More of theirs too. Even if the getting them to surrender wasn’t the mission, even just moving the enemy to another location could be quite useful.
Even “gray” (partial truth) was frowned upon. “Black” was not to even be considered. My assumption being that any black ops were done by the CIA.
I’ve been gone from my Reserve Unit for close to 15 years and resigned my commission 9 years ago. I have not kept up with what’s been going on, but most of the bits and pieces I have heard from our war on terror is not what I was taught.
Oh, so I screwed up?
I have zero problem with PsyOp
s. I realize that it’s a better investment than an F-22, from a strategic point of view. But I’d rather people be doing it somewhere else. Better yet, I’d rather a lot of it be public diplomacy going through State. But $500 million domestically? Nuh uh.That was my instant thought when Petraeus’s mug appeared on my Superb Owl TV. Dakine01 helpfully reminded me of the convenience of location (CENTCOM HQ just happened to be nearby), but it sure made me think of yet another way the Bush-bots have set things up to make it difficult for Obama to make changes. Its gonna take a lot of scrub; rinse; repeat (h/t Rachel Maddow).
Bob in HI
Maybe we should carry out our own Psyop by linking to this Fallon quote every time Petraeus’ name comes up:
Paging Senator Collins, Paging Senator Nelson, Paging Senator Bayh
Here’s a $1.6 billion cut for you. Now, give us back Head Start.
OT from Raw Story:
Always great to read good news!
Somewhere there is a sign up in the Pentagon:
“provide information” ==> always in first person, as in “we provide information”
“propaganda” ==> always in third person, as in “they distribute propaganda”
Of great interest is the Air Force’s new role in not just policing cyberspace, but psyop in cyberspace.
Here’s an HTML version of a PDF file online that sheds some light.
Military’s Information War Is Vast and Often Secretive
By JEFF GERTH
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12…..tml?pagewa
What’s unfortunate is that in some cases, the American public is perceived by our own military as “the enemy,” in need of being duped.
plunger, I recently got my converter box and DTV. Suddenly I could get a Pentagon Channel on our local PBS station. It runs 24/7 and sure looks to me like a lot of propaganca. My station is located in same town as Fort Hood, TX. It seems to me to glorify war and our latest WMDs…
If my sons were still young, I would not want them to be indoctrinated with a steady diet of this stuff. Lots of it sure looks like spin to me.
Well, call me slow! I just realized that this propaganda and mind manipulation of the youg people was not necessary before we did away with the draft – when a young man’s number came up, he went, like it or not. Now DOD must depend on volunteers and must
convincepropagandize them to join up.We need intelligent people to join our military. Unlike a few generations ago, the children of the wealthy and powerful no longer volunteer for the military, so the DoD must depend on those who see no way for themselves to advance in current US society except by enlisting. What the DoD does is nothing more than use advertising to accomplish the goal of getting people to sign up. How is the DoDs use of advertising any worse than any other product being advertised? All advertising is propaganda, how is the DoD using this tool any different from any other ad?
I am one of those who believe that a strong defense is the only way to deter armed aggression against us. That being said, we have become far to militaristic in our culture.
To understand the who,what and why of this, I recommend the book; “The New American Militarism, How Americans Are Seduced By War” by Andrew J. Bacevich. While he is a conservative, this book is apolitical. He condemns the republicians much more than the democrats. I believe that every american who thinks at all should read this. If it doesn’t scare the crap out of you then you are not thinking.
I’ll tell you how, freaking Wheaties and the latest Britney/Christina poptart album and all the other standard products which you so blithely compare to fucking war propaganda don’t result in a high degree of user death and maiming; and when even a couple of such consumers (think Bridgestone/Firestone tires for instance) do get maimed or killed, the company get the beejeebies sued out of it.
But the war monger ads and propaganda that you think is so common and hunky dory calls on our youth to sign up and participate in illegal and immoral wars of aggression and glorifies the same; all the while resulting in absurdly high “consumer” deaths and disfigurements. Maybe you think that is okay; I think it is criminal and an inappropriate to be done with my tax dollar.
Well said, bmaz. I’m glad there are many here at the lake who see and think beyond the goal of the propagandists to ’scare the crap out of us’.
pro military propaganda is nothing new , it’s the way it’s disseminated that has changed!
Hey, when DoD is losing nuclear warheads and sending nukes switches to enemies of course domestic Psyops will have a bigger budget…Those (**^&^%^%$ blogs drive the budget up too!
Well, hey. We can ‘create our own reality,’ so not to worry. You can be in my safe fantasyworld if I can be in yours.
Dizzying.
Do. Not. Promote. Any. Officer. That. Encouraged. This.
It’s very simple. Investigate, determine the offices responsible, and then refuse to promote them if it seems like they were trying to skirt the law. Upholding loyalty to the Congress does not come from allowing this sort of lawless behavior within the military itself.
Prowar Propaganda does help the GOP. I wonder if any of this cash went directly to he GOP?
All that money spent and they still can’t get anyone from the Bush family to really serve.
hey, good for the DOD for doing it’s part to “Buy American” and contribute to domestic employment! /s
The Bushies doled out a lot of cash to marketing firms to help sell their policies to the public because after all, running the country is just a matter of finding the best advertising campaign, right?
I could deal with that problem !!
my 27 goes to 7 oops!!!
Why are you surprised? The rethugs seem to have pretty much mastered the idea of propaganda on the public dime and the MSM seems to be going right along with this. Remember the Rummy was a bureaucratic infighter from way back in the Nixon/Ford years. He is also,along with cheney, a neocon and an Authoritarian Leader/Follower. This fits right in with the Authoritarian view opf the world and the US place in it. The idea is to get the sheeple-the mob of uninformed adults-on your side and in a panic that if they don’t keep voting rethug then their whole world will end in a bunch of terrorist attacks-terrorists taking the place of communists. The entire rethug partys idea is to scare the hell out of the sheeple, doesn’t matter if a threat exists, just scare the crap out of the sheeple.
Blue America up at the Mothership with guest Speaker Terie Norelli, Speaker of the New Hampshire House of Representatives
Propaganda takes on many forms, not just news reports. This virtual reality carnival side show allows Americans of all ages to use and feel weapons therefore become comfortable with their use. For 18 year olds it’s more exciting than minimum wage at the mall.
The Germans did this in the early 1930’s preparing the population for endless war. My guess is that this simulator(linked) is part of this budjet in addition to the PR firms in D.C.
http://science.howstuffworks.c…../printable
No one is going to beleive why and what they are actually doing with all that money. Could it be they are trying to monitor a huge criminal system?
I have links.
Marty Didier
Northbrook, IL