I have just finished reading Colonel Patrick Lang’s post The Propaganda of the Word and I am VERY curious about a number of things that are contained in it.

I want more information.

Col. Lang writes:

There are Public Information Officers (PIOs) and then there are propagandists. The two are not the same.

PIOs have the job of releasing what is thought to be the truth to media outlets. The information is often laden with the values, point of view and hopes of the releasing headquarters but it is, nevertheless, not a deliberate attempt to deceive.

and

Propaganda is different. It involves the dissemination of information not intended to inform, but rather to influence.

OK…let’s take it from there.

My Christmas info list continues below.

Read on.

Col. Lang writes:

Propaganda directed against foreign audiences has not been thought “out of bounds” in the USA since the end of WW2. It is a fundamental principal of such action under American law that it should not be directed at the American electorate.[Italics mine.]

Please. Can someone tell me exactly where this law is written? I am serious here. Because if it DOES exists, then it has been broken so many times between the assassination of JFK and the attempt to promote and continue the Iraq war under totally false pretenses that we could quite conceivably indict almost the entire media power structure and vast numbers of the people who have served in the information arms of the military, the CIA and the federal government as co-conspirators in the most massive conspiracy ever to have existed in the history of mankind. In practice, the “fundamental principle” under which the Operation Mockingbird owned and influenced media has worked has been the exact opposite of this. It has directed nothing BUT propaganda at the American electorate in such massive quantities and in a situation that almost totally excludes the general distribution of any opposing information that the general run of American people simply have had no choice BUT to accept it as fact.

As it stands today, the domestic American mass media is the most effective propaganda machine that has ever existed. Better than that of the Catholic Church in its heyday, better than Hitler’s, better than that of the U.S.S.R.

If laws have been broken…let’s hang `em all.

He writes:

We must ask if this principle has been adhered to, not by the CIA, but rather by political enthusiasts and “cultists” within the “information operations” and “psychological warfare” area of military activities.

This is a very complex sentence. Does it mean that “the CIA” has NOT indulged in this sort of action? Or whether that question simply should not be asked? It goes on to say that we SHOULD ask if there have  been people within other intelligence organizations who have engaged in such activities.

Fine.

Personally, it is my point of view that since being “in the CIA” is a non-subject…I mean, if it is classified information and there are levels upon levels upon levels of secrecy, then who really knows WHO is “CIA” and who is not…then we should engage in the “quacks like a duck” approach here. Regardless of WHO has promoted this propaganda, who has propagated it, or what organizations to which they do or do not owe their allegiance, if it lies like a hustler it IS a hustler.

Once again…let’s hang `em all.

And, if Col. Lang actually knows who some of these “…enthusiasts and `cultists’ within the `information operations’ and `psychological warfare’ area of military activities” may be, then it is his patriotic duty to step forward and name names.

Has he taken an oath of secrecy of some kind?

Col. Patrick W. Lang (Ret.), a highly decorated retired senior officer of U.S. Military Intelligence and U.S. Army Special Forces, served as “Defense Intelligence Officer for the Middle East, South Asia and Terrorism” for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and was later the first Director of the Defense Humint Service.

Yes, you BET he has.

But if that oath was taken under false pretenses…if large and effective elements of the system under which he worked have systematically broken this “fundamental principal of such action under American law that it [propaganda] should not be directed at the American electorate”, should he not step up and blow some whistles?

Whistles with NAMES ON THEM?

Now I appreciate his dilemma here. If what he is saying is true, people have been known to disappear for less. But he has already made himself a pretty good target by publicly appearing as an ex-insider critic of this system and here he still is, so it appears that he must have some sort of protection. Some powerful support within that system. Within SOME system, for sure. If I…a civilian with no contacts in that system whatsoever…were to suddenly magically discover on my doorstep a Fed Ex containing absolutely unchallengeable names, dates, places, recordings and videos of such actions occurring at the highest levels of power and I tried to go public with them…how long do you think I would last?

My 15 minutes of fame would be over in a NY NANO-second.

Names and dates, please.

And then…then he gets REALLY spooky. Spooky well past the usual “spook” description used on intel people. He begins to sound like something out of my favorite blog, Rigorous Intuition”.

He writes that after the defeat in Vietnam,

Various strange studies were funded for several years seeking answers which would not be too personally painful.

Telepathy, telekinesis, firewalking, spoonbending, distant viewing, political warfare and propaganda against both hostile and friendly targets were all studied and experimented in by men who under normal circumstances were more stable and certainly less imaginative. … continued below …

 (See the interesting work, “The Men Who Stare at Goats”)

In the end the Army rejected all this and returned to its usual preoccupation, but the tendency survived in the persons of several officers who have risen to high rank. Some have been high officials in the counter-terrorism and homeland defense fields. Some are now major media figures and others officials of the Department of Defense, but outside the “mainstream” of the Army. None are in the intelligence business.

As a result of the continued existence of this “tendency,” the Bush Administration has been influenced in the direction of manipulation of public opinion here and abroad as an instrument of warfare.

OK Colonel.

Time to name some names.

Most of us who are well read on the subject of intelligence operations in America over the past 50 years or so are familiar with these studies. Information about them is easily accessed on the net and in many, many books. But you have just taken a GIGANTIC step here. Please continue.

You write about how this “tendency survived in the persons of several officers who have risen to high rank.’

Who?

“Some have been high officials in the counter-terrorism and homeland defense fields.”

Who?

“Some are now major media figures and others officials of the Department of Defense, but outside the `mainstream’ of the Army.”

For GOD’S sake…WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?

And of course…'”None are in the intelligence business.”

Good.

I am SO relieved to hear THAT, anyway.

Further…

“As a result of the continued existence of this `tendency’, the Bush Administration has been influenced in the direction of manipulation of public opinion here and abroad as an instrument of warfare.”

That’s a crime, isn’t it? If indeed there IS existing law that states “It is a fundamental principal of such action under American law that it should not be directed at the American electorate.” (See my first query above.)

Let’s hang `em all.

But how CAN we hang them all without names and dates, Colonel?

We can’t.

You write:

“We are now beginning to witness the results of such foolishness.”

Well, I personally believe that “the results of such foolishness” have been increasingly with us since 1963 or thereabouts (and began to drastically escalate during the Reagan figurehead/Bush I controller years), but then again, I am not the intel insider that you are. I would certainly settle for taking down the current regime lock, stock and pentagram, myself.

But we need real information.

Is it Cheney and Rumsfeld? (My own guess. Just for starters.) But my “guesses”…and those of many, many others…hold no water whatsoever, We’re just amateurs. But you, sir…you are a pro. Been there, seen that. So let’s get the real deal here. Let’s go whole hog plus postage.

Who ARE these people who have “risen to high rank”? People who are “high officials in the counter-terrorism and homeland defense fields”?  Who are “now major media figures” and “officials of the Department of Defense”?, Who are “outside the `mainstream’ of the Army” but are not “in the intelligence business”?

Who belongs to this coven of plotters, sir?

The future of the United States and possibly of the rest of the world hangs on your answers.

You could blow this thing right out of the water.

Will you?

We shall see.

AG