Yes, it’s actually news for the pot heads at the Rolling Stone that DoD tries to convince Congressmen to finance their projects. But, apparently the military has a secret mind-manipulation process that doesn’t work so well on detainees (see Tony Camerino posts) but is easily adapted to influencing congressmen.
The orders came from the command of Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, a three-star general in charge of training Afghan troops – the linchpin of U.S. strategy in the war. Over a four-month period last year, a military cell devoted to what is known as “information operations” at Camp Eggers in Kabul was repeatedly pressured to target visiting senators and other VIPs who met with Caldwell. When the unit resisted the order, arguing that it violated U.S. laws prohibiting the use of propaganda against American citizens, it was subjected to a campaign of retaliation.
“My job in psy-ops is to play with people’s heads, to get the enemy to behave the way we want them to behave,” says Lt. Colonel Michael Holmes, the leader of the IO unit, who received an official reprimand after bucking orders. “I’m prohibited from doing that to our own people. When you ask me to try to use these skills on senators and congressman, you’re crossing a line.”
Who did they target?
John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Jack Reed, Al Franken and Carl Levin; Rep. Steve Israel of the House Appropriations Committee; Adm. Mike Mullen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Czech ambassador to Afghanistan; the German interior minister, and a host of influential think-tank analysts.
Really? Al Franken? They could brainwash him with a used wet nap if they could find the BB-sized organ.
How much convincing would it take for McCain, Lieberman and Mullen? Aren’t they all pro-victory in the first place?
I wonder if Rolling Stone even suspects that they’ve just been the subjects of a counter-intelligence operation.
One should never use the words Rolling Stone and intelligence in the same sentence.
Nobel Peace Prize for journalism? In the bag if they get another GO scalp.
I worked for LT GEN caldwell at CAC when a draft plan of sorts circulated which looked at merging some of the IO/PAO duties and creating one type of Officer area instead of 2. My boss (IO Officer) and I (PAO) tour the plan apart. More so because we’d loose some of the core capablities in each area, rather then on some of the issues raised here. You can’t direct IO/MISO against US citizens and having one guy with the training/capabilities to do so will undermine any efforts when dealing with the media. I think thats obvious. But much of what MISO does is marketing and if you have a savy MISO officer I can see where his ability to package information would be useful in dealing with a CODEL. As far as being ordered to do this and that….I can’t speak to it. I like Caldwell…his folks might have over reached here on his behalf. This will be very interesting, even if the MSM doesn’t run with it. MY channels through DOD are already buzzing.
We had one of them brain wave ray guns in Iraq, but it was broken and out of warranty, and our KBR folks coundn’t fix it…so it sat in the back of the Humvee.