Information Warfare 101

The American Thinker ^ | 05/14/04 | Douglas Hanson

[JusticeTalion]

Disinformation is information disseminated primarily by intelligence organizations or other covert agencies designed to distort information, or deceive or influence United States decisionmakers, United States forces, coalition allies, key actors, or individuals by indirect or unconventional means. It is a form of propaganda directed toward decisionmakers to confuse them into making incorrect decisions. Disinformation can cause rifts in coalitions by playing off historical ethnic, racial, and cultural biases of coalition partners. Adversaries can direct disinformation indirectly, such as through third-party communications broadcasts.

US Army Field Manual 3-13 Information Operations: Doctrine, Tactics, Techniques, Procedures

The laser-like focus of the American media and much of the Democratic Party’s leadership on the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib Prison is remarkable. There is an abundance of critically important and visually rich news originating in Iraq, from the increasingly successful military operations in Fallujah and Karbala to the horrific videotape of Nicholas Berg’s beheading. Long before any details of the origins of the Abu Ghraib situation are clear, newspaper headlines, television newscasts, and magazine covers tell us that the important question is whether or not Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld should be fired.

A close reading of documents and facts already made public strongly suggests that, in addition to a war on radical Islam, the SecDef and his boss, President George W. Bush, are fighting an internal war. This internal war is against opponents within the United States Government, who seek to divert attention and blame from their own failures to carry out their duties, and their own bending of the rules governing the treatment of prisoners. Like all internal wars, the details are crucial, and many important points remain hidden from public scrutiny. Nevertheless, an emerging pattern of cover-up and possible set-up of others makes sense, in the context of the larger struggles defining the occupation of Iraq, and the war which led to it.

The visible-to-date actions of a few soldiers, and the evident gross negligence on the part of their immediate commanders, have caused a predictable reaction on the part of the mainstream media. Only an anti-American, leftist press could make the swift jump in logic from enlisted MP prison guards right up the chain of command to the Secretary of Defense. The lame attempt to monger another “My Lai” type of scandal is translucent, if not fully transparent, to most thinking observers of press behavior.

[JusticeTalion]

This article is quite long but informative enough to make it worthwhile. Still surprising this isn't being reported as the "other side of the prison abuse coin".