AUSTIN -- Damn, it's hard to kill a bad idea. And this one is so rank
that if Osama bin Laden had come up with it, we'd be forced to admit it
was a stroke of genius: how to infuriate our allies, cause an explosion
of anti-American paranoia, and encourage terrorism -- all in one swell
foop, as one of our old Texas pols used to say.
Unfortunately, this idea is Donald Rumsfeld's.
The concept of a Pentagon disinformation office is back. "The Defense
Department is considering issuing a secret directive to American
military to conduct covert operations aimed at influencing public opinion and
policymakers in friendly and neutral nations," reports The New York
Times. "The proposal has ignited a fierce battle throughout the Bush
administration over whether the military should carry out secret propaganda
missions in friendly nations like Germany." This is the same stupid
idea that was beaten back last February when the Pentagon had to
disband its Office of Strategic Influence when it was pointed out that the
thing was guaranteed to backfire.
Let's do that simple old thing where we put the shoe on the other foot
and see how it feels, substituting "China" for "United States" and
using the exact plan outlined by the Times: "The Chinese government is
considering a secret propaganda program that would include, for example,
efforts to discredit and undermine evangelical Christian churches and
religious schools that have become breeding grounds for militant
anti-Chinese sentiment because of China's abortion policies and human-rights
issues. It might even include setting up schools with secret Chinese
financing to teach a more moderate Christianity, laced with sympathetic
depictions of how the religion is practiced in China. The plan also
includes secret Chinese payments to American journalists to write articles
favorable to China, and paying citizens' groups to organize rallies in
support of Chinese policies."
No, not a good idea. This country already has a credibility problem
around the world -- why set up an official propaganda office to tell
lies, when the truth works much better?
We already have a non-clandestine, open program of public relations
at the State Department called public diplomacy. Apparently, the old
U.S. Information Agency, now under State, is in some disarray. I hate to
mention it, but that is one of those problems you can solve by throwing
money at it.
It is both unnecessary and counterproductive to have a secret
propaganda campaign. The most effective weapon in any information campaign is a
reputation for telling the truth. And the only way to get that
reputation is to earn it. The BBC is listened to worldwide precisely because it
does not spin the news.
When the "Office of Strategic Lies" was killed off earlier this year,
Rumsfeld was quite testy at the press conference. "The office is done,"
he snapped. "It's over. What do you want, blood?" No, we want it to be
over.
President Bush promised at the time, "We'll tell the American people
the truth." Then last week, the administration leaked a painfully
obvious fake story about how Saddam Hussein had given chemical weapons to Al
Qaeda. That one was shot down so fast -- from inside the government --
if you blinked, you missed it. What's next? Iraqi soldiers tossing
babies out of Kuwaiti incubators again? Rape of the Belgian nuns?
This administration has such a problem with obsessive secrecy, such a
compulsion to control information and such a low regard for the
public's right to know what is being done in their name, with their money and
with their children's lives that it's seriously alarming. The
administration is clearly stocked with people who regard the press as a pain to
be manipulated and public opinion as something that needs to be shaped
by the government.
To review the record:
One of the first things Bush did in office was rescind the provision that
gives access to a president's records 12 years after he had left office.
They're still sitting on the information about who shaped Dick Cheney's energy
policy, as though we couldn't figure that out.
Secret detentions without charges, without lawyers.
The administration requested that the television networks censor tapes from
Osama bin Laden under the odd pretext that they might contain some coded message.
Since you could see them in full on Al Jazeera, that was utterly pointless.
In October, after a leak the White House didn't like, the administration announced
only eight members of Congress would be permitted to hear intelligence briefings.
Congress made them back down.
Out of room and barely started. Ted Gup, author of "The Book of Honor," about
the secret lives of CIA agents, quotes the British scholar F.M. Cornford: "Propaganda
is that branch of the art of lying which consists in very nearly deceiving your
friends without quite deceiving your enemies."
© 2002 Creators Syndicate
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