Military's Information War Is Vast and Often Secretive By JEFF GERTH The media center in Fayetteville, N.C., would be the envy of any global communications company. In state of the art studios, producers prepare the daily mix of music and news for the group's radio stations or spots for friendly television outlets. Writers putting out newspapers and magazines in Baghdad and Kabul converse via teleconferences. Mobile trailers with high-tech gear are parked outside, ready for the next crisis. The center is not part of a news organization, but a military operation, and those writers and producers are soldiers. The 1,200-strong psychological operations unit based at Fort Bragg turns out what its officers call "truthful messages" to support the United States government's objectives, though its commander acknowledges that those stories are one-sided and their American sponsorship is hidden. "We call our stuff information and the enemy's propaganda," said Col. Jack N. Summe, then the commander of the Fourth Psychological Operations Group, during a tour in June. Even in the Pentagon, "some public affairs professionals see us unfavorably," and inaccurately, he said, as "lying, dirty tricksters." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/politics/11propaganda.html?ei=5090&en=3b298 30b7c656c93&ex=1291957200&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print Cheers,T ________________________________________________ Theodor Holm Nelson, Fellow, Oxford Internet Institute University of Oxford, 1 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3JS, UK V. Professor, U. Southampton; V. Fellow, Wadham College Founder, Project Xanadu (the first hypertext project), 1960+ ? e-mail: tandm@xanadu.net ? http://ted.hyperland.com, ? xanadu.com ? translit.org ? transcopyright.org ? world-wide phone and fax +1/908-847-0264 _________________________________________________ ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as eugen@leitl.org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]