US Food Aid Propaganda
Matthew Gaylor
freematt at coil.com
Tue Oct 9 21:51:29 PDT 2001
Earlier I had sent notice of an article to my mailing list
(Freematt's Alerts) titled "One object of information warfare -- or
"infowar"..." the original located at
<http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/story1c100301.html>. Then as a
watched the news tonight I heard again what I've been hearing on
various American media ad infinitum that the US Military had dropped
37,500 food packages along with the first wave of attacks on
Afghanistan, on Sunday. Realizing that there are several million
refugees in the northern areas of Afghanistan, such a small number of
food packages doesn't seem really that adequate. But if you realize
why the US Military would bother dropping such minuscule numbers of
aid packages it only makes sense with a backdrop of PSYOPS.
"We call psychological operations (PSYOPS) the ultimate weapon," said
retired Col. Jim Noll, who commanded the 13th Psychological
Operations Battalion in the Persian Gulf War and helped develop
tactics that led to the surrender of large numbers of Iraqi troops.
For example, U.S. food distribution to Afghan refugees has
"far-reaching psychological impact," Noll said."
My theory is that if you hear that the US is dropping food packages
along with bombs it reinforces the propaganda that the US is doing
this to "help" the Afghan people. It doesn't matter from a
psychological operations perspective if the aid is effective but
rather it only matters if the target group thinks you're helping. In
this case the target audience being the Afghan refugees and the
unwitting American media consumer.
I'm rather disappointed but certainly not surprised that the
establishment media doesn't pick up on any of this.
Regards, Matt-
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