PsyOps (n): psychological operations carried out by the military, esp. to influence the attitudes and perceptions of individuals, organizations, or governments.
We've all been schooled over the last five years in the ways that lies become truth.
There's the lather-rinse-repeat method, by which repetition numbs the brain into accepting falsehoods as fact.
There's the I'm-lying-to-your-face-but-it's-good-for-you-(like-spinach) method, by which power presents their truth as the only choice, believe it or perish.
But any method of deception grows tiresome and ineffective after a while, like watching the same magic trick performed over and over and over again. Lather-rinse-repeat no longer holds us in its thrall. When the punditry starts explaining to the audience how you yanked the rabbit outta the hat, it's time to get a new show-stopper. And so it is now that the time has come to sell America on war in Iran.
So, presto/change-o...abracadabra...hocus-fucking-pocus...stick around while I saw this bitch in half.
Step One: Find An Expert To Say Something Terrifyingly Catchy
This one is evergreen. There are still yokels sitting in Waffle Houses with over-easy dripping off their chins, thanking their interventionist God for sending us to war in Iraq so "the smoking gun did not become a mushroom cloud." This tactic is the only reason anyone outside Livermore Labs knows that yellowcake is anything other than a scrumptious dessert.
And without any further ado, here is step one, a la nouvelle mode, from the Israeli press:
[Israeli] Former Military Intelligence chief Aharon Ze'evi warned Monday morning of an impending world jihad "tsunami" that he said may soon descend on the entire Middle East.
Ze'evi, speaking at a Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies conference in Tel Aviv University, said that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinijad has been overheard promising the "end of history in two or three years."
Ze'evi recommended that the Iranian threats be taken seriously, saying that Tehran will soon have nuclear warhead compatible surface-to-surface missiles with a range of 5,000 kilometers, putting Europe within striking distance...
Major General (Res.) Ze'evi stepped down as chief of Military Intelligence about four months ago, and was replaced by Major General Amos Yadlin.
Impending world jihad tsunami.
It's so tasty, I don't want to swallow it. I just want to chew it.
You tell me. You've witnessed the flair for communication the average intelligence chief has. Watching George HW Bush, George Tenet, or Porter Goss talk is like listening to someone read a binary code translation of Beowulf. Is it likely that a guy like Ze'evi -- who has spent his entire life inventing new ways to keep secrets and obscure communication -- is creative and silver-tongued enough to come up with a tasty morsel like "impending world jihad tsunami? Or could it be that somebody else with a flair for communication invented the phrase and fed it to him?
I'm sorry, is that cynical?
Please. Here is a turn of phrase designed to do precisely what the "mushroom cloud" canard was designed to do, which is to present a mental image that is crafted to terrify. Everyone on planet earth with access to a television has seen images of walls of water pouring over beachheads and laying waste to miles of civilization. We all remember the images of thousands of bodies floating face down in flotsam.
And as for Ze'evi's claim that "President Mahmoud Ahmadinijad has been overheard promising the 'end of history in two or three years?'" The man is an expert, get it? He overhears things; that's what he does. He bugs up the nutty Muslims and he listens. When Mahmoud gets bragadocious down at the gym, or gets a few in him at the cantina, Ze'evi is there, his ear to the ground. What he has learned burdens him; no doubt he wishes that duty* did not bind him to pass along what he has learned about Ahmadinijad's intentions, but when somebody wants to blow up the planet and take history with him, well, that's serious biz.
*Note that Ze'evi's status as the ex-Chief of Military Intelligence means that he is no longer the current Chief of Military Intelligence, which means that he is now free to opine expertly, with all of the latitude and slack accorded a retired public servant, and with none of the accountability attendant to the job he once held. He is a free agent now, which makes him a very useful tool for Israel. And for Likud.
And for the American Right.
Step Two: Release the Hounds!
Google "jihad-tsunami" just one day after the phrase is coined and witness the global, right-wing, theothermic blogosphere on crack -- 16,800 hits!
There's LibertyPost.
And
InJesus
And Watch.org.
And of course, a Freeperville that is drunkenly desperate to forget the flailings of their President in the immigration reform debacle.
16,800 hits. A firestorm of chatter out there in Wingnutlandia. About what?
Well, right. About nothing.
But that doesn't really matter, does it?
...
Examining this particular piece of psyop, a few things appear clear:
(1) This war will be sold to Americans as an urgent defense of our allies in Israel and Europe, rather than a defense of our home soil, or another step in "freedom's march." That ship has sailed. That brand is defunct.
(2) The Administration will look abroad for support and corroboration this time, and manufacture it when necessary, by (for example) conscripting quasi-governmental experts.
(3) Great care will be taken to manage Ahmadinijad's character arc, and develop his stock as a madman. Of particular use to the War Machine is the ability to employ self-serving translations of Farsi. Any communiques from Tehran designed to open dialogue will be dismissed as ploys, or even threats, while hearsay comments like the ones to which Ze'evi refers will be accepted as gospel.
(4) The seeds that are being planted in the right-wing blogosphere today will sprout up in not only the mainstream media, but in diner and church and temple discourse across this country. That is precisely the design of viral marketing, and in this case, the virus is fear.
A final point: for those of you who doubt that Ze'evi is a political and nationalist actor with an agenda who would welcome conscription by the West, I suggest you Google him and have a look for yourself. This is a guy who once publically said of a deadly errant Israeli rocket attack on Palestine, "it is better Palestinian mothers should cry and not Jewish mothers." What kind of moral doctrine leads one to believe that one mother's grief is preferable to another mother's grief?
Expect the rhetoric to accelerate. Watch for this psyop and others to play out in ways expected and unexpected. Be vigilant in unearthing lies, and pointing the way to the truth.
The consequences of failure are unthinkable.