We were all kinda busy last October trying to retake the House and Senate so maybe it's not surprising that some things slipped past us. One such measure was a new Pentagon media war unit:
BBC News: Pentagon boosts 'media war' unit:
The newly-established unit would use "new media" channels to push its message and "set the record straight", Pentagon press secretary Eric Ruff said.
"We're looking at being quicker to respond to breaking news," he said.
"Being quicker to respond, frankly, to inaccurate statements."
A Pentagon memo seen by the Associated Press news agency said the new unit would "develop messages" for the 24-hour news cycle and aim to "correct the record".
The unit would reportedly monitor media such as weblogs and would also employ "surrogates", or top politicians or lobbyists who could be interviewed on TV and radio shows.
I went looking for it today because I think maybe it came looking for me two weeks ago. Below the fold is the correspondence suggesting DailyKos is the new front in the Pentagon's 'media war'. Please tell me I'm wrong. I'd sleep better.
I've been writing about the escalation toward war with Iran for a long time now. Here, here, here, here and here for starters. And in honour of Libby and Miller this week, my favourite Iran diary from October 2005: IRAN: Aspens Turning, Forged Letters, Fake Terror, Real War. It's not surprising that maybe someone somewhere in the Pentagon noticed. It would be surprising if they didn't keep an eye on the blogs as we aggregate and process new information very, very well and very, very quickly.
The incident that worries me started with this diary: Losing One More Friend in Iraq. The diary criticised the raid on the Iranian consulate in Erbil, Kurdistan, northern Iraq, and the abduction of six diplomats and staff from the consulate building along with the destruction of premises and theft of computers and documents. All of this violates the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (PDF).
Vienna? Geneva? They're all so quaint.
Anyway, that diary hit the Recommended List and stayed there most of January 11th and 12th. A critical aspect is that I suggest in that diary that the raid on the consulate in Erbil was to create the pretext for war by planting "evidence" that the consulate - and by extension the government of Iran - was aiding the insurgency in Iraq.
Why did we do such a stupid thing? I can only assume that some forged, incriminating documents will be "found" among the papers seized from the consulate and brandished by Bush to reinforce his tissue thin assertions that Iran backs Iraq's insurgents (as if they needed more encouragement than our troops provide daily). Ahmad Chalabi's CIA-built forgery operation is probably still up and running somewhere not far from Erbil, churning out the propaganda needed for the next war of choice. Or maybe one of those poor, unfortunate diplomats will be tortured into providing some information which the US can point to as "evidence" of Iran's complicity in Iraqi resistence to military occupation by a foreign power. Whatever.
Later that day I received the following e-mail:
Subj: Your article on events in Erbil
Date: 12/01/2007 09:29:46 GMT Standard Time
From: amigoneuvo@...
To: LondonYank
Sent from the Internet (Details)
As a foreign journalist based here in the North I thought I'd let you know how the local media and parties view the events of yesterday. The majority believe that the raid was planned well in advance. Barzani was almost certainly aware of what was going on and sanctioned it. Yes, the Iranians have lent a helping hand here in Kurdistan in many ways. However, they are still viewed with suspicion. There are both Sunni and Shia refugees living here and there has been some friction. People are afraid the this could easily flare up. It only takes an argument on the street to start it. Guns are freely available here. Most people own at least one. These all come into the country via Iran. It is the source more sophisticated weaponry being trucked south to Baghdad which the Americans were probably trying to trace. We believe this was the reason why they cleared out the consulate.
Sorry I can't reveal my name. If you ever decide to come back you're welcome to contact me here.
Now, several things struck me as odd about what Amigo says (besides the misspelling of nuevo), though initially I accepted his e-mail at face value. First, my experience of Kurdistan is that there is very little tension there because it is so firmly under control of the Kurdish political leaders and Peshmerga and has been relatively immune from the war in the rest of the country. I accept that that may have changed, but it remains the most peaceful and secure part of Iraq - and also the most ethnically and religiously homogenous with the exception of border cities like Kirkuk. Second, the idea that guns come into Kurdistan from Iran is just stupid. Kalishnakovs are endemic in every house and car in Iraq. Guns are everywhere, sold openly in street markets with every variety of munition, and have been for decades. There isn't a need to bring guns into the country because it could hardly hold any more guns. As he says, everyone has at least one, and most have more. Usually one for the house, one for the car. Guns have been pouring in from all points for so long, Iran doesn't even come into the picture.
I wrote back:
Amigo,
Wow. Thanks - zoor spaz - for the on-site report of how things are shaping up. I still think the raid was very badly handled, but it's good if our government wasn't quite so stupid as to proceed with such an affront without consulting first.
I'm not planning any return trips anytime soon, but hope things continue peacefully there for your sake.
LondonYank
12 days later, another e-mail from Amigo hits my inbox:
Subj: Re: Your article on events in Erbil
Date: 24/01/2007 14:56:44 GMT Standard Time
From: amigoneuvo@...
To: LondonYank
Sent from the Internet (Details)
Thanks for the email. Yes, I'm here in the midst of it all. Meanwhile it has been confirmed that the office was operating as a supply route to Baghdad. Amongst the other things they found electronic triggering devices identical to the ones used in roadside bomb attacks. The Iranians had also kept records of everything they'd bought and sold. Nobody had ever regarded the place as a consulate. It was just like many of the other official respresentative offices here. Any country can open one. You just fly in and set up shop.
More later.
At this point, I smell a rat.
- First, the consulate had been founded in Erbil 17 years ago - with full diplomatic recognition by the Kurdistan Regional Government. Following the war in 2003, the consulate sought recognition by the government in Baghdad and received it from the new government. It flew the Iranian flag. It wasn't any "shop" set up in a hurry.
- Second, the only way Amigo could know what "they found" in the consulate was if he was connected to special ops. The diplomats, computers and documents were loaded onto helicopters and trucks and taken from the scene immediately after the raid. Even though "news travels on the wind" in Kurdistan, the only way a description of devices and documents could get out is if it were leaked from the US military. And any information coming from that quarter as the Bushistas ramp up their war-mongering is suspect.
- Third, I had found out since the original story that another attack on the airport had been repelled by the Peshmerga - indicating Barzani wasn't at all on board with the raids and ordered the Peshmerga to resist the American attackers - and that the likely target of the attacks was the visiting deputy head of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council for Internal Security Affairs Mohammad Jaafari who was with a delegation of Iranian diplomats meeting both Jalal Talibani and Mazood Barzani. These were probably the people at the airport who were defended from capture.
- Fourth, it occured to me that nothing Amigo wrote gave me any idea of him as a person or his life in Iraq or his context for getting the information he was spinning me. A normal person - and especially a journalist - will normally write something by way of context when they are introducing themselves or sharing a viewpoint.
- Finally, no journalist with an inside scoop on the "evidence" found in the consulate raid would leak it to an online blogger before it appears in the MSM. I looked on Google News for "evidence" found in the raid. No major media had picked up his assertions about triggering devices and records - probably because it will only be published once the administration releases its dodgy dossier on Iran.
I decided Amigo probably wasn't in Iraq at all, probably wasn't a journalist, and probably wasn't my friend.
I wrote again to Amigo, presumably for the last time:
You know, I still don't quite trust that "they found" triggering devices and records oh so conveniently. I don't think the Iranians need a consulate to supply those, but I do think the Bush administration needs a consulate to tie its allegations of insurgent supplies to Iran's government as a pretext for an unprovoked attack.
You can believe what you want. I'm going to remain mighty sceptical of any evidence found by such methods - especially until the Iranians, the United Nations and the Red Cross are allowed access to the detained diplomats.
The Bush administration and US military keep breaking international laws like they don't apply. Somehow the more they do it, the more wrong and desperate they seem to me, and the more I sense they are probably cooking up more fraudulent warmongering intelligence and lying again.
All the best,
LondonYank
Today I went looking for a Pentagon unit that might use someone like Amigo. Sure enough, the BBC revealed just such a new 'media war' unit being set up last October.
It appears to the newest, mintiest flavour yet of the Information Operations Roadmap (PDF) which dates from 2003 but no doubt has antecedents owing to the tender mercies of Otto Reich and friends. Captain Nimrod also diaried this yesterday and I'm sure it's been covered here by others as well.
As the BBC commented at the time:
Perhaps the most startling aspect of the roadmap is its acknowledgement that information put out as part of the military's psychological operations, or Psyops, is finding its way onto the computer and television screens of ordinary Americans.
"Information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and Psyops, is increasingly consumed by our domestic audience," it reads.
"Psyops messages will often be replayed by the news media for much larger audiences, including the American public," it goes on.
I live overseas in the UK. I'm fair prey for the games.
It turns out that the Decider in Chief wants to "catapult the propaganda" until we believe his lies.
In June 2005, the new effort got rolling with $300 million:
"Burson-Marsteller's BKSH & Assocs., has been hired by The Lincoln Group, one of three firms selected last month by the U.S. Special Operations Command to wage psychological warfare on behalf of the Pentagon in Iraq and other hot spots," O'Dwyer's PR Daily reports. "BKSH has experience on the Iraqi front earned from work for Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress. Col. James Treadwell, director of the Joint Psychological Operations Support Element, said TLG was selected to develop 'cutting-edge types of media,' including radio/TV ads, documentaries, text messages, Internet spots and podcasts for the U.S. military. The Pentagon expects to spend $3M in the first-year as a 'test,' and could spend up to $300M over five years if the 'psyops' operations conducted by TLG, SYColeman and Science Applications International Corp are deemed successful."
For those that don't remember, SIAC created the government-in-waiting and financed and trained Chalabi's militia, the Iraqi Freedom Force. The IFF started the looting in Baghdad (which is why we didn't stop them) and then went on an assassination spree to eliminate the domestic competition to our imposed exiles taking over the government.
Yesterday I sent the correspondence to Larisa at RawStory and she concurred that it didn't smell right.
Well, that's the story so far. Sunlight is the best disinfectant so I think I'll sleep better having put this out for general knowledge and evaluation.
Am I crazy or have I been played? Who is Amigo? Where is Amigo? Whose side is he on?