The enemy is us(by Sam Gardiner is a retired Air Force colonel)

[RedEarth]

In war, you deny information, spread lies and use psychological warfare. An expert on military information operations explains how Bush has mastered this technique -- and used it against the American people.

By Sam Gardiner

09/22/04 "Salon.com" -- On Thursday, Iraq's interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, will speak before a joint meeting of Congress, and from what he said in London on his way to the United States, it looks like Americans are going to be getting more of the strategic information operations that have been crucial to Bush's policy on Iraq from the beginning.

On Monday, Allawi said at a press conference: "Terrorists are coming and pouring into Iraq to try to undermine the situation in Iraq ... And God forbid, if Iraq is broken or the will of Iraq is broken, then London will be a target, Washington will be a target." In those sentences, Allawi employed the basic doctrine of strategic information operations: Influence emotions, motive and objective reasoning. Use repetition to create a collective memory in the target audience. And the recurrent message of both Allawi and the Bush administration is: Iraq = terrorists = 9/11.

The Army Field Manual describes information operations as the use of strategies such as information denial, deception and psychological warfare to influence decision making. The notion is as old as war itself. With information operations, one seeks to gain and maintain information superiority -- control information and you control the battlefield. And in the information age, it has become even more imperative to influence adversaries.

But with the Iraq war, information operations have gone seriously off track, moving beyond influencing adversaries on the battlefield to influencing the decision making of friendly nations and, even more important, American public opinion. In information denial, one attempts to deceive one's adversary. Since the declared end of combat operations, the Bush administration has orchestrated a number of deceptions about Iraq. But who is its adversary?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6943.htm

[PATRICK]

1. Deceiving its own troops and commanders

and launching actions for political domestic agenda in the US. The tangled web indeed. Create chaos, bluff leadership, never verbally recognize reality.

Keep it up to election. Then do over again.

[TheDebbieDee]

2. During the "Cold War", nations armed themselves.....................

in a bid to defend against the Soviet thugs, but now, WE are the thugs that nations arm themselves against.

[vogonity]

3. Can anyone offer any insight...

As to what it is like to fabricate stories at this level?

We were told Iraqis had stolen U.S. uniforms to commit atrocities -- this was not true. We were told on White House and State Department Web sites that the Iraqi military had formed units of children to attack the coalition -- untrue. We were told of a whole range of agreements between the French and Iraq before the war over weapons -- false. We were told Saddam had marked a red line around Baghdad and that when we crossed it Iraq would use chemical weapons -- completely fabricated.

I would really like to know how these fabrications are actually created. Is there a big room full of Generals and Press Liasons that sit down and say, "Hmm lets say there is a big red line around Baghdad where Saddam will use chemical weapons." Or do the press liasons just get some piece of paper to read the latest "characterization" of the day's events.

What I am asking is do the liars lie to each other in order to generate enough cover for each other or do they just sit down and crank out the bullshit of the day?