Flashback: The Office of Strategic Information.

[TrustingDog]

http://www.propagandacritic.com/articles/examples.osi.html

 
The following article about the Office of Strategic Information (OSI) was written by Lou Morano for United Press International (February 26, 2002). It is hereby reprinted in the spirit of fair use.
The Pentagon's publicized plans to create the propaganda bureau sparked a hailstorm of debate. A few days later, a two-sentence article in the Financial Times (London) reported that the Pentagon planned to close the OSI.
Propaganda: Remember the Kuwaiti babies?
By: Lou Morano

If you liked the lie about the murder of Kuwaiti babies after Iraq's invasion of the oil-rich emirate in 1990, you'll love the Office of Strategic Information.

That is, if the Pentagon's new office of shadow plays survives in the form it had been envisioned.

Last week The New York Times reported that the Defense Department is paying the Rendon Group, a Washington-based international consulting firm, $100,000 per month to help the OSI with a broad campaign that would include "black" propaganda, or disinformation -- commonly known as lies.

This brought to mind one of the most notorious pieces of disinformation promulgated the last time the government wanted to build public support for a war against Iraq. It was fabricated by Hill and Knowlton, one of the world's largest public relations firms. This is the story that in 1990 invading Iraqi soldiers pulled Kuwaiti premature babies from their incubators and left them to die on the cold floor. The Bush administration has scrambled away from the storm of criticism sparked by the Times' report, and the president promised Monday that his government would not lie about defense policy. On Sunday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on NBC's "Meet the Press": "The person in charge is debating whether it should even exist in its current form, given all the misinformation and adverse publicity it has received."

The OSI was created shortly after Sept. 11 to build public support abroad for the U.S. war on terrorism.

On Wednesday, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith told reporters that the Pentagon would never lie to the public......

[TrustingDog]

1. so are we to believe that they really closed down that office?

bwahhahaahah!