Apropos of yesterday’s post on the building anti-blogger drumbeat: I came across a link to this document in the Grauniad’s comment section this morning, in reply to a somewhat wimpy post about blog civility by Jonathan Freedland – his general point being ‘Yes, I’m all for open democracy, but wouldn’t it be nice if we all were nice?’
Anyhow, this is or purports to be a declassified report from the US Departnent of Defence (pdf file) outlining plans to put information warfare at the core of future US military strategy.
(Click for larger version)
Very interesting reading indeed, once you climb over the acronymic detritus and negotiate your way around the redactions. (Someone’s been very heavy-handed with the magic marker). The appendices are particularly interesting; there are some nice little to do lists of ‘psyops’ tasks on page 75 that look less like psyops and more like full-on, unlimited-budget, marketing and PR campaigning.
Humanitarian roadshows, talking points for private exchanges with foreign leaders, town hall meetings, op-eds, preemptive global media campaigns (including web media and that means fake blogs and astroturf) – that’s not defence, that’s politics.
Can’t say it’s any real surprise to see that the DoD is just as riddled with loyal Bushies as the Dept of Justice though.
