Aimee Farr writes: >Lucky wrote: [re: psyops] > >Perception management.
I happened to have a bit of time on my hands, so I decided to spend a few minutes trying to decipher Aimee's message (rather than simply deleting them as I usually do). A few comments follow - more related to style and usage than content: >Japan's "Asia for the Asiatics" propaganda was a sign of military >expansion, >and was totally ignored by allied powers -- to our great loss -- and >surprise. In most countries, they just walked in (hell, they walked over >France). Hmm. "They" presumably refers to "Japan" despite the disagreement in number. Still, I don't recall Japan having "walked over France," so I can't be sure - maybe you mean the Axis powers?. > In the 40s and 50s, we also had Comintern agents agitating Asian >populations against the West. Warning signals were all over the place, and >we flat-out failed to see the significance, due to American notions of >conflict. "Comintern" - now there's a term that must be common in Aimee's Waco law offices. Don't you think it's a bit rude to require your readers to go google an obscure term every other sentence. And consider the phrase "we had Comintern agents agitating..." One wonders whom the pronoun "we" refers to here. "We [] failed to see the significance, due to American notions of conflict." Cause and effect are not obvious. (BTW, according to Encyclopedia.com, "Comintern" was disbanded in 1943.) >Several far-sighted military commentators of the 40s-50s, which had >embraced >guerrilla-political tactics, pointed to Asian attitudes (and even the >India-Pakistan conflict) as holding the key to the Middle East for the >U.S.S.R., and stressed that we needed to undertake a perceptual offensive >to >combat anti-Western agitprop. Asian attitudes and the India-Pakistan conflict gave the USSR the "key to the Middle East?" This sort of dense non-sequitur seems to be quite a common artifact in Aimee's rants. >I have a axis map of 1950 here, hypothesizing conflict and guerrilla bases >in Asia as auxiliary forces to augment the technical inferiority of the >U.S.S.R. -- it is rather spooky, as it mirrors today's map, with China as a >new player. Certainly, the author did not foresee the possibility of >today's >terrorism, with world-wide range, or it's possible use as an auxiliary (or >even decisive force in being), but it fits nicely with the that line of >thinking. A map "hypothesizing conflict?" And why would the U.S.S.R. want to "augment [its] inferiority?" One would expect that it would be far more interested in mitigating its inferiority. And the term "decisive force in being" is a bit difficult to parse. >So, something like the Office Of Strategic Influence, has been called for, >in strength, for 50 years. These calls for change were ignored and not >supported by the military, who rarely considered populations as incipient >forces in being. There's that "in being" construction again. Alright, google tells me that "force in being" is a DOD term of art. I guess one needs to be up-to-speed on all the spook-talk around here - no matter how obscure. >We made the same mistake in WW II, by failing to cultivate a climate >receptive to resistance. Indeed, to a large extent, we relied on communists >(like Tito) to fight -- a deal with the Devil in many countries, because >Britain was fighting for survival. "We...relied on communinists...to fight...because Britan was fighting for survival." Not sure who "we" refers to. Having previously identified herself as being a resident of Texas, the antecedent of "we" certainly isn't obvious; were she instead known to be from the UK, the antecedent would have appeared to be the British people. > Had we seeded ideas beforehand and >understood the political climate, we would have fought from a position of >strength, and minimized the rise of post-war communist influence and civil >wars. One of the great strengths of Comintern - HUMINT. They got there >first. I'm guessing "we" really means NATO, or western non-communist nations? (HUMINT: Don't you just love tossing in those spook terms?) >In WW II, the British Royal Air Force did not want to "dirty itself" with >the SOE, even if it cost them their country. The idea of dropping in >civvies-dressed saboteurs, was just not gentlemanly for Sandhurst men. It >was "deceptive and unethical." Had the SOE received more support, and >seeded >stay-behind resistance, the SOE and the OSS would have likely deterred >invasions -- saving millions of lives. There was even resistance to >"coastwatcher" programs, which ended up playing a major role in the war. >(Todays "coasts" : American corporations.) The way I read this "stay-behind resistance", if seeded during the war, might have prevented invasions. Wouldn't seeding the resistance during the war have been a bit late? In what way are WWII's coasts similar to today's American corporations? >If Wingate's "long range penetration" (ala terrorism) is a new game, along >with Anti-Western agitation, this is an important defensive measure. This sentence is quite difficult to parse: Wingate (google again tells me - hardly a name most on this list should be expected to know off) was a British officer who advocated behind-the-lines guerilla warfare (i.e. the "long range penetration"). In what way Britain's (or the west's) use of infiltration of guerillas would go "along with" anti- Western agitation certainly isn't obvious. Nor is the antecedent of "this." > We >are >looking at a situation not unlike the 1940s, which Japan took advantage of >via a series of greased invasions. Other countries could do the same thing >in the future. I'm assuming that a "greased invasion" refers to an invasion that is met with relatively little resistance (at least, google doesn't - at first glance - indicate that it is another spook-term we should know). It isn't clear that any country in the world today could execute a "greased invasion" on another (except for the US, of course, but - from the context - it appears that we are talking about non-American, anti- Western invaders). > Colonial arrogance refused to see the power in the peasant, >or in small power-brokers. IMO, OSI is more about recognition, than >deception. In what way did Japan in the 40s utilize, represent or pertain to "power in the peasant" or small power brokers. >Our "gentlemanly" notions of conflict and fair-play, together with Western >arrogance -- nearly lost us Europe, laid the foundations for Vietnam, and >terms like "mutually assured destruction." We ignored the people -- seeing >only traditional military force -- a orientation that continued throughout >the Cold War. All that may be true, but it certainly doesn't seem to follow from the preceding paragraphs. It really wasn't until after WWII that "the west" even began to consider the idea that it had the right to publically direct other nations how their countries ought to be run. Certainly that is doubly true of the US. >So, I'd say the Pentagon just got a major clue. One that is at least 50 >years overdue, and places us about a century behind some of our >adversaries. All those years of Voice of America and its brethren were just wasted, eh? Here's the bottom line for me: while occasionally amusing, deciphering your junk wastes too much time. It isn't only lawyers whose time is valuable. What I believe you were trying to say in this message could have been said more clearly and more succinctly in one tenth the time, without the excessive use of obscure terms of spook and DoD art. I don't know who you're trying to impress with your prose, but certainly no one who reads this list is likely to ask you to draw up a contract. (Unless perhaps the point of the contract is to obscure rather than illuminate the terms thereof.) - GH _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
