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Features: The Irony of Propaganda
Posted by Paul Szynol on Thursday, February 27 @ 00:51:54 EST Telecommunications
with Nimrod Kozlovski

According to the New Scientist, the CIA has recently captured the transmission frequency of an Iraqi radio station. Posing as a legitimate Iraqi broadcast, the agency has been showering the station’s listeners with content designed to alter Iraqis' attitudes toward the war and toward their nation’s sociopolitical conditions. One broadcast, for instance, has urged listeners to resist the tyrant, and to “be brave before it is too late.” Other broadcasts have falsely reported panic and poverty among the Iraqi people. Others still have alluded to the gradual and authentic spread of the "voices of surrender".

Under the agency’s control, then, the radio signal has become a device of psychological warfare, a tool for shaping the political attitudes of a foreign nation. The broadcasts all aim to create the impression that the Iraqi corps are weakening, and that, should the US attack, there will be no strong resistance from the Iraqi troops. The goal, in other words, is to create an image of an Iraqi political landscape that is favorable to US aggression.

From a purely strategic perspective, this approach makes sense. But this methodology is likely to have repercussions on the information content here at home.

The CIA’s target audience of potential converts are the Iraqi people. The CIA’s signal will, ideally, reach the heathen and cure them of their obdurate and mistaken political outlooks.

In a global information context, however, it is impossible for a public station -- even one operated by the CIA – to isolate its pool of listeners. The station’s broadcasts will inevitably reach unintended listeners. Among the unintended benefactors will be western reporters, who will faithfully relay summaries of these fraudulent and doctored broadcasts to headquarters back home. Misinformation aimed at the Iraqi people will in fact reach – and misinform – American audiences, too.

Does this information pathway matter? Probably. Probably it matters a lot. Most of us have no firsthand information about the situation in Iraq. Our opinions about the war depend largely on the factual information we receive from the media. If the factual layer on which our opinions are based is severely distorted, however, what value and what accuracy will our opinions have? What kind of informed debate about the war will we be able to conduct? By introducing falsehoods into the information pool in Iraq, the CIA may well poison domestic political discourse, too.

 
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Re: The Irony of Propaganda (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Thursday, February 27 @ 01:47:53 EST
Do you really think this bothers them (the CIA)? This wouldn't be the first time the American people have been fed misinformation by their media sponsored by their government.


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Re: The Irony of Propaganda (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Thursday, February 27 @ 10:25:42 EST
It will be interesting to know in due course what Iraqis think of these broadcasts. My guess would be that to a large extent they see through what is happening; what conclusions they draw is harder to say.


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Re: The Irony of Propaganda (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Friday, February 28 @ 01:42:23 EST
Several criticisms of your reading of a nice article:

First, I think the Iraqis see what's happening. People generally understand what's happening when a radio station in a totalitarian state starts telling you to rise up.

Second, I don't see where in the article you draw the conclusion that the station is broadcasting misinformation. Any reading of CIA history shows a marked preference for telling the truth (even if incompletely) as opposed to telling out-and-out lies. This is a general principle of good propaganda, and it should only be ignored when your objectives cannot be supported in the minds of your target audience with true information.

Third, I don't see your conclusion that this is a CIA op. It may be an Iraqi opposition op (in fact, the New Scientist article makes such a reference). Anybody who follows the nature of CIA/Iraqi opposition relations knows that CIA doesn't give the Iraqi opposition the time of day. Their funding comes directly through Congress, and occasionally through DoD. They are, for all intents and purposes, a separate organization on American money, with their own agenda which they are free to pursue as long as it is anti-Saddam.


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