alt_religion_scientology/FACTNetARS20020219

We believe this to be ominous and encourage all interested parties to keep
their antenna finely tuned - IOHO, FACTNet Staff

Pentagon Readies Efforts to Sway Sentiment Abroad
Tue Feb 19, 9:00 AM ET
By JAMES DAO and ERIC SCHMITT The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 The Pentagon is developing plans to provide news items,
possibly even false ones, to foreign media organizations as part of a new
effort to influence public sentiment and policy makers in both friendly and
unfriendly countries, military officials said...

...it recently created the Office of Strategic Influence, which is proposing
to broaden that mission into allied nations in the Middle East, Asia and
even Western Europe. The office would assume a role traditionally led by
civilian agencies, mainly the State Department.

...Little information is available about the Office of Strategic Influence,
and even many senior Pentagon officials and Congressional military aides say
they know almost nothing about its purpose and plans. Its multimillion
dollar budget, drawn from a $10 billion emergency supplement to the Pentagon
budget authorized by Congress in October, has not been disclosed.

Headed by Brig. Gen. Simon P. Worden of the Air Force, the new office has
begun circulating classified proposals calling for aggressive campaigns that
use not only the foreign media and the Internet, but also covert operations.

...One of the office's proposals calls for planting news items with foreign
media organizations through outside concerns that might not have obvious
ties to the Pentagon, officials familiar with the proposal said.

General Worden envisions a broad mission ranging from "black" campaigns that
use disinformation and other covert activities to "white" public affairs
that rely on truthful news releases, Pentagon officials said.

"It goes from the blackest of black programs to the whitest of white," a
senior Pentagon official said.

..."O.S.I. still thinks the way to go is start a Defense Department Voice of
America," a senior military official said. "When I get their briefings, it's
scary."

The full article can be viewed at :
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nyt/20020219/wl_nyt/penta...
readies_efforts_to_sway_sentiment_abroad&printer=1

--
F.A.C.T.Net, Inc.
PO Box 3135
Boulder, CO 80307-3135 USA

* Web site http://www.factnet.org/
* E-mail mailto: manage@factnet.org
* Donations http://www.factnet.org/donation.htm
* Subscriptions to Newsletters http://lists.factnet.org/mailman/listinfo/factnet-news

F.A.C.T.Net is a non-profit 501(c)(3) news source, referral service, and
archive protecting freedom of mind from harms caused by psychological
coercion.