Gen. Petraeus wants to drop ban on domestic propaganda

Don't look now, but that universally beloved and clever General Petraeus wants to let the military lie to Americans the way they lie to foreigners.

Currently, the military maintains a firewall between "public affairs" and "information operations." The former is PR and media relations for American, the latter involves deception overseas:

During the Vietnam War, military news conferences were derided as the "five o'clock follies" because of misleading or irrelevant information provided to the news media. Since then, Army public-affairs officers adopted practices that disavowed the use of misleading or deceptive information.

The military instituted its formal Information Operations effort in the 1990s, bringing together an array of activities including deception, psychological operations and electronic warfare. [LAT]

Last month, Petraeus sent a memo to the Pentagon asking that the internal firewall be dissolved. The DOD says they're developing a new policy.

HT: Eric.

Comments

[herbert browne]

Oh, yeah... General Betrayus is continuing to "grow into his moniker"... ^..^

[Cass]

The consensus of our best military minds: if only we were more effective liars, we'd never lose another war.