Nothing To Lose

In our ongoing series entitled, "What difference does it make?" and in our continuing effort to clue-in the clueless, memo to the Pentagon: You can't "shatter" what you don't have:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 - The Pentagon is engaged in bitter, high-level debate over how far it can and should go in managing or manipulating information to influence opinion abroad, senior Defense Department civilians and military officers say.

Such missions, if approved, could take the deceptive techniques endorsed for use on the battlefield to confuse an adversary and adopt them for covert propaganda campaigns aimed at neutral and even allied nations.

Critics of the proposals say such deceptive missions could shatter the Pentagon's credibility, leaving the American public and a world audience skeptical of anything the Defense Department and military say - a repeat of the credibility gap that roiled America during the Vietnam War.

Yeah, it's going to take a Department of Disinformation to make the world skeptical. Not finding any WMD's in Iraq must have been insufficient.

I hope the Defense of Disinformation will put a little (TM) next to its pronouncements so that we can tell the difference between their press releases and the plain old lies we get every day anyway.

Once, America had other ways to influence opinion abroad, like Doing Good (TM) and Leading By Example (TM). But I guess that didn't leave the world skeptical enough. Keep trying guys. I'm sure you'll get us to the point where I Can't Believe It's America (TM) will be the order the of day.