“It took all of seven days to shut down the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Influence — roughly the same amount of time that anyone actually knew it existed.

Controversy over OSI originally heated up following a New York Times story suggesting the office might spread false reports to the foreign press or run “black” propaganda campaigns. After taking a beating over this — as critics barked that the U.S. shouldn’t lie to the rest of the world — Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld pulled the plug. Indeed, it was all over so quickly, the debate over OSI didn’t really progress far enough for anyone to bother asking whether office would actually have been very good at duping anyone.

A look back at some of the low points of U.S. psychological warfare, however, suggests that this might have been by far the more salient criticism.” The American Prospect