When, in February, Rumsfeld was forced to abandon a then-recently-announced plan for an Office of Strategic Initiatives for the express purpose of providing disinformation to shape foreign public sentiment about the US, something seemed fishy about how quickly it all went away. Did we think the menacing shadows would clear out of our bedroom just because we rolled over and mumbled something half-intelligible before settling back down to sleep? I mean, when the government announces its intention to create an agency with the express purpose of lying to the world, you’re going to believe them when they tell you they’ve disbanded it? Here it is again, it would seem, without the name. NY Times In fact, in a November 18 press briefing in which he also comments on the scandalous Poindexter Total Information Awareness project, Rumsfeld said:
“And then there was the office of strategic influence. You may recall that. And “oh my goodness gracious isn’t that terrible, Henny Penny the sky is going to fall.” I went down that next day and said fine, if you want to savage this thing fine I’ll give you the corpse. There’s the name. You can have the name, but I’m gonna keep doing every single thing that needs to be done and I have.”
Did you get that? The quote is in the first paragraph of the briefing transcript, but read the whole thing to get a sense of the audacity, the disdain for the niceties of the Constitution and public opinion, and the infantile grandiosity of the man appointed to fight our wars for us. There’s also this little exchange, admittedly out of context:
“Q: We are not making the Public comfortable here.
Rumsfeld: If I haven’t answered that I don’t have control of the English language.”
He said it, I didn’t, but it certainly raises the question, now that you mention it. To judge from these somewhat extemporaneous remarks, it would seem the man’s thinking is somewhat confused, imprecise and vague, when he isn’t behind a veil of carefully pre-scripted spin.
And here is what appears to be an unclassified version of the “classified” Directive 3600.1 for propaganda operations against US allies. [via cryptome]
