by Hugh Manatee Wins » Mon Mar 06, 2006 8:09 am
Here's where the 'fishy' story comes from. An organization of professional spinners warned the Pentagon that its disinfo would diminish the credibilty of government pr spinners. lol. Professional lying about professional lying.<br><br>The Public Relations Society of America website also has a link to a conference the Pentagon would be interested in but the page has been scrubbed. The title tells you all you need to know-<br>"Challenges That U.S.-Based Multinationals Face Due to Anti-Globalization and Anti-U.S. Sentiment Teleseminar"<br><br>Now here's an excerpt of the PRSA covering its butt by wrist-slapping the Pentagon for disinfo. Can you stand it?!--<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>"...it's not too great a stretch in imagination, based on recent history in this country, to envision misguided disinformation tactics deployed at home. None of us wants to re-establish the incubator for distortion and disinformation that festered in the Cold War era in this country."</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.prsa.org/_News/press/pr021605.asp">www.prsa.org/_News/press/pr021605.asp</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br>>snip<<br><br>PRSA ENCOURAGES MILITARY TO STRENGTHEN EXISTING<br>'FIREWALL' BETWEEN PUBLIC RELATIONS AND TACTICAL<br>INFORMATION MANAGEMENT, DECEPTION AND DISINFORMATION<br><br>NEW YORK (February 16, 2005) - Following published reports that the U.S. military has embarked on a campaign to use military public information officers in disinformation and "psychological operations" campaigns to deceive the enemy, the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) issued a stern warning that such wartime procedures could violate the organization's Member Code of Ethics and destroy credibility for legitimate government information activities.<br><br>In a professional standards advisory distributed today to its 20,000 members, many of whom serve as military public affairs specialists, the PRSA's Board of Ethics and Professional Standards called for a "clear firewall separation" between normal military public affairs operations and so-called "information operations" that sometimes plant false information with legitimate news organizations to gauge enemy reaction or for other tactical military purposes.<br><br>The Society's Board of Ethics and Professional Standards (BEPS), working in conjunction with the Society's Military and Public Safety Professional Interest Section that includes members who are on active duty, also called for creation of "a mechanism based on disclosure, exposure, and public discussion to re-establish a basis of truth and trust when situations of honesty, clarity, and truthfulness have been breached" by such disinformation operations.<br><br>"We're not trying to tie the hands of military commanders in the field or pass judgment on tactics that could prevent the loss of lives on the battlefield," said Judith T. Phair, president and CEO of the PRSA. "We just want to remind those responsible for military policies that a major casualty of such tactics could be long-term credibility for our entire nation. That credibility has always been a sacred, strategic imperative in our democracy."<br><br>Phair said the PRSA advisory closely tracks a Sept. 27 memorandum to the Joint Chiefs of Staff from Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the nation's top military policy group, which outlined a coordinated separation of public affairs and information operation activities. The memorandum even stated that it is necessary to maintain credible public affairs operations, reporting directly to battlefield commanders, to help those commanders fulfill their missions in conflict situations.<br><br>The PRSA advisory followed a report in The Los Angeles Times that in October, more than two weeks after the Joint Chiefs memorandum, a Marine lieutenant appeared on CNN announcing that the siege of Fallujah, Iraq, was about to commence that day. In fact, the battle did not begin for another three weeks and the military apparently wanted to track movements of enemy forces - who presumably get their news from CNN, Al Jazeera and other global and regional news organizations - as they scurried around preparing for the imminent attack.<br><br>The more troubling aspect of the Times' report, Phair said, was information that current policies dictated by senior civilian leaders at the Pentagon and other U.S. national security agencies contradict Myers' memorandum by using information as a strategic weapon in the war on terrorism, picking up the mission of the controversial and now-dismantled Office of Strategic Influence (OSI), which reportedly intended to plant false news stories in the international media.<br><br>"That is a short-sighted and dangerous policy," said Phair. "Not only is the credibility of the U.S. government already in question around the world, but also <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>it's not too great a stretch in imagination, based on recent history in this country, to envision misguided disinformation tactics deployed at home. None of us wants to re-establish the incubator for distortion and disinformation that festered in the Cold War era in this country."</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=hughmanateewins>Hugh Manatee Wins</A> at: 3/6/06 5:16 am<br></i>
