Subtle trolling example?

[Joe Hillshoist]

I think this conversation is getting a bit confused and needs some definitions to help us understand each other.

For example how do we define military conflict?

Is it any conflict, is it a branch of ideological conflict? (If so whats that?)

"Because unless you have documentation showing the U.S. has been engaged in covert low-intensity conflict with the U.S. since 1948, those excerpts from FM 100/20 don't really go to your point."

Don't have the documentation, but thats often how it looks from the outside.

[brainpanhandler]

Because, you know, why would anyone go out of his or her way to take such an unnecessary risk?

Yah, just typing the relevant terms into g..gle (As an aside, why is this the new fad for referring to g...gle anyway?) yielded pages of results that appeared as though they would contain the information I was looking for, with that global security website being near the top of the first page. I clicked on a few links, but not the global security site, and did not immediately find what I could trust to be complete and accurate and it all looked pretty creepy and spooky so I just let it drop.

I was interested in Hugh's source. I wanted to know exactly where Hugh is getting his information as much as anything else.

Also: Very sloppy citation practice. To put it charitably.

Nope.

Yup.

National psyops programs are decades old and codified as an elite social science.

I have little doubt this is true, but that's mainly because it almost certainly has to be true. It's kind of like knowing a black hole has to exist because of all the evidence that exists outside of it and around it.

1. List, specifically and discretely, at least two instances of CIA media. Who is or was, for an incontrovertible, documented fact, part of Mockingbird? If anyone should know, it would be you, and I suspect you do. Speculation is not acceptable.

The black hole analogy is probably a pretty good one.

@ Nathan... You suspect Hugh can provide "incontrovertible" evidence for this? If you suspect this and he hasn't as yet (which I'm not certain he hasn't as I have not read absolutely everything Hugh has ever posted on the subject), what are the possible reasons he hasn't?

[compared2what?]

I think this conversation is getting a bit confused and needs some definitions to help us understand each other.

For example how do we define military conflict?

In this context, as one that involves the United States Military. Specifically Army and Air Force. Because those are the entities to whom that manual applies.

Is it any conflict, is it a branch of ideological conflict? (If so whats that?)

In other contexts, one might use the phrase "military conflict" to connote that the conflict was very like a war. But in this context, we are specifically talking about the rules for low intensity conflict as waged by uniformed members of the United States Army and/or Air Force. Which is to say: Waged in accordance with FM 100/20.

"Because unless you have documentation showing the U.S. has been engaged in covert low-intensity conflict with the U.S. since 1948, those excerpts from FM 100/20 don't really go to your point."

Don't have the documentation, but thats often how it looks from the outside.

I concede that we may be living under a very well concealed state of martial law. Or in a hologram. But since we still have a non-military judicial system, however badly it sucks, and there are no soldiers at checkpoints demanding my ID every six blocks, or rounding up people and putting them in internment camps, or -- you know -- having a low intensity military conflict with insurgents within domestic borders that's at all perceptible to me, I think it would be better strategy to oppose stuff that has attributes, such as for example, sufficient visibility to be a target at which to aim. That kind of thing.

[Joe Hillshoist]

In other contexts, one might use the phrase "military conflict" to connote that the conflict was very like a war. But in this context, we are specifically talking about the rules for low intensity conflict as waged by uniformed members of the United States Army and/or Air Force. Which is to say: Waged in accordance with FM 100/20.

Fair enough.

[Joe Hillshoist]

But since we still have a non-military judicial system, however badly it sucks, and there are no soldiers at checkpoints demanding my ID every six blocks, or rounding up people and putting them in internment camps, or -- you know -- having a low intensity military conflict with insurgents within domestic borders that's at all perceptible to me,

There is of course the war on drugs, which in theory has a non mil judicial system behind it, and sure SWAT teams aren't actually soldiers in the US military and jail isn't exactly an internment camp.

And I don't spose you need checkpoints when people wear electronic tracking bracelets either.

But anyway....

(I admit the reference to FM 100/20 might not actually be applicable in the US, and Hugh using it as actual proof of a national program of Psyops in the US might not be appropriate because ... well OK US troops aren't on the street asking you for your ID but ... at the same time it is highly suggestive. But fair enough. Its not evidence of said national program in and of itself. End of story. The context that manual was written in is highly suggestive of it tho, at least IMO.)

[Zap]

I asked "HMW" months ago about that manual being foreign and Army, and this was, of course, ignored.

But jeez, somehow I also missed the part where the Army, in its low intensity foreign conflicts, was taking over pop culture, hiring actors with similar names to obscure figures, doctoring bell-shaped lens flares into movies, creating six-sided pentagons in the eyes of melting puppets, etc etc ad nauseum.

There simply are not enough eye-rolling smileys.

[OP ED]

But since we still have a non-military judicial system, however badly it sucks, and there are no soldiers at checkpoints demanding my ID every six blocks, or rounding up people and putting them in internment camps, or -- you know -- having a low intensity military conflict with insurgents within domestic borders that's at all perceptible to me,

There is of course the war on drugs, which in theory has a non mil judicial system behind it, and sure SWAT teams aren't actually soldiers in the US military and jail isn't exactly an internment camp.

And I don't spose you need checkpoints when people wear electronic tracking bracelets either.

But anyway....

(I admit the reference to FM 100/20 might not actually be applicable in the US, and Hugh using it as actual proof of a national program of Psyops in the US might not be appropriate because ... well OK US troops aren't on the street asking you for your ID but ... at the same time it is highly suggestive. But fair enough. Its not evidence of said national program in and of itself. End of story. The context that manual was written in is highly suggestive of it tho, at least IMO.)

not on [all] our streets yet, no. but they're on the ground already.

airports for example, now have actual guys with ar15s to protect us and point them at us when we get lost and accidentally "penetrate security"...

[personal experience]

on msm i witnessed marine MP SWAT teams clearing buildings from "gangbangers" during the Katrina mop up, come to think of it...

[i remember the msm apologetics quite well]

frankly i'd be suprised to not see a general all-purpose low intensity psyop program being levelled at us.

my problem with Hugh is on the peculiarities and particulars of his applications.

[barracuda]

I would tend to agree that in recent times the Army has been assigned to an active role in the domestic sphere, in particular the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team's dedicated assignment to NORTHCOM. However, generally, Posse Comitatus and the Insurrection Act are still in effect as laws on the books as significantly upheld by the repeal of H.R. 5122 in 2008.

And I don't think there is any doubt that the provisions of FM 100/20 are meant as applicable in a foreign engagement, rather than as domestic policy. If you accept the premise that the U.S. Army is engaged in a low intensity conflict with its own citizens outside of their functions as described in these laws, then what you have described is - say it isn't so - an illegal action.

And though I agree with much of what OP ED has noticed in airports, I would posit that such militarised TSA presence amounts to little more than Security Theater.

[OP ED]

when was the last time a thespian pointed an assault carbine at you?

[OP ED]

there is also, btw, the militarisation of the police to consider, as most of our cops are equipped better than the Afghan Army.

domestic and/or federal cops have long histories of psyops, although generally not in the fashion of overt manipulation of art, as in what Hugh usually describes.

[barracuda]

when was the last time a thespian pointed an assault carbine at you?

Honestly, I'm unsure of her sexual orientation.

[OP ED]

'm just sayin':

just because its security theatre, doesn't mean that they aren't real soldiers with real guns who are there for a real reason...that this reason may not really be "security" does not make it any less really real.

[compared2what?]

'm just sayin':

just because its security theatre, doesn't mean that they aren't real soldiers with real guns who are there for a real reason...that this reason may not really be "security" does not make it any less really real.

Agreed. All the examples above that are much like low-intensity conflict as defined by an army field manual about it are among the visible things that I maintain it's productive (a) to notice; (b) to understand; and (c) to oppose effectively.

My point is and was: If you're getting 99 per cent of your information about such things from someone who directs your attention to a scare-quote from the army field manual rather than to, oh, I don't know, such things, then (a) is 99 per cent less likely, while (b) and (c) quickly become virtually impossible.

Same point as "Politics and the English Language," essentially. It's in the data dump. We've all probably read it.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

Both FM33-1 and FM100-20 include national psyops including for 'friendly' target audiences and one's own military.

Subversion is defended against constantly and permanently, not in some undefined "war time."

During WWII there was the Office of War Information with its Bureau of Motion Pictures. The OSS did "morale operations" and black propaganda.

NSC 4-A, NSC 10/2, and NSC 68 all carved out a domestic psyops function that was taken up by CIA when the overt justification offered to Congress was targeting foreign audiences.

Look at the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarran_I ... curity_Act

Then the Psychological Strategy Board of 1951.

CIA, FBI, ONI, and DIA have all been acting domestically for decades.
And the strategies of FM33-1 provide an important element of Stability Operations.

In May-June, 1962 the Senate's Special Preparedness Subcommittee of the Committee on Armed Services held hearings on-
"Military Cold War Education and Speech Review Policies."
I have the transcripts.

This was openly about better indoctrination and conditioning of soldiers and civilians alike. This had been a major concern ever since the disaster of the Korean War (1950-53) when US soldiers' morale and performance were way below expectations.

Starting in late 1959 the Army War College started a series of seminars to stoke up the command staff on Cold War ideological war.
Then generals were sent out into the public to give propaganda speeches starting in 1959 and many had had their speeches edited and censored by State Department and CIA-types who were not just militarists but Ivy League propagandists trying to carve out a 'de-conflicted' Cold War stance for the US. This interference angered the generals and stoked the internecine conflict between Pentagon and diplomacy/psyops bureaus which had roiled ever since OSS was formed.

Strom Thurmond spent lots of time grilling State Department Public Affairs officials to see why they were so soft on Communism.

Adding this rumble to the warning Ike made in 1/61 about the military-industrial complex led to the public getting a safe historical catharsis as the movie 'Mutiny on the Bounty' where the softness of pretty native girls was the dividing element between rugged warriors. Damn those wenches!
National Geographic (USG rag) also did a 4/62 'Bounty' feature just before the May Senate hearings, tying in with the movie released 11/8/62.

[compared2what?]

Both FM33-1 and FM100-20 include national psyops including for 'friendly' target audiences and one's own military.

True. That doesn't meant they're using them domestically, however. It just means that they can, in accordance with U.S. law. Which requires congressional oversight of the military, including its deployment in low intensity conflicts and the funding of said conflicts. That funding is not a part of the black budget and that oversight doesn't happen behind closed doors. Because low intensity conflicts are not covert ops. They're overt.

In short, while the scary words in the manual are certainly very reminiscent of scary actions in the real world, those things aren't interchangeable. In fact, they have no practical or realpolitik relationship to each other of any kind. The military either is doing those things, per the manual, in which case they would be overt actions. Or it isn't doing those things, per the manual, in which case the scary words in the manual are irrelevant to the things of which they're reminiscent.

What part of that can you not understand?

Subversion is defended against constantly and permanently, not in some undefined "war time."

There's quite a bit of evidence to support that assertion, on the basis of which I agree with it. It has fuck-all to do with the scary words in FM 33-1 and FM 100-20, however.

So, yes, I agree with your total non sequitur, Hugh.

Good utterly unsupported and thought-muddying point!