Military Bloggers
Mar 31st, 2008 at 9:44 pm by Susie
Noah Shachtman at Danger Room finds a 2006 report written for U.S. Special Operations Command that suggests ways the military should deal with the blogosphere. One suggestion is for the military to hire bloggers to “pass the U.S. message“:
Information strategists can consider clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers or other persons of prominence…to pass the U.S. message. … On the other hand, such operations can have a blowback effect, as witnessed by the public reaction following revelations that the U.S. military had paid journalists to publish stories in the Iraqi press under their own names. People do not like to be deceived, and the price of being exposed is lost credibility and trust.
An alternative strategy is to “make” a blog and blogger. The process of boosting the blog to a position of influence could take some time, however, and depending on the person running the blog, may impose a significant educational burden, in terms of cultural and linguistic training before the blog could be put online to any useful effect. Still, there are people in the military today who like to blog.
This reminds me - at EschaCon, there was a question from the audience about whether the government was paying journalists. I said I absolutely believed that George Bush, who has resurrected just about every other black-ops project from the past 40 years, had also brought back Operation Mockingbird. I’m sure this goes a lot deeper than the few payoffs we already know about.
In fact, I really do believe the ultimate purpose of all the Bush surveillance was political. I don’t believe the Republicans are disciplined enough to vote in lockstep all this time, nor do I believe it was about “building their brand.” Every other time in our history, when one party took control, they ended up falling apart from infighting. It’s simply human nature.
No, I think Rove was collecting dirt for blackmail purposes.
Karl Rove is a despicable excuse for a human being and in a just world would be chained in a dark, dank dungeon and forced to watch vids of maimed Iraqi children and other victims of the policies his dirty tricks have supported and enabled.
And that’s the more lenient fate I’d assign him. Even more just would be to drop him unprotected in the middle of Baghdad and let the Iraqis deal with him.
Along with the blackmail, I’ve wondered if those conveniently unsolved anthrax attacks - the stuff that originated in government labs and went strictly to Dems and media figures - might have been an added inducement to stay in line.
dirty matt sanchez anyone?
I’ve believed that from the beginning. I also think it’s the REAL reason impeachment was off the table. One of things that just chaps my ass is the realization that this “administration” has turned me into such a conspiracy theorist. It’s not really my nature. But I quickly learned that no matter how low I think they can sink, there are lower levels still.