More credence for the astrotrolling hypothesis

Last weekend I wrote about about how one needs to beware of getting one's "news" from blogs, because it's very possible that some of the "baghdad bloggers" we're seeing may in fact be plants by the U.S. proaganda machine. A couple people wrote me telling me this was another example of paranoia.

Turns out that the day after I wrote that blog entry, the New York Times published an article entitled, "Pentagon Weighs Use of Deception in a Broad Arena":

The Pentagon is engaged in bitter, high-level debate over how far it can and should go in managing or manipulating information to influence opinion abroad, senior Defense Department civilians and military officers say.

Such missions, if approved, could take the deceptive techniques endorsed for use on the battlefield to confuse an adversary and adopt them for covert propaganda campaigns aimed at neutral and even allied nations....

The efforts under consideration risk blurring the traditional lines between public affairs programs in the Pentagon and military branches - whose charters call for giving truthful information to the media and the public - and the world of combat information campaigns or psychological operations....

Pentagon and military officials directly involved in the debate say that such a secret propaganda program, for example, could include planting news stories in the foreign press or creating false documents and Web sites translated into Arabic as an effort to discredit and undermine the influence of mosques and religious schools that preach anti-American principles....

Administration officials say they are increasingly troubled that a nation that can so successfully market its cars and colas around the world, even to foreigners hostile to American policies, is failing to sell its democratic ideals, even as the insurgents they are battling are spreading falsehoods over mass media outlets like the Arab news satellite channel Al Jazeera.

"In the battle of perception management, where the enemy is clearly using the media to help manage perceptions of the general public, our job is not perception management but to counter the enemy's perception management," said the chief Pentagon spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita....

Mr. Di Rita said the scope of the issue had changed in recent years. "We have a unique challenge in this department," he said, "because four-star military officers are the face of the United States abroad in ways that are almost unprecedented since the end of World War II."

He added, "Communication is becoming a capability that combatant commanders have to factor in to the kinds of operations they are doing."

Much of the Pentagon's work in this new area falls under a relatively unknown field called Defense Support for Public Diplomacy. This new phrase is used to describe the Pentagon's work in governmentwide efforts to communicate with foreign audiences but that is separate from support for generals in the field.

At the Pentagon, that effort is managed by Ryan Henry, Mr. Feith's principal deputy for policy.

"With the pace of technology and such, and with the nature of the global war on terrorism, information has become much more a part of strategic victory, and to a certain extent tactical victory, than it ever was in the past," Mr. Henry said.

However, a senior military officer said that without clear guidance from the Pentagon, the military's psychological operations, information operations and public affairs programs are "coming together on the battlefield like never before, and as such, the lines are blurred." This has led to a situation where "proponents of these elements jockey for position to lead the overall communication effort," the officer said....

Mr. Di Rita, the Pentagon spokesman, says that even though the government is wrestling with these issues, the standard is still to tell to the truth.

The standard is still to tell the truth. Wow.

Hat tip: The Short Cut.