on opinion management, the iraq war and other delights - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

roachboy · 03-26-2006, 09:34 AM

Quote:

The Word at War
Propaganda? Nah, Here's the Scoop, Say the Guys Who Planted Stories in Iraqi Papers

By Lynne Duke
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 26, 2006; D01

Oh, no, not at all -- the Lincoln Group does not do propaganda. Sure, the firm's been tarred by some in Congress, the media and the defense establishment for paying Iraqi newspapers to publish hundreds of "news" stories secretly written by U.S. troops.

But Paige Craig, the West Point dropout and former Marine intelligence specialist who is the Lincoln Group's president, says the practice is not propaganda. The word carries such baggage, such suggestions of mind control. So in an industry in which euphemism thrives, a more elegant word is deployed.

"We call it 'influence,' " says Craig, whose business has 12 U.S. government contracts totaling more than $130 million.

The Lincoln Group even has a "senior director for insight and influence." His name is Andrew Garfield. Over lunch near the group's Pennsylvania Avenue offices, he also tries to steer the lexicon at play around the table and to clarify what he calls the "tradecraft" of "influence."

Take "psyops," for instance. That's short for "psychological operations." Like the word "propaganda," it, too, conjures mystery, deception.

But that's not what the Lincoln Group does, says Garfield. The company has been contracted by a psyops division of the U.S. military, but Garfield insists that Lincoln's work cannot be considered psyops. That word, Garfield protests, refers to a military operation. And Garfield is very familiar with military psyops, as he is a former British military and intelligence official who regularly teaches a course at the U.S. Army base at Fort Bragg -- a course on . . . psyops.

Bombs are blasting in Baghdad. War fills the air there and fills the airwaves here. But a more quiet war -- the information war -- is waged by stealth, in the words and images deployed by pundits, partisans, policymakers, propagandists, psychological operators and influence specialists, both civilian and military.

Call it influence. Or call it propaganda, info-ops, psyops or strat comm (that's short for "strategic communications"). It's all information, and information can be a weapon as lethal, at times, as bullets and bombs.

But wait! Not only are we in an information war, we are also in a war over the info war -- over techniques such as Lincoln's and the extent to which the U.S. government should or does disseminate propaganda, even pay to publish favorable "news" stories.

Outrage was so great when word leaked last December of Lincoln Group's Iraq activities -- one writer described it as bribery -- that the Pentagon launched an investigation. Army Gen. George W. Casey announced earlier this month that the probe had found the Lincoln Group's work violated no law or policy. But the final report, while completed, is under internal review. No additional details have been released.

Lincoln's work in Iraq continues.

And so we meet the influencers: Craig, 31, one of the brains behind the business, a California guy who grew up fascinated by foreign cultures and drawn by geopolitics; Garfield, 45, the former intelligence analyst turned romantic who married an American physical therapist who helped him through an illness; and Scott Feldmayer, 29, the former Army brat in Europe turned Army captain in Iraq turned influence manager at Lincoln.

Over a recent lunch, they agreed to discuss what they do, albeit only in broad brush. They are stingy with details, they said, because their contracts prohibit them from revealing too much.

Lincoln Group works in Iraq, Afghanistan, United Arab Emirates and Jordan, employing about 200 people, says Craig, who attended but did not graduate from West Point before he joined the Marines. He founded Lincoln along with Christian Bailey, a British entrepreneur. Bailey was not available for lunch, as he was off in the world somewhere, influencing.
The P-Word

Words can change what people think. Add some emotional punch and piercing imagery, and words can change how people behave. Repeat these words and images over and over, and they can define a culture.

That's the info war -- far more intense than mere "spin" -- and it's been raging in the United States since the words "war on terror" were uttered in public and the national zeitgeist became one of fear. With the body politic and the vox populi deeply polarized before and after the war started, "we look at everything in terms of propaganda," says Nancy Snow, a former State Department official and author of "Information War."

Think of all the big-ticket war issues that still are contested: WMD, aluminum tubes, uranium, the spurious Saddam-9/11 connection, the Iraqis whom U.S. officials said would greet U.S. troops as liberators, the good news that allegedly is being ignored by all those journalists who keep writing about the bombs still exploding, the bodies still falling.

In the most recent burst of concern about disinformation and the war, enter the Lincoln Group and accusations that its packaging of an American point of view is just propaganda.

It's that P-word again. So let's parse it. It means "any systematic, widespread dissemination or promotion of particular ideas, doctrines, practices, etc., to further one's own cause or to damage an opposing one." That's the basic Webster definition, which sounds so straightforward.

In the real world, though, the word is "a contested term, ideologically based," says Snow, a senior research fellow at the Center on Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California and an assistant professor in communications at the California State University at Fullerton.

It's a slippery word indeed. At the core, it's about manipulation, planting an idea in your head or a sentiment in your heart on the sly.

"Part of the beauty of real successful propaganda is it works without you knowing that it works," says Anthony Pratkanis, co-author of "Age of Propaganda" and a professor of social psychology at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

The word "propaganda" conjures some pretty ugly stuff, like the old Bolshevik and Soviet agitprop, the sinister wordsmithery of Nazi Joseph Goebbels, the "destroy the village to save it" doublespeak of U.S. military leaders during the Vietnam War.

To be lumped with those folks is, well, understandably upsetting.

"When you use that term about our business, you discredit our business," says Garfield, the influence director.

For Craig, the Lincoln Group president, "propaganda" conjures "posters from World War II where every American is thinking that Germans are just stabbing babies or the Japanese are a bunch of crazy lunatics."

Says Garfield: "One of the things our critics do in the deployment of the term propaganda is they then seek to stifle any debate."

Now he breaks into a full-bore lecture: "It's as if telling the Iraqi people about the positive aspects, about the emergence of democracy in their country, the significant efforts being done by the coalition to protect them, to achieve the security that everybody acknowledges is necessary for people to embrace a new government and a new armed forces -- as if all of that is bad. The moment you label it with the term propaganda, you immediately end any debate. It's absolutely necessary to counter the negative use of information by our adversaries."
Sending Signals

So how does the Lincoln Group attempt to capture Iraqi hearts and minds? "We use whatever mediums one could employ to influence an audience," says Garfield.

They've planted those fake news articles trumpeting pro-U.S. stories. They've conceived and distributed anti-terror comic strips and leaflets. They ran a campaign that distributed water bottles bearing a phone number that Iraqis could call to report terror activity to U.S. authorities. They do research, media analysis, polling and focus groups. They seek to completely understand a culture, so they can better influence it.

Speaking hypothetically, the Lincoln officials said entertainment, music, soap operas, comedy, documentaries, educational programs and advertising also can be employed to influence.

Would a visitor be able to identify Lincoln Group's work in Iraq?

"You shouldn't stumble across our work," says Garfield. "What I mean is: You shouldn't know it was our work."

Lincoln's work complements military psyops. In Iraq and Afghanistan, psyops teams have air-dropped leaflets telling people not to resist U.S. troops. They've hollered through loudspeakers urging the enemy to surrender. They have transmitted radio broadcasts from an airplane called Commando Solo and distributed radios on which such broadcasts can be heard.

Military commanders have at times used false information to fool the enemy, such as the October 2004 announcement that the battle of Fallujah had started when, in fact, it did not begin until three weeks later. Information has been used to buoy the spirits of the American public, such as the initial heroic fiction offered on the capture and rescue of Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch.

The Lynch story was among the stories cited in a 2003 analysis titled "Truth From These Podia," by Sam Gardiner, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and former instructor at the National War College. Gardiner studied the Iraq-war-related statements of U.S. and British officials and found "over 50 stories manufactured or at least engineered that distorted the picture" for American and British newspaper readers.

These media-related tactics aren't limited to wartime. Remember those columnists paid to write in support of Bush administration education and marriage initiatives? And the dissemination of fake TV news stories to promote the administration's prescription drug plan? "The Daily Show" dubbed these techniques "infoganda."

But none of this is new -- especially not in war. The effort to sway, influence, deceive and propagandize is as old as combat.Back in the 4th century B.C., Alexander the Great ordered his troops to craft huge breastplates of armor that they left behind to trick the enemy into thinking Alexander had giants in his army.

During World War I, the U.S. government's Office of Public Information dispatched thousands of "four-minute men" in cities and towns across the country to make boisterous and emotional pro-war appeals.

During World War II, there was the Orwellian-sounding Office of Facts and Figures, later renamed the Office of War Information. It touted war bonds and rationing. It immortalized "Rosie the Riveter" to propel women to leave their homes and go to work. It leaned on Hollywood to make patriotic films. It warned Americans to watch their tongues. A famous wartime poster said: "Loose Lips Might Sink Ships" -- now a timeworn and abbreviated cliche.
Rumsfeld's 'Roadmap'

But Americans just don't understand. The culture hasn't come to grips with information as a part of warfare. That's Garfield, lecturing again.

"I think we've got to back up a little bit and look at warfare," he says, telling how the conventional notion of war has changed, with insurgencies and asymmetric conflict growing more prevalent, meaning that bullets and bombs alone won't win. Information -- its strategic use -- can tip the scales. And yet this fact does not yet resonate in American culture.

"People are more comfortable with killing than they are with influencing," he says. "The majority can be convinced that the use of military force is acceptable, but everybody becomes very uncomfortable when you talk about the use of information," like "promoting your cause, promoting your ideals" and "discrediting the tactics and the arguments and the strategy of the enemy."

Not surprisingly, considering who the Lincoln Group's big client is, Garfield sounds very much in sync with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld's got an "Information Operations Roadmap," which he approved in 2003 and which was declassified earlier this year. It's supposed to "advance the goal of information operations as a core military competency."

The Roadmap follows an earlier information effort, the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence, which was dismantled in 2002 after news reports, since denied, that the Pentagon intended to plant false news items in the foreign press. A version of that effort was then outsourced to the Lincoln Group, though Craig and Garfield say they traffic only in truth.

In an op-ed piece last month in the Los Angeles Times, Rumsfeld bemoaned the uproar over the Lincoln Group and described its work as a "non-traditional means to provide accurate information to the Iraqi people in the face of an aggressive campaign of disinformation. Yet this has been portrayed as inappropriate: for example, the allegations of 'buying news.' "

In a way, this is the price to be paid for not going covert all the way. Had the program been conducted completely undercover, it would have been better, says Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA case officer and now a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

"You can compliment the Pentagon for at least trying," he says of the military's outsourcing to Lincoln. "I think the agency [CIA] should have been engaged in this a long time ago."

"I suppose the historical parallel would be the agency's efforts during the Cold War to fund magazines, newspapers and journalists who believed that the West should triumph over communism," he says. "Much of what you do ought to be covert, and, certainly, if you contract it out, it isn't."
The Truth of the Matter

Craig and Garfield make much of their assertion that they traffic in the truth. It's as if they think truth and propaganda are mutually exclusive. But consider this:

"For a long time, propagandists have recognized that lying must be avoided," wrote Jacques Ellul in his classic 1965 work, "Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes." For the masses to believe it, "propaganda must be based on some truth that can be said in a few words and is able to linger in the collective consciousness."

But truth can be elastic, even inconvenient. For instance, Garfield says Lincoln really had no choice but to hide the authorship of those upbeat "news" stories.

Had they been identified as products of the U.S. government, someone could have gotten killed. And just how receptive would Iraqi readers have been to a U.S. government product anyway?

"You wouldn't look at them objectively," says Garfield, projecting what an Iraqi reader might think. "You wouldn't give them a fair hearing."

He says: "How do you get a fair hearing when (a) the audience is preconditioned to respond negatively to anything you say, and (b) just as importantly, there's a whole bunch of people out there who will do whatever they can to prevent that fair hearing? If you just stand up and say, 'I stand for truth and freedom and you should listen to me because of it,' forget it. You're dead. Do you not engage in an argument with those people because it doesn't say, 'Paid for by the United States'?"

So, yes, there was that deception.

"But the aim is not deceit," he says.

It's just a means to an end in wartime.

source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...032500983.html

once again, a reminder that somewhere out there are conservatives who were good readers of gramsci back in the day, who understood what he meant by war of position and took it to heart.

a recurrent feature of debates within this space has been "semantic"--that is over words and their usage--how certain terms function as shifters (enabling or pushing folk into a particular ideological view based on the terms used to set up arguments, to think through, to organize information around)---"terrorism" in particular functions as an important shifter the relation to which tends to be of a piece with how one understands oneself in relation to bushworld--which is itself a quick and easy term used to name the political or discursive space that the right has fabricated for itself.
an opposed micro-conflict unfolded over the question of whether iraq was sliding in civil war or not--in this case, enter the lincoln group.

contemporary politics is more about conflict over words, over meanings, over associations than it is about the positions outlined through these words/meanings/associations--that is---conflict is in a sense already over once someone begins to outline their views across the particular, dense field of signifiers particular to the american right---whence the repeated calls for debates that do not involve a simple recycling of talking points, of ways ot speaking/writing encouraged by the conservative media apparatus.

the focus and onus is on the right in this case as a simple function of fact---the right has engaged in the systematic construction of a media apparatus, using an extraordinary amount of private capital to fund it, to create its institutional infrastructure, its own media---and, more importantly, to construct outlets like fox that appear to function in an ambiguous relation to this ideological construction system---to use techniques for press management pioneered by the thatcher-reagan era, choking off access by the press to unformed information, making the press as reliant as possible on centralized information sources, which communicate prepackaged information which arrives alredy wrapped in the thick dulling fat of conservative memes.

the article from the post above is, in this context, but an index.
but it is an important index of the scale of ideological conflict and functions to explain why, in my view at least, debate that restricts itself to the recycling of claims already wrapped in ideological language is most often not debate at all.

if a thread comes of this i would expect that it will repeat parallel moves--there will be attempts to view the lincoln group's work with reference to iraq in narrow terms, to defend it as a wartime necessity on the one hand--and this will be countered by attempts to work outside that frame of reference. the result will in all probability be stasis.

how do you view this kind of information about the processes that consciously function to shape politics, to shape political discourse, around conservative actions (because the iraq wr is a conservative project, it embodies all the contradictions of conservative politics)....

or

does the fact that any administration finding itself in a war will attempt to market that war as a way of marketing itself mean that there are no particularities to conservative usage (and expansion) of these techniques?

behind this lay a question about the characterization of contemporary conservative politics as geared toward discourse war, geared toward shaping terms that frame questions and by framing them in particular ways, encourage particular (loaded) types of thinking. what are we to do given this? why is debate not rethought, taking into consideration these assumptions about how this type of politics works?

tecoyah · 03-26-2006, 09:53 AM

I rather like this post.....and much of the information has been in my thoughts for some time. The new direction we are taking this board is a step in confronting a part of this....though only a small part, it is a step.

Elphaba · 03-27-2006, 04:51 PM

There are many directions to take that Roachboy afforded us in his OP. My one functioning neuron suggests that I begin with my own impressions, with the hope that continued discussion clarifies my thoughts.

I was reminded of a similar discussion that was started by Powerclown several months ago so I bumped "Iraq: Positive Developments" for anyone interested in reviewing it. Some viewed the intention of the thread as a negation of the many things going awry in Iraq, and perhaps considered it "propaganda." Others saw the same information and applauded seeing something other than "doom and gloom." Remarkably, the topic evolved to a level of respectful discussion and I learned a great deal from the many intelligent posts made there.

I think whether one views reports of positive outcomes as good news vs. manipulation, depends to some degree on the level of trust placed on the source of the news. In this specific instance, I trusted Powerclown's stated intentions and I was well rewarded with the content provided. By the same token, I do not give credence to information from a source that I do not trust.

Roachboy's discussion points specifically address war time manipulation of the media by the government, but at this time I would like to address our mainstream media generally. I ceased to watch broadcast news about a decade ago because of the "if it bleeds, it leads" focus of those programs. Recently I was staying with a friend who required the TV as a diversion and if I were to judge my community based upon what was reported, I would flee to a cave in the mountains. If a horrific image was available, it was shown over and over again. (i.e. some asshole threw acid on a dog)

I have to ask myself if this unimportant bit of "bad" news replaced something more positive and of greater relevance to our community? Our national broadcast news appears to take a negative focus as well.

My current thinking is that we need more positive news, if there is any to be had. War news is a trickier devil, but it would be necessary to me to have confidence in the source, whether the news was critical or positive.

Do I trust news from the Lincoln Group? No.

irateplatypus · 03-28-2006, 07:23 AM

this topic of discussion could have a lot of legs... thx for bringing it to the forum.

i think roachboy loses sight of the actual situation in his zeal to make this representative of conservatives in general. if we are to think of this phenomenon outside of a combat environment necessity, as rb asks, then we should have a laundry list of instances where the practice occurs in other contexts. how can we have a broader discussion of the topic if the only example provided is in a warzone?

the line drawn between wartime propaganda and domestic coverage is supported by speculation alone. as such, rb's intended direction for this thread seems like it could be written by the Lincoln group. there are facts... but questions intended to be asked by the reader don't necessarily follow from the facts presented.

sidenote: the article's author briefly mentions "information ops"... but describes it in a way that seems dissimilar to the way it's discussed in military doctrine circles.

Willravel · 03-28-2006, 10:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by irateplatypus

there are facts... but questions intended to be asked by the reader don't necessarily follow from the facts presented.

That's fine. RB has some very important questions that he wants answers for, and you have important questions that differ in context and background and perception. Ask yours and let him ask his.

My response to this article is that it serves to address something that falls near and dear to my heart: propoganda. (By the way, I think that we can all agree, for better or worse, that the Lincoln group produces propoganda. I hope there can be no argument or mincing of words over that fact.) Propoganda is something, as the article correctly stated, that has been around for thousands of years. It's a matter of using an element of control over the opinions and perceptions of others to your own end. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Well that depnds on who you ask. If one were to ask me, I would humbly reply that not allowing members of society to think for themselves is dangerous in that it does not rpepare them for a time when they will need to think for themselves for the good of themselves, their country, their culture, or society in general. More often than not, independent thought is a boon, not a bane. I am speaking in generalities because the specifics of the propoganda in the case above is something that has been beaten to death. Yes, there is asymmetric conflict, very heavy moral equasions, issues of trust and intent...etc., etc., etc. It's getting old. So I'll move back out to the less connected and yet completly relevant argument against propoganda. Often I hear the argument that we use propoganda in some sort of mutually assured destruction-esque fashion - we use it because everyone else does, and if our people are to be indoctrinated, it might as well be by our own government. Well, that's all well and good, but in fact there is asymmetric conflict in the world of propoganda. Taking into consideration of the average consumption of commercial news, entertainment, and other media by the typical westerner, I see no evidence of influence from other organizations or governments. Everything that I am exposed to when I turn on my TV has already gone throught the giant American filter.

Is there an argument for propoganda? I want to know honestly so that I don't strawman.

Edit: boy 161 reads, 4 replies....this one's going to be interesting

joshbaumgartner · 03-28-2006, 11:24 AM

Is there an argument for propoganda? I think so. We often think of the propogated information in relation to wars and ideological conflicts. But propoganda is also those PSAs that remind us to use booster seats for our kids or to talk to them about drugs or whatever. I don't seek to debate the definition of propoganda, but I do think that we have to first define what constitutes 'good' propoganda from 'bad'. In doing so, I think we answer a lot of the questions about when it is appropriate to use it.

Willravel · 03-28-2006, 12:47 PM

Then maybe it's time to move this back to the real world.

Quote:

Think of all the big-ticket war issues that still are contested: WMD, aluminum tubes, uranium, the spurious Saddam-9/11 connection, the Iraqis whom U.S. officials said would greet U.S. troops as liberators, the good news that allegedly is being ignored by all those journalists who keep writing about the bombs still exploding, the bodies still falling.

There is an excelent example of propoganda. If one were to speak to the jorunalists who report on the casualties and the bombs, they would assure you that they are reporting on a part of the war that is seldom seen on the news. Their intentions are to give everyone the whole story so that they can, with as many facts as possible, make an informed decision aboyut whether they agree with the war in Iraq. If, however, one were to read the above statement at face value, it would seem as if the mear act of displaying video or pictures is somehow meant to distract the people from an apparent US success. That is propoganda. Taking away or controlling the flow of information in order to promote your adjenda or to damage your adversary.

The example given by Josh above of a public service reminder does not work to control information. It serves to provide information. I think that seperates it from the article above.

roachboy · 03-28-2006, 06:26 PM

i just read through the op again and realized that i moved from one level to another--i signalled it, but perhaps not adequately---i take the lincoln group's activities in iraq as an index of two interconnected wars of position--that is ideolgical conflicts--one that is particular to the iraq debacle, and another, which is broader and which functions as an important dimension of conservative ideology (rather than the tactics of the republican party proper)....which plays out across the control of terms, their definitions and associations. i used the article from the nyt about lincoln as a jump off directed mostly at the latter, broader conservative ideological apparatus (for lack of a better term) and for broader questions---which i took as coherent because i see the two aspects as intertwined at this point--but not as identical.

the junction between the two is the parallel concern for how information is framed.
the questions concerned the central role played in conservative ideology by controlling debate by controlling the terms used to frame it.

this linked to debates that unfold--or dont--in this forum because often--not always, but often--folk from the right enter these discussions already having decided that the terminologies particular to the right are adequate as descriptors and show almost no wilingness to step outside that terminology to enter into discussions about the terms themselves. this is why i said at the outset that debate is often shortcircuited at the outset because, by choosing to stage issues in this way, basic political choices have already been settled in a sense and discussion deteriorates from that into the usual partisan pissing matches.

this is the logic behind the post....and i outline it as a response to irate's post above---which i think pointed out a possible confusion of levels in what i wrote.

in particular, to continue focussing on irate's post: there is an enormous amount of information available about the extent, internal organization and effects of the contemporary mode of shaping and distributing conservative discourse. that this particular article did not cover it is a function of its focus, i would think---it does not make the connection that i tried to make afterward, and so really cant be faulted for not providing information about that.

=======
addendum: i am not interested in trying to work outanything about conservative folk in general apart from how the discourse that is often shared by them operates. this is much less grandoise than presuming to work out the complexity of motives or range of types of investment that individuals might bring to bear on or around their uses of this discourse.
the discourse is structured, consistent and highly structured.
the uses that folk might make of it much less so.
this is a perfectly reasonable distinction to make....

hiredgun · 03-29-2006, 09:11 AM

I don't think that the tactic is one used exclusively by conservatives. To provide an example from an entirely different context, aren't "pro-life" and "pro-choice" equally ideological and loaded terms? Each makes a certain value assumption in an attempt to constrict debate in favor of a certain ideological view.

I think the fact that we're talking about Gramsci should in itself be enough to tell you that this game has been played and innovated by both sides of the political spectrum.

Whether a 'war of position' is being waged with symmetric ferocity by the American left and the American right today is another question, and one I'm not sure I can answer. I would venture that it is in fact the conservative discourse which makes far greater use of prepackaged symbols and ideas in order to push a policy agenda. I would further guess that the relative lack of such ideas is part of what makes the left appear to be so disunited and in such disarray. We do not share a common narrative which, while imposing constraints on thought, would also give us a coherent unified core vocabulary with which to engage the right.

host · 03-29-2006, 12:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

i just read through the op again and realized that i moved from one level to another--i signalled it, but perhaps not adequately---i take the lincoln group's activities in iraq as an index of two interconnected wars of position--that is ideolgical conflicts--one that is particular to the iraq debacle, and another, which is broader and which functions as an important dimension of conservative ideology (rather than the tactics of the republican party proper)....which plays out across the control of terms, their definitions and associations. i used the article from the nyt about lincoln as a jump off directed mostly at the latter, broader conservative ideological apparatus (for lack of a better term) and for broader questions---which i took as coherent because i see the two aspects as intertwined at this point--but not as identical.

the junction between the two is the parallel concern for how information is framed.
the questions concerned the central role played in conservative ideology by controlling debate by controlling the terms used to frame it.

this linked to debates that unfold--or dont--in this forum because often--not always, but often--folk from the right enter these discussions already having decided that the terminologies particular to the right are adequate as descriptors and show almost no wilingness to step outside that terminology to enter into discussions about the terms themselves. this is why i said at the outset that debate is often shortcircuited at the outset because, by choosing to stage issues in this way, basic political choices have already been settled in a sense and discussion deteriorates from that into the usual partisan pissing matches.....

Politically, these are confusing times. It has dawned on me, after observing and trying to digest the "events", at least since the controversy over the secrecy and co-opting of the public interest of the Cheney energy "task force", in 2001, that your example of the Lincoln Groups's activity, is part of a disturbing pattern of deliberate distraction.

Consider that there are a group of opportunists in control of the federal government, and observe how they act ingeniously to influence, and then to exploit what you described here:

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

......contemporary politics is more about conflict over words, over meanings, over associations than it is about the positions outlined through these words/meanings/associations--that is---conflict is in a sense already over once someone begins to outline their views across the particular, dense field of signifiers particular to the american right---whence the repeated calls for debates that do not involve a simple recycling of talking points, of ways ot speaking/writing encouraged by the conservative media apparatus.

the focus and onus is on the right in this case as a simple function of fact---the right has engaged in the systematic construction of a media apparatus, using an extraordinary amount of private capital to fund it, to create its institutional infrastructure, its own media---and, more importantly, to construct outlets like fox that appear to function in an ambiguous relation to this ideological construction system---to use techniques for press management pioneered by the thatcher-reagan era, choking off access by the press to unformed information, making the press as reliant as possible on centralized information sources, which communicate prepackaged information which arrives alredy wrapped in the thick dulling fat of conservative memes.

the article from the post above is, in this context, but an index.
but it is an important index of the scale of ideological conflict and functions to explain why, in my view at least, debate that restricts itself to the recycling of claims already wrapped in ideological language is most often not debate at all.........

Now.....as you wrote.....the people behind Bush administration did not create the current media apparatus, but they seem to be using it as a smokescreen
to deflect attention from the result of what they actaully do...time after time.

I see that the spectacle of Bush himself; his public performance ....mangling the english language....the contradiction of his background......high schooling at http://www.andover.edu/ , in Massachusetts, followed by seven years of college at Yale and Harvard, vs. his crafted "common man" of the "born again", christian south, complete with his Texas drawl, makes him the perfect "front man", for this repeating pattern:

Mission background: Reward Bush/Cheney 2004 campaign organizer and fundraiser, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Christian_Bailey">Christian Bailey</a> , for his efforts.

Solution: Create "make work" low impact vs. high price "news" distribution project in Iraq, earmarked for Bailey's newly created "company" and send $130 million "his way".

Diversion: Manage anticipated controversy similarly to the ways that the Cheney Energy Task Force "issues", and the question of how the Bush admin.
"handled" pre-invasion Iraqi WMD intelligence.

The four big "tells" that reinforce my theory that folks who actually "run" the distribution of federal funds and leverage events to increase their "authority",
are the Cheney Energy Task Force, 9/11, Invasion or Iraq, and the Katrina disaster.

I suspect that these folks put a low priority on their "conservative" ideology.
They simply use the media "apparatus" that roachboy described, to shape (LIMIT) all inquiries, (9/11 Commission, Silberman Intelligence Investigation, Senate Select Committee on Intel Investigation) or the "review" of the "Lincoln Group" propaganda contracts, so that the result is always:

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/22/po...22lincoln.html
No Breach Seen in Work in Iraq on Propaganda
By THOM SHANKER
Published: March 22, 2006

<b>.....The findings are narrow in focus,</b> and conclude that the Lincoln Group committed no legal violations because its actions in paying to place American-written articles without attribution were not expressly prohibited by its contract or military rules.......

....Officials familiar with <b>the review said it did not deal deeply with how the Lincoln Group had received the contract, or with whether the organization had established sufficient expertise or experience</b> to carry out the contract effectively.

I think that conservatives are only just beginning to pay attention to this "pattern". Occupation of Iraq may just be a larger version of the Lincoln Group "make work" excuse for a financial political payback to Christian Bailey. It may have been an excuse to exert the newly acquired post 9/11 "power" and reward the connected, all at our expense, with the "media apparatus" employed as compliant "stooge".

Elphaba · 03-31-2006, 07:32 PM

The following article by the Independent UK claims they have found 'potential' press releases financed by the Lincoln Group. It troubles me that they cannot assert that these articles were actually publish and their counter claims for each article are not footnoted. Take this with a grain of salt.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/033106D.shtml

Quote:

The US Propaganda Machine: Oh, What a Lovely War
By Andrew Buncombe
The Independent UK

Thursday 30 March 2006

The Lincoln Group was tasked with presenting the US version of events in Iraq to counter adverse media coverage. Here we present examples of its work, and the reality behind its headlines.

This is the news from Iraq according to Donald Rumsfeld and the Bush administration.

A week after the US Defense Secretary criticized the media for " exaggerating" reports of violence in Iraq, The Independent has obtained examples of newspaper reports the Bush administration want Iraqis to read.

They were prepared by specially trained American "psy-ops" troops who paid thousands of dollars to Iraqi newspaper editors to run these un-attributed reports in their publications. In order to hide its involvement, the Pentagon hired the Lincoln Group to act as a liaison between troops and journalists. The Lincoln Group was at the centre of controversy last year when it was revealed the company was being paid more than $100m (£58m) for various contracts, including the planting of such stories.

The Pentagon - which recently announced that an internal investigation had cleared the Lincoln Group of breaching military rules by planting these stories - has claimed these new reports did not constitute propaganda because they were factually correct. But a military specialist has questioned some of the information contained within their reports while describing their rhetorical style as "comical". Furthermore, it has been alleged that quotations contained within these reports and others - attributed to anonymous Iraqi officials or citizens - were routinely made up by US troops who never went beyond the perimeter of the Green Zone.

What seems clear is that, taken by themselves, these reports would provide an unbalanced picture of the situation inside Iraq where ongoing violence wreaks daily chaos and horror. Three years since US and UK troops invaded, more than 2,500 coalition troops have been killed. How many Iraqi civilians have died is unclear. The Iraqi Body Count puts the minimum at 33,773, but this figure is based on media reports and the group admits "it is likely that many if not most civilian casualties will go unreported by the media". An extrapolation published in The Lancet 18 months ago said more than 100,000 had been killed.

A former employee of the Lincoln Group, who spent last summer in Baghdad acting as a link between US troops who were part of the Information Operations Task Force and Iraqis contracted by the company to establish contact with Iraqi journalists, said his job was to ensure "there were no finger-prints".

"The Iraqis did not know who was writing the stories and the US troops did not know who the Iraqis were," said the former employee, who declined to be named. It is not known whether the stories included here were ever printed or simply prepared for publication, but he said it was normal for around 10 stories a week to be printed. He said US troops routinely fabricated their quotations.

The former employee said the Lincoln Group paid up to $2,000 for the publication of each article - a sum that had risen from when he started working, suggesting the Iraqi editors realized who was behind the articles and knew there was plenty of money. The Lincoln Group was paid $80,000 a week by the military to plant these stories.

The former employee said the stories - which often feature phrases such as " brave warriors" and "eager troops" - were designed to bolster the image and purported efficiency of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and their involvement in operations. The Bush administration says the ability of Iraqi security forces to deal with insurgents remains the key to a withdrawal of US troops.

In reality, while one article describes the ISF as a "potent fighting force", the training of Iraqi forces has been a slow and troubled process. The Pentagon recently said the only Iraqi battalion judged capable of fighting without US support had been downgraded, requiring it to fight with American troops.

John Pike, the director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington-based defense think-tank, who reviewed some of the Lincoln Group stories, said he found them unconvincing. "Anybody who knows about propaganda knows the first rule of propaganda is that it should not look like propaganda," he said. "It's embarrassing enough that [the US military] got caught ... but then for their product to be so cheesy ... It's just embarrassing."

He added: "Some of the vignettes are cartoonish. The ISF? Many of them are surely brave. But a potent fighting force? I think that's a little clearer than the truth. It's propaganda."

Another story mentions the Iraqi oil industry and calls it "unique in that it is the only sector in which every dollar invested, either directly or indirectly, provides direct revenue to Iraq for future reconstruction" .

Yet a report published last November by a group of aid agencies and NGOs claimed that production-sharing agreements (PSAs) proposed by the US State Department before the invasion and adopted by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), could see Iraqis lose $200bn in revenue if the plan comes into effect.

Data collated by the Brookings Institution says oil production in Iraq remains below the estimated pre-invasion levels. At the moment, Iraq annually spends $6bn to import oil.

The Lincoln Group is headed by Christian Bailey, a Briton with no experience in PR, and a former US Marine, Paige Craig. The company failed to respond to a call seeking comment yesterday. A spokesman for the US military in Iraq, Lieut-Col Barry Johnson, said last night: "The results of the investigation have not yet been made public while the report undergoes final review by Multinational Force leadership. I am unable to comment on unsubstantiated allegations."

While the Lincoln Group has been cleared by one Pentagon inquiry, it remains the subject of a separate inquiry being conducted by the Pentagon's Office of the Inspector General (OIG). A spokesman, Gary Comerford, said that the OIG had been asked by the Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy to review how the company had won its contract.

Criticizing the media last week, Mr. Rumsfeld said: "Much of the reporting in the US and abroad has exaggerated the situation... Interestingly, all of the exaggerations seem to be on one side.... The steady stream of errors all seem to be of a nature to inflame the situation and to give heart to the terrorists."

'Al-Qa'ida Threatens All Iraqis'
24 October 2005

The Lincoln Version

The chief murderer of al-Qa'ida in Iraq has declared war against all Iraqis. They have also lamely attempted to justify the murder of civilians. Some websites featured the Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's praise of his heathen deeds. The people of Iraq have had enough.

"These thugs clearly hate us; they do not share in our national pride or our belief in a unified Iraq," said one Iraqi. "They only wish to kill our women, our children, our future. We must not and will not let them."

Horror stories are told in homes and shops of friends and family members casually murdered while going about their daily business. These ... are simple folk trying to make the best of their lives. How many more suicide bombs have to go off before al-Qa'ida realises that there is no room for them in the land of the two rivers? In one particular attack, terrorists murdered a young boy and stuffed his body full of explosives in an attempt to lure security forces into an ambush. Is this the only future terrorism has to offer?

The Reality Check

At least 20 people were killed and 42 others injured when three suicide bombers targeted Baghdad's Palestine Hotel, used by media and contractors. A dozen construction laborers were killed in an attack on al-Musayyab, south of Baghdad. Muhammad Ali Nu'aymi, secretary of the director-general of al-Mansur municipality, was killed by gunmen. Bodies of six Iraqi citizens were found in al-Mahmudiyah, southern Baghdad.

'Iraqi Army Defeats Terrosism'
26 October 2005

The Lincoln Version

With the people's approval of the constitution, Iraq is well on its way to forming a permanent government. Meanwhile, the underhanded forces of al-Qa'ida remain bent on halting progress and inciting civil war. The honest citizens of Iraq, however, need not fear these criminals and terrorists. The brave warriors of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) are hard at work stopping al-Qa'ida's attacks before they occur.

On 24 October, soldiers near Taji received a report that terrorists were stockpiling dangerous weapons. The soldiers found over 150 tank and artillery rounds. These munitions are similar to the ones that al-Qa'ida bomb-makers often use to construct their deadly bombs. The troops destroyed every last round, ensuring they will never be used against the Iraqi people.

Three al-Qa'ida mercenaries in Baqubah were planning to conduct a suicide vest attack. Officers of the Iraqi Police Service (IPS) spotted them as they drove towards their target. But then something happened. The would-be murderer lost his faith and leapt from the moving vehicle. One of the other suicide bombers panicked and detonated his vest while still inside the car, instantly killing himself and another accomplice.

The Reality Check

At least five Iraqis killed by suicide bomber on bus in Baqubah, north-east of Baghdad. Bodies of nine Iraqi border guards, who were shot dead, found previous day. Joint US-Iraqi convoy targeted by car bomb in al-Ma'mun area of Baghdad.

'Quick Reaction Captures Bomber'
12 November 2005

The Lincoln Version

In conjunction with operation El-Sitar Elfulathi in Husaybah and Karabilah, Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) are sweeping across Iraq in a series of continuous operations aimed at disrupting insurgent activity. Through diligent patrols, organized raids and searches, vehicle checkpoints and interaction with the Iraqi people, Iraqi Army (IA) units have taken down terror cells and removed dangerous criminals from Iraq's streets.

In Baghdad, a quick response to a terror attack led to the arrest of the culprit. On 10 November, terrorists detonated a car bomb in eastern Baghdad wounding three Iraqi women. Immediately the ISF responded, securing the area and treating and evacuating the injured. The soldiers quickly examined the site of the bombing, discovering evidence that led them to the arrest of the suspected bomber. Because of their quick reaction, there was no loss of innocent life and another terrorist is in prison and awaiting his trial.

The ISF has quickly developed into a viable fighting force capable of defending the people of Iraq against the cowards who launch their attacks on innocent people.

The Reality Check

Ten people were killed when a car bomb exploded at a market in Baghdad. Bodies of three men tortured to death discovered in Shula. Coalition troops killed four alleged insurgents in "safe house" near Ramadi. On November 10, 7 Iraqis killed 30 wounded by car bomb near al-Shuruqi Mosque, north of Baghdad.

'Training Prepares Iraqi Marines'
13 November 2005

The Lincoln Version

Terrorist attacks often result in damage to Iraq's infrastructure, but the Ministry of Defense is determined to keep that from continuing. The brave men of the Iraqi Marines are one step closer to taking charge of the security mission at the al Basrah and Khawr al Amaya Oil Terminals.

Recently, soldiers from the 6th Platoon Iraqi Marines completed the oil platform defense training at the al Basrah Oil Terminal.

Their main focus was to acquire the necessary skills to effectively protect the oil terminals. The students trained up to three to four times a day, working closely with the instructors. The intense training they received included how to stand a proper watch, how to work and fight as a team, and how to defend against terrorist attacks on the terminals. When these soldiers assume control of security on the terminal, they will ensure the safety and stability of the maritime environment.

These operations complement counter-terrorism and security efforts as well as deny international terrorists use of the waterways as an avenue of attack.

The Reality Check

Deputy health minister, Jalil al-Shammari, and his bodyguards are killed north of Baghdad. Amir al-Saldi, Baghdad municipal official, is killed in Ghazaliya. Clashes in al-Qadiyah district of Samarra leave three dead. An Iraqi soldier is killed and six others wounded, three seriously, in a roadside bomb explosion in Kirkuk.

host · 12-25-2007, 03:16 PM

Somehow, we missed this, last year:

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/po...gewanted=print
December 11, 2005
Propaganda
Military's Information War Is Vast and Often Secretive
By JEFF GERTH

The media center in Fayetteville, N.C., would be the envy of any global communications company.

In state of the art studios, producers prepare the daily mix of music and news for the group's radio stations or spots for friendly television outlets. Writers putting out newspapers and magazines in Baghdad and Kabul converse via teleconferences. Mobile trailers with high-tech gear are parked outside, ready for the next crisis.

The center is not part of a news organization, but a military operation, and those writers and producers are soldiers. The 1,200-strong psychological operations unit based at Fort Bragg turns out what its officers call "truthful messages" to support the United States government's objectives, though its commander acknowledges that those stories are one-sided and their American sponsorship is hidden. .....

..... The recent disclosures that a Pentagon contractor in Iraq paid newspapers to print "good news" articles written by American soldiers prompted an outcry in Washington, where members of Congress said the practice undermined American credibility and top military and White House officials disavowed any knowledge of it. President Bush was described by Stephen J. Hadley, his national security adviser, as "very troubled" about the matter. The Pentagon is investigating.

But the work of the contractor, the Lincoln Group, was not a rogue operation. Hoping to counter anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world, the Bush administration has been conducting an information war that is extensive, costly and often hidden, according to documents and interviews with contractors, government officials and military personnel.

The campaign was begun by the White House, which set up a secret panel soon after the Sept. 11 attacks to coordinate information operations by the Pentagon, other government agencies and private contractors.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the focus of most of the activities, the military operates radio stations and newspapers, but does not disclose their American ties. Those outlets produce news material that is at times attributed to the "International Information Center," an untraceable organization.

Lincoln says it planted more than 1,000 articles in the Iraqi and Arab press and placed editorials on an Iraqi Web site, Pentagon documents show. For an expanded stealth persuasion effort into neighboring countries, Lincoln presented plans, since rejected, for an underground newspaper, television news shows and an anti-terrorist comedy based on "The Three Stooges."

Like the Lincoln Group, Army psychological operations units sometimes pay to deliver their message, offering television stations money to run unattributed segments or contracting with writers of newspaper opinion pieces, military officials said. .....

Quote:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...958479,00.html
The Times December 24, 2005

Godalming geek made millions running the Pentagon's propaganda war in Iraq
By Patrick Foster and Tim Reid in Washington
IT WAS astounding enough for Washington’s political elite: last month they discovered that the man at the heart of a scandal over the planting of US propaganda in Iraqi newspapers was a dapper but unknown 30-year-old Oxford graduate who had somehow managed to land a $100 million Pentagon contract.

What is even more remarkable however, after an investigation by The Times, is that just ten years ago Christian Bailey, whose US company is under investigation for planting fake news stories in Iraqi newspapers, was a nerdy, socially awkward English school-leaver called Jozefowicz.

The transformation of the geeky but ambitious Christian Jozefowicz, who just a few years ago was growing up in a modest terraced house in Godalming, Surrey, to the charming, baby-faced multimillionaire Christian Bailey now rubbing shoulders with some of the most powerful figures in Washington — and who next year will probably face questions on Capitol Hill about his company — is one of the more extraordinary stories to have emerged from the Iraq war.

This month it was revealed that Mr Bailey’s US company, the Lincoln Group, was the recipient of a Pentagon contract to help to fight the information war in Iraq. It then emerged that the company was paying Iraqi journalists to plant optimistic news “stories” in Iraqi papers that had been written by the US military......

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/15/po...=1&oref=slogin
Quick Rise for Purveyors of Propaganda in Iraq
By DAVID S. CLOUD
Published: February 15, 2006

WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 — Two years ago, Christian Bailey and Paige Craig were living in a half-renovated Washington group house, with a string of failed startup companies behind them.

Mr. Bailey, a boyish-looking Briton, and Mr. Craig, a chain-smoking former Marine sergeant, then began winning multimillion-dollar contracts with the United States military to produce propaganda in Iraq.

Now their company, Lincoln Group, works out of elegant offices along Pennsylvania Avenue and sponsors polo matches in Virginia horse country. Mr. Bailey recently bought a million-dollar Georgetown row house. Mr. Craig drives a Jaguar and shows up for interviews accompanied by his "director of security," a beefy bodyguard.

The company's rise, though, has been built in part by exaggerated claims about its abilities and connections, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former Lincoln Group employees and associates, and a review of company documents.

In collecting government money, Lincoln has followed a blueprint taught to Mr. Bailey by Daniel S. Peña Sr., a retired American businessman who described Mr. Bailey as a protégé.

Federal contracts in Washington can supply easy seed capital for a struggling entrepreneur, Mr. Peña says he advised a youthful Mr. Bailey in the mid-1990's when the two men started a short-lived technology company. "I told him, 'When in trouble, go to D.C.,' and the kid listened," Mr. Peña said.

Mr. Bailey defends his company's record, saying, "Lincoln Group successfully executes challenging assignments." He added that "teams are created from the best available resources."

Lincoln won its contracts after claiming to have partnerships with major media and advertising companies, former government officials with extensive Middle East experience, and ex-military officers with background in intelligence and psychological warfare, the documents show. But some of those companies and individuals say their associations were fleeting.

Lincoln has also run into problems delivering on work for the military after its partnerships with more experienced firms fell apart, company documents and interviews indicate. The firm has continued to bid for new business from the Pentagon and has hired two Washington lobbying firms to promote itself on Capitol Hill and with the Bush administration.

"They appear very professional on the surface, then you dig a little deeper and you find that they are pretty amateurish," said Jason Santamaria, a former Marine officer whom the company once described as a "strategic adviser."

The company's work in Iraq, where Mr. Bailey and Mr. Craig visit from time to time to direct operations, is facing growing scrutiny.

The Pentagon's inspector general last month opened an audit of Lincoln Group's contracts there, according to two Defense Department officials. A separate inquiry ordered by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top American commander in Iraq, after disclosures late last year that Lincoln Group paid Iraqi publications to run one-sided stories by American soldiers, has been completed but not made public, military officials said.

A spokesman for General Casey, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, declined to comment on Lincoln Group, citing the ongoing investigation.

In interviews, Mr. Bailey, 30, and Mr. Craig, 31, said they had succeeded by anticipating the military's need for help communicating with and influencing the Iraqi public, just as the insurgency was building. "We saw that it was very hard for the U.S. to do that work," Mr. Bailey said. "They didn't do media and outreach very well. We had local offices in a tough environment where traditional U.S. contractors would not operate."

He disputed suggestions that Lincoln had experienced difficulty delivering on work for the military, saying the firm had "successfully executed" more than 20 contracts from the Defense Department.

Lincoln's roster of advisers and other businesses assisting it has continually changed, Mr. Craig said, because "our work in often hostile environments has occasionally proved to be too risky or challenging for some of our partners."

Little in Mr. Bailey's background indicated he would end up doing propaganda work in Iraq. Born in Britain as Christian Jozefowicz, he changed his name when he graduated from Oxford University and moved to San Francisco during the late-1990's dot-com boom.

There he founded or advised several companies and plunged into the Silicon Valley social scene, according to Mr. Bailey and several friends and former business associates. Among the companies were Express Action, a company that planned to develop an Internet service to calculate duties on overseas purchases, and Motion Power, which intended to invent a shoe that would generate its own electrical power to run portable consumer devices.

"You would have been proud had you seen this 23-year-old kid pitching, with no product, no customers, no business plan," Mr. Bailey wrote in a letter to Mr. Peña, describing how he raised $15 million from investors for Express Action.

Mr. Bailey later moved to New York and sought investors for an investment fund, according to documents filed with the National Futures Association. In 2003, he moved to Washington.

Mr. Craig's path to the capital began when he dropped out of West Point to pursue, he says, his interests in business and national security.

Enlisting in the Marines in 1995, he began working in military intelligence. He earned an undergraduate degree in information technology while stationed in Okinawa and Australia through the University of Maryland and a masters in business administration from National University, which runs academic programs on military bases. He left the Marines in 2000.

By 2004, Mr. Bailey had moved into Mr. Craig's house near downtown Washington, and the two had formed the company that eventually became Lincoln Group.

Their original goal was to make money exploiting Iraq's most obvious surplus — its shattered infrastructure. But those efforts faltered.

A project to export scrap metal fell apart after the Iraqi government banned scrap exports in 2004, Mr. Bailey said. A pile of scrap metal, purchased with a loan from an Indonesian bank, has been sitting in Basra ever since, according to two ex-employees. Like several other former Lincoln workers, they asked to remain anonymous because they had signed confidentiality agreements with the company or still dealt with the firm.

Lincoln also spent about $50,000 for two portable brick-making machines from Texas. The company had hoped to set up a brick plant near Mosul, where the demand for construction materials was vast, according to a presentation Mr. Bailey made to potential investors in Dubai. The machines, though, were principally designed for homeowners or small contractors. Lincoln would not comment on the project.

Eventually, Lincoln began working with the American military, which was spending millions on contractors for a broad range of services. The firm rented a one-story house inside the Green Zone, the heavily fortified government compound in central Baghdad. Furnished with two sofas and a sheet of plywood that served as a desk, the house had a single telephone and an overloaded electrical outlet.

<h3>Lincoln formed a partnership with The Rendon Group, a Washington company with close ties to the Bush administration, and won a $5 million Pentagon contract to help inform Iraqis about the American-led effort to defeat the insurgency and form a new government.</h3> One contract requirement was to get Iraqi publications to run articles written by the military, according to several ex-Lincoln employees.

Rendon soon dropped out and Lincoln handled the contract alone. But the company had fewer than two dozen workers and little experience with public relations, according to several ex-employees.

Problems arose from the start. In a 2004 briefing to the military, Lincoln conceded that it was "not yet fully staffed" and that "media monitoring software" required by the contract was "not ready."

And the government did not provide that much work at first. The military's public affairs office produced only a few articles a day during that period, one Lincoln ex-employee said. A small State Department contract to assist small businesses had just been cancelled, he said, and the firm was having difficulty making its payroll.

Lincoln lacked the armored vehicles or security guards employed by more established contractors. When venturing outside the Green Zone, employees would grab weapons and climb into one of two beat-up Proton sedans, which employees were told were chosen to blend in with dilapidated Iraqi vehicles on the streets.

After winning a small contract from the Marines to do polling, the company hired Iraqis to go door-to-door in Anbar Province with questionnaires. To protect themselves from possible insurgent reprisals, they were told to say they were working for an Iraqi university, according to a former Lincoln employee.

Last August, gunmen came to the home of one of the Iraqi workers, killing him and three others, according to an ex- employee. Mr. Bailey said it was not clear whether the killing was related to the polling, but the company decided to move a Lincoln office staffed by Iraqis in downtown Baghdad to a less noticeable location.

Back in the United States, Mr. Bailey and Mr. Craig worked to drum up more business.

In late 2004, Mr. Craig traveled to Fort Bragg, N.C., to meet with officers of the 18th Airborne Corps, which was preparing take over management of Lincoln's public affairs contract in Iraq, according to a former employee and company documents. Despite the problems with the existing work, Lincoln said it could assist the military in the more secretive realm of "information operations," according to a transcript of the briefing. Unlike public affairs work, information operations are meant to influence and help defeat foreign adversaries, using deception, if necessary.

The briefing also touted the firm's "strategic advisers," including Mr. Santamaria, the former Marine officer, who received a master's degree from the Wharton business school and was co-author of a business book called "The Marine Corps Way."

Mr. Santamaria said he reviewed several investment proposals for Lincoln during a two-week association in late 2004. But after becoming "concerned about their methods," he said, "I severed ties with them as quickly as I could."

A Lincoln spokesman, William Dixon, said "it was a mistake" to include Mr. Santamaria's name in the December briefing because he was no longer affiliated with the company.

Lincoln may simply have been following another principle taught by Mr. Peña. "How do you create an instant track record?" Mr. Peña says he told Mr. Bailey. "You joint-venture with someone who has a track record."

Early last summer, military commanders made Lincoln Group the main civilian contractor for carrying out an aggressive propaganda campaign in Anbar Province, known as the Western Mission project. Over the next several months, the military transferred tens of millions of dollars to Lincoln for the project, records show.

The company hired dozens of employees, including academics and former military personnel, as well as hundreds of contract workers in Iraq and elsewhere, a number that fluctuates by contract requirements, according to Mr. Dixon, the Lincoln spokesman.

With the new duties came substantial new requirements, including producing television and radio ads, buying newspaper ads and placing many more articles in the Iraqi press. The military also approved paying Iraqi editors to run stories, according to ex-Lincoln employees.

Lincoln also enlisted the New York advertising executive Jerry Della Femina, chairman of Della Femina Rothschild Jeary & Partners. Mr. Della Femina said he was introduced to Mr. Craig last spring by a Washington lobbyist.

Mr. Della Femina said his firm "did a great deal of work" on advertising ideas for Lincoln to present to the military's Special Operations Command, which last summer was soliciting bids for contracts, potentially worth millions, for psychological operations.

Lincoln listed Mr. Della Femina as a "creative director" in materials presented last spring at a meeting with Special Operations officers in Tampa. But Mr. Della Femina said his firm pulled out before executing any of the ideas. Three months after ending the collaboration, Mr. Della Femina said, he discovered that Lincoln's Web site listed him as one of its partners.

"I was surprised that they had our name on their Web site in the first place," he said.

After he asked that his name be removed, Mr. Craig said, "we honored his request within the week."

By that time, Lincoln had already been notified by Special Operations Command that it and two other companies had been chosen to compete for work under the contract.

Lincoln later told Special Operations Command that one of its principal subcontractors was Omnicom Group Inc. of New York, an advertising and marketing conglomerate. A proposal signed by Mr. Bailey in October said Lincoln "has exploited the extensive experience and expertise of the Omnicom Group."

But Pat Sloan, an Omnicom spokeswoman, said she could find no evidence it has ever worked with Lincoln Group. "We're not aware of any relationship with Lincoln Group," she said. She noted that Omnicom had once owned 49 percent of Mr. Della Femina's agency but had sold the stake in early 2005. Michael J. Jeary, president of Mr. Della Femina's agency, said Lincoln's claim of Omnicom as a subcontractor was an "honest mistake" because he had never told the firm Omnicom had sold its minority stake.

Although Lincoln Group's work in Iraq is now under scrutiny in two Pentagon investigations, the firm is hunting for more government work. Last month, Mr. Bailey attended a going-away reception at the Virginia condominium of a mid-level government employee on her way to a new job at the American Embassy in Baghdad. Her job: overseeing contracts.

Lincoln Group was looking for "more work", as we see, they got it:

Quote:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...NGKAGG5H61.DTL
PR firm also retained Iraqi Sunni clerics
Pentagon contractor made deals with 3 or 4 to help in propaganda
- David S. Cloud, Jeff Gerth, New York Times
Monday, January 2, 2006

(01-02) 04:00 PDT Washington -- A Pentagon contractor that paid Iraqi newspapers to run positive articles written by U.S. soldiers also has been compensating Sunni religious scholars in Iraq in return for assistance with its propaganda work, according to current and former employees.

Lincoln Group, a Washington-based public relations firm, was told early in 2005 by the Pentagon to identify religious leaders who could help craft messages that would persuade Sunnis in violence-ridden Anbar province to participate in national elections and reject the insurgency, according to a former employee...

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...121802262.html

......Even though members of the military "understand the limitations" of polling data, Rapp said, "subjective measures" are an important part of the mix. In July, the military signed a contract with Gallup for four public opinion polls a month in Iraq: three nationwide and one in Baghdad. Lincoln Group, which has conducted surveys for the military since shortly after the invasion, received a year-long contract in January to conduct focus groups.

No wonder they "channeled" so much money through Lincoln Group, click on the Wiki links, huge number of "key players" and advisors......

Quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Group#Key_players
.....<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morton_Blackwell">Morton Blackwell</a> Affiliations: <h3>The Council for National Policy 1982 Board of Governors, Executive Director CNP, 1991-present</h3>; White House Staff as Special Assistant to President Reagan for Public Liaison; former staff member, Senate Republican Policy Committee; former policy director, U.S. Senator Gordon J. Humphrey; overseer, 1980 Youth for Reagan effort; founder in 1979 and President, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Leadership_Institute">The Leadership Institute</a>, a non-profit, non-partisan, educational organization, with 18 types of programs. "Conservative leaders, organizations and activists rely on the Institute for the preparation they require for success." "mission is to increase the number and effectiveness of conservative public policy leaders." [The Leadership Institute] recently provided political training to members of Maranatha It's Campus Leadership Program is "designed to foster permanent, effective, conservative, student organizations on every college campus in America. Leadership Institute field staff have already created new organizations on 207 campuses in 37 states. Founder and chairman, Conservative Leadership PAC; Republican National Committeeman from Virginia; Treasurer, Reagan Mumni Association; former editor, The NewRight Report; former contributing editor, Conservative Digest. Formerly with The Viguerie Company (CNP) [[Richard Viguerie] ]. Board member, American Conservative Union, Legislative Studies Institute, National Right to Work Committee, Reagan Alumni (Treasurer). Received funding from the Coors Foundations. Blackwell is also President, International Policy Forum, from the 1984 CNP Directory, "a foundation which promotes educational exchanges between conservatives in the US and pro-freedom leaders in other countries."....

Lincoln Group "Advisors":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Group#Advisors

more on Morton Blackwell here:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...01&postcount=8

03-26-2006, 09:53 AM	#2 (permalink)
tecoyah Illusionary	I rather like this post.....and much of the information has been in my thoughts for some time. The new direction we are taking this board is a step in confronting a part of this....though only a small part, it is a step. __________________ Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

03-28-2006, 07:23 AM	#4 (permalink)
irateplatypus can't help but laugh Location: dar al-harb	this topic of discussion could have a lot of legs... thx for bringing it to the forum. i think roachboy loses sight of the actual situation in his zeal to make this representative of conservatives in general. if we are to think of this phenomenon outside of a combat environment necessity, as rb asks, then we should have a laundry list of instances where the practice occurs in other contexts. how can we have a broader discussion of the topic if the only example provided is in a warzone? the line drawn between wartime propaganda and domestic coverage is supported by speculation alone. as such, rb's intended direction for this thread seems like it could be written by the Lincoln group. there are facts... but questions intended to be asked by the reader don't necessarily follow from the facts presented. sidenote: the article's author briefly mentions "information ops"... but describes it in a way that seems dissimilar to the way it's discussed in military doctrine circles. __________________ If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves. ~ Winston Churchill Last edited by irateplatypus; 03-28-2006 at 07:26 AM..

03-28-2006, 06:26 PM	#8 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i just read through the op again and realized that i moved from one level to another--i signalled it, but perhaps not adequately---i take the lincoln group's activities in iraq as an index of two interconnected wars of position--that is ideolgical conflicts--one that is particular to the iraq debacle, and another, which is broader and which functions as an important dimension of conservative ideology (rather than the tactics of the republican party proper)....which plays out across the control of terms, their definitions and associations. i used the article from the nyt about lincoln as a jump off directed mostly at the latter, broader conservative ideological apparatus (for lack of a better term) and for broader questions---which i took as coherent because i see the two aspects as intertwined at this point--but not as identical. the junction between the two is the parallel concern for how information is framed. the questions concerned the central role played in conservative ideology by controlling debate by controlling the terms used to frame it. this linked to debates that unfold--or dont--in this forum because often--not always, but often--folk from the right enter these discussions already having decided that the terminologies particular to the right are adequate as descriptors and show almost no wilingness to step outside that terminology to enter into discussions about the terms themselves. this is why i said at the outset that debate is often shortcircuited at the outset because, by choosing to stage issues in this way, basic political choices have already been settled in a sense and discussion deteriorates from that into the usual partisan pissing matches. this is the logic behind the post....and i outline it as a response to irate's post above---which i think pointed out a possible confusion of levels in what i wrote. in particular, to continue focussing on irate's post: there is an enormous amount of information available about the extent, internal organization and effects of the contemporary mode of shaping and distributing conservative discourse. that this particular article did not cover it is a function of its focus, i would think---it does not make the connection that i tried to make afterward, and so really cant be faulted for not providing information about that. ======= addendum: i am not interested in trying to work outanything about conservative folk in general apart from how the discourse that is often shared by them operates. this is much less grandoise than presuming to work out the complexity of motives or range of types of investment that individuals might bring to bear on or around their uses of this discourse. the discourse is structured, consistent and highly structured. the uses that folk might make of it much less so. this is a perfectly reasonable distinction to make.... __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 03-28-2006 at 06:44 PM..

03-27-2006, 04:51 PM	#3 (permalink)
Elphaba Deja Moo Location: Olympic Peninsula, WA	There are many directions to take that Roachboy afforded us in his OP. My one functioning neuron suggests that I begin with my own impressions, with the hope that continued discussion clarifies my thoughts. I was reminded of a similar discussion that was started by Powerclown several months ago so I bumped "Iraq: Positive Developments" for anyone interested in reviewing it. Some viewed the intention of the thread as a negation of the many things going awry in Iraq, and perhaps considered it "propaganda." Others saw the same information and applauded seeing something other than "doom and gloom." Remarkably, the topic evolved to a level of respectful discussion and I learned a great deal from the many intelligent posts made there. I think whether one views reports of positive outcomes as good news vs. manipulation, depends to some degree on the level of trust placed on the source of the news. In this specific instance, I trusted Powerclown's stated intentions and I was well rewarded with the content provided. By the same token, I do not give credence to information from a source that I do not trust. Roachboy's discussion points specifically address war time manipulation of the media by the government, but at this time I would like to address our mainstream media generally. I ceased to watch broadcast news about a decade ago because of the "if it bleeds, it leads" focus of those programs. Recently I was staying with a friend who required the TV as a diversion and if I were to judge my community based upon what was reported, I would flee to a cave in the mountains. If a horrific image was available, it was shown over and over again. (i.e. some asshole threw acid on a dog) I have to ask myself if this unimportant bit of "bad" news replaced something more positive and of greater relevance to our community? Our national broadcast news appears to take a negative focus as well. My current thinking is that we need more positive news, if there is any to be had. War news is a trickier devil, but it would be necessary to me to have confidence in the source, whether the news was critical or positive. Do I trust news from the Lincoln Group? No.

03-28-2006, 11:24 AM	#6 (permalink)
joshbaumgartner Insane	Is there an argument for propoganda? I think so. We often think of the propogated information in relation to wars and ideological conflicts. But propoganda is also those PSAs that remind us to use booster seats for our kids or to talk to them about drugs or whatever. I don't seek to debate the definition of propoganda, but I do think that we have to first define what constitutes 'good' propoganda from 'bad'. In doing so, I think we answer a lot of the questions about when it is appropriate to use it.

03-29-2006, 09:11 AM	#9 (permalink)
hiredgun Addict	I don't think that the tactic is one used exclusively by conservatives. To provide an example from an entirely different context, aren't "pro-life" and "pro-choice" equally ideological and loaded terms? Each makes a certain value assumption in an attempt to constrict debate in favor of a certain ideological view. I think the fact that we're talking about Gramsci should in itself be enough to tell you that this game has been played and innovated by both sides of the political spectrum. Whether a 'war of position' is being waged with symmetric ferocity by the American left and the American right today is another question, and one I'm not sure I can answer. I would venture that it is in fact the conservative discourse which makes far greater use of prepackaged symbols and ideas in order to push a policy agenda. I would further guess that the relative lack of such ideas is part of what makes the left appear to be so disunited and in such disarray. We do not share a common narrative which, while imposing constraints on thought, would also give us a coherent unified core vocabulary with which to engage the right.