By : -

That gurgling sound you hear from the Pentagon is the sinking of its credibility.

After Sept. 11, in a bid to shore up international support for its war on terrorism, the U.S. military created the Office of Strategic Influence (OSI). According to a report yesterday in The New York Times, the office now plans to expand its mandate to plant items, possibly false ones, with foreign news organizations in friendly countries; to pretend it isn't the author of e-mails it sends to government officials and others, and to use the Internet to sow disinformation. In the process, it will be firing a torpedo through whatever reputation its public-affairs officials have earned for disseminating trustworthy information.

The Pentagon didn't invent these tactics. Dirty tricks were a feature of Richard Nixon's administration in the late 1960s and early 70s. George Orwell wrote the book -- his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four -- on government ministries that mask their true purpose through obfuscation. All sides in the Second World War used propaganda to lower the enemy's morale, whether by dropping pamphlets or broadcasting the taunts of Lord Haw-Haw and Tokyo Rose. U.S. media mogul William Randolph Hearst trafficked in legendarily irresponsible reports while locked in a circulation battle with Joseph Pulitzer in the 1890s. Hearst sent illustrator Frederic Remington to Cuba some time after an anti-Spanish revolt had erupted there. When Remington cabled, "There is no trouble here. There will be no war," Hearst replied, "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war." The Spanish-American War started in 1898.

What is surprising about the Pentagon's variation is that its officials have been so open about their plan to mislead policymakers and the general public in friendly countries. Doesn't the military establishment appreciate that any influence it gains through deceit will be undercut by people's increased unwillingness to believe a single thing it says? Forget ethics; even assessed solely on tactical grounds, the plan is stupid.

It may also run afoul of the law, which bars the Pentagon from spreading disinformation within the United States. There is every chance that lies planted abroad would be picked up by international news wires and relayed to the Americans.

Dissent is already brewing within the Defence Department. Employees who have used open lines of communication to make the U.S. case fear that nobody will trust them any more. They must have shuddered when reading of what the OSI head has in mind: a continuum of operations from "white" (truthful press releases) to "black" (disinformation, deceit), potentially touching all those who deal with the U.S. And yes, by our reading that includes Canada.

The OSI began life last fall with the goal of persuading Islamic countries that the war against terrorism was not a war against Islam. The new plan has a different goal: to influence the United States' friends by stealth. Washington's talk of going to war with Iraq has spooked countries that signed on for a necessary battle -- against al-Qaeda and its protectors -- but aren't keen to enlist for an invasion whose need is less obvious. The Pentagon, it seems, hopes to lower their guard not by persuading them but by conning them.

The plan needs the approval of President George W. Bush. He should do the Pentagon a favour by rejecting it.

From The Globe and Mail