Another Runaway General: Army Deploys Psy-Ops on U.S. Senators

Rolling Stone reports:

The U.S. Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in “psychological operations” to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war, Rolling Stone has learned – and when an officer tried to stop the operation, he was railroaded by military investigators.

The orders came from the command of Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, a three-star general in charge of training Afghan troops – the linchpin of U.S. strategy in the war. Over a four-month period last year, a military cell devoted to what is known as “information operations” at Camp Eggers in Kabul was repeatedly pressured to target visiting senators and other VIPs who met with Caldwell. When the unit resisted the order, arguing that it violated U.S. laws prohibiting the use of propaganda against American citizens, it was subjected to a campaign of retaliation.

“My job in psy-ops is to play with people’s heads, to get the enemy to behave the way we want them to behave,” says Lt. Colonel Michael Holmes, the leader of the IO unit, who received an official reprimand after bucking orders. “I’m prohibited from doing that to our own people. When you ask me to try to use these skills on senators and congressman, you’re crossing a line.”

Of course, the US government always has our best interests at heart no matter what it does.

Including giving nuclear weapons to terrorist organization in order to stage a false flag terrorist attack.

fascistsoup.com...

The State is a criminal terrorist organization of looting thieves.

It has nothing, it produces nothing, and it destroys everything.

The State can not give to one without first taking from another.

Stop supporting it.

Hey, if it works on prisoners then why not citizens, or senators for the matter? After all, there's no line to worry about crossing, apparently....

Normally, I try not to simply repost what I put in another thread... after all, repeating oneself can be tiresome... but since the topic is also being discussed in Breaking news... and I am kind of in a hurry here...

I resist the generalizations embedded in the story....

Whenever discussing what the Army, Pentagon, or DoD is up to... including this... we must acknowledge distinctly that policy and practice is directed from within the corporate cartel known as the Military Industrial Complex.

While I attribute the ability to stop this atrocious and reprehensible practice to the Army (or whatever military service) I recognize that the impetus, motivation, and planning of it is sourced 'outside' what we consider the "military" in terms of the men and women who swore an oath to serve this country and protect her people.

The military leadership (for lack of a better word) could (and should) have refused to engage in the manipulation of information and use of propaganda against - or applied to - our own citizens (representatives or otherwise). It is NOT rocket science or some great moral dilemma to identify that such activities are NOT part of "protecting and serving" the Constitution, but instead serve political and commercial expediency (or for the more conspiratorial 'ideological' expediency) of other agendas.

Yes... they should have at least ONE damn person in there who had the gumption and personal courage to speak truth to power..... (of course, the consequences nowadays is losing career prospects, amongst other inconveniences).

In a perfect world (which can never exist apparently) such 'mandates' should have been publicly exposed immediately and scrutinized from the source.... but of course, they weren't. Instead we are left only able to contemplate that it happened (without the journalistic who, what, where, when, why, and how.)

We already know the world of politically appointed cronies is the well-spring of such orders and policies, and that appears to be just fine with the military 'leadership' as it now exists.

But this article, among a plethora of others, is forging a meme wherein the military is 'separate' from the population which makes up it's constituent parts.....

While I do applaud the Rolling Stone for this and many other illuminating articles ... it is still entrenched within the same sorry simplistic generalizations that make people wrongly assume that institutions like the military have 'their own agenda.' They don't - they are a tool .... and the real problem is that this particular tool is not in the hands of "the people".... it's in "other" hands by virtue of the subversion and corruption of those in it's immediate chain of command (whom it MUST obey.)

The real question this article raises is WHO has the moral authority to justify the misuse of influence and information... did we vote for them? Are they accountable? and from whom do THEY get their marching orders?

PS - I notice this title references a "runaway general"... now they realize that vilifying the entire military system is kind of obtuse I suppose..... Still, I stand by my assessment.... my concern is about policy and who makes it... not who carries it out.... problems like this must be solved at the source... or they just repeat over and over...

Original story was in Rolling Stone magazine.

Now Reuters is covering the story too:
www.reuters.com...

U.S. probes if senators targeted by Afghan psy-ops unit

just appalling

proves the point that TPTB will and
can do anything they want, whenever
they want and we can't do a damn
thing about it.

a head will roll over this,
then it will be back to
Psy-Ops as usual.

If that's a law then every government official would be jailed.

First of all, it's PSYOP, not PSYOPS.

And there are no PSYOP guys with CSTC-A. It was a freakin' IO cell.

Several years ago when LTG Caldwell was at FT Leavenworth, he tried to push an agenda of re-writing "IO" doctrine which was grossly convoluted and a loose mish-mash of IO and PSYOP. That effort was shot down. I hate to say it, but the LTG has a signifcantly misunderstood view of IO and PSYOP and the differences and linkages between the two.

psy-ops ? and if they had`nt lobbied [ thats what it really was ] the would have been acused of not supporting the troops - talk about loose / loose

reply to post by mnemeth1


Anyone else notice the article was three pages long?

And each and every foreign serving American military leader has done this to some extent.

Usually, they see these trips as babysitting escapades, because Congressmen and Senators go on "fact-finding" missions, all the time, and usually are looking for cheap hookers, booze, and to get to blow something up.

This particular story reminds of the movie Air America and the visiting Senator.

Air America Trailer


Of course Air America even existing is a whole other topic.

reply to post by SpartanKingLeonidas


I was just looking into psyops and that kind of stuff and I came across something so wild. It's called Project Rand and it was created for the US Air Force. It is dated 14 April 1950 but you have to check it out. It is a PDF.

The exploitation of superstitions for purposes of psychological warfare

I. Introduction The purpose of this paper is to present a few examples of superstitions (observed both during World War II and, in the case of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries, in the postwar period), to show some of the techniques which have been used by wartime propagandists to exploit popular superstitions, and to suggest very briefly some of the factors which might be considered in any attempt to exploit superstitions for psychological warfare.

Apocolyptic stories appeared. One such story recounted that in a certain observatory a new planet had been sighted which was moving rapidly towards collision with earth. An increase in non-institutionalized forms of religion was reported.

1. Prophesies concerning future events, either optomistic or pessimistic. 2. Belief in protective devices and acts. 3. "Fringe" or "radical" religions, particularly those maintaining that the end of the world is at hand. 4. Belief in magical phenomena, miracles, etc. 5. Fatalistic attitudes towards one's chances of escaping harm.

www.rand.org...

reply to post by jackflap


Well, that is the definition of psyops, and that addresses modern warfare.

However, this was common knowledge, in Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece.

The Spartan's specialized in hand-to-hand combat and psyops together.

Especially the feint of running away to lure enemies into an ambush.

Classic PsyOps mixed with ruthless tactics.

Psychological Operations were a large part of warfare and always have been.

Some of the oldest known and recorded versions of PsyOps are in the Bible.

Moses and the 10 Plagues of Egypt, Joshua and the march on Jericho, David verses Goliath.

All containing warfare tactics and PsyOps.

Then there were the Berserkers of the Celts, Norse, and various other tribes, getting high on mind altering drugs, mixed with muscle relaxing drugs, bearskin, or wolfskin, and or running onto the battlefield completely naked, offending the delicate sensibilites of their enemies.

One of the biggest specialities of the Celts was running headlong into an enemies frontline, and running onto their swords, and walking up to the hilt, and screaming in their faces, and hacking and attacking while their cohorts came up behind fellow Celts and chopped off the enemies heads.

Let us not forget during the Middle Ages during sieges when bodies of those soldiers from inside castles would be catapulted back into the castle to spread disease, fear, and sometimes being on fire to start massive damage trying to get those inside to open the gates and flee.

In Ancient Rome, and I forget the Generel who this was, sieged a castle which was impenetrable, he and the castle occupants traded words, and the Roman General ordered an immediate surrender, the sieged castle occupants laughed and asked why they should even consider something so stupid since they had enough supplies to last 3 to 5 years. The Roman general told him because his men would do anything to accomplish their mission, and he demonstrated by ordering a battalion to begin running off a cliff, to their deaths, and after about a 1/4th of those men did this the occupants of the castle surrendered.

PsyOps is a major part of any military, it is how it is used, as well as how efectively it is used.

That is how leaders win battles.

And PsyOps are a major part of how the media does its job in tandem with Government requirements, psyops are done against all countries enemies, allies, and citizens, it is if the people know about it, if the Government officials are caught in the act, and just how effective those psyops are which shapes the very society and how it runs and or collapses.

That of course is called propaganda because that is an integral part of Government policy.

Just as it is a part of Military Doctrine.

Rand is a Government think-tank associated with not only the Air Force but the Central Intelligence Agency, a civilian corporation, used for deniability, something I've known about for 31 years now, and you can find their influence everywhere.

Existing thread here:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Please add further comments to the ongoing discussion.
Thank you







-thread closed-



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