Оружие массового обмана

[groul]

Интереснейшая статья о пропагандистской поддержке действий администрации Буша.

Да и сам сайт очень интересен: посвящен проблемам дезинформации и пропаганды в современной Америке.

Очень длинная, но весьма содержательная. Кстати там есть немного и о том, на кого работают "народные дипломаты".

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.pht...mass_deception

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Weapons of mass deception


Led into war by U.S. President George W. Bush, more than 300,000 U.S. and British soldiers--many of whom no doubt sincerely believe that they are helping to make the world a better, safer place for themselves and their loved ones--are about to risk their lives. Outside the United States, however, approximately 45 other nations have supported the Bush administration's plans (W*) , but there are pockets of liberal opposition to war against Iraq. (W*) [1] [2] The absence of broad domestic and international support for unilateral action is striking in light of the administration's aggressive public relations campaign to win the "hearts and minds" of the world. (W*)

Experts have warned that a U.S. invasion of Iraq would violate international law [3] [4] and increase the likelihood of domestic and international terrorism, making the world more dangerous. Moreoever, a majority of Americans believe that the United States should secure international support before taking action in Iraq. [5] In spite of these warnings, few anti-war viewpoints penetrate the major U.S. media or other institutions responsible for informing public opinion. [6] Indeed, the media appear to have adopted President Bush's philosophy: "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." [7] This binary worldview of "good" and "evil" nations has come to form the basis of the Bush administration's foreign policy communication strategy, with potentially dangerous consequences.

The Bush administration and its multi-national corporate sponsors have already squandered the worldwide sympathy that the United States government enjoyed following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Unilateral U.S. military actions around the world, coupled with the administration's refusal to cooperate on many international issues such as global warming, land mine proliferation, and resource conservation have contributed to rising anti-U.S., or more likely anti-Bush, sentiments throughout the world. These sentiments are especially strong in countries that are likely recruiting grounds for Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. Moreover, it is precisely because the U.S. military seems so invulnerable that America's adversaries have chosen to turn its citizens into targets.


Self-fulfilling Prophecies
The first example of the Bush mentality in practice came in his January 2002 State of the Union address, in which he described Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an "axis of evil." [8] In reality, not a shred of evidence suggested any alliance, practical or otherwise, among them. [9] Moreover, Iran and Iraq have been bitter enemies for decades. Indeed, the Bush administration has produced no evidence linking any of the three countries to the terrorists of September 11. The main thing each country had in common was that the Bush administration hated them. A logical rationale for the inclusion of w:North Korea would be to distance the US from the impression of anti-Islamism.

Nevertheless, the Bush equation has acquired the characteristics of a self-fulfilling prophecy. As the U.S. administration fans the flames of war, Iraq and North Korea have found themselves thrust for the first time into an alliance of convenience, as North Korea opportunistically uses the administration's preoccupation with Iraq to push forward its effort to develop nuclear weapons W*. The Iranians also realize that they are next on the administration's list of nations to invade, and they too have begun to respond in kind.

The Bush administration's attempt to link Iraq with Al Qaeda has also become a self-fulfilling prophecy. On the eve of war with Iraq, Osama Bin Laden emerged briefly from his fortress of solitude to call for jihad against Jews and the United States.[10][11][12] Like the hostilities between Iran and Iraq, Bin Laden's hatred for Saddam Hussein is long-standing and well-known, but thanks to the Bush administration they now see a need to fight together against a common enemy - namely, the people of the United States.

Even traditional U.S. allies in Europe are rapidly becoming enemies, thanks to the Bush doctrine. Even as the administration attempted, through PR gestures, to dispel the world's growing perception of the United States as an arrogant superpower, Donald Rumsfeld helped reinforce that perception by publicly dismissing the anti-war positions of France and Germany as fuzzy-minded thinking from "old Europe." As if that weren't enough to anger Europeans, Rumsfeld went further a few days later and equated Germany with long-time U.S. adversaries Libya and Cuba.[13] If Germany is not "with the United States," in other words; it too must be "with the terrorists."

These kind of statements contradict the beneficial role Germany has played in the war on terrorism. For example, US officials currently fail to mention how German soldiers helped protect US military personnel and families at US bases in Germany after September 11 along with the investigative and intelligence assistance Germany has provided. The German news magazine Der Spiegel reveals that Donald Rumsfeld, who is of German descent, had for a long time -- until September of last year -- strong relations with and a very positive view of Germany. It is uncertain if and when the American-German relations will be reconciled.

For supporters of the current U.S. policy, the Bush doctrine has the emotional appeal of all simplistic equations. As a solution to the problems we face, however, it is dangerously misguided. Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the Bush doctrine is its circular reasoning. If you agree with us, the doctrine says, you are a friend and your views are worth hearing. If you disagree, you are an enemy and your views are suspect. This has made it impossible for the Bush administration to listen to the views of its critics.


Ensuring Consistency
In January 2003, the Bush administration signed an executive order creating an Office of Global Communications (OGC), whose mission is to "ensure consistency in messages that will promote the interests of the United States abroad, prevent misunderstanding, build support for and among coalition partners of the United States, and inform international audiences." [14] To achieve this goal, the OGC is sponsoring a "Global Messenger" e-mail of talking points sent almost daily to administration officials, U.S. embassies, Congress and others. It is also organizing daily telephone conference calls to coordinate foreign policy messages among U.S. government agencies and representatives of British Prime Minister Tony Blair.[15]

These activities may sound rather innocuous. The idea of "ensuring consistency" is a cardinal rule of PR crisis communications, whose practitioners try whenever possible to make sure that all messages flow through a single, controlling channel. In practice, however, ensuring consistency leads to a concerted effort to enforce a "party line" on all messages emanating from the U.S. government, effectively silencing anyone whose point of view contradicts the official institutional message.

The Bush executive order also says that the OGC will "coordinate the creation of temporary teams of communicators for short-term placement in areas of high global interest and media attention." Here, what they are contemplating is the deployment of crisis teams to respond quickly to controversies. The State Department is creating an Islamic media center in London to manage U.S. communications with the al Jazeera satellite television network. The State Department is also dispatching U.S. teams abroad to counter statements issued by the government of Iraq or other critics of U.S. policy.

The administration's obsession with "staying on message" is also reflected in Bush's reluctance to hold press conferences and its insistence on tightly scripting those few conferences it does allow. Activist and journalist Russell Mokhiber says the administration's March 6, 2003 news conference "might have been the most controlled presidential news conference in recent memory. Even the President admitted during the press conference that 'this is a scripted' press conference. The President had a list of 17 reporters who he was going to call on. He didn't take any questions from reporters raising their hands. And he refused to call on Helen Thomas, the dean of the White House press corps, who traditionally asks the first question." [16]

White House communications director Dan Bartlett explained, "If you have a message you're trying to deliver, a news conference can go in a different direction." However, "In this case, we know what the questions are going to be, and those are the ones we want to answer." [17]

All of these plans fall within the framework of a "propaganda model" of communication, whose strategies and assumptions are fundamentally contrary to a democratic model. Propaganda consists of attempts to manipulate or coerce the thinking of an enemy or captive population. Some scholars refer to propaganda as a "hypodermic approach" to communication, in which the communicator's objective is to "inject" his ideas into the minds of a "target population." This is quite different from the democratic model, which views communications as a dialogue between presumed equals. The goal of the propaganda model is simply to achieve efficient indoctrination, and it therefore tends to regard the assumptions of the democratic model as inconvenient obstacles to efficient communication. (See propaganda versus democracy.)

These may seem like merely a theoretical point, but it has serious practical consequences. The Bush administration's approach to communication through the Office of Global Communications is bound to fail, and it is failing already. In reality, it is impossible to "ensure consistency" and control the channels of communications on an international scale, and glaring contradictions are already evident in the Bush administration's message strategy.


The World's Biggest Focus Group
The first contradiction comes when the Bush administration tries to counter the growing worldwide perception of the United States as an arrogant nation while simultaneously refusing to listen to its critics. Rumsfeld's dismissal of France and Germany as "old Europe" is only one example of the administration's inability to listen to other points of view. The same pattern was also evident following February 15, 2003, when more than 11 million people protested in cities throughout the world to oppose an invasion of Iraq. Conservative pundits disingenuously characterized the protesters as "treasonous" and as "giving comfort to Saddam Hussein." [18] Bush himself airily dismissed the protests, saying that he doesn't "decide policy based upon a focus group." [19]

Bush's statement speaks volumes, both about his disregard for real opinion, and about his inability to think outside the framework of a propaganda model of communication. There is a world of difference between a focus group and a mass citizen protest (which attracted 500,000 people in New York alone, and more than a million in London). Marketers use opinion polls and focus groups to design strategies for selling products and policies to the public, but their purpose is simply to facilitate the delivery of propaganda. Polls are not intended to influence what to do but simply how to sell it. It is inconceivable that Pepsi would let a focus group tell it whether to sell fizzy brown soda. All it wants to know whether the Britney ads are working better than the Ozzy ads. The people who show up at political rallies, however, are trying to send a message about what to do.

Bush's claim that he doesn't rely on focus groups is also spin. U.S. politicians routinely use focus groups, and the Bush administration has been using them both in the United States and abroad. Writing in the Washington Monthly in April 2002, Joshua Green noted that "the Bush administration is a frequent consumer of polls, though it takes extraordinary measures to appear that it isn't." In 2001, the administration spent close to $1 million for polling, using political advisors like Jan van Lohuizen and his focus-group guru, Fred Steeper. "Policies are chosen beforehand, polls used to spin them," Green wrote. "Because many of Bush's policies aren't necessarily popular with a majority of voters, Steeper and van Lohuizen's job essentially consists of finding words to sell them to the public." [20]

Polling is also being used to sell the United States abroad. In May 2002, Franklin Foer reported in The New Republic that the Rendon Group, one of the Pentagon's PR firms, "monitors Muslim opinion with polls and focus groups, and then it generates plans for influencing it." [21]

Charlotte Beers, the former advertising executive who recently resigned her position as U.S. Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, also used focus groups in her work. Testifying before Congress in April 2002, Beers promised to "increase polling … in Muslim countries and communities to provide policymakers with information on foreign publics' attitudes, perceptions, and opinions so public diplomacy messages can be more effectively targeted. … These surveys will include regular polls in Afghanistan and in Muslim-majority countries to track public opinion over time. … Other enhancements include increased polling in sub-Saharan Africa on HIV/AIDS, democracy, and the economy; focused polling in Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines; research into Western Hemisphere countries, especially Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela and the Caribbean; … regular focus groups and polls in Russia and the former Soviet republics; studies in Europe on missile defense and anti-Americanism; and targeted polling in the Middle East on a variety of issues." [22]

The real problem with the Bush administration is that it doesn't consider anything but focus groups and opinion polls. It never thinks of public opinion as worth considering in its only right, and instead merely uses it to refine the message points that go out each day in its "Global Messenger" e-mails.


Bullet Points

The Power of Propaganda
PR Watch has frequently reported on manipulative and deceptive propaganda practices of governments and corporations. One of PR's dirtiest little secrets, however, is that it is often fails to influence the "hearts and minds" of its "target audiences." The Bush administration has failed at persuading the Arab world to support its policies toward Iraq. It has failed also in Europe and throughout the rest of the world, and its hold on public opinion in the United States is shaky at best.
In fact, propaganda is often more successful at indoctrinating the propagandists themselves than it is at influencing the thinking of others. The discipline of "ensuring message consistency" cannot hope to succeed at controlling the world's perceptions of something as broad, sprawling, and contradictory as the Bush administration's foreign policy. However, it may be successful at enabling people like George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld to ignore the warnings coming from Europe and other quarters. As our leaders lose their ability to listen to critics, we face the danger that they will underestimate the risks and costs involved in going to war.

One indication of the Administration's credulity regarding its own propaganda is its reliance on information coming from the Iraqi National Congress (INC). The INC was created in the early 1990s with support from the Rendon Group. At the time, the first Bush administration hoped that by sponsoring a political opposition group, it might prompt Iraqi military leaders to overthrow Saddam Hussein in a "zipless coup." This never happened, but the INC remains active today. Its head, Ahmed Chalabi, openly dreams that the United States will install him as the country's next ruler.

Writing in the American Prospect, journalist Robert Dreyfuss noted in December 2002 that the Bush administration prefers the INC's analysis of conditions inside Iraq over the analysis coming from scholars and even from intelligence agencies like the CIA. "But most Iraq hands with long experience in dealing with that country's tumultuous politics consider the INC's intelligence-gathering abilities to be nearly nil," Dreyfuss wrote. "The Pentagon's critics are appalled that intelligence provided by the INC might shape U.S. decisions about going to war against Baghdad. At the CIA and at the State Department, Ahmed Chalabi, the INC's leader, is viewed as the ineffectual head of a self-inflated and corrupt organization skilled at lobbying and public relations, but not much else." [23]

Following the First World War, Austrian journalist Karl Wiegand made an interesting observation. "How are nations ruled and led into war?" he asked. "Politicians lie to journalists and then believe those lies when they see them in print." This may seem cynical, but it was true then, and it is true today.

No one with any knowledge of history or politics would expect today's leaders to behave in a perfectly moral fashion. Few politicians have ever done that, and perhaps they never will. However, we should expect them at the very least to know what they are doing, and as Bush administration traps itself within the mirrored echo chamber of its own propaganda, the danger increases that it will miscalculate, with catastrophic consequences for the United States and the world. If Bush's invasion of Iraq triggers a pan-Islamic jihad against the United States, the religious fundamentalists close to the Bush administration may see their apocalyptic vision of the future of the Middle East become yet another self-fulfilling prophecy.

[W_z_rd]

Klass A che - shas spoyu... xm-xm.... Aaaaavveeee Maariiiiyaaaaa.... Oy, che-to menya ne tuda poneslo...