Army Psy Ops Units Targeted American Senators

Weezul writes "The US 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. An officer who tried to stop the operation was railroaded by military investigators. (see also the Hatch Act of 1939)."

Comments

Too late

[atari2600a]

We gave up any meaningful right when we signed the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, & any remaining freedoms with the PATRIOT Act of 2001, so what say you, puny civilians?

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Precisely. What would our founding fathers, specifically Alexander Hamilton, who wrote at length on this subject, have thought of our powerful central bank?

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

We gave up any meaningful right when we signed the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, & any remaining freedoms with the PATRIOT Act of 2001, so what say you, puny civilians?

Holy cow are you people starting to sound like broken records. Is this the answer to all questions? The Federal Reserve Act?! What is wrong with our schools?

Re:Too late

[atari2600a]

Put on your tinfoil hats, cause this is how it works: The rich elite that control the central banks finance the politicians that run the military that invade the land of the sand people to take their oil to benefit the bankers that have conveniently invested in the most wasteful forms of energy because waste means profit through cyclical consumption & designed obsoletance which is the same reason you can't clean the fucking fan so it runs out of warrantee so you end up having to run to the store to buy another one because it's broken so open the door get on the floor everybody walk the dinosaur.

Re:Too late

[circletimessquare]

uhhh... i hear you on the patriot act, but you do realize that the fed was brought into existence not because of some retarded senator palpatine style freedom destroying plot, which seems to be the way you think, but because people were sick of banking panic after banking panic laying waste to the economy and people's lives and financial well being:

http://history1800s.about.com/od/thegildedage/a/financialpanics.htm

and although i'd really love to hear your john birch society conspiracy theories about the fed, i'm sorry, but i have an appointment with economic reality and psychological stability that i really must keep, adieu

Re:Too late

[chill]

I believe his exact argument was "KaChing!" with some fist pumping gestures.

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

For God's sake, get off the Fed train. You haven't figured out the root of a vast conspiracy which the rest of us are blind to. You're just an idiot.

Re:Too late

[theantipop]

Pertinent: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/10/11/

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

I did not see that coming. Bravo.

Re:Too late

[mayberry42]

We gave up any meaningful right when we signed the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, & any remaining freedoms with the PATRIOT Act of 2001, so what say you, puny civilians?

What's really interesting here, is that we're not seeing the usual Big Gov't vs puny civilian story, but rather Big Gov't division A vs. Big Government to such an extent. It's one thing for, say, Bernanke to elaborate some nice rhetoric to the congress in order to explain his printing money "for the good of society". But to amass a small psychological army (no pun intended) to purposefully brainwash the congress? Now that's scary....

Re:Too late

[babblefrog]

Didn't work, did it? The panics of 1930-1933 were the worst yet.

Re:Too late

[h4rm0ny]

Holy cow are you people starting to sound like broken records. Is this the answer to all questions? The Federal Reserve Act?! What is wrong with our schools?

The US school system used to be one of the best. But it was never the same after the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.

Re:Too late

[Scrameustache]

people were sick of banking panic after banking panic laying waste to the economy and people's lives and financial well being:

Good thing they put a stop to that, then!

Re:Too late

[atari2600a]

There was no congress; the bill was signed into law on christmas eve when most where at home with their families.

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no, you're thinking of Jefferson. Once you go black, etc. etc.

Re:Too late

[chill]

Except we had the First Bank of the United States and the Second Bank of the United States, which were essentially central banks and they didn't help.

And the Fed not only didn't help avert the Great Depression, they admitted to making it worse thru over contraction of the monetary supply.

Considering the number of recessions, the modern name for bank panic, after the creation of the Fed, what exactly is your argument? They certainly haven't either slowed down or flattened out the severity of any, including the current, the ones in the 1980s and all the ones past.

Re:Too late

[Ben4jammin]

So you no longer wonder why it is that a country that has a sovereign right to print money and has a printing press is over 12 TRILLION dollars in debt? And why that same country just created TRILLIONS for the banks to cover their stupidity? Maybe there was a better way to handle the crises you speak of. Check this out: http://www.slate.com/id/2271828/ A quote:The Fed makes money ex nihilo, pulling it out of thin air rather than taking it from its coffers. Then, it pushes the money into the economy by buying up assets from banks. If you want to know why there is such income disparity in this country look no further than the fed. And check out: http://www.amazon.com/Web-Debt-Ellen-Hodgson-Brown/dp/0979560888/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1298568279&sr=8-1 Conspiracy theory? Hardly.

Re:Too late

[Kyru]

Precisely. What would our founding fathers, specifically Alexander Hamilton, who wrote at length on this subject, have thought of our powerful central bank?

Ouch! I've been shot!

Re:Too late

[circletimessquare]

yes, so we got the FDIC added, along with the glass steagall act banking protections... which were underminded starting with reagan, legislated around further through clinton, and gutted under bush ii (hey SEC: stop doing your job, there's no guy pulling off a giant ponzi scheme, naaah). leading to, surprise! the crash of 2008

anything else i can help you with?

Re:Too late

[istartedi]

The Fed shares only a small part of the blame.

1. Dual mandate of price stability and employment--came from Congress, and pulled the Fed out of areas where it's equipped to act.

2. A more regressive tax structure, started under Reagan.

3. Massive, unnecessary wars started by GWB.

4. Well meaning, but in retrospect ill advised government efforts to encourage home ownership. Also not something the Fed did.

If you're blaming the Fed, it's like blaming the tail for wagging the dog. Some people even go so far as to argue that the ability to print money causes wars. If you look at history, you see that the war comes first, then they turn to money printing. The gold standard does NOT keep people honest, honestly! As soon as government has a reason, they immediately trash the gold standard. As one author put it, "the gold standard is as good as the paper it's written on".

Re:Too late

[circletimessquare]

my argument is if you have a central bank you stabilize the economy

duhhh...

oh no wait, i'm sorry, that's not my argument. that's economic reality pretty much agreed upon by anyone with an IQ above 100 and an average education

please drink less kool aid, thanks

Re:Too late

[the_hellspawn]

No kiddin' at least he didn't rick roll us.

Re:Too late

[HermMunster]

One thought that crossed my mind as I was reading this thread. Our Supreme Court writes up their rulings along with their lines of thought, their analysis, the precedents, etc. They do so in great detail. They do so with in-depth analysis. Why not require all elected officials that are responsible for passing laws that vote yes or no, and those that abstain, including the President, to write up their decisions in as an in-depth way as the Supreme Court. And this information should be published in the same way that the Supreme Court decisions are published.

Seriously, this would make a huge difference in how we determine which ones are re-elected, because we'd understand their positions better. It'd be much harder for them to hide things and the lobbying efforts would become more obvious.

Re:Too late

[mooingyak]

I managed not to snort while laughing, but it took effort.

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

So to sum up your position, economic disaster has nothing to do with the fact that currency is mandated into the hands of the elite few, or that all the eggs are in one basket just waiting to be dropped, or that we are forced to rely on one central point of failure controlled by the man behind the curtain. According to your theory, none of that was a contributing factor to any economic disaster, and the problem is (surprise) merely lack of government power, not excess of it?

You'd make a great asset to the business of government, that's for sure. It's amazing you don't realize that government is every bit as much of a business -- with a primary goal of profit -- as the corporations you hate so much. It's also amazing that you consistently fail to accept that government is a pyramid run from the top down, not the bottom up as they'd like everyone to believe.

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Modern recessions are nowhere near as bad as bank panics. Bank panics are the difference between a ordinary recession and a depression. We had bank panics in the Depression because of Fed failure, not Fed operation. When money vanishes, you have to use IOUs and wooden nickels, and all loans are recalled because of runs on the banks, that's bank panics. Recession is just shrinking of the economy and some unemployment. Bank panics are economic catastrophes.

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

never been the same since the GOP/Reagan/Radical Right started dismantling federal fund subsidies for public schools.

Re:Too late

[chill]

My point was, the evidence of the past 2 centuries does not bear out your argument. The advent of central banking in the United States has not significantly reduced the number of nor severity of economic "panics".

You linked to a list of bank panics of the 19th Century, but neglected to differentiate between the ones that occurred with and without central banks. You also didn't compare and contrast to a list of bank panics in the 20th Century, after the creation of the Fed.

You said "this was bad" and "here is the fix", but didn't actually look at any evidence of whether or not the fix WORKED. And in this last post you resort to ad hominem attacks.

Re:Too late

[Arjes]

Worked quite well, but bank runs are prevented by the FDIC, not the Fed (but I'm sure they are related)

Re:Too late

[Culture20]

that's economic reality pretty much agreed upon by anyone with an IQ above 100 and an average education

The set of people with IQ greater than 100 is 50% of the population by definition. When qualified by "average education", the set drops to less than 50%. But the structure of your sentence implies they hold a majority opinion.

Re:Too late

[creat3d]

If the Federal Reserve Act was passed under Bush the liberal media would've torn him to pieces, but nooooooooooo!

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Allow me to add to your reality. There was 2 attempts before the Fed Reserve. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Bank_of_the_United_States And in those cases the private bank began influencing politics much like the Fed reserve does now. Because of the damage that was happening by the centralized private banks, the wise ones decided to let those banks come to an end. But as they say, those that are ignorant of the past are doomed to repeat it. Hello Fed Reserves!

Re:Too late

[toastar]

Meh, We Go through cycles, The fed is the third bank of the united states. If we abolish it, I'm sure we'll see what will happen with the 4th bank of the united states sometime in my lifetime.
Something to note, While the fed was crated before the depression, The Fed was significantly weaker origination than it was today. It wasn't until after the crash that the treasury department was banned from touching monetary policy. .

Anyhow it seems like the FDIC really has made good old fashioned bank runs a thing of the past; For a lot of people, when Wamu crashed, All that happened was they got a new checking card with a different logo on it.

Re:Too late

[gknoy]

No, he's saying that the laws as originally legislated would have prevented a lot of the recent banking problems. It wasn't until people disobeyed them, legislated additional loopholes, or decided not to enforce it that things started to really spiral out of control.

Or, that's what I believe he's saying.

Re:Too late

[bhcompy]

The Republican Congress in the 80s under Reagan found that Glass Steagall was useful and resisted the banking industry lobby that wanted it repealed. Gutted by Clinton and congressional Republicans(with major Democratic support). The Garn-St Germain act(savings and loan deregulation) was narrow and had broad bipartisan support. I wouldn't say S&L dereg undermined Glass Steagall at all(Congress reaffirmed its support in Glass-Steagall after S&L dereg), and Reagan approved increasing the amount the FDIC insured early on

Re:Too late

[SniperJoe]

If the bank is having a run on their funds, they approach the emergency lending window at the Fed, who floats them a loan to make sure that the bank stays liquid. The FDIC provides the insurance on the money in case of a bank failure, which also helps assuage public confidence in the banking system.

Re:Too late

[Sponge Bath]

"...invade the land of the sand people"

The Sand People are easily startled but they'll soon be back, and in greater numbers. Take that rich elite!

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's not too much to ask, could you please elaborate a little so kiddies like me can understand what's going on? I'm trying to go through it but it's a lot to work with for someone who started with Clinton.

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

No, if you paid attention you'd know it all turned with Abraham Lincoln signed the no child left behind act in 1776, that began the downfall of US education. The King James version of the bible was a direct result of that effort, which created Islam, that in turn forced gold prices to rise beyond compare. The resulting Federal Reserve Act of 1913, was merely a response to this chain of events.

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure can. Dont be dismissive and don't be naive. Even with the FDIC, you are still left with a non government entity in charge of the money supply. Glass Steagall was there to help, but look what happened? And the beat goes on.

I wonder too, right now, how well the FDIC would fare in a massive failure comparable to 29. What the ramifications would be of paying back millions of lost accounts totaling who knows how much while we are in such a 'troubled' state...... Seems like a turd sandwich to me.

Re:Too late

[Aldanga]

Why have a legitimate discussion when you can just use ad hominems and ignore rebuttals?

Re:Too late

[GoodNicksAreTaken]

Chase took away credit score monitoring and then raised rates and fees on everything and then raised them some more. Free credit score report every month was the only reason to have a relatively high rate WaMu card in the first place. You're correct that there wasn't a bank run and no one lost all of their money. It is ignorant to say that people didn't get screwed when WaMu became Chase and that everyone didn't get screwed by less competition in the banking industry after every bank created new fees and ridiculously high interest rates on credit when the prime rate is the lowest is has been since the the mid 50's.

Re:Too late

[jackbird]

...and the S&L deregulation went so well...

Re:Too late

[scot4875]

The set of people with IQ greater than 100 is 50% of the population by definition. When qualified by "average education", the set drops to less than 50%. But the structure of your sentence implies they hold a majority opinion.

That sounds like something that someone with an IQ less than or equal to 100 and/or a below-average education might might say.

--Jeremy

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have preferred a Bel-Air ending.

Re:Too late

[circletimessquare]

look: all of these financial regulations and government financial entities have trade offs and problems, for sure. i am not against reforming any financial regulation or government financial entity

but what i am against is this right wing libertardian nuttery that says financial rules and regulations CAUSE our problems and abolishing them will be some sort of financial utopia

fucking ignorant paint fume sniffing bullshit!

if you believe that sort of financial magical thinking that less financial regulations means a better economy, then you're just a complete moron who has no understanding of simple economic history and why these entities and regulations were created in the first place. try getting a real education, and less low iq ideological indoctrination, PLEASE

Re:Too late

[scot4875]

Pssst...

All money was created out of thin air. (well, out of a cotton/paper pulp, ink, and some printing presses, but I digress)

All money is only worth what other people are willing to give you in exchange for it. All gold is only worth what other people are willing to give you in exchange for it. What's the difference? With gold-backed currency, people are trading pieces of paper that they believe might be able to get them some amount of gold to other people who value the piece of paper that may be worth some small amount of gold, for some good or service that they believe is worth less (to themselves) than that amount of gold.

With fiat currency, all you do is take the 'gold' out of the equation; functionally, there's no other difference.

--Jeremy

Re:Too late

[bhcompy]

Regardless of how terrible it went it didn't have any effect on Glass Steagall and it is dishonest to say that "Reagan did it" considering it was a bipartisan bill with bipartisan support. He's responsible for signing it, just like Clinton is responsible for signing Glass Steagall, but that doesn't nullify the responsibility of the parties that created it and supported it

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

We gave up any meaningful right when we signed the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, & any remaining freedoms with the PATRIOT Act of 2001, so what say you, puny civilians?

Holy cow are you people starting to sound like broken records. Is this the answer to all questions? The Federal Reserve Act?! What is wrong with our schools?

I do not know where you went to, but I'm sure as hell they never taught me about the Federal Reserve Act and its implications in school.

They should have.

Re:Too late

[Austerity Empowers]

Thus far in my life, I have never gone to the bank and asked to make a withdrawal of money I had in account, and been denied. I think this is nearly unheard of. My great-grandmother told us some different stories (before and after 1913). My parents do not in their lifetime recall having been denied, nor did my grandmother who was born somewhere around 1928 (though during her early years it must certainly have been common, she would have been too young to recall it).

In my lifetime I recall 3 major economic downturns, each worse than the last, during which I personally experienced temporary devaluation of my investments, and generally slower growth than I might have expected based on prior data. In spite of this, all my investments are worth more than what I put in to them, even right now, though I do expect when dealing with "investments" that I may lose money. If I didn't want to lose money I wouldn't "invest", I'd put it in an insured bank account, or not trusting that, buy non-perishable commodities and try to hide them around the house.

So though I suspect your comment was snarky, I think we did put a stop to that. The question is have we let enough safeguards erode such that our overall economic stability might return us to my great-grandmothers time of bank panics and shortages.

Re:Too late

[Schadrach]

They'd just receive their reasoning from the lobbyists themselves, written to sound authentic and convincing. If questioned about the content of such, they'd of course get it wrong, but not knowing things like that isn't seen as terribly wrong for politicians. I mean, next thing you know, you'll expect politicians to actually know the official duties of the office they are running for.

Re:Too late

[mayberry42]

it was a hypothetical example :-)

Re:Too late

[nhaehnle]

Are you assuming that the write-up of those decision will be honest? Because when it comes to such things, honesty really comes first. Requiring massive pages of text by itself is worthless, if you cannot be reasonably confident that they are written with honesty.

Re:Too late

[Khyber]

It's a pain doing cocaine while reading slashdot, is it not? :D

Re:Too late

[DarthVain]

For those of us not USAistan whats the Federal Reserve Act of 1913?

Re:Too late

[NetNed]

So I guess my remembrance of Pelosi and Franks pushing for glass steagall to go away so they could get bad loans out there for people that shouldn't have received them, for way more then they could afford is not correct? It wasn't them pushing for it to be dissolved in order to appease the banking industry that was kissing their asses? Hell, Franks had a boyfriend working at one of the lending backers, but it was someone else pushing that, right? Surprise indeed.

Re:Too late

[metrometro]

Uh, seems like 1940-2000 was a pretty good run actually, and sharply contrasting with the previous 60 years. The Great Depression wasn't our biggest, it was just our most recent.

Re:Too late

[trollertron3000]

Well now that you put it that way, uhm, which way to your recruitment center?

Re:Too late

[trollertron3000]

Capitalization. I need help with it.

Re:Too late

[Miseph]

The act of Congress (comparable to a parliament) which created the Federal Reserve, our central bank.

Re:Too late

[chill]

No, not really. You sound young. :-)

The recessions of the 1970s and 1980s were fairly painful to people at the time. Add in the oil crisis of the the 1970s and it wasn't pretty at all. There were plenty of others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States

While Wikipedia splits them at 1930, if you want to compare the results of the Fed's presence, start the split at 1913.

It is hard to make and apples-to-apples comparison by straight numbers, because of the differences in the way various numbers (like employment stats) were figured. Also, the differences in the economy and the "speed" at which things happen in todays world of modern communication are factors.

I'm not against Central Banking, per se. I just don't believe the "independent" Fed is either effective or in the bests interest of the nation.

Watch "Money as Debt", "Money as Debt 2" and "The Secrets of Oz" for an enlightening argument on the alternative of Congress directly issuing currency as value, instead of borrowing it as debt.

You can find them on YouTube, if you don't want to buy the DVDs on my say so. :-)

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that creation of money is effectively in the hands of banks, a central bank is just there to back them up.

Re:Too late

[LrdDimwit]

Mod parent up. People dont' realize just how tilted things were before the introduction of modern banking. There's a reason you still find caches of money that someone's great-grandmother stashed because they didn't trust the banks. They had good reason not to trust the banks!

Remember all the talk about how the most recent crisis has been - if you look at the numbers - just as bad as the Great Depression? Why haven't you seen the side effects that the Great Depression had? Because of modern inventions like unemployment insurance, and bank account balances being insured.

Re:Too late

[Golddess]

anything else i can help you with?

I was always curious why we had to bailout the banks in 2008 if the FDIC exists. So the FDIC is basically an empty promise now?

Re:Too late

[pugugly]

Look at the history of recessions - Before the Fed the standard recession lasted for years, and was far deeper than anything we've seen since the Great Depression.

It's tools are limited, and far too often overpowered for small problems and underpowered for large ones, but withing those restrictions, yeah, it has made an enormous, and positive difference.

In point of fact recessions have done nothing except become longer and deeper since the rise of Reagan-ism as policy. You might think the fact that every Republican president since 1980 has had one recession start . . . per term in office . . . might tell people something. Among other things it might tell Obama he needs to quit compromising with Republicans on economics.

Pug

Re:Too late

[Aldanga]

So anyone who disagrees with your worldview or method of understanding the pathway to the circumstances in which we now live is equivalent to an undesirable fungus?

Re:Too late

[anegg]

If it's not too much to ask, could you please elaborate a little so kiddies like me can understand what's going on? I'm trying to go through it but it's a lot to work with for someone who started with Clinton.

In order to form your own opinions, I would suggest you read at least a putatively objective account of the legislation being referenced. Biased explanations by those who are already pushing their point are unlikely to help you in this regard. Reading these will give you a start, but you had better be prepared to develop your own ideas about economic theory and political theory as well. Despite economists' belief that they study a science, and the words "political science" used by those who study political theory, neither resembles more traditional scientific disciplines. Both are more about pushing theories than proving them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Act

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass–Steagall_Act

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garn–St._Germain_Depository_Institutions_Act

Re:Too late

[sumdumass]

Try a bit earlier when Carter created the Department of Education and the federal government took an active roll in shaping and construing education.

Those federal fund subsidies you claim the Right started dismantling, were only around 4-5 years max before that started happening. Most of the so called dismantling you saw was fights against budget increases being too large- not reductions in budget. Some of the dismantling happened to be changes in programs. You will find no year whatsoever since Carter was president that the federal funding for education did not increase.

Re:Too late

[goodmanj]

It created our central banking system. The fact that every other civilized country on Earth has a similar system only makes it more sinister in the eyes of our lunatic fringe.

Anytime someone utters the words "Federal Reserve Act of 1913", it's 50-50 odds what happens next. Half the time they'll follow it up by declaring that income taxes are invalid, money is only money if it's backed by gold, and fluoride treated water is a government mind control tool. The other half of the time they'll just hole up in their fortified compound and start shooting.

Re:Too late

[B1oodAnge1]

Well, you certainly proved someone's point...

Re:Too late

[pugugly]

I disagree with #1, I think the two items are fairly close together (unemployment affects price stability and vice-versa), but there are legitimate argument.
#2 and #3 are pretty obvious . .

#4? As policy, encouraging home ownership has been in place since the 70's, and most of the enacted policies being blamed have been in place far exactly that long. Drawing a line from a 40 year old policy to a 5 year old crash seems a reach, particularly when there has been som much more directly attributable deregulation (And, even taking that into account, out and out fraud by major financial players involved) in the meantime.

Two generations do not a line of causality make.

Pug

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

NO ONE expects the Federal Reserve Act of 1913!

Re:Too late

[bill_mcgonigle]

but because people were sick of banking panic after banking panic laying waste to the economy and people's lives and financial well being

You seem to think that the banking crises in the gilded age occurred in an unregulated environment. They didn't - most of the bank runs occurred when the Banks ran up against State barriers on their credit ratio.

The Fed was charged with protecting the currency. Since they've taken over, the Dollar has lost of 97% of its purchasing power. This enabled a net transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich.

Since the switch to a pure-fiat system in the early 70's, this transfer has only accelerated, being most stark in recent years. Every fiat system ever created has collapsed.

Sorry if that upsets you and your banking buddies.

Re:Too late

[circletimessquare]

no. anyone who has opinions on subject matter they don't understand is an undesirable fungus

i liked how you threw in "method of understanding the pathway to the circumstances in which we now live". as if actual factual history is something i invented and is my opinion that can be disputed, and that disagreeing with actual history i cite is a valid thought process. you need to understand actual cold hard facts, you need to understand the real world constraints of economic history. otherwise, we can all just invent alternative histories and this justifies magical thinking, right?

Re:Too late

[JustNilt]

The FDIC covers individual depositors, not the banks themselves. I won't get into why we "had to" bail out the banks as that's kind of a losing argument all around, IMO.

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

I read your link. I do not believe it means what you think it means.

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Precisely. What would our founding fathers, specifically Alexander Hamilton, who wrote at length on this subject, have thought of our powerful central bank?

The central bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the Principles and form of our Constitution. I am an Enemy to all banks discounting bills or notes for anything but Coin. If the American People allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the People of all their Property until their Children will wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered.
-- Thomas Jefferson

Re:Too late

[Panaflex]

Give the boy a Mod - absolutely correct interpretation IMHO.

I disagree with the Federal Reserve Act (I believe the bank should be owned by the people, not private) - but given our history, it's probably inevitable that given the attitudes towards the law that the same thing would have happened.

Re:Too late

[DarthVain]

Like the Bank of Canada?

How is that bad?

Re:Too late

[DarthVain]

Ya I just asked another post, if it is anything like the Bank of Canada (well bigger is a given), and if so, how is that bad or intrinsically evil?

Other than nowadays it is even more hard to argue that any bank isn't Satan's crib...

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Your economic reality and supposed psychological stability are rooted in roughly fifty odd years of intense progaganda by the US government and corporate interests. Pull your head out of your poop shoot and see the environment in front of you and not the illusion you have consumed from your corporate/government/religious overlords. America, land of manipulated consent and global purveyor of bullshit.

Re:Too late

[hey!]

Well, having been born in 1961 I remember the slump of the late 70s well, and it *was* the fed's fault... but you have to look at the alternative. Inflation hit 14.76% in March of 1980. So Paul Volcker put the brakes on the money supply by raising interest rates from 11% to 20%.

This was extremely unpopular because of the economic pain it caused, and if Congress were in charge it would never have happened. But Volcker was trying to prevent the country from slipping into hyperinflation. This set the stage for the "Reagan Boom", in which the economy rebounded as interest rates were dropped, but did not suffer much inflation. It might be more correct to call the "Reagan Boom" the "Volcker Boom", but even if you want to give Reagan all the credit, he couldn't have done it with an economy spiraling into hyperinflation. So in the not-so-long-term, disinflating the economy turned out to be the right thing to do.

But notice -- 1980 was an election year, and a presidential election year at that. There's a very good chance that Reagan would never have been elected were it not for the short term pain of reining in inflation. Congress would never restrict the money supply in an election year, *and every other year is an election year*.

In any case, the primary objective of a central bank is to maintain the stability of the currency. Promoting economic growth is a far, far distant second -- some would say it doesn't belong on the agenda at all. The compromise is that the bank accepts a little inflation in order to ensure there's enough credit in the economy to support economic growth.

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the polite, thoughtful rebuttal. It's a treat to see that on Slashdot, and especially on a topic that can lead to some really inflamatory discussions.

To flesh out #1, I think a lot of the unemployment is due to medium-term effects such as technological change. For example, the post office losing out to email. I believe the Fed, under ordinary circumstances, can do *some* things with monetary policy that are good for employment. However, when we're out of that nominal range and they try to boost employment, it's a problem. Figuring out when you're out of that range, using rational measures, is an interesting problem for some economics professors I'm sure. Perhaps you could survey businesses and ask them what they need. If they cite the inability to obtain favorable financing as a barrier to expanding their business, then monetary policy might be the answer. OTOH, if they cite the loss of customers due to competition as the reason for laying people off, then monetary policy is probably not the answer.

As for #4, while there were always policies to encourage home ownership, we accelerated them and yes, deregulation resulting in NINJA loans was a part of that. I would agree with adding deregulation as a separate #5.

Re:Too late

[operagost]

Do you seriously believe that the mere existence of the Federal reserve system is taught in public schools? I'm sure the average 18 year old has not clue what half the crap on paper money signifies other than "it buys me stuff; give me more".

Re:Too late

[marcello_dl]

If somebody is going to use money as a mean of control, it must make it powerful...by making it scarce. Making it scarce for everybody is not a good idea, better to have a bunch of selected kapos getting rich in proportion to their effectiveness at milking their subjects. People with enough money and time to grow up culturally and to get interested in social issues are the real enemies of such a highly hypothetical system which can't be formed because we are in a society where conspiracies never happen. Oh wait.
 

Re:Too late

[operagost]

Drug abuse used to be painless before the USA Patriot Act of 2001!

Re:Too late

[operagost]

Because it is allowed to control the money supply; almost without exception this is done to create inflation. It is also allowed to act as a lender of last resort to financial institutions. In practice, it allows smaller banks to be liquidated while huge institutions (sometimes not even financial institutions like AIG) are considered "too big to fail".

Re:Too late

[LifesABeach]

I can't help but wonder if any of the 'ol goats fell over? LOL

Re:Too late

[operagost]

It all makes sense when you remember that Frank also opposed tighter regulation of Fannie and Freddie in 2003.

Re:Too late

[operagost]

If you base your arguments on straw men, you really have no arguments to speak of.

Re:Too late

[operagost]

HOLY CRAP-- the Great Depression occurred AFTER the Fed was created and lasted twelve years-- and you say Reagan created long recessions? You also have a little post hoc going on their with your "Republican presidents create recessions" theory-- especially considering that Congress creates budgets. Before the Fed, the Depression/Panic of 1893 lasted five years. So did the one in 1873, although it was not as deep.

Re:Too late

[operagost]

It's great that you don't have to worry about a run on the banks. Unfortunately, instead we have to worry about our money becoming worthless as more of it is printed to bail out failing financial institutions instead of liquidating them.

Re:Too late

[operagost]

The next depression in the USA will be caused by the Fed overprinting money and causing hyperinflation. You'll be able to get your money, but it will be worthless by the next day.

Re:Too late

[operagost]

Really? What's easier: to mine more gold, or print more paper? Hint: scarcity.

Re:Too late

[slashgrim]

The Republican Congress in the 80s under Reagan found that Glass Steagall was useful and resisted the banking industry lobby that wanted it repealed. Gutted by Clinton and congressional Republicans(with major Democratic support). The Garn-St Germain act(savings and loan deregulation) was narrow and had broad bipartisan support. I wouldn't say S&L dereg undermined Glass Steagall at all(Congress reaffirmed its support in Glass-Steagall after S&L dereg), and Reagan approved increasing the amount the FDIC insured early on

D's controlled the House under all of Reagan's term: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Control_of_the_U.S._House_of_Representatives.PNG The Glass-Steagall Act wasn't repealed until 1999 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Act#Repeal The Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act which "removed the power of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors under the Glass–Steagall Act" was passed in 1980 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depository_Institutions_Deregulation_and_Monetary_Control_Act under D controlled House, Senate and Executive http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Control_of_the_U.S._Senate.PNG

Re:Too late

[asylumx]

In Soviet Russia, tails wag dogs.

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

uhhh... i hear you on the patriot act, but you do realize that the fed was brought into existence not because of some retarded senator palpatine style freedom destroying plot, which seems to be the way you think, but because people were sick of banking panic after banking panic laying waste to the economy and people's lives and financial well being:

http://history1800s.about.com/od/thegildedage/a/financialpanics.htm

and although i'd really love to hear your john birch society conspiracy theories about the fed, i'm sorry, but i have an appointment with economic reality and psychological stability that i really must keep, adieu

La la la la la la - I can't hear you - black hate, sand people, faggot, feminists, people who can read, people who don't fuck their own children, go Sarah, la la la la, UN plot, UFOs, the troof, la la la la, you're a Jew, la la la

Re:Too late

[Noughmad]

"...invade the land of the sand people"

The Sand People are easily startled but they'll soon be back, and in greater numbers. Take that rich elite!

Will they bring worms?

Re:Too late

[Darinbob]

It's um, a lunatic thing. What you have to understand about USAians, it that we're all a bit kooky. Even me. Even Canadians who have visited Niagara Falls have gone away feeling a bit fuzzy for a few days.

The first key USAian eccentricity is that we refuse to allow anyone to tell us what to do. Ever. If we are asked to breathe deeply by our doctors during an exam our first instinct is to hold our breath. Our second instinct is to scan those diplomas on his walls to see if any are from Moscow.

Our second eccentricity is to believe that everything used to be better. We all know that the Pilgrims had much better smart phones than we have today. They also lived in harmony with their indigenous neighbors as well, teaching them how to cook turkeys. But because those indigenous persons weren't real Americans they all turned violent in their attempt to impose their International Communist Conspiracy on us.

Our third eccentricity is that we think we're the best country on earth. That means in every single possible way. Any other democracy is not as democratic as ours. People from Switzerland who claim to be happy are not as happy as they could be if only they were living in Burbank and paying fewer taxes. All good ideas come from the US.

Our fourth eccentricity is that we don't let logic get in our way.

So combine all that, and it's clear why the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was a communist plot. We used to have a gold standard, and because it was older it was clearly better than the new way. The Federal Reserve bank has the power to tell other banks what to do, and that's clearly not right and un-democratic. The fact that other countries have central banks is no consolation, because even our lousy banking system is better than the corrupt terrorist run banks everywhere else.

Re:Too late

[Noughmad]

Oh, the eternal struggle between Capitalization and Socialization...

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

That's thanks to the FDIC, it has nothing to do with the Federal Reserve.

Re:Too late

[thetoadwarrior]

It's all because of the RAND corporation in conjunction with the saucer people.

Re:Too late

[khallow]

And fifth, the apologists. We have to be sorry for being just like everyone else... only better!

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

>

In my lifetime I recall 3 major economic downturns, each worse than the last, during which I personally experienced temporary devaluation of my investments, and generally slower growth than I might have expected based on prior data. In spite of this, all my investments are worth more than what I put in to them, even right now, though I do expect when dealing with "investments" that I may lose money.

Your investments are worth a greater quantity of dollars. Are they worth a greater quantity of goods you will consume? Medical bills? Childrens' college expenses? Gasoline? Food?

Re:Too late

[hairyfeet]

Because it took control of the money supply away from congress and by extension We, The People, and instead handed it to a nice little cabal of insiders (Mostly Goldman Sachs elite, but a few others as well) and when you compare the USD to what is was Pre Fed you are looking at a dollar that is worth one half of one cent compared to the USD that existed in 1912.

To quote one of the Rothschilds ""Give me control over a nation's currency and I care not who makes its laws" and no truer words have been spoken, because while leaders come and go the power elite still have their hands on the throat of the country thanks to control of the currency.

Re:Too late

[drsmithy]

Since they've taken over, the Dollar has lost of 97% of its purchasing power.

By what measure ?

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

History is actually on the side of the goldbugs in some respects though. Paper currrencies have hyperinflated, and gold hasn't. I've never disagreed with the goldbugs on that particular point.

My disagreement with the goldbugs has more to do with various details.

For example, gold is superior to all forms of fiat money; but only on very long time horizons. An investment in gold has underperformed for the past few generations*. However, the US currency will collapse some day resulting in the goldbugs possibly coming out ahead. This is why doomsday scenarios and a goldbug position go hand-in-hand. It's the only scenario where they win; but it's a potentialy huge win. Simply socking all your extra money in gold and waiting is an easy strategy to execute. There are countless downsides, such as theft, confiscation, etc. But if you can evade those then you come out the other side of a crisis, just as wealthy as you were on side A (in absolute terms) and far more wealthy than your peers (relative terms) since most of them aren't goldbugs.

The trouble is, the odds seem to be lower that you'll live through the right kind of economic transition than that you will.

The last two transitions in the US were during the Depression and Nixon shock. The 'bugs were thwarted by confiscation first, and then by interest rates secondly.

Now we get to find out if the 3rd time is the charm. Will the high US debt spark hyperinflation that the 'bugs have been waiting for? Or, will we have Japanse malaise for a generation before the real crisis.

For someone like myself, who doesn't really want to be a "true believer" in fiat *or* gold, the question is, "what's the most rational hedge that will work out reasonably well regardless of how it unfolds?".

*Please don't cite the absolute value of a dollar to refute that. You're not accounting for compound interest and other factors, so it's not an apples-to-apples comparison.

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

The lion's share of Gold is used either as jewelry or as an investment. It's safe to say that Gold's current "price" - which is inflated by those buying it to stare at rather than use, is unrelated to its value.

So yes, actually, Gold's price has nothing to do with mining more of it, and everything to do with a entirely cosmetic valuation. If Gold ever became unfashionable, the price would drop to levels only a little higher than copper.

Re:Too late

[c0lo]

The next depression in the USA will be caused by the Fed overprinting money and causing hyperinflation.

Bad use of verb tenses... it already happens. 12 trillions in debt, with oil crisis looming and not enough of energy sources other than oil to use in reviving the economy.

Re:Too late

[Ihmhi]

You're in the position to make investments and have savings. You're not the sort of person hit worst when things go tits up in the economy. I do agree with your points overall, though.

When banks can essentially do that whole sub-prime mortgage sold as investments sort of thing - which was borderline fraud IMO - then I'd say yes, we've let enough safeguards erode.

I honestly believe that anytime a business gets too big they are able to abuse their power. You don't hear about the small bank company with a dozen branches in one state doing shit like this. It's always the huge multinational conglomerates or the companies that make billions of dollars a year. The banks can effectively hold the economy hostage just as the RIAA & MPAA hold our culture hostage.

Re:Too late

[bill_mcgonigle]

Consumer Price Index is at 95% as of 2009 (and last year was pretty bad).

Commodities are similar. Seeing as gold was the standard at the time, we can consider that thusly:

(1-(1/(1400/25)))*100 = 98.2% loss over the same period. That's approximately the same.

Re:Too late

[drsmithy]

Are you implying incomes have remained unchanged since 1913 ?

Re:Too late

[bill_mcgonigle]

Are you implying incomes have remained unchanged since 1913 ?

Are you implying I'm stupid?

Just because the market needs to keep futzing around with salaries because of out of control inflation doesn't have much to do with the Fed failing its charge to protect the value of the currency.

But, because it does have an inflationary policy, peoples' savings are continuously wiped out ('savings' being a feature, predominantly, of the less financially savvy). The workers who are under salary freezes right now? They're making less and less every month, even though the nominal pay is the same.

Bankers and politicians don't have this kinds of problems to worry about.

Re:Too late

[moortak]

Yes, but they kept their money. The FDIC can't ensure your new bank isn't a bunch of dicks.

Re:Too late

[drsmithy]

Are you implying I'm stupid?

No. I'm implying you're using ridiculous hyperbole.

What good or service, proportionate to individual wealth (ie: income + assets), and outside of short-term price bubbles, has seen a 100x increase in cost since 1913 ?

But, because it does have an inflationary policy, peoples' savings are continuously wiped out ('savings' being a feature, predominantly, of the less financially savvy).

Most people with and income stream sufficient that "saving" means something, are "financially savvy" enough to know you don't just leave the cash lying around under a mattress.

Re:Too late

[Thing 1]

Watch Zeitgeist: the banks created the panics, in order to bring about the central bank. Sheesh, history.

Re:Too late

[bill_mcgonigle]

What good or service, proportionate to individual wealth (ie: income + assets), and outside of short-term price bubbles, has seen a 100x increase in cost since 1913 ?

Well, that's the point of the CPI - it's an entire basket of such goods and services, smoothed by the variation in the contents. Are you disputing the CPI as invalid?

Most people with and income stream sufficient that "saving" means something, are "financially savvy" enough to know you don't just leave the cash lying around under a mattress.

For most of the time period in question, savings rates were often 10-20% of income. And a large majority of people used savings accounts to store their wealth, the interest rates on which often lagged the inflation rate.

It's only in the past 30 years or so that individual investors have gotten into more sophisticated financial instruments that could well-beat inflation (though that's been much less true since the NASDAQ bubble burst) and if you look at a graph of inflation rates for the 20th century, you'll see why they needed to switch en masse.

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Your question is irrelevant. If a dollar bought 100 units of item X in 1913, but only 3 of that same item today, then the dollar has lost 97% of its purchasing power. It's that simple.

Now, to make up for this horrendous policy of inflation, incomes have had to rise, but they never keep pace with inflation. They always lag behind. The average person doesn't understand this and therefore doesn't see the threat inflation and dollar devaluation poses to them.

Re:Too late

[triclipse]

The argument is not that "printing" money creates wars but that it makes war easier to wage because wars can paid through inflation.

Re:Too late

[boxwood]

Yeah because things were sooo much better when inflation was determined by the amount of gold that miners could pull out of the earth in a given year OR how much gold your military could take from other countries' treasuries. I mean having inflation set consciously by educated people who are attempting to increase the public good is totally stupid and goes against our FRREEEEDDDOMMMMMSS.

Exactly how is it different to have monetary policy controlled by a rich elite vs. having the gold supply controlled by a rich elite? And you do realize that inflation goes against the best interest of the rich elite, don't you? The rich have wealth and inflation decreases the value of that wealth does it not? While if you have a mortgage and a car loan, inflation decreases the value of the money you owe. It seems to me that this huge conspiracy of the banks to have inflation is one of the stupidest conspiracies of all time. They are making the money that people owe them worth less.

Or maybe, just maybe, they are setting monetary policy in such a way to keep the economy stable. Nah, that doesn't make any sense, they must be making money worth less (which hurts themselves) to screw us all over somehow.

Re:Too late

[boxwood]

Yeah its like the Bank of Canada or any of the other central banks that almost every single currency in the world has. Teabaggers seem to think inflation is evil and that all money should be backed by gold because otherwise their money could be worth money at some point. Of course this ignores the fact that even if the US treasury could acquire all of the gold in the world they still wouldn't have enough to equal the value of all the US dollars in the world. Which means that to go back to the gold standard the US would have to devalue the dollar or start mining asteroids for gold to get enough to back all their dollars. They also ignore the fact that if you owe money then inflation is good for you. And they also ignore that unless you keep your entire savings under your mattress, you probably have your money invested in something else, you're not affected by inflation.

I guess its an american thing where there are a lot of people fantasize about living alone in a remote area with a bunch of cash (which is backed by gold) in a safe and a bunch of guns around to defend it from bandits. Of course the reality is that most people have a mortgage and a car loan and the current system benefits the majority of the people in the US. But since it doesn't work well for their fantasy frontiersman, they feel the need to go on the internet (while sitting in their mortgaged house) and proclaim how the federal reserve is ruining their lives. In fact its likely making their lives better, but its ruining their fantasy life so fuck that.

Sort of like how in one state the government put it to a referendum that they should lower taxes for the poor and raise taxes for the rich. The poor voted against it (meaning they were voting against lowering taxes for themselves) because in their fantasy they are rich and don't want the rich to have to pay more taxes.

I don't get it. The American Dream is one thing but when it becomes the American Fantasy World it becomes very bizarre.

Re:Too late

[drsmithy]

Well, that's the point of the CPI - it's an entire basket of such goods and services, smoothed by the variation in the contents. Are you disputing the CPI as invalid?

Er, no ?

You are asserting that a dollar only has 1/100th the value today as it did a century ago. That implied that someone of a proportionally similar income only has 1/100th the buying power today as they did in 1913.

So I'll ask again. What good or service costs - in proportion to individual wealth - 100x as much today as it did a century ago ?

Re:Too late

[drsmithy]

Your question is irrelevant. If a dollar bought 100 units of item X in 1913, but only 3 of that same item today, then the dollar has lost 97% of its purchasing power. It's that simple.

So which good or service that someone earning a median income can only buy 1/100th of today as they could in 1913 ?

Re:Too late

[VanessaE]

When you put it that way, I think he'd be hard pressed to find an answer. However, that's because your math is wrong. A 95% drop in the value of something is the same as saying that the item in question retains only 5%, or 1/20 of its original value. A 98% drop leaves 2%, or 1/50 of the original value.

Few people would have a hard time finding things that saw a 20x increase in price over the past 98 years. Even a 50x increase isn't hard to find.

Just off the top of my head: Bread went from 5.6c/lb to about 60c/lb for the low quality stuff (10.7x increase). Hershey's chocolate went from 3c/oz to ~63c/oz (~21x). The daily edition of the New York Times went from 5c/issue to $2.00 (40x). Gold went from $20.67/oz to $1409.00/oz (~68.2x). A gallon of gasoline went from about 20 cents to $3.20 (16x). The Ford Model-T sold new for $550 in 1913, while the cheapest new car today is the Hyundai Accent, at around $10,700 (~19.5x).

According to the US government's published data, inflation sits at about 2100% relative to 1913 (as the CPI has risen from 9.8 to 220.2), consistent with the above figures, though some things have *way* outpaced inflation.

Re:Too late

[VJ42]

I agree with almost everything you said but

And they also ignore that unless you keep your entire savings under your mattress, you probably have your money invested in something else, you're not affected by inflation.

Here in the UK the current Bank of England rate is 0.5% & inflation is between 3 & 4% so money in current accounts and even money in many savings accounts is affected by inflation. You have to be really a savvy or lucky saver to beat it at the moment.

Not only that, but a large part (perhaps a majority) of the UK population have little or no savings, so combined with our current austerity measures (i.e. pay freezes, cuts, VAT increase etc.) inflation has had an impact on people's purchasing power - they feel poorer, even if technically they're not.

Whilst people here aren't quite as crazy (at least in public) as some of the stuff I've heard from the US, they certainly don't like inflation.

Re:Too late

[Internetuser1248]

It is also worth noting that one major difference between the US federal reserve system and some others around the world, is that in some countries, notably many european countries and New Zealand (This is the only one I am sure of but wikipedia has the details), the central bank is owned by the government and all profits go to the state coffers. In the US all profits of the fed go to a group of anonymous private shareholders.

Re:Too late

[DarthVain]

LOL!

Though to be fair, I think it is pretty common, particularly for the older generation (though I can no see younger generation which is hit with no jobs etc...), remembering or thinking about the previous golden times. However that is not to say they are not seeing the past through rose colour glasses. Nostalgia probably makes it seem better than it actually was.

Re:Too late

[DarthVain]

fantasy frontiersman, I like that.

Makes me think of the "Rugged Individual Industrialist" archetype from such books as Ben Bova, Robert Heinlein, and Ayn Rand.

Totally fiction (literally! literally literally! :) and unrealistic in every way. Romanticizing an ideal that doesn't exist in the US nor has it ever. The gap between the very rich and everybody else in the US has been increasing since it became a country. Sure everyone has a chance to make it rich, through hard work and a hell of a lot of luck, but that's just it, your "chance" is probably less than winning the lottery. Most just scrape away a living and hopefully make it a littler easier for their children. The deck is so stacked in favor of those that already have money acquiring more of it and against those that don't. That's the ugly reality, that's the reason for the gap. Its also the reason for almost every revolution ever. The only thing that the US has going for it, is that there is so much money, that even the very poor are a lot better off than the poor in many countries. That said, the kind of growth and inequality cannot continue forever, and I think we are starting to see the cracks in the foundation the last couple of years. I think there may be some more major issues in the next 5-10.

Re:Too late

[DarthVain]

OK that is mysterious and sketchy. A secret cabal of Illuminati and Skulls!

Re:Too late

[drsmithy]

Just off the top of my head: Bread went from 5.6c/lb to about 60c/lb for the low quality stuff (10.7x increase). Hershey's chocolate went from 3c/oz to ~63c/oz (~21x). The daily edition of the New York Times went from 5c/issue to $2.00 (40x). Gold went from $20.67/oz to $1409.00/oz (~68.2x). A gallon of gasoline went from about 20 cents to $3.20 (16x). The Ford Model-T sold new for $550 in 1913, while the cheapest new car today is the Hyundai Accent, at around $10,700 (~19.5x).

You're missing the point. Raw numbers are irrelevant, you need to define them relative to some other number that *is* relevant.

What fraction of the median wage was a loaf of bread in 1913 ? What fraction is it today ? These are the kind of metrics that matter.

Re:Too late

[istartedi]

Well, just look at one example--the US Civil war. The South printed. The north issued bonds.

So, let's take this one step further and say that the ability to issue bonds makes it easier to wage war.

So let's say the government can't inflate the currency or issue bonds. Let's say they can't tax either, because the same argument would be used.

Keep removing every ability the government has to finance the war, and you end up with "X makes it easier to wage war because wars can be paid through X".

Let's say, just for the sake of argument, that the government has no financing at all. What do you end up with? Wars of conquest to obtain the equivalent of financing, to finance more wars. The Roman empire grew like that. The Vikings were initially raiders, but in some cases ended up settling in conquered territories.

War, under some circumstances, is itself a profitable venture.

So sorry, no matter how you twist it, the idea that "sound money" is any kind of antidote to war is kinda silly. Indeed, Spain's reliance on gold as currency made the Native American lands particularly tasty targets.

Re:Too late

[triclipse]

You miss my point.

So let's say the government can't inflate the currency or issue bonds. Let's say they can't tax either, because the same argument would be used.

Inflation hides the true cost of war by spreading out that cost over time and suffusing the cost throughout the economy. Wars should be paid for through taxes; that way the people experience the true cost of war closer to real time.

We have been financing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq largely through inflation, but the American public has not yet felt the full brunt of that cost. But they will.

Re:Too late

[bill_mcgonigle]

You are asserting that a dollar only has 1/100th the value today as it did a century ago. That implied that someone of a proportionally similar income only has 1/100th the buying power today as they did in 1913.

No, that's not what it means at all, it means it takes ~100 times more Dollars to purchase the same asset, or in monetary terms the USD has been de-valued by about 100. It's assumed that in an inflationary environment that prices and wages will adapt, as will exchange rates.

There are certainly technological improvements that have improved price efficiencies. Take flour, for instance. In 1913 it cost 3 cents a pound. Now it costs $3 for a 3lb bag. That means you get 5 times as much flour for the money.

It's like electronics - you expect them to get cheaper every year, because mass-production and technology drive the costs down. Without Federal Reserve inflationary policies, everything would get cheaper each year. Flour ought to cost 3/5 of a cent per pound by now, but it doesn't, it costs 60 cents a pound.

Thus, the purchasing power of the Dollar (not a person) has fallen by about 100x. It's this Dollar purchasing power that the Fed is charged with protecting. Frankly, they couldn't give two hoots about individual purchasing power (and it's not their job to directly care).

Re:Too late

[goodmanj]

Wow, that's scary. Too bad it's not true.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/faq/faqfrs.htm#5

Re:Too late

[istartedi]

"Wars should be finacned via taxation" was not the original argument. I'm not sure what this fallacy is called, but it's some kind of fallacy where you've basicly changed the argument.

Re:Too late

[drsmithy]

No, that's not what it means at all, it means it takes ~100 times more Dollars to purchase the same asset, or in monetary terms the USD has been de-valued by about 100. It's assumed that in an inflationary environment that prices and wages will adapt, as will exchange rates.

If something costs 100 times as much, but I have 100 times as much to spend, how has that money been devalued ?

Re:Too late

[bill_mcgonigle]

If something costs 100 times as much, but I have 100 times as much to spend, how has that money been devalued ?

The value of the currency has been devalued by 100x. Your purchasing power is equal. Those are two different things.

Re:Too late

[drsmithy]

The value of the currency has been devalued by 100x. Your purchasing power is equal. Those are two different things.

The dollar is an arbitrary unit of purchasing power. In and of itself, it's both irrelevant and worthless.

Re:Too late

[bill_mcgonigle]

The dollar is an arbitrary unit of purchasing power.

Yes, but it's also a unit of savings and inter/intra-national exchange. The unique position of the Dollar in the Brenton Woods agreement increases its value relative to other currencies (by about 60% - USD's held out of circulation).

In and of itself, it's both irrelevant and worthless.

It's not worthless (give me all your dollars, if you disagree), but its value now depends only upon what people agree it means. Before 1933, it was defined as 1/25 of an ounce of gold. Before 1971 it was defined as 1/35 of an ounce of gold. This is why it was selected at Brenton Woods. If you look at a chart, you'll see the value plummet after 1971.

Congress valued the hybrid commodity/credit currency system because *all* fiat currencies collapse, and that's why the Fed was charged with maintaining its value.

Whether you agree with that Congress or not is a separate issue from whether the Fed is upholding its charter.

Keep an eye on what happens after the US debt refinancing round in Fall 2013. As the USD falls relative to the currencies where products are manufactured (e.g. the RMB) things in the US are going to get very expensive. To poor people buying either foreign goods or goods traded internationally, the short-term value of the Dollar matters very much. The Dollar's value relative to any commodity is falling much faster than wages are increasing (or decreasing in a Depressionary environment).

Re:Too late

[chill]

I remember Volcker. He was one of Carter's men that Reagan retained. There have been many books written on Volker as head of the Fed, and not all agree on the motives and methodologies.

Had action been taken sooner, the relief might have come while Carter was still in office and Reagan might not have won. Who knows.

I still say that if the primary objective of a central bank is to maintain the stability of the currency, the Federal Reserve has done a poor job.

Lobbyists?

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically the army used its soldiers as lobbyists?

Re:Lobbyists?

[AndyAndyAndyAndy]

Well one of the points that Lt. Colonel makes in the article is that they have rules that restrain themselves from using propaganda against American civilians. So I guess, in that sense, they're not really lobbyists.

Re:Lobbyists?

[LWATCDR]

That is an interesting point. These troops are experts at getting people to see what you want to see. To put it another way they are experts at being persuasive. They sound more like really good public affairs officers than anything else.
So the question is this.
If they where not ordered to lie to the senators.
or
If they didn't drug them, deprive them of sleep, or blast them with heavy metal music 24/7.
Was there any wrong doing?
Simple answer seems yes since he Officer in question asked the JAG and got an answer of yes IO don't do that.
This General and his chief of staff do seem to need to have a little talk with the JAG. After this it is my guess that the CoS will never get his star and maybe not even make full col. This does seem to need looking into but I will say good job JAG and the officer that raised the questions to start with.

Re:Lobbyists?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed, seems pretty clear cut to me. JAG, as quoted in TFA:

"[Public affairs] works on the hearts and minds of our own citizens and IO works on the hearts and minds of the citizens of other nations. While the twain do occasionally intersect, such intersections, like violent contact during a soccer game, should be unintentional."

This was clearly intentional, and came with a little retaliation to boot. Not much more to say.

Re:Lobbyists?

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically the army used its soldiers as lobbyists?

Sooo, take off the uniform, make them union members, and nothing's wrong?

Re:Lobbyists?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not? Seems to be ok to use State civil servants and their unions for the same thing now.

Yeah, no conflict of interest there. No sir.

Re:Lobbyists?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is especially amusing that politicians started these wars and have now apparently lost interest (hence don't want to fund them) but don't quite know how to end them. But, the military wants to keep them going.

Glad to see we have morons for leaders (both the ones that started the wars, and the ones that don't really want to be in them).

We (the US) has enough problems, let's stop using wars as a money making machine, and stick to our knitting.

Re:Lobbyists?

[bug1]

Sooo, take off the uniform, make them union members, and nothing's wrong?

Well, there are lobbyists, so something is still wrong.

Re:Lobbyists?

[Darinbob]

Psy-Ops sounds more like marketing to me.

Starship Troopers

[Marc_Hawke]

Psy-Ops? Isn't that what Dr Horrible's, (I mean Neil Patrick Harris) character was assigned to in Starship Troopers?

Re:Starship Troopers

[LiENUS]

Yes and Rico was in Military intelligence err I mean Mobile Infantry.

Re:Starship Troopers

[KillaBeave]

Would you like to know more?

Re:Starship Troopers

[ArhcAngel]

I think it is more like the character George Clooney played in The Men Who Stare at Goats.

Re:Starship Troopers

[WrongSizeGlass]

I think it is more like the character George Clooney played in The Men Who Stare at Goats.

That movie was so much better than The Men Who Stare at Goatse. I really need to pay better attention when picking a theater.

Re:Starship Troopers

[ciderbrew]

I'd buy that for a dollar.. HA HA Hahha Haaaaa. Those bits in films tend to be the best bits.

Re:Starship Troopers

[patjhal]

Isn't that robocop not SST?

Re:Starship Troopers

[morari]

Nope, definitely Starship Troopers. The themes and general mock-propaganda were very similar between the two films however.

Re:Starship Troopers

[russ1337]

Coffee keyboard spill on isle 5.

hilarious.

Re:Starship Troopers

[ciderbrew]

I know ""I'd buy that for a dollar" was RoboCop. I said "Those bits in films" - as in, films in general.

Re:Starship Troopers

[edraven]

C|N>K

Re:Starship Troopers

[ArhcAngel]

Damn you! That's the fourth keyboard this month.

Re:Starship Troopers

[Duradin]

Same basic part-of-the-movie-but-not-part-of-the-movie function. Adds flavor without adding crunch.

Re:Starship Troopers

[theIsovist]

Not quite. I should preface this by saying it's been many years since I've talked with this particular person, but when I was in high school, a friend of mine joined the military in a Psy Ops role. His training had him driving around in a hummer with speakers in the back, with the intention of blasting whatever sort of psychologically damaging message out on the battlefield. Apparently, one of their most common sound tracks was the sound of a baby crying. According to my friend, this was supposed to be a very difficult sound for people to hear over long periods of time, and would be used to stress out and demoralize the troops. My guess is that, in this case, they are using other methods of persuasion that are less blatant, but still designed to be exceptionally persuasive. I wouldn't imagine, however, that this is anything further than what a normal lobbyist could do.

TL:DR version: Less psychic, more psychology.

Re:Starship Troopers

[elrous0]

Actually, IIRC, he was assigned to the "Games and Theory" division (their equivalent of military intelligence, with a laughably misleading name).

Re:Starship Troopers

[Anonymous Coward]

Not quite.

Dude, that means you liked The Men Who Stare at Goatse better. Ew, dude, just ew.

Re:Starship Troopers

[bckrispi]

I substitute your "Nope" with an overriding "Nope". "I'd buy that for a dollar" was a catchphrase for RoboCop. The similarities between these two films come from the fact that they were both directed by Paul Verhoeven.

Re:Starship Troopers

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah! I thought this must be right out of the "Basturds who stare at Goatse".

Re:Starship Troopers

[GPLDAN]

The Men Who Stare at Goatse.

Ah yes, the Farrely brothers movie...

Re:Starship Troopers

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet US, Goatse stare at you

Re:Starship Troopers

[Anonymous Coward]

The horror porn version of that is called The Slash Dot.

Re:Starship Troopers

[Anonymous Coward]

In this case it's "The Men Who Stare at Old Goats".

Re:Starship Troopers

[definate]

The movie title is actually a reference to who will want to see it. Since the actual movie is just a picture of Goatse for 2 hours.

You probably got duped by the trailer which was produced by another director, and included better lighting, sound, and explosions than the final. Also, the trailer had way more CGI touch ups.

However, the directors commentary on the 1080p BluRay is informative and occasionally hilarious. Matt Damon was vying for the role, but the directors decided to go with an unknown.

Re:Starship Troopers

[morari]

Haha. I was looking at the post above that, which states 'Would you like to know more?". My confusion. :P

Wrong but right

[oic0]

While wrong... if their objective is to win and have as few deaths as possible, seems like a good strategy since the government can make its self an enemy of the army, bleeding them as much as the enemy. Call em home or give what they need.

Re:Wrong but right

[Anonymous Coward]

The only morally correct way to convince someone of your position is to present the evidence (and the rationale).

Any manipulation beyond that is a deliberate attempt to derail the other person's rationality and force them into making a decision that might not be in properly alignment with their loyalties and interests, and hence is potentially harmful to the person and hence morally wrong.

PsyOps is a weapon, and has the same moral status as any weapon. Firing weapons at our own senators is also morally wrong.

Re:Wrong but right

[Xaositecte]

Getting the mission done with as few deaths as possible is the morally right thing for a commander to do.

If there is a choice to be made between manipulating senators, and getting your people killed, I'd choose manipulating congressmen any time.

Re:Wrong but right

[Anonymous Coward]

The only morally correct way to convince someone of your position is to present the evidence (and the rationale).

Not a factor when people's lives are on the line and you're the one who has to write home to their parents when they die.

Any manipulation beyond that is a deliberate attempt to derail the other person's rationality and force them into making a decision that might not be in properly alignment with their loyalties and interests, and hence is potentially harmful to the person and hence morally wrong.

Who cares? They sent you to fight a war for which you're ill-equipped, anything short of holding them hostage with you to get better funding is fine - hell even that if you don't suggest you're the one in control of the situation.

PsyOps is a weapon, and has the same moral status as any weapon. Firing weapons at our own senators is also morally wrong.

See above.

Re:Wrong but right

[nedlohs]

So you do that and now there are less resources for some other commander and so his men die instead. Since you subverted the rational decision making process there were more total deaths since resources were not allocated optimally. Congratulations you killed bunch of Americans because you know best.

Actually why bother with the government at all? You're the commander the soldiers follow your orders - just a quick overthrow of the elected government and you can just allocate the resources as you see fit - this if clearly a good thing, since you know best.

Re:Wrong but right

[Anonymous Coward]

That slope is very slippery.

As convinced as you are that your position is the correct one, it is always possible that you are simply mistaken. In that case, someone else's objective position might save a lot of people from the bad consequences of your mistake. That is one reason why brainwashing (or equivalent) is morally wrong....you might force someone to agree with you when you should have been disagreed with.

If you can't convince your audience via reason and evidence, then you don't deserve their agreement.

Of course......if our senetors are actully outright corrupt then they should be overthrown....though that is a different situation entirely.

Re:Wrong but right

[vadim_t]

I see you've studied Machiavelli well.

Re:Wrong but right

[publiclurker]

I sure hope you aren't in the military, as I would hate to think that they have stooped so low as to have someone so unfamiliar with the concepts of honor and duty anywhere in the ranks.

Re:Wrong but right

[ScentCone]

Right. But remember: the only people who are allowed to pull together information and paint a compelling, persuasive picture of what the troops in the field need are those who are sitting in a chair in a senate hearing room thousands of miles away, or those that have been asked by their new commander in chief (for the first time in months after he got elected to the job, during a war!) to fly all the way from Afghanistan for a 20-minute meeting.

Re:Wrong but right

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd think Senators would be immune to manipulation, especially with all the lobbying done to them. Maybe they are weak minded and easily to manipulate, which makes them good candidates for replacement next election cycle.

Mij

Re:Wrong but right

[JackOfAllGeeks]

The only morally correct way to convince someone of your position is to present the evidence (and the rationale).

What if the other person has compromised rationality and/or skewed priorities and interests. If they are unwilling or unable to act rationally, or they have disordered interests, is it better to act "morally correct" and unecessarily put the lives of your men at risk, or manipulate their compromised rationality in order to secure the optimal outcome for the men on the front lines?

It's a question of one man's (potentially-compromised) rationality versus hundreds or more men's lives. And remember that to "target" is the one who put those men on the battlefield in the first place.

Re:Wrong but right

[kalirion]

And yet lawyers fire these weapons at innocent jury members every day.

Re:Wrong but right

[JackOfAllGeeks]

Interestingly, no one asked the question, "what do I have to plant in their heads to get these boys home?"

Re:Wrong but right

[patjhal]

"Getting the mission done with as few deaths as possible is the morally right thing for a commander to do."

Yes but that is not accomplished by manipulating senators. That is accomplished by the commander no deploying his troops.

"If there is a choice to be made between manipulating senators, and getting your people killed, I'd choose manipulating congressmen any time."

That is just a ridiculous statement. Manipulation is the worst kind of crime. It is the manipulators who got those people in a position to be killed in the first place and now they want to manipulate their way out. More will die that way.

Re:Wrong but right

[h4rm0ny]

Getting the mission done with as few deaths as possible is the morally right thing for a commander to do.

"The mission" did not spring into being as a pure goal with its raison d'etre being its own existence in some bizarre circular logic. Tasks are assigned by higher ups to achieve the ends those higher-ups designate. If the people charged with carrying it out then turn on the people who give them their directives and try to manipulate them into changing parameters, then they're no longer fulfilling the implicit directive of carrying out their superiors' decisions, they're trying to alter their superiors' decisions and change the parameters of "the mission," setting their own goals first. We have a term for that already: it's called 'the tail wagging the dog'.

Re:Wrong but right

[Jiro]

What if the other person has compromised rationality and/or skewed priorities and interests. If they are unwilling or unable to act rationally, or they have disordered interests, is it better to act "morally correct" and unecessarily put the lives of your men at risk, or manipulate their compromised rationality in order to secure the optimal outcome for the men on the front lines?

Saying "it's okay as long as the other person has skewed priorities and ionterests" is equivalent to saying "it's okay whenever you want". Everyone thinks the other side has skewed priorities and interests.

Re:Wrong but right

[tnk1]

Psy-ops isn't a weapon in the sense of an assault rifle or an 155mm gun, its use should not be considered equivalent.

That said, using Psy-ops on American citizens is *illegal* and as such, it doesn't matter whether it involves shooting the targets or giving them hookers, a suitcase of cash and free ice cream for a year, it is not allowed. Refusing an illegal order is the responsibility of an American soldier.

If indeed these orders were issued, refused, and then the subordinates were punished, the commanders responsible for that should be court-martialed or at least their resignations should be requested as soon as the facts are ascertained after an investigation.

Once that is done, I do hope that some of these politicians do take a good hard look at the support or lack thereof that they are providing to our mission in Afghanistan. Incidents like this do not happen in a vacuum, and illegal as they may be, they often represent an environment where the perpetrators felt forced to take that action.

Re:Wrong but right

[Anonymous Coward]

"Not a factor when people's lives are on the line and you're the one who has to write home to their parents when they die." since when do commanders write letters to the hundreds of thousands of brown people they slaughter during their shitty plunder, pillage, NWO operations? people's lives are on the line because these fucknuts PUT THEM THERE. they should be hanged for that reason, not given carte blanche.

Re:Wrong but right

[JackOfAllGeeks]

Well, first, my argument was against the simplified stance of "the only moral action is..." Secondly, I didn't say "it's OK if you THINK the other person has skewed priorities," I asked "is it OK if the other person HAS skewed priorities?" The difference is subtle, but it's possible to concieve of objectively skewed priorities ("so a few million people die; look at all the money I'm making!").

And again, my point is less about the morality of this situation and more about the validity of the "the only moral action is..." statement.

Re:Wrong but right

[Rob the Bold]

Getting the mission done with as few deaths as possible is the morally right thing for a commander to do.

If there is a choice to be made between manipulating senators, and getting your people killed, I'd choose manipulating congressmen any time.

Among other things, you're presenting us with a false dilemma, are you not? That your only two choices are manipulation of your leaders or extra deaths among your people?

Re:Wrong but right

[alexo]

Getting the mission done with as few deaths as possible is the morally right thing for a commander to do.
If there is a choice to be made between manipulating senators, and getting your people killed, I'd choose manipulating congressmen any time.

What about lying to senators?
Blackmailing senators?
Brainwashing senators?
Kidnapping senators?
Torturing senators?

After all, if it saves lives...

Let's try another angle:
Is manipulating senators OK if it only has a 90% chance of saving lives?
What about 75%?
50%?
25%?
5%?

Or a different perspective:
Is manipulating senators OK if the consensus in your unit is that it will saving lives?
What if it is the opinion of yourself and your commanding officer?
What if it is solely your opinion?

So the question are:
(1) Where do you draw the line? and (2) Who should be tasked with drawing that line.

I believe that your 2nd president, John Adams, addressed that issue by defining a republic as "an empire of laws, and not of men".

Re:Wrong but right

[Supurcell]

The only morally correct way to convince someone of your position is to present the evidence (and the rationale).

What if the other person has compromised rationality and/or skewed priorities and interests. If they are unwilling or unable to act rationally, or they have disordered interests, is it better to act "morally correct" and unecessarily put the lives of your men at risk, or manipulate their compromised rationality in order to secure the optimal outcome for the men on the front lines?

It's a question of one man's (potentially-compromised) rationality versus hundreds or more men's lives. And remember that to "target" is the one who put those men on the battlefield in the first place.

Good point. We are talking about politicians here.

Re:Wrong but right

[tbannist]

Maybe getting the mission done "with as few deaths as possible is the morally right thing to do", maybe "refusing to follow orders" is morally right thing to do (such as the military refusing to fire on defenseless civilians), maybe "doing the best with what we have" is the morally right thing to do.

Whatever the situation, manipulating your superiors and attempting to subvert their ability to make rational choices is a very bad long term strategy. There's a significant chance the mission will be hurt by their actions, and it certainly may have a long term negative impact on the military. This is also going to provide ammunition to the people arguing for deeper cuts to the military. In the end this comes down to the old axiom that the ends don't justify the means. When you use evil means to accomplish good ends, you taint the ends. Sometimes you taint the ends so badly that nothing good is left.

As other have pointed out, having the military decide to use psy-ops against the democratically elected representatives of the people is only a few short steps away from a military coup. Once the military chain of command decides it knows better than it's civilian masters, it's only a matter of time before they decide they should be the masters.

Re:Wrong but right

[wealthychef]

Any manipulation beyond that is a deliberate attempt to derail the other person's rationality and force them into making a decision that might not be in properly alignment with their loyalties and interests, and hence is potentially harmful to the person and hence morally wrong.

Depends on your definition of morality. I like Sam Harris' definition of morality, which I will summarize as that which leads to increased well-being of the most people, while at the same time increasing cooperation between them. By that measure, you can start to have nuanced and rational debates about philosophy that don't get all fucking weird and supernatural.

Re:Wrong but right

[magarity]

The only morally correct way to convince someone of your position is to present the evidence (and the rationale).

Any manipulation beyond that is a deliberate attempt to derail the other person's rationality and force them into making a decision that might not be in properly alignment with their loyalties and interests, and hence is potentially harmful to the person and hence morally wrong.

PsyOps is a weapon, and has the same moral status as any weapon. Firing weapons at our own senators is also morally wrong.

Yes, Mr. Spock, no one is persuaded by anything other than cold, hard facts. Ever listen to Randi Rhodes or Glenn Beck? The military personnel trained in persuasion are probably no more or less a weapon and about the same effectiveness as the professional lobbyists who lean on senators every day, except the lobbyists are better funded.

Re:Wrong but right

[JackOfAllGeeks]

If the people charged with carrying it out then turn on the people who give them their directives and try to manipulate them into changing parameters, then they're no longer fulfilling the implicit directive of carrying out their superiors' decisions, they're trying to alter their superiors' decisions and change the parameters of "the mission," setting their own goals first. We have a term for that already: it's called 'the tail wagging the dog'.

"The Mission" is better understood as "take that hill," not "take that hill with three men and a spork." It's dangerous to make requesting additional resources an act of insubordination.

Re:Wrong but right

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

which I will summarize as that which leads to increased well-being of the most people, while at the same time increasing cooperation between them. By that measure, you can start to have nuanced and rational debates about philosophy that don't get all fucking weird and supernatural.
Oh, the old utilitarian motto. So if I get a bunch of friends together(increasing cooperation) and remove all your organs to save 5+ other people(increased well-being of the most people) you would be totally cool with that?

Re:Wrong but right

[JackOfAllGeeks]

So if I get a bunch of friends together(increasing cooperation) and remove all your organs to save 5+ other people(increased well-being of the most people) you would be totally cool with that?

Really, it's the moral thing to do. WealthyChef should be ashamed for not volunteering his internal organs.

(The obvious argument is that WealthyChef contributes more to society as a whole (double entendre?) than the five people you would save, but really that's a pretty arrogant argument for him to make.)

Re:Wrong but right

[JackOfAllGeeks]

Yes, Mr. Spock, no one is persuaded by anything other than cold, hard facts. Ever listen to Randi Rhodes or Glenn Beck?

The argument isn't that people are only persuaded by facts, but that any other form of persuastion is immoral. When you put up examples like Rhodes and Beck, I'm inclined to agree...

But the problematic assumption of his assertion is that facts always succeed in persuading, which isn't true. People constantly refuse to be moved by facts.

Re:Wrong but right

[radtea]

...with as few deaths as possible .... getting your people killed...

One of these things is not like the other. An invading army has a responsbility to act in such a way as to ensure that as few PEOPLE as possible die. Anything else is a violation of Just War Doctrine at best, a war crime at worst.

Even assuming Just War Doctrine is coherent--highly doubtful, but definitely arguable--one of its underpinnings must be to minimize the total number of PEOPLE who die as a result of the war.

Re:Wrong but right

[Oloryn]

The only morally correct way to convince someone of your position is to present the evidence (and the rationale).

Note that in general, public discourse hasn't actually engaged in this for ages. We're awash in waves of Bulverism, where the object is not to prove your position and disprove your opponent's position through rational argument, but to have your opponent's arguments dismissed on the basis of an assertion about their motives or background.

Re:Wrong but right

[trollertron3000]

So basically marketing attacks me every single day? Time for some drop kick sandwiches.

Re:Wrong but right

[wealthychef]

Did you read what I wrote? Are you really proposing that you and four other people killing me to save five other lives would increase the well-being of more people, while at the same time increasing the cooperation between people? Your example is idiotic and does not address my point.

Re:Wrong but right

[Chris Burke]

It's dangerous to make requesting additional resources an act of insubordination.

True. And it's also dangerous to not make using Psy-Ops to manipulate your superiors into granting your requests an act of insubordination.

Re:Wrong but right

[dougisfunny]

I thought ease of manipulation was one of the prime factors when shopping for a congress.

Re:Wrong but right

[h4rm0ny]

The Mission" is better understood as "take that hill," not "take that hill with three men and a spork." It's dangerous to make requesting additional resources an act of insubordination.

But requesting additional resources is not the same as lying about the facts in order to manipulate the decision makers. How would you like it if a colleague lied to your employers about how much harder / more extensive their work was than yours so that they got given more support / bonus / pay increase than you did? Now substitute that with the military distorting the facts of a matter in order to trick society into providing them with more resources? Isn't that like any number of dubious historical events where a military has bigged up an outside threat in order to get society to grant them more and more power / funds?

Re:Wrong but right

[JackOfAllGeeks]

Did you read what I wrote?

No, I was honestly just being flippant about utilitarianism.

If pressed, I'd have to admit that I operate by utilitarian principles on a day-to-day basis, but some of the extreme-end arguments do get pretty weird and supernatural.

Re:Wrong but right

[pugugly]

You posit that someone can make better decisions based on incorrect information than correct information.

If you've come to the decision based on what you believe to be correct information, then your logic indicates that you can make decisions based on correct information, but others cannot. Therefore you can in fact only come to this conclusion because you are operating based on incorrect information.

Your premises result in a paradox. Examine your premises.

Re:Wrong but right

[pugugly]

Yes, but barring their explicitly saying so, you cannot objectively verify they have skewed priorities, you can only 'Think' they have them.

Since the entire question is based on you're only 'thinking' you are doing good by lying to achieve your own aims, defaults back to the original question, does your internal vision of reality justify lying to someone else based on the assumption that you are inherently correct.

Pug

Re:Wrong but right

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see anything that indicates that they lied.

Re:Wrong but right

[JackOfAllGeeks]

Yes, but barring their explicitly saying so, you cannot objectively verify they have skewed priorities, you can only 'Think' they have them.

I dispute the assertion that you can't gauge one's priorities by means other than them saying so. I'm not claiming it's easy to determine in any given situation, but that doesn't mean the scenario is absurd.

Even if that weren't true, sometimes they do say as much outright, so I'm not sure what you're driving at, except to strawman my argument against the overly-simplified morality presented by the AC above.

Re:Wrong but right

[tragedy]

The inevitable end result of this sort of reasoning would seem to be a military coup against the government. The way it's supposed to work is that government tells the military what to do, not the other way around. They can advise government, but they're not supposed to do it as a form of manipulation. If military personnel want to influence government, they can vote, or they can run for government offices once they leave military service.

Re:Wrong but right

[c0lo]

So you do that and now there are less resources for some other commander and so his men die instead.

Worse that that... you have the civilian population supporting you deprived by the resources that may be needed to continue supporting you.

Re:Wrong but right

[c0lo]

If there is a choice to be made between manipulating senators, and getting your people killed, I'd choose manipulating congressmen any time.

Why shouldn't I consider this choice as a false dichotomy?

Re:Wrong but right

[Xaositecte]

You should, I set up the dichotomy to argue a point, not prove an absolute moral law.

GP was of the opinion that manipulating your superiors is always the morally wrong choice to make, and while I agree to that in most circumstances (for example, in TFA the main accusation is that the General in question was doing this to further his career, not help his men) - it's a morally wrong choice to make, there are circumstances where it would be the right choice.

Re:Wrong but right

[Xaositecte]

In the perfect war, the enemy would surrender before the fighting even began, and there would be no deaths at all.

Failing that, the idea is to minimize your own casualties, minimize civilian casualties, and maximize enemy casualties.

Killing the enemy isn't the begin all and end all of it (the enemy should almost always be allowed to retreat, you should always accept a surrender in good faith, etc.) - but you should never shy away from ensuring the maximum number of enemy combatants are killed.

Re:Wrong but right

[Xaositecte]

I set up the dilemma to argue a point, not prove an absolute moral law.

GP was of the opinion that manipulating your superiors is always the morally wrong choice to make, and while I agree to that in most circumstances (for example, in TFA the main accusation is that the General in question was doing this to further his career, not help his men) - it's a morally wrong choice to make, there are circumstances where it would be the right choice.

Re:Wrong but right

[Xaositecte]

Hi, I spent four years in the military.

One of the most valuable lessons I learned is how to get things accomplished despite an overwhelming bureaucracy. It's necessary to manipulate the system just to get your job done sometimes, and it doesn't surprise me at all that this extends to the upper echelons of the military.

Re:Wrong but right

[tchdab1]

Is it wrong if the people using the weapons think they are effective, but they're really not?

No one has explained what psyops actions were taken. Perhaps they just recommended asking the senators for money when the moon was in Libra.

Re:Wrong but right

[laddiebuck]

No. I'd give a reasoned argument but examples and quotes are more memorable, so here's a quote from Robert Bolt's "A Man for All Seasons":

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Stick by the law, protest within the law, try to change the law.

Re:Wrong but right

[Slider451]

Hi, I spent four years in the military.

One of the most valuable lessons I learned is how to get things accomplished despite an overwhelming bureaucracy. It's necessary to manipulate the system just to get your job done sometimes, and it doesn't surprise me at all that this extends to the upper echelons of the military.

You must have been in logistics. Sounds like classic 'acquisition' talk by a supply guy.

Re:Wrong but right

[Slider451]

Good post. Wish I had mod points.

Re:Wrong but right

[jahudabudy]

If you've come to the decision based on what you believe to be correct information, then your logic indicates that you can make decisions based on correct information, but others cannot

Which is absolutely the correct conclusion for specific people in specific circumstances. It would be nice if everyone were always rational, or always put their responsibilities to their position and/or fellow man above their own self-interest. But that simply isn't so. If I know my superior will make an irrational, disastrous decision based on the facts, it strikes me as immoral and irresponsible to allow that to happen.

Re:Wrong but right

[jahudabudy]

But the problematic assumption of his assertion is that facts always succeed in persuading, which isn't true.

I would say that a further problem implicit in taking his assertion as any sort of general moral argument is the assumption that all differences of opinions have a fact-based resolution. Imagine I go home tonight and want sex but my girlfriend isn't in the mood. The only "moral" attempt at persuading her to have sex with me is simply stating the facts: "I am horny, having sex with me will satisfy me and make me less likely to seek sexual gratification elsewhere. This will not be much of an inconvenience to you." It would be "immoral" of me to, you know, seduce her into WANTING to have sex with me.

At least the war...

[Anonymous Coward]

At least the war was 'legal', or was it?

Joking??

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, is it April 1st today?

No rule of law in America

[Hatta]

What are the chances anyone will serve time for this crime?

Re:No rule of law in America

[Anonymous Coward]

circa 1939? Maybe you can hire some bulldog like Ken Starr to posthumously investigate and punish these heathens.

Re:No rule of law in America

[rbollinger]

What Crime? Basically they were asked to look up voting records of the visiting senators and help adjust the General's presentations to make increasing troops and funding appear as the best course of action. This is no different than anything a business would do before going into negotiations, and definitely no different that what the media outlets do. Also, there is two sides to every story, so is the Married man sensationalizing orders from his boss because he was caught cheating, or is the General digging up dirt his subordinate because he was caught... doing his job?

Re:No rule of law in America

[Daniel Dvorkin]

RTFA. This was more than looking up voting records. They were targeting their fellow Americans with techniques designed specifically for use against the enemy, which is prohibited by law for good reason. It's no different than if a soldier pointed his rifle at a visiting politician and said, "Senator, vote for the new defense appropriations bill or I'll blow your head off."

You may be right that it's the same thing any business or news organization would do. The difference is that We, the People, do not invest in Microsoft or the New York Times the authority to kill people in our name. The rules are different for the military, and they damn well should be. If you want to live in a country where the military runs like a business, there are plenty of places in the world for you to try. Most of them aren't very pleasant places to live. Why don't you give it a shot, so to speak -- the experience will be very educational for you, if you survive it.

Re:No rule of law in America

[gandhi_2]

Every large bureaucracy in the government has a public affairs arm whose job it is to convince the public and policy makers that their bureau is important and deserves some pie.

My wife, as part of her job as a wildlife biologist, is to spend time indoctrinating school children in the importance of wildlife and natural habitat.

She may not be formally trained in psyops, but being a woman she is naturally predisposed to mental manipulation. This isn't really any different.

Re:No rule of law in America

[Ancantus]

You should update your sig to Slashdot 3.0

Re:No rule of law in America

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Again, please RTFA. I really, really doubt your wife uses any tactics on schoolkids like those the Army was using on visiting politicians.

Re:No rule of law in America

[SETIGuy]

Last time I looked it was illegal to use federal funds for lobbying.

Re:No rule of law in America

[rbollinger]

Yes I did read the whole article? Would you care to point out which broken law you are referring to and which other 'Psy-Ops' techniques are forcing our Senators to vote a specific way? In the article, they only refer to getting background information on the Senators and adjusting their presentations. The article implies that they are doing something more nefarious but in reality there is nothing else added to the article to back up this claim.

Re:No rule of law in America

[characterZer0]

The article was pretty light on details about what the tactics were.

Re:No rule of law in America

[gandhi_2]

Having spent some time in the Army, and having had some exposure to PsyOps attempts... I have concluded that PsyOps earns its stripes at the strategic level, not the tactical level: they don't really mold minds on an individual basis.

Steering whole units OVER TIME with ruses, not a room-full of VIPs in a few afternoons with jedi mind tricks.

If you really think that PsyOps is some jedi mind trick bullshit, you've watched too many movies. At best it is some pogues in the woods with loudspeakers on thier HMMWV trying to make the enemy scouts tell their commander that they hear tanks when there really aren't any.

These aren't psychologists, hypnotists, or jedis... they operate based on very basic ideas and techniques. And already /. is filled with comments from pasty basement dwellers who love Clancy books and SciFi movies, commenting with wild-eyed amazement at the thought of such amazing intrigue.

Re:No rule of law in America

[camperdave]

"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."

Sounds a little bit more ominous than tweaking a Powerpoint presentation, especially that bit about being prohibited from doing that to our own people.

Re:No rule of law in America

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA. This was more than looking up voting records. They were targeting their fellow Americans with techniques designed specifically for use against the enemy, which is prohibited by law for good reason. It's no different than if a soldier pointed his rifle at a visiting politician and said, "Senator, vote for the new defense appropriations bill or I'll blow your head off."

Psyops is not terribly complicated, and there's a lot of BS around it. I wasn't psyops, but talking to an actual psyops guy is about as worthwhile as talking to a polygraph examiner.

Imagine you're in a town that's being overrun. There are choppers in the sky, smoke and the smell of death, the sound of gunfire and explosions. You hear loudspeakers in the distance, they're calling for you to lay down your weapons and surrender peacefully. You find a pamphlet explaining that you won't be harmed, and how to avoid getting shot when you surrender yourself. (To be clear: psyops is only the loudspeakers and the pamphlets.)

Yes, people are going to lay down their arms, but you tell me how much is the loudspeaker and the pamphlets, and how much is the fact that they're being overrun. Psyops don't have any "special techniques"; what they do is careful research of the enemy fighters and the local civilians, make their campaign synchronous with the flow of battle, and exploit the existing psychological impact of war itself.

There are certainly techniques out there, but they're nothing that you're not already familiar with in the private sector. These psyops guys who are distraught about being ordered to use their "special skills" are, frankly, full of crap. I don't know if this is political maneuvering to nail this general or if he really gave some patently illegal orders; I'd want to see something more solid than a Rolling Stone article.

What I will claim is that if you took a Psyops copmany (about 100 guys) and tried to form a lobbying group, they would fail miserably. They don't study politics in Western countries, their linguists are going to be twiddling their thumbs, they don't have connections in the Beltway, and they're not familiar with lobbying at all. Most importantly, they don't have any special techniques, contrary to their spin, that any other lobbying group hasn't already figured out. At best, they would have this mystique that, hopefully, I have helped dispel.

Re:No rule of law in America

[rbollinger]

These are the nefarious tactics of the PsyOps I know. Certainly not anything that could be compared to:

"t's no different than if a soldier pointed his rifle at a visiting politician and said, "Senator, vote for the new defense appropriations bill or I'll blow your head off."

Thank you for an actually informative post.

Re:No rule of law in America

[RingDev]

Your wife exploits traumatic events in peoples' pasts in order to get what she wants?

She uses bribes and opperatives to alter the context of messages in the social circles of the people who have things she wants?

She creates a network of half truths, lies, and bias to create scenarios which will motivate a person to do something that they would oppose under normal circumstances?

Your wife partakes in antivities that are federally barred both by law, statute, and budget?

If so, man, I'd think you should do some serious soul searching as to why exactly you are married.

There is a huuuuuuuge freaking difference between public afairs and Psy-ops. Public afairs can sell you on the importance of buying and maintaining a bomb shelter. Psy-ops can have you living in that bomb shelter eating your own feaces because you believe that the world has ended and leaving the bunker would mean certain death.

-Rick

Re:No rule of law in America

[Supurcell]

Every large bureaucracy in the government has a public affairs arm whose job it is to convince the public and policy makers that their bureau is important and deserves some pie.

That is true, but that is not PsyOps' job. The Army has its own Public Affairs office that is for manipulating its own citizens in, what we hope are, completely different manners.

Re:No rule of law in America

[jd]

It depends on whether it can be blamed on someone who sounds important but doesn't really do anything any more. In politics, it is better to seem like you're doing something than to actually do something.

Re:No rule of law in America

[Scrameustache]

RTFA. This was more than looking up voting records. They were targeting their fellow Americans with techniques designed specifically for use against the enemy, which is prohibited by law for good reason. It's no different than if a soldier pointed his rifle at a visiting politician and said, "Senator, vote for the new defense appropriations bill or I'll blow your head off."

Hyperbole, much?

FTFA: According to experts on intelligence policy, asking a psy-ops team to direct its expertise against visiting dignitaries would be like the president asking the CIA to put together background dossiers on congressional opponents.

Re:No rule of law in America

[alta]

You're right, no one will do time.

Not because they are found innocent of manipulating senators.

But because It's a freakin' joke and anyone with half a brain is going to laugh the prosecutors out of the court room for trying to convict someone of "using their magical brain power to control other people"

Maybe someone should go to jail for wasting our fucking money and time on stupid operations.

No, that won't happen either because the psyops guys will use their magical brain power to control the jury and the judge!!! It's a catch 22.

The only way they will go to jail is if they do NOT have special abilities, but the lawyer can convince someone that they do!

Re:No rule of law in America

[Daniel Dvorkin]

I've spent some time around Psy-Ops too, and whether it's actually "some jedi mind trick bullshit" or not is kind of irrelevant -- a lot of the guys involved with it certainly seem to believe that it is, or at least their bosses do. A lot of what they do is absurdly overrated, but the brass keeps throwing money at them. If I pick up a gun I think is loaded, point it at you, and pull the trigger, I'm still guilty of attempted murder, even if there's no round actually in the chamber.

Re:No rule of law in America

[Anonymous Coward]

"using their magical brain power to control other people

What makes you believe that such a thing is impossible? Many people happily limit themselves to believing in the the physical world only to the point where they never grasp what their minds are truly capable of. Influence can be a powerful weapon, especially when paired with the ability to project thoughts and feelings to someone else. The fact that you do not believe makes you an easily influenced target since you have no type of shielding in place to protect yourself from such an attack.

Re:No rule of law in America

[chromakey]

At best it is some pogues in the woods with loudspeakers on thier HMMWV trying to make the enemy scouts tell their commander that they hear tanks when there really aren't any.

As a former Tactical PSYOP Team Leader, I take offense to your pogues comment. Tactical PSYOPers are on the ground every day with the infantry guys going through the same crap that they are. You can look up the list of awards given to PSYOPers for valor as well as the number of KIA/WIA relative to our size in the Army. Not to mention that they're held to SOF certification standards, jump qualified, as well as some going through SERE school and having Ranger tabs.

Playing tank noises over the loudspeaker is just one thing in the PSYOP toolkit. We're also your cultural experts on the ground and/or your linguists (I was an arabic linguist) and are pretty darn useful in a COIN environment. We also keep the civilians away from the infantry guys so that they don't wind up on CNN for causing collateral damage.

In regards to the article, I don't know any LTC that ever received much practical PSYOP training. From the sound of the article, he only had 3 people in his group, so it sounds like a staff officer rated his skillset a bit higher than it actually was. In a tactical unit, officers don't really do anything other than just provide overwatch of their NCOs and handle admin/supply stuff.

Re:No rule of law in America

[gandhi_2]

You are still a pogue. (:

Re:No rule of law in America

[oldmac31310]

Pogues? What do you think this word means?

Re:No rule of law in America

[Viewsonic]

My only experience of PsyOps was a reality based "COMBAT MISSIONS" show years ago where they put 20ish guys into two groups and had them do competitions. The groups consisted of Navy Seals, Rangers, Red Berets, SWAT, NYPD, and all other sorts of groups. They were put through courses that tested tactics on taking over occupied buildings and such, and even hand to hand combat with each other. The teams slowly voted people out and it came down to the best person.

Anyways, one person, Scott Helvenston, a Navy Seal, annoyed everyone. So much so that after the first day everyone on the other team was pissed at him. They went up against him in hand to hand and lost, they fumbled, with so much rage. He would berate them, laugh at them. The producers had to step in and tell him to tone it down. It was pissing them off to the point where the other team couldn't think straight and they didn't want to be on the program anymore. His explanation?

PsyOps.

He explained that his training in PsyOps was getting his team wins. His entire effort was to piss the other team off and cause them to not think properly. Blind them with rage and lose. It worked. He was eventually told to stop anyways because it made for bad TV. They all agreed that his techniques were definitely working as advertised. It was pretty amazing to watch.

Scott Helvenston was eventually killed in Iraq acting as a private contractor. He was one of the people who were strung up in the 2004 Fallujah ambush that shook the world. I feel bad knowing what he went through, he was really an exception person.

Re:No rule of law in America

[gandhi_2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogue

Re:No rule of law in America

[markass530]

I Was in the army, the article was done in full on michael moore mode. The disgruntled officer in question is an IO officer and not a MISO/PSYOP officer. http://wn.com/Kabul's_Bala_Hissar_Narrated_by_Lt_Col_Mike_Holmes He identifies himself as such. According FM 3-0 His job was "The inform line of effort provides information to domestic and foreign audiences with accurately described operations . . . Informing does not force or make a decision for the actors but provides them with facts. Providing factual and accurate information counters false information (misinformation or disinformation) disseminated by others." They were just asking him to do his fucking job. Also His civilian job is running a strategic communications firm. I'd say that someone found out he was a real-world marketing guy and decided to use that. RS Is just trying to continue to make money off their McChrystal article Additionally He was National Guard, and The National Guard does not have PSYOP units

Re:No rule of law in America

[squiggleslash]

You know, I'd like to know what the hell they actually did, because the article's short on details. I'm pretty sure that if I were Senator Al Franken, and while one military officer was talking to me, the other was blaring white noise, showering me with little leaflets showing Lorne Michaels in a tutu with "YOUR COMRADES ARE GAY! SURRENDER AND GIVE US $$$$$!!", and playing the Flight of the Valkyrie over a loud speaker, I notice...

Re:No rule of law in America

[LordLimecat]

I take it youve already performed the trial, then? You have rock solid evidence this has taken place, you have taken care of all of those formalities?

Its kind of scary that anyone can claim pretty much anything anti-government or anti-corporation, and you can watch all sorts of people hopping on the bandwagon demanding a hanging.

Never mind that a significant portion of the inflammatory headlines on slashdot end up being either grossly exaggerated, or wholly made up....

Re:No rule of law in America

[Slider451]

"Tactical PSYOPers are on the ground every day with the infantry guys going through the same crap that they are. You can look up the list of awards given to PSYOPers for valor as well as the number of KIA/WIA relative to our size in the Army. Not to mention that they're held to SOF certification standards, jump qualified, as well as some going through SERE school and having Ranger tabs."

Substitute any field under the information operations (IO) umbrella (Intelligence (all source, signal, counter), Civil Affairs, Signal, etc.) for PSYOP and the above will look the same.

Bottom Line: You're special... just like everyone else.

Re:No rule of law in America

[Slider451]

Summarized:
Public Affairs = Inform
Psychological Operations = Influence

They are quite different in practice.

Re:No rule of law in America

[Slider451]

Hilarious! +1 Funny

It all makes sense now

[Anonymous Coward]

At first I was curious as to what the linkage between this article on influencing US policymaking and, well, you know, "news for nerds". Then it occured to me: The article has so many abreviations and buzzwords that is incomprehensible to the uncouth masses.

This article is psy-ops

[Anonymous Coward]

He asked them to provide him with background on the senators and a methodology to convince them to support the war. This guy did less than McDonalds does to sell a big mac, and the guy who "blew the whistle" has an overinflated view of his "skills and training".

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My 0.90 rupees

Re:This article is psy-ops

[Anonymous Coward]

sounds like military to me

Re:This article is psy-ops

[Hojima]

Actually, it's more like conning than selling. Do you actually think that they are required to tell the truth when coercing them? Also, one of the biggest proponents of the 11 billion that the country has pissed away was influenced by the unit, so I'm assuming it may have had at least a little impact. What's also scummy about this is that he explicitly used a unit meant only for the enemy on US citizens (which is EXACTLY what the law says NOT to do). On top of that, in order to can his case, they ruined the career of a female major under him, saying she had inappropriate relationships with him.

Re:This article is psy-ops

[Anonymous Coward]

Coercion, Lying, where are you getting this from? Certainly not the article. You are only jumping to the conclusions that the article wants you to jump to. If there was something as nefarious as you suggest going on, don't you think they would have included it in the article. Certainly this LTC would have been willing to provide evidence of the lies he was 'forced' to tell.

And which law specifically states 'Army PsyOps will not be used against U.S. Citizens.' Rolling Stones sure didn't provide a reference.

Re:This article is psy-ops

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually McDonalds invests quite a bit of effort in selling a Big Mac:

Read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Food_Nation

Re:This article is psy-ops

[Maximum Prophet]

And which law specifically states 'Army PsyOps will not be used against U.S. Citizens.' Rolling Stones sure didn't provide a reference.

From the article:

Federal law forbids the military from practicing psy-ops on Americans, and each defense authorization bill comes with a "propaganda rider" that also prohibits such manipulation. "Everyone in the psy-ops, intel, and IO community knows you’re not supposed to target Americans," says a veteran member of another psy-ops team who has run operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. "It’s what you learn on day one."

Re:This article is psy-ops

[Anonymous Coward]

The question is can we replicate this AGAINST the war on terrorists and maybe FOR health care and then get the top 1% to pay for it as they make the most on the American economy??

This article is psy-ops

[astrodoom]

He asked them to provide him with background on the politicians and a methodology to get them to support the war. This guy did less than McDonalds does to sell a big mac, and the guy who "blew the whistle" has an overinflated view of his "skills and training".

Hatch Act?

[nitehawk214]

Did we not read the linked Wiki page? Applicability to U.S. military personnel.

However there is an order basically stating the same thing. I don't know if this means the military can cheat their own order, though.

Re:Hatch Act?

[JackOfAllGeeks]

"The Hatch Act of 1939 is a United States federal law whose main provision is to prohibit federal employees (civil servants) from engaging in partisan political activity."

I think it's a little bit of a stretch to call "requesting more resources to do your job" a "partisan political activity." The things that usually fall under that are stuff like campaigning for a presidential candidate or something.

Re:Hatch Act?

[rbollinger]

Technically the Hatch act doesn't apply to these Soldiers either. Based on the link above, they follow DoDD 1344.10 instead, which basically says you can't force your subordinates to vote for something, and you can't officially endorse a candidate in your role as an Officer. Either way id doesn't apply to whats going on in the article.

Re:Hatch Act?

[JackOfAllGeeks]

You're right, but since there's an equivalent order that applies to soldiers I wasn't marking the difference.

Re:Hatch Act?

[Entropius]

Just some advice:

Writing "Soldier" as a proper noun makes it clear that you have drunk the Kool-Aid. If you want anyone who views US military propaganda with any skepticism at all to give what you have to say a second glance, you should probably not use their bizarre grammar.

Re:Hatch Act?

[Slider451]

Just some advice:

Writing "Soldier" as a proper noun makes it clear that you have drunk the Kool-Aid. If you want anyone who views US military propaganda with any skepticism at all to give what you have to say a second glance, you should probably not use their bizarre grammar.

Right. We'll just stick with commonly accepted journalistic standards (Marine capitalized, soldier not) so as not to harsh YOUR Kool-Aid mello.

You mean lobbying?

[chemicaldave]

FTFA

According to Holmes, the general wanted the IO team to provide a "deeper analysis of pressure points we could use to leverage the delegation for more funds." The general’s chief of staff also asked Holmes how Caldwell could secretly manipulate the U.S. lawmakers without their knowledge. "How do we get these guys to give us more people?" he demanded. "What do I have to plant inside their heads?"

It might not be ethical, but how is this different than organizations that lobby congress? This seems blown up. Would it be ok if instead of being called "Psy-Ops" they were called "Public Relations?"

Re:You mean lobbying?

[guyminuslife]

See, the fact that they call it "Psy-Ops" instead of "Public Relations" is a pretty good argument that they're not very good at it.

Re:You mean lobbying?

[Rich0]

It might not be ethical, but how is this different than organizations that lobby congress?

Well, in terms of being unethical, it clearly isn't any different from organizations that lobby congress. I'm not sure how that makes it OK.

Your honor, I realize I killed that guy in cold blood, but people with more influence than I get off on technicalities all the time, so you should let me go too...

However, if it makes you feel better, I'm fine with banning lobbyists as well.

Re:You mean lobbying?

[Anonymous Coward]

Psyops team has infiltrated slashdot. trying to make the operation look like a bunch of bumbling retards.

Golly gee, how could we do that? sounds really hard! *playfully kicks sand with boot* we're no good at anything! look at how easily these nerds make fun of us, we're so weak!

Re:You mean lobbying?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Generally speaking, the purpose of PR is to make people feel good about an organization. Psy-Ops does that kind of work ("winning hearts and minds," to use a phrase popular in a previous failed guerilla war) but they also try to scare the shit out of other people. The general idea is to convince neutrals that you'd make a good ally, allies that you're steadfast and capable, and enemies that you're invincible and the best thing they can do is surrender right now. That last bit may be the ultimate goal of a lot of PR in the civilian world, but the methods are by necessity very different.

Re:You mean lobbying?

[oodaloop]

Other organizations that lobby Congress aren't trained in psychological operations and federally barred from using that training on American citizens.

Re:You mean lobbying?

[alostpacket]

That was my first reaction as well but reading further into the article about how they (seem to have) tried to set him up to be the fall guy and rename his unit something that sounded more PR-ish, makes it definitely appear something fishy was going on here.

In the grand scheme of things it seems kinda SOP, and certainly not the most nefarious misuse of resources I've ever seen. (Sun Tzu would snooze through an idea like this). Nervertheless, at the very least this looks like it warrants an investigation into all those involved by neutral 3rd parties. The mere fact that they openly re-assigned and renamed a psy-ops unit to PR should raise an eyebrow or two. These guys are supposed to be the best of the best, the top brass representing our interests as a nation. If the Taliban/Al-qaeda reconstitutes while these generals and fscking around hosting PR events, they are dishonoring their accomplishments and rank. Still I don't want to pre-judge as it's hard to say from the limited hard evidence of what they psyops actually entailed, nor is my armchair-monday-morning-quarterbacking really a good perspective.

Re:You mean lobbying?

[Hatta]

Do you really think that it's appropriate for the military to lobby congress with public funds in what is supposed to be a civilian democracy?

Re:You mean lobbying?

[Anonymous Coward]

Its different because "Public Relations" doesn't further Rolling Stone's anti-Bush, anti-Military, anti-anything-remotely-Conservative agenda.

Re:You mean lobbying?

[AdamThor]

It might not be ethical, but how is this different than organizations that lobby congress? This seems blown up. Would it be ok if instead of being called "Psy-Ops" they were called "Public Relations?"

I would suggest that a military Psy-Ops organization's list of available actions should include Lying. A military PR group interacting with the the sponsoring populace and governing body should not be allowed to lie.

The reason being that the military is civilian controlled. They don't get to set policy. Attempting to exert undue influence on policy makers is counter to the way the US gov. is intended to work.

One might suggest that the reality is not so rosy, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to enforce ethical standards.

Re:You mean lobbying?

[jd]

It's not that different from some of the lobbying we've seen (paying people to make it seem like there's a grassroots movement, hiring agent provocateurs to manufacture causes, etc). I'd argue that we'd be better off banning lobbying entirely and requiring individuals to petition their representatives in a more open, honest way. Those caught paying others to express a specific view to Congress should be jailed or forced to appear on the Barney show.

Re:You mean lobbying?

[LWATCDR]

It is a big deal because the JAG said it was going over the line and after that they General's Chief of Staff seemed to target the office that asked the JAG which is really crossing the line. No member of the military should be punished for checking the legality of an order like that with the JAG.

Re:You mean lobbying?

[HiMorons]

Yes. How else is the civilian democracy supposed to know that the mission needs more funds? Pretty simple, eh?

Re:You mean lobbying?

[NeutronCowboy]

It might not be ethical, but how is this different than organizations that lobby congress? This seems blown up. Would it be ok if instead of being called "Psy-Ops" they were called "Public Relations?"

Wait, when did PR and lobbying tactics become role models of proper behavior? Was there a memo that said "PR agencies have stopped lying and lobbyists are no longer the used car salesmen of politics"?
The army is supposed to protect the US, its laws and Mom's Apple Pie. If the army is resorting to the same tricks as lobbyists and PR henchmen, what makes you think that they are still about Freedom, The Pursuit of Happiness and Baseball?

Yes, it is outrageous behavior, because we all bitch about the underhanded tactics marketers and lobbyists use to sell their wares. They don't suddenly become OK because the Army is using them.

Re:You mean lobbying?

[Anonymous Coward]

An important difference is that other organizations that lobby congress are private, whereas the military is a public entity. I can give money to a political candidate, but the Pentagon can't, as it should be.

Re:You mean lobbying?

[Anonymous Coward]

It might not be ethical, but how is this different than organizations that lobby congress?

Because it's the military. They exist in a special niche with a unique set of relationships to the nation and the rest of the government.

Re:You mean lobbying?

[Dravik]

For the military this is a big deal. Anything related to intelligence gathering or psychological operations are strictly prohibited from targeting US persons. Psy-Ops and Public Relations are different job classifications, the training is conducted at different locations, they are different units. They are kept strictly separate at all times by multiple laws and policies to ensure that no once can plausibly accuse the military of targeting US persons with propaganda. Even if the general was just looking for a way to tell the truth in a way that the audience would more readily appreciate, the military can plausibly be accused of propagandizing senators. This is, or should be, career ending every officer involved.

Re:You mean lobbying?

[Anonymous Coward]

How does one equate murder with offering a unique set of words to individuals (US Senators in this case)?

I suggest that your analogy is severely flawed. Speaking words and killing people are not the same no matter how cute you think the processes are similar.

Re:You mean lobbying?

[Rich0]

Ok, how about this one:

Your honor, I know I was caught giving a suitcase of money to a judge in exchange for his dismissing the case against me, but Haliburton gives lots of money to Senators in exchange for no-bid contracts all the time, so can't you let me get away with it too?

The point wasn't that bribery and murder were similar crimes. My point was that simply because other people get away with it, doesn't mean that it is acceptable. Even if lobbying happens to be legal right now, it doesn't mean that using government resources to influence the decisions of elected officials isn't wrong.

Re:You mean lobbying?

[MidoriKid]

They're getting better! From the article:

In recent months, the Pentagon has quietly dropped the nefarious-sounding moniker "psy-ops" in favor of the more neutral "MISO" – short for Military Information Support Operations.

Not what it seems...

[enaso1970]

...the army manuals were missing a whole section on blowhards and pinhead lawyers. Good to see such dedication to thoroughness.

Civil Rule

[fermion]

The US Constitution is not as formally human right center as some other constitutions, but the one thing it does do is solidly center the rule on a civilian government. The only standing military force that has any constitutional legitimacy is the Navy. The president controls all military operations, and the military essentially has no rights at all. All military rights are centered on the people, who have the freedom to defend themselves from a a priori corrupt military.

The civilian government is defined by three co-equal branches of government, which, many forget, incudes the judiciary who have all rights to govern as any other branch of government. They may not be directly elected, but so was the case of the executive branch when the Constitution was written.

The problem is that the Military has become too big for it's britches. They think they matter, they think that they can throw temper tantrums and not follow orders and directive from the civil rulers simply because they do not want to. They think that somehow their confort is more important than the comfort of the taxpayers that fund their livelihoods. Sure they have a tough and dangerous jobs, but they made a choice. Many of us had made equivalent choices. The military is voluntary, if one person is not willing to the job they are paid to do, then some one else will. Hell, we have people who are willing to earn the money they are paid but are prevented to do so due to bigotry.

We have to fund the people who protect us. The fact that we have a tax cut exactly when our solider were dying due to lack of equipment is something this country is never going to live down. Anyone who voted to send our troops into battle then voted to not fund them has an issue with basic human decency. OTOH, the military has to respect civilian rule even if they don't agree with it. They do not have the freedoms of a civilians to effect rules.

Re:Civil Rule

[Machtyn]

sorry for this...

YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

/and other quotations which you can remember for yourself. Actually the rest of this line is to get around the caps filter... because "it's like YELLING". (which was kind of my point up there, now wasn't it.) ;^)

Re:Civil Rule

[Anonymous Coward]

The overlooked issue here is that the American taxpayers are tired of the waste and corruption in govt, and want it stopped. In answer to that demand, the govt doesn't cease to waste, nor to be corrupt. Instead, they reduce the spending where it is supposed to be spent, and continue the waste, and blame the taxpayers for any resulting problems with services. It's coercion and strong-arm manipulation of the people by their govt., just one step away from the mob's credo: "Pay up or we gonna breaka you kneecaps..."

Just once I'd like to see our govt take an income hit like the rest of us do, and make do with what they get, just like the rest of us have to do all the time.

Oh noes!

[ScentCone]

Officer: Jones, I want you to be the guy from your unit that talks to the Senators when they mingle with troops to get a feel for things.
Jones: Why me? I'm psy-ops, and I'm not supposed to do any Jedi mind tricks on US citizens.
Officer: You also happen to be the most articulate person in the unit, and have an actual understanding of how to communicate a position based on local experience and observations, and even know what the word "rhetoric" actually means when someone wants to know your boiled-down opinion about a complex, topic.
Jones: OK, what's my opinion?
Officer: You tell me! Do we need more troops, materials, and support in order to get this whole thing moving along faster, and with fewer casualties?
Jones: We always do. It's the nature of this sort of activity, period.
Officer: There you have it. Our people in the field have a direct interest in that point being very, very clear to anyone who's sitting on the fence.
Jones: So, no Jedi mind tricks, just be a soldier with an informed opinion and the conviction that more support for the mission is better than less.
Officer: Is that propoganda?
Jones: Not if it's true.
Officer: Is it true?
Jones: Yes.

... or ...

Officer: Jones, I want you to give the visiting people false information, convincing them that more support for the mission would help accomplish the mission.
Jones: That's false information?
Officer: It is if Rolling Stone says it is, m'kay?

Re:Oh noes!

[dkleinsc]

The sad part is that this sort of investigative journalism should be getting published by the New York Times or Washington Post or CNN. Instead, it's been relegated to places like Rolling Stone.

It's also fair to say that anyone who's been reading Matt Taibbi's coverage of the financial crisis in Rolling Stone has at least as good a picture of what's really going on as somebody who listens to Larry Kudlow on CNBC.

Re:Oh noes!

[Ender_Wiggin]

Of course the military wants more soldiers and money, that's the nature of the forces. However, what's at issue here is were these soldiers lying to the Congress in order to get their way?

I don't find it that difficult to believe that when Senators showed up, the military gives them a finely crafted Potemkin village of happy Afghans and maps showing the Taliban all in retreat. Anyone who watches BBC or Al Jazeera English knows that's just not the case.

Re:Oh noes!

[djmurdoch]

But that's not how it went. The Psy-Ops guys were asked to study the dignitaries in order to find our how to manipulate them, and to sit in on meetings with them without identifying their role. They weren't asked to show off how articulate they were.

Re:Oh noes!

[PhxBlue]

Officer: You also happen to be the most articulate person in the unit, and have an actual understanding of how to communicate a position based on local experience and observations, and even know what the word "rhetoric" actually means when someone wants to know your boiled-down opinion about a complex, topic.

That's what the installation public affairs officer is for.

Re:Oh noes!

[curveclimber]

More like:

Officer: I need you to assess these senators and figure out how to convince them more troops and materiel will help us meet our mission.
Jones: What's our mission?
Officer: To convince them more troops and materiel will help us meet our mission.

Re:Oh noes!

[ScentCone]

The Psy-Ops guys were asked to study the dignitaries in order to find our how to manipulate them

Which is the first rule of rhetoric: know your audience. If you have a need to convey something to someone, and you want to be sure they understand what you need to communicate, you need to know how they think, what they already know or don't, and how they process information. Just because the psyops guys are good at that doesn't mean it's evil to use their talents to tell their bosses, "I find that Senator Smith is a cold sumbitch that will simply not respond with any pathos to a local villager explaining what it's like to have his wife shot in the head by the Taliban for teaching girls how to read. But I find that Congresswoman Smith is very receptive to the emotions surrounding what happens in these towns, and that's the best way to communicate to her."

What are people saying, here? That the mission in Afghanistan won't be impacted by the level of support given to it? What this really boils down to is what obersvers of this situation think about whether it's worth keeping the Taliban at bay, or not. Period. If the people working in the field - with that group's victims and tasked with protecting that territory while it claws its way to being able to fend for itself against well-financed insurgents from across the border - think that it takes well-crafted communication (aimed well and at the right people who might otherswise miss the point) to explain that, then so be it. If they're lying (about the substance of the entire discussion), then the techniques used in arriving at the right way to lie are more or less beside the point. The people grousing about this are really grousing about dealing violently with the Taliban in the first place, not about military commanders tailoring their message to different people in the most effective way they can.

Re:Oh noes!

[ScentCone]

Jones: What's our mission?
Officer: To convince them more troops and materiel will help us meet our mission.

OK, so you don't think the mission is to keep the Taliban at arm's length while Afghanistan builds a functioning civic society capable of defending itself. Fine. You don't think it's worth it, but the military people who are there think it's worth it, and their commander in chief (the last one and the current one) are saying that's why they're there. So why wouldn't they want to convince the people who allocate them the money and resource to actually do what they're being told to do that what they think is true? Why wouldn't a general want to do everything he can to make sure that he gets the job done while writing fewer "Dear Mrs. Smith, I regre to inform you... " letters? I would be disgusted by any general that didn't make it is business to understand every last thing he can about how to make his case to those that control the money he needs to function, and the rules of engagement under which he must operate.

Re:Oh noes!

[AdamThor]

Officer: Jones, I want you to give the visiting people false information, convincing them that more support for the mission would help accomplish the mission.
Jones: That's false information?

The information given in order to convince someone of something is not the same as what one wishes to convince someone of. The truth of one is not related to the truth of the other. That's a subtlety (and only the first...) I would not expect to be lost on a psy operative.

Re:Oh noes!

[ScentCone]

The PAO doesn't formulate the general's message, or do the fact finding about how to best deliver it. The public affairs types aren't the ones dealing directly with high-level policy makers and budget and budget appropriation people. Rather, they deal with the public (hence the name of their position). Regardless, they do what they do based on direction from their chain of command. If the key person at the top of the local on-the-ground chain of command wants the shrewd observational skills of people in his command to help him form his message and make the most of his limited time with the people that control the resources with which he has to do his job, more power to him.

Re:Oh noes!

[LWATCDR]

I thought the same thing except if you read the entire article you will see the difference.
From the story.
"In March 2010, Breazile issued a written order that "directly tasked" Holmes to conduct an IO campaign against "all DV visits" – short for "distinguished visitor." The team was also instructed to "prepare the context and develop the prep package for each visit." In case the order wasn’t clear enough, Breazile added that the new instructions were to "take priority over all other duties." Instead of fighting the Taliban, Holmes and his team were now responsible for using their training to win the hearts and minds of John McCain and Al Franken.

On March 23rd, Holmes emailed the JAG lawyer who handled information operations, saying that the order made him "nervous." The lawyer, Capt. John Scott, agreed with Holmes. "The short answer is that IO doesn’t do that," Scott replied in an email. "[Public affairs] works on the hearts and minds of our own citizens and IO works on the hearts and minds of the citizens of other nations. While the twain do occasionally intersect, such intersections, like violent contact during a soccer game, should be unintentional."
The JAG lawyer said this was crossing the line. Notice that in this case the Militaries own system said "Heck NO"
The general seemed to keep pushing even after the JAG lawyer said no and then tried to use loopholes to get what he wanted and then after everything seemed to target Holmes.
I am a big supporter of our military and in this case the JAG and Holmes did the correct thing but this general actions are very questionable.

Re:Oh noes!

[ScentCone]

Instead of fighting the Taliban, Holmes and his team were now responsible for using their training to win the hearts and minds of John McCain and Al Franken.

And if succinctly, and convincingly doing so is the key to gaining the support needed to well and truly (and succesfully) fight the Taliban, that is the time of a few personnel very, very spent.

Re:Oh noes!

[strider200142]

I don't know if you should shoot down (har har) ScentCone's world view with such straight forward reality checks. Might give em' a mental breakdown... What? INFORMED opinion? Heresy

Re:Oh noes!

[LWATCDR]

Except that JAG said that was in illegal order.
Dude the military of a free nation must follow the orders of the civilan authority and follow the rules and regulations that those authorities set out. They do not have right to decide to what rules they will and will not follow. The JAG says no so it is freaking no.

Re:Oh noes!

[Slider451]

The PAO doesn't formulate the general's message, or do the fact finding about how to best deliver it.

Wrong. That's precisely the PAO's job.

The public affairs types aren't the ones dealing directly with high-level policy makers and budget and budget appropriation people.

True. The PAO prepares commanders (you know, the actual people in charge) to deal with dignitaries by preparing them for, and facilitating, interviews and writing speeches. PAOs are specifically trained for this. PSYOP and IO officers are not.

Rather, they deal with the public (hence the name of their position). Regardless, they do what they do based on direction from their chain of command. If the key person at the top of the local on-the-ground chain of command wants the shrewd observational skills of people in his command to help him form his message and make the most of his limited time with the people that control the resources with which he has to do his job, more power to him.

If the commander is using enemy-focused resources (PSYOP, intelligence) to target US citizens at any level, he is violating regulations. This mission should have been handled by the PAO. Perhaps the PAO was weak or marginalized in his command so the commander sought out the IO officer instead.

Reed didn't need any subliminal help

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in his home state and he loves to spend money we don't have, on things we don't need. Here's his voting record:

http://www.votesmart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=27060

We

[Anonymous Coward]

Please stop using the term "we" to describe the actions of the elite few at the top of the pyramid.

Re:We

[Anonymous Coward]

Please stop using the term "we" to describe the actions of the elite few at the top of the pyramid.

That's right! We don't like it!

What are you doing?

[cfriedt]

I'm cloud bursting. Keeps me in shape.

Success!

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like this was one of the most successful operations in our military's history.

Just so I'm clear

[SteelKidney]

A historically sensational and anti-military publication prints an article vaguely detailing something "bad" that one guy said happened, while making no attempt at looking at the other side. Since this is Rolling Stone, it must be fact. After all, it's not like they're Fox News.

Another fine Slashdot summary

[Sparrow1492]

While the use of Psy-Ops troops on visiting delgations is certainly questionable, the Hatch Act reference is ridiculous. The intent of the Hatch Act is so that gov't employees, in this case uniformed soldiers, do not participate in patisan polital issues. It means that you can't run down to your local Republican or Democrat rally in uniform and support your guy. The reason is that it is implied support by the government for one candiate or party over another which the govenrment as an entity cannot do. It does not mean that when the congress who pays your bills comes to you that you cannot express shortfalls to them in hopes of gaining support for your mission.

Re:Another fine Slashdot summary

[PhxBlue]

And since when is military spending not a partisan political issue?

Re:Another fine Slashdot summary

[Sparrow1492]

It's an issue if the military only went to the Republicans or Democrats as a party and cuddled up with one or the other. TFA clearly states that this was directed at all the visitors, regardless of party. There is no issue with organizations in the military disucssing funding issues with a congressional representative. Funding gov't organizations like the DoD is part of their job. If the parties choose to use miltary spending, benefits, construction, etc. as partisan issues, that's not on the military, that's on them.

How is it different?

[billy8988]

When a senator visits NASA or NIH headquarters, they openly ask for more money or new projects..how is it different?

No 'Manchurian Candidate' references?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really?

Re:No 'Manchurian Candidate' references?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is an old movie. And everybody that's ever heard of it is either dead or dying. And I say good riddance. Old people (ESPECIALLY old people who rely on government handouts) are a huge problem in this country and I am sick and tired of them. People should not respect the elderly. I'm sorry but you have gotten me mad.

Hoax?

[Anonymous Coward]

Look closely at the picture of McCain and Caldwell that accompanies the Rolling Stone article. Is that a bad photoshop job or what?

Well, I guess ...

[PPH]

... its back to handing out hookers and blow.

Well... that explains McCain

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we know why John McCain is so confused and surly. They probably put LSD and Viagra in his turkey soup to simultaneously soften and harden him.

Re:posting anonymously due to SlashThink

[HermMunster]

He must be one of those soldiers recruited to psy op the visiting Senators.

I'm Impressed, Weezul

[93 Escort Wagon]

If anyone had ever asked me "what is the magazine least likely to be read by a Slashdotter" is, I think I'd have picked Rolling Stone.

Re:I'm Impressed, Weezul

[penguin_dance]

Really? I would have picked Field and Stream.

Re:I'm Impressed, Weezul

[93 Escort Wagon]

That's a good pick too. How about Golf Digest?

And this is different from...?

[eagl]

How is this any different from a commander including a room full of water-damaged equipment during a congressional visit, to highlight the need for funding roof repairs in a critical facility that is too old to get maintenance/upkeep funding through normal procedures?

Really, the military can't fund or equip itself so whenever the people who DO fund and equip the military come by for a visit, you can bet your ass that the military commander will attempt to tell his story to the visitors. This is the way it is in an all-volunteer military that gets its orders from a chain of command that has no ability to actually provide money to accomplish those orders. The military takes its lawful orders, and does what it can to get funding to carry them out.

If anyone has a problem with this, they need to take it up with the SecDef, Commander in Chief, and chairmen of the military oversight committees in congress. Those people need to get their crap straight before anyone goes pointing fingers at the military folks who are stuck with orders to accomplish unfunded missions without enough personnel.

Re:And this is different from...?

[Slider451]

That's all fine. But the team to use to prepare your case to US citizens, at any level, is the Public Affairs Office (PAO), not enemy-focused resources like PSYOP and Intelligence.

Defending the nation against domestic enemies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the soldiers do take an oath to defend the nation from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Many people here on slashdot seem to regard Congress as enemies. Therefore, the Army was merely fulfilling its oath to defend against domestic enemies.

first psot

[Anonymous Coward]

FirSt post!!!

Re:posting anonymously due to SlashThink

[Culture20]

"I was the first one to want to go to war!" - Family Guy

Just put down the bong

[Anonymous Coward]

We gave up any meaningful right when we signed the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, & any remaining freedoms with the PATRIOT Act of 2001, so what say you, puny civilians?,

Us puny civilians say you should put down the bong, step out of the trailer and get some fresh air.

It makes as much sense

[Anonymous Coward]

If lobbying is a Jedi mind trick, I suppose that Dick Cheney is Palpatine.

J.P.Morgan, Chase, etc

[Anonymous Coward]

A big reason for the federal reserve system was to reduce the power of the robber barons had on the economy. Before that time, whenever there was a panic, the federal government was having to come to these very rich individuals like a beggar hoping that they would be saved. The robber barons started to extort large concessions from the government for a bailout from them. The situation in recent times has come full circle with rich bankers exercising too much power over the worlds economy. Maybe it's time for a new cycle of reforms. What they should be, who knows? I just pointed out one of the problems, not the solution.

How is this news??

[Tolvor]

This PsyOps division engaged in heavy persuasion sounds like what everyone else does everyday. Lets see...

"compiling detailed profiles of the VIPs, including their voting records, their likes and dislikes, and their "hot-button issues."
Okay. To some degree this is what a lot of people do before a romantic date. You try to find out what the other person will like by checking their Facebook page, checking with mutual friends, and maybe floating a few vague questions to the date. People going to a job interview does their back research on the president of the company, the company history, and any industry issues so that they appear professional, competent, and knowledgeable. How can it be wrong for the army to do the same commonsense action?

"deeper analysis of pressure points we could use to leverage the delegation for more funds." "What do I have to plant inside their heads?"
So what? This is called management. Anyone that has ever been given a job performance warning or given one to an employee has had the same thing. The message is clear. You will do better. You will work harder, longer, and smile while doing it. You are lucky to have a job, and we can fire you. The police are training on how to give clear voice commands to keep order. Mothers constantly work with just this technique to train their children not to do what's fun like hurting the family pet, breaking furniture, and generally dangerous behavior (no, you WILL NOT jump backwards down the stairs. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!? Good. Now TELL ME what you WON'T DO.) Is the article seriously expect the army not to use the most basic management techniques?

"CIA to put together background dossiers on congressional opponents"
Yep, and employers routinely run background checks on all job candidates. Drunk driving, sorry, no job for you. Bad debt means you are irresponsible and untrustworthy.

"exploiting new technologies like blogging and Wikipedia"
Companies now monitor all social media sites. I know of one that has software key loggers on all company computers to get the blog passwords and monitor the content. Any negative posting about the company and the person is fired within three weeks for general performance issues (including the use of non-work related blogging on company computers). This is not illegal. Should it be illegal for the army to do the same?

"Holmes learned that he was the subject of an investigation, called an AR 15-6"
Yep, and hopefully Holmes will be thrown in prison. In business this is called either insider trading (in finance), or ethical misuse of corporate information (business). It is a felony and there have been a lot of people that have gone to jail for it (ex, Martha Stewart). In the military Bradley Manning (Wiki leaks) has been facing military court martial for basically the same thing. Apparently Holmes feels he special and that he is immune from investigation for exposing serious military intelligence.

"After being reprimanded, Holmes and his team were essentially ignored for the rest of their tours in Afghanistan"
Yes, that sounds about right. Who in their right minds pays attention to a general screw-up? In relationships that break up the people remain separated and generally ignore each other afterward. People that are fired are escorted carefully to the door and then forgotten (and replaced). If you switch from one bank to a different bank you don't keep going to the previous bank to make sure they are doing okay. This is only common sense. Holmes is indeed very special.

"there is no way to tell what, if any, influence it had on American policy."
Little to none, certainly not illegal or even questionable.

Re:How is this news??

[radtea]

certainly not illegal or even questionable.

And yet the senior military officer who was given the order saw fit to question it, and was then harrassed by his supperiors through a typically American "the process is the punishment" subversion of the military legal apparatus.

So your claim that the order was neither illegal nor questionable immediately identifies you as a troll. Thanks for playing!

Re:How is this news??

[penguin_dance]

To some degree this is what a lot of people do before a romantic date.

Agree. Or what a successful salesman does before going into a large negotiation.

Let's suspend the black helicopters, people. These are not supermen capable of reading minds or "Jedi mind tricks." And despite some in congress being complete idiots, I don't think they were hypnotized or given a case of Stockholm syndrome.

All in all, if that's what they were doing, it looks like a big waste of time. Many of those *targeted* were already clearly supporters of the war and the military and likely didn't need much persuasion.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said he was certain top military officials would investigate any abuses or wrongdoing. He added that he was the last person who needed to be convinced of more resources for Afghanistan, never mind by the arts of a “psy-ops” team.

Now were they lied to...quite possibly, and I'll bet they are lied to by every other department wanting an increase in their budget.

Re:How is this news??

[Anonymous Coward]

News Flash: The military is not a corporation. There are very strict limits to what they can and cannot do. Using psy-ops/heavy persuasion on Americans is something they're not allowed to do.

Re:How is this news??

[Glarimore]

Why do you seem to think that companies are a good model on which to base the military?

They are held to different standards -- and for very good reason.

Re:How is this news??

[strider200142]

Wow, what a great way to run Society. We will let people with strong self-interests do whatever they want to accomplish those interests, then we will know what things we can do that society won't question, let alone decide are illegal. "exploiting new technologies like blogging and Wikipedia" Companies now monitor all social media sites. I know of one that has software key loggers on all company computers to get the blog passwords and monitor the content. Any negative posting about the company and the person is fired within three weeks for general performance issues (including the use of non-work related blogging on company computers). This is not illegal. Should it be illegal for the army to do the same? I gotta say your above statements are downright worrisome. Such invasion of personal privacy is very wrong and yes, it should be illegal. Thus it should be illegal for the Army as well. Apparently you are a law-abiding citizen, which means you do not question anyone's activities as long as they can say "we are not violating any sort of legislation". Hope you never move to China, Turkey, or some other country with worse human right's violations. Your world view might be shaken... PS: I tried to put paragraph breaks, but under "preview" they don't show up.... oh well let's find out.

Re:How is this news??

[NeutronCowboy]

How can it be wrong for the army to do the same commonsense action?

Since when is the Army like a corporation? Do you really want to apply the same standards to Army behavior that we apply (or rather, don't apply) to corporations?

Holy crap you guys are scary.

Re:How is this news??

[Required Snark]

You are a psychopath. All your examples assume manipulation is the only way of interacting with people.

Here is a point by point response:

Compiling information for pressuring VIPs is not equivalent to a "romantic date", unless your idea of "romance" is getting laid by lying and tricks. Are excessive alcohol date rape drugs included in your romantic encounters?

What you call "management" is coercion and intimidation. The idea of leadership by inspiring loyalty is not in your play book. Do you prefer to whip your employees or use the cat-o-nine-tales?

It is just plane illegal for the CIA to spy on US citizens for political purposes. This is the kind of activity that happens in police states, not democracies.

You are conflating use of blogging for psy-ops with taking information out of context and using it as part of a smear campaign. A joke about being so lonely for his wife that he was considering holding hands with a local man is called an inappropriate homosexual gesture? So what does that say about former President Bush, who was commonly seen holding hands with Saudi royal family members when he was in the White House?

So Holmes being investigated means he guilty and should be in jail. So much for innocent until proven guilty. And how is this like insider trading? How did he profit? Did he leak information to the Taliban? He communicated in his chain of command, and then to the JAG. He followed the rules and got screwed.

That team was specifically brought in to influence Afghan civilians, not US personal. How are they screw ups when they are not tasked with doing the job they were supposed to do? The asset was completely wasted, because the commander was incompetent. My tax dollars were wasted, and that was not Holmes fault.

By the way, this is how the Viet Nam war was lost. The military projected an unrealistic picture of how things were going and lost the support of the public in the US, because the fact did not match up to their false projections.

You deserve to live in a police state that has no effective rule of law, someplace like Cuba, North Korea, China or Iran. Everything you promote fits in with how power is used in an anti-democratic regime. Why don't you leave and go someplace you would fit right in.

Re:How is this news??

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not supposed to be the Army's job. They're meant to be fighting foreign enemies, not their civilian leadership. When the Army fights the civilian leadership, and wins, you have a junta.

Re:How is this news??

[Anonymous Coward]

Companies now monitor all social media sites. I know of one that has software key loggers on all company computers to get the blog passwords and monitor the content. Any negative posting about the company and the person is fired within three weeks for general performance issues (including the use of non-work related blogging on company computers). This is not illegal.

Bullshit. It is, unfortunately, legal for a company to monitor publicly available information on employees' social networking sites. Publicly available is publicly available, after all. It is legal to monitor what goes on with your own network. Stealing credentials and using them to access accounts and information in a session that the employee didn't start is downright illegal any way you slice it. If you're sure that's what is going on you should involve law enforcement.

Would it be legal for employers to use keyloggers to gain entry into your bank account, whether or not accessing your bank account is against company policy? I think not. This is the same thing.

Re:How is this news??

[Anonymous Coward]

This.

Plus there's the fundamental disconnect: Civilian oversight and control of Military is widely perceived to be an absolute rule.

The military should not: coerce it's civilian managers, try to trick it's civilian managers, hide the truth, or investigate it's boss.

Spin-doctoring, just like bootshining and dress uniforms... not so much of a problem. But psy ops are by definition geared toward altering perceptions, and by definition are use of military tools and procedures. It may be a fine line, but it's utterly not fair or reasonable or acceptable.

Waves hand through the air...

[Bobfrankly1]

These are not the funds you are looking for.

Re:Waves hand through the air...

[elkto]

I'm sorry, I just posted something similar and just saw your post...funny...

Modded +5?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, shut up and die.
 
Feces-eating moderators will mod anything up that isn't a logical argument. At least say SOMETHING that isn't just a mockery of Austrian economists. Maybe if you actually studied some history, you could find that their arguments are at least quite valid. Oh, wait, see no evil, hear no evil!

Bestor?

[tekrat]

I'm more shocked to find out we have a Psy-Ops unit at all. Reminds me of Walter Koenig's role on Babylon-5. And I bet they are probably just as underhanded in real life as his character was. After all, rule of law in America doesn't seem to apply to them, or they already feel they are above the law.

In fact, with all I've been reading about how f*cked up this country is, just this week, I'm starting to think I have a better chance of freedom and privacy if I move to Libya.

Not true: John Pierpont Morgan was used, first

[Anonymous Coward]

"because people were sick of banking panic after banking panic laying waste to the economy and people's lives and financial well being" - by circletimessquare (444983) on Thursday February 24, @12:10PM (#35301584) Homepage

J.P. Morgan was used to START the "panic", first!

Since everyone thought his word was "the word of God" financially? They believed his BULLSHIT!

This started the "run on the banks" by depositors... that in turn, floored the small bankers, which of course, opened THEM up for takeover by larger banks!

(I.E.-> The consortium that runs the Fed to this day pretty much, 13 "unnamed individuals" whose names I WILL post below)...

Even Woodrow Wilson, the president at the time, said "I have just signed a pact with the devil"... because there WAS NO OTHER WAY OUT, other than total ruination.

See Zeitgeist folks...

(Which, mind you, "the infamous they/powers that be" have TRIED TO GET REMOVED FROM THE INTERNET NO LESS MORE THAN A FEW TIMES NOW!)

It will tell you the EXACT SAME THINGS I HAVE NOW... &, if THAT'S NOT "GOOD ENOUGH"?

READ THE SAME BOOK I DID:

"THE SECRETS OF THE TEMPLE" by WILLIAM GREIDER http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Temple-Federal-Reserve-Country/dp/0671675567

(It's ALL ABOUT THE "FED" which is about as "federal" as FEDEX is (it's not)).

APK

P.S.=> These things, these "depressions/recessions" are ENGINEERED, on purpose, to FIRST impoverish you, & make you desperate... so you HAVE to "give up what you got cheap", so those engineering this type of SHIT can rob you blind... apk

KNOW THY ENEMY people (13 parties of FED)

[Anonymous Coward]

Goldman Sachs Bank of New York.
Rothschild Banks of London and Berlin
Israel Moses Sieff Banks of Italy
Lehman Brothers Bank of New York
Kuhn Loeb Bank of New York
Chase Manhattan Bank of New York
Lazard Brothers Bank of Paris
Warburg Bank of Hamburg and Amsterdam

APK

Senator X Profile Report

[DarthVain]

Votes "flip/flop"
Likes "Hookers"
Disliskes "not having any blow"
hot button issues - See Dislikes.
after much analysis it was noted that the Republican was gay yet in public was anti-gay...

I am sure it was the CIA that just got the DA in Wisconsin fired for his crazy Twitter ramblings...
.
.

PsyOps Command

[DarthVain]

Sir we are getting an emergency PsyOps request for more hookers...
SIR we have also been informed by PsyOps that the levels of blow are becoming dangerously low...
Send those troops more hookers and blow stat, and may god have mercy on us all if help doesn't arrive in time!

Exactly right/Amen - AGREED, 110%... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Good post, fellow AC... you're telling it how it REALLY was, & is...

APK

P.S.=> The 1st time this happened, iirc? Andrew Jackson tried putting an end to the FIRST "centralized banking system":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Jackson#Opposition_to_the_National_Bank

Once it was abolished??

The financial hassles disappeared... but, as you say? They didn't give up, & did it again (The Great Depression of 1929 & I outlined that here from the book "SECRETS OF THE TEMPLE" -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2010754&cid=35303204 )

they are TRULY @ the root of things! Biggest thieving SCUM alive & right now, they're trying to setup the "IMF" international monetary fund, to fuck us over EVEN MORE! apk

Uh yeah...

[MikeRT]

and although i'd really love to hear your john birch society conspiracy theories about the fed, i'm sorry, but i have an appointment with economic reality and psychological stability that i really must keep, adieu

Don't read the news much do you? Apparently you missed the fact that the federal reserve has spent the last few years laying waste to the US dollar in an effort to save the private banking sector.

Here's a dose of economic reality for you: we traded periodic spats of instability for a system which empowered the banks to nationalize their losses while privatizing their gains.

In other words, we traded the uncertainties of finance capitalism for Fascism with a capital "F" in the banking sector.

Logical contrapositive

[Anonymous Coward]

If I didn't want to lose money I wouldn't "invest", I'd put it in an insured bank account, or not trusting that, buy non-perishable commodities and try to hide them around the house.

You said:
If you didn't want to lose money, then you wouldn't invest.

Contrapositive:
If you do invest, then you want to lose money.

what?

[memnock]

Is this a joke? It sounds to me like it belongs in under Idle, it so hard to believe.

Surprise!

[hackus]

This is news?

It happens all the time.

Deception is the name of the game.

You know it is strange. There is a Chase Bank right across from the Madison, WI Capital building, and yet everyone is inside the Capital building asking the WI legislature where all of the money went, how it should be spent etc.

Yet, right across the street, Chase Bank ripped off every pension plan, every mortgage every single investor. Going even as far as manipulating the international silver markets with blatantly criminal activity.

Now because of their criminal activities, the is no money in their customer accounts or government holdings. Instead, they now are soaking the tax payers to replace their bad bets.

Yet, every person in the the Capital building hasn't got even a clue why there is no money for education, jobs or pensions. They _actually think_ it is because democrats or republicans are the blame.

Doesn't anyone have a brain anymore?

I mean you couldn't write a better soap opera and put it on T.V..

What a bunch of idiots.

-Hack

I heard Sand People re-created Dath Vader.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hur Dur!

And to think, he might've been the good guy all along, while it would've been his son that became Lucifer instead of the Jesus Christ he was casted as.

There's something wrong wit those Sand People: invade them anyways!

Wooo hold the phone 6 million ?

[Anonymous Coward]

"it cost American taxpayers roughly $6 million to deploy Holmes and his team in Afghanistan for a year"

If I'm not mistaken this was a 5 man team that 1.2 mill per person per year! What are they paying these guys? I really hope that it is a mistake.

Re:Wooo hold the phone 6 million ?

[kristjansson]

the cost of deploying a line soldier for a year is on the order of $1 million. granted, that includes transporting to and from theater of operations twice, food, water, fuel, ammo, special pays, and amortization of the public works projects paid for by the unit, etc, etc. Really, Karzai and company skim a decent chunk of that cash, and there's a major accounting oops by dividing the costs of nation building among the individual troops, but in light of that, 1.2 mil per soldier in the unit isn't too terribly 'out there'. As far as what they're paying the majority of them, assuming a specialist (pay grade e-4) with three years in, that's 2123/mo U.S. figure that the combat pay is $250/mo, isolation pay is about $125/mo, if he's married, there's a $250/mo family separation allowance and allowance for housing. put everything together, and that's about $2500/mo for the single spec-4's, and on average, about $3600/mo for the married ones. $30k/year/single soldier, about $45k/year for a married one, everything else is overhead or an accounting trick. An LTC would make probably close to triple what a single soldier makes for a deployment, but it's still a hell of a lot of work and it won't make you wealthy.

Wait a minute

[dna_(c)(tm)(r)]

Anytime someone utters the words "Federal Reserve Act of 1913", [etc. etc.]

True, true. But only after Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was signed, so it really was an evil event...

That was me

[istartedi]

I meant to kill the karma bonus, and hit anon by mistake.

It appears to have worked...

[Anonymous Coward]

...

JAG was not the proper reporting procedure

[dlt074]

as somebody who worked in a MOS with even more constraints then the psy-ops guys. i can tell you where they messed up.

there are regulation that MUST be followed and there are procedure for reporting violations of these regulations. they did not follow those procedures. the army is nothing but a big bureaucracy. as with all bureaucracy, there is safety in rules. however, if you don't follow them, you get hosed big time.

all they managed to do was half ass it and piss off a general with a grudge.

i've noticed another nice thing about in bred bureaucratic systems, especially where prison time is a real threat for doing your job outside regs. you don't have to follow illegal orders and if you start writing names, dates, locations, ask clarifying questions, say things like "so to be clear sir, you want my team to do..." and if that doesn't stop the good idea ferry you follow it with a "no problem sir, i'll just need a memo of record with the exception to policy"

if that all fails, you just ignore the order and wait for it to all come out in your trial... they usually don't want that though because then they have to explain what order was ignored.

Re:JAG was not the proper reporting procedure

[LWATCDR]

I am sure that you are correct but still from a moral point of view he did the correct thing. Of course morality and bureaucracy do not work out.. But then having it public knowledge that you where trying to get mess with senators from both parties is a real good way for a General to end up retired quickly.

To railroad an officer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is railroading people part of the official tactics of the Psy Ops? Is that part of the government supported infrastructure upgrade program for the Nations rail roads?

Context: completely different from lobbying

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically the context of the military makes this completely different from lobbying.

For example, a lobbyist is bound by
1) Law (civil law)
2) Employment contract

Whereas military personnel are bound by
1) Civil law
2) Military law

The point is that whereas the civilian lobbyist is only bound by a *contract* with their employer, above and beyond the civil law we must all uphold, everything military personnel might do is pretty much covered by law.

As an aside, when you sign up to join the military, you pretty much sign over much of your effective human rights to Uncle Sam. They often say it is a crime in the military to disobey a "lawful order". That means as long as the order does not violate the law, you have to do it.

Back to the point, what lobbyists do, while perhaps questionable to some, and granted largely carried out behind closed doors, is ostensibly legal and takes place in the public eye.

What the military psyops people were being asked to do was a violation of law and to be carried out surreptitiously.

Just because the details of an act in two different realms may be the same does not in any way make it acceptable.

Whose the psy-op

[morikahnx]

1) I'm pretty sure the military will be having their 'psy-ops' people making posts using pseudonyms on this article and any other related article on popular news sites with a comment system. 2) When they do that, it will also be an ethical violation. The military trying to influence civilians government officials is a big deal, regardless what some here think. Maybe some of you remember the 2008 story about the Pentagon coaching 'military analysts' to be supportive of the war efforts and then booking them on major television networks. Those are two stories the public found out about. How many more have we not? If US citizens are fed erroneous information and our military devotes military psychologist specializing in manipulation against our elected officials.. its just one more little step towards a military dictatorship.

Star Wars

[elkto]

"These are not the droids you are looking for"
"These are not the droids we are looking for"

BAWHAHAHAAA...

Gross Inaccuracies

[Frangible]

LTC Holmes was under investigation for misconduct -- going AWOL, abusing his position for profit, and surfing the web playing Facebook games instead of working. (a real REMF) Then after this comes to light, he suddenly started raising other allegations.

He's a Forward Support Team Chief from the 71st Theater Information Operations Group. The FST is NOT a "PSY-OPS" (sic) team. The General simply asked him to prepare some background information on people who were visiting-- there's nothing illegal about that, and he should've done his job.

Rolling Stones uses ridiculous language and implications to create the illusion that "PSYOP" are a bunch of Sith who go around using Jedi Mind Powers on the weak-willed to compel them to do their bidding. Here's what they actually do: drive around in Hummer, play loud music, and say really mean things about the Taliban's moms on a loudspeaker.

So exactly what would a PSYOP operation on a congressman entail? A couple tactical speaker monkeys following them around in a Hummer, playing loud music, and insulting their mother. It's not the kind of thing that gets you more funding, eh?

Police State or Marial Law.

[Anonymous Coward]

The army is like money, good as a servant but terrible as a master. Using a country's army on a country's civilians is either martial law or a police state.

Oh, wow. Blindness much?

[Anonymous Coward]

This PsyOps division engaged in heavy persuasion sounds like what everyone else does everyday.

The point is that the military in its role as military is not allowed to do everything "every one else does everyday". For damned good reasons.

It's just mind tricks

[makubesu]

these are not the spending cuts you are looking for.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

OK, maybe not a fallacy

[istartedi]

I see your point a bit here... less of a fallacy, and more like an answer to "if we don't inflate, then what do we do".

However, I have to maintain that compelling the government to tax as opposed to inflate (or any other financing method) won't stop wars. The Spanish-American war was financed by a telephone tax, which we kept paying until what, the 1990s? I forget exactly; but it was a ridiculously long time.

Now, I'm not necessarily accusing you of this; but I think a lot of people who put forth the "if the government couldn't inflate, we wouldn't have wars" argument, are just attacking the current system for their own political purposes. It seems to be an article of faith among the Ron Paul crowd, that they tell eachother to make themselves feel good. Like many of the Ron Paul partisan standpoints, when you go back and look at history, they start breaking down...