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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)."
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?
So basically the army used its soldiers as lobbyists?
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.
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.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
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.
... or ...
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.
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?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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.
Please stop using the term "we" to describe the actions of the elite few at the top of the pyramid.
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.
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.
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