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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)."
So basically the army used its soldiers as lobbyists?
What are the chances anyone will serve time for this crime?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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".
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.
I think it is more like the character George Clooney played in The Men Who Stare at Goats.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
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?
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.
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.
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.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
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.
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.
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.
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
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I believe his exact argument was "KaChing!" with some fist pumping gestures.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Pertinent: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/10/11/
Didn't work, did it? The panics of 1930-1933 were the worst yet.
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.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
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!
You can't take the sky from me...
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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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.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
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?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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".
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I managed not to snort while laughing, but it took effort.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
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.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
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.
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.
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.
"...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!
...and the S&L deregulation went so well...
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
Jesus was a liberal
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.
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
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.
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.