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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)."

13 of 391 comments (clear)

  1. Lobbyists? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So basically the army used its soldiers as lobbyists?

  2. This article is psy-ops by astrodoom · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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".

  3. Re:Too late by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

  4. Re:No rule of law in America by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  5. Re:Starship Troopers by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  6. Re:Wrong but right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  7. Re:Too late by atari2600a · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  8. Re:Too late by circletimessquare · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
  9. Re:Too late by h4rm0ny · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.
  10. Re:Too late by chill · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
  11. Re:Too late by circletimessquare · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
  12. Re:Too late by chill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  13. Re:Too late by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.