Alleged Pentagon propaganda campaign abroad a lost cause [View All]

By Cokie Roberts and Steven V. Roberts

American credibility in the Muslim world is already at rock bottom. And now some geniuses in the Pentagon want to push it even lower, if that's possible. Several newspapers report that a bitter debate is raging in military circles over a secret plan to use covert disinformation and propaganda campaigns to manipulate views of America abroad.

Three years ago, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was forced to close down a similar effort, run by a "Department of Deception" officially called the Office of Strategic Influence. But now this bad idea is back, spurred by a raging frustration within the Pentagon that America's enemies are winning the propaganda battle across the Muslim world. The motto of this renewed campaign seems to be "If they're lying about us, we'll lie about them."

Fortunately, sane voices within the Pentagon are raising objections. For one thing, they say these lies will inevitably filter back here and deceive Americans as well as foreigners.

Moreover, military information officers are already under great suspicion, and this will only make their job harder. As one senior defense official told the Los Angeles Times, "What's at stake is the credibility of people in uniform."

It's not as if American commanders have any goodwill to spare either. As a Pentagon advisory panel recently reported, "The critical problem in American public diplomacy directed toward the Muslim world is not one of 'dissemination of information,' or even one of crafting and delivering the right' message. Rather, it is a fundamental problem of credibility. Simply, there is none."

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