US General Accused of Using "Psyop" on Americans in AFG

[Brett Patron]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...0110223?page=1

This is going to be a mess. Or an awful lot of fun.

BJP

[Entropy]

No, it's not going to be fun at all. If there is any truth to this article, heads will need to roll.

[slapout9]

No, it's not going to be fun at all. If there is any truth to this article, heads will need to roll.

It should be the Senator's heads that roll. There is a bunch of them that need to have their head gear flushed out by some proper Army thinking. General Caldwell should be promoted!

[Entropy]

It should be the Senator's heads that roll. There is a bunch of them that need to have their head gear flushed out by some proper Army thinking. General Caldwell should be promoted!

Slap,

While the Congress certainly has many warts I don't see how your sentiment is compatible with the necessity of military subordination to elected officials in our democracy.

[slapout9]

Slap,

While the Congress certainly has many warts I don't see how your sentiment is compatible with the necessity of military subordination to elected officials in our democracy.

Because they (US Military) were sent to fight a war without the proper resources to win it. That is a political failure not a military one. Why should the Military pay the price? I am very biased by the way,I don't see much difference between politicians and crooks these days.

[Van]

What was done is "ops normal"; a VIP (of any stripe) is coming, you find out their position on relevant issues, special requirements, their favorite beverage, etc. You'll see this done by competent staffs anywhere, for any visitor who can influence the destiny of an organization. Failure to do so is negligence, possibly incompetence. I've watched the same sort of thing done for O-6s, so a Congressman is a no-brainer.

The point of a "dog and pony show" is to gain support, both tangible and intangible, for a unit, from people who may not understand the unit's role and requirements.

To have a MISO (Military Information Support Operations; the new name for Psyops [unless doctrine has been rewritten... again]) unit doing this job, even an otherwise underemployed MISO unit, shows a lack of forethought. You have to procede from assumption that it will hit the front page of the NY Times, and ask yourself, as a leader, "How will this look?"

One of the things the Army needs to learn from the Air Force is to explain this to junior officers. Honorable young Army LTs are routinely horrified at the basic realities of the budget process and appear to feel that basic courtesy and protocol is "brown-nosing", deceitful, and pretty much beneath them. When they make major, there can be significant trauma from exposure to the basics of getting funding for the LTs fundamental needs. An LT doesn't need to learn the entire five year budget process, but should understand that funding doesn't 'just happen' (no matter how hard and honestly you work), and that the process for getting funding doesn't always meet with their standards of conduct.

[Ken White]

Nothing at all funny about it.

I'd be willing to bet it's pretty accurate and this item:

"It’s not illegal if I say it isn’t!" Holmes recalls Breazile shouting.

rings true to me because I've heard too many Colonels and a random General or two say the same thing or close to it. The 15-6 also rings true because I've seen that kind of stupidity pulled before. We all have.

Hell hath no fury like a General scorned.

Caldwell did some flaky stuff while CG of the 82d and got away with it. He IMO did not need to be promoted and certainly does not need to be further promoted even without this incident if true.

Bayonet Brant:

If some S3 flunky had been tasked for that instead of the psyop team, would we still be wringing our hands over this?

I dunno about wringing hands -- I'm not doing that, I'm sharpening my Headsman's Axe -- but I know it would've been wrong and should not happen.

If the psyop team got the tasker because there wasn't enough psyop work to do to keep them busy, and the general thought they were capable of handling it, does that make it an inherent psyop mission?

As I told all my sons when they went in the Army, "Once you get promoted above Corporal, you not only can't do much that's wrong, you can't even give the appearance of doing things that are wrong."

Generals know that -- but their overfed egos make them think that rules do not apply to them and they try devious ways to stack the deck. They can do that in a peacetime environment (as today...) but it won't work in a war -- thus it's a bad habit to get into...

Hell, it happened w/ us in '95 in California during the Apache Longbow trials. We were briefed on the incoming VIPs that were there to see what we were doing, including whether or not they were hostile to the program and its funding.

I think you just made my point...

The Bird could / shoulda made it on its own, trying to stack the deck -- IPB that is not -- could have put a marginal bird in service. It did not, in this case but there've been enough failures in deck stacking buying dumb stuff that we should be wary of it.

Slapout9:

I don't see much difference between politicians and crooks these days.

I agree. However, while a certain amount of political savvy is properly required of GOs, attempting to stack a deck is crooked IMO. Far worse, intimidating ones subordinates that do not agree with one is flat illegal and it should be. It is also bone stupid...

However, on this point:

Because they (US Military) were sent to fight a war without the proper resources to win it.

I kinda disagree, not to defend the Pols who do have problems in that regard but lets not let the military slide on their even bigger failures. Failures to plan, to buy the right gear (that other nations started buying as soon as the Wall went down...) or to spend enough money on good as opposed to barely acceptable training. Yeah, the Pols have problems but the military is too often its own worst enemy...

[BayonetBrant]

One thing that jumped out at me was the desire of the info on the congressional reps: voting records, campaign stances, etc.

If some S3 flunky had been tasked for that instead of the psyop team, would we still be wringing our hands over this?
If the psyop team got the tasker because there wasn't enough psyop work to do to keep them busy, and the general thought they were capable of handling it, does that make it an inherent psyop mission?

Now, there seem to be enough other concerns elsewhere in the article to be worth investigating more deeply, but some of the 'issues' that Hastings/RS raise are not (to me) worthy of the level of hype they're being given, in part b/c I think the authors/editors lack some context on how those taskers get assigned and how regularly those sorts of things happen in other places with other functional specialties.

Hell, it happened w/ us in '95 in California during the Apache Longbow trials. We were briefed on the incoming VIPs that were there to see what we were doing, including whether or not they were hostile to the program and its funding.