8. Understand perceptions matter far more than truth. Counterinsurgency is political conflict for power, and control of the population is the primary means to gain that power. History is replete with examples of counterinsurgents winning the tactical battles while losing the strategic campaign for the support of the host and home nations . We have learned that operations will be assessed through the lens of information effects. Information engagement is not a staff section’s responsibility or an operations order annex, but a commander’s program through which all efforts, lethal and non-lethal, must be viewed. Counterinsurgents must constantly ask, “What are the various audiences, and how will this action be perceived by each one? Then, ask what can we do to shape that perception to our advantage?” A successful counterinsurgent is proactive in shaping the information message of his actions. When reacting to events in the current media environment, speed and accuracy are key. To increase tempo, media engagement authority must be decentralized as much as possible out of theater and corps headquarters down to battalions and companies.8 Creating credible perceptions of increasing success and momentum are critical to re-establishing legitimacy and restoring the population’s confidence and trust in the host government.9
Agreed 110%: see:

6. Information warfare as a political struggle is about perceptions not facts. That means that a counter insurgent force or an insurgent force must first identify its own weaknesses because such weaknesses fuel perceptions. In the case of the RPF, its greatest weakness was its largely Tutsi-exile composition. The hardliners use of that weakness fueled their information campaign that culminated in the genocide.
From the Guerillas From the Mist article here on SWJ

Tom