One of the predominant missions of the United States since it became an imperialist power at the turn of the 20th century has been to proliferate democracy.
Understandably, this mission is flexible, as the exigencies of global politics sometimes put democracy on the backburner.
Mysteriously, the rhetoric behind spreading democracy has been most profound during times of war. Indeed, it has been used consistently to justify war. The irony is that while democracy is based on transparency and open cooperation, war is a time for strategic secrecy and lies.
It is well known that the United States has supported countless authoritarian regimes for the sake of democracy, but the contradiction does not end there. Because of the need for subtle population control and manipulation, the spreading of very blatant lies and disinformation has been an orthodox strategy of war makers since time immemorial. War makes lies necessary, but lies make democracy impossible. Thus wars for democracy are somewhat of a contradiction.
Throughout this last century of magnanimous spreading of U.S. democracy and compassion, the U.S. has been covertly telling strategic lies to reach political ends. Since the end of World War II this work has been relegated to the CIA, which often functioned outside the knowledge of most U.S. statesmen.
Principally this work consisted of manipulating the political affairs of foreign countries by twisting the media, spreading disinformation, or embarking on elaborate campaigns of psychological warfare.
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Occasionally, as in the Iran-Contra case, the CIA and FBI worked diligently to inundate U.S. media with lies and propaganda. Reagan created the Office of Public Diplomacy, run by the notorious Otto Reich, which bluntly shaped the media with a pro-Contra/anti-Sandinista bias to support the covert war in Nicaragua. Reich's office was responsible for giving false information to the media while squashing journalists' quest for truth in Latin America. Interestingly, George W. Bush nominated Otto Reich last year for Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere.
That was the Cold War. This is the war on terror, and there is a new office to accompany the CIA in strategic lie-spreading. It is the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence, created in response to the fear that the U.S. is losing support for the war on terror in the Middle East, Asia and even Western Europe.
The new office, headed by a U.S. Air Force general and guided by the Rendon Group international consulting firm, has been given the task of creating U.S. support abroad through overt and covert media campaigns. The basic idea is to supply foreign media with information - sometimes real, sometimes false - that will then dissuade anti-American sentiment while promoting U.S. political goals.
There are critics across the board. Sovereign nations around the globe consider it an intrusion that the United States might be manipulating their media. Members of the impressively democratic European Union are especially irate. Several Pentagon officials have complained that the Office of Strategic Influence will damage the credibility of that institution. They would prefer the lie-spreading to remain the job of the CIA, of the "spooks."
Many patriots worry that, as false information is sent to eminent foreign media such as Reuters or Agence France-Presse, these lies will be leaked back into U.S. media, which would violate the Constitution. The CIA and Pentagon are banned by law from propaganda activities in the United States.
The office, with its multi-million dollar budget, will try to manipulate media in both non-friendly and friendly countries. While one may justify meddling in the already bent media of certain authoritarian regimes, it is something else to do such things in Germany or France. This, however, is part of the plan.
What is harder to justify is war for the sake of democracy, when clearly war also justifies great secrecy and blatant lies - that which is the greatest enemy of democracy. Even the CIA, debatably the world's most expert professional liar, endorses the quote, "a well-informed public is the foundation of democracy." Truth would seem essential.
Two weeks after the World Trade Center attacks, Donald Rumsfeld said he would never lie to reporters. Now telling lies has become official behavior. These lies may convince the world's people that the U.S. war on terror is fought for the sake of freedom and democracy, but by their nature they will impede any such reality.
by Mike Wolff
Daily Lobo Columnist
Questions or comments can be sent to Mike Wolff at mudrat@unm.edu.
