PSYOPS – Wars Are Fought On and Off the Battlefield

What are PSYOPS?

Psychological Operations (PSYOP) has been alternatively known in the U.S. as Military Information Support Operations (MISO) since 2010

● According to the U.S. Department of Defense, psychological warfare is,

“The planned use of propaganda and other psychological actions having the primary purpose of influencing the opinions, emotions, attitudes, and behavior of hostile foreign groups in such a way as to support the achievement of national objectives.”

PSYOPS influence the behavior of governments, groups, organizations and individuals.

PSYOPS can be used during conflict or peacetime.

Source: Online-Psychology-Degree.com

There Are Three Main Types of Psychological Operations:

○ Strategic
○ Operational
○ Tactical

Strategic
● Conducted outside of a military purpose
● Often have advanced or long-term objectives
● They are global in nature and may be directed toward very large audiences

Operational
● Conducted across many kinds of military operations in a predetermined operational area in order to promote the effectiveness of the joint force commander’s campaigns and strategies
● The purpose of an operational PSYOP can range from gaining support for U.S. operations to preparing a battlefield for combat

Tactical
● Conducted by a tactical commander in an assigned area to supposed tactical missions against opposing forces
● Used to secure immediate goals

http://www.globalresearch.ca/psyops-wars-are-fought-on-and-off-the-battlefield/5385523
● Often used as a way to lower the morale and efficiency of enemy forces

PSYOPS are not a form of force, but are force multipliers
● They use nonviolent means in often violent environments in order to persuade

PSYOPS use logic, fear, desire or other psychological factors to promote specific attitudes, emotions or behaviors
● This is to convince enemy, neutral or friendly nations and forces to take action favorable to the U.S. and allies
● Messages are conveyed through audio, visual and audiovisual media
○ Military tactical operations are usually delivered by loudspeaker
○ Other campaigns can be delivered through leaflets, radio or television

Psychological Warfare Has Been Used Through History

● 500 BCE – Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War about the importance of intelligence and psychology in war and politics
○ “To capture the enemy’s entire army is better than to destroy it… To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence.”
● 300 BCE – Alexander the Great conquered most of the known world by spreading stories of his savagery
○ One of his tactics involved the construction of oversized armor, that would fit “giants.” These were left on the battlefield before a conflict in order to inspire terror and, ultimately, a surrender… Even from armies that greatly outnumbered his own
● 1200’s CE – Gengis Khan and the Mongol Empire bloodily conquered of much of Asia and Europe
○ While the Mongols did kill many people, much of their success was gained through psychological warfare
○ Khan sent messengers ahead of his army to tell villages of the fierce and bloodthirsty Mongol army.
■ By the time the Mongols reached a village, communities were usually ready to surrender
● WWI – The birth of modern psychological warfare
○ Altered weapons, such as mortar, were used to spread leaflets across a wide area
● WWII
○ Many of the same tactics from WWI were used
○ Military powers began heavily using radio to spread propaganda
■ Tokyo Rose broadcast music, propaganda and discouragement toward the Allied forces
● Later, Hanoi Hannah and Seoul City Sue would do the same during the Vietnam War and Korean War
○ Radio was also implemented to spread false intelligence
■ American forces convinced German high commanders that the D-Day invasion would launch at Calais instead of Normandy
■ The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) began English-language lessons on a radio show widely listened to by German forces
● They taught the German military phrases like, “The boat is sinking,” and “I am burning”
○ This series convinced the German commanders that the British had found a way to set the English Channel on fire in the event that Germans launched an invasion by sea
● Cold War
○ Nations began broadcasting white noise to give the impression that encryption was being used
■ This led to other nations wasting a lot of money in an effort to decrypt messages that were not there
○ Governments began recruiting very innocent looking people to be spies or saboteurs, in order to cast doubt on more individuals
○ When captured, these spies would implicate as many innocent people as possible, creating confusion and widespread suspicion
● Recent history
○ During the Gulf War, the U.S. distributed pamphlets encouraging opposing forces to desert
○ Winning forces name captured towns and facilities
■ Example: The change from Iraq’s Saddam International Airport to Baghdad International Airport following Hussein’s removal from power
○ The use of vehicles as mobile broadcasting stations
■ This has allowed troops to agitate Taliban fighters until they come out of hiding places and engage with U.S. troops
○ Terrorism
■ Acts like the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and the bombing of the London tubes are physical attacks that are also meant to inspire fear in a community and break an enemy’s will

Today’s wars are won with military and messages. How will tomorrow’s be won?

Sources:
http://www.military.com/ContentFiles/techtv_update_PSYOPS.htm
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Psychological_warfare
http://www.psywarrior.com/psyhist.html
http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Psychological_warfare.html
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/449268_2

STATE OF MIND (2013)

Are we controlled? To what extent and by whom? What does it mean for humanity's future? The enormous implications of these questions deter most of us who must deal with the daily consequences of the answers. STATE OF MIND digs deeply into the sources to reveal that much of that which we believe to be truth has been deception, deliberately implanted in our consciousness to erect a "tyranny over the minds of men". From cradle to grave our parents, peers, institutions and society inform our values and behaviors. But this process has been hijacked. STATE OF MIND examines the science that has evolved over generations to keep us firmly in place and maintain the status quo so that dictators, power brokers and corporate puppeteers may profit from our ignorance and slavery. From the anvil of compulsory schooling to media and entertainment, we are kept in perpetual bondage to the ideas that shape our actions. STATE OF MIND delves into the abyss to bring to light the manipulation and shocking and suppressed examples that reveal the true agendas at work. From the ancient roots of the control of human behavior to its maturity in the mind control experiments of intelligence agencies and other organs of manipulation, STATE OF MIND reveals a plan for the future that drives home the dreadful price of our ignorance. We are prepared for a new paradigm. Will we choose our own paths or have one selected for us? STATE OF MIND unveils the answers that may decide whether humankind will fulfill its destiny or be forever shackled to its own creation.

The U.S. has become a worse Police State than Orwell could imagine

The United States pretends to be a home of freedom and democracy. In fact, the US is rapidly degenerating into a police state and a worse dystopia than George Orwell imagined in his book, 1984. 

John W. Whitehead describes below the prison that is being constructed for all of us. This prison is the work of many of our fellow citizens including scientists and entrepreneurs who have gained fame and fortune creating a prison for mankind. What were they thinking as they threw their energy and their lives into constructing a police state dystopia? 

"It's a future where you don't forget anything...In this new future you're never lost...We will know your position down to the foot and down to the inch over time...Your car will drive itself, it's a bug that cars were invented before computers...you're never lonely...you're never bored...you're never out of ideas... We can suggest where you go next, who to meet, what to read...What's interesting about this future is that it's for the average person, not just the elites." - Google CEO Eric Schmidt on his vision of the future

Time to buckle up your seatbelts, folks. You're in for a bumpy ride. 

We're hurtling down a one-way road toward the Police State at mind-boggling speeds, the terrain is getting more treacherous by the minute, and we've passed all the exit ramps. From this point forward, there is no turning back, and the signpost ahead reads "Danger." 

Indeed, as I document in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, we're about to enter a Twilight Zone of sorts, one marked by drones, smart phones, GPS devices, smart TVs, social media, smart meters, surveillance cameras, facial recognition software, online banking, license plate readers and driverless cars - all part of the interconnected technological spider's web that is life in the American police state, and every new gadget pulls us that much deeper into the sticky snare. 

In this Brave New World awaiting us, there will be no communication not spied upon, no movement untracked, no thought unheard. In other words, there will be nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. 

We're on the losing end of a technological revolution that has already taken hostage our computers, our phones, our finances, our entertainment, our shopping, our appliances, and now, it's focused its sights on our cars. As if the government wasn't already able to track our movements on the nation's highways and byways by way of satellites, GPS devices, and real-time traffic cameras, government officials are now pushing to require that all new vehicles come installed with black box recorders and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications, ostensibly to help prevent crashes. 

Yet strip away the glib Orwellian doublespeak, and what you will find is that these black boxes and V2V transmitters, which will not only track a variety of data, including speed, direction, location, the number of miles traveled, and seatbelt use, but will also transmit this data to other drivers, including the police, are little more than Trojan Horses, stealth attacks on our last shreds of privacy, sold to us as safety measures for the sake of the greater good, all the while poised to wreak havoc on our lives. 

Black boxes and V2V transmitters are just the tip of the iceberg, though. The 2015 Corvette Stingray will be outfitted with a performance data recorder which "uses a camera mounted on the windshield and a global positioning receiver to record speed, gear selection and brake force," but also provides a recording of the driver's point of view as well as recording noises made inside the car. As journalist Jaclyn Trop reports for the New York Times, "Drivers can barely make a left turn, put on their seatbelts or push 80 miles an hour without their actions somehow, somewhere being tracked or recorded." Indeed, as Jim Farley, Vice President of Marketing and Sales for Ford Motor Company all but admitted, corporations and government officials already have a pretty good sense of where you are at all times: "We know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you're doing it. We have GPS in your car, so we know what you're doing." 

Now that the government and its corporate partners-in-crime know where you're going and how fast you're going when in your car, the next big hurdle will be to know how many passengers are in your car, what contraband might be in your car (and that will largely depend on whatever is outlawed at the moment, which could be anything from Sudafed cold medicine to goat cheese), what you're saying and exactly what you're doing within the fiberglass and steel walls of your vehicle. That's where drones come in. 

Once drones take to the skies en masse in 2015, there will literally be no place where government agencies and private companies cannot track your movements. These drones will be equipped with cameras that provide a live video feed, as well as heat sensors, radar and thermal imaging devices capable of seeing through the walls of your car. Some will be capable of peering at figures from 20,000 feet up and 25 miles away. They will be outfitted with infrared cameras and radar which will pierce through the darkness. They can also keep track of 65 persons of interest at once. Some drones are already capable of hijacking Wi-Fi networks and intercepting electronic communications such as text messages. The Army has developed drones with facial recognition software, as well as drones that can complete a target-and-kill mission without any human instruction or interaction. These are the ultimate killing and spying machines. There will also be drones armed with "less-lethal" weaponry, including bean bag guns and tasers. 

And of course all of this information, your every movement - whether you make a wrong move, or appear to be doing something suspicious, even if you don't do anything suspicious, the information of your whereabouts, including what stores and offices you visit, what political rallies you attend, and what people you meet - will be tracked, recorded and streamed to a government command center, where it will be saved and easily accessed at a later date. 

By the time you add self-driving cars into the futuristic mix, equipped with computers that know where you want to go before you do, you'll be so far down the road to Steven Spielberg's vision of the future as depicted in Minority Report that privacy and autonomy will be little more than distant mirages in your rearview mirror. The film, set in 2054 and based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, offered movie audiences a special effect-laden techno-vision of a futuristic world in which the government is all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful. And if you dare to step out of line, dark-clad police SWAT teams will bring you under control. 

Mind you, while critics were dazzled by the technological wonders displayed in Minority Report, few dared to consider the consequences of a world in which Big Brother is, literally and figuratively, in the driver's seat. Even the driverless cars in Minority Reportanswer to the government's (and its corporate cohorts') bidding. 

Likewise, we are no longer autonomous in our own cars. Rather, we are captive passengers being chauffeured about by a robotic mind which answers to the government and its corporate henchmen. Soon it won't even matter whether we are seated behind the wheel of our own vehicles, because it will be advertisers and government agents calling the shots. 

Case in point: devices are now being developed for European cars that would allow police to stop a car remotely, ostensibly to end police chases. Google is partnering with car manufacturers in order to integrate apps and other smartphone-like technology into vehicles, in order to alert drivers to deals and offers at nearby businesses. As Patrick Lin, professor of Stanford's School of Engineering, warns, in a world where third-party advertisers and data collectors control a good deal of the content we see on a daily basis, we may one day literally be driven to businesses not because we wanted to go there, but because someone paid for us to be taken there. 

Rod Serling, creator of the beloved sci fi series Twilight Zone and one of the most insightful commentators on human nature, once observed, "We're developing a new citizenry. One that will be very selective about cereals and automobiles, but won't be able to think." 

Indeed, not only are we developing a new citizenry incapable of thinking for themselves, we're also instilling in them a complete and utter reliance on the government and its corporate partners to do everything for them - tell them what to eat, what to wear, how to think, what to believe, how long to sleep, who to vote for, whom to associate with, and on and on. 

In this way, we have created a welfare state, a nanny state, a police state, a surveillance state, an electronic concentration camp - call it what you will, the meaning is the same:in our quest for less personal responsibility, a greater sense of security, and no burdensome obligations to each other or to future generations, we have created a society in which we have no true freedom. 

Pandora's Box has been opened and there's no way to close it. As Rod Serling prophesied in a Commencement Address at the University of Southern California in March 17, 1970:

"It's simply a national acknowledgement that in any kind of priority, the needs of human beings must come first. Poverty is here and now. Hunger is here and now. Racial tension is here and now. Pollution is here and now. These are the things that scream for a response. And if we don't listen to that scream - and if we don't respond to it - we may well wind up sitting amidst our own rubble, looking for the truck that hit us - or the bomb that pulverized us. Get the license number of whatever it was that destroyed the dream. And I think we will find that the vehicle was registered in our own name."

You can add the following to that list of needs requiring an urgent response: Police abuse is here and now. Surveillance is here and now. Imperial government is here and now. Yet while the vehicle bearing down upon us is indeed registered in our own name, we've allowed Big Brother to get behind the wheel, and there's no way to put the brakes on this runaway car.

Source: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/05/01/us-become-worse-police-state-orwell-imagine/ 

“War is Peace, it Makes Us Rich and Safe”… or So Says the Mainstream Media

War is Peace. What was known as a famous quote from George Orwell’s fiction 1984 has become a reality. Or maybe it is still fiction if you consider that the mainstream media is making up reality on a daily basis.

On April 28, 2014, the homepage of The Washington Post web site featured the picture of a nuclear explosion with the following title: “War is brutal. The alternative is worse.”

Peace is worse than war? Diplomacy worse than a nuclear explosion? I wonder if people in war torn Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and the likes agree.

The subtitle is probably the apex of nonsense: “War may be the worst way imaginable to create peaceful societies, but this professor argues that it’s the only way.” Professor? How can you be a professor and say something so illogical? And how can a newspaper be taken seriously when it publishes such absurdities?

But it gets worse, if that’s even possible. Clicking on the article, you get this:

“Wars make us safer and richer”. Wow. Really?

Who’s “us”? Certainly not the American people:

The decade-long American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would end up costing as much as $6 trillion, the equivalent of $75,000 for every American household, calculates the prestigious Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government…

It is also imperative to recall that the Bush administration had claimed at the very outset that the Iraq war would finance itself out of Iraqi oil revenues, but Washington DC had instead ended up borrowing some $2 trillion to finance the two wars, the bulk of it from foreign lenders.

According to the Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government 2013 report, this accounted for roughly 20 per cent of the total amount added to the US national debtbetween 2001 and 2012.

According to the report, the US “has already paid $260 billion in interest on the war debt,” and future interest payments would amount to trillions of dollars. (Sabir Shah, US Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq to Cost $6 trillion)

So, who’s “us” getting richer? The bankers maybe? Because if war makes some people rich, it’s the bankers:

Bankers are often the driving force behind war.

After all, the banking system is founded upon the counter-intuitive but indisputable fact that banks create loans first, and then create deposits later.

In other words, virtually all money is actually created as debt…

Debt (from the borrower’s perspective) owed to banks is profit and income from the bank’s perspective.  In other words, banks are in the business of creating more debt … i.e. finding more people who want to borrow larger sums…

What does this have to do with war?

War is the most efficient debt-creation machine…

War is also good for banks because a lot of material, equipment, buildings and infrastructure get destroyed in war. So countries go into massive debt to finance war, and then borrow a ton more to rebuild. (Washington’s Blog, War Creates Massive Debt and Makes the Banks Rich)

“Us” is probably also the military industrial complex, for which peace is enemy number one:

The fact that military activities may become a profitable enterprise leads to the realization that peace is the main enemy of the military-industrial complex.  A simple metaphor can illustrate this problem.  Grape growers, the wine industry and wine marketers would be completely out of business if people stopped drinking wine.  In a similar way, the military-industrial complex would be put out of business by lasting peaceful conditions because the development, production, marketing and use of military equipment would be not needed.

To stay in business, this complex needed the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, the “cold war” with the Soviet Union, war on terrorism and various other wars.  And it needs to be involved in new conflicts, such as in Ukraine at this time. (Vashek Cervinka, Peace is the Enemy of the US Military Industrial Complex)

WE, the people of the world, don’t want wars and WE are not getting “richer” and “safer” with wars. It’s actually quite the contrary. Wars ruin economies and guess what? Wars kill people! How are mass killings and massive debts making “us safer and richer”?

Even though he received the Stanford University Dean’s Award, which “recognizes the efforts of exceptional teachers in the School of Humanities and Sciences” and is “given for excellence in graduate education” and “achievements in teaching”, Professor Morris seems to ignore the existence of what is probably the most important judgement in the history of mankind, The Nuremberg Judgement, which says:

To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.

We live in a world where award-winning Humanities and Science teachers promote war, the supreme international crime. It cannot get more Orwellian than that.

Source: http://www.globalresearch.ca/war-is-peace-it-makes-us-rich-and-safe-or-so-says-the-mainstream-media/5379762

Orwell Rolls in his Grave

Director Robert Kane Pappas’ ORWELL ROLLS IN HIS GRAVE is the consummate critical examination of the Fourth Estate, once the bastion of American democracy. Asking whether America has entered an Orwellian world of doublespeak where outright lies can pass for the truth, Pappas explores what the media doesn’t like to talk about — itself.

Meticulously tracing the process by which media has distorted and often dismissed actual news events, Pappas presents a riveting and eloquent mix of media professionals and leading intellectual voices on the media.

Among the cast of characters in ORWELL ROLLS IN HIS GRAVE are Charles Lewis, director of the Center for Public Integrity, Vincent Bugliosi, former L.A. prosecutor and legal scholar, film director and author Michael Moore, Rep. Bernie Sanders, Danny Schecter, author and former producer for ABC and CNN, and Tony Benn, former member of the British Parliament.

ORWELL ROLLS IN HIS GRAVE provides a vital forum for ideas that will never be heard in mainstream media. From Globalvision’s Danny Schecter: “We falsely think of our country as a democracy when it has evolved into a mediacracy – where a media that is supposed to check political abuse is part of the political abuse.” New York University media professor Mark Crispin Miller says, “These commercial entities now vie with the government for control over our lives. They are not a healthy counterweight to government. Goebbels said that what you want in a media system – he meant the Nazi media system – is to present the ostensible diversity that conceals an actual uniformity.”

From the very size of the media monopolies and how they got that way to who decides what gets on the air and what doesn’t, ORWELL ROLLS IN HIS GRAVE moves through a troubling list of questions and news stories that go unanswered and unreported in the mainstream media. Are Americans being given the information a democracy needs to survive or have they been electronically lobotomized? Has the frenzy for media consolidation led to a dangerous irony where in an era of more news sources the majority of the population has actually become less informed?

ORWELL ROLLS IN HIS GRAVE reminds us that 1984 is no longer a date in the future.

Just an amazing picture : Can a monitored soul be free