Thursday, December 20, 2018

Philip Giraldi — Influencing Foreigners Is What Intelligence Agencies Do

The Rand Corporation defines America's influence operations as... “the coordinated, integrated, and synchronized application of national diplomatic, informational, military, economic, and other capabilities in peacetime, crisis, conflict, and post-conflict to foster attitudes, behaviors, or decisions by foreign target audiences that further US interests and objectives. In this view, influence operations accent communications to affect attitudes and behaviors but also can include the employment of military capabilities, economic development, and other real-world capabilities that also can play a role in reinforcing these communications.”…
The fact is that spreading disinformation and confusion are what governments and intelligence services do to protect what they consider to be vital interests. It is naïve for the US Senate and America’s leading newspapers to maintain that intelligence probing and other forms of interference from Russia or China or Iran or even “friend” Israel occur in a vacuum. Everyone intrudes and spreads lies and everyone will continue to do it because it is easy to understand and cheap to run. In the end, however, its effectiveness is limited. In 2016 the election result was determined by a lack of trust on the part of the American people for what the establishment politicians have been offering, not because of interference from Moscow.
Duh. The faux outrage over Russian and Chinese "meddling" is disingenuous and hypocritical.

More, "It's ok when we do it it, because we are the white hats, but bad when they do it, because they are the black hats."

Strategic Culture Foundation
Influencing Foreigners Is What Intelligence Agencies Do
Philip Giraldi, former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer, now Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest and founding member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

1 comment:

Kaivey said...

People naturally see their own side as good, and people from a foreign state as possibly dangerous. This means it easy for the elite to manipulate us. Foreign tribes in the past could be a source of danger.

Also, lots of people are naturally patriotic, believing their own side to be superior. They derive their self esteem from the the team they support, and when their team wins, they get a raise in self esteem. So, the elite can often easily manipulate the masses to go to war, because they believe they are good and have the winning team. They want to knock the other side out and feel victorious, giving a raise in self esteem.