Report: U.S. general in Afghanistan ordered “psy ops” against visiting senators

A new scoop from the same Rolling Stone reporter whose story on McChrystal led to a four-star resignation and early retirement. Using psy ops on U.S. citizens is necessarily illegal in a system based on civilian control of the military: If the army can use propaganda to influence domestic debate, then they’re not merely executing policy, they’re slyly helping to set it. This is, then, potentially a big deal provided it’s true. But is it? RS’s source, the lieutenant colonel allegedly tasked by Gen. Caldwell with carrying out the operations, was willing to go on the record and produced proof that he e-mailed a JAG last March with his concerns about the orders he was being given. But he was also investigated and formally reprimanded for other matters by Caldwell’s staff along with another officer. Was that a case of retaliation by the general for exposing the psy ops plan or was it legit, in which case RS’s source may be exaggerating as part of his ax-grinding? (The other officer who was reprimanded insists that they’re being railroaded.)

The other, even more obvious, question: Precisely what did these “psy ops” consist of?

“My job in psy-ops is to play with people’s heads, to get the enemy to behave the way we want them to behave,” says Lt. Colonel Michael Holmes, the leader of the IO [psy ops] unit, who received an official reprimand after bucking orders. “I’m prohibited from doing that to our own people. When you ask me to try to use these skills on senators and congressman, you’re crossing a line.”…

According to Holmes, who attended at least a dozen meetings with Caldwell to discuss the operation, the general wanted the IO unit to do the kind of seemingly innocuous work usually delegated to the two dozen members of his public affairs staff: compiling detailed profiles of the VIPs, including their voting records, their likes and dislikes, and their “hot-button issues.” In one email to Holmes, Caldwell’s staff also wanted to know how to shape the general’s presentations to the visiting dignitaries, and how best to “refine our messaging.”…

According to Holmes, the general wanted the IO team to provide a “deeper analysis of pressure points we could use to leverage the delegation for more funds.” The general’s chief of staff also asked Holmes how Caldwell could secretly manipulate the U.S. lawmakers without their knowledge. “How do we get these guys to give us more people?” he demanded. “What do I have to plant inside their heads?”

According to experts on intelligence policy, asking a psy-ops team to direct its expertise against visiting dignitaries would be like the president asking the CIA to put together background dossiers on congressional opponents…

It wasn’t the first time that Caldwell had tried to tear down the wall that has historically separated public affairs and psy-ops – the distinction the military is supposed to maintain between “informing” and “influencing.” After a stint as the top U.S. spokesperson in Iraq, the general pushed aggressively to expand the military’s use of information operations. During his time as a commander at Ft. Leavenworth, Caldwell argued for exploiting new technologies like blogging and Wikipedia – a move that would widen the military’s ability to influence the public, both foreign and domestic.

Supposedly the IO team was told to make this its highest priority, even above spreading propaganda in Afghanistan, with the episode culminating in one of Caldwell’s spokesmen screaming at Holmes in vintage Col. Jessup fashion, “It’s not illegal if I say it isn’t!” Petraeus’s spokesman said today that they’ve opened an investigation but noted that there’s no legal “firewall” preventing an IO officer from performing normal staff duties, which lands us smack dab in the middle of trying to distinguish normal PR from psy ops. Does PR towards a visiting dignitary become “psy ops” simply because a psy ops person is doing it or do specific techniques need to be used, like brainwashing or “disinformation” (i.e. lying), to qualify? The latter’s clearly unacceptable but the former is tricky since even garden variety spin is a (weak) way of trying to influence policy. Do we really want military officers feeding McCain etc “talking points” in lieu of simply answering questions?

An aide to Caldwell tells Danger Room that Holmes wasn’t working as an IO officer when he was asked to deal with visiting pols, but apparently he had worked for Caldwell in that capacity at other times. Hmmm. Here’s Jack Reed, one of the “targeted” senators, echoing a point made this morning by another targeted senator, Carl Levin: He’s not going to get rolled by the brass because he knows these issues too well and talks to other people on the ground and elsewhere for a fuller perspective. Not an excuse for Caldwell et al. if the psy ops allegations are true, but there’s at least some comfort in the likelihood that they didn’t work.

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