Introduction
"Naturally the common people don't want war. But after all ... it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament ... All you have to do is to tell them that they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. "
(Herman Goering, Nuremberg)
Disinformation, propaganda and 'spin' appear in many forms, but the main arena for propagating disinformation is mass media itself. Historically, the main purpose behind all this was usually the justification for wars of conquest. In order to rouse the necessary enthusiasm for a war the enemy must be depicted as fundamentally bad, beyond redemption. We must have reasons to hate them.
In modern democratic societies the methods of media deception are often more subtle and the objectives more complicated. Certain stories are picked up, others are not, and the ones that are covered are massaged into shape. In the course of applying spin, subtleties of meaning tend to be stripped away, even as nuances of language are enhanced. As an example, consider the 'debate' between Evolutionary Biology and Intelligent Design. Listening to the media coverage of this issue would tend to give the average person the impression that there are only two camps: 1) the lunar right-wing creationists and 2) the scientifically 'enlightened' who believe in Darwin's theory. The numerous known problems with classical Darwinism and the rigorous science of complexity theory which addresses many of these problems are completely ignored in these news stories. All we hear about is the dumb debate between red-neck scientists and red-neck fundamentalists - which means that we really learn nothing of substance. The dumbness of the debate cannot simply be attributed to the ignorance of journalists either, but flows directly from simplistic and dogmatic positions taken by scientists such as Richard Dawkins:
It is not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one. It might be worth discussing in a class on the history of ideas, in a philosophy class on popular logical fallacies, or in a comparative religion class on origin myths from around the world. But it no more belongs in a biology class than alchemy belongs in a chemistry class, phlogiston in a physics class or the stork theory in a sex education class.
Dawkins quite rightly thinks insults and sarcasm are an effective way of making his point. In the pervading atmosphere of disinformation his remarks do not seem to be out of place. He uses nuances of language to slander his opponents while feeding us a dumbed-down version of their views.
Ridicule, Insinuation, and Sarcasm: Weapons of Disinformation
Disinformation has as much to do with the nuances of language as with the meanings of the words used. People who question the official story of major events such as 9/11 or the Oklahoma bombing are described as 'conspiracy theorists', a term loaded with negative connotations. These implied qualities are amplified by the tone of the language which journalists then use in describing their activities and views. For example, consider this article from the Village Voice which purports to inform us about a protest in New York City on September 11, 2005.
9-11 Conspiracists Invade Ground Zero
The alt.truth crowd takes its message to the memorial service, 'The New York Times', and a great big punk concert
The anguish was palpable at Ground Zero yesterday, as family members made their way down a long ramp into the vast emptiness of the World Trade Center site, then took turns reading out the names of their lost loved ones.
'We love you, Georgie. We'll see you soon', pledged the parents of a fallen firefighter, their sad voices broadcast to the crowds of grieving onlookers milling quietly around the perimeter.
Into this somber setting marched about a dozen 9-11 conspiracists, who claimed a patch of sidewalk to preach what they called the truth. 'These people weren't killed by Arab terrorists. You've been lied to!' shouted a woman who looked vaguely like Joey Ramone, holding up one end of a banner that read, '9-11 World Trade Center: Controlled Demolition.'
This article is clearly designed to make you dislike the people it describes, but does it tell you anything substantive about them?
What does the term alt.truth crowd mean? Who is Joey Ramone? Why are the protesters described as invading?
Advanced Disinformation Techniques
So far we have been describing traditional disinformation methods. These methods, while useful, were not aimed at attacking the informal networks by which people communicate and try to find consensus about important matters affecting their lives. The World Wide Web is one such network.
The 'advanced techniques' were, according to some, developed in the 1960's by the FBI or CIA. They involve the creation of fake opposition organisations which are used for both counter-intelligence and the dissemination of disinformation. The disinformation often consists of weaving deliberate errors into the statements of so-called activists. These errors can then be 'discovered', thus discrediting and disabling an investigation which may otherwise be on the right track.
A good example of the new technique is the faked G.W. Bush military service record fiasco ('Rathergate').
The Killian documents controversy (also called Memogate or Rathergate) involved allegedly forged documents that were publicized by CBS News during the 2004 US presidential campaign. The photocopied documents, obtained by CBS News producer Mary Mapes from Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, a former officer in the Texas Air National Guard (TexANG), were the basis for a 60 Minutes Wednesday segment that aired on September 8, 2004 and was presented by CBS anchor Dan Rather, who asserted the documents 'were taken from Colonel Killian's personal files' and had been authenticated by document experts retained by CBS. They contained criticisms of President George W. Bush's service in the Guard during the Vietnam war of the 1970s, purportedly by Bush's commander, the late Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian, and re-opened the George W. Bush military service controversy. After the broadcast, the authenticity of the documents was questioned on Internet forums and blogs, initially focusing on alleged anachronisms in their typography. The questions subsequently spread to the mainstream media.
...
The initial skepticism appeared in the following posts on Free Republic:
TankerKC:
'[The documents are] not in the style that we used when I came into the USAF...Can we get a copy of those memos?' (posted 19 minutes after the CBS broadcast began)
Buckhead:
'Howlin, every single one of these memos to file is in a proportionally spaced font, probably Palatino or Times New Roman. In 1972 people used typewriters for this sort of thing, and typewriters used monospaced fonts...I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old. This should be pursued aggressively.' (this response came three hours and forty minutes later)
'Buckhead', who gained Internet notoriety, would later be identified as Harry W. MacDougald, an Atlanta attorney who had worked for conservative groups such as the Federalist Society and the Southeastern Legal Foundation and who had helped draft the petition to the Arkansas Supreme Court for the disbarment of President Bill Clinton. These facts, along with his rapid response and specific technical complaints about the memos, would fuel speculation on the political left that the entire document controversy was preemptively engineered by Republicans to discredit a potentially legitimate source of criticism over Bush's quality of service in the Texas Air National Guard.
The Rathergate operation involved 3 distinct components:
1) The creation of new false evidence to support a claim which already has solid evidence behind it.
2) Promotion of the false evidence to support the claim.
3) Unmasking the the evidence as false, thereby discrediting the claim.
There are many such fake controversies within the so-called '9/11 Truth' movement, and the overall impression is converyed that all the websites which criticise the official 9/11 story are suspect. The aim is to discourage web surfers from looking to alternative sources for information and news.
For an interesting take on this theme, have a read of Fintan Dunne's article: The CIA Myths and the Reality.