The Department of Defense recently committed to spending $300 million in four years on a pro-Coalition information campaign in Iraq. This campaign will not necessarily appropriately label its broadcasts, leaflets and articles as “Made in the USA”. They took this decision based on the idea that taking responsibility for our own propaganda would undermine said propaganda's credibility. Of course, now the cat is out of the bag, on the front page of the Post, so instead of just our propaganda being undermined, all pro-US journalism will be undermined.
Information campaigns are a central part of counterinsurgency as FM 3-24 articulates it. I don't doubt the wisdom of including strategic communication in military efforts. But perhaps the idea that this “war of ideas” is in fact a war, and something to be “won”, is what leads to silly decisions like this. Distributing information through backward channels seems a lot like cheating.
