The art of propaganda has had spectacular achievements in recent times. The apex court judges are portrayed as stalwarts of one political party or another. Judgments are prejudged in favour of one or another politico on the basis of imagined bias of judges. A blue-eyed prisoner writes letters to the Chief Justice of Pakistan. Lawyers address the media immediately after attending courts. A CJP is pilloried for seeking an imagined extension in tenure. A force chief is accused of being an election commissioner.
The US founding fathers used the media to attract recalcitrant states to sign the draft US constitution. Not to speak of gullible minds, propaganda influenced even the independent-minded Americans who laid down a constitution, beginning with words `we the people’. Thanks to the power of propaganda, Chomsky says the American masses are like a “bewildered herd” that has stopped thinking in Media Control: the Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda. In it, he asserts that, in a “properly functioning democracy”, there are a “small percentage of the people”, a “specialised class of citizens” who … analyse, execute, make decisions and run things in the political, economic, and ideological systems”. Chomsky reminds, ‘Woodrow Wilson was elected President in 1916 on the platform “Peace without Victory”, right in the middle of the World War I. The American population was extremely pacifistic and saw no reason to become involved in a European War. The Wilson administration established government propaganda commission, called the Creel Commission, which [through fake news, films, etc.] succeeded, within six months, in turning a pacifist population into a hysterical, war mongering population which wanted to destroy everything German, tear the Germans limb from limb, go to war and save the world…. After the war the same techniques were used to whip up a hysterical Red Scare…’.
On page 144 of his autobiography Mein Kampf (My Struggle), Hitler applauds his adversaries for successful propaganda. He lambasted Germans `who thought that the work of propaganda could be entrusted to the first ass that came along, braying of his own special talents, and they had no conception of the fact that propaganda demands the most skilled brains that can be found’. Hitler’s propaganda theorems are quoted in American political science textbooks.
Propaganda in its various manifestations has become intertwined with rumours. A retired major along with his cohort keeps shouting a military mutiny is in the offing. Rumour mongering also is an art as well as a science with well-defined formulae, as described in `Rumours: Uses, Interpretations and Images’ (1990) by Jean-Noel Kapferer. It sets forth rumour-making formulae like `a rumour is a multiple of importance of an event and ambiguity’ (Shibutani), or `a sum of fact plus fantasy’ (Kapferer). Allport and Postman, founding fathers of research in the field of rumours, dealt with false rumours.
Techniques used to convey hidden pernicious meanings include metaphors, allegories, Aesopic language, guarded speech, withheld information and esoteric communication. Hans Speiier says, “Finally there are communications in which withholding is indeed total: evasive answers, lies deliberate obscurities, loquacious flooding of the channels with socially acceptable nonsense” (Harold D. Lasswell, Daniel Lerner, Hans Speier, Propaganda and Communication in World History, Volume II. Hans Speier, The Communication of Hidden Meaning, p. 172).
It is unfortunate that Pakistan’s propagandists, powered by a political party, observe no rules.
Richard Deacon says, ‘Truth twisting…unless it is conducted with caution and great attention to detail, it will inevitably fail, if practiced too often… It is not the deliberate lie which we have to fear (something propaganda), but the half-truth, the embellished truth and the truth dressed up to appear a something quite different’ (The Truth Twisters, London, 1986/1987). He gives several example of disinformation including subliminal disinformation by which the truth can be twisted so that the distortion is unconsciously absorbed something which both television and radio commentators have subtly perfected’ (ibid., p. 9). Voracious readers may also see Propaganda Blitz: How the Corporate Media Distort Reality review: Fake news and lies, by Arvind Sivaramakrishnan.
Some propagandists camouflage themselves as writers in some prestigious newspaper, or flaunt a fake or real connection to some human rights advocacy group, or some NGO. India’s covert fake TV channels have already been exposed by EU-based non-governmental organisation EU DisinfoLab. It uncovered an India-sponsored fake dis-informational network of 265 fake media outlets in 65 countries, including US, Canada, Brussels, and Geneva. The network is run by Srivastava Group of India
Scientists of different countries are now studying not only the ability of information warfare to affect the values, emotions, and belief of target audiences (traditional psychological warfare theory), but also methods to affect the objective reasoning process of soldiers and civilians. That is affecting not only the data-processing capability of hardware and software but also the data-processing capability of the human mind.
It also ran a think tank called International Institute for Non-Aligned Studies. The Institute paid for the travel and accommodation of an unofficial far-right delegation of 23 European Union parliamentarians to Srinagar on October 30, 2013. The trip was arranged by Indian –intelligence surrogate Madi Sharma who posed as a self-styled “international business broker”. The delegation’s shikara (boat) ride in Kashmir Lake (dal) pictured Kashmir as a heaven in serene peace. Some members however smelt a rat and abandoned the free joyride.
Sun Tzu’s and Kautliya’s principles were used not only in the World ar II but also in the Cold War period (to hoodwink own and foreign people). Now, technology is being used as a complement to media propaganda. Political trolls are touch-me-not.
The US Army realised the true potency of propaganda during operations in Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, and, above all in, Somalia. US Gen Leigh Armistead says, “General Aideed of Somalia manipulated the media to keep the militarily superior U.S. forces off-balance throughout most of the operations during 1993. In fact, with the use of a $600 video camera, Aideed changed forever U.S. foreign policy in the region. It was Aideed, a true information warrior, whose actions in Somalia, perhaps more than any other U.S. military operation, showed the innate power of information…By no means is Somalia on par with the United States in a comparison of power of any kind. Yet because Aideed effectively used the mass media to his advantage, he in fact controlled the flow of events’. Since that time, IO has evolved to serve as a model for future…international relations” . I quote from Information Operations: Warfare and the Hard Reality of Soft Power, Brassey’s, Inc., 2004, p. 16). This textbook, taught at US military academies, was produced in conjunction with the US Joint Forces Staff College and the National Security Agency, Washington D. C. Armistead reveals `not only the computers connected to the world-wide web but also the air-gapped stand-alone systems are vulnerable to the attack. In 1999, President Clinton signed Presidential Decision Directive 68, titled International Public Information, which was an attempt to gain control over the external messages sent abroad from Washington. Recall Musharraf’s nod to the ‘with us or against us’ message.
Scientists of different countries are now studying not only the ability of information warfare to affect the values, emotions, and belief of target audiences (traditional psychological warfare theory), but also methods to affect the objective reasoning process of soldiers and civilians. That is affecting not only the data-processing capability of hardware and software but also the data-processing capability of the human mind.
American researchers are studying the influence of information technology on the minds of civilians and soldiers (combat fatigue, youth violence, disobedience, etc.). Books on social psychology contain research which indicates that a man can be motivated to commit a crime or act against his own conscience or value system.
