CENTCOM pays a visit
Posted by Thomas Nephew on March 5th, 2006
Last Tuesday I posted “The wheels off the bus go round and round,” juxtaposing four pieces of rather bad news for, variously, the Bush administration, military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and hopes for stability in those countries. It wasn’t exactly my most painstakingly written and researched post ever — more a sort of combined “serves ‘em right,” “how about that,” and “oh my god” post that I concluded with “Problem is, it’s my bus, too.”
The first comment was a surprise; one Sergeant Gehlen dropped in from Tampa, Florida’s CENTCOM command — the folks in operational charge of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan — to write:
My name is Sgt. Gehlen and I work for the USCENTCOM public affairs office. To find out what is really happening in the CENTCOM area of responsibility, visit our website at:
www.centcom.mil
“CENTCOM’s reading my blog?!” I thought. I checked my sitemeter visit log, and sure enough, there was a visit from centcom.mil in Tampa, Florida. Judging by the referring page — at truthlaidbear.com, a blog ranking site — I guessed that Sergeant Gehlen had a busy day ahead of him scanning hundreds of other blogs for wrongthink regarding Operation Iraqi Freedom. At any rate, I replied, in part,
Your implication is that one or the other of the last 3 items linked in this post is somehow misrepresenting what’s really happening in Iraq and/or Afghanistan. Which one? And how?
Although I’ve waited in vain for an answer from Sgt. Gehlen, my suspicion that my visit was part of a campaign has been confirmed. In a followup comment about the same post, Paul points to a March 2 American Forces Information Service article posted at defenselink.mil, CENTCOM Team Engages ‘Bloggers’:
Blogs sometimes include information — accurate and otherwise — about the U.S. military’s global war on terror. U.S. Central Command officials here took notice and created a team to engage these writers and their electronic information forums.
“The main interest is to drive their readers to our site,” Army Reserve Maj. Richard J. McNorton said. McNorton is CENTCOM’s chief of engagement operations. [...]
The team engages bloggers who are posting inaccurate or untrue information, as well as bloggers who are posting incomplete information. They extend a friendly invitation to all bloggers to visit the command’s Web site.
While I have little problem with the military blog team clearing up misconceptions or falsehoods, the really elastic phrase in the CENTCOM team’s mission is “bloggers who are posting incomplete information.” After all, that’s pretty much everyone, yet I have a hunch CENTCOM doesn’t bother to leave “hey, things aren’t all that great, find out what’s really going on” comments at, say, Roger Simon’s or Glenn Reynolds’ blogs — after all, what could they direct them to? Hard-hitting exposes of Bagram or Abu Ghraib torture policy? “Let the chips fall where they may” analyses of pre-war intelligence on Iraq or body armor supply problems?
Having left a comment, the team “engaging” bloggers has one simple rule of further engagement — don’t:
“We don’t go in there and get into a debate,” he said. And officials here are quick to point out that they are not policing Web sites. They are simply offering bloggers the opportunity to get raw information directly from the source.
And, of course, simply leaving behind the implication that I’m misleading people with my own post.
Paul’s comments about this are apt; while public affairs/relations have their place in the military, the “what’s really happening” line leaves “here’s our information resource” territory and enter[s] the world of advocacy and spin.” It invites the question of whether CENTCOM’s site actually shows “what’s really happening” any more than my particular selections of bad news did.
Category: Post. Tags: industrial deception, iraq, torture|abuse.
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March 5th, 2006 at 7:33 am
This sure is PR-ish:
I’d like my government to hire slightly better writers, frankly. Ones who might note that emphasizing that their stories are “very factual” apparently distinguishes them stories that are merely “factual.”
I guess “factual” isn’t good enough. We need stories to be very factual! 110% factual!
I don’t think the Army blogger team is going to win the blogging Olympics with this level of writing, and who doesn’t want our Army to be all it can be?
Beating on a bit further:
Which is kewl, because “engage” is Captain Picard’s motto, too.
Although if this is accurate:
If there are only three folks doing this, I’d say that you hit the equivalent of the jackpot by being “engaged” with a drive-by; what are the odds?
I can’t say that I’m seriously bothered by any of this, though; not at this level, and this degree of openness. If they simply showed up to toss out their URL, I couldn’t see anything wrong with that. The mild propaganda aspect is eye-rolling, but I can’t see how it significantly differs from tv commercials, billboards, pamphlets, hanging out in malls to do recruiting, etc., save that leaving blog comments is free. If they were hiding who they were, or were bombarding people with constant unwanted propaganda, then it would rise, for me, to the level of objectionable.
But this emphasis on “but the information was not complete. The team contacted the writer and offered information via the CENTCOM Web site, and more information was added to the blog to make the article more accurate” is just rather silly. As if there were some objective way to have “complete” information. Sheesh.
It would be nice to think that DoD psyops done in other countries were at a higher level of sophistication and effectiveness, but I’m sadly pessimistic that it’s probably worse; we’re their native culture, and they’re writing this mediocrely; hard to believe they’re going to be doing a more gangbusters job in Urdu, or Farsi, most of the time, I’m afraid.
But, hey, at least we’re not hearing from the Lincoln Group. And maybe we should form a company and get some Lincoln Group contracts? I dunno about you, but I could use a few million-dollar contracts while the going is good. Whaddya think, Thomas, wanna form a nice little psyops company with me? It’s not as if we’d have to do a very good job….
March 5th, 2006 at 7:56 pm
A nod and a mention at C&L for you! (Guess that is a good as a blink!) But then again – we already KNOW how hard working and good you are to read!
But enjoy the blog hits as they come.
March 5th, 2006 at 8:13 pm
Thanks, Karen, I appreciate that. Yup, my little sitemeter’s been smoking today — already way over usual weekday numbers, let alone weekend. I always wish I had something new ready to (maybe) wow ‘em all with, but I never do. Thinkin’ about Lincoln, Frist, and a fellow named Neuhaus, IIRC, but nothing concrete yet.
Anyhow, welcome Crooks and Liars readers!
March 7th, 2006 at 5:55 am
So, heard from Wal-Mart yet?
March 7th, 2006 at 3:35 pm
Not that way!
I did get a comment once from a Wal-Mart guy pretending not to be — the comment traced to a visit from walmart.com in Bentonville, Arkansas. Unfortunately, it’s probably among the comments I lost from the older comment system. eRobin at “factesque” enjoyed it so much she recorded it for posterity at her blog, but I can’t track it down there right now.
March 8th, 2006 at 8:12 am
The obscene farce just continues, unabated, day after dreary day. Chief Fascist Republican swine Karl Rove faxes Congress with his orders of the day, and every gooper follows in precise formation, goose-stepping their way to the total destruction of the Constitution, and the now outdated concepts of judicial review and congressional oversight. An imperial presidency is now upon us.
And the reaction of the electorate?
Well, guess what. Cheney’s polls aren’t as bad as they were made out to be. It appears now that the drunken shooting spree in Texas has NOT seriously affected fat ass’s standing, nor diminished in any way his firm grip on the short hairs of congressmen. Oversee the secret spying? Forget it.
There should be outrage, but there isn’t, except in the liberal blogs and we all know what that means. Karl has permanently redefined the term, so now we have to scramble around and find a new label, like progressive. Well, all right. Fine. I’m now a progressive.
This lack of public outrage is a very bad sign. I fear for America. It is being destroyed step-by-step, and the solid fascist swine “base” remains locked at 40 percent or thereabouts.
I say again, and I’ll keep repeating it. Any American who votes in November for a Republican is a goddamned TRAITOR.
John Palcewski
http://forioscribe.livejournal.com
May 20th, 2006 at 6:55 am
You forgot about democracy
and abusing the people from others
political point of view
Its firstable against you dear sir
May 22nd, 2006 at 6:28 pm
For spam, this is pretty inspired stuff. Anyhow, I never forget about democracy… and I never, ever forget about abusing the people from others political point of view!
Also, “firstable” is a great word, I congratulate you on its discovery.
November 2nd, 2012 at 1:36 pm
[...] * This has happened to me before with CENTCOM, the DoD Central Command operations site in Tampa, Florida. **A couple of sites I saw [...]