An inside look at U.S. military propaganda unit

The November 12 New York Times has an article Military's Information War Is Vast and Often Secretive by Jeff Gerth on the U.S. military propaganda unit:

The 1,200-strong psychological operations unit based at Fort Bragg turns out what its officers call "truthful messages" to support the United States government's objectives, though its commander acknowledges that those stories are one-sided and their American sponsorship is hidden.

"We call our stuff information and the enemy's propaganda," said Col. Jack N. Summe, then the commander of the Fourth Psychological Operations Group, during a tour in June. Even in the Pentagon, "some public affairs professionals see us unfavorably," and inaccurately, he said, as "lying, dirty tricksters."....

The United States Agency for International Development also masks its role at times. AID finances about 30 radio stations in Afghanistan, but keeps that from listeners....

As the Bush administration tries to build democracies overseas and support a free press, getting out its message is critical....

In its rejected plan, the company looked to American popular culture for ways to influence new audiences. [The Lincoln Group, a government contractor] proposed variations of the satirical paper "The Onion," and an underground paper to be called "The Voice," documents show. And it planned comedies modeled after "Cheers" and the Three Stooges, with the trio as bumbling wannabe terrorists.

This reminds of Christopher Buckley's hilarious novel Florence of Arabia (see reviews), in which an idealistic Amercian feminist seeks to revolutionize the status of women in the Middle East through a mysteriously-funded TV network. One show, "Mukfellas", portrays bumbling religous police.

I found out about this article from my husband, who read about it in the Nation blog.