Who needs a US disinformation campaign when the Brits will do it for them?

March 24, 2002 5:40 AM

Who needs a US disinformation campaign when the Brits will do it for them? (maybe, because we're not very good at it?) "Tony Blair's senior foreign policy adviser, David Manning, planted story of terror lab find in cave in Afghanistan to justify the deployment of 1,700 Royal Marines" - a White House spokesman said "we have received no specific intelligence on a chemical or biological weapons facility". I'm tired of being taken like this - as a dumb schmuck who'll consume the lies which hack politicos generate for their own murderous ends, and not protest.
posted by dash_slot- (19 comments total)

I'm tired of being taken like this - as a dumb schmuck who'll consume the lies which hack politicos generate for their own murderous ends, and not protest.

Simple solution. Don't keep up with the political/war news. I finally 'quit' a few months ago when I sold my TV. It's bliss. I don't know about what's happening in politics and I don't want to know either!
posted by wackybrit at 5:45 AM on March 24, 2002

well dash slot, it's a shame that tony blair's government keeps sucking bush's ass just for a couple of political crumbs

uk's foreign policy looks like a banana republic's policy: send some elite troops to fight washington's war…
posted by trismegisto at 6:03 AM on March 24, 2002

umm...David Manning?
posted by bingo at 6:26 AM on March 24, 2002

You could toss your tv and your newspapers and your magazines and go blissfully into your own world..but don't forget your computer!
Or. You can assume anything written by media, likely to be controlled (run, owned) by those to the right of center will be filled with We Are Doing Right Thing. anything from alternative sources, left of center: everything corrupt, rotten, must be changed, conspiracies, coverups.
Anything from govt source: questionable and manipulative.
But then there are some Truths. Are the Brits sending troops to Afghanistan? yes. Why? a variety of explanations. Stay with the simple fact that they are going.
Question all things. If two opposing views agree on what seem facts, then the facts probably correct. If the disagree on causes, results, needs, postions: then they are arguing from a biased perspective and you have to decide which is compatible with your biases.
posted by Postroad at 6:52 AM on March 24, 2002

Amazing .. here's some more from today's BBC.

From the Observer article "... Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. This had been reported previously."

Today this is news again. Even this cynic is a little shocked.
posted by grahamwell at 7:27 AM on March 24, 2002

Free England!
Free England!
Come get your free England!
A free England with every world war!
posted by RokkitNite at 7:28 AM on March 24, 2002

You could toss your tv and your newspapers and your magazines and go blissfully into your own world..but don't forget your computer!

Following the political agendas of the press is something you choose to do. You can have a TV and read many magazines and remain apolitical. However, it seems 75%+ of the population everyone has an inbuilt urge to argue a political case. When you drop that attitude, you have a lot of time to actually do something useful..
posted by wackybrit at 8:34 AM on March 24, 2002

Well, the more interesting piece of the cynical-Guardian-article du jour is the final paragraphs:

The Observer has established that the source of the claims was an off-the-record briefing by Tony Blair's senior foreign policy adviser, David Manning.

A Downing Street spokesman said it 'stuck by the thrust of the story' - that it had evidence al-Qaeda was 'interested' in acquiring such weapons. But Manning had 'not actually told' reporters a cave lab had been discovered.

1. Foreign Policy Advisor for the UK briefs reporters off the record.

2. Newspapers decide to ignore the "off the record" bit, decide they'll put it on the record, and publish it; misquote Manning.

3. Other newspapers pick it up - along with the misquote. US asked to confirm the misquote. US denies it - because while a lab that could make chemical and biological weapons has been found, there is no evidence that any had been produced yet.

4. Newspapers seriously embarressed by their own sloppy reporting. Cannot, of course, accept responsibility. Turn it into a "government is engaging in disinformation" story (note that in the Guardian article, as usual, a bunch of allegations the newspaper itself makes - with no evidence - are reported as truth, so that by the time the final couple of paragraphs are reached, it appears as though Manning is trying to lie).

5. Liberals in the UK, (and on MeFi), accept this story without question (and the "disinformation" story itself which is where the actual "disinformation" is) - and use it to attempt to embarrass those that they daily attempt to embarrass ... despite the fact that it makes no sense.

If the Tony Blair needed evidence strong enough to justify sending troops, he certainly could easily get the US Government's support - and (here's the thing the Liberals seem to forget) they don't need to make anything up. These people are terrorists. They accomplished large terrorist acts, and continue - on those few occasions when they still talk to the press - to say fairly bluntly that they will continue this terrorism.

Thank you, Tony Blair and people of the United Kingdom, for the support of your soldiers in a war that needs to be fought. I trust you'll survive the smear campaigns, and hope you'll continue to "do the right thing".
posted by MidasMulligan at 8:37 AM on March 24, 2002

i love a bad lie.
posted by clavdivs at 9:38 AM on March 24, 2002

It's always disturbing when a government passes false information (sometimes called "lies") to get public support. That the government didn't need to exaggerate in this case, though true, is beside the point.

The Guardian is always willing to play its part, though, in its endless search for a scoop. In similar style, here's another story that's almost a story on the connection between the 9/11 hijackers and last year's anthrax attacks. It begines with:

The stongest evidence connecting the 11 September hijackers to last year's wave of anthrax attacks emerged yesterday, with the revelation that one of them suffered from an apparent anthrax-induced wound months before the attacks.

and winds up with:

The New York Times quoted FBI spokesman John Collingwood as saying the possibility of a link between the alleged hijackers and the anthrax attacks had been fully investigated months ago.

'Exhaustive testing did not support that anthrax was present anywhere the hijackers had been. While we always welcome new information, nothing new has in fact developed.'
posted by Ty Webb at 10:03 AM on March 24, 2002

Thank you, Midas, for your interpretations, and for this comment: " ... (here's the thing the Liberals seem to forget).. they [the UK govt.] don't need to make anything up.." But it looks like they did. (Inter alia, I will neither challenge nor accept your definition of me, and other sceptics, as Liberals, except to say that name calling is not a substitute for discussion or debate. In any case, I'm not entirely anti-war: I'd just like to know beforehand How To Tell When It's Done)

Just empathise a little, if you can, and cross over the line a moment. If you opposed prosecuting the war due to its hazy aims ( or any other reason ), what would you make of this -
'We know from documents found in Kabul and the lab in the cave that Osama bin Laden has acquired a chemical and biological weapons capability.' versus 'I don't know what they're saying in London but we have received no specific intelligence on that kind of development or capability in the Shah-e-Kot valley region - I mean a chemical or biological weapons facility,'?
With all due respect, MM, none of us have to be blind cheerleaders. These comments seem to directly contradict each other. Why would co-dependent allies do that? I'm genuinely interested.
posted by dash_slot- at 10:03 AM on March 24, 2002

Manning was formerly the UK ambassasdor to Israel and NATO. This Guardian article calls him 'effectively the first British equivalent of the US national security adviser', and this BBC article says he is 'well known and respected in the White House'. So anything he says is bound to carry weight with UK journalists, even if it's 'off the record'.

It's my understanding that 'off the record' doesn't mean a statement cannot or should not be reported, merely that it should not be officially attributed.
posted by Owen Boswarva at 10:17 AM on March 24, 2002

Example: The following may be a total crackpot site, but who's to say it will never successfully identify a patttern or specific instance of intentional media manipulation? "This month has been filled with many small news stories, reported only once on CNN or stuck on a back page of a newspaper. Yet, their significance is huge as a preparatory mindset for the population. The following is merely a sample of what you should be watching for in the near future, as they relate to larger world scenarios ..."

How much time does a non-professional want to spend chasing down rumors in wartime? Evidence can be ambiguous, and "Geting it Right - Verifying Sources on the Net" isn't easy.
posted by sheauga at 11:08 AM on March 24, 2002

Nice creative reading, MidasMulligan. A pity that it's bollocks. Shows that you really have no idea of how political briefings work, especially in the Jo Moore-esque world of nu.labour. Original Reuters report here, designed to provide political hacks with deep background to support Geoff Hoon's statement. And it has direct quotes, which is a sign that they were specifically meant for verbatim reporting. (Indirect quotes mean that the briefer has allowed a little more creativity from the lobby.)

I notice no retraction from Reuters.

So: news desk does the usual fact-checking, calls up the sources in the Pentagon, and gets something different. A day later, the Pentagon is back on message, with its story of 'capabilities'. Does it remind you of a certain incident with a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan? Or perhaps with Chris Morris's description of terrorist plans as "a ballpoint pen drawing of a squashed football with a brick on top of it".)

Oh, and your thanks should be directed solely to Tony Blair, and not to most of his cabinet, defence staff or the rest of the country, because he's the only one prepared to engage in the kind of arslikhan towards Dubya in this country, and sadly the only one with the power to get away with it.
posted by riviera at 12:19 PM on March 24, 2002

Hypothesis: This is an intentionally leaked false story to make the rogue states think we don't know something that we do. It gives Blair the excuse (not that he needs one, but he still has so many Paleolabourites gunning for him I can't blame him for making one up) to ship the troops over without allowing the Axis of Evil (or pick your own favorite term) to realize we know they're plotting something far more insidious than a mere weapons lab.

This would fit in with today's opinion piece by John Keegan in the Telegraph asking why the Labour front bench is suddenly so gung-ho about nuclear weapons. "It is certainly difficult to understand why the Government has so suddenly adopted so menacing a stance. The states of concern are all keeping a low profile, probably to avoid provoking action against them. If the United States and Britain are threatening action anyhow, it must be because their governments know something their population cannot. Their intelligence services must have persuaded their leaders that the rogue chiefs are surreptitiously proceeding with weapon developments that are highly injurious to our interests and are resolved to halt those developments before they become irreversible." (Emphasis mine.)

Also, it IS possible that some wires were merely crossed. Perhaps the Brits and/or US troops discovered something and it leaked out before the governments back home were notified, thus the mixup. Note the dates and times on the Observer article vs the BBC article, and that the Observer article has the US denying claims on Saturday night British time while the BBC article has the Pentagon confirming claims well into the next day.

It's my understanding that 'off the record' doesn't mean a statement cannot or should not be reported, merely that it should not be officially attributed.

No, "off the record" means you cannot use it in a story, period. It's for your personal information only, to help you understand the context of something you're reporting. If you publish info given to you off the record, you can expect to be blackballed for some time to come. It's a very serious violation of journalistic ethics, at least in the US. "On deep background" is when you can use the story as long as you don't attribute it. (More on these terms can be found here under "Ground Rules."
posted by aaron at 12:58 PM on March 24, 2002

Their intelligence services must have persuaded their leaders that the rogue chiefs are surreptitiously proceeding with weapon developments that are highly injurious to our interests and are resolved to halt those developments before they become irreversible.

"Suspicion has adverse effects on the spirits and conduct of others as well as the suspicious individuals. Sometimes suspicion diverts the suspected persons from the straight path and leads into corruption and lowliness. Imam Ali (A.S.) said: “Suspicion corrupts affairs and instigates evilness.’ ... Dr. Mardin writes: “Some business owners suspect their employees of stealing which, in turn, forces the suspects to become what they are suspected of. Although suspicion does not appear in words or actions, it influences the spirit of the suspect and leads him to perform that which he is suspected of.” ...

“If you interact with an unstable, ill-natured man and are trying to lead him to goodness and stability, try to make him feel that you trust him, treat him like a respected and honorable man. You will find that he tries to keep the trust that you have placed in him. Consequently, in order for him to prove that he is worth your trust, he will try to do what makes him qualified for your trust.”

Who can guarantee with 100 % certainty, that nothing untoward is going on anywhere in the world with potential weapons of mass destruction? Under these circumstances, what is an appropriate response to repeated attempts at brinksmanship? I say enough horseshit and intrigue, it's time to scale the laboratories and stockpiles down to levels where it's reasonably possible to track them.
posted by sheauga at 3:00 PM on March 24, 2002

aaron: you obviously know the way things work (thank God), so it's probably worth thrashing this one out with you. As a jaded parser of wire reports, I saw the original story as either an overplayed justification or a smart diversion. Now, on reflection, I'm not even sure whether this was a failure of Downing St and the Pentagon to synchronise their clocks on when to talk about 'capabilities', or an orchestrated unofficial brief-denial-slapdown for the sceptical media, as an alternative to the established sequence of 'revelations about al-Q', followed a few weeks later by 'actually, they were downloading rubbish from the net'. (This now looks pretty likely, given that it's stretched a same-old-story into a week-long discussion.) If you've been paying attention, the only verifiable biochem threat is NJ anthrax, which is probably domestic, whatever the rumours (and Ed bloody Vulliamy) may say. What's been going on in Afghanistan is Harry Potter chemistry.

(You're wrong, though, about your talk of 'Labour front bench' opinion on nuclear weapons. Cook, Blunkett and possibly even Brown have been leaking misgivings to their respective pet hacks. You're talking about the Blair axis, if you pardon the expression. Not that I do.)
posted by riviera at 6:24 PM on March 24, 2002

'effectively the first British equivalent of the US national security adviser'

Apparantly we have 'hawks' and 'doves' now too.
posted by vbfg at 3:34 AM on March 25, 2002

aaron: you obviously know the way things work (thank God), so it's probably worth thrashing this one out with you.

I'm sorry I didn't see this till now. If you're still paying attention to this thread, riviera, what's the latest on this over there, if any? Because of the typical attention span of the American news media, we just stuck with the last Pentagon "it's true" report and then dropped it.

(You're wrong, though, about your talk of 'Labour front bench' opinion on nuclear weapons. Cook, Blunkett and possibly even Brown have been leaking misgivings to their respective pet hacks. You're talking about the Blair axis, if you pardon the expression. Not that I do.)

Ah well. I fully admit I don't understand the intricacies of Blair World anywhere near as much as I'd like, because I find it all fascinating. Blame Francis Urquhart.
posted by aaron at 11:07 PM on March 26, 2002