I’m sure you all saw or heard about the Washington Post article of
December 9, 2019, “At War With The Truth” which you can find at https://wapo.st/2Plvhyl and is a photo
source. The article claimed that “senior
U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout
the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and
hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.” As a result of
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, the results of over 400 interviews
were revealed.
Among
the most telling of those interviews was a quote from LTG (R) Douglas Lute (you
can read his bio here).
According to the General: ““We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan —
we didn’t know what we were doing,” Douglas
Lute, a three-star Army general who served as the White House’s Afghan war czar
during the Bush and Obama administrations, told government interviewers in
2015. He added: “What are we trying to do here? We didn’t have the foggiest
notion of what we were undertaking.”
As a Viet Nam veteran, I was reminded of a similar Washington Post
story which came to be known as the Pentagon papers. For those of you who do
not remember, the Pentagon Papers was a collection of classified DOD reports on
the conflict in Viet Nam. Just like the latest release, the Pentagon Papers
indicated that the war was not going nearly as well as the US public was led to
believe.
PSYOP Today – What Does Congress Know?
In my role as First VP of POVA, I decided to ask my Congressional
Representative about PSYOP manning. Here is the text of the letter dated 5
December 2019 from my Rep.
“Thank you for contacting me to express your concerns about
funding cuts to the U.S. Army's psychological operations (PSYOP). I appreciate
that you took the lime to share your thoughts with me and for speaking with me
at the Veterans Day parade. I apologize for the delayed written response.
Like you, I recognize the strategic importance of the U.S. Army's
PSYOP units. Both active duty and reserve PSYOP units play a pivotal role in
disseminating important information to local populations in foreign countries
and are critical to our national security. Helping locals share information
about schools reopening or NATO-sponsored building projects, for example, are
proven ways to positively impact U.S. perception abroad and can help to keep
U.S. forces deployed overseas out of harm's way.
My staff shared your inquiry about this program to the Office of
the Chief Legislative Liaison
(OCLL) for the Army. You may be interested to know that the OCLL
informed me that the Army's psychological operations units are currently manned
well above the authorized leve.ls at almost every rank and that there is no
plan to reduce these levels in the foreseeable future. My office was notified
by OCLL that PSYOP units are facing challenges in recruiting, but have been told
that the Pentagon is working to address this challenge and has made recruiting
one of their top priorities. You may be pleased to know that the Active Duty
Army Special Operations Forces (ARSOF) PSYOP Initial Entry Training pipeline,
which was instituted just a year and a half ago, is beginning to produce
pipeline graduates. While I was informed that it is still too early to identify
the impact of this pipeline program on recruiting levels, the program has the
potential to assist in the growth of Active Duty Enlisted PSYOP forces in the
future.”
I’d like readers to let me know how this picture compares to reality.
Thanks for your support over the years.
All the best to you and yours for the Holiday Season. This will be
my last posting of PSYOPREGIMENT.BLOGPSOT for 2019. May 2020 be your best year
ever!
