Pentagon opens sweeping review of clandestine psychological operations

Re:Pentagon opens sweeping review of clandestine psychologic... by paganel on Monday September 19, 2022 @10:59AM (#32899244)

Not sure why you're being down-voted, because once you see it is very, very hard to un-see it. For example in my case one of the factors for making me "see it" was the fact that almost all of the anti-corruption campaigns from my EU-member country were connected to a US governmental agency one way or another, be it the State Department or some other entities that are most probably the front for something that Langley is doing.

The US ambassador visiting our Justice Ministry [1] a few years ago when almost all of the middle-class electorate was out in the streets protesting against the Government's direct influence on some justice-related stuff was the cherry on cake. I didn't realise it back then, because I was busy protesting against my own government, but in retrospect I started wondering how come it's ok for a foreign entity to control the justice system from my (supposedly sovereign) country.

[1] https://stirileprotv.ro/stiri/actualitate/ambasadorul-sua-ha...

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Re:Pentagon opens sweeping review of clandestine psychologic... by asdff on Monday September 19, 2022 @07:32PM (#32905591)

Manufacturing Consent outlines how this propaganda model works. It was written 40 years ago but honestly nothing has changed, mass media still decides what topics are presented to the public as they've always done. Think of all the wars happening in the world today, and the ones we see a lot of information about versus the one where there is almost no information about what is happening at all.

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Re:Pentagon opens sweeping review of clandestine psychologic... by michael1999 on Monday September 19, 2022 @11:06AM (#32899361)

Influence is not control. I have absolute confidence that Canada's elections are sound. But I have strong suspicions that the USA applies influence to our processes of developing candidates. So do Russia, China, and Europe. How could it be different?

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Re:Pentagon opens sweeping review of clandestine psychologic... by hoseja on Tuesday September 20, 2022 @04:30AM (#32909112)

When does it become control? It's become increasingly obvious that with total control of the narrative the people are simply incapable of voting in ways those in control don't want them to, whatever technical soundness of the election process.

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Re:Pentagon opens sweeping review of clandestine psychologic... by googlryas on Monday September 19, 2022 @12:47PM (#32900744)

So what's the deal here?

Is there a corruption problem in Romania, and the US is trying to help overturn it?

Is there no corruption problem in Romania, and the US is doing some power play to try to get the people in power out?

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Re:Pentagon opens sweeping review of clandestine psychologic... by tarakat on Monday September 19, 2022 @01:28PM (#32901284)

There's a corruption problem, and the US will use it as an excuse to target politicians unfriendly to their interests, and divert scrutiny away from those that play ball with Washington.

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Re:Pentagon opens sweeping review of clandestine psychologic... by paganel on Monday September 19, 2022 @01:40PM (#32901445)

Exactly this.

Plus the few cases when US companies (or they local subsidiaries, more exactly) do get tangled up in a corruption thingie for one reason or another the companies themselves get out of it as nothing had happened.

Here's an article about a former CEO of Oracle Romania [1] recognising that he took 500,000+ euros as bribes, but because he reached a deal with the prosecutors he received a suspended sentence (so no actual prison time).

And, the most famous, the Microsoft scandal [2], which has its own dedicated wikipedia page, but where, again, the company itself got away without anyone working for them actually being prosecuted. I'll give it to the American authorities on this one, though, that scandal was most probably put into motion at the very beginning thanks to the work of the FBI [3] (so, obviously, as the result of domestic US investigations), the FBI which had also found irregularities with MS's work in China and Italy.

[1] https://www.mediafax.ro/social/fostul-ceo-oracle-romania-aco...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_licensing_corruption...

[3] https://fcpaprofessor.com/microsoft-business-in-romania-the-...

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Re:Pentagon opens sweeping review of clandestine psychologic... by hunglee2 on Monday September 19, 2022 @11:01AM (#32899278)

Upvote / downvote are almost always emotional on HN ;-)

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