Last Friday, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) told a lie about U.S. spies.
He was asked by reporter Liam Cosgrove if he was worried about U.S. intelligence agencies spreading propaganda within the United States, thereby manipulating our minds about domestic or foreign affairs.
Cosgrove was asking in the context of the growing debate about the social media app TikTok. Crenshaw offered his reasonable fears about the Chinese government using the platform to twist our “hearts and minds” to suit its communist goals.
But Crenshaw dismissed that the U.S. government and our intelligence agencies would ever do such a thing. “I know that they’re not,” Crenshaw said firmly. He added sarcastically, “Do you have some evidence otherwise that you’d like to share?”
When Cosgrove offered none, Crenshaw snarked at the gaggle of reporters around him, “Are there any serious questions?”
But the good representative from Texas lied. He knows, or should know, that the U.S. government and its intelligence agencies are spreading propaganda inside the U.S. to change our hearts and minds.
And former CIA officers such as myself are outraged by it.
Let me give you but one example.
On Dec. 29, 2022, British spymaster Jeremy Fleming guest hosted BBC Radio 4’s Today Program. Joining him was U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines.
They discussed their countries’ respective propaganda operations regarding the war in Ukraine. The mission, they said, was to counter Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speeches and public arguments that justified his invasion of Kyiv. The way to do it, they argued, was to declassify top-secret intelligence of Putin’s war plans and share them with media outlets around the world.
“[There’s] no point collecting [intelligence] unless you use it,” Fleming said. “… Get the intelligence out there and use it to ‘pre-bunk.’”
Haines agreed, explaining what he meant: “We saw that [the Russians] were looking to create a pretext for the invasion and we wanted to sort of debunk that and help people understand that this was a false narrative.”
In other words, fight fire with fire.
Very well. We should ask: How did the debunking operations go?
Here’s the assessment provided by Haines: “[In Russia] we had basically no impact … and we were not that impactful in other countries [either] that already had sort of taken on the narrative of what the Russians were pushing.”
In other words, mission failure — if the goal was to manipulate minds abroad.
Her British counterpart agreed. But then, Haines added this bombshell: “Our impact was far greater in the West than it was in other places in the world.”
As a former CIA officer, let me offer two reasons this is utterly horrifying. First, American taxpayers should not be funding propaganda operations to influence American audiences. Nor should the British, I’d imagine.
Second, we also have troubling reports that the intel they were releasing for propaganda purposes wasn’t top secret or even accurate — and sometimes not real.
In other words, their propaganda operations spread half-truths or utter lies to their own countrymen. Haines and Fleming then measured the impact of the operations and found them to be “great.”
It’s the stuff of George Orwell’s 1984.
The question is whether they’re still doing it — and which of their political bosses in the White House and 10 Downing Street ordered it be done.
I don’t know what the answers to those questions might be. But it’s time that at least Haines and her colleague at the CIA, Director William Burns, testify under oath and in public about the matter at the U.S. House and Senate Select Intelligence Oversight Committees. And soon.
The reason? Both of them are working with President Joe Biden to convince, cajole, or otherwise shame U.S. lawmakers and taxpayers into forking over another $60+ billion in war aid for Ukraine.
In other words, it’s time we know if Biden and company are using domestic propaganda operations to achieve their partisan goals. And if so, there should be hell to pay.
And among the many to pay should be Rep. Crenshaw. Cosgrove asked him a fair and important question last Friday about U.S. intelligence agencies spreading propaganda to manipulate American minds. As it turns out, the answer is yes — they are.
That means that the least Crenshaw could do is offer Cosgrove an apology — and a promise to stop them.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...S&cvid=5200106f768546ed83f192956e1c3fba&ei=41
He was asked by reporter Liam Cosgrove if he was worried about U.S. intelligence agencies spreading propaganda within the United States, thereby manipulating our minds about domestic or foreign affairs.
Cosgrove was asking in the context of the growing debate about the social media app TikTok. Crenshaw offered his reasonable fears about the Chinese government using the platform to twist our “hearts and minds” to suit its communist goals.
But Crenshaw dismissed that the U.S. government and our intelligence agencies would ever do such a thing. “I know that they’re not,” Crenshaw said firmly. He added sarcastically, “Do you have some evidence otherwise that you’d like to share?”
When Cosgrove offered none, Crenshaw snarked at the gaggle of reporters around him, “Are there any serious questions?”
But the good representative from Texas lied. He knows, or should know, that the U.S. government and its intelligence agencies are spreading propaganda inside the U.S. to change our hearts and minds.
And former CIA officers such as myself are outraged by it.
Let me give you but one example.
On Dec. 29, 2022, British spymaster Jeremy Fleming guest hosted BBC Radio 4’s Today Program. Joining him was U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines.
They discussed their countries’ respective propaganda operations regarding the war in Ukraine. The mission, they said, was to counter Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speeches and public arguments that justified his invasion of Kyiv. The way to do it, they argued, was to declassify top-secret intelligence of Putin’s war plans and share them with media outlets around the world.
“[There’s] no point collecting [intelligence] unless you use it,” Fleming said. “… Get the intelligence out there and use it to ‘pre-bunk.’”
Haines agreed, explaining what he meant: “We saw that [the Russians] were looking to create a pretext for the invasion and we wanted to sort of debunk that and help people understand that this was a false narrative.”
In other words, fight fire with fire.
Very well. We should ask: How did the debunking operations go?
Here’s the assessment provided by Haines: “[In Russia] we had basically no impact … and we were not that impactful in other countries [either] that already had sort of taken on the narrative of what the Russians were pushing.”
In other words, mission failure — if the goal was to manipulate minds abroad.
Her British counterpart agreed. But then, Haines added this bombshell: “Our impact was far greater in the West than it was in other places in the world.”
As a former CIA officer, let me offer two reasons this is utterly horrifying. First, American taxpayers should not be funding propaganda operations to influence American audiences. Nor should the British, I’d imagine.
Second, we also have troubling reports that the intel they were releasing for propaganda purposes wasn’t top secret or even accurate — and sometimes not real.
In other words, their propaganda operations spread half-truths or utter lies to their own countrymen. Haines and Fleming then measured the impact of the operations and found them to be “great.”
It’s the stuff of George Orwell’s 1984.
The question is whether they’re still doing it — and which of their political bosses in the White House and 10 Downing Street ordered it be done.
I don’t know what the answers to those questions might be. But it’s time that at least Haines and her colleague at the CIA, Director William Burns, testify under oath and in public about the matter at the U.S. House and Senate Select Intelligence Oversight Committees. And soon.
The reason? Both of them are working with President Joe Biden to convince, cajole, or otherwise shame U.S. lawmakers and taxpayers into forking over another $60+ billion in war aid for Ukraine.
In other words, it’s time we know if Biden and company are using domestic propaganda operations to achieve their partisan goals. And if so, there should be hell to pay.
And among the many to pay should be Rep. Crenshaw. Cosgrove asked him a fair and important question last Friday about U.S. intelligence agencies spreading propaganda to manipulate American minds. As it turns out, the answer is yes — they are.
That means that the least Crenshaw could do is offer Cosgrove an apology — and a promise to stop them.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...S&cvid=5200106f768546ed83f192956e1c3fba&ei=41
