Sun Tsu once said, "To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence." Indeed, the history of psychological warfare (PSYOPS) is replete with episodes of cunning ruses and devious mind games. Apparently, the Pentagon has decided to begin a bold new chapter in the art of disinformation and subterfuge. Their tool? Er, spam emails:
Thousands of e-mail messages have been sent out since Thursday, a military source told CNN. The official says "this is just the beginning of a psychological warfare campaign" to convince the Iraqi leadership they cannot win a war against the United States and its allies. The message includes instructions to the e-mail recipients to contact the United Nations in Iraq if they want to defect. Senior military sources told CNN this was the first time the military had engaged in this type of "information warfare campaign." Sources say the program was developed by the military and intelligence agencies in recent weeks. The disguised e-mails, being sent to key Iraqi leaders, urge them to give up, to dissent and to defect. If they do not, the messages warn, the United States will go to war against them. The U.S. military and intelligence officials were apparently hoping that the Iraqis do not realize where the e-mails are coming from.
This last sentence raises all kinds of unintentionally hilarious questions. First, how can the U.S. government hide their identity in such a situation? For example, even if the Pentagon sets up a dummy email account from "Ahmed" urging you to give it up, I'm pretty sure that any "key Iraqi leader" with an ounce of intelligence would immediately figure out what's going on. Second, how would you make sure that these Iraqi officials don't immediately delete these emails? After all, I'm fairly certain that the scourge of spam emails isn't unique to the West, right? I mean, if these Iraqi officials see an email with the subject "hot Iraqi wenches want you," or "Congratulations! You've won ten million dinars!" what are the chances that they would bother opening it? Anyway, here's the kicker:
CNN learned about the operation Friday afternoon, and was initially asked not to report on it by senior Bush administration officials. Those officials later decided the information could be released.
Translation: Unkie Karl was just about to put a DiLulio on Walter Isaacson's ass, until Colin convinced him that leaking this info wasn't such a bad idea after all.
