Dr Goebbels would be proud!

WASHINGTON'S MINISTRY OF TRUTH SOLDIERS ON

Remember the OSI?

The Office of Strategic Influence, an Orwellian Pentagon body was set up by Presidunce George Enron to develop "plans to provide news items, possibly even false ones, to foreign media organizations." In other words, to use the mass media as a propaganda tool with lies passed off as facts (This won't surprise viewers of 60 Minutes or readers of the Melbourne Herald Scum).

In February the role of the OSI was met with an unusual public outcry. Very unusual, given the frightening, sheep-like compliance of US citizens to their Government's dismantling of their constitutional rights under the guise of the phoney "war on terror".

Within a week of the revelation, however, the Pentagon had supposedly closed the OSI down, claiming that negative attention had damaged the office's reputation so much "that it could not operate effectively".

At the time, Defence Secretary Bumsfelt protested it was all a big misunderstanding, that the Pentagon would NEVER lie to Americans. And the US public apparently believed THAT!

Recently however, in remarks made at an 18 November media briefing, Bumsfelt suggested that although exposure of OSI plans forced its closure, it hasn?t abandoned its fraudulent role.

According to a transcript on the Defense Department's own website, Bumsfelt told reporters:

"And then there was the Office of Strategic Influence. You may recall that. And 'oh my goodness gracious isn't that terrible, Henny Penny the sky is going to fall.' I went down that next day and said fine, if you want to savage this thing fine I'll give you the corpse. There's the name. You can have the name, but I'm gonna keep doing every single thing that needs to be done and I have."

There it is, Henny Penny, in black and white: the name has gone but the propaganda activities remain.

Interestingly, this time there is no outcry. Not by the public, not by the media.

Bumsfelt's revealing comments have gone virtually unreported. And all this while the shifty-eyed Def Sec is making "information warfare" a central function of the US military, and already well in place as the US continues to undermine global peace efforts, intimidate its critics, and threaten Iraq with war.

Bumsfelt's plan, according to one report, "blurs or even erases the boundaries between factual information and news, on the one hand, and public relations, propaganda and psychological warfare, on the other."

While the policy targets foreign 'enemies', its main victim will obviously be the gullible and essentially ignorant American electorate. America uber alles!

And speaking of lies passed off as news, how about the Herald Scum's front page spray this week: TERROR CAMP IN VICTORIA - Extremists train in forests.

Never mind the fact that police investigations had previously investigated and dismissed claims of 'Islamic extremists' training in 'close-quarter combat' outside Melbourne.

Ah, but the Herald Scum was quoting 'well-placed intelligence sources' for its big scoop.

Well-placed WHERE, we may ask: the Pentagon?

Pardon me, but this isn't rain, it's piss. And a deluge is on its way.