At any rate, bear with me while I ponder the obvious: the sheer volume of misleading, manufactured, slanted, spun, stilted and distorted information being generated about Iran right now - and particularly the time-worn repetition of He's-A-Hitler themes - suggests that some kind of attack is afoot. In order to blast a geopolitical opponent to Hades these days, they must first be portrayed as genocidal maniacs, ready to launch aggressive wars, pointing nukes at us... any war will not only be defensive, therefore, but also an act of humanitarian largesse.
This is from Linebarger's "Psychological Warfare" 1954 edition Pages 128-131
which is the "primer" for PSYOPS operations. Linebarger's fear was that this
would be used in peace time(whatever that is) which a lot of it ufortunately has.
"Over and above the direct contribution to straight news or intelligence,
enemy propaganda in times of war or crisis affords a clue to enemy strategy.
If the co-ordination is not present the propaganda may do the enemy himself
harm. But the moment co-ordination is present, and one end of the
co-ordinate is handed over to us, we can start figuring what the
co-ordination is for. Sometimes propaganda is sacrificed for weightier
considerations of security; German propaganda gave little advance warning of
a war with the USSR, and Soviet propaganda gave none. In other instances,
the co-ordination does give the show away. (Johnno: The Manahattan project
is one instance of this)
"In 1941-42 the Japanese radio began to show an unwholesome interest in
Christmas Island in its broadcasts to Japanese at home and abroad. Christmas
Island, below Sumatra, was pointed out as a really important place, and
tremendously important to Naval strategy. Subsequently the Japanese armed
forces went to and took Christmas Island. The home public was delighted that
this vital spot had been secured. Of course Christmas Island was not as
important as Japanese radio said it was, but the significant thing was that
radio talked about it AHEAD OF TIME. For what little it was worth the
Japanese had given us warning......"
(Johnno: This section one paragraph later applies to Iran.)...
"A nation getting ready to strike a la Pearl Harbour may prepare by alleging
American aggresion. A nation preparing to break the peace frequently gets
out peace propaganda of the most blatant sort, trying to make sure that its
own audience (as well as the world) will believe the real responsibility to
lie in the victim he attacks. Hitler protested his love of Norwegian
neutrality; then he hit, claiming that he was protecting it from the
British. No hard and fast rules can be made up for all wars or all
beligerents. The Germans behaved according to one pattern; the Japanese
another."
"For example, the German High Command sought to avoid bragging about
anything they could not accomplish (Johnno:Observe USA's performance on North
Korea which would involve engaging China with it hundreds of millions of
ready for war population) They often struck blows without warning but they
never said they would strike a blow when they knew or believed they could
not do it. The British and Americans made a timetable of this, and were able
to guess how fast the Germans thought they were going to advance in Russia.
Knowing this, the British and Americans planned their propaganda to counter
the German boasts; they tried to pin the Germans down to objectives they
knew the Germans would not take, in order to demonstrate to the peoples of
Europe that Nazi Germany had finally bitten off more than it could chew."
"Later the Allies remembered this German habit when the Nazis on the radio
began talking about their own secret weapons. When the British bombed the
V-1 ramps on the French coast, the German radio stopped that talk. The
British had additional grounds for supposing that the ramps thay had bombed
were part of the secret weapons that the Germans bragged about. The British
further knew that the Germans would try to counter the psychologigal effect
of the annouoncement of Allied D Day with some pretty vivid news of their
own. When the German radio began mentioning secret weapons again, the
British suspected the Germans had got around damage done to the ramps. D-Day
came; the Germans, in one single broadcast designed to impress the Japanese
and Chinese, announced the secret German weapon was about to be turned
loose, and that more such weapons would follow. One day later the first V-1
hit London."
[..]Johnno: And the final chapter ends thus
"For peacetime purposes, it is to be rermembered that tough enemies may hide
their scientists, their launching ramps, or their rockets, they cannot hide
their occasion for war, nor their own readiness measures. No government can
afford to seem the plain unqualified aggressor. Propanal (Propaganda
Analysis) may prove to be one of the soundest war-forecasting systems
available to usin a period of ultra destructive weapons. Psychological
mobilization may be disguised; it cannot be concealed."
