Western Media
Ratcheting Up Anti-Iran Propaganda?
By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich
January 26, 2013 "Information Clearing House" - On November 22, 2012, the Los Angeles Times published an alarming piece of news entitled “ Cyber Corps program trains spies for the digital age ”. The “cyber-warriors” who are headed for organizations such as the CIA, NSC, FBI, the Pentagon and so on, are trained to stalk, “ rifle through trash, sneak a tracking device on cars and plant false information on Facebook [emphasis added]. They also are taught to write computer viruses, hack digital networks, crack passwords, plant listening devices and mine data from broken cellphones and flash drives.”
By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich
January 26, 2013 "Information Clearing House" - On November 22, 2012, the Los Angeles Times published an alarming piece of news entitled “ Cyber Corps program trains spies for the digital age ”. The “cyber-warriors” who are headed for organizations such as the CIA, NSC, FBI, the Pentagon and so on, are trained to stalk, “ rifle through trash, sneak a tracking device on cars and plant false information on Facebook [emphasis added]. They also are taught to write computer viruses, hack digital networks, crack passwords, plant listening devices and mine data from broken cellphones and flash drives.”
Not surprisingly, less
than a month later, it was rumored that Iran 's Supreme
Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei had started a Facebook page.
The style and content of the site
ruled out its authenticity , but the
State Department was amused. In spite of the potential for
alarm, State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland
jokingly expressed Washington 's curiosity to see how many
“likes' Khamenei would receive. This is no joking
matter. Any message on this page would be attributed to
Khamenei with a potential for dangerous ramifications.
Barely a month later,
on January 24, 2013,
Guardian's blaring headlines exposed
fake blogs and Facebook pages made for BBC Persian's
Iranian journalists with claims that these were made in
order to harass, intimidate, and discredit the
journalists. These fake blogs, according to The
Guardian charges, are not by the American Cyber Corps
warriors, but are alleged to be the creation of the Iranian
‘Islamic cyber-activists' in “what appears
[emphasis added] to be an operation sponsored by the
authorities”.
While truth is the
fist casualty of war, journalists are also fair game thanks
-- in large part owing to the provisions of the Information
Operations Road Map of 2003 (signed by the then Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and pursued by Defense Secretary
Leon Panetta). As part of the plan, “
public affairs officers brief journalists
”. In 2005 it came to light that the Pentagon paid the
Lincoln Group (a private company) to plant ‘hundreds of
stories' in Iraqi papers in support of U.S. Policies.
The plan also called for “a range of
technologies to disseminate propaganda in enemy territory:
unmanned aerial vehicles, "miniaturized, scatterable public
address systems", wireless devices, cellular phones and the
internet. “
In light of such wide
spread propaganda, deception and digital warfare by the
Pentagon, and with the recent Los Angeles Times
revelations of the Cyber Corps training, truth become
indistinguishable from falsehood and thus accepting or
rejecting the authenticity of allegations by the
Guardian becomes subjective, in spite of the reality of
the victimhood of BBC journalists (ditto Radio Farda, VOA)
whose reporting is not welcomed in Iran.
The broadcast of BBC
Persian into Iran is problematic. Leaving aside the
illegality of it (
see article ), BBC Persian which was
launched in early 2009, receives significant funding from
the United States . To many Iranians, no doubt including
the Iranian government, BBC's role was (and continues to be)
a dark reminder of its past role in destroying Iran's
democracy in 1953 when, by its own admission, the
BBC spearheaded Britain's propaganda
and broadcast the code which sparked the coup and the
overthrow of Prime Minister Mossadegh.
As if in a
reenactment, the role of BBC Persian in the 2009
post-election unrest was significant. Claiming that
BBC Persian Services was basing its
reporting on “citizen journalists” and on the receiving end
of “eight user generated communications per minute”, their
own report indicates that some of the reporting was
impossible to verify. Unlike BBC Persian (and VOA, Radio
Farda, etc.), Wired Magazine did its homework fully. In its
report aptly titled
“Iran: Before You Have That Twitter-Gasm…” , it revealed
that the “ U.S. media is projecting its own image of Iran
into what is going here on the ground.” BBC Persian, true
to its track record, and thanks to State Department funding,
had a desire to trumpet in a new era in Iran 's history - A
historical change planned from without, with help from
within. Unlike 1953, it failed.
Once again, with the
Iranian elections on the horizon, indications are that the
recent elections in the United States and Israel will not
produce a break-through in the US-Iran relations, or the
foreign policy agenda of the United States toward Iran --
warfare by other means, including propaganda. Cognizant of
this fact, either the Iranian government is bracing itself
for a propaganda war by discrediting sites with a potential
to propagate misinformation, which may explain duplicating
the BBC (admittedly, a clever move), or, the American Cyber
Corps has outdone itself with the ability to point the
finger at Iran.
Either way, in
launching its cyber warfare, the United States has crossed
the Rubicon. Cyber warfare, much like germ warfare, is
dangerous, relentless, and without boundaries. The
casualties of such warfare will continue to rise –
unstoppable.
Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich
is a Public Diplomacy Scholar, independent researcher and
writer with a focus on U.S. foreign policy and the role of
lobby groups.
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