Caught

[12Alfa]

http://dailyoccupation.com/2016/10/03/pentagon-caught-paying-pr-firm-540-million-make-fake-terrorist-videos/

 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/10/01/pentagon-paid-for-fake-al-qaeda-videos.html

Edited October 5, 2016 by 12Alfa

[Hasler]

Nice to see that operations on the scale of fortitude or mincemeat are still going on. Honestly it's a really nice use of an enemies own distribution network to find targets. Too bad the cover was blown. 

[12Alfa]

It is widely known in the IA world that these types of operations backfire. There is a long history of the said operations causing a lot more grief than good. A simple Google search will result in many if one cars to look.

[Hasler]

This operation was had two real prongs. First was bad pr to an enemy. This isn't the first or the most outrageous to do so. operation mockingbird lasted for over 20 years and entailed the CIA coopting reported and news papers. That little gem was responsible for a few revolutions. 

 

The second prong is no different than actions taken in operation mincemeat or fortitude. In both operations fake documents were leaked to the nazis that created some form of action. In mincemeat they went so far as to dump a dead British officer with fake invasion orders just off shore. The fact that the videos were made by the US for this is irrelevant, as this part of the operation is purely designed to find targets. By dropping the disks you can identify who is a supporter, and see how fast the these items move through their distribution network. By the actions taken by insurgents us forces gain valuable Intel on size and sophistication of the different networks. 

 

In in all this program is a standard black op. It is the same type of operation used since WW2, and even being out it still is working because now insurgent supports can't rely on videos to see how efficacious their org is.

 

[12Alfa]

First, this is not a black op, it is a psychological operation they are two different operations, belonging to two different orgs. Psyop"s being part of the IA world, black being a generic name for a lot of operations with unknown personnel, funding and oversite.

 

Second , this is not the 1940's, anyone could and did pick up the vids, so what happened is they are tracking just your average Joe. This entails vetting those who you want to track from the others (man hours, mistakes).In the end you have persons who may or may not belong to a bad boys club( find targets ) and, require more resources to sort them out , and leading to placing someone on a list( targets ) that they don't belong. Reports of people on no fly list are common in the news theses days.

 

So $ vs results appear low, and all one really knows is a list of people bad or not watched dropped vids. Some data could be gained ,but the cost vs end game is very non-effective. And the results speak for themselves.

 

Issues there in country, and else where, no end in sight. Was this a effective operation, or could the money have been spent in a effective manner else where?

 

The fact that the videos were made by the US for this is irrelevant  

 

That statement is true, and now the US has placed hacking issues on the Russians for your upcoming election, so I ask you,who's Psyo operation is in play?

 

For every good Pshy op there are 10 bad ones from what I've seen. (spent 10 years in IA)

 

Opinions may vary.

[Hasler]

True enough the dollars to reward might be low, but we really don't know what the final results of the program were. I can only assume that data vetting was part of the planned operation, but the army has surprised me before. Even with limited success this may have been deemed worth it since it only constituted .5% of the pentagon's funding. 

 

Also you are correct I should have specified that this was a black psyop instead of just black op. The difference didn't seem that important, but I guess it's the same to you as someone calling a bradly a tank is to me. 

 

On on a side note psy op or truth, I don't think Russia could make the upcoming election worse than it already is. No real fear has come of that one because we have bad and bad as our choice this year. 

Edited October 11, 2016 by Hasler

[12Alfa]

NO issues, I knew what you meant

Edited October 11, 2016 by 12Alfa

[Maj.Hans]

I don't want to wade too deep into politics, so all I'm going to say is that as a younger person, I resent the fact that in more elections than not, I have not had a candidate that I wanted to vote for.