Newsday (New York, NY) October 10, 2001 Wednesday
Experts: 'Psyops' Key Front in Battle
By Lou Dolinar
A key front in the Afghanistan campaign is a "psyops," or psychological operation, that's designed to drive a wedge between ordinary Afghans on the one hand, and the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's terrorists on the other, experts said yesterday.
"We're trying to define the terms of this conflict one way, and bin Laden's trying to define it differently," said retired general William Nash, now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "That's the battle of information that's taking place." Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld this week confirmed reports that the 193rd Special Operations Wing, part of the command that includes Special Forces and Navy Seals, is now in action.
But unlike their heavily armed cohorts, this unit is equipped with laptops, printing presses and mobile broadcasting equipment-including airplanes that can broadcast AM, FM and TV. Reports now indicate they've been operating for at least a week, dropping thousands of radios with hand-crank generators to Afghan refugees, along with food supplies.
Tim Brown, an analyst with GlobalSecurity.org., Nash and other experts say that a successful psyops campaign could rapidly win the bulk of the population to the U.S. cause. "The doctrine is that if you're right, delivering the message is easier," Brown said. "We're right."
But the message also requires subtlety: C-17 transport jets, for instance, are dropping "culturally neutral" rations - food that's mostly vegetarian and can be eaten by members of all religions. Similar drops of Army rations to Kurdish refugees in northern Iraq following the Gulf War and to Somalia in 1993 offended some recipients.
According to Nash, who commanded U.S. forces in Bosnia, a fair number of academics - including regional specialists who normally don't work for the Pentagon - have volunteered to help craft the message. If past operations are any indication, the info-soldiers are pitching more than just the U.S. position to the population. In Turkey and northern Iraq, for example, they provided maps to refugee centers, as well as the location of air-dropped supplies and minefields to Kurds fleeing the Iraqi army.
The effort is reminiscent of successful leafleting of Iraqi troops during the Persian Gulf War, when potential defectors were given leaflets with instruction on how to surrender, and coupons they could exchange for food.
Psyops also may be used to spread disinformation. The 193rd Special Operations Wing's EC-130 Commando Solo, for instance, is equipped with jamming gear and can reportedly spoof local radio stations by intercepting a signal, altering its message and and then re-broadcasting it.
According to William C. Martel, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College and author of "The Technological Arsenal: Emerging Defense Capabilities," psyops forces have been involved in every major conflict since the 1965 Dominican crisis. "If you see what we've used in the past," he said, "there's a huge advantage to have the local population clued into what we're trying to do and what's going on."
Copyright 2001 Newsday, Inc.
