Rolling Stone: “Psy-Ops Team Resists Illegal Orders To Target US Officials”

Again from Michael Hastings. This time, the story is being spun as “US Military Targets US Officials” but if it’s true (and many are casting doubt) then the interesting story in my mind is not that “the military is behaving badly” but that these acts contravene decades of federal law and military protocol, that Caldwell’s subordinates knew it, and that they acted on that knowledge despite the repercussions.

UPDATE: The more I read the reactions to this article from bloggers I respect, the less convinced I am that there will turn out to be much there there. Tom Ricks says there’s not a clear bright line between public affairs work and info operations designed to influence the enemy.

The skills employed are basically the same, and the internet has ensured that information flows easily and quickly across national borders. Plant a story in an Iraqi paper, and the Baghdad bureaus of the major American newspapers would read it and perhaps write about it within 24 hours. Not a problem — unless the story were false. Not supposed to lie to the American people.

This ambiguity has been hanging out there for several years… There is always another side to the story, so I want to see what Caldwell has to say. But going by what the Rolling Stone article says, if I were Caldwell, I’d issue a statement saying, “I screwed up, and I am sorry.”

I don’t know enough about anti-propaganda law to evaluate the argument that the line is unclear – thoughts anyone? And I think there’s a civ-mil issue here too, potentially. I do know that my first reaction to the McChrystal affair was more or less along the lines of these guys’ gut feelings on this one, and I was wrong then about how that would play out.

But I definitely agree with Ricks’ final point:

I actually think the apparent retaliation against an lieutenant colonel who objected may prove to be the messier problem.