Pentagon paid PR firm $540mn to make fake terrorist videos
63 replies, posted
The only source anyone should be reading is [url=http://labs.thebureauinvestigates.com/fake-news-and-false-flags/]the original BUJ report[/url] (which was linked in the OP), because that is the primary source and every other source is just repeating what it said
Here's what it said about the project
[quote]The work consisted of three types of products. The first was television commercials portraying al Qaeda in a negative light. The second was news items which were made to look as if they had been “created by Arabic TV”, Wells said. Bell Pottinger would send teams out to film low-definition video of al Qaeda bombings and then edit it like a piece of news footage. It would be voiced in Arabic and distributed to TV stations across the region, according to Wells.
The American origins of the news items were sometimes kept hidden. In 2005, revelations that PR contractor the Lincoln Group had helped the Pentagon place articles in Iraqi newspapers – sometimes presented as unbiased news – led to a DoD investigation.
The third and most sensitive programme described by Wells was the production of fake al Qaeda propaganda films. He told the Bureau how the videos were made. He was given precise instructions: “We need to make this style of video and we’ve got to use al Qaeda’s footage,” he was told. “We need it to be 10 minutes long, and it needs to be in this file format, and we need to encode it in this manner.”
US marines would take the CDs on patrol and drop them in the chaos when they raided targets. Wells said: “If they’re raiding a house and they’re going to make a mess of it looking for stuff anyway, they’d just drop an odd CD there.”
The CDs were set up to use Real Player, a popular media streaming application which connects to the internet to run. Wells explained how the team embedded a code into the CDs which linked to a Google Analytics account, giving a list of IP addresses where the CDs had been played.[/quote]
Isn't RT a banned source?
[QUOTE=Marbalo;51152525]In exactly what kind of action-drama TV show are you living in?[/QUOTE]
It's called whistle blower prosecution. And it has happened many times in the world. Don't be foolish.
[editline]4th October 2016[/editline]
[QUOTE=Oscar Lima Echo;51152561]Isn't RT a banned source?[/QUOTE]
Probably, this is why I mentioned RT is not legit + included other sources.
How come the mainstream media doesn't tell us this?
*sees RT as source*
Never mind.
[QUOTE=SassPD22;51152581]How come the mainstream media doesn't tell us this?
*sees RT as source*
Never mind.[/QUOTE]
I love it when people admit they didn't read the thread.
[QUOTE=Ardosos;51152591]I love it when people admit they didn't read the thread.[/QUOTE]
Look, i actually read the thread so don't fret.
Besides, i don't trust RT as a reliable source.
the gist of this thread is "but those were foreign children so it doesn't matter"
[QUOTE=Roger Waters;51152626]the gist of this thread is "but those were foreign children so it doesn't matter"[/QUOTE]
Nope. It's "one of sources is RT and it means that's some bullshit Putin Russian bullshit and other sources don't matter"
[QUOTE=Roger Waters;51152626]the gist of this thread is "but those were foreign children so it doesn't matter"[/QUOTE]
I'm not sure you read the thread m8
This is pretty cool from a technical point of view. I have to say I support this as it probably helped identify individuals or strongholds that could be targeted with air strikes minimizing troop loss and collateral damage.
[QUOTE=Roger Waters;51152626]the gist of this thread is "but those were foreign children so it doesn't matter"[/QUOTE]
Oh no the US government waged information warfare against opposing forces oh boo hoo.
[QUOTE=Roger Waters;51152626]the gist of this thread is "but those were foreign children so it doesn't matter"[/QUOTE]
hey roger
ever notice how when you're right you get attacked by everyone in the thread about how wrong you are?
the people who are actually mistaken or off-topic just get ignored
I admit though I kinda like being the guy everyone thinks is absurd
(I'm looking at you, big dumb american)
Are mods asleep? Russia Today is a banned sourced to be posted here.
[quote]US marines would take the CDs on patrol and drop them in the chaos when they raided targets.[/quote]
Correct me if I'm wrong, but patrols are not randomly sent on raids. Raids are pre-planned and the infantry doing the raids gear up for that before hand. Not go out on patrol and then suddenly decide to kick in some doors.
Original Source: "US paid firm to produce fake Al-Qaeda propaganda videos, deployed in Iraq as part of a psychological warfare operation"
Russia Today: "US paid firm to produce fake Al-Qaeda videos"
OP: "US paid firm to produce fake Al-Qaeda videos, false flag operation confirmed???"
Thread: "US faking propaganda to push the war on terror, censorship of the media confirmed!!!!"
[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;51152920]Correct me if I'm wrong, but patrols are not randomly sent on raids. Raids are pre-planned and the infantry doing the raids gear up for that before hand. Not go out on patrol and then suddenly decide to kick in some doors.[/QUOTE]
Patrols can last for up to days and would frequently have other tasks. It's sort of a bad word for it.
[QUOTE=Fourier;51152566]Probably, this is why I mentioned RT is not legit + included other sources.[/QUOTE]
Walking a fine line - but, I've seen the work from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism before, and it can be quite thorough.
$540m to make videos which poor people from third world countries make on a shoe lace budget? Someone somewhere is getting ripped off.
[QUOTE=Trebgarta;51155648]None are wrong, all are paraphrasing.[/QUOTE]
Taking a report describing a psychological operation in which fake videos were used to track Al-Qaeda sympathizers in Iraq, and claiming that it shows the war on terror is pushed through manufactured propaganda deployed on the American public, isn't 'paraphrasing'. It's bullshit, by people too lazy to read the source when the implications of the less-than-complete headline and OP fit their sophomoric view of politics.
[QUOTE=catbarf;51156472]Taking a report describing a psychological operation in which fake videos were used to track Al-Qaeda sympathizers in Iraq, and claiming that it shows the war on terror is pushed through manufactured propaganda deployed on the American public, isn't 'paraphrasing'. It's bullshit, by people too lazy to read the source when the implications of the less-than-complete headline and OP fit their sophomoric view of politics.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]Bell Pottinger would send teams out to film low-definition video of al Qaeda bombings and then edit it like a piece of news footage. It would be voiced in Arabic and distributed to TV stations across the region, according to Wells.[/QUOTE]
So none of the videos that were distributed to the media across the Middle East needed up being reported on in the US? Plus the big fucking issue that they either knew of bombings beforehand or staged them themselves.
But please tell me more of my sophomoric view of politics whilst you outright reject the notion of the US government using propaganda on the US populace be it somewhat indirectly.
The sooner we stop perpetuating the lie that we aren't spinning propaganda to further our government's of the story, the sooner we can improve this country.
[QUOTE=benwaddi;51156728]Plus the big fucking issue that they either knew of bombings beforehand or staged them themselves.[/QUOTE]
Uh, no. Go actually read the report, you're conflating two separate things. One is recording actual Al-Qaeda bombings, making it look like the recording is from locals rather than US-affiliated personnel, and distributing it to news stations. 100% legitimate footage, just concealing the origin. The other is creating fake propaganda films from Al-Qaeda footage, and planting it in raids.
There is no implication anywhere that the US knew of bombings in advance, staged bombings themselves, or distributed any of this material outside of the Middle East for purposes of propaganda, 'indirectly' or not.
So yes, claiming that this has anything to do with the US creating fake propaganda to push the War on Terror can only come from not reading the report and instead assuming a government conspiracy.
[QUOTE=Trebgarta;51156743]Are we reading the same thing? They dont claim anything you say they claim.[/QUOTE]
Are we? The report clearly states that the videos were planted in raided homes and used to track Al-Qaeda sympathizers when the videos were run and connected to the Internet through RealPlayer.
That is radically different from creating and distributing fake Al-Qaeda videos in the US as a false flag operation to drive American support for the War on Terror, like some in this thread are alleging (see post above).
[QUOTE=catbarf;51156472]Taking a report describing a psychological operation in which fake videos were used to track Al-Qaeda sympathizers in Iraq, and claiming that it shows the war on terror is pushed through manufactured propaganda deployed on the American public, isn't 'paraphrasing'. It's bullshit, by people too lazy to read the source when the implications of the less-than-complete headline and OP fit their sophomoric view of politics.[/QUOTE]
'... OP fit their sophomoric view of politics.' What? RT is Russian and it's well known RT/Russia has anti-america sentiment. America has anti-russian sentiment too.
What is here hard to understand?
Just google those two:
'Why Russia hate'
'Why America hate'
Guess what is are the results. (hint: 'why russia hate america' and 'why america hate russia')
And what is wrong with title?
[QUOTE=catbarf;51156904]Uh, no. Go actually read the report, you're conflating two separate things. One is recording actual Al-Qaeda bombings, making it look like the recording is from locals rather than US-affiliated personnel, and distributing it to news stations. 100% legitimate footage, just concealing the origin. The other is creating fake propaganda films from Al-Qaeda footage, and planting it in raids.
There is no implication anywhere that the US knew of bombings in advance, staged bombings themselves, or distributed any of this material outside of the Middle East for purposes of propaganda, 'indirectly' or not.
So yes, claiming that this has anything to do with the US creating fake propaganda to push the War on Terror can only come from not reading the report and instead assuming a government conspiracy.
[/QUOTE]
OK, lets say they did just use footage that the Iraqi media could have filmed themselves and they just edited it to look like news reports the question still stands at why bother spending $100 million a year on it when far less could be channelled to actually get the Iraqi media to cover the events the way you want? To add some context to what that money could do you can broadcast a 3 hour event with a full arena setup and a lot of pyrotechnics for under $1.5 million. Are we to honestly believe they blew that much on what, Hookah and Bacha Bazi parties? The budgets make no sense for what you claim.
I would be all on your side if this was a few million a year operation with 5 guys in a back office churning stuff out but this is a major PR company spending hundreds of millions to (supposedly) do what a few geeks with a GoPro and a Mac do everyday.
[QUOTE=Trebgarta;51157092]Where did you read the latter apart from retards lke space1 not reading anything besides the title
Cant blame RT for that[/QUOTE]
Those are who I was referring to, sorry if that wasn't clear. Only thing I'd blame RT for is playing up the false flag stuff and downplaying the fact that it was part of an overseas operation, which the OP continued by not even mentioning that this took place in Iraq. The Bureau report is much more clear about what exactly the operation was.
[QUOTE=benwaddi;51157252]OK, lets say they did just use footage that the Iraqi media could have filmed themselves and they just edited it to look like news reports the question still stands at why bother spending $100 million a year on it when far less could be channelled to actually get the Iraqi media to cover the events the way you want? To add some context to what that money could do you can broadcast a 3 hour event with a full arena setup and a lot of pyrotechnics for under $1.5 million. Are we to honestly believe they blew that much on what, Hookah and Bacha Bazi parties? The budgets make no sense for what you claim.
I would be all on your side if this was a few million a year operation with 5 guys in a back office churning stuff out but this is a major PR company spending hundreds of millions to (supposedly) do what a few geeks with a GoPro and a Mac do everyday.[/QUOTE]
Okay, let's read the [URL="http://labs.thebureauinvestigates.com/fake-news-and-false-flags/"]original article[/URL], shall we?
[quote]Bell Pottinger produced reams of material for the Pentagon, some of it going far beyond standard communications work. [/quote]
So in addition to speechwriting, informational broadcasts, the usual PR stuff, they were also probably doing work like policy briefing and military/intelligence broadcasts. This is a pretty big company, not five guys in a back office- I wonder how many people were involved?
[quote]Bell Pottinger’s work in Iraq was a huge media operation which cost over a hundred million dollars a year on average. A document unearthed by the Bureau shows the company was employing almost 300 British and Iraqi staff at one point. [/quote]
Over three hundred staff involved in various work in Iraq across a number of operations, not just the ones documented in the article. But still, that's a lot of money, isn't it?
[quote]The bulk of the money was for costs such as production and distribution, Lord Bell told the Sunday Times, but the firm would have made around £15 million a year in fees. [/quote]
If that claim is true (and the article doesn't dispute it), then of the money taken, only about 15% was profit- that's typical for a government contractor, more towards the low end. You might be surprised to learn that classified covert intelligence operations in foreign countries under military protection for years on end tend to cost a fair bit more than three-hour musical performances. Like, dude, this is all in the original source, linked several times on the previous page. Do you want to maybe go read it, or continue making baseless conspiracy theory claims and backpedaling when I point out they're preempted by the article?
[QUOTE=catbarf;51157349]
Okay, let's read the [URL="http://labs.thebureauinvestigates.com/fake-news-and-false-flags/"]original article[/URL], shall we?
So in addition to speechwriting, informational broadcasts, the usual PR stuff, they were also probably doing work like policy briefing and military/intelligence broadcasts. This is a pretty big company, not five guys in a back office- I wonder how many people were involved?
Over three hundred staff involved in various work in Iraq across a number of operations, not just the ones documented in the article. But still, that's a lot of money, isn't it?[/QUOTE]
OK, I assumed they would call standard PR operations by their name and not "information operations and psychological operations" which with the tone of the article implies they were running a very different operation.
[QUOTE]
If that claim is true (and the article doesn't dispute it), then of the money taken, only about 15% was profit- that's typical for a government contractor, more towards the low end. You might be surprised to learn that classified covert intelligence operations in foreign countries under military protection for years on end tend to cost a fair bit more than three-hour musical performances. [/QUOTE]
Eh, my math was working under them purely producing and editing videos. Your point is fair.
[QUOTE]Like, dude, this is all in the original source, linked several times on the previous page. Do you want to maybe go read it, or continue making baseless conspiracy theory claims and back-pedalling when I point out they're pre-empted by the article?[/QUOTE]
Now you can kindly step off and stop acting like Billy Big Bollocks, other than the filming of bombings (I'll concede they might mean aftermath of bombings but again Iraqi media would cover that so why bother) what "conspiracy theory" have I peddled? I pointed out that the process could be used to influence US media and that the fake product they were pumping out could have influenced reporting in the US.
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