Contradiction in using war to spread democracy
Commentary by Mike Wolff

One of the predominant missions of the United States since it became an imperialist power has been to proliferate democracy.

Understandably, this mission is flexible, as global politics sometimes puts democracy on the backburner. Mysteriously, the rhetoric behind spreading democracy has been most profound during times of war. Indeed, it has been used consistently to justify war. The irony is that while democracy is based on transparency and open cooperation, war is a time for strategic secrecy and lies.

It is well known that the United States has supported countless authoritarian regimes for democracy. Because of the need for subtle population control and manipulation, the spreading of very blatant lies and disinformation has been an orthodox strategy of war makers since time immemorial. War makes lies necessary, but lies make democracy impossible. Thus wars for democracy are somewhat of a contradiction.

For years the United States has been covertly telling strategic lies to reach political ends.

Since the end of World War II this work has been relegated to the virtually unregulated CIA.

Occasionally, as in the Iran-Contra case, the CIA and FBI worked diligently to inundate U.S. media with lies and propaganda. Reagan created the Office of Public Diplomacy, run by the notorious Otto Reich, which bluntly shaped the media with an anti-Sandinista bias to support the covert war in Nicaragua. Reich’s office was responsible for giving false information to the media while squashing journalists’ quest for truth in Latin America.

That was the Cold War. This is the war on terror, and there is a new office to accompany the CIA in strategic lie spreading. It is the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Influence, created in response to the fear that the U.S. is losing support for the war on terror.

The new office, headed by a U.S. Air Force general and guided by the Rendon Group international consulting firm, has been given the task of creating U.S. support abroad through overt and covert media campaigns. The basic idea is to supply foreign media with information — sometimes real, sometimes false — that will then dissuade anti-American sentiment while promoting U.S. political goals.

Several Pentagon officials have complained that the Office of Strategic Influence will damage the credibility of that institution. They would prefer the lie-spreading to remain the job of the CIA.

What is harder to justify is war for the sake of democracy, when clearly war also justifies great secrecy and blatant lies — that which is the greatest enemy of democracy.

Two weeks after the World Trade Center attacks, Donald Rumsfeld said he would never lie to reporters. Now telling lies has become official behavior. These lies may convince the world’s people that the U.S. war on terror is fought for the sake of freedom and democracy, but by their nature they will impede any such reality.

Mike Wolff is a columnist for the Daily Lobo University of New Mexico. This column was distributed by U-Wire.

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