Psychological Operations (WarGames)

Psychological operations (United States)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

United States Psychological Operations


Active
Country United States
Allegiance Federal
Part of Active Army - U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC)
Reserve Army - U.S. Army Civil Affairs Psychological Operations Command(USACAPOC)
Navy -
Air Force -
Colors Army - Bottle Green
Insignia
Identification
symbol Army - Trojan Horse, Chess Knight

The purpose of United States psychological operations (PSYOP) is to induce or reinforce attitudes and behaviors favorable to U.S. objectives. In the United States Department of Defense, Psychological Operations units exist in the Army and Air Force[citation needed]. The United States Navy also plans and executes limited PSYOP missions.[citation needed]

Unlike some countries, United States PSYOP units and soldiers of all branches of the military are prohibited by law from conducting PSYOP missions on domestic audiences.[citation needed] While PSYOP soldiers may offer non-PSYOP related support to domestic military missions , PSYOP can only target foreign audiences. Though, it is worth noting that this does not rule out PSYOP targeting foreign audiences of allied nations. Additionally, in the Information Operations Roadmap made public January 2006 but originally approved by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in October 2003, it stated "information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and PSYOP, increasingly is consumed by our domestic audience and vice-versa."[1]

Within the U.S. Psychological Operations community, PSYOPS is generally considered to be an incorrect abbreviation. The correct abbreviation is PSYOP.



Until recently, the Army's Psychological Operations elements were administratively organized alongside Civil Affairs to form the US Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (USACAPOC), forming a part of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC). However, in May 2006 USCAPOC was reorganized to instead fall under the Army reserve command, and all active duty PSYOP elements were placed directly into USASOC. While reserve PSYOP forces no longer belong to USASOC, that command retains control of PSYOP doctrine. Operationally, PSYOP individuals and organizations support Army and Joint maneuver forces or interagency organizations.

Army Psychological Operations support operations ranging from strategic planning down to tactical employment.
Left: US Special Operations Command (USASOC) Shoulder Sleeve Insignia (SSI). Worn by soldiers in any active-duty PSYOP unit. Center: US Army Civil Affairs Psychological Operations Command (USACAPOC) SSI. Worn by soldiers in any reserve PSYOP unit. Right: US Army 1st Special Operation Command SSI (obsolete). Formerly the SSI worn by all PSYOP soldiers.
Left: US Special Operations Command (USASOC) Shoulder Sleeve Insignia (SSI). Worn by soldiers in any active-duty PSYOP unit. Center: US Army Civil Affairs Psychological Operations Command (USACAPOC) SSI. Worn by soldiers in any reserve PSYOP unit. Right: US Army 1st Special Operation Command SSI (obsolete). Formerly the SSI worn by all PSYOP soldiers.

PSYOP Support Elements generally support Corps sized elements. Tactical Psychological Operations Companies typically support Division sized elements, with Tactical Control through G-3. Brigades are typically supported by a Tactical PSYOP Detachment. The PSYOP Commander maintains Operational Control of PSYOP elements, advises the Commander and General Staff on the psychological battlespace.

The smallest organizational PSYOP element is the Tactical PSYOP Team (TPT). A TPT generally consists of a PSYOP team chief (Staff Sergeant or Sergeant), an assistant team chief (Sergeant or Specialist), and an additional soldier to serve as a gunner and to operate the speaker system (Specialist). A team is equipped with a Humvee fitted with a loud speaker, and often works with a local translator indigenous to the host or occupied country.

Generally, each maneuver battalion-sized element in a theater of war or operational area has at least one TPT attached to it. While in the Army women are allowed to hold the psychological operations occupational specialty, they are not allowed to serve on TPTs in a war zone due to a PSYOP team's high chance of contact with the enemy (with exceptions sometimes being made).
U.S. Army PSYOP branch insignia and regimental crest.
U.S. Army PSYOP branch insignia and regimental crest.

PSYOP soldiers are required to complete nine weeks of Basic Combat Training. After basic training (BCT), the active duty-component PSYOP Soldier is then required to attend Airborne training. All enlisted PSYOP Soldiers report to Fort Bragg to complete the 16-week Psychological Operation Advanced Individual Training (AIT) course. Sometime after initial training, PSYOP Soldiers will spend up to a year (or perhaps more for specific languages) in foreign language qualification training. Certain reserve soldiers serving in units designated as Airborne are also required to attend Airborne training, while language training and Airborne qualification for PSYOP Soldiers assigned to non-Airborne units is awarded on a merit and need basis.


Army Units

There are only three known Psychological Operations Groups in the Army: the 2d, 4th, and 7th. 4th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne) is the only active duty PSYOP element in the United States Army, constituting 26 percent of all U.S. Army Psychological Operations units. The remaining 74 percent is split between the 2nd and 7th Psychological Operations Groups in the Army Reserve.


[edit] 4th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne)
Distinguished Unit Insignia (DUI) for the 4th POG (A)
Distinguished Unit Insignia (DUI) for the 4th POG (A)

The 4th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne) (4th PSYOP Group (A) or 4th POG) is based out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, home of the United States Army Special Operations Command. 4th POG was constituted 7 November 1967 in the Regular Army as Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 4th Psychological Operations Group. Activated 1 December 1967 in Vietnam. Inactivated 2 October 1971 at Fort Lewis, Washington. Activated 13 September 1972 at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Campaign participation credits include:

Vietnam: Counteroffensive, Phase III; Tet Counteroffensive; Counteroffensive, Phase IV; Counteroffensive, Phase V; Counteroffensive, Phase VI; Tet 69/Counteroffensive; Summer-Fall 1969; Winter-Spring 1970; Sanctuary Counteroffensive; Counteroffensive, Phase VII; Consolidation I

Armed Forces Expeditions: Grenada

Southwest Asia: Defense of Saudi Arabia; Liberation and Defense of Kuwait

4th POG currently consists of a Headquarters Company, four Strategic PSYOP Battalions (or POBs), one Tactical PSYOP Battalion, and one PSYOP Dissemination Battalion. The four Strategic PSYOP Battalions are regionally oriented and support the Regional Combatant Commands in the planning and production of PSYOP programs:




Global War on Terrorism

U.S. Psychological Operations have been widespread during the Global War on Terrorism.

[edit] Afghanistan Burning Bodies Incident

An incident involving U.S. PSYOP soldiers occurred when enemy bodies were burned in Afghanistan and filmed by freelance journalist Stephen Dupont. Dupont reported that the PSYOP soldiers claimed the bodies were to be burned due to hygiene concerns [2]. The decision by a Tactical PSYOP Team with the 173rd Airborne to burn the bodies in public to try and lure enemy fighters to attack led to the soldiers and their commander being reprimanded and reassigned [3].

During the War on Terror U.S. PSYOP teams often broadcast abrasive messages over loudspeakers to try tempting enemy fighters into a direct confrontation where the Americans have the upper hand. Other times, they use their loudspeaker to convince enemy soldiers to surrender. In the Afghanistan incident, a PSYOP sergeant broadcast the following message to the Taliban:

Attention, Taliban, you are all cowardly dogs. You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burned. You are too scared to retrieve their bodies. This just proves you are the lady boys we always believed you to be.

Another soldier stated:

You attack and run away like women. You call yourself Talibs but you are a disgrace to the Muslim religion and you bring shame upon your family. Come and fight like men instead of the cowardly dogs you are.

However, according to the Army Times, the SBS broadcast did not include audio of the soldiers broadcasting the message. [4]

U. S. authorities were to investigate the incident which may have contravened the Geneva convention. [5]

The PSYOP soldiers that were responsible for these acts were trying harass the enemy, a common practice used by PSYOP teams in the past and widely-publicized during its employment in the 2004 battle for Fallujah.

THEYRE AT IT AGAIN WITH THOSE UK JOB FIGURES

Employment
Rate falls to 74.4% in 3 months to Jan 2007



The trends in both the employment rate and the unemployment rate are flat. There has been a further fall in the number of people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance benefit. The trend in the inactivity rate may have started to rise. The number of job vacancies has increased. Growth in average earnings excluding bonuses has decreased while growth in average earnings including bonuses has increased.

The employment rate for people of working age was 74.4 per cent for the three months ending in January 2007, down 0.1 both from the previous quarter and on the year.

The number of people in employment for the three months ending in January 2007 was 29.02 million, up 18,000 over the quarter and up 221,000 over the year. The quarterly increase in employment is largely due to more men in full-time employment. Total hours worked per week were 929.6 million, up 3.4 million over the quarter and up 4.5 million over the year.

The number of jobs increased by 88,000 over the quarter and by 306,000 over the year to reach 31.58 million in December 2006, the highest figure since comparable records began in 1959.

The unemployment rate was 5.5 per cent, unchanged on the quarter but up 0.4 over the year. The number of unemployed people fell by 3,000 over the quarter but increased by 151,000 over the year, to reach 1.69 million.


TAKEN FROM : NATIONAL STATISTICS

AND THERE YOU GO

Gordon Brown's "Creative Accounting"

Brown's 'creative accounting' hides fact that Government is dangerously in the red
By TIM SHIPMAN Last updated at 22:00pm on 4th February 2007



Gordon Brown has been accused of hiding half a billion pounds worth of public debts by Britiain's foremost economic think tank.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies revealed that creative accounting by the Treasury has concealed the fact that the Government is dangerously in the red.

They said the true scale of public debt is now £1,100 billion, equal to 87 per cent of national wealth - more than twice the level that the Treasury itself regards as "sustainable".

The IFS said that £500 million had been concealed "off balance sheet" in Government liabilities for public sector pensions, dozens of "buy now pay later" private finance initiative schemes to build new hospitals, as well as the debts of Network Rail, which are underwritten by the taxpayer.

Opposition spokesmen Sunday night accused Mr Brown of deliberately engineering the PFI deals to keep headline debts down.

Under these arrangements, a private company builds a school, hospital or other public project in return for regular payments over a period of up to 30 years. The Treasury can then score this as day-to-day spending, instead of debt.

Christine Frayne of the IFS said that the Treasury's calculations fail to represent the government's true fiscal position. "It would be nice to see these liabilities taken into account in some way," she said.

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said: "Now the independent IFS has confirmed that Gordon Brown has run up debts more than double the level he admits. The Chancellor has been rumbled for keeping the scale of his borrowing off the books. No wonder people are asking where all the money has gone."

LibDem Treasury spokesman Vincent Cable added: "What's happened is that the government has rushed into PFI deals in order to hide debt."

The most expensive liability is the bill for civil servants' pensions, which are funded from current tax revenues. They alone would push public sector debt over 75 per cent of GDP if they were included on the Government's balance sheet, when Mr Brown has said debt should not rise about 40 per cent of GDP.

Roger Bootle, economic advisor to Deloitte and Touche, said that the Treasury should be forced to come clean, as other public companies are, to declare the cost of their pension promises.

"Pension liabilities are just there. You can't get away from them," he said. "I don't see why they shouldn't be on the balance sheet."

The former national statistician Len Cook was heavily criticised by commentators and MPs for accepting Mr Brown's view that these liabilities should not be added to the total national debt.

City figures are now hopeful that the decision to give more independence to the Office of National Statistics will lead to a re-assessment.

A Treasury spokesman denied the charge of creative accounting and said that the Government's figures are in line with international rules.

He said: "Public sector net debt is measured using data compiled by the independent Office for National Statistics, using the internationally accepted methodology. Decisions taken about how to prepare public sector accounts are scrutinised by the National Audit Office and Audit Commission."

The discovery is the second piece of embarrassing news for Mr Brown within a week.

The IFS released a study last week in which warned that Mr Brown will soon have to raise taxes by arounf £10 billion a year to plug a black hole in the nation's finances. Families were warned they face paying £325 a year more each in tax in the first years of a Gordon Brown premiership.

The average annual household tax bill is already £1,300 higher than when Labour came to power.

A Reworked Benefit fraud poster found in Bristol

BLAIR AND LIVINGSTONES LEGACY TO LONDON

SEE PREVIOUS POST : FLOOD MAPS OF THE WORLD





Neglected sewers threaten floods
Reporter Julian o'Halloran descends into a sewer
Reporter Julian O'Halloran was shown the state of London's sewers
Raw sewage discharges into UK rivers and homes will get worse unless the water regulator Ofwat approves major repairs to pipes, a leading academic has warned.

Up to 7,000 properties are flooded by sewage every year, and in August thousands of fish were killed by waste pumped into the Thames.

John Reynolds of Portsmouth University told the File On 4 programme that Britain's sewerage system had faced years of neglect and was reaching the end of its useful life.

"We are saving money in this generation, requiring future generations to fund our lack of investment."

Lack of investment

Mr Reynolds, a former water company engineer, has analysed the amount of renovation and maintenance work carried out on the sewerage network during the 15 years since water privatisation.

He warned that at current rates of investment it would take 1,500 years to renovate Britain's underground pipes.

Yet in its last five-year investment period, in 2000, Ofwat had cut investment in the infrastructure by 11%, despite evidence that the system was in decline.

"The pipes will eventually collapse," said Mr Reynolds. "We will eventually have more flooding.

"We have to face the problem of global warming and heavier rainfall. That isn't being done within the sewerage system at present."

Ofwat's chief engineer, Bill Emery, insisted there was no crisis in the sewerage network but said a monitoring system had been put in place to forewarn of collapsing sewers.

He also conceded the need for further investment and predicted price rises of up to 40%.

"It's reasonable to think there will be an increasing investment need over the longer term," he told File On 4.







£1.5bn tunnel

Heavy storms in August killed thousands of fish when more than 600,000 tonnes of untreated sewage was forced into the River Thames. The sudden downpour meant that London's drainage network could not cope and was overloaded.

But the government has not yet agreed to a £1.5bn interceptor tunnel which both Thames Water and the Environment Agency say is the only way to tackle the capital's drainage problems.

They say work must begin on the 20 mile tunnel immediately as it will take 15 years to build.

However, Environment Minister Elliot Morley told File On 4 that he was looking for a cheaper and faster solution.

"If I can find solutions which are quicker, more cost-effective and less disruptive then I think we should consider that."

Although the scale of sewage pollution at the Thames is huge, similar frequent overflows are damaging the environment in other regions.

Businesses affected

File On 4 spoke to a landlady in Market Harborough, Leicestershire, whose town centre pub had suffered serious sewage floods in four of the last six years.

Last summer, the beer barrels in Gill Walker's cellar were damaged and her business lost over £30,000.

Flood hit Market Harborough high street
Market Harborough high street was flooded repeatedly
She feared the next flood would force her to shut up shop.

"I will be gone. A lifelong ambition will just be thrown away."

Anglian Water had programmed remedial work to address the problem which affects scores of other local shops and businesses. But the £1.8m project was delayed for 18 months, awaiting approval from Ofwat.

This summer Ms Walker's pub was flooded three times.

The regulator keeps a tight rein on approving spending on the sewerage network. Any increased investment is likely to have an impact on household bills.

AN ALBUM YOU SHOULD DOWNLOAD NOW

Sample taken from Track 10: " I like to do things that make me scared - chasing the dark side of life - always chasing the inner soul - one thing I remember when I wake up, almost bolt upright in fear, i wake up that same fear - its almost like time had stood still - its almost like a dream!!!!


Track 7 - Choke - Good tune too!!!