The most disturbing video you’ll see today: the weird-ass recruitment video from the US Army’s 4th Psychological Operations (PSYOP) Group.
“Have you ever wondered who’s pulling the strings?”.
“have you ever wondered who’s pulling the strings” over a news broadcast describing protests in China and the fall of the Soviet Union. the video directly implies the US was behind these actions.
They want their job to seem cool to potential applicants. I’m sure they do shit like this, because psyops is pretty broad and I’d expect the US to be good at it.
I don’t think that the video gives us anything new … I just see marketing BS.
Specifics will only be known much later, if at all.
I think that we can infer that the US involves itself anywhere where its business or security interests are threatened, or it could give them an advantage (also by denying competition). That’s because of well documented patterns of past behaviour.
How much of a role their psyops teams played/are playing pre/during/post these particular events, we may never know, but I sure would like to. This video doesn’t give us that though.
I’m probably just arguing a technicality at this point. 😛
On May 28th, 1989, Gene Sharp, America’s top undercover street protest strategist, flew into Beijing with his assistant Bruce Jenkins to offer help. “The students in the square were operating with great commitment and bravery but they didn’t know what the hell they were doing,” Sharp later wrote.
A key player was Colonel Robert Helvey, a 30-year Pentagon veteran of destabilization operations in Asia. He “trained, in Hong Kong, the student leaders from Beijing in mass demonstration techniques, which they were to subsequently use in the Tiananmen Square incident of June 1989,” according to a highly detailed academic paper by B. Raman, the former director of India’s foreign intelligence agency.
The title of Raman’s paper is “The USA’S National Endowment For Democracy (NED): An Update”
Google readily attests that Colonel Robert Helvey is a real guy who worked extensively with Gene Sharp, the dude from the last quote, and that training protesters was his job. But uh, admittedly, I did not find any conclusive proof that Helvey specifically trained Tiananmen protesters in Hong Kong. I didn’t look that hard, but I guess it’s possible Raman made that up.
This one is even less solid, but I’ll throw it in anyway
In the following months, CIA agents helped Chinese student activists form an anti-government movement, and even provided typewriters, fax machines and other equipment to help them spread their message—this information came from a US official.
For months before the June 3 attack on the demonstrators, the CIA had been helping student activists form the anti-government movement, providing typewriters, facsimile machines and other equipment to help them spread their message, said one official.
But the official is anonymous, so maybe the Vancouver Sun made it up.
The whole breakdown is worth a read, there’s much more I omitted. Here’s the link again:
That video is the equivalent of “I’d love to have shot that guy” after a body turns up with a bullet hole in it.
If you or I – people who don’t have the means to shoot that guy, or who would likely get caught if we tried – put out that video, sure, maybe we’re just talking shit and puffing up our chests. But when a state actor with functionally limitless resources puts it out, and we know for a fact they’ve shot guys before and tried to shoot many more, you’d have to be beyond credulous to write it off as “marketing BS.”
Maybe … but I’ve seen a lot of both slick and cringe marketing coming out of large corporations over the years. Reality is usually far more boring, full of ordinary people doing fairly ordinary work, making mistakes, etc.
It could also be that they are the best advertising agency in the US that we’ve never heard of.
But my money is on them having paid another company to make it, found it cool (probably while slightly drunk in the conference room one evening), got the approval from HQ and released it.
edit: I’m reminded of that video of the bond villains, going home after a hard day’s work… heh.
“have you ever wondered who’s pulling the strings” over a news broadcast describing protests in China and the fall of the Soviet Union. the video directly implies the US was behind these actions.
They want their job to seem cool to potential applicants. I’m sure they do shit like this, because psyops is pretty broad and I’d expect the US to be good at it.
I don’t think that the video gives us anything new … I just see marketing BS.
What’s your bar for reasonable inference? Do we need to wait for the NED to make a post bragging about it in a few years?
Specifics will only be known much later, if at all.
I think that we can infer that the US involves itself anywhere where its business or security interests are threatened, or it could give them an advantage (also by denying competition). That’s because of well documented patterns of past behaviour.
How much of a role their psyops teams played/are playing pre/during/post these particular events, we may never know, but I sure would like to. This video doesn’t give us that though.
I’m probably just arguing a technicality at this point. 😛
some specifics are hinted at already. I’m on my phone but this article includes some info on western involvement in Tiananmen.
https://www.fridayeveryday.com/how-psy-ops-warriors-fooled-me-about-tiananmen-square-a-warning/
Not everything is well sourced, which is kinda to be expected for this topic, but some of the more solid claims are:
This refers to the somewhat racistly-named Operation Yellowbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Yellowbird
Sharp admits he flew there with Bruce Jenkins https://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/90sa/90sa_Sharp.pdf
As for whether or not he was “America’s top undercover street protest strategist,” I think these articles make a pretty compelling case:
https://nonsite.org/change-agent-gene-sharps-neoliberal-nonviolence-part-one/
https://jacobin.com/2019/12/gene-sharp-george-lakey-neoliberal-nonviolence
This one is a little less solid
The title of Raman’s paper is “The USA’S National Endowment For Democracy (NED): An Update”
This website includes the paper in plain text, just ctrl-f “update” http://www.arsipso.com/CHINESE ANGER AGAINST NED.asp
Bahukutumbi Raman appears to have been a real guy who worked in Indian intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._Raman
Google readily attests that Colonel Robert Helvey is a real guy who worked extensively with Gene Sharp, the dude from the last quote, and that training protesters was his job. But uh, admittedly, I did not find any conclusive proof that Helvey specifically trained Tiananmen protesters in Hong Kong. I didn’t look that hard, but I guess it’s possible Raman made that up.
This one is even less solid, but I’ll throw it in anyway
The Vancouver Sun did state this in an article in 1992 https://www.newspapers.com/article/78970117/
But the official is anonymous, so maybe the Vancouver Sun made it up.
The whole breakdown is worth a read, there’s much more I omitted. Here’s the link again:
https://www.fridayeveryday.com/how-psy-ops-warriors-fooled-me-about-tiananmen-square-a-warning/
Thanks. I’ll get to these on the weekend, hopefully.
That video is the equivalent of “I’d love to have shot that guy” after a body turns up with a bullet hole in it.
If you or I – people who don’t have the means to shoot that guy, or who would likely get caught if we tried – put out that video, sure, maybe we’re just talking shit and puffing up our chests. But when a state actor with functionally limitless resources puts it out, and we know for a fact they’ve shot guys before and tried to shoot many more, you’d have to be beyond credulous to write it off as “marketing BS.”
Maybe … but I’ve seen a lot of both slick and cringe marketing coming out of large corporations over the years. Reality is usually far more boring, full of ordinary people doing fairly ordinary work, making mistakes, etc.
It could also be that they are the best advertising agency in the US that we’ve never heard of.
But my money is on them having paid another company to make it, found it cool (probably while slightly drunk in the conference room one evening), got the approval from HQ and released it.
edit: I’m reminded of that video of the bond villains, going home after a hard day’s work… heh.