WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Special Operations Command has hired three firms to produce newspaper stories, television broadcasts and Web sites to spread American propaganda overseas.

The Tampa-based military headquarters, which oversees commandos and psychological warfare, may spend up to $100 million for the media campaign in the next five years.

The Pentagon backed away from a similar campaign in 2002.

The use of contractors in psyops is a new wrinkle. But psychological warfare expert Herb Friedman said he is not surprised.

With only one active-duty and two reserve psyops units remaining, Friedman said, "The bottom line is, they don't have the manpower."

Federal law prohibits sending propaganda to Americans, and some experts worry that psychological warfare messages, especially disinformation efforts, might blow back to American audiences via the Internet and satellite news channels.

"In this age of the Internet and instant access, it's of great concern," said Nancy Snow, a propaganda expert at California State University-Fullerton. "If you plant false stories, how can you control where that story goes? You can't."

Others question whether the money could be better spent.

So far, said defence analyst William Arkin, American propaganda efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan have "produced nothing positive and nothing negative." He suggested the $100 million might be better spent on guns and bullets.

Winning the contracts were Science Applications International Corp., SYColeman Inc. and Lincoln Group Corp.

SAIC, a California-based defence contractor with a major presence in McLean, Va., ran the U.S.-sponsored Iraqi Media Network, a print, radio and television operation, after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003. The firm was criticized for problems and exorbitant costs and declined to bid on the contract renewal.

SYColeman, a subsidiary of L-3 Communications based in Arlington, Va., advertises it created the Army's Web site honoring the only Medal of honour winner so far from the Iraq war.

Lincoln, based in Washington and formerly known as Iraqex, provides various services, including public relations, in Iraq.

Spokesmen for the companies referred inquiries to the Pentagon. A Pentagon spokesman referred them to the Tampa command, which said special operations officials were unavailable this week because of a symposium and trade show.

The companies will get their marching orders from a joint psychological operations support element created last year.

Each contractor will receive a minimum of $250,000 during the first year and $500,000 each subsequent year. The entire contract could total $100 million by 2010, records show.

The contract calls for the firms to produce print articles, video and audio broadcasts, Internet sites and novelty items, like T-shirts and bumper stickers, for foreign audiences.

Video products will include newscasts, hour-long TV shows and commercials.

source

Man Level 3 is involved in everything. Now we find out they own SyColeman? What the hell else do these guys own?

Actually man if you look around the US military does a lot of contracting out of work to consulting agencies. MPRI who has nothing but professional soldiers on board who are great military tacticians that operate around the world countires in modern war tactics. LOL Funny that you are surprised by the fact that they would outsource media. Heck our gov't outsources anything that can be done cheaper and more efficiently.

Take the Croat/Serbs battles. They were both just fighting all over the land and killing each other indiscriminately. No real tactics, just people running around shooting at each other and claiming sides. Almost like Somalia was a while ago, EXCEPT that the US was kinda pissed off at the Serbs (Yugoslavs) so of course we kinda sided with the Croats. SO who did them send in? The Good ol' boys in VA MPRI. MPRI trained the Croats on military manuevering and tactics. The Croats though were just as bad as the Serbs in that not only did they decide that they would put down Serb forces, they would also attack civilians too. Sure the Serbs did the same thing, but Croatian forces seemed to only think that pay back was going to be a mofo and it was as the newly and better trained Croat forces started to CRUSH the Serbs. Look it up. For me it is a funny read, just thinking on how our leaders at the time were thinking, "Oh, Sh*t! What have we done?!?" Which is why I always say that we should stay out of other people's fights. Even the UK does the same thing with Sandline (if they have not disappeared and reappeared) as well as Executive Outcomes (who were probably the best merc company on the planet but they are well at disappearing as well, but they always resurface) when they want to get involved in something, but don't want to be publicly involved.

This world is just funny as hell when you step back and take a look at it. LOL

CEO: K.C. Dahlberg

[b][b]Link: http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php...pe&type=17

[size=2][font=Arial]The company made a fortune during the dot com boom by buying Network Solutions, the Web domain name keeper, for $4.5 million in 1996 and selling it for $3.1 billion before the bubble popped.

[size=2][font=Arial]???

Now thats deep

Last time I heard that MCDONALDS are also outsourcing their drive thru services to India

surely some unseen forces are bussy shaping all aspects of our lives