LETTER: Rumsfeld’s plan needs thought

Editor,

Don Rumsfeld is again planning an agency of propaganda. More than the usual effort at propagandizing the nation with the administration’s goals, this new agency’s purview will be the world. So much of what this administration does is placed in the context of war. War is their tool and word of choice.

“We are in a war of ideas, as well as a global war on terror,” Rumsfeld said. “And the ideas are important … they need to be communicated in ways that are persuasive to the listeners.”

Beyond paying for their illegal war with our dollars and our soldiers’ lives, they will now use our money to fund their propaganda campaign. This will be a “21st century information agency in the government” to help fight this “war of ideas,” to limit the teaching of terrorism and extremism, and to provide better education. I tremble at the thought of what Rumsfeld means by “education.” Rest assured such an agency will only increase hatred for America worldwide.

This proposed agency is merely a reconstituted “Office of Strategic Influence” – the clandestine effort he attempted last year which failed because newspapers got wind that the office was planning to plant false information abroad to influence public sentiment and policy makers in other countries. Rumsfeld is attempting without compunction to repackage his worldwide agency of propaganda because he knows that American citizens are ill-informed and easily led. The world’s policeman needs a worldwide PR campaign, and enough American citizens may just be foolish enough to pay for it.

Mark Ellis