How disinformation shut down US special operators

[rangerrebew]

How disinformation shut down US special operators
B.S. can really hurt on the battlefield.

Paul Szoldra
Sep 29
A U.S. SPECIAL OPERATIONS TEAM could not operate in combat for a month because of disinformation.

It was March 26, 2006, and American Green Berets and their Iraqi partners had just fought insurgents from the Mahdi Army, a brutal death squad in Iraq.

After a brief gun battle, they cleared the target compound and tallied the score: A dozen or so enemy dead, a similar number of detainees to interrogate, a weapons cache found and destroyed, and one hostage rescued. Mission complete.

The special operators had finished a typical no-knock raid and were headed home. But they weren’t prepared for what came next: After leaving, someone went to the compound, removed the weapons, and rearranged the insurgents’ bodies to make it seem like they were murdered during prayer.

“They then took pictures, uploaded them to the web, and issued a press release explaining that U.S. soldiers had entered a mosque and killed men peacefully at prayer,” the Government Accountability Office said in a new report to Congress demonstrating how disinformation can threaten national security and have real-world impact.

“Literally they had their story, their propaganda, out on the wires before the assault force was back at the compound…” Col. Kenneth Tovo, the group commander, recalled to an Army War College researcher in 2009. “That’s how brilliant [this was. It] really surprised us that first time.”

https://www.theruck.news/p/how-disinformation-shut-down-us-special

[Smokin Joe]

Not surprising.

From further down in the article, mentioning threats,

China conducts several information ops that “threaten Air Force missions and operations,” Air Force officials said. “China maintains a worldwide information collection program to advance its weapons development programs and national influence/disinformation activities.”

    China was targeting “critical Air Force information by conducting sophisticated computer network intrusion and data exfiltration operations against the Air Force and its industry partners.”

    (The Senate Intel Committee recently warned that U.S. spy agency efforts to stop China from stealing secrets are hampered by an unclear mission, miscommunication, and lack of funding for the National Counterintelligence and Security Center.)

ANd they are just 12 miles away near Grand Forks...