Wait a second. "The fake letter was part of new skills being tested by the military as it hones its expertise for launching propaganda missions at home and abroad."
The Canadian military is launching propaganda missions in Canada? (Or at all, for that matter)? WTF?
"The Nova Scotia propaganda training comes as the Canadian Forces spools up its capabilities to conduct information warfare, influence operations and other deception missions aimed at populations overseas and, if necessary, the Canadian public."
Uhhhh... like.. hey you're saying the quiet part out loud, guys.
Briant revealed on Monday the Canadian Forces spent more than $1 million in training its public affairs officers in skills to influence targeted populations.
Your personalized propaganda, brought to you by your own tax dollars.
You'd rather they dropped bombs than drop leaflets? The level of naïveté here is bothersome.
Truth is the first casualty of war, and it's always been that way.
The Rwandan Genocide was entirely perpetuated with propaganda, and it's unwinding had to (and continues to) make to use propaganda.
The Russians and Chinese are actively engaged in campaigns right now inside and outside their borders, this is not a conspiracy theory it's reported on regular news outlets.
At very least it's something Western Military should have reasonable mastery of, like anything else.
White propaganda is fine and even necessary at times. There was plenty of it by western countries during WWII and the Cold War.
It's that this propaganda contained false information on both the source and the details that is problematic. Black propaganda is wrong. We don't need it to win, and when it is exposed it undermines our credibility, which undermines our white propaganda and efforts to contrast our values with the values of our adversaries.
I take a similar stand with politicians. I'd rather vote for an honest person that I disagree with on a majority of issues than a dishonest one that shares my political party. For especially honest politicians I go out of my way to vote for them. Trust in government is paramount. The rest breeds corruption and eventual democratic decline.
You don't want to go down that path, because will result in endless finger-pointing.
Why Japan joined WW2? Because they were playing catch up with European powers and doing what they did to Japan a some time earlier, and were trying to avoid the fate of China (see Opium wars)
Why Germany and Italy were heavily involved in both WW? Because they were the only European country with no colonies, in part due to their recent unification (specially Italy in this case), and the other European countries were screwing with them.
But... why? And so on, you will end with a huge chain of whys and finger pointing until you blame God for creating Adam.
> Why Japan joined WW2? Because they were playing catch up with European powers and doing what they did to Japan a some time earlier, and were trying to avoid the fate of China (see Opium wars)
That is not a very accurate take of Japanese involvement in WW2. Japan was planning several wars of naked territorial expansion during WW2, invading China twice in the 1930s, calling off an invasion of the Soviet Union after a border incident they started didn't go their way, demanding that Vichy France hand over French Indochina, and of course its very well-known invasion of US, British, and Dutch colonies to better secure needed supplies for its ongoing war with China. By WW2, Japan didn't see itself as playing "catch-up" (that period would have been the Meiji period, about 70 years prior to WW2), and instead saw itself as racially superior; nor did the European powers see Japan as an inferior power playing catch-up, but instead as a competitor and likely future adversary.
> Why Germany and Italy were heavily involved in both WW? Because they were the only European country with no colonies, in part due to their recent unification (specially Italy in this case), and the other European countries were screwing with them.
Italian Somaliland, Triplotania, Cyrenaica, Eritrea, German West Africa, German Southwest Africa, German East Africa, German New Guinea, German Samoa. (Germany was especially uninventive with its colony names). Italy was enticed into the war by promise of territory, but the promised territory was Sudtirol and the Dalmatian coast, which would be part of Italy proper and not any Italian colonies. Japan itself joined the war primarily to steal Germany's colonies in the Pacific, which they did.
Your post is simply nonsense. You've repeated the excuses of the aggressors without acknowledging that Germany and Japan enslaved and deliberately starved civilians on the scale of tens of millions.
The League of Nations told Japan to leave Manchuria long before WW2 started. There was no confusion on any side.
Just so HN readers understand what happened, Japan tried to build "New Tokyo" in inhabited areas of China - in other words, ethnic cleansing long before the term became well-known in the Balkans wars.
I suggest you re-study pre-WW2 and WW2 history and formulate a more solid argument.
Propaganda never stops when a war does. If you would like a great documentary on this, look for Century of the Self [1]. It explains how Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, taught governments and companies how to control people in peace time. Apologies in advance, it is a black-and-white film.
We live in an information environment that is wide open. With the internet, any of our enemies can launch psyops campaigns against us at almost no cost. In such an environment, their campaigns must at least be countered, or else we would be steamrolled.
>>"We don't need it to win, and when it is exposed it undermines our credibility, which undermines our white propaganda and efforts to contrast our values with the values of our adversaries."
Fair enough. Now, the only problem left is to determine who is "we".
> At all times and in all places, DND employees and CF members shall fulfil their commitments in a manner that best serves Canada, its people, its parliamentary democracy, DND and the CF
So from the CAF's point of view, "we" is "Canada, its people, its parliamentary democracy, the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces"
(sidenote: The Canadian military was recently renamed from "Canadian Forces" (CF) to "Canadian Armed Forces" (CAF), thus the differences in acronyms.)
I don't know. Don't take my comment too seriously, but if I was Canadian, I think these guys sending me fake administrative notes and filling the night with wolf sounds would qualify more like "them" than "we".
Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan are examples of politicians that I mostly disagree with their views but I've never regarded them as personally dishonest.
Reagan secretly sold illegal weapons to Iran to fund bloody coups and death squads in South America. I’d say secretly committing treason is a pretty big lie.
Also worth noting is the October Surprise, where Reagan foiled negotiations with Iran to bring US hostages back, in order to help his election chances.
That's what I meant by "personally" honest - their governments they led had all kinds of problems but I don't think that was caused by fundamental dishonesty by those individuals.
Maybe. But if dishonesty works, it's because the populace as a whole rewards it by (re)electing the liar. IOW a lot of people prefer to be lied to. Don't confuse the disease with the symptoms.
Are you saying propaganda is incompatible with a democracy?
So this WW2 propaganda poster from the UK encouraging men to sign up for submarine service because their women will admire them means the UK isn't a democracy?
Propaganda isn’t always all bad. It can be re-assuring messages during wartime, reminder that rationing X is helping Y, or that wearing a mask is preventing the spread of a disease.
Especially when we have groups trying to convince swathes of the population that public health matters are not public health matters, and that we're against each other rather than working together.
Unfortunately, that is the reality facing us right now.
The military doesn't serve the public. Every person in the military serves the one above them, and the ones at the top serve the politicians as long as they keep getting money and being treated like they are the best people in existence.
> The Canadian military is launching propaganda missions in Canada
Yes, and the Canadian military is very good at it. The fact that your reaction upon reading on it is incredulity and denial is proof enough at how good they are.
Keep in mind that "propaganda" does not necessarily mean nefarious. Almost all countries use propaganda, and I'd argue that most corporations use it too.
Is there any law against the military or government running an operation like this?
Shouldn't there be?
I feel like if military personnel and politicians were told "If you try this kind of thing, for training purposes or otherwise, you will serve <X> years in prison" it would be a good deterrent. And I feel like such strong laws should exist.
I'm always reminded of the phrase - One persons propaganda, is another persons politics. Which if you look at political manifesto's by mainstream parties - does make for a very fine line depending upon how interpreted.
Not new that the Canadian government is using propaganda. Go look up on CBC "about-our-social-experiment" where they got caught red handed trying to push that all Canadians are white supremacists. Or how about CBC articles that are in Urdu saying Canadians are adopting and killing Indian/Pakistani children. If you try to use google translate or bing translate it will fail. Or how about the endless 'parents' articles about how it's sexual assault if you don't have consent to hug your own 5 year old child. How about 'dear white people' where the CBC clearly says that racism against white people is impossible.
Whoa there, settle down boomer. There's a difference between "real" propaganda vs what you're using loaded phrases to describe. You're free to be as right wing (or left) as you wish but this is hyperbole & exaggeration, and doesn't contribute anything to the discussion. Save your outrage for your local Facebook group not here.
I'm a millennial. Out of curiosity why do you open with an insult?
>There's a difference between "real" propaganda vs what you're using loaded phrases to describe.
You're no true scotsman.
> You're free to be as right wing (or left) as you wish but this is hyperbole & exaggeration, and doesn't contribute anything to the discussion. Save your outrage for your local Facebook group not here.
So you insulted me. Then just disqualified my points as exaggeration without addressing anything and then said I'm not contributing to the discussion?
I'm sorry, how does pointing out your perceived racism against white people relate at all to this article? The words "white people" or "racism" or "Urdu" or "Pakistan" aren't referenced at all in the article and are personal opinions.
Don't take it as an insult, take it as a suggestion that you're not on topic. If you want to talk about how the world is out to get white people, that's fine for a different venue (lots of places on Facebook for instance) but let's stay on topic on Hacker News - and the article at hand.
“Marketing” might be more precise, though not originally in the context of business. Specifically, Propaganda fide, from which the term “propaganda” entered general usage, was the older name for the Vatican organization that is now the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.
Right, I'm sure the ones you know are "good guys". But they aren't going to refuse an order. Personally, I'd be asking them what they know about the NS shooter. Probably another one of their well-intentioned psyops gone awry.
The Canadian military is launching propaganda missions in Canada? (Or at all, for that matter)? WTF?
"The Nova Scotia propaganda training comes as the Canadian Forces spools up its capabilities to conduct information warfare, influence operations and other deception missions aimed at populations overseas and, if necessary, the Canadian public."
Uhhhh... like.. hey you're saying the quiet part out loud, guys.