Could that relate to there being aspects of the program that just couldn't be put on paper and had to be discussed in person? Alternatively, were they concerned about in-house people at DOD ...

I'm guessing the latter, but could be both. The more of this I read, the more I think that the hacks do not believe what they did was in any way wrong. They don't act like conspirators. I wouldn't guess that they would think to avoid putting certain things on paper (I mean, look at what's in this document dump!), unless of course something happened to sensitize them in that way.

That something could have been an uprising in-house, either by outright public disagreement by more than one CCS, or through bureaucratic maneuvering (more likely). Then, people want to shut the door and whisper.

We've all seen something like this before, haven't we? The beltway DOD is a pretty strange place to work, possibly unique, but the organizational pathologies have their family resemblances in our own experiences. Would 'Dilbert' be at all funny if that wasn't true... ?

Thanks for that link, it worked okay for me. I've been reading through the pile, but it's great to see what other people think as they do, too. Isn't it?

A couple things I keep thinking of while reading this:

1. I got stuck on redaction detail once myself. There were a bunch of FOIA requests about Urgent Fury (Grenada) and a bunch of internal (TS) reports. I ended up with the job because a) I was the lowest ranking guy in our shop who had actually been in Grenada; and b) I had just gotten back from OCONUS and wasn't around to object when I was volunteered. Anyways. To do the job, I had to sit through a brief class reviewing OPSEC principles and telling me what I could and couldn't release, and what I was obliged to release.

It was about what you would expect, except for one thing called the 'mosaic principle'. This said that if someone could conceivably reconstruct classified information from unclassified elements you would normally be obligated to release, you could biff those out of the package. Sometimes, in addition to redaction you could just rule a whole section of a document, or the document itself, off limits. The standard was pretty low; you just had to write a memo (which had to be releasable) invoking the mosaic principle and signing your name to it. (And be prepared to go to court if someone challenged it)

So, I'm reading with mosaic in mind.

2. It's clear that, as you said, this was a conscious, directed and programmed/resourced (there has to be a fundcite to buy those tickets to Gitmo, right?) propaganda effort. It's been tantalizing to think of it also as a PSYOPS program, especially with Vallely, a Psyops guy, among the analysts. That's the way I was thinking about it.

But the more I read, the less it looks like psyops or even 'information operations', and the less valuable it is to try to identify those techniques in action. What this really looks like is product marketing; in fact, it's striking to anyone who's ever been a product manager gearing up for a launch just how strong the resemblance is. And once you see that, it makes sense ... Andy Card's quip about the war, that you don't launch a new product in August, was as we know now not really a quip at all but a reflection of the mental model in operation on the political side of the house.

And I, for one, don't find it any less horrifying to think the Pentagon was marketing their war to me than I do that they would be performing psyops on me and my fellow citizens.

isn't Al-Jazeera Arabic the network that refuses to use any terminology that we would understand as "suicide bombers"? Is it still the case that Al-Jazeera Arabic presenters use only the term "martyrs" to describe

I didn't argue that al-Jazeera uses the term; as you said, you can produce plenty of links to where they have done this.

That was part of the roundtable I mentioned. The Palestinian "martyrs" and the Israeli "killers" dichotomy was especially well reviewed. Interestingly, the case against it was made most strongly by a Palestinian journo named Mohammed Khatib, formerly of Al-Arabiya & now working for an independent daily in Jordan.

My argument is with "refuses" and "use ONLY the term". That is the part you are wrong about.

There are similar disagreements about words for "terrorist", "insurgent", "resistance", "fighter", "militia", and others. I've listened to these debates among Arab journos for the past several years. Like I said before, these are strong journalistic arguments, not political/ideological ones.

If Cole told you that AJ "refuses" or "uses ONLY" in front of a room full of people, then he's wrong too.