‘Illegal Psyop’ Neither Illegal Nor Psyop, General’s Lawyer Ruled
- By Noah Shachtman and Spencer Ackerman
- February 27, 2011 |
- 6:56 pm |
- Categories: Info War
The accusation was explosive and unambiguous: A top general in Afghanistan used illegal “information operations” to influence visiting U.S. Senators. But military documents obtained by Danger Room show that at least one Army lawyer deemed the work legal. What’s more, the alleged information operator’s bosses repeatedly told him that he was just another communications staffer, not some bender of minds.
At the very least, this new information complicates the charges, first leveled by Lt. Col. Michael Holmes in Rolling Stone magazine. At most, it could neuter Holmes’ allegations, just as an investigation by the office of Afghan war commander Gen. David Petraeus gets underway.
(Full disclosure: Both Michael Hastings, the author of the Rolling Stone piece, and Caldwell are longtime friends of this blog.)
According to Holmes, Lt. Gen. William Caldwell — the general in charge of training Afghanistan security forces — had him “playing with people’s heads.” And not just any people; Holmes was allegedly ordered to use his information operations, or IO, skills on senators and congressmen visiting Afghanistan. So in March, Holmes contacted a military lawyer in the United States who told him “IO doesn’t do that.” American law forbids the government from targeting propaganda at American citizens.
A second legal review came to the opposite conclusion, however. On March 30, 2010, a lawyer within Caldwell’s chain of command, Maj. Tami Miller, wrote that Holmes had been given “a lawful order,” according to a copy of her assessment acquired by Danger Room. After all, Holmes was simply told “to collect, analyze and share ‘publicly available’ information” about the VIPs. No brainwashing was requested.
To draw a bright line between Googling legislators and any Jedi mind tricks that Holmes might have picked up as an IO specialist, Miller recommended that Holmes’ boss, Col. Gregory Breazile, “clarify” that Holmes was to acquire and study “speeches, Congressional testimony, press releases, news stories, interviews, quotes in newspapers, magazines, books, etc.” She also wrote that Breazile, the training command’s strategic communications chief, should tell Holmes specifically what he wasn’t allowed to do:
I am not telling you to conduct “intelligence activities” or “information operations” for the IEWG mission. [Information Engagement Working Group, a strategic communications group run by Breazile.] I am simply telling you to gather information that is already out there and accessible to the public, analyze it, and then share that analysis with the IEWG. This is a lawful order; if you choose to disobey it, you do so at your own peril.
Holmes had already been given this order before, according to Lt. Col. Brett Sylvia, Caldwell’s executive officer until early February. Not just once, but repeatedly.
Holmes had performed IO work for Maj. Gen. Richard Formica, Caldwell’s predecessor. But when Caldwell took over the training command in late 2009, he told the information operators to knock it off. “In December and repeatedly for the next six months he said, ‘We’re a training mission. We don’t do IO. We don’t do information operations,” Sylvia tells Danger Room.
Instead, Holmes and his five-man IO team was put under Breazile, whose strategic communications shop handled more traditional public outreach duties — like spinning legislators.
But Holmes wouldn’t let go, Sylvia says. Internal command emails obtained by Danger Room on Thursday show Holmes referring to himself as chief of an Information Operations Field Support Team and lending support to an Information Operations Task Force. But those emails do not show anyone else under Caldwell’s command assenting to Holmes’ self-designation.
Over the last decade, the once bright-lines between the military disciplines of strategic communications and information operations have dimmed. Calling out an enemy’s atrocities could be considered IO — if the audience is foreign. But the same information could be used to inform Americans, too. And that’s strategic communications.
But Sylvia says the training command had strict prohibitions against IO, which they viewed as “an offensive operation” — not kosher for a training unit.
Holmes occasionally referred to his mission as something other than IO. In a message posted April 2, 2010 on the Facebook wall of a communications firm he started with his subordinate and friend, Maj. Laural Levine, Holmes wrote, “we were brought to Afghanistan to teach Strategic Communications to the Ministries of Defense and the Interior.” There is no mention of any IO work.
Officially, Caldwell’s current crew isn’t commenting while Petraeus’ investigation proceeds. But unofficial communications from Caldwell’s deputies are putting out the same line as Sylvia. In an email containing what he describes as a “personal statement,” Lt. Col. Shawn Stroud, Caldwell’s communications director, writes, “Personnel with backgrounds in IO were utilized only because of their availability. They were never directed to use their specific IO skills while preparing background information for the command in advance of distinguished guest visits.”
In the email, obtained by Danger Room, Stroud continues, “in the specific case of Lt. Col. Holmes, a staff judge advocate determined his use as a staff officer in this manner was completely legal” — a reference to Miller’s judgment above.
Whether that’s enough for Petraeus remains to be seen. Miller was under Caldwell’s command when she issued her assessment. Usually, the legal perspectives of staff judge advocates are sufficient to convince their bosses that they’re acting within the confines of the law. Caldwell may well point to Miller’s judgment to exonerate him, showing that he was acting in good faith by spinning the visiting dignitaries.
Indeed, Miller noted that clarifying Holmes’ responsibilities would also clarify the consequences of refusal. “You could face adverse administrative action, or even punitive action like nonjudicial punishment or a court-martial, for disobeying a lawful order,” she wrote.
In a statement to a subsequent investigation into Holmes’ behavior in traveling off-base in civilian clothes and use of Facebook — also obtained by Danger Room — Breazile noted that he had “a hard time” getting Holmes and his subordinate, Maj. Laural Levine “to do other duties beyond teaching STRATCOM [strategic communications] to the Afghans.”
That inquiry recommended a formal reprimand for Holmes, who called it a “kangaroo court,” and led him to depart Afghanistan last September. “You know, the real issue is not really that LTG Caldwell’s staff asked us to do something illegal,” Holmes wrote on his Facebook wall on Sunday. “The REAL issue is that once we called them on it, they smeared us JUST LIKE THEY ARE DOING NOW.”
Photo: DVIDS
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