Politics & Current Affairs — February 26, 2011

What Is Psy-Ops?

Rolling Stone magazine caused turmoil in the U.S. military this week reporting that a commander in Afghanistan ordered a “psychological operations” team to manipulate U.S. senators.

bigthinkeditor

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When U.S. senators visit Afghanistan to view progress on the ground, to what extend are they led astray by psychological manipulation? Sgt. Maj. Herb Friedman, an army veteran and psy-ops expert, discusses the technique: “Psychological operations specialists are in a battle for that old canard, the ‘hearts and minds’ of enemy combatants. In 2010, the psychological operations label was dropped in favor of ‘Military Information Supply Operations,’ or MISO, which ‘everybody hates’ because ‘it’s basically a green soup from Japan.”

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How “somatic markers” can transform your decision-making

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