+ Rick Scavetta, the former head of Army’s Media Relations in Afghanistan spills some beans to Mother Jones.

December 22, 2006The Butt-Stroke Mentality
By April Rabkin

MJ: What are other ways to manipulate public opinion?

RS: Since I’ve been home, I still constantly monitor the news from Afghanistan and Iraq. Everyday I get the casualty lists. The thing that’s startling is that they’re masking the casualties, the cost of the war in Afghanistan. Iraq is bad enough, but Afghanistan — that was supposed to be the shining jewel of the war on terror. We went in kicked out the bad guys and set up a democracy and everything’s gonna be fine now.

MJ: What? Masking the casualties? I’ve never heard this before.

RS: It’s a public relations tactic. A news cycle lasts 48 to 72 hours. Say Johnny Smith from New Haven, Conn., is in Kunar Province where his American infantry battalion is operating. He’s in a fight with local insurgents — not Osama bin Laden, maybe some foreign fighters, but mostly local. Johnny Smith dies in combat. Within 24 hours there’s a news release that comes out of this island we call Kabul that says a coalition soldier was killed in Afghanistan today. We’re not going to give out his name because we’re going to say, “The next of kin have to be notified.” We’re not going to give out his nationality because we’re all part of this quote “coalition.”

But here’s the sad fact: 99.99 % of coalition forces in Kunar are in fact American. So now in the news — NBC news, national news, wire services — the only thing that’s released is that a “coalition” soldier was killed in Afghanistan today.

And 72 hours later when the DOD finally releases Private Johnny Smith’s name, the New Haven Register and Channel 8 will pick up the memorial service and how sad Johnny’s family is. But in San Francisco, they never hear about it. In Minnesota, they never hear about it. In Florida, they never hear about it. It’s a very clever public affairs strategy. Now we have NATO in Afghanistan, so it’s, “A NATO soldier died.”