Rutherford, Chapter 3

Before reading this chapter I had never heard of 'PsyOps' so I found that particular section interesting. When the leaflets were dropped and the radio broadcasts were delivered, the chapter referred to this as attempting to sell surrender. It was like a form of advertising that said, "We will try to persuade you to give up now, or we will use our weapons later." One of the commanders who flew propaganda missions over Iraq said, "We like to call ourselves weapons of mass persuasion." So while they weren't scaring the people with weapons... yet, they were scaring them with words and threats, and empty promises. Another example that words can be used as weapons.

A particularly disturbing leaflet with the map of Iraq that said, "We can see everything" from a satellite view is related to the Death Star in Star Wars and it also makes me think of the eye, or whatever it's called, in the Lord of the Rings that is constantly on the lookout... however in both of those instances, the eye is a negative image, something that displays a frightening sense of power that causes the native citizen to cringe. In the chapter, it says that this can also be related to advertising, that the man (the United States) which was definitely at an advantage, looks out across the land and says that everything in its path (the people of Iraq) are his to influence and control.