[Overpaid Slacker]

It's not surprising to me, but the personal account of someone with intimate knowledge of planning and executing such a scheme is interesting -- especially in the context of Kerry's comments.

This is not merely support for anti-Western organizations, it's using the openness of the West and the vulnerabilities and susceptibilities of lefties to engage in a full-scale disinformation and disruption campaign -- manufacturing stories of US war atrocities and getting them wide coverage in Western media is not the same as sending a check to the IRA! Look at the lasting damage done in the US by the strife of the anti-Vietnam War movement.

The unwitting Left fifth column was snookered, and continues to be snookered by this crap, at the same time viewing with extreme skepticism the expressions of their own government. Not that you shouldn't be skeptical of the gub'ment, but to be so easily beguiled by these insidious and intended-to-be-destructive ploys does not bolster the claims of the Left to intellectual superiority.

Our efforts behind the Iron Curtain were nowhere near as succesful, by the very nature of the Soviet system (state-run monopolistic media; the severest of punishments for deviating from state-approved information; one in five people working for the state's intelligence apparatus -- one in three for the STASI in the DDR, etc.). Not that I participated in these efforts or can say so w/ personal experience, but, at one point, I studied the literature and reports on these matters w/ some interest.

JP