Wikileaks

Wikileaks is the most important website in existence. Wikileaks has radically rewritten the rules of the information era. It is a website for highly sensitive or secret information. No filters, no rewriting, no spin.

One of the most dramatic releases was the footage of an American helicopter gunship firing on and killing Iraqis in a Baghdad Street in 2007, apparently in cold blood.

Recently, Wikileaks also revealed a CIA report into shoring up support for the Afghanistan war in Western Europe. It outlines possible PR strategies to convince France and Germany in particular to keep supplying troops to Afghanistan. The proposed PR strategies focus on pressure points that have been identified within these countries.

For France, the CIA suggests

"focusing on a message that ISAF benefits Afghan civilians and citing examples of concrete gains could limit and perhaps even reverse opposition to the mission. Such tailored messages could tap into acute French concern for civilians and refugees. Those who support ISAF in INR surveys from fall 2009 most frequently cited their perception that the mission helps Afghan civilians, while opponents most commonly argued that the mission hurts civilians. Contradicting the “ISAF does more harm than good” perception is clearly important, particularly for France’s Muslim minority."

Also:

"Conversely, messaging that dramatizes the potential adverse consequences of an ISAF defeat for Afghan civilians could leverage French (and other European) guilt for abandoning them. The prospect of the Taliban rolling back hard-won progress on girls’ education could provoke French indignation, become a rallying point for France’s largely secular public, and give voters a reason to support a good and necessary cause despite casualties."

Read it all here.