“A document that had just recently been published was brought to me. Apparently, [it was published] just a few weeks ago by a reputable American center that publishes important documents after about 30 or 40 years have passed. This [center] has published a document that was from December of 1979 AD, which is about ten months after the victory of our Revolution. The Revolution was victorious in February of 1979 AD, and this document was from December [of 1979]. So this was about ten months later.
“Carter gave an order to the CIA. The order was for them to overthrow the Islamic Republic of Iran. This order was given on that day. That is, at the very beginning of the Revolution, the President of the United States gave the order to the CIA to overthrow the Islamic Republic of Iran, probably due to some nightmare he’d had. The interesting point that deserves our attention is that he mentions how they should bring about this overthrow.
“The first method he mentions is false publicity, or propaganda. He told them to conduct propaganda operations against the Islamic Republic. Doesn’t this policy sound familiar? Use propaganda against the Islamic Republic. Use propaganda throughout the world, propaganda to change public opinion, propaganda inside the country. This is what they started that day, a propaganda operation. Of course, it was not just propaganda. There were also sanctions, acts of espionage, and infiltrations.”
According to definitions provided in many current dictionaries, propaganda is a kind of information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, that is used to promote a political cause or point of view in a direct manner to guide the public opinion.
The purpose of propaganda is to influence the thoughts of a society for the benefit of a certain class of the ruling elite.
In this way, information is often expressed selectively and sometimes in a distorted way or is interrupted in a manner that the audience is provoked to show an emotional reaction.
Propaganda can influence the public opinion and the people's behavior for the purpose of changing them altogether.
Today, the propaganda, especially the one launched through the social media on the cyberspace, has become a component of the West's cognitive war to achieve its predetermined goals.
To understand the cognitive warfare, one usually uses the story of the race between then wind and the sun. The story goes that the wind and the sun decided one day have a race to show who is stronger. The sun said of a man passing by: “Let's see who can remove this man's coat.” First, it was the wind’s turn. The wind set off a strong storm. The man resisted, tightened his boots and lent against a tree. The wind not only failed to remove the man’s coat, but it even caused the man to stick to his coat even tighter. Then it was the sun's turn. By constantly shining and heating, the sun caused the man to voluntarily take off his coat without any resistance. That how the sun won the race.
Cognitive war experts have repeatedly used this story to say that the era for hard wars is over because people have learnt how to resist. Instead, they voluntarily accept the values of the West after accepting new mentalities as a result of the West’s cognitive war.
Instead of forcing the audience to do something, the propaganda seeks to change the mentality of the audience through satellite and internet propagation, to force them to accept new ideas about governance and religious values.
Under such circumstances, the audience voluntarily submits to the enemy's goals and even tries to achieve those goals by putting his own efforts.
In a meeting with members of the Islamic Propaganda Coordination Council on December 28, 2017, Ayatollah Khamenei explained the concept of propaganda: “Propaganda is carried out with the purpose of controlling the public opinion. It is in the direction of gaining power, benefits and money.”
Spreading lies is the most significant element of the propaganda used in the West’s combined war against Iran. In recent months, we have seen many fake news spreading around the internet with the aim of realizing the objectives of the West against Iran.
Those stories include a false report by the New York Times about the deteriorating health conditions of Ayatollah Khamenei and his admission to hospital.
The lie was exposed after Ayatollah Khamenei attended a parade of the armed forces at Imam Hassan University.
Another component of Western propaganda against Iran has been to provoke people about an alleged plan in the Iranian government for hereditary transfer of power from Ayatollah Khamenei to his son.
This has come as senior officials of the government, especially Ayatollah Khamenei himself, have denied this story many times in the past.
In the same December 28, 2017 meeting with members of the Islamic Propaganda Coordination Council, Ayatollah Khamenei said that the Islamic propaganda should be based on honesty, trustworthiness and a sense of responsibility.
“In that Western propaganda, there is nothing wrong with deceiving the public opinion, there is nothing wrong with acting, there is nothing wrong with theatrical behavior, there is nothing wrong with lying.”
News agencies and websites can providing people with accurate and timely information and documented analysis to introduce the goals and manifestations of cognitive war and to neutralize the Western propaganda against Iran.
**4261
Your Comment