U.S.-Propaganda in World War I Whereas the British propaganda institution, called the Wellington House (situated in the USA) was working secretly, the U.S.- version, the CPI (Taylor, Munitions of the Mind, p. 183) was not hiding at all. Its most important issue was to explain its own people why the USA was fighting that war in Europe. The idea spread was that it was a just war, a war that had to be fought to rescue all people, even the Germans, from their political system. For this issue the Germans were divided into two groups, the emperor and the soldiers on the one side, being portrayed as beasts, and the German people, presented as the victims of the first ones. Propaganda tends to be as effective as bombs in wartime. With words alone there is no way of winning a war but loosing by words or loosing because of a lack of propaganda-words is easy. See the German example in World War I. Defamation is an important tool of disinformation, which is especially chosen for destroying the good reputation of a competitor or enemy. In this respect information can turn into a more destructive tool than ordinary weapons. War needs propaganda for moral reasons (justification), too, for the soldiers in the battlefields (they need to feel that their nation is appreciating their sacrifice) and for nationalism.

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Roberto d'Aubuisson Roberto D'Aubuisson is another Salvadorian graduate of the SOA. In 1980 he organized the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, voice of the poor and marginalized. In 1981 he founded the extreme right wing party ARENA as a weapon against the guerrilla. Between 1978 and 1992 he was the (not so) secret head of the Salvadorian Death Squads. He died of cancer in 1992, but his ideas are still followed by a new group of death squads, which was founded in 1996 (Fuerza Nacionalista Mayor Roberto D'Aubuisson = FURODA).

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