SPECIAL OPS, COUNTER-PROPAGANDA, OVERCLASSIFICATION

SECRECY NEWS
From the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2017, Issue No. 60
August 24, 2017 Secrecy News Blog:  https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/

  SPECIAL OPS, COUNTER-PROPAGANDA, OVERCLASSIFICATION
 

The House Armed Services Committee took a retrospective look at US special operations forces earlier this year, thirty years after the establishment of US Special Operations Command (SOCOM).

"SOCOM has a lot of missions it is responsible for, and has had several new ones added to it," said Rep. Elise M. Stefanik (R-NY) at a hearing earlier this year. "Are there any of those missions that should go away or be reassigned?"

SOCOM Commander Gen. Raymond A. Thomas was ready with the answer: "There are no missions that should go away or be reassigned."

See Three Decades Later: A Review and Assessment of our Special Operations Forces 30 Years After the Creation of U.S. Special Operations Command, House Armed Services Committee, May 2, 2017.

Some other notable congressional hearing volumes that have recently been published include:

Crafting an Information Warfare and Counter-propaganda Strategy for the Emerging Security Environment, House Armed Services Committee, March 15, 2017

Examining the Costs of Overclassification on Transparency and Security, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, December 7, 2016

DPRKorea: Chongryon Supports Statement of DPRK Government

Chongryon Supports Statement of DPRK Government

http://www.kcna.kp/kcna.user.article.retrieveNewsViewInfoList.kcmsf#this

Tokyo, August 10 (KNS-KCNA) -- Nam Sung U, vice-chairman of the Central Standing Committee of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) released a statement on August 9 in support of the statement of the DPRK government.
The statement expressed full support for the statement of the DPRK government, categorically rejecting the UN "sanctions resolution" cooked up by the U.S.-led hostile forces as a wanton violation and frontal challenge to the sovereignty of the DPRK.
The U.S.-led hostile forces should drop their worn-out hostile policy toward the DPRK and stop the provocations for a nuclear war at once, facing up the national power and dignity of socialist Korea put on the strategic position of a nuclear power and world-class military power of Juche, it said, adding:
The Japanese authorities crying out for scaling up pressure upon the DPRK while standing in the van of the U.S.-led racket of sanctions and pressure, failing to face up to the present situation where the world political structure has fundamentally changed with the new strategic position of the DPRK, and the south Korean authorities joining in the campaign for slapping sanctions against the compatriots in the north should refrain from their criminal acts against the history and the nation at once.
The statement expressed the will to turn Chongryon into a creditable and patriotic fortress remaining unfazed by any storm and stress and honorably contribute to the cause of realizing the independent reunification of the country, foiling the U.S.-led hostile forces' moves to isolate and stifle the DPRK. -0-