How to Spot Disinformation: A Practical Example
So last night, the following post appeared on Israeli Telegram, which quoted a Syrian channel. They took the bait because they seemed unable to catch it.
This is good disinformation and an excellent piece to explain how this works. The only difference may be the language because Russians do the same. They tend to be far more, ahem, wordy, though. It’s one of the best examples I have seen over the last two-plus years. And since it’s short, it makes it even better. So first, the post:
A massive military convoy of the US Army entered from northern Iraq towards Syria.
The convoy consists of 63 trucks loaded with military equipment, logistics supplies and MIM-23 Hawk air defense systems.
The convoy dispersed in northeastern Syria.
So first, why does it work? Would we reinforce units all across the Syrian front? Yes, yes, we would. Do we want to add extra supplies to forward operating bases (FOB) as the situation becomes incredibly tense?
We would be stupid not to. To be honest, it’s malpractice not to do it. So, on the surface, this sounds very plausible. It also matches our practice of reinforcing our FOBs via Iraq.
How do I know this is possibly a fine piece of disinformation? And to be fair, it could be misidentified equipment. It’s the Hawk batteries. Do I expect Israeli editorial staff for a telegram channel to know we have not operated these in decades? No.
Do I expect most Americans to know this, either? No. I know that because Spain (the last NATO country to operate them) transferred them to Ukraine last year. We promised the Patriots in exchange.
But the short of it was that we replaced these somewhat bulky batteries for Stingers. These are man-portable and just as effective. We are in the process of replacing Stingers as well. They are so easy to use and transport that we gave some to the Taliban when they were fighting the Red Army in the 1990s. Then those were shiny and new.
I suspect the Igla family of Soviet-era ManPads likely benefited from a few captured Stingers, but that’s another story.
This brings me to the point of how to spot disinformation. I am using an example that was incredibly obvious to me. But that’s only because I have been watching the other front intensely.
Good disinformation will mostly sound or be true.
In this case, we are moving supplies.
It always has somewhere something that makes you stop and question the information. In this case, military gear we long ago retired.
In the meantime, this spread like crazy in several channels on both sides of the conflict. The Americans are reinforcing their bases, which is likely true. The Americans are bringing air defense to deal with likely Shaheed drones. We likely already have those in place. And as to the specific system, we are no longer operating them. Hawks would be useless against a high-atmosphere rocket. Those should be nearing the top of their arc by the time it hits northern Syria.
So this is how you tell. And it took me two re-reads to detect the obvious. And lord knows I look for things like this. But on the first read, I went, ok, likely. It was the second pass when I went; we no longer operate those.
Oh, and if you are curious about the Iranian rocket program, here it is. Given the tensions, it may become relevant.