Pro: You Can Protect National Secrets
In some cases, transparency may make a nation too vulnerable. When a government’s own people know something, it’s not hard for an outside nation to tap into this information. Classifying secret information for the sake of protecting a nation may go hand in hand with propaganda that covers up the truth. The U.S. Operations Coordinating Board, responsible in the 1950s for helping protect national security, devised categories of propaganda including white, gray and black propaganda. White is factual, gray is ambiguous or the source is disguised, and black may be partially or wholly fabricated. All classes were referred to as propaganda and used with national security in mind, though not all information was untrue.
Con: You Will Lose Credibility
It often comes out eventually that the information was propaganda meant to deceive. Even when domestic audiences are convinced, international critics may arise to discredit such campaigns. But domestic critics exist as well, especially in nations with a free press. At the beginning of the Iraq War and overarching “War on Terror” in the United States, many slogans were coined to justify invading other countries. “Weapons of Mass Destruction” was the main reason President George W. Bush's administration used to invade Iraq in 2003. Yet when no WMDs were found in Iraq, support for the president and his party declined, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was forced from office due to his role in the claims.
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