onegoodmove

This is the same stupid idea that was beaten back last February when the Pentagon had to disband its Office of Strategic Influence when it was pointed out that the thing was guaranteed to backfire.
Let's do that simple old thing where we put the shoe on the other foot and see how it feels, substituting "China" for "United States" and using the exact plan outlined by the Times: "The Chinese government is considering a secret propaganda program that would include, for example, efforts to discredit and undermine evangelical Christian churches and religious schools that have become breeding grounds for militant anti-Chinese sentiment because of China's abortion policies and human-rights issues. It might even include setting up schools with secret Chinese financing to teach a more moderate Christianity, laced with sympathetic depictions of how the religion is practiced in China. The plan also includes secret Chinese payments to American journalists to write articles favorable to China, and paying citizens' groups to organize rallies in support of Chinese policies.

Out of room and barely started. Ted Gup, author of The Book of Honor, about the secret lives of CIA agents, quotes the British scholar F.M. Cornford: "Propaganda is that branch of the art of lying which consists in very nearly deceiving your friends without quite deceiving your enemies."