Wednesday, March 01, 2006

The lamp under the bushel basket

In From the Cold links to an American Enterprise Institute article by Michael Rubin who argues that the US goverment, the State Department in particular, is playing by gentleman's rules in the information war with Iran.

Force, though, is not the only component of the Hezbollah playbook. In Lebanon, Hezbollah used Iranian money to create an extensive social service network. It funded schools, food banks and job centers. It's a tried and true strategy. ... Driving through Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad, similar scenes unfold. While the U.S. Embassy boasts billions of dollars spent, it has little to show ordinary Iraqis for its efforts. Not so the Shiite militias. Mr. al-Hakim's son Amar has opened branches of his Shahid al-Mihrab Establishment for Promoting Islam throughout southern Iraq. They distribute food and gifts of money, so long as patrons pledge their allegiance. For impoverished Iraqis lacking electricity and livelihood, it's an easy decision. ...

It is in the info-war that Washington has stumbled most severely. The U.S. operates in Iraq as if the country is a vacuum. Sheltered within the Green Zone, diplomats are oblivious to enemy propaganda. Resistance to occupation is Hezbollah's mantra. It is a theme both the Badr Corps and firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army adopted. Why then did Foggy Bottom acquiesce on May 22, 2003 to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1483 which formalized U.S. and Britain as "occupying powers." What U.S. diplomats meant as an olive branch to pro-U.N. European allies was, in reality, hemlock. With the stroke of a pen, liberation became occupation: Al-Manar and Al-Alam barraged ordinary Iraqis with montages glorifying "resistance." They then highlighted U.S. fallibility with images of withdrawal from Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia.

In From the Cold adds this comment:

Rubin reminds us that Iran's Arabic language TV service aimed at Iraqi audiences (Al-Alam) began broadcasting three months before its U.S.-funded counterpart. Today, Al-Alam remains a centerpiece of the Iranian strategy, well-funded and rewarding anyone who can provide footage that is damaging to the U.S. Meanwhile, American efforts to establish a free and independent Iraqi media have been hampered by revelations that the U.S. "paid" local papers to run favorable stories. In reality, we need to use every means at our disposal to generate positive coverage in the Iraqi media, but the episode illustrates how American idealism often hinders the accomplishment of a critical mission, in this case, achieving victory in the information war.

Commentary

In a open post session to identify ways to improve US information warfare, many Belmont commenters believed that the government was by nature incapable of doing the job. Some suggestions of private and legal information warfare activities to take up the slack included:

  • Using private resources, such as bloggers, volunteers, institutes to monitor open source foreign language newspapers, broadcasts and websites to augment the official intel effort. Roger Simon at Pajamas Media tried the idea out on James Woolsey at a videotaped interview and received some encouragement;
  • Providing support for individuals being persecuted for supporting the allied cause in the War on Terror in the manner of the "Underground Railroad".

Just giving speeches and writing articles debunking enemy propaganda is "information warfare". The Times of London has an article describing Douglas Murray on his way to address a memorial service for Pym Fortuyn.

Would you write the name you’d like to use here, and your real name there?” asked the girl at reception. I had just been driven to a hotel in the Hague. An hour earlier I’d been greeted at Amsterdam airport by a man holding a sign with a pre-agreed cipher. I hadn’t known where I would be staying, or where I would be speaking. The secrecy was necessary: I had come to Holland to talk about Islam.

Last weekend, four years after his murder, Pim Fortuyn’s political party, Lijst Pim Fortuyn, held a conference in his memory on Islam and Europe. The organisers had assembled nearly all the writers most critical of Islam’s current manifestation in the West. The American scholars Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer were present, as were the Egyptian-Jewish exile and scholar of dhimmitude, Bat Ye’or, and the great Muslim apostate Ibn Warraq.

The event was scholarly, incisive and wide-ranging. There were no ranters or rabble-rousers, just an invited audience of academics, writers, politicians and sombre party members. As yet another example of Islam’s violent confrontation with the West (this time caused by cartoons) swept across the globe, we tried to discuss Islam as openly as we could. The Dutch security service in the Hague was among those who considered the threat to us for doing this as particularly high. The security status of the event was put at just one level below “national emergency”.

It might be only a slight exaggeration to say that Daniel Pipes, Bat Ye'or, Ibn Warraq and Hirsi Ali by themselves do more information warfare damage than the whole State Department cumulatively. Private effort should definitely not be discounted.

24 Comments:

Blogger sam said...

Not just Iran but China as well,

Expanded influence seen as Chinese military goal:

Army Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the committee that part of the buildup includes increasing missile and nuclear forces.

Beijing also is working on space-warfare and information-warfare capabilities that can be used to attack U.S. satellites and computer systems, Gen. Maples said, noting that Russia also is working on space arms.

Gen. Maples said Iran is working to build nuclear arms and is developing long-range missiles in addition to its current arsenal of medium-range missiles.

Expanded Influence

3/01/2006 03:55:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

But private efforts ARE discounted and often discouraged or prevented.
---
"American efforts to establish a free and independent Iraqi media have been hampered by revelations that the U.S. "paid" local papers to run favorable stories.

In reality, we need to use every means at our disposal to generate positive coverage in the Iraqi media, but the episode illustrates how American idealism often hinders the accomplishment of a critical mission
"
---
"American Idealism" is a misonmer which does not describe reality well at all.
The problem is not idealism, but relentless anti-American, anti-corporate, anti-administration, anti-profit and anti-Bush rantings from the left, the MSM, non-profits, Democrats, and etc.
In WWII, Hollywood provided propaganda for free, now you couldn't pay them to do it, and if someone could be found that would accept payment, the ACLU and all the perps listed above would come down on them like flies on s....

Common sense and simple self-preservation have been rendered politically and legally incorrect.

3/01/2006 04:13:00 AM  
Blogger Marcus Aurelius said...

It all reminds of some fears of your Wretchard you discussed some time ago. You openly wondered why Governments are not acting more forcefully in the protection of their citizens in the faces of unarmed mobs and the like.

You openly worried that private citizens of the West would take up assymetrical warfar on their own in response to the Islamofascists employment of the assymetrical warfare and our Government's seeming lack of response to it.

Well, that seems to be the pattern here. Our government can not take action in the information war against the Islamofascists. As our left constantly rails against any attempt to portray our nation, our efforts in a positive light as untruth.

If the American left can not stand the government paying people to write about our efforts in a positive light than we have to do it ourselves.

The Krazy Kos Kid and his minions have a putdown for us on the right side of the Blogosphere. They call us the 101st Keyboard Division (or the 101st Fighting Keyboards something like that). They think it a putdown but I call it a very essential part of the conflict as is being demonstrated by the MSM and their refusal to print the truth.

3/01/2006 05:15:00 AM  
Blogger RWE said...

I think the reason the government does it so poorly is that traditionally private "industry" has done it so well. The government did not have to be good at it because other people in the country were so much better; it would have been like the government trying to create a national baseball team to give the U.S. dominance in that sport.

Indeed, even mere government competance at propaganda would have been considered a shameful thing here. There are even laws against showing U.S. Citizens government produced propaganda.

This war is really about the fact that we as nation produced incredibly effective propaganda as a natural consequence of our way of life. I recall seeing an interview with a German POW imprisoned in the U.S. in WWII: "They told us we were going to the United States, and we knew it to be the most beautiful country in the world." Now think: the people we were fighting thought that way!

Most of this came simply from being successful at so many important things. In WWII even our allies often thought Americans to be incredible braggarts when we said we were going to do something very quickly. They were shocked when they realized we were not bragging but simply stating facts. As Rush Limbaugh says "It's not bragging if you can do it."

So the question to ask is not why the government is not better at propaganda, but to inquire why the people who used to be so good at it are so bad - or even so negative.

3/01/2006 05:25:00 AM  
Blogger Faeroe said...

Before reading this, I had just sent a message to a cousin soon to deploy as an economics officer in Iraq. I offered my services for translations and background readings and to act as a conduit for inciteful commentary on the situation he will soon be facing.

There may not be many who can do the former, but each of us can do the latter. The very fact that we are here reading and posting is an indication of self-motivation and selectivity. I encourage all who can to reach out in this fashion.

3/01/2006 06:24:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

'cause we're behind the curve, trish.

across the Board and Around the World.

The State Department has never even been in the fight.
The Sec of Def admits defeat and retreat in the Information Wars.

The Enemy has desktop video and instant access and utilizes it organicly. They are on top of the story, living it themselves.

Our side will not even step outside their walls and wire, out to where they expect the "others" to live and prosper.

Those battles, like the Military Front, have to be handled by Indigs. If we cannot hire them, we lose.

But who really cares?

3/01/2006 07:38:00 AM  
Blogger Starling said...

I believe it was ex-President Gerald Ford who said "any government powerful enough to give you everything you want is also powerful enough to take away everything you've got."

Whether true or not, I think the statement describes a special case of a more general phenomenon- that capabilities are elastic; that is to say, though developed for one purpose, they can and will eventually be deployed toward other ends.

It is this premise that makes me not concerned that the US government is, at present, demonstrably incapable of conducting a successful information war against our sworn and implacable foes.

By my thinking, were the US government so capable, there would certainly come a time when those capabilities would be directed at the populace that they were originally intended to protect. And with dire consequences.

That said, I do find it quite distressing that the US, in distinction to the US government, is not presently doing a better job of fighting said war.

The solution I envision provides for an expanded role for self-directed, highly-decentralized, geographically-dispersed networks of ordinary US/Western netizens. I envision bloggers taking the lead and the government following.

Given that so much of the capabilities to do so lie outside the government to begin with, I find it hard to envision any federal agency or government bureaucarcy beign able to marshall these resources, let alone to properly organize and direct them toward the desired end.

My interest in seeing this happen is not merely vocational. As a suit on the ground in the Middle East, I can see practical applications for the work that the such citizen information militias might produce.

3/01/2006 07:44:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

"24 hours in the life of Alice Smith, of Smallville, Anystate, USA"

A 30 minute documentary--in Arabic--

uhhh....

3/01/2006 08:21:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

I agree totally, trish, that the US was in Occupation of Iraq from the moment the statue fell in Baghdad.

We did a poor job of Managing the Occupation Battlespace from the get go.

Again it goes back to a lack of an Articulated Goal, from the very beginning.

Who is the Enemy in Iraq?
VDH amongst others agree, today, it is not Insurgents, it is not aQ.
No, now it seems the REAL ENEMY in Iraq are Common Criminals, that it is they that have destabilized the Country.

No need for boys from Ohio to chase Iraqi criminals, each one they captured is soon (within 72 hours in many cases) released.
Common criminals in Iraq is certainly not a Security Challenge for US.

3/01/2006 09:25:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

c-low

Where is there evidence of the US being at War?

I agree that we should be and I agree that we could be, but you'd be hard pressed to show me where the US was on the Offensive, in this psuedo War.
I hear a lot of Rhetoric of War, but little evidemce of one.
Casualties, they almost nonexistent.
Hearts and Minds won, very few it seems.
It is more likely for a US citizen to be snatched in Larado Texas, than in Iraq. So Iraq must be pretty well secured, aye?

We have troops deployeed around the World. Korea, Japan, England, Iceland, Ecuador, Guam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Italy, Turkey, Georgia, to name just a few.

So US trop deployments do not constitute War, battles do.
We are not fighting any Military Battles, there are few Movement to Contact patrols, especially in Iraq, for US.

3/01/2006 10:00:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Keeps a person reading, trish.
As I said:
" ...VDH amongst others agree, today, it ..."
Should have said "yesterday", then I'd have been more accurate.

Wonder who may have called Mr H and got a newly revised "Opinion"?
Could he have gotten an invitation to go hunting with Mr Cheney?
Or is that to being cynical?

3/01/2006 10:33:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

If the KGB and the Saudi entity, among others, can recruit propagandists from the the media establishment, why can't the State Department? And if the State Department can't, why is it that other (often hostile) foreign entities can?

3/01/2006 10:57:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Because the KGB, etc., mika, see the value of it and fund the effort, at War time levels.

Some of the people in the World do think there is a War, they are engaged in it, fully. While we debate who the enemy is, and whether there is anything worth fighting a War for, they mass in the fog, just outside our wire.

3/01/2006 11:07:00 AM  
Blogger Annoy Mouse said...

My office uses WebSense, an internet content filter service. It has, for reasons inexplicable to me, blocked DanielPipes.org. It seems arbitrary to me, but in a world where there is a new URL a minute it seems an impossible task to create equitable blocking filters. It would almost make sense to have a system operator controlling content by ‘opting in’, but this would be more than a full time job.

In a larger sense of information warfare, it is totalitarian regimes that will keep information warfare from being effective, such regimes that will ban the publication of ‘offensive’ cartoons. It is anathema to a free society to block information content in the private sector, in a totalitarian society, it is an obligation.

I suspect that the actions to filter out the West that have been taken by China, North Korea, and Iran will reduce the bombardment of information on those societies, and by making information contraband, will make it eagerly sought after.

The perennial questions of information warfare states:

Deny, deceive, destroy, or exploit?

We can thank our adversaries that they have made the decision themselves.

“You can collect, analyze, and move your information faster than your opponent to get an edge. Or you can cutoff your opponent from his own information sources, distort his processing, or prevent him from issuing commands. You can fight the information war inside the weapon’s circuits, or inside the commander’s head. There is no single approach that is always the best, but the ultimate objective is always the same: collect, process, and apply information faster and better than your opponent. Whoever gets to the end of their OODA loop first gets to take the first shot. Bruce Berkowitz

It is the very insular nature of Islam that sets them back in technology. It is the craven application of violence that makes up that short coming. In the end, the West’s advantage in information processing will keep them ahead of the sheltered populace of a tyranny. The question is is whether the tyrants deny themselves the same truth.

3/01/2006 11:31:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

d'Rat

I appreciate what you're saying, but don't think that's a studied response. My sense is that there are specific legal obstacles in the way of the State Department where there are economic incentives for the other. Good or bad, the system is gamed against the government.

3/01/2006 11:41:00 AM  
Blogger Annoy Mouse said...

101st Keyboard Division – I like it.

Whether we are occupiers or liberators has a lot to do with our intentions. Our stated intentions, though not materially different from our actions, are important. I am here to free you, incidentally at that; “I am here to dispose of Saddam. Hope that doesn’t give you too much grief but it is something we really feel compelled to do so I hope you can endure this little interlude”. It sounds remarkably better than; “We are here to subjugate you to our occupation, if you do not comply with our orders we will kill you”. They are nearly the same in actions, but the bureau cats are @ssholes for stating our intentions in such a way. It is a big FU to our adversaries, an insult, an affront that demands counter action, demands violence, it begs for pay back. FU. Do you like that? Does what others say matter to you?

3/01/2006 11:57:00 AM  
Blogger Annoy Mouse said...

Excellent point Starling.

One should watch what they wish for. Americans are notoriously adverse to such things as assassinations, though we’d probably be willing to justify the killing of Saddam, Kim Jong Il, or Osama Bin Laden. Once the capable killing machine was set loose and operated in the secret that would be necessary to work, we’d all be paranoid of what we wrought, it is for this reason that we are at least a little grateful that we are inept at such things.

The Information Minister has proclaimed that the new official position is that farmer Pilkington is a friend of all animals.

I not sure how the netizen gets his opinion heard a target audience, but we can open up the dialog. Could a debating society be possible between such ethnically diverse cultures? He said she said becomes: Jesus said Sharia said.

3/01/2006 12:14:00 PM  
Blogger Annoy Mouse said...

RWE,
"They told us we were going to the United States, and we knew it to be the most beautiful country in the world."

Wish were invaded by Norway. Yes, I have a thing for fjords.

Opotho,
It sounds like Pym Fortuyn was marked for death. Leave it to the MSM to paint the targets for the extremists. Several years ago I had never heard of Rush Limbaugh, except that he was an extreme racist hatemonger. Not caring for that type I never set out to listen to him. One day while driving the company car I listened to an amusing guy on the radio and found out that it was Rush Limbaugh. I listened to him for a long time afterward because I was amazed how untrue the characterizations of him were. Later I came to think of him as a pugnacious parvenu, but that is another story.

3/01/2006 12:30:00 PM  
Blogger Annoy Mouse said...

C-Low
In the end the American consumer may be the greatest threat to the foreign meme. We are the richest market, and regardless of what our government does, we, as consumers could boycott those that we thought were wrong, unfair, or had just plain bad governance. But we consumers vote with our wallet and if we vote for Chinese goods because slave labor is cheaper, then maybe we can privatize our ports and sell to the highest bidder. While were at that, estimates have proven it would be cheaper if the federal government was run by Mexico using foreign labor. Lets clear out Washington and start saving now.

Information in the end is meant to influence others. What exactly are we trying to influence others to do or not do? We have stopped trying to influence others from buying from us, except maybe our ports, our infrastructure, our land. Wanna buy a car?

A mother who is sad that her daughter was caught before she could blow herself up and murder a bunch of innocent people, what could anything we tell her matter. Killing people is shameful?

Some have suggested that the way to influence Middle Easterners is to bring shame upon them. I suppose make a caricature of Mohammad with a bomb in his turban. No that didn’t work, as long as the MSM is in the business of molly-coddling the ‘spodey-dopes it is a hopeless cause. Ignore the b@stards, sell them porn, and bomb them to hell when it suits our purposes. Meanwhile, do not allow them access to the club.

Pat Buchanan states that Global Trade and the War on Terror are at direct odds with each other. I can’t help but think that he is right. We must lead by example and we must vote with our pocket books.

3/01/2006 12:57:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

There is no Law that could not be changed, mika, if there was a percieved need for it.

There are no Regulations or Statutes that cannot be modified or ignored. Mr Casey and Col North managed quite well thank you, some would say, outside the Law.

The reason we do not practice it is because it falls outside the prepercieved venue of Government.

This goes to both sterling's, trish's and my fear, in the past and for the future, of the Government trying to Information War, against US.

3/01/2006 01:03:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

c-low
I would call it a Police Chase.
Requiring Warrants, redentions, and probable cause.

I would call it Garrisoning Iraq after the removal of Saddam's Government three years ago, which had nothing to do with aq. This is seen, readily in the need for a second Authorization, specific to Iraq & Saddam. The Goals set forth in the Authorization for Use of Force in Iraq having been achieved with the emergence of a democratic Government, there.

The only other Authorization for Force is against aQ, which has found Sanctuary in Pakistan.
As normal as a Summitt approaches the General President gives US a token
WaPo says

"... MIRAN SHAH, Pakistan -- Pakistani soldiers and helicopter gunships attacked a suspected al-Qaida camp Wednesday near the Afghan border, killing more than 45 militants and angering residents who called for a holy war days before a visit by President Bush.

As news of the attack spread in the rugged northwestern region, tribesmen who sympathize with the militants came out of their homes and began firing in the air. A mosque loudspeaker urged people to "wage jihad against the army."

The offensive was in North Waziristan, a region controlled by fiercely independent, well-armed tribes believed to be sheltering al-Qaida fugitives and Taliban remnants. The militants often cross the porous Afghan-Pakistan border.

Three helicopter gunships attacked the militants' mountain hide-out near Saidgi, a village nine miles west of Miran Shah, army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said.

The assault "knocked out a den of foreign militants" and killed more than 45 of them, an army statement said.

The slain men _ most from Central Asian and Arab countries ... "

The General President didn't have even have to sacrifice a "Local" to pay his token.

There is your payback for the Cole and the WTC, 40 Arabs and Chechans killed by the Pakistani Army, just before Mr Bush's arrival.

I'd call this War:
EYEWASH,
c-low.

3/01/2006 01:13:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Who actually killed him--the press left it at 'animal-rights activist'. Anybody know any history on the killer? Wondering whom he was "loosely affiliated" with.

3/01/2006 01:58:00 PM  
Blogger Annoy Mouse said...

Trish,
I presume you mean for the US government to get out of the business. Semantics aren't particularly important to me, however I'd suggest that the message coming out of the State Department need not incite the ire of our enemies. It is not their job to suck up to the UN Euro snobs.

As far as the occupation is concerned, mission accomplished, time to go home. The only reason to stay if we were to negotiate permanant basing there and for that I would like to have an Iraqi ballot. If they want us there, they can damn well cooperate, if not, the next American taxpayer aid will be in the form of Daisy Cutters.

3/01/2006 03:33:00 PM  
Blogger Annoy Mouse said...

I suppose my argument is futile. People who are involved in business understand that there are things that are discussed with much candor internally, then a much censored version is made for consumption by your customers. I.e. internal affairs, external affairs.

Never mind.

3/01/2006 04:33:00 PM  

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