PoliticalWarfare.org

Getting serious about strategic influence

The US isn't declining as a world power because of the war on terrorism. It's declining because it has ceased to be serious about using strategic influence. The United States has become a military Achilles but a political Lilliputian.

"More troops" seems to be the universal answer to the world's security problems. Plus weak, plaintive cries for "more public diplomacy." Whatever that is. And then there's the newest fad: "strategic communication."

Yeah, that's the ticket: more strategic communication. Really! But wait - Does the government have an active, functioning machine that's doing the huge job of strategic communication? Can anybody name the government official currently responsible for the job? Is that person being effective? Does he or she have the right tools, resources, personnel and procedures? Is there anybody on the National Security Council with the stature and authority to coordinate the "strategic communication" of the world's sole superpower?

Of course not. That's part of the problem. I take a look at the issue in the current issue of the Journal of International Security Affairs - a journal, by the way, that's crammed with thought-provoking material on the subject of influence during war and peace. (My only quibble with the journal is that my friends, the editors and publisher, are capitalistic types who actually want readers to buy their publication, so the articles aren't available yet online.)

You can download a pdf of my essay, "Getting Serious About Strategic Influence," here: Download Waller JINSA Fall09. Meanwhile, here are some of the highlights:

• The mission of strategic communication "must be similar to the mission of the armed forces: to project American power and influence and provide a permanent system through which to ensure the national interest globally."
• The mission must not be "simply to make the United States a player in the 'global marketplace of ideas.' The mission must be to dominate the market."
• The effort "must be to fight to win. It must be run strategically, like a permanent political campaign."
• Therefore, current State Department diplomats are not qualified for the job. The job is for "real strategists and practitioners in the art of political action."
• The State Department's wartime public diplomacy record is so free of successes, so hideously failed, that the public diplomacy mission should be removed from Foggy Bottom: "Nobody has been held accountable for the public diplomacy mess. Yet everybody seems to want the State Department to continue its role as the leader in wartime strategic communication."
• "American message-makers have failed to develop a coherent strategy to wage an ideological counterattack against political Islamism. They can't seem to grasp that there is a significant difference between Islam the religion and the politicized, power-seeking ideologies of radical Islamism. Our national obsession with not wanting to offend has trumped our obligation to defend our national interests. And so our young soldiers continue to die."
• "Imagine . . . if the James Carvilles, Dick Morrises and Karl Roves of the world put their visionary, calculating, often deviously cynical genius to work to promote the national interest globally."
• "Reforms will take years. What the US leadership can do now is to define the purpose and nature of American strategic communication. That is why the nation needs diplomats and communicators who are political warriors, and not simply ex-politicians who checked their political instincts at the door when they entered the State Department."
• "Strategic communication must be strategic. . . . It must be designed to achieve national objectives through other than lethal combat, and to enhance the capabilities of the warfighters who must go into battle."

Leadership starts, of course, with our president, who is a gifted politician and communicator in his own right, but who seems to need help in developing a strategy. Our vice president was for years the ranking member and then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, yet he did nothing significant in those capacities on the public diplomacy/strategic communication front. Maybe he can do something about it now. Our secretary of state is a masterful, school-of-hard-knocks political warrior who can win a partisan fight but doesn't seem to be getting traction at the State Department. Like the president, she is a trained disciple of the late Rules for Radicals author Saul Alinsky. I'd like to see her put those skills to work against the Islamist extremists of Al Qaeda, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Muslim Brotherhood and elsewhere. I'd gladly help out.

A swell way to declare an Afghan victor

Here's a terrific way for the United States to settle the Afghan presidential election controversy: Have the Voice of America broadcast an "exclusive interview" with the CIA director who says the US-favored candidate will win and that a vote recount won't matter.

Not!

Yet that's just what the VOA and CIA Director Leon Panetta have done. Here's what the VOA reported on September 18:

Official preliminary final totals in Afghanistan's recent presidential election have incumbent president Hamid Karzai the winner, but the election was marred by allegations of massive vote fraud. A U.N. electoral oversight group has ordered a partial recount. But the head of the Central Intelligence Agency believes that will not make much of a difference.

In an exclusive VOA interview, CIA director Leon Panetta says that even if suspect ballots are discounted, President Hamid Karzai will in all likelihood win re-election.

"It's clear that there was some degree of corruption and fraud involved in the election," Panetta said. "It's being viewed now by the commissions involved in counting those votes. I think what appears to be the case is that even after they eliminate some of the votes that resulted because of fraud, that Karzai will still - still looks like the individual who's going to be able to win that election."

The preliminary final results have Mr. Karzai with enough votes to avoid a runoff with former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah. Mr. Karzai has angrily denied major fraud and denounced the media for what he says are exaggerated reports of electoral corruption.

A few problems show themselves here. First, the CIA director should never try to declare the winner of a US-backed election in another country. Even if the CIA wasn't involved in trying to manage the outcome of the Afghan election (and shame on the US for not using the CIA for that purpose, given that the Saudis, Pakistanis, Iranians and others are meddling plenty in Afghan political affairs), an official CIA comment simply looks bad and taints the favored candidate.

Second, why in the world is the Voice of America, as a major public diplomacy instrument of the United States government, eliciting and promoting such statements from the CIA Director?

The CIA-VOA electoral pronunciation has other negative effects, too, but I'll end with just the above pair of thoughts and the following question: Who is in charge of US strategic messaging on Afghanistan?

Israel Defense Forces make good use of YouTube

Taking its case to the world through an accelerated use of intelligence for persuading the world about its cause, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) now has its own information-packed video channel on YouTube.

Since December 2008, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit has run IDFNADESK, a YouTube channel, showing IDF videos of Hamas operations, IDF counterterrorism operations, interviews with IDF officials, and other multimedia. The channel contains dozens of videos and other IDF links.

Some of the videos are in Arabic and contain English subtitles; others are narrated in American-style English.

The IDF public affairs website is idfspokesperson.com.

Word is traveling around the Internet today that YouTube has told the IDF that it would pull at least one video from the IDFNADESK site, allegedly due to not enough people logging in. This claim is difficult to believe because IDFNADESK is the #2 most subscribed YouTube channel in Israel, with more than 2.3 million channel views since December. The video in question, about an operation against Hamas and narrated by an Arabic-speaking IDF officer, has been viewed more than 354,000 times.

IDFNADESK has spawned some opposition video sites as well, showing how the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is well under way online.

Al Jazeera producer purges his blog

David Phinney, the creepy little weasel producer at Al Jazeera's English propaganda channel, has purged his blog of an item referring to American troops as a much maligned bodily orifice.

Phony Phinney cleansed his blog after this blogger exposed his anti-American hate speech last week. Phinney also posted a comment to my criticism of his annoying attempt to interview me (see "Why I told Al Jazeera to stuff it," February 26).

Concerning my February 26 posting, Phinney (pictured) writes innocently, "Wow. This blog item strikes me as a total misrepresentation of the events for reasons I am unaware of. I would be happy to discuss this at your convenience if you would like."

No need to discuss a thing. I have all the emails and phone logs and at least a dozen eyewitnesses. We can make as big an issue of this as you like, Mr. Phony.

Many thanks to the Marine who pointed out how Phony doctored his blog after claiming that I misrepresented events, and to those who captured the screenshots before the Al Jazeera guy tried to destroy the evidence. More proof of the sleaze behind Osama bin Laden's favorite TV station.

This will be a fun item to follow.

Why I told Al Jazeera to stuff it

Normally I give press interviews to just about anybody who asks - even Pravda and MSNBC. But when a pesky little guy from Al Jazeera kept trying to get me to talk to him, I drew the line. This week a producer from Osama bin Laden's favorite propaganda outlet called and emailed me at my office, and again at my magazine. I ignored him. He tracked down some of my friends and associates, some of whom frantically called me: "Al Jazeera wants to talk to you."

Something about Blackwater. Phinney heaped praise on an article I'd written about Blackwater's great work in Afghanistan. Wanted to put me on his terrorist TV show glorious satellite network. I ignored him some more. 

Yesterday he pestered my colleagues, as if they would badger me into talking to him. One of them sent me a note: "This obnoxious guy, David Phinney, called looking for you. Said he's from Al Jazeera English. Wants to interview you today. Asked if he was on a deadline and he said, 'Well, yeah. Right now.' I tried to get him to narrow it down to a specific timeframe, but he kept on telling me 'immediately.' He must have thought I was a secretary because he talked to me like I was an idiot."

Phinney made quite an impression. "Annoying," said one of my colleagues. "Assclown," proclaimed another; "traitorous infidel. You must call him immediately or else the fleas of a thousand camels will lodge in your armpit."

Phinney likes to pride himself as a journalistic professional. But his blog shows him to be a real kook. He appears to allege that a Republican computer technology consultant died mysteriously because he had evidence of GOP voter fraud. And his site is peppered with trashings of American troops. Like this item, from December 29, 2008, titled, "Asshole US Soldiers."

So this afternoon, as I entered my office, a very American-looking young guy was in the doorway, sent to stalk Phinney's elusive prey. He politely introduced himself, said he was so glad to see me, and identified himself as being one of Phinney's assistants. Would I consent to the interview?

No, I said. "Al Jazeera is a terrorist propaganda mill. You work for Osama bin Laden's favorite TV network."

"But we're with Al Jazeera English," Phinney's assistant said with earnest lameness. Oh, that Al Jazeera! "Have you seen us?"

"Al Jazeera is Al Jazeera," I said. "Al Jazeera is an enemy of the United States." I added that I was speaking to him professionally and not personally, and something to the effect that Al Jazeera should be treated as a military target. I don't do interviews with military targets.

I'd never heard of Phinney before, but got curious about how low Al Jazeera had to troll to catch Washington-based talent. Turns out that before whoring for terrorist television producing for Al Jazeera, Phinney worked for mainstream groups like CorpWatch.org, which praised Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 and likened the American war effort to a corrupt operation to benefit capitalist corporations.

Which is kind of funny, because Al Jazeera's emails contain this intimidating, very corporate-sounding disclaimer at the bottom: "Notice: This email is intended only for the use of the individual or entity named above and may contain information that is confidential and privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this email is strictly prohibited. Opinions, conclusions and other information in this message that do not relate to the official business of our firm shall be understood as neither given nor endorsed by it."

Get stuffed, Al Jazeera. Go crawl back into your Wahhabi hole and die an infidel's death.

Anti-American operatives at VOA's Iranian service

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A music video mocking democracy and heaping scorn on the United States is the product of staffers for the Voice of America's Farsi language service to Iran. The VOA employees used several terrorist propaganda video clips showing IED attacks on American humvees and armored vehicles in Iraq.

The title of the video is "DemoKracy." (Click here to view the video if the YouTube image is not visible above.)

Produced by an obscure Swedish-Iranian band called Abjeez, the music video is themed in and around a TV newsroom, with the anchor and a reporter, played respectively by Safoura and Melody Safavi, mocking the United States and democracy.

The "reporter," shown at right holding the microphone in the first part of the video, is the VOA employee, Melody Safavi, whose married name is Arbabi. This blogger has learned that VOA fired her after an Iranian former political prisoner filed a complaint to Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes, but her husband Saman Arbabi, who directed the video, reportedly is still on VOA staff.

The video includes pictures of civilian casualties, grieving women and wounded children, Iraqi and American coffins and funerals, and a weather map of the Middle East showing bombs dropping on every country in the greater Middle East, from Sudan and Egypt to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Three nuclear bomb-style mushroom clouds are superimposed over the part of the map depicting Iran. The video closes with an archival aerial photo of a nuclear weapon test in the desert.

Abjeez has produced the video in several languages, though viewer statistics on YouTube show few people worldwide have accessed the video. Nevertheless, the production raises questions about the editorial judgment of VOA personnel, and whether US taxpayers should have such individuals on the payroll to wage the war of ideas against Islamist extremism.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which governs VOA, has long denied problems with its controversial Iran services. Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) has been raising concerns for a year about the broadcasts to the Islamic republic, but the BBG and State Department were dismissive. Last spring, this blogger also submitted a set of written questions to outgoing Under Secretary of State Hughes at the request of a senior aide, and received a written response that ignored or evaded the answers. It's time for BBG and State to catch up with the new leadership at RFE/RL and tackle the larger problems of US broadcasting into Iran. 

Good news: Pakistanis' anti-terror musical movement spreads around world

Pakistan's big anti-terrorism pop music video is finally getting attention in the US. As this blog reported in March, a Pakistani Brit composed a "We are the World"-style song, in Urdu, against Islamist terrorism. The biggest pop singers in Pakistan got together and performed it, and the song became #1 in the country. Now it's been released in the UK.

This week, Fox News discovered the music video. Correspondent Greg Palkot reports from London: "Waseem Mahmood and his two sons, Khurrum and Khaiyyam, have made this statement via a song and music video. It is called 'Yeh Hum Naheen,' Urdu for 'This is Not Us.'  [For the video of Palkot's report, click here.]

"The lyrics say it all: 'This story that is being spread in our names is a lie. … The name by which you know us we are not.'

"Taking a page right out of the hugely successful all-star relief song 'We are the World,' the song is performed by top young singers in Pakistan.

"Juxtaposed among the shots of the singers are ugly scenes and headlines about terrorism as well as heart-warming scenes of Pakistanis singing along … with passion."

Yeh Hum Naheen isn't some CAIR-style propaganda operation designed to divert us infidels away from the subject away from Islamist terrorism. It's a privately-sponsored production designed to rally young Muslims to marginalize the extremists. (That's probably why CAIR and its ilk have ignored it.)

And it's becoming a formidable musical movement, according to the official website.

"According to video creator Waseem, extremists here have criticized the song, saying it should target governments they claim are responsible for the terror," Palkot reports, "not the terrorists. But that's the very twisted logic the song is trying to knock down."

The Mahmood family has only just begun to fight. According to Fox: "The next priority is an Arabic version of the song. Then an English version. Then a 'Live Aid'-style concert. And a few other interesting projects they don’t want to talk about yet."

In March, PoliticalWarfare.org posted a link to the original 'Yeh Hum Naheen' video in Urdu. Here's a new link to the UK-released version subtitled in English.

Masterwork: RFE/RL briefing on Iraqi insurgent websites

Here's a real masterpiece of research that deserves a lot of attention: A 70-minute briefing on the insurgent and terrorist websites in Iraq.

It's relevant scholarship at its finest. I received a sneak preview of this presentation last spring, and thought it so important that I arranged a live briefing for senior-level policymakers in Washington prior to the report's completion. Now it's available to the public.

"The greatest strengths of the Iraqi Sunni-based insurgency's media strategy - decentralization and flexibility - are also its greatest weaknesses," according to a report released June 26 by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

"The book-length report, Iraqi Insurgent Media: The War Of Images And Ideas by RFE/RL regional analysts Daniel Kimmage and Kathleen Ridolfo, provides an in-depth analysis of the media efforts of Sunni insurgents, who are responsible for the majority of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq," according to a release.

The 26,000-word report and a 70-minute audio briefing are available by clicking here. It's true to the highest standards of the old RFE/RL Research Institute and is one of the most relevant pieces of work to help win the war. I can't recommend this report highly enough.

Radio Farda reporter says US statements undermine cause in Iran

A reporter for Radio Farda, the US-funded Farsi infotainment station aimed at Iran, says that the Bush Administration's open statements about democracy in that country are counterproductive and undermine democratic forces.

The reporter, Parnaz Azima (pictured), was one of four Iranian-Americans imprisoned recently in Iran, and is the only one to have been freed. "The open announcements about funding democracy in Iran have angered the [Iranian] government, and now they have one goal - to crush those activities and to put pressure on the Iranian activists, especially those who are inside Iran," Azima tells WTOP radio in a report carried by AP.

After years of lacking an Iran policy, the administration came out strong to push for $66 million to $75 million for democratization programs in Iran. Democratic activists in Iran urged officials not to be so public, saying the statements would give the regime the pretext to clamp down - which is exactly what has happened.

The headline on the AP report appears to be the product of a careless copy editor. Today's Washington Post carries a headline that is flat-out wrong: "Iran Detainee Urges US to End Democracy Effort." In fact, Azima said she was urging the US not to be so public about its work in Iran.

Countdown to shutdown in Venezuela

A human rights group is counting the days and hours until Venezuela's doomed opposition television station, RCTV, is shut down on instructions of dictator Hugo Chavez. Thirteen days to go, as of this posting.

To track the count and take part in the action items, visit FreeRCTV.net.  In Spanish, it's RCTVlibre.com.

The sites are a project of the Human Rights Foundation.