PoliticalWarfare.org

New: Parody of al Qaeda training video - CAUTION

Satirists are mocking al Qaeda for its latest "butt bomb" tactic. The People's Cube, a political humor website, today released a new video that ridicules the terrorist organization for sponsoring colon-deployed suicide bombers. In the feature, Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's #2, is shown instructing followers on how to assemble, insert and detonate the bombs. This hilarious, patently offensive, clever video crosses the bounds of good taste and is definitely not for children.

The video is an excellent inspiration for Arabic-speaking satirists to make fun of al Qaeda, its leadership, and the young, pretty men who become suicide bombers. As I proposed on September 29, properly done in the right cultural context, the mockery can be used to humiliate al Qaeda members and deter young men from becoming assassins.

I'm posting the video not for laughs but for the educational purpose of showing how to weaponize ridicule against the enemy, and help turn al Qaeda into a laughingstock among Arabs and Muslims worldwide. Let's get some discussion going.

You can watch the video here (Facebook subscribers please click here or below on "View Original Post" to view the video on the PoliticalWarfare.org blog). Be forewarned - many people will find this video tasteless and hurtful to their sensitivities. Which is no doubt what the creators intended.

"Al-Zawahiri" speaks heavily-accented English that may be difficult to understand. Click here for a transcript.

US retreat from PSYOP helps Taliban gain 'psychological ground'

At a time when the US military has inexplicably moved away from psychological operations, the Taliban in Afghanistan has been gaining "psychological ground."

"There are periods when an enemy does well and seems better trained and fights harder," a senior defense official tells Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post. "The number one indicator we have out there now is that they think they're winning. That creates an attitude, a positive outlook, and a willingness to sacrifice."

This is the exact opposite effect that US policy should be having. US strategy must be to demoralize the Taliban and its commanders, fighters and supporters. US strategy must break their spirit, cause the people to turn against them, and cause the commanders and fighters to turn against one another. US psychological strategy must be to cause the Taliban to implode from within, to induce its leaders to betray and kill one another - not to unite together as has been happening.

If we can't physically hunt down the Taliban commanders, we can accomplish the same objective psychologically by demoralizing the enemy and inducing its self-destruction from within.

One of the problems, of course, has been that the US abandoned the concept of psychological strategy decades ago. And since the 1990s it has given short-shrift to a well-established, successful element of military power: psychological operations or PSYOP.

PSYOP has taken the back seat to a new replacement concept, "information operations," and a larger, nebulous-sounding concept of "strategic communication."  Yet the military is not united in its concept of info ops, or IO, and the shift from psychological dominance to information dominance has left us full of information but with little to show for it.

Several senior US commanders have told me that the PSYOP now being waged is "juvenile," "infantile," "embarrassingly basic," "elementary," and so on. But I know for a fact that many of our PSYOP people have devised sophisticated products that the military no longer has the means or worldview to employ.

The US military leadership must re-think its drift away from PSYOP, and restore what's needed to master the psychological battlespace.

"The positive outlook has a basis in fact, the official said, as areas of Taliban influence have expanded," deYoung reports. "They have enough of the landscape that they control to be able to train more and in closer proximity to where they're fighting. And the people [living] there actually believe the Taliban can do something."

"To the Taliban, winning is, in fact, not losing," a US official tells the Post. "They feel that over time, they will ultimately outlast the international community's attempt to stabilize Afghanistan. It's really a game of will to them."

It's time for National Security Advisor Jim Jones to dust off old US military psychological warfare manuals and strategies and order the development of a national-level psychological strategy - and for military commanders to strengthen and empower PSYOP and all it has to offer the warfighter and the nation.

Still time to sign up for my political warfare class

There's still time to sign up for my graduate course, Political Warfare: Past, Present and Future. Taught on Thursday nights at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC, the course is the only one of its kind. It's designed for intelligence officers, military officers and diplomats, but (almost) anyone is welcome to sign up. My Foreign Propaganda class is over-subscribed.

Students will study the ancients: Kautilya of India, Sun Tzu of China, Aristotle and Thucydides of Athens, Virgil of Rome, as well as the ancient Hebrews and Persians and even Attila the Hun. Then we go over the political warfare of the Crusades, medieval and Renaissance Europe (especially Niccolo Machiavelli, who likewise studied the ancients), and six hours of intensive lectures on the political warfare of the American Revolution.

American warfighters will benefit from mastery of Samuel Adams and Benjamin Franklin's political warfare strategies and tactics; we've helped incorporate them into operations against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Finally, we study more modern political warriors, including the culturally subversive Antonio Gramsci and - this year, for the first time - community organizer Saul Alinsky and his Rules for Radicals.

My students often say that this is a grueling course with a massive amount of reading - and they're right. It's my toughest course and my favorite one. To sign up, inquire directly at www.iwp.edu, and tell them I sent you. Registration is still open for the fall. The course meets from 6:30-9:30 on Thursday evenings, starting September 3. The course website is www.politicalwarfare.us and contains course information, readings, and class assignments. That site will be password protected once the course begins, so take a peek at it now while you can.

(Image of Niccolo Machiavelli courtesy of my friends at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich)

Murtha axes military information operations for FY2010

Congressman John Murtha, the powerful House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee chairman, has cut out more than half of President Obama's fiscal year 2010 budget for military information operations (IO) and has singled out specific programs that he demands be terminated. He is also demanding that the Pentagon give Congress a real strategy and explanation of military IO before any funds be authorized for spending.

While the military strongly needs such prodding by Congress to help it focus on more effective strategies and tactics in IO, I'm worried that Rep. Murtha is cutting too deeply and too quickly. Reforms are absolutely needed, but the issue really has to be discussed in detail first, and given careful consideration. According to House Appropriations Committee report language apparently written by Murtha's office:

[President Obama's] budget request includes nearly one billion dollars for Department of Defense information operations (IO) programs. The Committee has serious concerns about not only the significant amount of funding being spent on these programs, but more importantly, about the Department's assumption of this mission area within its rules and responsibilities. Much of the content of what is being produced, and certainly some of the largest cost drivers in these programs, is focused so far beyond a traditional military information operation that the term non-traditional military information operation does not justly apply. At face value, much of what is being produced appears to be United States Military, and more alarmingly non-military propaganda, public relations, and behavioral modification messaging. The Committee questions the effectiveness of much of the material being produced with this funding, the supposed efforts to minimize target audience knowledge of United States Governmental sponsorship of certain production materials, and the ability of the Department to evaluate the impact of these programs.

It's tempting to try to explain Murtha's objections as knee-jerk opposition to the US military mission, or, perhaps, to the relative lack of Information Operations money being "invested" in the congressman's district.

However, some of Murtha's criticism appears justified, and this is the fault of the Department of Defense. For example, the congressional report says that the Pentagon has made "woefully inadequate" justifications for the budget request, which has grown from $9 million in FY2005 to $988 million in FY2010.

More damningly, Murtha's staff writes, "the [Defense] Department's response to attempts by the Committee to obtain a meaningful explanation of funding for these programs clearly indicates that Departmental oversight of these efforts is disorganized, and that a thorough understanding of their scope within the Department's leadership is incomplete."

Unfortunately, based on my experience, I have to agree.

However, I do not agree with Murtha's objection to military IO's broad expansion in "non-traditional" areas - in this case, the military is entirely correct in the direction it's taking. It's the vision and execution that's the problem, and the failure to keep Congress informed. This is a throwing-out-baby-with-bathwater problem. Murtha now wants to axe big parts of military IO, even though he doesn't really understand the concept himself.

His report continues, "The Committee believes that the Department of Defense, and the Combatant Commands which drive the demand for information operations, need to reevaluate IO requirements in the context of the roles and missions of the United States military along with consideration for the inherent capabilities of the military and the funding available to meet these requirements." No problem there. However, Murtha says he is gutting more than half of the requested IO budget before that reevaluation is done, with his staff deciding which programs the Pentagon should eliminate immediately:

"In support of this evaluation, the Committee has determined that many of the ongoing IO activities for which fiscal year 2010 funding is requested should be terminated immediately. The programs for which funding is specifically denied are identified in the classified annex to this report. Accordingly, the Committee has reduced requested funding for information operation programs in the various Service appropriations accounts in which they have requested by a total of $500,000,000."

But wait - there's more. Murtha is nit-picking the war effort, and wants the Pentagon to write its entire IO vision, strategy and programming into a single document for Congress - a document that invariably will be leaked to the press. The report continues:

"Of the remaining funds provided for information operations, the Committee directs that no funds shall be obligated or expended until 30 days after the Secretary of Defense submits a report to the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives and the Senate of the Department's IO programs. This report should encompass the period from fiscal years 2005 through 2010 and include all Department of Defense information operation programs for which base budget, supplemental, or overseas contingency operation funds have been appropriated or requested. The report shall include: program strategies, target audiences, goals, and measures of effectiveness; budget exhibits at the appropriations account and sub-activity level; spend plans (including positions and other direct costs); and production and dissemination mechanisms and locations. The report shall include an annex for the inclusion of necessary explanatory and supporting classified information. The Secretary shall submit this report in writing not later than 180 days after enactment of this Act."

Meanwhile, Murtha will have military information operations put on hold around the world until he gets his report.

There's no question that such a re-evaluation of IO is in order, and no question that much of the current programming has often been poorly conceived, poorly executed, and wasteful. Lots of reforms are in order. But Murtha's nitpick-with-a-machete approach isn't going to help. Congress has to come up with a more mature and sophisticated way of addressing the issue.

Summit on Radical Islam: Empowering college students to combat Islamist extremism

Young America's Foundation sponsored its "Summit on Radical Islam: Consequences of Appeasement in a Post-9/11 World" at the Reagan Ranch Center in Santa Barbara, California. The July 16-18 event, at which this blogger was the lead faculty member, brought together college students from across the country to learn about the radical Islamist agenda and how they can do their part to combat it.

In this video, I talk to the students about how we fought the far left, including those allied with the Soviet Communists, and applying our campus activist experiences of the 1980s to combating Islamist extremism on American colleges today. I address issues like fighting intimidation from the Islamist radicals and their friends, shining the light of truth on them to expose their ideology and intentions, building effective if unusual political alliances, using satire, and dividing and conquering.

Click here for links to other videos from the conference, including JihadWatch.org's Robert Spencer, Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy, Muslim-turned-Christian Nonie Darwish, former Justice Department and Senate Judiciary Committee lawyer Manuel Miranda, scholar Alex Alexiev, and former Congressman Tom Tancredo who address key issues of Islamist extremism in the United States today.

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.

Good move: US military quickly quashes sloppy reporting

The US military has moved with effective speed to discredit allegations that NATO forces were using white phosphorous "munitions" against civilians in Afghanistan.

The Reuters news agency first raised the allegations in an inaccurate report published May 8.

Anti-military groups like Human Rights Watch (HRW) in New York hinted strongly that the US and/or NATO illegally used white phosphorous in recent military operations in which innocent civilians were maimed or killed.

However, the military marshaled the facts quickly to show that the Taliban used white phosphorous as improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in its attacks. NATO uses white phosphorous for legal, legitimate reasons such as illuminating the sky at night and destroying bunkers, but not generally for anti-personnel purposes.

Reuters was one of the main Western news agencies to repeat the allegations that NATO used white phosphorous as illegal "munitions." The wire service went on to hint that the US or NATO are using illegal chemical weapons in Afghanistan.

In a breathless "exclusive," Reuters correspondent Emma Graham-Harrison falsely reported on May 8 that "western troops" fired a white phosphorous munition into an Afghan house last March, severely burning a little girl in what a Reuters editor called a "chemical strike." Reuters implied in the article that US or NATO forces are illegally using chemical weapons and incendiaries as anti-personnel weapons in Afghanistan.

In a gross breach of journalistic professionalism, Graham-Harrison sole-sourced her sensational story, using an anguished father's uncertain recollection of combat around his village when his daughter was maimed by a white phosphorous weapon.

Reuters did not quote a US or NATO official as refuting the report until way down in the 14th paragraph of the story. In paragraph 15, Reuters quoted a US Army officer as saying that a Taliban mortar unit might have fired the white phosphorous. Graham-Harrison spent much of the rest of the article quoting others to undermine the Army's statement. Here's a sampling:

"To think they (the Taliban) are employing white phosphorus as a weapon in their arsenal is very far-fetched," said Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch and a former senior intelligence analyst at the Pentagon.

"The U.S. has optics that will allow them to see through the smoke, so it is useless for (the Taliban). They don't need to illuminate because that is telegraphing to the United States where they are going to go and fight. Plus they know the area.

"They want high explosive to shock and kill; flames raining down from the sky aren't going to frighten the U.S. forces."

NATO spokeswoman Willis said insurgents had been observed using white phosphorus weapons in the past. Asked to provide examples of the Taliban using the chemical, she wrote back to say that she was unable to do so.

The Taliban also denied that they used it. "This is not true, it is just a mere allegation," said spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.

The Reuters piece was especially powerful because it centered around the plight of an innocent little girl who suffered from burns to 40 percent of her body, including her head and face. (Oh, and by the way, American military doctors at Bagram saved her life and allowed the Reuters reporter to go in and do the story in the first place, but that didn't stop Graham-Harrison from jihading against the Americans.)

Reuters continued using the Human Rights Watch "expert" to beat up on the US and NATO.

Fast turnaround to discredit the reports

The US Central Command quickly discredited Reuters and Human Rights Watch by releasing declassified information showing 38 instances in which the Taliban stockpiled white phosphorous or used it as an anti-personnel weapon.

It was a great job of what for the military is a rapid turnaround of bad press through declassification of intelligence data. After the May 11 CENTCOM release, news organizations around the world picked up the story.   

"Taliban 'used white phosphorous,'" the BBC reported on May 11. "Afghan rebels use phosphorous weapons: US military," according to Agence France Presse. Even Iran's PRESS TV reported, "US blames Taliban for phosphorous weapons."(By contrast, here's some collateral damage in the form of a headline on an Associated Press story in the Detroit Free Press: "US denies burning Afghans in battle.")

Peter Graff of Reuters wrote a skeptical report from Kabul, citing the US military's release of data as  being in response to an earlier Reuters report, sticking by what Graham-Harrison wrote but pooh-poohing the intelligence findings as being inconclusive.

Nathan Hodge wrote a goofy report for Wired.com, titled "US fighting off white phosphorous allegations (again)," recycling the allegations of "human rights groups" while offering no new facts, and seeming to presume that the US was using what he called "white phosphorous munitions." Hodge spent eight paragraphs blowing smoke, so to speak, even raising the possibility of American "war crimes," before quoting the US military as saying that it did not use white phosphorous munitions and showing evidence that the Taliban did. Hodges concluded by keeping the door open to the possibility that the Americans are using white phosphorous illegally. His source? Human Rights Watch. Come on, Nathan. You're a serious guy. You can do better than that.

My hat's off to the military commanders, intelligence officers and public affairs officers who worked overtime to correct the sloppy, even malicious, reporting. Well done.

[Note: Be sure to see the comments posted below. To read the unclassified intelligence report that documented Taliban possession and use of white phosphorous munitions, click here.]

Fightback in Hollywood: Attend this weekend's film festival

There's a cultural revolution taking place in Hollywood, where anti-American orthodoxy is facing a challenge from an underground of new and established actors, directors and producers.

You can have a taste of it yourself and party with some of the people at the upcoming American Film Renaissance Festival. It takes place in the Washington, DC area from October 1-4.

Join actor/producer Robert Davi at the Sequoia restaurant in Georgetown after the screening of The Dukes on October 1; view the documentary Do As I Say on October 2, The American Carol on October 3, and the suspense thriller Dangerous Calling on October 4. Also on October 4: Drew Carey produced and hosts Shorts Block for Reason.TV; plus there's a showing of the documentary Blocking 'The Path to 9/11,' and the premiere of the satirical, funny, yet most un-funny U.N. Me about the United Nations by Ami Horowitz.

I've seen pre-screenings of most of these films in various stages of production. If you can see only one of them, go see my favorite, The American Carol.

The American Carol uses my favorite political weapon, ridicule, against the adversary. Produced by David Zucker (the guy behind Airplane!, The Naked Gun, Scary Movie 3 and 4, and a lot of other funny stuff) and featuring Jon Voight, both good friends of ours at the Center for Security Policy, The American Carol stars a fat slob filmmaking character named Michael Mallone who looks and behaves remarkably like Michael Moore.

"Mallone" wants to abolish the 4th of July as a national holiday and is treated, Scrooge-like, to haunting visits by three spirits - John Voight as George Washington, Kelsey Grammer as George S. Patton, and Trace Adkins as the Angel of Death - show him the true meaning of America and patriotism. It's hugely politically incorrect, especially concerning Islamist terrorists, among other things. Plus Bill O'Reilly's face-slapping cameo in a port-a-potty. Click here to see the trailer.

Trace Adkins, Robert Davi, Kevin Farley, Kelsey Grammer, Dennis Hopper, Leslie Nielsen, John Voight and James Woods appear in this hysterical satirical comedy. A pub crawl caps the screening at the Regal Ballston Common theater in Arlington, Virginia. Click here for ticket information.

Andrew Garfield's comprehensive approach to information operations

Andrew Garfield, the British-American information operations practitioner, has written a multi-part series on information operations for Serviam magazine.

Part 1: Opportunities for International Public-Private Partnership. March-April 2008.

Part 2: Understanding the Human Terrain. May-June 2008.

Part 3: Effective Engagement. July-August 2008.

For information on Garfield's contracting firm, Glevum Associates, click here.

Brilliant results: Chavez proves we can goad our adversaries into doing our work for us

All it took was to expose raw battlefield intelligence and let the facts speak for themselves. The release of the contents of captured FARC computers has forced Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez on the defensive and deliver an astonishing propaganda blow to the narcoguerrillas whom he has been backing.

The sweet results came in yesterday, when Chavez unexpectedly caved under international pressure and publicly gave the FARC a propagandistic heave-ho. Here's the point: Hugo Chavez can be pressured to sell out his friends! His comments are an enormous psychological blow to the 44 year-old guerrilla movement, which through various means has lost several of its top leaders recently.

In an information operation that cost practically nothing, Colombia and its US ally has goaded Hugo Chavez has run a crippling PSYOP against the FARC that we could never do on our own. All we (or most probably, the Colombians who aren't as reticent as we are to release intelligence to fight a good international political warfare battle) had to do was quickly declassify the material and set it out for the world to see. The rest was up to international public opinion, including some great diplomatic work, to set up Chavez to deliver the message that we and the Colombians could not.

Chavez is not a brilliant strategist. To the contrary. It's easy to set him up. He's an egomaniac and a bigmouth. He's a tactician. He can be outmaneuvered. And so it was proven in this case. This is an important lesson for the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.

Here's the astonishing story, as reported from Medellin on June 10 by London's Daily Telegraph:

The Venezuelan president said the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia [FARC] were "history", and called on them to release their hostages and end a decades-long war with the government.

"Enough of so much war, it is time to sit down and talk of peace," he said. "The guerrilla has passed into history.

"You in the FARC should know something: You have become an excuse for the empire to threaten all of us," he said, referring to the United States. "The day that peace arrives in Colombia, the empire will have no excuses."

He directly addressed the organisation's leader, Alfonso Cano, to tell him to release their hostages "in exchange for nothing".

The comments were a complete change of tack for Mr Chavez, who earlier this year asked the European Union to take the FARC off its list of terrorist organisations and recognise it as a legitimate guerrilla army. . . .

What might have prompted the change in heart are the contents of computers seized from guerrilla camp bombed in March by the Colombian air force in Ecuador.

Colombia troops violated Ecuadorean sovereignty to carry out the bombing raid, but killed the FARCs top commander, "Raul Reyes", and seized his corpse and three computers.

They allegedly contain proof that Mr Chavez gave the FARC $300 million and was exploring the possibilities of supplying them with weapons.

Hawks in Washington have already called for Venezuela to be added to the list of nations that sponsor terrorism, on which Mr Chavez's close allies Cuba and Iran lurk. . . . Officially accusing Mr Chavez of supporting the FARC could involve applying economic sanctions, including a ban on dealing with Venezuelan companies, as is the case with Cuba. . . .

Mr Chavez comments are just the latest in a series of setback that have the FARC reeling and put them in their most vulnerable position in 44 years of fighting. 

Chavez further validates this blogger's long-held view that the US and its allies release as much raw battlefield intelligence as possible to the public, in order to expose their enemies, turn the propaganda tide, and put the bad guys on the defensive. As much for the Islamist enemy as for the FARC and others. I argued this last year in Fighting the War of Ideas like a Real War.

Such an information warfare tactic helps the good guys win while saving lives and shortening the conflict.

Only a fool would think that Chavez will actually cut off the FARC completely. For now, that's almost beside the point; we must assume he will continue and we must continue to expose him. What our side must do now, though, is to pocket a pivotal political victory and drive that psychological stake through the hearts of the FARC and its ideological supporters around the world: Hugo Chavez has abandoned them, sold them out, and called them a threat to the progressive movement. The FARC is shaken. It's time to break the organization's will to fight, and then break its will to become a political force.