PoliticalWarfare.org

Human Terrain program takes first KIA in Afghanistan

The US Army's innovative Human Terrain Systems program in Afghanistan offered up its first fatality last week, with 31 year-old civilian contractor Michael Bhatia losing his life along with two soldiers near Khost.

Bhatia (pictured), a doctoral candidate at Oxford University who grew up in Massachusetts, was a civilian contractor for BAE Systems assigned to the 4th Brigade Combat Team of the Army 101st Infantry (Air Assault) division in hot al Qaeda/Taliban territory alog Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan. He died in an IED blast on his humvee, along with two soldiers.

Bhatia was a civilian social scientist. The experimental and extremely important Human Terrain System (HTS) program is operated by the US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) to coordinate cultural anthropologists and social scientists and improve the troops' knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the local populations in parts of Iraq and Afghanistan.

HTS in general, and Bhatia in particular, are credited with saving hundreds, perhaps thousands, of American, Afghan and Iraqi lives. Steve Fundacaro, HTS project manager, told reporters that Bhatia was "a hero in every sense of the word."

"I can't think of a better example of what being an American was all about," said Fundacaro in a WCVB-TV report from Boston. "Here was a civilian, a civilian scholar who was very comfortable in his personal situation -- he gave up all of that to volunteer his services to be a participant in what we were involved in, and assumed all the risks every one of those soldiers assumed. He gave his life for exactly what he believed in."

"Michael is a hero. The Army didn't go looking for him to ask him for his service -- he came looking for us because he was committed to make things better. Our nation is better, as are the people of Afghanistan, because of his devotion and brilliance. He will not be forgotten," said Gen. William S. Wallace, TRADOC commander.

Khost, south of Tora Bora and one of Afghanistan's furthest points into Pakistan, is a hot area. I was down there in December with Blackwater and the 82nd Airborne, aboard low-altitude ammunition supply flights to drop shipments of mortar rounds to our troops in small forward operating bases on the PakThe border. The remote, mountainous area, along a broad plain, is the site of heated Taliban activity, along with smuggling people, weapons and narcotics.

A sound spanking for crybaby terrorists

Widow Beats Terrorist with Shoe

With women enjoying near-subhuman status among most Islamist extremists and the sole of the shoe being a cultural metaphor for dirt and shame, Iraqis have developed a way to punish terrorists.

That's right: Allowing a woman to beat terrorists with a shoe.

It might sound odd to American ears, but for Iraqis and others in that part of the world, it's perfectly appropriate. This video is old - aired on Iraqi TV in 2005 - but given the previous posting I thought it worth highlighting.

The woman identified three terrorists as the murderers of her husband. She is apparently at a police station, smacking them around with a shoe. The terrorists are sitting on the ground, appropriately stripped of their ability to terrorize, sobbing like crybabies.

Overall an appropriate use of humiliation to tear down the terrorists' stature a notch or two, which is probably why Iraqi TV aired the clip in the first place. Too bad we Americans are too squeamish about such things, whereby we've worked ourselves up so much that hurting terrorists' feelings is now considered a war crime.

Shame and blame: Just the ticket

"I'm sorry we left Afghanistan with so much war and death. I wish we had built hospitals or schools."

These aren't the words of a fringe anti-war politician here at home. They're from a Saudi man, a former al Qaeda terrorist and one-time Guantanamo detainee.

Khalid al-Hubayshi is living proof that former enemy combatants can have powerful psychological messages that can be used to undermine and demoralize al Qaeda and other extremist forces. From the perspective of the enemy a shameful, negative message that he is being defeated (and therefore is in disfavor with God) is more powerful than a positive message about the US.

The Washington Post interviewed al-Hubayshi in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where the government apparently rehabilitated him from al Qaeda extremism (and presumably toward the regime's official Wahhabi ideology, but I'm getting ahead of myself).

Look at the excellent themes that emerge from al-Hubayshi's story:

• Al Qaeda doesn't help Muslims; it harms them. "I'm sorry we left Afghanistan with so much war and death. I wish we had built hospitals or schools," says al Hubayshi.
• Local Muslims blamed al Qaeda - not the United States - for the deaths inflicted during the war in Afghanistan. "On Sept. 11, 2001, Hubayshi said, he was training Chechen fighters in explosives in the eastern city of Jalalabad. In October, when the first U.S. airstrikes hit Jalalabad, the Afghans 'blamed us . . . and forced us out of the city at night. We slept by the river for two weeks.'"

• Al Qaeda's ideology is shaky. Al-Hubayshi said he was attracted to al Qaeda during the war in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, but by 2001 "the fight had changed from defending Muslims to attacking the United States. I wasn't convinced of his ideology. And I wanted to be independent, not just another minion in this big group." 

• Bin Laden is a liar who uses his people. "'What are my duties toward you, and what are your duties toward me, if I join with you?' Hubayshi said he asked. 'That you don't betray us and we don't betray you,' bin Laden responded, and offered him a plot of land, Hubayshi said." Read on.

• Bin Laden is a coward who betrayed his own fighters. After the 9/11 attacks, bin Laden dug in at Tora Bora to fight the Americans, and called his fighters into the mountain fortress. The Post paraphrases al-Hubayshi's story: "As the airstrikes moved closer, and with the United States' Afghan allies advancing, bin Laden decided to retreat and left one morning. His aides told 300 Arab fighters to make their way to Pakistan and surrender to their embassies. Pakistani authorities stopped the fighters near the border and handed them over to the US military, which sent them to Guantanamo Bay. Hubayshi remains bitter about what he considers bin Laden's betrayal: calling the fighters to Tora Bora and then abandoning them there."
• Bin Laden is no hero. "There was no dignity in what he made us do."
• "Jihad" does not mean to attack innocent civilians. "Hubayshi said he is sorry that Muslims carried out the Sept. 11 attacks because they targeted civilians: 'That was wrong. Jihad is fighting soldier to soldier.'"

There's a lot more in this story. This blogger has discussed problems with Saudi ideology before and will do so again, and has warned against viewing only the immediately violent extremists as strategic threats when subversive Islamist threats remain. But for the time being, let's just look at the example of Khaled al-Hubayshi and the opportunity it brings us to undermine the most immediate violent threat.

A sound psychological warfare effort emerges

The New York Times is reporting on a new military effort to exploit the enemy's ideological and cultural weaknesses in a new mode of attack.

This is an exciting development, because it shows adaptation of a much more sophisticated approach that a handful of psychological warfare experts have been promoting for years. The very report in the Times is almost a psychological operation in itself, revealing what is almost surely a tiny effort and magnifying it into something big - and playing on the paranoia inherent in ideological extremist movements.

While I don't claim credit for any of the developments, as others were working on them apart from my efforts, it's striking to see how the details in the March 18 New York Times article closely parallel the policy recommendations in my book, Fighting the War of Ideas like a Real War, and in the early drafts which circulated through the Pentagon and CIA since 2004. The ideas in the Institute of World Politics-sponsored book aren't new: They date from the times of the ancient Hebrews, Aristotle and Sun Tzu, and as the Times says, were practiced during the Cold War. But they're new to the war effort.

Here are some of the points in the article that the book advocated. The quotes are taken from the March 18 NYT story. The numbers in parentheses are the corresponding pages in the book.

• Sow confusion, dissent and distrust among the enemy. "To counter efforts by terrorists to plot attacks, raise money and recruit new members on the Internet, the government has mounted a secret campaign to plant bogus e-mail messages and Web site postings, with the intent to sow confusion, dissent and distrust among militant organizations, officials confirm." (65, 74, 130-131)
• Amplify voices of certain Islamic authorities. "At the same time, American diplomats are quietly working behind the scenes with Middle Eastern partners to amplify the speeches and writings of prominent Islamic clerics who are renouncing terrorist violence." (70-73, 122, 139)
• Plant seeds of doubt in terrorists' minds to exploit cultural shame and religious beliefs. ". . . if the seeds of doubt can be planted in the mind of Al Qaeda’s strategic leadership that an attack would be viewed as a shameful murder of innocents — or, even more effectively, that it would be an embarrassing failure — then the order may not be given, according to this new analysis." (123, 132)
• Fight the terrorists in their battlespace: Online. "Terrorists hold little or no terrain, except on the Web. 'Al Qaeda and other terrorists’ center of gravity lies in the information domain, and it is there that we must engage it,' said Dell L. Dailey, the State Department’s counterterrorism chief." (30-31, 144)
• Establish combat teams to exploit terrorist computers for propaganda purposes. "Some of the government’s most secretive counterterrorism efforts involve disrupting terrorists’ cyberoperations. In Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, specially trained teams have recovered computer hard drives used by terrorists and are turning the terrorists’ tools against them." (122)
• Make better use of captured intelligence to humiliate and demoralize the enemy. "Other American efforts are aimed at discrediting Qaeda operations, including the decision to release seized videotapes showing members of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a largely Iraqi group with some foreign leaders, training children to kidnap and kill, as well as a lengthy letter said to have been written by another terrorist leader that describes the organization as weak and plagued by poor morale."
• Exploit local cultures and rhetoric against the enemy. "Even as security and intelligence forces seek to disrupt terrorist operations, counterterrorism specialists are examining ways to dissuade insurgents from even considering an attack with unconventional weapons. They are looking at aspects of the militants’ culture, families or religion, to undermine the rhetoric of terrorist leaders." (38-75)
• Amplify local voices to sow doubts and break the enemy's will. "For example, the government is seeking ways to amplify the voices of respected religious leaders who warn that suicide bombers will not enjoy the heavenly delights promised by terrorist literature, and that their families will be dishonored by such attacks. Those efforts are aimed at undermining a terrorist’s will. "'I’ve got to figure out what does dissuade you,' said Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, the Joint Chiefs’ director of strategic plans and policy. 'What is your center of gravity that we can go at? The goal you set won’t be achieved, or you will be discredited and lose face with the rest of the Muslim world or radical extremism that you signed up for.'" (32-34, 138-144)
• Widen rifts between terrorists and their friends. "Efforts are also under way to persuade Muslims not to support terrorists. It is a delicate campaign that American officials are trying to promote and amplify — but without leaving telltale American fingerprints that could undermine the effort in the Muslim world. Senior Bush administration officials point to several promising developments. Saudi Arabia’s top cleric, Grand Mufti Sheik Abdul Aziz al-Asheik, gave a speech last October warning Saudis not to join unauthorized jihadist activities, a statement directed mainly at those considering going to Iraq to fight the American-led forces. And Abdul-Aziz el-Sherif, a top leader of the armed Egyptian movement Islamic Jihad and a longtime associate of Mr. Zawahri, the second-ranking Qaeda official, has just completed a book that renounces violent jihad on legal and religious grounds. Such dissents are serving to widen rifts between Qaeda leaders and some former loyal backers, Western and Middle Eastern diplomats say." (123)
• Peel away at the concentric rings of support around the terrorists. "'Obviously, hard-core terrorists will be the hardest to deter,' [Pentagon special operations policy planner Michael G.] Vickers said. 'But if we can deter the support network — recruiters, financial supporters, local security providers and states who provide sanctuary — then we can start achieving a deterrent effect on the whole terrorist network and constrain terrorists’ ability to operate." (34-35, 76, 120-123)

Footnote: This is a very productive piece of journalism. I would be remiss in not pointing out that one of the co-writers, Eric Schmitt, was also a co-writer of the February 19, 2002 New York Times report that falsely branded the Pentagon's new Office of Strategic Influence (OSI) as a disinformation unit. That careless report was the product of a turf battle in which Pentagon spokeswoman Torie Clarke leaked the false story to the Times with the intent of inflicting political damage on OSI and forcing it to be shut down. This is indeed what happened. Clarke has never been held accountable for this action (nor has Schmitt or the New York Times), which set back psychological and ideological warfare operations by three years or more.

Muslim pop artists lead youthful resistance to Islamist extremism

by J. Michael Waller
Serviam magazine, January-February 2008

Al Qaeda has identified one type of enemy that it can’t fight against: Muslim rock stars. U.S. intelligence discovered evidence that the terrorist group had considered murdering top Egyptian performing artists for being “infidels” but decided against it for fear of creating a youth grassroots backlash from Arabs.

That decision not to kill shows the sheer power of an underappreciated weapon in the war of ideas. Just as jazz and rock music were credited with fueling grassroots resistance to Soviet communism, popular culture is making a stand against Islamic extremism.

Pakistani superstar guitarist Ali Zafar illustrates the youthful resistance movement by posting two quotes prominently on his blog. “God does not change the condition of any people unless they themselves make the decision to change,” reads the first, taken from the Quran 13:11. The second is attributed to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.: “You will have to repent in this generation, not only for the words and actions of the bad people, but also for the appalling ‘silence’ of the good people.”

The 27-year-old Zafar, son of two professors at the University of Punjab, is unabashed about his Muslim faith and his conviction that, more than anyone else on earth, innocent Muslims are the greatest victims of Islamic extremism.

Last year Zafar joined seven other top Pakistani artists to cut a music video to rally young people against terrorism and the extremist Islamic ideology that drives it. The song, “Yeh Hum Naheen,” is in the Urdu language; the title means “This Is Not Us” or “We Are Not That.” Done in a low-tech Bollywood style that’s popular with the intended audience, the six-minute video was recently released in the United Kingdom after its smash success in Pakistan.

Waseem Mahmood, a Pakistani-British author and media consultant, conceived of “Yeh Hum Naheen” to be reminiscent of Bob Geldof’s Band Aid and Live Aid concerts. He says his British-born children were sick of how Islamic extremists were radicalizing young people and trying to mainstream militant distortions of Islam. The goal was to inspire a popular resistance to extremism.

The low-budget music video attracted an impressive number of top performers—eight of Pakistan’s top 10. The production was very much a family affair. The video is “consciously simple,” says Mahmood, whose adult children not only inspired the project but helped produce it. “For me the glamour of the video was in assembling the biggest star cast ever seen in Pakistan in one single shot, something that had never been achieved before,” Mahmood says.

At a time when the U.S. and British governments were flailing in their efforts to counter the extremist narrative around the world, Mahmood’s personal initiative made a big difference in a volatile nation. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes dismissed the performance when briefed on it, and did nothing to promote it.

The market showed how badly the State Department misjudged the cultural message. “Yeh Hum Naheen” went platinum in Pakistan and was such a hit that EMI Records re-released it with English subtitles for the Pakistani diaspora in the U.K., and Mahmood is planning an Arabic version.

Resistance in World’s Largest Muslim Country

Meanwhile, the most popular rocker in the world’s most populous Muslim country had already been building a cultural resistance movement of his own.

“Pop culture is helping to rescue an entire generation of young Muslims from extremists who seek to turn them into ‘holy warriors’ and suicide bombers,” according to the LibForAll Foundation, a North Carolina-based nonprofit founded and chaired by American telecom executive C. Holland Taylor. “LibForAll’s mission is to encourage the growth of peaceful, tolerant and free societies—built upon a foundation of civil and economic liberty and the rule of law—in order to reduce religious extremism and discredit the use of terror worldwide.

“Our primary focus is on supporting moderate and progressive Muslims in their efforts to promote the culture of liberty and tolerance, while preserving the positive values of local, native traditions throughout the entire Muslim world.”

Taylor, who speaks fluent Indonesian, teamed up with two of the most culturally influential leaders in Southeast Asia: a senior statesman and a superstar pop singer likened to Bono of the Irish band U2.

The statesman, Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid, was the first democratically elected president of Indonesia, who for years has led the world’s largest Muslim organization, the Nahdlatul Ulama, which claims nearly 40 million members. Wahid has been resisting the aggressive and militant strains of Arab-inspired Islamism, from the subversive Muslim Brotherhood to openly pro-terrorist Wahhabi Islamism, promoting peace, tolerance and brotherhood with people of other religions.

The performer, Ahmad Dhani, plays an edgy guitar as leader of Dewa (pictured), the most popular rock group in Southeast Asia. Like Bono or Geldof, Dhani is a thoughtful artist with an activist global vision. Attracted by Taylor’s ideas, he serves on the board of LibForAll.

Armed with his own studio and multiplatinum popularity across Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, Dhani and Dewa took on the terrorists after widespread atrocities against Muslims and Christians in the eastern Indonesian provinces of Maluku and Sulawesi in 2004. Dhani, whose band includes Muslim and Christian members, satirized the killers, an Islamic terrorist group allied with al Qaeda called Laskar Jihad (Warriors of Jihad) in an album titled “Laskar Cinta” (“Warriors of Love”). The album had no title track, so in late 2005 he recorded a single with the same name, which EMI Records released in early 2006 on Dewa’s smash-hit album, “Republik Cinta” (“Republic of Love”).

EMI also bankrolled the production of “Yeh Hum Naheen.” One of the four largest recording labels in the world, the British company and its subsidiaries have signed on a variety of big performing names in various genres, from Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, and the Kingston Trio to the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Queen, Kraftwerk, R.E.M., and Iron Maiden.

“Dewa” means “god” in Javanese and Sanskrit. Rolling Stone said of Dhani and his band, “Armed with big dreams and a name laden with significance, they moved forward, not realizing how enormously their decision to form the band would affect their lives in the years to come.”

Dhani and Taylor designed the Indonesian performance campaign-style to motivate people. “This musical campaign has been endorsed by key Muslim theologians, who are joining with pop culture celebrities and other like-minded leaders in the fields of religion, education, entertainment, government, business and media to encourage people of good will of every faith and nation to unite as ‘warriors of love,’ and to reject all forms of religious hatred and violence,” according to LibForAll.

“Warriors of Love,” which became #1 on MTV Asia’s Ampuh hit program in early 2006, was written to promote what Dhani calls “the values of spiritual love, freedom and tolerance,” using lyrics inspired by verses from the Quran and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad.

“Hey there, all you lovers of peace,” the lyrics call, with a youthful twist that delightfully seizes back the militants’ narrative. “Watch out, watch out and be on guard—for lost souls, anger twisting their hearts, for lost souls, poisoned by ignorance and hate. . . . Warriors of Love, teach the mystical science of love, for only love is the eternal truth and the shining path for all God’s children everywhere in the world.”

Not surprisingly, Islamic extremists have condemned Dhani, a devout Sufi Muslim, as an “infidel” and “Zionist agent.” Militants took the musician to court on allegations of defaming Islam, and, according to LibForAll, “sought to ban his use of rock music to promote a spiritual and progressive interpretation of Islam that threatens the appeal of their own Wahhabi-inspired extremism.”

Militants threatened Dhani’s family, forcing the performer’s wife and children to flee their home. They also threatened to burn music stores carrying his albums. Their attempts not only failed, but prompted a public backlash against their cause.

“Competent Public Diplomacy”

“Muslims themselves can and must propagate an understanding of the ‘right’ Islam, and thereby discredit extremist ideology. Yet to accomplish this task requires the understanding and support of like-minded individuals, organizations and governments throughout the world. Our goal must be to illuminate the hearts and minds of humanity, and offer a compelling alternate vision of Islam, one that banishes the fanatical ideology of hatred to the darkness from which it emerged,” Wahid wrote in an essay for the Wall Street Journal last year.

The newspaper’s powerful editorial page has been a strong supporter of the Indonesian project. “LibForAll is itself a model of what a competent public diplomacy effort in the Muslim world should look like,” says the Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens in a profile of Taylor. The American businessman “has engaged influential and genuinely reform-minded Muslims—as opposed to the faux ‘moderates’ on whom [President George W.] Bush lavished praise at the Islamic Center [in Washington]—to articulate and defend a progressive and tolerant version of Islam.”

The foundation has accomplished far more than any U.S. government-sponsored action in the war of ideas. “In its brief life, LibForAll has helped turn back an attempted Islamic takeover of the country’s second-largest Muslim social organization (with 30 million members), translated anti-Wahhabist books into Indonesian, sponsored a recent multidenominational conference to denounce Holocaust denial, brought Mr. Dhani to Colorado to speak to U.S. military brass and launched a well-researched ‘extremist expose’ in order,” the Wall Street Journal says of Taylor, “to get Indonesian society to consciously acknowledge that there is an infiltration occurring of radical ideology, financed by Arab petrodollars, that is intent on destroying Indonesian Islam.”

Even though Undersecretary Hughes met with Dhani, heaped praise on him and proclaimed, “people like you are exactly what we need,” the State Department failed to provide the multiplier effect the artist could have used to magnify his freedom message. Taylor told the Wall Street Journal, “She then asked us whether [Dhani] would be willing to work with the State Department, whether he’d be willing to travel and whether there was anything she could do for him,” says Taylor. “We answered all three questions affirmatively. Since then there’s been a vast silence.”

A New Internationalism

Pakistan's Amazing Pop Talent “Yeh Hum Naheen” is more than a song—it’s a musical movement with some incredible talent. Here are the profiles of some of the performers. more >>

In contrast to the State Department’s indifference, Pakistanis and others worldwide have caught on and say they want more. “I have been inundated with messages of support and congratulations from young Pakistanis around the world who have thanked me for standing up and giving voice to their sentiments,” says Waseem Mahmood. “The response from the international music industry has been equally humbling—major stars, many of whom I have idolized myself, have contacted me to say how much they loved the song and video and would like to collaborate with us on an English version. I guess that we must have done something right!”

Serviam spoke with Taylor in Indonesia just hours after the December 27, 2007, assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. Taylor had heard of “Yeh Hum Naheen,” but his foundation had had no contact with the Pakistani performers or producers. When told of the planned versions in Arabic and English, Taylor suggested a performance in Indonesian.

LibForAll and the Yeh Hum Naheen group had long had plans independently to internationalize their musical movement across language and culture. Now Pakistani and Indonesian artists work together with the goal of starting a worldwide Muslim popular cultural movement for religious tolerance and against Islamic extremism.

The LibForAll Foundation seeks out partners in the developing world and supports the activities of those committed to civil, economic and religious liberty. “We believe that the rule of law, an honest and competent judiciary/public administration, free trade, freedom of conscience, free speech, the right to peaceably assemble, the sanctity of contracts and universal education are key to civil and economic development, and to the creation of just, prosperous and tolerant society,” the foundation says in its credo statement.

The foundation’s strategy is based on an “indirect approach” designed to reduce religious extremism and terror by rendering them socially unacceptable, and repugnant, to people and cultures throughout the world.

LibForAll’s patron and senior advisor in Indonesia is His Excellency Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid, Indonesia’s first democratically-elected president and the longtime head of the world’s largest Muslim organization, the Nahdlatul Ulama, with nearly 40 million members. For more information, contact: LibForAll Foundation, 3524 Yadkinville Road, No. 357, Winston-Salem, NC 27106 USA. info@libforall.org. or visit www.libforall.org.

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.

Will Disney protect its copyright against Hamas?

For decades, the Walt Disney Company has unleashed its lawyers on those who violate its copyrights. And rightly so. Mickey Mouse and friends are Disney's intellectual property, and unlicensed reproduction of Disney characters - or reasonable facsimiles thereof - rip off Disney shareholders.

So as a Disney shareholder, I'm expecting the company's nasty lawyers to jump all over Hamas.

As part of its political warfare strategy to indoctrinate the next generation, Hamas has pirated Mickey Mouse and turned him into a TV mascot for Arab kids.

Palestinian Media Watch posted stills and video from the terrorist propaganda show and recently made them public (see photo). Will Disney CEO Robert Iger slap a lawsuit on Hamas? Disney shareholders want to know.

UPDATE: At about 2040 hrs EDT on May 9, the Associated Press reported from Ramallah that Hamas pulled the terrorist Mickey Mouse program off the air. The Walt Disney Corporation had no comment.

UPDATE #2: Reporting from Gaza City on June 30, the Associated Press announced that Farfour, the Hamas Mickey Mouse character, had beaten to death on the final episode of the children's program. Farfour was seen being bludgeoned by an actor playing a murderous Israeli official. A "teen presenter" named Sara told the audience, ""Farfour was martyred while defending his land."

The Islamist attack on free speech

Islamists around the world continue to harass and intimidate their critics. Though in Europe and America they haven't resorted to systematic murder (yet), they are well on their way to silence those whose views they dislike - and they have no shortage of post-Christian bureaucrats, judges, journalists and lawyers to aid them.

Two new cases come to mind. The first is at San Francisco State University, where the school investigated student who stomped on a Hezbollah flag at an anti-terrorism rally last October. The supposed crime: Hezbollah means "Party of God" and because it appears on the terrorist group's flag (see illustration), the student insulted Muslims by stomping on the name of Allah.

Thanks to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), the university cleared the student of wrongdoing and issued a formal statement yesterday.

In France, where free speech isn't quite so free, the editor of a satirical magazine faces the prospect of half a year in prison for publishing the infamous Muhammad cartoons. French Muslim groups demanded his prosecution - and President Jacques Chirac agreed - because the editor supposedly had committed the sin of "publicly abusing a group of people because of their religion."

The Grand Mosque of Paris and the Union of French Islamic Organizations demanded that comedian and singer/songwriter Philippe Val, editor of Charlie Hebdo, be tried for - get this - "inciting racial hatred," according to The Muslim News. The whining hordes got their way. (We looked through the French press to find out if the Islamic Inquisitors had demanded similar prosecution of those responsible for the deadly riots and such, but found nothing.) Val writes about the issue in today's Wall Street Journal. A court is to decide his fate today.

Venezuela starts indoctrinating kids. Will parents act?

Back in 1973, Chileans were uneasy about the socialist policies of Marxist President Salvador Allende, but it wasn't until Allende started messing with children's minds that citizens demanded action.

Mothers banging pots and pans in the streets of Santiago helped encourage the Chilean military to overthrow the democratically elected president who abused his power and trampled the constitution.

Now, the Hugo Chavez regime in Venezuela is about to indoctrinate its first generation of school children. While that's bad for Venezuela's kids, it could be a last opportunity for the people finally to revolt and promote regime change in Caracas.

The Houston Chronicle reports that elder brother Adan Chavez (left, with Hugo), an ideological communist who until recently was the regime's ambassador to Cuba, is now Minister of Education - and pledges to instill socialist values" in the country's schools.

"In January, President Chávez declared education one of the five 'motors' driving his socialist revolution and named his older brother education minister," correspondent John Otis reports from the Venezuelan capital. The regime has nearly doubled per capita spending on education - not only for kids but for adults as well.

And with it, the propaganda campaign. "Last week, Adan Chavez sent hundreds of red-shirted 'brigade' members to different parts of Venezuela to hold workshops outlining the government's plans for education," according to the Chronicle. "He told Venezuelans to remain calm about the pending changes, which he said are designed to promote unity."

"We are not going to inject communism into children from the day they are born," he said on tate-run TV. "We simply plan to include in the curriculum ... the authentic values of society — which means socialism."

Pakistani anti-terror song tops charts

Some of Pakistan's most popular pop singers have produced a new music video against terrorism that has topped the charts and is going platinum.

"Yeh Hum Naheen" is a "We Are the World"-style song by and for Muslims who denounce terrorism carried out in their name. Performed in Urdu, the six-and-a-half-minute music video shows Pakistan's top performers interspersed with stylized scenes of terrorist violence and media headlines, and everyday Pakistanis - from westernized urbanites to traditional fundamentalists - joined together in the "Yeh Hum Naheen" refrain.

The song is beautiful and catchy even to the non-speaker of Urdu. While westerners might argue that the video and lip-synching quality are not up to Hollywood standards, the point is that the audience isn't as finicky as Americans and Europeans, and, as the market response shows, thinks the production is just fine.

The attractive performers include Ali Haider, Ali Zafar (pictured), Haroon, Hadiqa Kani, Shufqat, Shuja Haider and Strings.

Prominent Pakistani lyricist Ali Moeen wrote the words and composer Shuja Haider penned the music; Waseem Mahmood of EUMBC Ltd., the UK subsidiary of Glevum Associates, was the producer. The production cost far less than similar US government-funded initiatives, and as the market response shows, much more successful.