PoliticalWarfare.org

Propaganda state

It's all smiles, moderation and good news in sunny Russia, now that the Putin regime is forcing radio stations to make sure that at least 50 percent of the news about the country is positive.

Russian News Service employees tell the New York Times that under the new guidelines, "opposition leaders could not be mentioned on the air and the United States was to be portrayed as an enemy." Only "moderate" political views may be aired.

"Now, the implementation of the '50 percent positive' rule at the Russian News Service leaves an increasingly small number of news outlets that are not managed by the Kremlin, directly or through the state national gas company, Gazprom, a major owner of media assets," the New York Times reports.

The regime is also cracking down on the Internet.

Rather than apply official censorship as the Soviets did, the Putin regime is simply taking direct or indirect control or ownership of media organizations, firing the editors, and installing yes-men who offer bland fare.

This is an opportunity for the United States. Russia's free media days - when people were so saturated with independent and interesting content that few had a desire to turn to US-backed surrogate radios - are over. US-backed Radio Liberty and other stations are vital now. It's time to return them to their origins as surrogates for a free media inside Russia - on the radio waves and online.

Why we're glad Sheehan declined to serve

In today's Washington Post, General John J. Sheehan USMC (Ret.) writes about why he declined to serve as "czar" for Afghanistan and Iraq.

The big mystery, of course, is why the Bush Administration asked him to serve in the first place. As Director for Operations, J-3, on the Joint Staff in the 1990s, Sheehan was effusive in his support for DIA Cuba analyst Ana Belen Montes (pictured), who was unmasked in 2001 as a Cuban spy.

Montes wasn't a closet traitor like Hanssen or Ames. She made little attempt to conceal her pro-Castro sentiment. That didn't seem to bother Sheehan.

When he became chief of the US Atlantic Command, responsible for hemispheric defense, Sheehan pushed Montes into senior level meetings that reportedly went far beyond her need to know and allowed her to learn sensitive US operations, assets and capabilities.  He brought Montes into the hard targets committee where she was exposed to all the most sensitive US collection systems.

Colleagues repeatedly warned Sheehan about Montes, citing her extreme pro-Castro sympathies, but the general brushed them off, praising her for being a "great analyst."

Montes was an ideological traitor who served Castro not for money but for her beliefs. Her goal was to inflict as much damage on the US as possible. In addition to espionage, Montes was an agent of influence who tried to skew US knowledge and understanding about Cuba. A case in point is when Defense Secretary William Cohen had to order the re-write of a DIA report on the Cuban military thanks to Montes' skewing of the information.

CAIR defends Ohio al Qaeda suspect

It's finally come out of the closet: the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) is defending a suspected al Qaeda member.

Islamist Christopher Paul (pictured) was arrested this week in Ohio and charged with "providing material support to terrorists, conspiracy to provide support to terrorists and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction," according to AP.

In what by now has become a pattern, CAIR immediately came to the alleged terrorist's defense.

CAIR cloaks its support for Islamist terrorists as part of civil rights mission to ensure that the accused are treated fairly. The organization claims to oppose terrorism, though most of the anti-terrorist statements on its website refer only to the 9/11 attacks.

A leader of CAIR's Columbus, Ohio, chapter, Ahmad Al-Akhras, says he knows the al Qaeda suspect and says the federal allegations about Paul are out of character. “From the things I know, he is a loving husband and he has a wife and parents in town,” Al-Akhras says. “They are a good family together.”

Al-Akras president of CAIR in Ohio, and is on the CAIR national board.

Another Islamist terror suspect, Nuradin Abdi, is awaiting trial for plotting to blow up a Columbus shopping mall. Authorities have linked Abdi to Paul.

Al-Akras knew Abdi, as well. After Abdi's arrest in 2004, the Ohio CAIR leader said, "What we know about him is unlike how he is portrayed."

As is the CAIR pattern, Al-Akhras expressed concern about a backlash against the "Muslim community" over the latest Islamist arrest, and made no reported statement about his commitment to help the authorities root out terrorists from within that community.

“People start wondering and questioning, what is happening and why now?” he said in the AP report. “When something like this pops up, it creates some anxiety among the members of the Muslim community. ... We hope nothing bad will happen and everything will be clear.”

AP paraphrases Al-Akhras as saying that CAIR will "work to make sure that Paul's constitutional rights are granted." Last year, the ACLU awarded CAIR-Ohio with its Liberty's Flame Award in recognition of the group's civil rights work.

Good news - Sunnis set up anti-Al Qaeda fatwa council

Here's some positive news from the ideological battlespace: Iraq's mainstream Sunni clerics have set up a fatwa council to issue unified religious edicts against Islamist extremism, and particularly al Qaeda.

Reuters reports that the founding committee was established last week. "It's high time our clerics unify their utterances," said Sheikh Ahmed Abdul Ghafour al-Samarrai. "Religious scholars have to work on teaching Muslims respect for others."

While the council is long overdue, its creation is a welcome development, and occurred only after Sunni extremists indiscriminately killed civilians in traditional tribal areas in Iraq.

"They kill by suspicion and commit senseless bloodletting and boast about it," the sheikh said. "Whoever kills a Muslim believer should be penalized by going to Hell." The council apparently will issue fatwas to anathematize extremists and marginalize them from appealing to disaffected Iraqis.

While the fatwas are unlikely to be directed against those who kill American troops, the development is important because it shows that mainstream Sunnis are fighting back against al Qaeda and other extremists.  “Our scholars will meet and issue fatwas and I am full of hope the proper resistance that does not kill fellow Iraqis will heed the views of these scholars,” the sheikh said.

This development parallels recommendations that this blogger made in his new book, Fighting the War of Ideas like a Real War, in which he encouraged Muslim clerics to issue such fatwas, and urged the US government to publicize them globally through its public diplomacy machinery. To date, the US has not wanted to tackle the issue.

How the media covered al Sadr's protests

Here's a sampling of how major Western news organizations covered Shi'ite extremist leader Moqtada al-Sadr's protests on the fourth anniversary of the liberation of Iraq. See how the demonstrations led to headlines that damage the US position:

International Herald Tribune, April 9: "Heeding Militant Shi'ite Cleric Sadr, Iraqis Protest US Occupation"

New York Times, April 9: "Iraqi Cleric Challenges US with Big Rally"

Reuters, April 9: "Iraqis Rally, Call for US Forces to Leave"

Reuters video, April 9: "Anniversary Marked with Protests"

Reuters, April 10: "Iraqis Call for US Forces to Leave"

Voice of America, April 9: "Thousands of Iraqis Hold Anti-American Protests on Anniversary of Baghdad's Fall"

Voice of America, April 9: "Thousands of Iraqis Protest US Presence in Iraq"

Washington Post, April 10: "In Najaf, Protesters Demand US Pullout"

Al Sadr's next challenge to US: Non-violence

The Iranians have been whipping the US in the Iraq political warfare game since the early weeks of the 2003 liberation, and now it looks like their main Iraqi ally, Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, is becoming much more sophisticated in how he hogties the Americans and the Iraqi government.

Having ordered his Mahdi Army to lay low during the new US troop surge, al-Sadr is now backing unarmed protests against the US and the government in Baghdad. If this tactic becomes part of his overall strategy, we could see non-terroristic - even non-violent - Shi'ite Islamist militancy become a new weapon.

The restrictive American rules of engagement in Iraq allow the enemy plenty of operational leeway. They let the enemy fairly predict where and how it can operate without fear of coming under fire. The rules of engagement give the Mahdi Army and other terrorist groups remarkable freedom of movement in Baghdad and elsewhere as long as their members are not overtly armed, are not acting in an immediately threatening manner, and do not engage in violence. 

What better opportunity for them to engage in propagandistic "martyr" operations than to organize, march and protest non-violently - and either provoke or stage made-for-TV attacks on themselves and on innocent Iraqis in their midst.

Such incidents promise to generate mass revulsion against the Iraqi government and US forces - and the US will be powerless to do much about it. (Unless it ramps up its information operations capability as quickly as the Mahdi Army is adapting to the surge.)

Update, April 9: Tens of thousands of Iraqi Shi'ites answer al Sadr's call to protest US