PoliticalWarfare.org

Why it's important to show the evidence of bin Laden's death

[This is a copy of my essay that appeared in BigPeace.com on May 3, 2011.]

Some people will never believe the facts, no matter how effectively presented. But for those of us who are convinced that Osama bin Laden is dead, it’s still imperative that the U.S. government show the forensic evidence.

Evidence is important for several reasons. Survivors of al Qaeda attacks worldwide need and deserve closure. Americans and citizens of other coalition countries invested a fortune in hunting bin Laden down, and they deserve to see the result. Citizens of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Arab countries – civilizations where conspiracy theories that sound bizarre to American ears are treated seriously – need to know that this particular report of bin Laden’s death is indeed true. Our friends need to be reassured. Our enemies must have no doubt that Americans will stop at nothing to hunt down those who attack us.

It would have been important to place the al Qaeda leader’s body on display for all the world to see – just as it was vital to show Iraqis that their chief tormentors, Saddam Hussein and his sons Uday and Qusay, were indeed dead. But now that bin Laden’s body has been sent to the bottom of the Arabian Sea, the most convincing proof is gone.

The war against international terrorism is, above all else, a war for information and public opinion. The United States has waged the intelligence and military dimensions of the war as brilliantly as humanly possible. One cannot say the same about the information and public opinion side.

The U.S. government’s delay in providing physical proof of bin Laden’s death risks turning a brilliant American victory into a public relations setback. ABC News is reporting that, from America to Pakistan, everyday people are demanding proof. Already, conspiracy theorists are arguing that bin Laden isn’t really dead, while serious people who simply ask for proof of death are branded as “deathers,” a takeoff from “birthers” of presidential birth certificate skepticism.

Providing the world with proof is a diplomatic and national security question, not a partisan political one.

Some who have seen the proof say that it’s gory, but should be made public. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is one of them. “I met with the national security advisor today,” Graham told a local radio station on May 2.  “It was an impressive operation. Every American should be proud of the way this was conducted.  I want to make sure the case is closed on Osama bin Laden. And I think it would help to release information proving that this was in fact Osama bin Laden.”

Bad information policy can damage a perfect military success

As is the case with much of the US military, the intelligence collection and analysis and the precision execution of special operations forces carried out the bin Laden termination flawlessly. The operation was simply breathtaking in all its forms – a textbook case of how to do it right.

In another way, though, the operation suffered from the same flaw as the military and intelligence community in general: poor strategic thinking from the top in terms of the informational effect of actions on the ground.

President Obama’s counterterrorism chief, John Brennan, said he recognized the need to provide physical proof. “We are going to do everything we can to make sure that nobody has any basis to try to deny that we got Osama bin Laden,” Brennan told AP. But that was a statement after the fact. Nothing indicates that the administration planned an information policy on par with the brilliantly planned and executed mission itself.

Religious burial customs take precedence over providing proof

The decision to bury bin Laden at sea within 24 hours of death was planned in advance. Not so with the information side of the operation. As of the early hours of May 3, the White House still had not made a decision about how to portray the evidence to the public. Here is how the Washington Post described the situation:

"US personnel washed, wrapped and prayed over the body of Osama bin Laden before dumping it off an aircraft carrier and into the Arabian Sea. But even as the Obama administration worked to avoid offending Muslim sensibilities over the manner of bin Laden’s burial, it stopped short of releasing visual or forensic proof that he had, in fact, been killed.

"John Brennan, President Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser, said the government had not decided when or whether it would make public photographs taken of bin Laden after he was gunned down at his hideout in Pakistan. He suggested that officials were still balancing whether the images were more likely to inflame public sentiment around the world or to erase doubts that bin Laden was really dead."

Handing conspiracy theorists a ‘gift’

The legalistic American bureaucratic mindset, which is satisfied with photographic and laboratory DNA evidence, ignores political and cultural realities at home and around the world – to say nothing of the speed at which conspiracy theories spread across the Internet.

As international euphoria about the end of bin Laden recedes, the United States will find that its decision hastily to dispose of the body may have unintended and undesirable consequences.

“Conspiracy theorists are an ingenious bunch, but at the moment the White House is making this ridiculously easy for them,” wrote religion writer Damian Thompson in London’s Telegraph.

“Within hours of the raid on Osama bin Laden’s Pakistani compound, the CIA had used 21st century technology to get ‘a virtually 100% DNA match’ on the dead man. But something out of another century may come back to haunt Washington: the Al Qaeda leader’s burial at sea,” reported the Los Angeles Times.

In Thompson’s words, “It’s inconceivable that America would announce the death of its deadliest enemy without offering evidence that would convince any reasonable person; I’m surprised that it hasn’t been produced already. Moreover, why did it allow bin Laden’s body to be dropped into the sea? Is the US really so sensitive to Islamic burial practices that it is prepared to hand conspiracy theorists such a gift?”

Here’s how the Associated Press treated the matter: “the mystique that surrounded the terrorist chieftain in life is persisting in death. Was it really him? How do we know? Where are the pictures? Already, those questions are spreading in Pakistan and surely beyond. In the absence of photos and with his body given up to the sea, many people don’t want to believe that bin Laden — the Great Emir to some, the fabled escape artist of the Tora Bora mountains to foe and friend alike — is really dead.”

The administration’s lack of preparing the infospace for bin Laden’s death has invited unhealthy skepticism about the United States and its mission. A headline from the May 2 Washington Post reads, “Reports of bin Laden’s death spurs questions from conspiracy theorists.” The Los Angeles Times ran a similar headline: “Bin Laden’s sea burial fuels conspiracy theories.”

This problem was easy to foresee. Word of bin Laden’s death, debunked over and over, has circulated one way or another for years. The failure to provide immediate physical proof of the real thing has allowed fakers to fill the information vacuum. According to Sky News, “The release of a photograph purporting to show bin Laden’s corpse – which was later confirmed to be a fake – added to the confusion.”

The responsibility to show proof of death

Responsible voices are already questioning the hastiness of the disposal of bin Laden’s body, and are calling for the U.S. to show the public proof that the al Qaeda leader is indeed dead. After all, President Obama himself reportedly didn’t want to bomb bin Laden’s compound, for fear of not being able to prove that bin Laden had been killed.

The president himself wanted proof – not only for his personal knowledge and for the military necessity, but because he knew that the American public and the world needed to know the facts.

That’s what some of us are asking to see.

Sir Christopher Meyer, former British ambassador to the United States, said in London’s Telegraph, “I can’t conceive the US president would go out to make a statement to the world that Bin Laden is dead without being able to produce evidence that he is dead. I think we will see some evidence – DNA or photographic – to prove there is not still some phantom Osama bin Laden riding the Tora Bora mountains.”

Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, said in a thoughtful observation reported by the Los Angeles Times, “Unless there’s an acknowledgment by people in Al Qaeda that Bin Laden is dead, it may be necessary to release the pictures — as gruesome as they will undoubtedly be, because he’s been shot in the head — to quell any doubts that this somehow is a ruse that the American government has carried out.”

Navy gives bin Laden a Shariah-compliant burial at sea

Scratch my earlier idea about displaying Osama bin Laden's body in New York so everyone could set eyes on the uberterrorist and to erase any doubts that he is indeed dead.

The US Navy (which doesn't do "war of ideas" stuff even on a good day) gave the bin Laden a shariah-compliant burial at sea.

CBS and the Associated Press report that the US buried bin Laden at sea, adding, "US officials told CBS News that bin Laden's body would be handled in accordance with Muslim traditions, which include strict rules on burial taking place within 24 hours after death."

Not even the Saudis would accept bin Laden's body for burial, according to the report.

Yet another piece of evidence that the US military leadership is becoming more shariah compliant in the way it handles the war of ideas.

Display bin Laden's body. Then make it disappear. Then destroy the al Qaeda legacy.

What fortuitous timing - no sooner do Arab protesters across the Middle East repudiate al Qaeda's revolutionary model, than a CIA hit team eliminates Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani mansion and snatches the body.

Now it's important to keep the momentum going, and to deny the enemy any propaganda victory.

That means finishing off bin Laden's ideological legacy and the popular appeal he enjoyed among Muslim extremists. In doing so, we can stomp out al Qaeda even in places where we can't see or find its operatives.

First, a repetition of the first point: Al Qaeda stood discredited in the eyes of Muslim Arabs from Tunisia and across North Africa, up the Levant to Syria. The mass protests against authoritarian regimes, several backed by the US, had stolen away much of al Qaeda's appeal, and proved that much of that appeal was fundamentally quite shallow.

Secondly, the US and its allies have to decide what to do to destroy bin Laden's legacy, both as an individual and as an ideological vanguard.

Here are some immediate thoughts of what should be done next:

1. Display the body. The free world, particularly the United States, has a right to make sure Osama bin Laden is really dead. Every American has a right to walk right up to bin Laden's corpse and view it. We are entitled to know for a fact that the witch is dead. No shroud for dignity's sake, please - bin Laden's naked, bullet-riddled corpse should be put on display in lower Manhattan for all the world to see. The entire body should be digitally scanned, inside and out - and made available for everyone to take his or her own picture.

This isn't as morbid a thought as it might seem. Bodies are routinely scanned and photographed during autopsies, their digital images preserved. And across most of the world's cultures they are placed on display prior to burial or cremation. For us Doubting Thomases out there - we need to see in order to believe.

No future Elvis sightings, please. Leave no room for conspiracy theories that the CIA faked bin Laden's death, that bin Laden is living in comfortable exile somewhere, or that 20 years from now he'll still be out there, calling the shots. All of us is entitled to see that the beast has indeed been killed.

2. Make the body disappear. The US made mistakes in the past by returning the bodies of dead terrorists to their families or hometowns for burial. This is a nice and sentimental gesture, but it had the net effect of spawning more extremism and terrorism. The graves that contained the physical bodies became shrines for extremist pilgrims, educational tools to propagandize young people, and models to inspire future terrorists.

Even though they were atheists, the Soviets understood the propagandistic importance of bodies. That's why they mummified Lenin, put the remains in a mausoleum, and turned the corpse into the core of a personality cult. That's why, too, the Soviets ordered the physical destruction of Adolf Hitler's corpse, burning it and burying it and re-burying it before ultimately dumping the ashes in a river. There would be no pilgrimage point for future Nazis.

And so, after a thorough public examination, bin Laden's body should be burned, its ashes flushed into the New York City sewer system.

3. Describe how bin Laden spent his last days and died. In what type of luxury did the al Qaeda leader live as his fanatical devotees crawled around their rabbit holes and scratched out a miserable existence? What did he surround himself with in that mansion outside Islamabad? Was he Spartan-like? Or did he live, perhaps, like the Tunisian and Egyptian strong men overthrown by their own people?

Was bin Laden, the puritanical Islamist, really just another religious phony? A total hypocrite whom it would prove shameful to follow? Did the CIA find the types of disgusting double lives that our military discovered among the many suicide bombers who murdered in his name - the liquor, the cyber porn, the pederasty? What about his body? Did the autopsy reveal symptoms of the anal gonorrhea so prevalent among his totally un-gay followers in rural Afghanistan?

Did he go down fighting, or did he cower and plead for his life?

No need to give bin Laden a clean bill of health here - we're looking at destroying his legacy, not being fair and balanced. If there's anything truthful that can be used to discredit him, let's use it.

If there isn't, then it isn't important to know. This is political warfare, not public relations.

Bin Laden may be dead (I'll believe it when I see it), but al Qaeda is still alive.

I'm going to raise a mug of beer and munch a Hebrew National pork sausage to celebrate the brave CIA men who took bin Laden down.

Then it's back to work to destroy what the al Qaeda leader left behind. That means piling dirt on bin Laden's legacy, destroying his appeal, and providing the world with all the necessary facts to heap humiliation on anyone who insists on continuing to follow his cause.

Citizen videos show widespread defiance across Iran

Videos shot by ordinary citizens celebrating the Persian New Year season show widespread defiance of the regime across Iran.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei decreed that there be no public observations of the pre-Islamic traditions, which include lighting and jumping over bonfires to mark the arrival of spring and the triumph of good over evil.

IranChannel.org has the story. (Photo: An anti-regime protester in Bushehr, home of Iran's nuclear program, rolls a barrel of gasoline on a bonfire March 15.)

Official censorship, the banning of foreign correspondents, and crackdowns on the Internet have choked off normal reporting about the nationwide protests, but ordinary citizens, armed with smartphones and flip cameras, have recorded the happenings on their own.

Freedom Messenger, IranStudentsCommittee, Sherlock72, Unity4Iran and others have collected some of those videos. We aggregate the links to them here to show how widespread the March 15-20 protests from Chahar Sanbeh Soori to Nowruz have been. This selection is just a sampling of what these and other bloggers have posted online to show that resistance is alive.

Note the cries of "Allahu akbar" (God is great) coupled with "Death to the Dictator" slogans. The secular opposition uses the jihadist "Allahu akbar" slogan ironically or sarcastically, as a sign of resistance to the Islamic Republic. It is not to be confused in these cases as signs of jihad.

Samples of the protest activity follows, with each link leading to the video:

Ardebil, March 15: Banned fire festival takes place in street.

Ahwaz, March 15: Young people revel in the street with a traditional bonfire, taunting regime authorities.

Babol, March 15: Ironic Allahu Akbar and “Death to Dictator” street chants.

Borujerd, March 15: Street chants for Khamenei to be overthrown in the style of Tunisia’s Ben Ali and Egypt’s Mubarak.

Bushehr, March 15: Youths control the streets in the city that houses the regime’s nuclear power plant (video grab of this appears in above photo).

Fooladshahr, March 15: Happy street celebration with music, singing, chanting, clapping and whistling.

Gorgan, March 15: Quiet “Death to Dictator” protest.

Hamedan, March 15: Loud “Death to Dictator” protest.

Isfahan (Esfahan), March 15: Celebration around a bonfire.

Karaj, March 21: Celebratory New Year’s street revelry.

Mashhad, March 15: Dancing in the streets and celebration despite official ban.

Kermanshah, March 15: Cheerful nighttime protests in defiance of Khamenei’s orders.

Qom, March 15: Forbidden fire festival in the ideological heart of the Islamic Republic.

Rasht, March 15: Motorists honk horns in celebration of the eve of the last Wednesday before the Persian New Year.

Rasht, March 15: Ironic chants of Allahu Akbar and death to the dictator.

Sanandaj, March 15: Protesters set Basij or police motorcycle on fire.

Shahin Shahr, March 15: “Death to the Entire Regime” protest.

Shiraz, March 15: Anti-regime protests, including slogans against regime support for Hezbollah.

Shiraz, March 21: “Death to Dictator” protest in the streets.

Tabriz, March 15: “Death to Dictator” street protests.

Tehran, March 15: Pedestrian and motorists celebrate the end of the old and beginning of the new, controlling a street.

Tehran, March 15: Young men and women dance in the street in defiance of official decrees.

Tehran, March 15: Basiji motorcycle paramilitaries put down youthful street celebrations.

Tehran, March 15: Authorities fire weapons in the streets during street festivities.

Tehran, March 15: Crowd chants for Supreme Leader Khamenei to be overthrown like the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt.

Tehran (Jami Street), March 15: Young people hold forbidden bonfire in the neighborhood of Supreme Leader Khamenei.

Tehran (south), March 15: Protesters in South Tehran stand up to Basij paramilitaries.

Tehran, March 15: A lone woman in Tehran chants, “Death to dictator,” to be joined by others in the street.

Tehran (Navab Street) March 15: Big nighttime demonstration with ironic chants against regime.

Zahedan, March 15: Small but defiant “Death to Dictator” protest, includes burning an image of Khamenei while chants for the regime to be overthrown.

Serbian student leader draws parallels between Iran's protests and movement that ousted Milosevic

A leader of the opposition movement that overthrew the Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosevic has been a friend of the Iranian freedom cause and sees many parallels between the two struggles for freedom. [From IranChannel.org]

Ivan Marovic (pictured) is a leader of the Otpor nonviolent resistance movement, and has been a champion of using nonviolence against dictatorships. He traveled to Washington in January to attend to the Iran Democratic Transition Conference, held in association with the Confederation of Iranian Students (CIS).

CIS interviewed Marovic about the organization and success of the Serbian movement and the lessons Iranians can learn from it. Among those lessons are that:

• student protests can become broad-based opposition movements relatively quickly and with very little funding;
• creating a united movement can be time-consuming, bitter and frustrating;
• youthful organizers should expect (and ignore) being defamed as foreign agents;
• older and more established opponents of the regime are likely to oppose the young people’s efforts, at least at first;
• some of the best progress is made by learning from one’s own mistakes;
• months of protests can end in futility but, with organization and effort, can become victorious over time;
• fear and apathy – the biggest obstacles to success – can be overcome;
• actions need not be large or dramatic to be successful, but they must be constant;
• the more the regime arrests opposition activists, the stronger the opposition becomes;
• nonviolent resistance to a dictatorship can take a long time;
• foreign financial support is often not forthcoming or not needed;
• military intervention against the regime can actually weaken the opposition movement as people rally in defense of their nation against foreign attack;
• humor is an important weapon against the regime.

CIS provided the text of this interview to IranChannel.org as an exclusive.

Confederation of Iranian Students (CIS): When you first organized your movement, both the Opposition and the Regime tagged and accused you of being foreign agents or even puppets. How did you manage to convince, unite, and organize different Opposition groups?

Ivan Marovic (IM): Yes, we were accused of being foreign agents, but we managed to overcome this, mainly because we publicly stated our goals and kept asking everybody to find one single thing in our goals that is against Serbian national interest. For instance we would ask: “Is having free elections against Serbian national interest?” We would make posters saying “Otpor (Resistance), because I love Serbia.” This was to show that resisting the dictatorship was an act of patriotism, not an act of treason.

And uniting different groups wasn’t easy at all. We spent a lot of time and energy talking to different groups, often at loggerheads among each other, and over time managed to bring them closer and convinced them to start cooperating. We tried to find people in those groups more open to cooperation, and then helped them boost their credibility both inside their organizations and in the society as a whole. These people were crucial for the success of uniting different factions of the opposition.

CIS: How did you come up with the idea of creating Otpor?

IM: The idea was born after an unsuccessful student protest which lasted for four months. That’s four months of daily demonstrations in late 1996 and early 1997. This protest failed to overthrow Milosevic, and his grip on power became even stronger. Repression became even more brutal after the failure. That’s why in 1998 we decided to create a movement, not just to organize another protest, because we knew that this struggle was going to be a long one and that movement is what was needed in order to be able to apply pressure and withstand attacks over a longer period of time.

That’s why we created a resistance movement and named it Otpor, which is Serbian for resistance. We also took a clenched fist as our symbol.

CIS: When did you choose the fist logo?

IM: At the very beginning of Otpor, in October 1998. We asked our friend Nenad Petrovic, called “Duda,” to draw a clenched fist as a symbol of unity in strength, because all fingers are stronger when together in a fist. He designed it inspired by the “White Hand of Saruman” from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

CIS: How many were there at the beginning, in the founding group?

IM: There was a dozen of us in the very beginning, and we grew slowly in the first few months. So, after several weeks we had an operating group of less than fifty people.

CIS: What difficulties did you face from the start?

IM: Our biggest obstacles were apathy and fear. People were afraid to participate because of the repression. Those who were brave enough were apathetic because of the previous failed attempts and because many opposition groups were fighting each other, so few people believed that change is possible.

CIS: Did you have any financial support at the beginning? Or later?

IM: No, we haven’t. We actually didn’t have an office for the first year. We did receive some help later on, first locally and then in the last few months before Milosevic was brought down, we finally got aid from western foundations.

CIS: What kind of support did you have at the beginning? Or later?

IM: We did have some support from a handful of local independent media, but they were soon banned and taken over by the regime. The editor in chief of one of those media, Slavko Curuvija was even killed.

CIS: How did you represent yourself and your group to the national and the international community?

IM: Through actions – we were an organization in action. We wanted to be present everywhere. But, because we were small, at least in the beginning, we used street theater to comment on political situation. Actions were small, short and widespread all over the country. They were humorous and satirical in nature and aimed at onlookers who would then spread our message to their friends. That’s how we became prominent.

CIS: When did you feel that you had become a movement?

IM: It was in the fall of 1999, a year after we were officially formed, when I was traveling to south Serbia and saw Otpor graffiti in a town where we thought we didn’t have a branch. It turned out that some local kids made a branch of Otpor on their own. We then admitted them to the organization, but this event proved to me that Otpor was spreading all over the country.

CIS: From which direction(s) did you get attacked? From the oppostion? From the regime? Or both?

IM: Both. Opposition didn’t like us because they felt we were occupying their space. But, there was hardly anything they could do because they were powerless. They finally had to work with us when we became strong. The regime underestimated us in the beginning, but later they launched a frontal attack on us naming us a terrorist organization (although we were strictly nonviolent) and arresting every activist of Otpor they could find.

CIS: What kind of media support did you receive, after the opposition boycotted your organization?

IM: We had our misunderstanding with the opposition, but that didn’t impact the coverage of Otpor by the independent media, since the opposition didn’t have much credibility and influence over them. They followed our activities because we were effective and therefore newsworthy, risking persecution. State run media portrayed us as terrorists, but people believed those accounts less and less as they started sounding more and more ridiculous.

CIS: What percentage of the opposition supported you?

IM: At the very beginning we had support of only a handful of opposition leaders, but this percentage grew over time. We never got full support, but towards the end it was significant.

CIS: Did the regime try to use violence to crush down your Freedom Movement? If yes, how far? Which methods did you adopt?

IM: Although members of Otpor were detained on a regular basis, repression became disturbing in May 2000 when Otpor was declared a terrorist organization and hundreds of our activists were arrested. However, this was too late for the regime, the movement was so strong that there wasn’t enough room in jails to put Otpor members and new people were joining as the number of arrested activists grew.

CIS: How important was the support of the international community in your victory?

IM: It was very important, but not essential. Serbia was under UN sanctions and in complete isolation, only a few embassies operated in Serbia. There was hardly any engagement with the regime and then there was the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999 which created a lot of problems for democratic forces in Serbia.

CIS: How do you compare your Freedom Movement with the Freedom Movement of Iran?

IM: There are some similarities and some differences between Iran and Serbia and between our two movements. It is difficult to make an exact comparison, but I can say that Iran’s movement is making a transition from a protest to a movement, a transition which was very important in our case – when we learned that the struggle was going to be long, we were ready to wage it.

CIS: If you had lost hope on all your non-violent efforts, what would you have done? How would you have gone on with your Freedom Movement?

IM: We never lost hope. Nonviolence had no alternative for us.

CIS: How effective was the NATO military strike?

IM: It hindered our efforts and helped Milosevic raise the level of repression because country was under attack. Milosevic came out of the bombing stronger because he was seen by the people as someone defending the country from the foreign threat.

CIS: How can your experience help the Iranian Freedom Movement?

IM: I think that sharing experience from another country is helpful because it helps unravel some underlying universal forces at play that do not depend on local circumstances. These can tell us a lot about why and how certain political events unfold, how regimes loose their viability and how movements gain their momentum.

CIS: How effective was the participation of your student movement in unifying the Opposition which led to the final victory?

IM: One can say that the students led by Otpor united the opposition, and united opposition became victorious. I think that the fact that Otpor was led by young people, students, who have more contacts and act quickly and boldly made it so effective.

CIS: How dependent was your movement on the awareness of the masses?

IM: This awareness grew over time, we tried to increase it. That’s why in the beginning we used street theater I mentioned earlier. After awareness we tried to increase readiness to take action. We had one million people in Belgrade in the end. These people were not just aware of what was going on, they were ready to take actions, join the general strike and force Milosevic to step down.

CIS: What alternative did you propose to the people? How did you come with the idea of this alternative?

IM: It was at the same time difficult and easy to propose the alternative. It was easy because the situation was so bad that we just proposed return to normalcy. Normal country was our alternative. But it was difficult because people had lost faith that things were ever coming back to normal in Serbia. We succeeded when people started believing in the possibility of normalcy.

Why victory is so elusive for us

 
By all indications, the US and its Coalition partners have won the war in Iraq. Despite everything, and regardless of whether the US should have gone into Iraq in the first place, the US and its partners won the war.

Somehow we have trouble recognizing victory.

And what about Afghanistan? The last time Barack Obama called for victory in Afghanistan, as far as I can tell, was during the 2008 campaign. 

That prompted me to look at how the US military defines "victory." Going to the Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, the definitive Joint Chiefs of Staff keeper of the American national security lexicon, we search for an official definition of victory. 

The screenshot above, taken today, March 17, 2011, shows how the Pentagon defines victory: It doesn't.

See for yourself: http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/dod_dictionary/

Something to think about as we send more of our people to kill and die.

Is the Iranian regime set to tear itself apart?

The office of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, the cleric-controlled judiciary and the security forces have agreed, until now, not to go after opposition protesters too aggressively for fear of creating martyrs as they did when they murdered Neda Agha-Soltan in 2009. 

But in Iran's "parliament," regime allies want the opposition leaders dead - and they want it now. Take a look at this video, shot today, February 15, 2011, inside the Iranian "parliament" and brought to us by the Confederation of Iranian Students. A large number of members begin chanting, "Mousavi, Karroubi, Khatami must be executed." More and more members join in, egged on from the leadership at the dais:

Those being targeted for death aren't even the ones calling for regime change - they're merely advocates of "reforming" but maintaining the Islamic Republic.

The three are: Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who served as the Islamic Republic's prime minister from 1981-89 and ran against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the 2009 election for president as leader of the Green Movement; Mehdi Karroubi, a follower of the late Ayatollah Khomeini who chaired "parliament" from 1989-92 and, by regime standards is considered a "reformer"; and Sayyid Mohammad Khatami, a cleric and former president of the Islamic Republic of Iran who is also a "reformer" in comparison with the present leadership. 

In short, those who brought the world the Islamic revolution and plunged Iran under shariah dictatorship are now bent on devouring one another. 

History shows that this can't exist for long - if the "reformers" cave in to preserve themselves, they will lose their own support base and will radicalize Iran's young people beyond all control; if they end up siding with the young people who want a secular democracy, they will have had a hand in destroying what they built. Either way, the system is unsustainable. 

By publicly and enthusiastically calling for the deaths of these three former regime officials who seek mere reform, the pro-regime members of "parliament" are hastening the death of the Islamic Republic.

History also shows that, in times like these, regime figures will start to defect to the intractable opposition. That's good news. The world should be encouraging those defections and be welcoming and merciful to regime figures who switch sides. 

Time to keep up the pressure in the streets, friends!

Iran's resistance movement is very much alive

After more a year of low visibility, Iran's internal resistance movement showed itself in cities across the country today. Iranians of all ages took inspiration from the people's revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt despite being attacked with paramilitaries on motorcycles, tear gas and electric prods.

The size of the demonstrations appeared to take Islamic Republic authorities off guard, in what the Washington Post called a "surprisingly large" show of opposition. Here's what CNN reported tonight:

The Islamic Republic announced it would hold rallies in support of the Tunisian and Egyptian movements, trying to put an Islamist face - or perhaps providing open political support for covert operations - on Facebook-based protests. However, it forbade opposition groups from taking to the streets to voice their solidarity with the Tunisians and Egyptians.

On February 8, internal reform leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who heads the Green Movement inside Iran, announced plans for nationwide solidarity protests on February 14 - the eve of the 32nd anniversary of the Islamic revolution.

Mousavi's call came after an unprecedentedly broad group of Iranian expatriates and exiles met at the George Washington University in Washington, DC, to set aside their differences and unite for the first time against the regime. The three-day Iranian Democratic Transition Conference, led by former political prisoner Amir Abbas Fakhravar, was sponsored by the Center for Culture and Security at my school, the Institute of World Politics.

The IWP-sponsored event occurred on the birthday of the Iranian regime's murder of democracy protester Neda Agha-Soltan, an underground musician and singer who has become a martyr's face for the democratic resistance. Neda's parents and her fiance, Caspian Makan, supported the conference. Makan tried to attend but could not get a US visa in time.

The regime of mullahs has been in a quandary about what to do with pro-democracy leaders, fearing that arresting them would turn them into political martyrs or "saints."

The Islamic Republic's propaganda machine, especially the mouthpieces of the Revolutionary Guard, attacked the conference, singling out Fakhravar and other organizers by name. Regime agents intimidated some Iranians from attending, and IWP received death threats. One of the invitees who could not attend, political prisoner Arzhang Davoodi, secretly issued an audio message to the conference that the Confederation of Iranian Students brought out of prison. When news of that message got out, prison officials beat and tortured Davoodi and carried him to a solitary part of the prison. He has not been heard from since. See the video of his message, below:

The conference took place January 22-24, coinciding with the toppling of the regime in Tunisia and the beginning of protests in Egypt, Algeria, Libya and Jordan. Iranian student activists came from across Europe, Asia and North America, as did some inside Iran who participated on Skype.

As the Egyptian protesters demanded President Hosni Mubarak's resignation, Fakhravar, who heads the Confederation of Iranian Students and is a research fellow at IWP, issued a statement in Arabic warning the Egyptians about the mistake Iranians made in 1979 when they toppled the shah and welcomed in an Islamic Republic. Fakhravar urged Egyptians to learn Iran's lessons and to maintain a pro-western, secular republic.

As of the night of February 13, protests were planned in at least 41 Iranian cities. 

People showed up across the country on February 14, though the regime was able to clamp down on news coverage and cut Internet and mobile phone service in selected areas. Even so, Iranians posted videos on YouTube and Facebook, and circulated them by email and phone. 

Al Jazeera reported many thousands of people in Tehran, calmly walking peacefully, with a massive presence of police, undercover police and Basiji paramilitaries:

In some places, the crowd was more spirited, amid reports of sporadic beatings and arrests at the hands of the security forces. An amateur video shows Basijis on their trademark motorcycles corralling people down a street and sidewalk, and about 1:05 into the video the paramilitaries take out their truncheons and begin beating people before the videographer flees:

Thus provoked, people start resisting. The next video shows protesters climbing the side of a mosque to tear down a poster of the late Ayatollah Khomeini and the current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Basiji paramilitaries can be seen through the window, hiding inside the mosque:

A man identified as a Basiji paramilitary tries to rescue the poster, mistakenly believing that he has intimidated the crowd. But the people are unafraid. They throw the regime's solidarity-with-Hezbollah propaganda back in the paramilitary's face, saying they want regime change: "Na Ghaza! Na Lobnan! Tunis o Misr o Iran!" ("Not Gaza! Not Lebanon! Tunisia and Egypt and Iran!"). The protesters turn on him and beat him senseless:

Chanting that Khamenei should meet the same fate as Mubarak, the demonstrators then try to set the Khomeini/Khamenei poster afire:

It will be interesting to see how the news reports put together the pieces of today's February 14 protests across Iran. The good news is, the internal opposition movement is very much alive.

And thanks to Fakhravar's Iranian Democratic Transition Conference last month, the external opposition and lead student movement are united for the first time ever. Below is a promotional video released prior to the event:

 

Islamist militants in London make repeated threats against Pope Benedict

Mobs of radical Muslims protested Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to London this week, chanting threatening slogans and holding signs vilifying the Catholic church and Christian faith.

It is important to understand the importance of what is being said. Even though the protests were not physically violent, they are laden with language that, under sharia law, is to be construed as incitement to murder.

The protests took place as about six Muslim radicals from Algeria were arrested for apparently threatening the pope. The subjects were later released.

In this YouTube video, shot September 18, 2010, the protesters can be seen threatening the leader of the world's Catholics with their "Pope Benedict, you will pay" chant, and holding signs calling for the seat of the Catholic church to be controlled by shariah law. (See the Center for Security Policy's new report, Shariah - Threat to America, also released this week.)

The words are not overheated rhetoric - they are calls for the pope to be murdered, and a declaration of war on Christians and others.

At 2 minutes and 26 seconds into the video, a militant named Anjem Choudary changes the chant to "Pope Benedict, you will pay/Justice is on its way."

"Justice," under shariah law, requires Christians either to convert to Islam, be killed, or submit to Islamic rule as dhimmis.

Amid cries of "Allahu akhbar," another militant, Abu Rayah, implies that Pope Benedict is a military enemy of Muslims, as a leader of the "crusades." He exhorts listeners to recall that "this war against Islam and Muslims is military and ideological as well."

Abu Rayah denounces Pope Benedict for criticizing Islam, and expresses hope that, "inshallah," the pope will meet "the lions of Islam."

Islam, he says, will "dominate over all other ways," including democracy, secularism, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and all other religions. Buddhists and Hindus, according to sharia law, must either convert to Islam or be killed.

The militant adds that anyone who insults the prophet Muhammad "deserves capital punishment." (4:44-4:50)

"Benedict, watch your back!" chants another militant, "Sallahudin [the Muslim warrior who fought the Christian crusaders] is coming back." (5:18-5:24)

Other cries, as well as signs, denounce Catholicism and Christianity as a "satanic" and "evil ideology."

The protesters then chant, "Muslims, rise up!" followed by a call for "martyrdom or victory" and chants of "Benedict, terrorist."

As the pope passed by in his armored vehicle, the Muslim protesters screamed insults in Arabic at him and chanted, "Burn, burn, burn in Hell" (8:36)

The protesters were exclusively male, of various ethnic backgrounds, and obviously trained and organized. Even though they were not criminally violent, the code language they were using as understood by adherents to shariah law show that they should be considered a terrorist threat.

For more, see RevolutionMuslim.com.

Exclusive: New 'Strategic Influence' book is finally available

After years of anticipation, my anthology, Strategic Influence: Public Diplomacy, Counterpropaganda and Political Warfare is now available to the public.

The book won't be available in bookstores or on Amazon until October, but you can get it online through this blog.

Strategic Influence is the work of 13 scholars and practitioners in the fields of public diplomacy, counterpropaganda and political warfare. The book surveys the subjects from the American Revolution, through the Cold War, to present-day wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We strove to make the book the best single volume on the subject. It's a combination of scholarly, personal narratives and the policy essays from some of the best minds in the business - some recognizable, some emerging. Here's the table of contents:

• The American Way of Propaganda: Lessons from the Founding Fathers. J. Michael Waller, Institute of World Politics;
• What 'Strategic' Public Diplomacy Is. Carnes Lord, Naval War College;
• Public Diplomacy and Soft Power. Carnes Lord;
• Cultural Diplomacy, Political Influence and Integrated Strategy. John Lenczowski, Institute of World Politics;
• Mediators of the Message: The Role of Religion and Civil Society in Public Diplomacy. Jennifer Marshall, Heritage Foundation;
• Conducting a War of Ideas with Public Diplomacy. Robert Reilly, former director, Voice of America;
• Counterpropaganda: We Can't Win Without It. Herbert Romerstein, former director, Office to Counter Soviet Active Measures, U.S. Information Agency;
• Recovering the Lost Art of Counterpropaganda. Andrew Garfield, Glevum Associates;
• The Interagency Active Measures Working Group: Successful Template for Strategic Influence. Herbert Romerstein;
• Political Warfare: Means for Achieving Political Ends. Angelo Codevilla, Boston University;
• Political War vs Political Terror: Case Study of an American Success Story. John J. Tierney, Institute of World Politics;
• The Importance of Words. J. Michael Waller;
• Hearts and Minds Online: Internetting the Messages in the Infosphere. Hampton Stephens, World Politics Review;
• Toward a Theory of Low-Intensity Propaganda. Stephen C. Baker, Institute of World Politics;
• Red-Teaming Strategic Communications and Political Warfare. David Spencer, National Defense University;
• A Comprehensive Approach to Information Operations. Andrew Garfield;
• Synchronizing Rhetoric, Policy and Action. Juliana Geran Pilon, Institute of World Politics;
• An Immediate-Term Wartime Message Strategy. J. Michael Waller;
• Getting Serious About Strategic Influence. J. Michael Waller.

Strategic Influence is published by the Institute of World Politics Press. The original edition was published for restricted circulation in 2007. This edition was revised in 2009 but was not available until today, and will not be generally available to the public until October 2010.

The book is only available at present - as a paperback and as an e-book - by clicking here.