PoliticalWarfare.org

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.

VOA to kill broadcasts into rural China, Tibet

As the Chinese regime steps up the sophistication and tempo of its international propaganda operations, the United States government is curtailing a mainstay of providing unfiltered news and information to the most restive large areas under one-party control.

The Voice of America (VOA) has announced plans to terminate its shortwave broadcasts into rural China and Tibet, citing cost-cutting measures and its move toward more digital programming. 

Rural China and Tibet have been major sore points for the communist regime.

Farmers have led grassroots revolts against official corruption and taxation without representation. Because they do not have access to digital media, they depend on VOA shortwave broadcasts to stay informed.

“China has appropriated $7 billion on international propaganda in the past two years,” an Obama administration official close to VOA tells Bill Gertz at the Washington Times. “In 2011, CCTV [PRC state television] North America in Washington, D.C., plans to increase its reporters from 12 to 20 people. Meanwhile, VOA Chinese staff will be cut over 50 percent.”

Meanwhile, promised reforms at VOA's scandal-plagued Persian broadcasting unit are slow in coming, as this blogger has heard firsthand from dozens of Iranian democracy activists.

Unions join government propaganda campaign to compel citizens to submit to strip searches & groping

Unions are joining the Department of Homeland Security's domestic propaganda campaign to persuade citizens that electronic strip searches and physical groping of their private parts are good for them.

American citizens, they argue, must submit to being peeped at and felt up by uniformed personnel if they wish to exercise their right to travel.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) is urging the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to protect TSA workers from the people. 

A November 17 AFGE news release calls for the TSA to wage a propaganda "public education" campaign to promote the state-sponsored sexual groping "pat-downs."

TSA has launched a video and other literature to propagandize the public to submit. The Orwellian title of the campaign is "Helpful Hints for Holiday Travelers."

MSNBC reports that the National Treasury Employees Union "has launched a campaign in support of the TSA to educate the public about the critical role played by TSA officers in helping secure the safety of air travel."

Of course, the public already knows this - the issue here is how the unions are working hand-in-glove with government agents to propagandize the public to submit to the electronic strip searches and physical groping of their genitalia by uniformed personnel. 

Government propaganda campaign to make public submit to strip searches

A US government propaganda campaign aimed at the domestic population is in the works.

The perceptions-and-behavior-modification campaign is designed to neutralize the American public's opposition to the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) move toward electronic strip-searches and invasive groping of airport passengers.

Caught off-guard by the widening public backlash to the excessively intrusive "security" procedures at the nation's airports, the Department of Homeland Security is trying to disarm the public of its opposition.

(Photo: A Muslim TSA guard, wearing sharia-compliant head covering, gropes a Catholic nun during a "security" search at a US airport.)

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano isn't off to a very good start, saying that the electronic strip-searches and the invasive groping of passengers who refuse a strip search are necessary because of the Nigerian terrorist who arrived in the United States with explosives in his underwear in December 2009.

However, what Napolitano did not say was that the CIA had specific advance warning of a possible terrorist attack by that very individual - in the form of an urgent face-to-face meeting that the terrorist's father requested with the CIA station in Abuja - and that the CIA and TSA failed to ensure that the terrorist was placed on the TSA's no-fly list.

Because of that government failure, the TSA is now forcing the entire traveling public to submit to electronic strip searches, be groped in the breasts, genitals and buttocks by TSA personnel, or be arrested or fined.

Napolitano began the propaganda campaign against the American public with a November 15 op-ed in USA Today. Starting off with the example of the Christmas bomber and the need for a "layered approach" to screening terrorists (without mentioning the CIA's failure at the outermost layer), Napolitano says the strip-search machines are necessary, safe and preferred:

"As part of our layered approach, we have expedited the deployment of new Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) units to help detect concealed metallic and non-metallic threats on passengers. These machines are now in use at airports nationwide, and the vast majority of travelers say they prefer this technology to alternative screening measures.

"AIT machines are safe, efficient, and protect passenger privacy. . . .

"All images generated by imaging technology are viewed in a walled-off location not visible to the public. The officer assisting the passenger never sees the image, and the officer viewing the image never interacts with the passenger. The imaging technology that we use cannot store, export, print or transmit images." (Emphasis added)

Much of Napolitano's points are of debatable accuracy or truthfulness, and a lot of the public isn't buying her argument, or her euphemisms such as "pat downs." (I've been through the "pat downs" and think the term "heavy petting" is more accurate.)

It's propaganda time

So now, the government finds itself having to launch an aggressive propaganda "public education" campaign to manipulate public perceptions, attitudes, and behavior. Here's what AP is reporting right now:

". . . airports have been urging the government to engage in an aggressive public education campaign regarding the new screening, said Debby McElroy, the [Airports Council International-North America] executive vice president.

"'TSA is trying to address a real, credible threat, both through the advanced imaging technology and through the pat-downs,' McElroy said. 'We think it's important that they continue to address it with passengers and the media because there continues to be a significant misunderstanding about both the safety and the privacy concerns.'"

The government's domestic propaganda campaign is just beginning. As far as Homeland Security is concerned, we must submit - or else.

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.

There's still time to sign up for my political warfare course

Here's good news for those of you in the Washington, DC area who want to spend edifying Thursday evenings: There's still time to sign up for my political warfare course at the Institute of World Politics.

The four-credit course, Political Warfare: Past, Present and Future, is an intensive 14-week survey of the history, philosophies and techniques of political warfare from antiquity to the present. We study the classics - ancient Greece, Rome, India and China and the Hebrews, among others - and move on through the Crusades and then to Machiavelli, the American Revolution (particularly Samuel Adams), 19th century Europe, World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution, Antonio Gramsci, Saul Alinsky, and present-day Islamic political warfare.

Like most of IWP's graduate-level curriculum, the Naval War College accepts this unique course as an elective. I'm teaching the course at IWP in downtown Washington, DC, on Thursday nights from 6:30 to 9:30 pm. Class starts on September 2.

Apply online at www.iwp.edu (click on upper left corner). For a list of required readings and other course descriptions, see the unofficial course website at www.politicalwarfare.us.

My Foreign Propaganda, Perceptions and Policy course, offered on Monday evenings, is full this semester. In Spring 2011, I will be teaching Public Diplomacy and Political Warfare.

The Case for Calling Them Nitwits (The Atlantic)

Hats off to Daniel Byman and Christine Fair, who write in The Atlantic about what nincompoops many of our terrorist enemies are. In a piece titled, "The Case for Calling them Nitwits," Byman and Fair note, "They blow each other up by mistake. They bungle even simple schemes. They get intimate with cows and donkeys. Our terrorist enemies trade on the perception that they’re well trained and religiously devout, but in fact, many are fools and perverts who are far less organized and sophisticated than we imagine. Can being more realistic about who our foes actually are help us stop the truly dangerous ones?"

Some highlights from the article:

• "Even in the aftermath of the botched Times Square bombing earlier this spring, the perception persists that our enemies are savvy and sophisticated killers."
• "But this view of the jihadist community is wildly off the mark. To be sure, some terrorists are steely and skilled—people like Mohamed Atta . . . but the quiet truth is that many of the deluded foot soldiers are foolish and untrained, perhaps even untrainable. Acknowledging this fact could help us tailor our counterterrorism priorities—and publicizing it could help us erode the powerful images of strength and piety that terrorists rely on for recruiting and funding."
• "Nowhere is the gap between sinister stereotype and ridiculous reality more apparent than in Afghanistan, where it’s fair to say that the Taliban employ the world’s worst suicide bombers: one in two manages to kill only himself. And this success rate hasn’t improved at all in the five years they’ve been using suicide bombers, despite the experience of hundreds of attacks—or attempted attacks."
• "If our terrorist enemies have been successful at cultivating a false notion of expertise, they’ve done an equally convincing job of casting themselves as pious warriors of God. The Taliban and al-Qaeda rely on sympathizers who consider them devoted Muslims fighting immoral Western occupiers. But intelligence picked up by Predator drones and other battlefield cameras challenges that idea—sometimes rather graphically."
• "One video, captured recently by the thermal-imagery technology housed in a sniper rifle, shows two Talibs in southern Afghanistan engaged in intimate relations with a donkey. Similar videos abound, including ground-surveillance footage that records a Talib fighter gratifying himself with a cow."
• "Tawdry though this predilection for porn may be, it is not necessarily trivial. There is, after all, potential propaganda value in this kind of jihadist behavior. Current US public diplomacy centers on selling America to the Muslim world, but we should also work to undermine some of the myths built up around our enemies by highlighting their incompetence, their moral failings, and their embarrassing antics. Beyond changing how the Muslim world perceives terrorists, we can help ourselves make smarter counterterrorism choices by being more realistic about the profile and aptitude of would-be attackers."

It's great to see this view hitting the mainstream. Arguing that we should be tearing apart the terrorist enemy by mocking him, ridiculing him and pointing out his hypocrisies, has been a bit lonely. Or as Kim Jong-il says in  Team America, "so ronery and sadry arone."

(OK, someone has dared me to refer to the infamous infrared US military gun camera of an Iraqi local - civilian or insurgent is unclear - having inappropriate relations with a farm animal. Our military people have captured a lot of video of insurgents and terrorists engaging in such behavior. I won't embed the actual video on this site, though I did post a still on the top left. For the morbidly curious - and you know who you are - click here for a tasteless, crass, narrated version of the video. A less tasteless, more humorous version, set to music, is available here, to Bloodhound Gang's "The Bad Touch," popularly known by the song's catchy refrain, "Let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel.")

Images, top to bottom: (1) innocent donkey being victimized by Iraqi targets, as seen through US military infrared gun camera; (2) Christmas underwear bomber Abdulmutallab, with his malfunctioning explosive underwear; (3) Taliban with mismatched shoes, being ridiculed on Pakistani military website; (4) Islamic radical who mistakenly sets himself afire after torching the American flag; (5) Kim Jong-il, as seen in Team America; (6) the Saudi butt bomber who failed to kill Saudi Arabia's counterterrorism chief but blew himself up with a pound of plastic explosives and a cell phone detonator jammed up his bottom.

Listen to this anti-war protester. He has a point. Now he should get back in the fight.

It's easy to dismiss the Washington Post's breathless, over-the-fold, front-page story that a "US official" had resigned in protest of Afghan war policy. The prominently placed headline implied that a senior figure in the Obama administration had quit. In reality, the official was a very low-level operational person on the ground who had been with the State Department for barely a year.

Anyone who remembers Post correspondent Karen DeYoung's shamefully biased reporting from Central America during the 1980s could hardly be blamed for disregarding her story about the resignation of Marine-turned-diplomat Matthew Hoh.

But they would be mistaken this time. Hoh has many valid concerns. Many of the most knowledgeable people are low-level operators on the ground. Hoh is a very well regarded public servant. He's no peacenik. He's worked in one of the most troubled parts of Afghanistan. If his resignation can do any good, it will be to highlight problems in Afghanistan and help us win the war.

As with many Post articles, the real meat of the story is buried deep within the text. In this case, it's in the next-to-last paragraph, which reads,

"[Hoh] also would suggest providing more support for Pakistan, better U.S. communication and propaganda skills to match those of al-Qaeda, and more pressure on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to clean up government corruption -- all options being discussed in White House deliberations."(Emphasis added.)

Excellent ideas! This is where Hoh can still make his contribution to the war effort. Rather than withdraw from the fight completely, he should use his newfound fame to hammer away at the continued US inability to counter enemy propaganda - tactically, operationally and strategically.

General McChrystal and the White House are revising the Afghan strategy. They need the insights of operators like Hoh. (See the text of his resignation letter: Download Hoh letter)

I know what it's like to be on the ground helping a war effort, getting demoralized at how it's being carried out, getting extremely frustrated with the bureaucrats and the process and with less-than-stellar allies, and being worn down by lose-the-war reporting from journalists like Karen DeYoung - who, in the 1980s, was biased heavily in favor of the communist enemy. But we didn't quit. We stuck with the fight in one way or another. And our counterinsurgency effort in El Salvador succeeded, along with our support for the democratic insurgency against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

Hoh's frustration is understandable. I don't agree with all his points. But he's right on the matter of how to deal with local Afghans and on our nation's dysfunctional counterpropaganda capabilities. He should be helping with the new strategy instead of sniping out of the Washington Post's turret.

[Photo: U.S Army Spc. Zackery Cely, of Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment provides security for an air assault mission, after being dropped off, above Tacome Valley, in Zabul province, Afghanistan, Oct. 13, 2009. U.S. Soldiers, from 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, U.S. Army Europe (USAEUR) are deployed throughout southern Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Tia P. Sokimson/Released)]

Fear of public opinion might prompt Obama to help Taliban survive

President Obama's adminstration is seriously considering a new Afghanistan policy that in effect would leave the Taliban to survive and fight another day.

From an insurgent's perspective, that means the Taliban will win.

That's not the intent of the policy option. But it would be the net result. A variety of factors is at play, including concerns about over-stretching the US military, troubles with Pakistan, the fact that we're stuck with crummy allies in Afghanistan, a philosophical unwillingness to commit the necessary force, and budget issues that would take dollars away from healthcare and other big-ticket spending programs.

The administration also appears paralyzed by a lack of self-confidence on military matters, and a fear about what people will think. "One phrase that always comes up in the administration's strategy sessions is 'public opinion,'" a US official tells McClatchy news service.

If that's the case - and my sources in the military, intelligence community, and administration agree with the McClatchy report - the administration is doing next to nothing to muster domestic support for a victory in Afghanistan. Nor is it doing much to support allies, win neutrals, or defeat opponents in the infosphere abroad.

The administration seems more concerned about implementing its social agenda at home than winning the war. McClatchy, in interviews with 15 mid- and senior-level military, intelligence, defense, diplomatic and administration officials, says that internal discussions are worried about "a lack of political and public support at home, which they fear could also undermine the president's domestic priorities." 

Shades of LBJ. For those of you lucky enough to be too young to remember, President Lyndon Baines Johnson didn't want the Vietnam War to detract from his marvelous Great Society domestic program. So he didn't escalate against Hanoi, didn't destroy the North Vietnamese military, and allowed the enemy to grind us down through protracted conflict and skillful propaganda warfare. And his Great Society program wasn't much more successful.

As of today, the administration has done NOTHING to try to enlist the support of pro-defense groups in Washington who might be critical of his domestic agenda, but who would enthusiastically support a sound strategy for victory in Afghanistan.

"Now the White House is downplaying the dangers of doing the only thing that they think Congress and the public will support - a limited war against the guys who hit us on 9/11," one source tells McClatchy. That jibes with what I'm hearing from talking to people in the administration. The president is considering a very dangerous move. A gamble based on wishful thinking and lack of confidence.

The Taliban must be thrilled. No doubt they will escalate the killing of our troops in order to put more psychological pressure on our indecisive, dithering commander-in-chief.

Getting serious about strategic influence

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

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

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

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

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

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

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