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.”

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.

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.

How to stop terrorist TV from trumping military information ops

While the Israel Defense Forces released its video quickly about the armed jihadist mobs who attacked Israeli commandos aboard the blockade-breaking Hamas ship, its speed was good in bureaucratic terms but still too slow for the infosphere.

Allied militaries still must act faster, with the speed of commercial news organizations, and, like journalists, in anticipation of dramatic events as tense situations develop.

We can learn a good lesson from this tragedy. First, the flotilla was designed as a Hamas propaganda operation specifically to provoke an Israeli response and generate media coverage to turn the Hamas operatives and activists into martyrs. Al Jazeera assigned a three-person crew to cover the story since the vessels loaded up in Turkey. 

The Israelis monitor Al Jazeera of course, but doesn't seem to have a strategy for how to deal with it and other pro-terrorist propaganda outlets. One of my colleagues in an information operations discussion group suggests, "The office that monitors Al Jazeera for the IDF should have alerted the EW [electronic warfare] folks on the scene to jam" the pro-Hamas TV transmissions before Israeli commandos boarded the Turkish ship. This did not occur, and the last live dispatch shows a bloody stretcher, talk about a white flag not being honored, etc., and became 'must use' footage to any news channel looking for b-roll in order to tell the story."

News outlets around the world used the dramatic footage, including American television. The illustration at top is from an Agence France Presse report circulated globally via Yahoo, falsely reporting that "scores" of people were killed as a result of the Israeli action. (The actual number was 9, after the militants attacked the Israelis.)

The IDF video (shown in the post below), being black-and-white infrared with no sound, was useful in showing how the Israelis boarded without full combat gear and did not use force until attacked by pipe-wielding assailants, was not released for several hours.

In bureaucratic terms, several hours is hypersonic speed. However, in media terms, several hours allows the enemy to gain the propaganda initiative.

This experience shows how the IDF, like the US military, must configure itself with an information operations capability every bit as anticipatory, dramatic, and immediate as any news organization. No need to fabricate or twist facts - just present the military's side of the story straight, but immediately.

Israelis make quick use of imagery to explain Hamas flotilla incident

The Israel Defense Forces made quick use of imagery to state their case concerning their enforcement of a blockade against Hamas-controlled Gaza, and the incident involving flotilla of civilian vessels reinforcing the terrorist group. In boarding one of the ships by helicopter, IDF troops can be seen using amazing restraint as they are set upon by mobs wielding clubs and metal bars. Obviously the Israelis did not board the ship shooting, or with intent to wound or kill. They seemed unprepared for resistance. This clearly was not a counterterrorism operation. One of the IDF soldiers is shown being thrown overboard.

The video of the predawn operation appears to be shot from an infrared camera. The vessel, the Mavi Marmara, is Turkish-flagged.

IDF also released overhead video of riots on land, showing that the provocations came from the Hamas side and not Israeli forces.

These videos and other images, including still photography and well-prepared legal analysis and eyewitness reports released by the foreign ministry, show how the Israelis have become much more nimble in the information sphere and can get its side of the story to the public almost in real-time.

Now, if the US military could only do the same with such a fast turnaround, we'd be much better off. 

Having said that, the raid on the flotilla has backfired immensely against Israel, and appears to have handed a propaganda victory to Hamas and its international supporters. The lesson to be learned here is that while Israel has become effective tactically with the distribution of military information and images, Israel still suffers profoundly from an inability to use information and images strategically.

Relevant news & comment about Islamist terrorist at Fort Hood

It was obvious to many of us from the earliest news reports that the Army major who shot more than 50 people at Fort Hood was an Islamist extremist and therefore a terrorist: A soldier who had turned traitor and joined the enemy. Yet Army leaders, civilian leaders, many journalists and others tried to gloss over the fact that MAJ Nidal Hasan yelled the jihadist war cry of Islamist extremists when he opened fire. (Here is, shown in his Muslim fundamentalist pajamas at a Fort Hood-area 7-Eleven the morning before his attack.)

Rather than highlight the bad journalism and commentary, I'm putting down some of the best for the record. But it's puzzling why the Army leadership would make that weird comment about "diversity."

Nailing Hasan "wouldn't have been an act of bigotry, it would have been an act of prudence."  Washington Post, November 10: Civil rights columnist Eugene Robinson argues that the Army was "foolish" to have ignored the warning signs about MAJ Hasan, and that it did a disservice to all Muslims who serve in the American uniform. "How is the Pentagon supposed to tell the difference between reasonable caution and blatant discrimination? There are thousands of Muslims in uniform, serving their country at home and abroad. Ask them."

"How did Army miss so many clues on Hasan?" Dallas Morning News, November 9: In an editorial, the Dallas Morning News notes, "As we learn more about Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the accused Fort Hood killer, what we discover is deeply disturbing – but not as disturbing as evidence piling up that military authorities knew for months, if not years, that he had displayed radical Islamic tendencies and did nothing about it." 

"To those not terrorized by fear of offending Muslim sensitivities, Hasan's motive was instantly clear." Wall Street Journal, November 9: Dorothy Rabinowitz, whom I first met in the ideological warfare fight more than 25 years ago, comments on many commentators' desperate need not to know about an Islamist connection to the killings: "What is hard to ignore, now, is the growing derangement on all matters involving terrorism and Muslim sensitivities. Its chief symptoms: a palpitating fear of discomfiting facts and a willingness to discard those facts and embrace the richest possible variety of ludicrous theories as to the motives behind an act of Islamic terrorism. All this we have seen before but never in such naked form. The days following the Fort Hood rampage have told us more than we want to know, perhaps, about the depth and reach of this epidemic."

'Hard questions' for Army about detecting 'warning signs.' Wall Street Journal, November 9: Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joseph Lieberman says he will hold hearings about "warning signs" that the Army might have seen but missed that MAJ Hasan was a "home-grown terrorist." GEN George Casey, Army Chief of Staff, says the Army will have to ask some "hard questions" of itself.

Feds investigate possible al Qaeda connection to Major Hasan. Washington Post, November 9: "Federal investigators are examining possible links between Fort Hood shooting suspect Maj. Nidal M. Hasan and an American-born imam who U.S. authorities say has become a supporter and leading promoter of al-Qaeda since leaving a Northern Virginia mosque, officials said."

CIA learned of Hasan's attempts to contact al Qaeda. ABC News, November 9: The CIA picked up intelligence 12 months ago that MAJ Hasan attempted to make contact with Al Qaeda.

Like the 9/11 hijackers, Hasan liked bars, strippers. CBS News, November 9: Hasan acted like a devout Muslim, but like some of the 9/11 hijackers, he enjoyed a good striptease and frequented a bar where female strippers lap-danced on him.

Are the motives really that difficult to figure out? FrontPageMag.com, November 9: Daniel Pipes, a prescient observer of Islamist extremism who fundamentally understands the importance of ideology, comments on the phenomenon of why so many are willing to disbelieve the obvious about fanatical Islamist killers.

"Why he shouted 'Allahu Akbar'" FrontPageMag.com, November 9: Two more experts on political warfare and the importance of ideology discuss why MAJ Hasan called out the Muslim jihad cry when he shot up his brother and sister soldiers at Fort Hood.

Political correctness in Army kept officers from reporting warning signs. Associated Press, November 8: Fort Hood-area Muslim leader had told Hasan something was "wrong" with him; Army medical school colleagues "complained" about "Hasan's 'anti-American propaganda,' but said a fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim student kept officers from filing a formal complaint."

General Casey says loss of 'diversity' would be worse than Fort Hood killings. Reuters, November 8: General George Casey, Army Chief of Staff tells CNN, "as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse." (Casey made a similar comment on ABC: "what happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy. But I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here." Click here for the video clip.)

Senator calls for hearings to see if Army could have prevented "terrorist" attack. Wall Street Journal, November 8: Senator Joseph Lieberman, Chairman of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, says that Maj. Nidal Hasan was a "self-radicalized, home-grown terrorist" and calls for an investigation into how the Army could have prevented a terrorist officer from killing fellow soldiers at Fort Hood.

Hasan started his Islamist radicalization process 9 years ago. Washington Post, November 7: Nidal Hasan was a secular Palestinian-American until his mother died 9 years ago, when he began undergoing a process of Islamic radicalization, relatives say.

Hasan shouted jihadist war cry as he started killing. Associated Press, November 7: Reports of Hasan yelling the jihadist cry, "Allahu akbar," or "God is the greatest," are buried in the press coverage. Journalists seem to either misunderstand or purposely ignore the significance of the ideological motivations that such a war cry signifies. (By contrast, British news organizations, including the liberal Guardian newspaper, recognized the meaning and reported it in a headline. See the Guardian, November 6: "Fort Hood Army officer shouted 'Allahu Akbar' before shooting rampage.")

Fort Hood killer linked to mosque of 9/11 terrorists. The Times (London), November 7: Hasan attended a radical Virginia mosque attended by two of the 9/11 hijackers.

'We need an ask and tell policy regarding jihadists in our military." TownHall.com, November 7: A commentator argues spiritedly that it defies belief for the US military not to notice when one of its own officers spews anti-American propaganda, pro-jihadist sentiments, and shows all the signs of being part of the enemy camp, yet that same military waits until people are murdered before taking action.

Muslim soldier accused Hasan of extremism; Hasan prosyletized when he should have been treating soldiers. National Public Radio, November 6. As an Army psychologist, Hasan traumatized combat veterans with warnings of Hell if they didn't convert to Islam; a Muslim soldier accused Hasan before the attacks of Islamist extremism, but the Army didn't seem to pay attention.

Hasan gave away belongings, Qurans, just before his killing spree. New York Times, November 6: Hasan seemed at "peace" as he gave away his belongings and copies of the Quran in the day and hours before he launched his terrorist attack, neighbors say. (Curiously, the New York Times illustrates the article with a photo showing a Catholic crucifix in the background.)

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.

Child's play: Explaining why we're in Afghanistan

Some of our key allies are losing heart in Afghanistan. A sizable chunk of the American public is wondering why we're still there. Even some of our troops deploying there don't know exactly what their mission means for the nation. 

Somebody in Washington should explain why the US and its allies are in Afghanistan.

Fortunately, someone is. It isn't the president. And it certainly isn't the public diplomacy shop at the State Department. No, nothing like that. That someone is KidsPost, the children's section of the Washington Post.

KidsPost frames the issue nicely in a headline: "Why the US Fights in Afghanistan." The subtitle: "The President Must Decide If More Troops Should Be Sent to Country Where 9/11 Terrorists Trained."

Margaret Webb Pressler of KidsPost and Post correspondent Rajiv Chandrasekaran do a nice job asking and answering the following questions for the kids:

• Why are US troops in Afghanistan?
• Is there a war in Afghanistan?
• Why has the situation gotten worse there?
• Why does it matter to us what happens in Afghanistan?
• What happens now?
• What about Iraq?

Pretty easy, no? Isn't it something that, say, the State Department's under-worked public diplomacy machinery could be telling our friends and allies around the world? Or that the president could be explaining to the public, now that he's actually met with General McChrystal?

Time is running out. A new BBC poll shows that 56 percent of Britons now oppose their country's military presence in Afghanistan. What meaningful thing has the US done to try to keep British public opinion up? Nothing that I've seen.

Thanks are due to my nine year-old who showed me the story tonight. If a child gets it, can't the president and the secretary of state?

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.

Murtha axes military information operations for FY2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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