Losing the Information Battle
I'm back from Denmark, where I delivered a speech on "How the U.S. Military Shapes Public Opinion on the War in Iraq" at a forum sponsored by Danish Defense Forces, the Danish National Commission for UNESCO, and the Danish Union of Journalists.
The cartoons are still THE issue in Denmark, which hardly seems in keeping with our image of Denmark as a perfect little socialist society with few problems. That image, of course, is wrong. Denmark is a closed society struggling with a Muslim minority that cannot be ignored. It is involved in the in the war against terrorism, and even has troops in Iraq. It's government is intolerant and visionless, and the cartoons seemed intended to insult a powerless minority.
Imagine the shock of living in a small, modern country and watching your flag being burned for the first time in anyone's memory. The shock was so profound that the situation continues to swirl without any resolution, while everyone in Denmark also has a strong opinion on the cartoons and the Muslims: Some think Denmark just needs to learn from the U.S. experience in developing a more civil multicultural dialogue. This seems naive to me, for this little country isn't the United States, the U.S. dialogue is often little more than window dressing anyhow and Denmark's very identity and survival seems incompatible with a melting pot transformation.
We should all be grateful to Jyllands-Posten for provoking the cartoons crisis. The lesson I draw is that for some, there is no melting pot. Denmark could and will probably grow to tolerate and even integrate its four percent minority. Whether Muslim extremists and intolerants will themselves want integration and assimilation isn't clear. In fact, in this stupid war against terrorism, a war that the Bush administration makes look like a war against Islam and a clash of civilizations, the divide is just getter greater.
Here is the full text of my speech:
How the U.S. Military Shapes Public Opinion on the War in Iraq, Presentation of William M. Arkin at the Forum sponsored by the Danish Defense Forces, Danish National Commission for UNESCO, and the Danish Union of Journalists, Copenhagen, Denmark, March 16, 2006:
Last November, I was invited to come to Denmark to speak
about how the United States military shapes public opinion in the war in Iraq.
Based upon what I have been writing over the years, I
imagine most thought I would speak about the evils of the Pentagon's propaganda
machine and the growing information warfare apparatus of the United States.
Four months ago, I also expected to visit den lille andedam.[1]
We live in a world where political cartoons, no matter what
their intent, can unleash riots and killings. We live in a world where Islamic extremists make threats against free
speech in the secular West.
The suggestion has been made by many in response to the
publication of these provocative and inflammatory cartoons that the news media
has some responsibility to exercise self-censorship. I find this notion both dangerous and
wrong-headed.
We long ago earned the right to live without
state-sanctioned truth, and even in time of war, either there is freedom of
speech or there isn't.
I imagine some Danes will argue that freedom of speech as
Americans define it doesn't really exist in Denmark, and for that I am
sorry. On topic though, I worry that the
swirl of political cartoons, a war against terrorism, and the uncertainties
associated with public support for the war in Iraq increasingly propels
Washington and other governments to see the news media as part of the problem,
as part of the enemy.
There are two main currents of thought with regard to this question
of government information warfare as it relates to Iraq and the war against
terrorism.
The first is married to ancient adage that "the first
casualty of war is truth."[2] This was a quotation that was printed on my
invitation to be here -- so I assume the organizers conclude that while much
needs to be done to shape public opinion they also believe that warfare is
dirty business and lying is intrinsic to it.
The assumption then is that the United States is fighting a psychological
and information battle as well as a shooting war, and that by both military
tradition and political temperament, the United States lies in order to win.
The question of government lying in warfare itself produces
two basic concerns:
First, that the psychological warfare directed at others "blows back" into our own democracies, thus distorting our truth.
Second that our enemies can not be convinced of anything if we lie because the truth is more powerful, or so it goes.
The official argument here is that the West has not even
begun to fight, that it is constrained by laws, by ethical standards, by the
slowness of bureaucracies, by old technologies.
There is no question that the emergence of the Internet and
the overall information revolution has changed how we and others think. The 1960's-Marshall McLuhan assumption of a
"global embrace," where information works for the betterment of all,
just seems completely out of date.
One of the key problems is that though it is intrinsic to
Judeo-Christian society that we shall know the truth and the truth shall set us
free, there is no universal shared truth with societies we do not really
understand and are warring against. There is hardly a shared truth even between Europe and the United
States.
What is more, because we assume all we need is truth, we apply an old fashioned model to information warfare, one that fails to recognize how much the world has changed.
During the Cold War, in the pre-Internet and pre-global
commerce world, the information model was simple. If the United States could just show a Soviet
Communist a supermarket in America, they would be amazed at the riches of our
society, overwhelmed with what the free market could produce, convinced of the
superiority of capitalism over communism.
Many thought the West's abundance was merely a Potempkin
village disguising the social rot underneath. Many in our own societies believed that.
But there was enough evidence to show that Communists saw
the truth. Here is what Boris Yeltsin wrote
in his autobiography Against the Grain
even about a 1989 visit to a Houston supermarket. He expressed astonishment at the abundance
and variety. He describes the experience
as "shattering":
"When I saw those shelves
crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons, and goods of every possible
sort, for the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the Soviet
people. That such a potentially super-rich country as ours has been brought to
a state of such poverty!"
What they see are the contradictions inside societies over
wealth and an encroaching and voracious West, with Islamic society and religion
under assault. Abundance is as much seen
as proof of the decadence of America and the West as it is seen as any
aspiration for the masses.
Even when the statistics about Arab society are used by
reasonable folk to make the argument for "moderates" in the Arab
world to turn away from extremism -- that less than one book a year is
translated into Arabic per million people, compared to over 1000 per million in
developed nations, that Arab spending on research and development or education
lags behind the rest of the world, that there are only 18 computers per 1000
citizens compared to a global average of 78.3 -- even when these facts are put
forth, it is both a kind of insult and a threat.
Probably to more Muslims than we would like to admit, modern
Western society itself represents secularism and globalism with a threat of the
eventual dilution and disappearance of Islamic religion and society.
It used to be the case that political scientists offered elaborate theories and evidence that no country with a McDonalds ever attacked another country with a McDonalds. In today's world, it is the very McDonalds and the mc-culture that is under attack.
Terrorists and extremists are not the target of Western
psychological warfare nonetheless. Information battles seek to create fissures between extremists and the
common Muslim population. Terrorists
rely on their ability to garner active or tacit support from the population in
which they live. Psychological
operations seek to disseminate what the Pentagon calls "truth and
facts" to counter propaganda, to influence behavior and to erode the
attraction of extremist ideologies.
But here again, it seems like both the task and the method
is approached in an old fashioned way. There is a long history of psychological operations being successful on
the battlefield, where leaflet dropping and broadcasts and "facts and
truth" have influenced soldiers to surrender, have warned and comforted
the civilian population, have provided instructions to the enemy.
The leaflet approach was successful during the Afghan and
Iraqi elections in communicating with the population, in providing instructions
and reassurances. But does the
dissemination of truthful information as part of a "strategic"
psychological campaign make sense. If we
drop enough web sites on the heads of Muslim society, will anyone's mind be
changed?
The easy answer here -- the one that reasonable people in
officialdom from Copenhagen to Washington to the United Nations seem to agree
on -- is that if the good governments would just be more candid and skillful in
their communications, if governments would make themselves more accountable, if
there were less secrecy and more explanations of government limitations and
failings, if governments would admit just once in a while that they make
mistakes, if government and the military would just do a better job at
explaining themselves, then good people would see the light.
Add to the "reasonable" answer one more in the
aftermath of the Danish cartoons: If the news media would just more
responsible...
The assumption here is that those who hate us -- those who
hate the West and what it represents -- would hate us less and have far less
sympathy and support for the armies of extreme Islam if we were just more
modest and sensitive.
I find this argument increasingly unconvincing and naïve, particularly given the degree of hate and mistrust that exists in our own societies. We do not even have sympathy or compassion for our own brothers.
I say evil in describing the United States and the
activities of the secret services of the West not because I believe that they
are evil, but merely to make the point that normal people tend to come to the
conclusion that the U.S. or their own government is evil because they also live
under a delusion that those same governments are in control.
Let us examine this proposition: Despite the failures of the
Clinton administration to effectively fight terrorism in the 1990's, despite
the failure of the Bush administration to detect and prevent the attacks of
September 11, despite the mess that has been created in Iraq by the most
powerful military in the world, despite a manhunt that can not find Osama bin
Laden, despite a war against terrorism that can not prevent terrorist attacks
in London, Madrid or elsewhere, despite all of the evidence of government
failure and ineptitude, most people shape their opinion of America assuming
that the United States government knows everything and has some master plan.
Hollywood contributes powerful imagery to this view. The secret services are listening in on our
phone calls, opening the mail, reading license plates from space. With a few strokes of the keyboard, they know
where you are and have pictures of your neighbors. They know the name of your dog.
In this world of assumed omniscience, people are pretty
convinced that things happen because the United States makes them happen: When a Chinese Embassy in Belgrade is bombed,
how could it be anything other than on purpose?
And thus when the U.S. government completely and utterly
misreads Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and the true threat he
represents, it must be a conspiracy.
In this world, the United States created Osama bin Laden and
lets him continue to live in order to perpetuate war.
Even the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon
themselves are secret operations of either the United States government or
Israel or the oil companies or Dick Cheney, all to start a war against Islam in
the first place.
Add to all of this the impact of the Internet, where the
superabundance of information has done little to increase clarity or
understanding. Internet searches yield
an intractable number of results, the quality of which is completely
random. Any answer is out there and
there is a growing assumption of a quality of equivalence that should be
applied to all views.
So while we live in a world of almost unlimited media, where
distances and time are greatly compressed, where borders have been broken down
and voice has been given to tens or hundreds of millions, we are also facing an
epidemic of confusion and mistrust and intolerance.
President Bush certainly doesn't help matters when he
himself reveals that the battle of "good versus evil" is his own
worldview.
Add to this the general and alarmingly
increasing proclivities of the United States government and its various war
partners to hide behind the veil of secrecy. The war on terrorism by necessity makes greater use of special
operations, and covert operations, and the secret services and involves secret
weapons and capabilities and secret bases and sensitive agreements with foreign
nations.
But all of this secrecy leaves much too much for the
imagination:
When faced therefore with the swirl of news, rumor,
conspiracies and innuendo, the faithful in our society comfort themselves
through their belief that governments are out there fighting, that they the
citizens don't need to know, and that the media shouldn't reveal.
The reasonable meanwhile just want improvement and common ownership to fight the battle most efficiently, to find some almost religious balance between secrecy and effectiveness. They use the news media leaking and arguing for supremacy of whatever their plan or mode of operation is.
None of these groups, the faithful, the reasonable, or the
skeptics knows what the best way to fight terrorism is. Nor do they really know what the impact of
all of this has had on the so-called "street."
Take for instance, the story that came out in December that
the United States was planting stories in the Iraqi press and paying
journalists to write positive stories. The faithful got mad at the media for revealing it. The skeptics expressed outrage at the program
itself. The reasonable asked how it was
that United States could build democracy in Iraq, spending millions to train
journalists in Western media ethics, while at the same time paying off
journalists to plant these stories.
Each group reacted, as it normally does, according to the
script. But we forgot to consider the
targets.
The Iraqis, they just shrugged. These things goes on all the time, they were
quoted as saying.
And those who hate us, what did they think? It was just more evidence that states say one
thing and do another, that there is a master plan for world domination, that
the West is not to be trusted in either its motivations or its practices.
We are told by our governments that this is not a clash of
civilizations. We are told that this is
not a war against Islam.
Yet we are also told that this is the fight of our lifetime
and that our liberties and societies are at risk. "We are fighting a battle where the
survival of our free way of life is at stake," Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld said just last month.
The suggestion here, of course, is that terrorist threats,
particularly terrorist threats with weapons of mass destruction, are so grave
that we need to strengthen our internal security and intelligence and special
operations apparatus. We are told that
our media and civil institutions must change and adapt to accommodate the new
realities of this long war. We are told
that we must give up some of our liberties to preserve them.
Whether any of these propositions are valid or not is beside the point: The suggestion of great sacrifice on our part suggests a threat that is so great that it must be a clash of civilizations. Otherwise, why would we have to make all of these changes and all of these sacrifices to fight a few tens or even hundreds of thousands of terrorists worldwide?
Just a month ago, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld gave a major
speech on information war, where he said that some of the most critical battles
of the war on terrorism are being waged in the newsrooms, where the West has
"barely even begun to compete."
Rumsfeld speaks ominously of "media relations
committees" set up by terrorist organizations and of success terrorists
and extremists are having "manipulating opinion elites."
Rumsfeld speaks of media outlets with "immature" or non-existing standards and of satellite news channels in the Arab world that are "extremely hostile to the West" all poisoning the Muslim people's view of us.
"Quite simply," Donald Rumsfeld says, "truth
is on our side -- and that ultimately, truth wins out."
Mr. Rumsfeld, who has no problem asserting an "old
Europe" and a "new Europe," who speaks of military
transformation as if he is a sage and a futurist, who speaks of everything
changing in the world after 9/11, seems completely and utterly stuck in the old
assumption when it comes to information warfare, truth will win.
To Mr. Rumsfeld then, it is all about a better apparatus: a
24/7 public affairs operation that reacts quicker, an information warfare build-up,
communications at the core of planning every military operation, new
technologies.
To Rumsfeld, the medium is the message. Since truth is unquestionable and war is the only
answer, what the actual message is isn't relevant of even considered. Rumsfeld doesn't have to ask the more
difficult questions: He doesn't have to
ponder why so many of our friends hate the United States, let alone so many in
the Arab and Islamic worlds. He doesn't
have to ask what it is that those who hate the United States and the West want.
In Rumsfeld's world, al Jazeera and other news media that are
hostile to the United States or the West are an element of the enemy.
It is not hard to see how this mindset can also conclude that
the Western media -- say for instance when it questions or reveals the methods
of the war against terrorism -- are collaborators as well.
The Secretary of Defense has also addressed this question
recently. Exaggerated reporting, he
says, is giving the American people a false picture of what is happening in
Iraq. "It isn't as though there
simply have been a series of random errors on both sides of issues,"
Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon press conference earlier this month. "The steady stream of errors," he
said, "all seem to be of a nature to inflame the situation and to give
heart to the terrorists and to discourage those who hope for success in
Iraq."
Getting the message across here isn't just then about doing better. His suggestion is that the media is somehow intentionally not telling the truth or providing a fair picture. Rumsfeld doesn't particularly make the distinction between al Jazeera and western media. He says that the will of the American people is the center of gravity for the war on terror.
It's understandable why he's worried. Barely 30 percent of the American population supports the current effort in Iraq.
So it is not blow back from foreign propaganda and information warfare directed at the Islamic world that is the greatest danger at home; it is the government's perception that it needs to fight an information war against its own media and that it needs to propagandize and manipulate its own populace.
We are talking about information warfare, so the question in
the end is: What is it that the American government wants to war about? It clearly wants to separate so-called
"moderate" Muslims from extremists. Intrinsic to this, in its mind, is conveying a non-threatening picture
of America, stressing freedom and democracy and contrasting freedoms with a
dark world that Islamic extremists supposedly seek to create.
I would like to believe the government when it says that it
is not engaging in a clash of civilizations, that it is just trying to draw a
larger divide between basically good people and extremists.
I have little faith though, even with the new found interest
in strategic communications and information warfare and the government's
admission that it must do more that we are either operating from the correct
assumptions about what is needed, that we understand the information landscape
we live in, that we understand our enemies, and finally, whether the military
as an institution is either suited or competent to wage a global battle for
hearts and minds.
In the post-cartoon world, there is not just an atmosphere
of intolerance and mistrust that is alarming. There is a fundamental misstatement that the news
media is part of the problem. Al Jazeera
is the problem. Jyllands-Posten is the problem. The
Washington Post is the problem. The
suggestion is that the news media and the enemy can be one and the same. Here unfortunately, the U.S. government and
the extremists themselves seem to agree. That is the greatest threat to our society and
our future.
[1] For English speakers, this is a Danish expression meaning "the little duck pond," a phrase borrowed from H.C. Andersen's "The Ugly Duckling."
[2]
The quotation is normally
attributed to isolationist Republican Senator Hiram W. Johnson from a speech he
made in 1917 (he served in the Senate until August 6, 1945). See also Aeschylus, the Greek tragic
dramatist (525 BC-456 BC), who wrote "In war, truth is the first
casualty." The Chinese fifth
century general Sun Tzu also said that "All warfare is based on deception."
By William M. Arkin |
March 20, 2006; 8:30 AM ET
Information Warfare
Previous: Blog on Vacation |
Next: Iraq: Experts are Part of the Problem
Posted by: Chris Ford | March 23, 2006 7:28 PM
"CHE" is a low-IQ Trotskyite of the 4th Internationale who SPAMMS any open Forum he can find in the Internet with his OT SPAM.
He had been banned in several Forums, but still infests WP blogs.
Over at Messner's "The Debate" he became so troublesome and resistant to other posters about his refusal to follow US copyright law and do on topic posting he has been curtailed by the Webmaster.
Arkin....Notify the WP Webmaster and your being hijacked by "CHE" days will be over soon.
Posted by: Chris Ford | March 23, 2006 7:27 PM
I understand that you caved into this administration's will by printing what they want you to and not the truth. If things in Iraq are so good, why are we still there? Why are things worse instead of better. Does W know the meaning of progress? Do you know the meaning of free speach? Whatever; I now know not to believe anything printed in the Washington Post.
Posted by: Mary Lou Czupek | March 23, 2006 5:16 PM
The author is right. The war on terrorism really is "stupid." The Cole? The Kenyan and Tanzanian embassies? We should try to understand and sympathize with the grievances of the billionaire playboy terrorist. After all, Islam is such a beautiful, peaceful religion, we should all be simply too willing and delighted to live under it, as is the stated aim of the "extremists" (love the scare quotes!). Bali? London? Madrid? Well, what should Western capitalist pigs expect? The World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania on September 11? A tempest in a teapot if ever there was one. Heaven knows, proper nations don't respond to attacks by rounding up the enemy, killing them when possible, dismantling their infrastructure, freezing their funding, and destroying the regimes that support them. Perish the thought. That is, well, "stupid." If only our political leaders and our troops had one-tenth the sophistication and moral probity of Mr. Arkin, we would all have it made.
Posted by: annie | March 23, 2006 4:32 PM
I found the speech a bit too wandering. And does the media have a persecution complex or what? The Republicans are out to get them, the Dems are out to get them, the extremist are out to get them - none of it is ever the media's doing. The media would like to be known as the fourth estate but does not want to take on the responsibilities such a title bestows. People in the media would like to be on the frontline from 8 to 5 and then go home and live with their families quietly. Very noble indeed, but not realistic.
Like the President or Hillary Clinton, the media is on the frontlines in the battle. And like the President and Hillary Clinton the media in the age of "New Media" must expect to get attacked from all sides. Is it fair? Well, think of it this way. Think of a football player you absolutely loathe. Randy Moss or Kerry Collins or whoever. Now think about all the things you know about his personal life. His salary, where he works, potentially where he lives, how many kids he has, has he ever spent time in jail or been in trouble with the law - is it really fair for a football player to face the level of scrutiny he faces just because he chooses to catch a pass for a living? Probably not. But it is the reality of the situation. And Mr Arkin, the Washington Post, NYT and everyone else better get use to the reality of the situation in regards to the media, because it isn't changing.
From now on every article you write will be labeled conservative or liberal. Every statement you make will be fact checked and thrown into your faces. These kind of "check and balances" are always painful, but in the long run they will produce a better product. What is essential here is that the media once had the position of ultimate fact checker, but it has lost that position. First from conservative broadcasters on the right, then from liberal bloggers on the left (who seem to annoy the Post more than anything) and now from the very people they cover - the administration and the Democrats. No longer will they let the media be sole proprietor of "truth". This shift obviously upsets people who have spent 10, 20, 30 years in the news business. Its a new world, but there is no turning back.
Posted by: Mike | March 23, 2006 2:06 PM
I make a point of buying Danish cheese and other products now, standing up for freedom with the Danes.
Posted by: Will in Seattle | March 23, 2006 11:29 AM
The americans and the europeans cannot understand the intolerance of ISLAM.See in socalled lliberated Afghanistan a Muslim cannot convert to christianity.It is not afgghnistan which is the issue here or its constitution.ISLAM IS THE ISSUE.If a muslim leaves Islam he should be killed.It is as simple as that.All along they have been killing INFIDELS and america was complasccent.It even created Bosnia by bisecting yugoslavia.It created turkish cyprus by bisecting cyprus.In saudiarabia a hindu cannot even imigrate , even transit carrying his idols which he worships.
Posted by: captain johann | March 23, 2006 9:45 AM
Looks like this post is dead. Either
1) folks have given up on the debate over America's, because their positions are shallow, or
2) Arkin's absence somehow affected readership numbers.
Whatever the case, I generally agree with Rara, Arkin, your speech in Denmark leaves a lot to be wished for. Your message is incoherent. I do agree with you, that the media IS NOT the problem. Al-Jazeera, Jyllands Post, they must remaind, be, and remain free. Muzzling the media, means muzzling democratic debate. Al-Jazeera was hated by Arab regimes until the Rumsfeld made it popular... but still, Arkin doesn't offer any ideas.
So how about some.
I'll venture some.
Problem NUMBER ONE for US communication strategy: our people's ignorance of themselves and the world.
The islamists depend on large networks of bloggers, speakers, demagogues (mostly ordinary people)who depredate the US and the West, and promote accusations of "islamophobia" and in fact rationalize their Jihad against the West, by misrepresenting the invasion of Iraq, and America's support for Israel, as a deliberate Christian invasion of Islam. They don't call their views jihadist, but that's what they are. They crate a straw man argument that the West is out to get them, and hence they are legitimate in attacking the West in terms of self-defence, which is in fact a "Struggle" against the West, hence "jihad".
I agree with Arkin, that Islam is in fact threatened by Globalization. In that instance, it does have a Jihad to wage. If it wants to win, however, it should wage it against its barbarism, not against our progress. It shoudl get its laws in order (abolish Sharia) end Islamic endogamy and Islam's monopoly on Truth, reform its banking laws, give preeminance to economic, and social policies over cultural and religious; i.e. follow Turkeys' example and secularize the state, provide protection of religious minorities in their own countries, etc. That is Islam's Jihad.
As things stand, the West is facing an enemy which has succesfully convinced the West of the West's own evil, and makes the above message, impossible to communicate.
It is clear, that the vast majority of these pro-Islamicist bloggers, reps, are unwitting Americans and Western leftists, who not simply share the Islamists hate of Western social institutions, but basically formulate the Islamicist message. THis isn't a testament to the influence of Chomsky or William Blum, but the rule of ignorance in the Western mind.
Westerners are clearly ignorant of the state of the world, and do not understand the awesome state of their culture's achievement. They have no appreciation for the democracy in their own countries.
How can we commmunicate the power of democracy, and freedom, if we do not understand it ourselves, and do not value it?
So before we evin begin blogging in America's and the West's name, we should learn to appreciate what we have. We need to understand what we have. We have a unique system, which allows internal self-criticism.
That is what Russia, Saudi Arabia, China, currently do not have. The USSR, for all its praiseworthy social achievements, stiffled public criticism.
As long as there are American's who trully believe that the freedom available in America to criticize America, our social policies, our politics, our distribution of wealth, is/was EQUALED by the USSR, China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, or Pinochet's Chile, the Islamicist message will prevail.
To recap, I am suggesting that 1) We begin to value our freedom, understand it, and understand other counties, their poverty and their lack of democracy. 2) Blogger networks with a unified message, begin to counter the current misunderstanding that the US is no different from a theocracy, dictatorship, etc. by describing to the world the type of freedom we have in America, and how this advantages us economically.
I am NOT suggesting that America or the West is perfect. What I am suggesting is a communicaiton strategy, based on a knowledge of the benefits we enjoy in the West.
Posted by: lady anne | March 22, 2006 3:40 AM
There have been NUMEROUS muslim cartoons that mock the Holocaust, and they are not just a recent outbreak. This has been going on for a long time. So I don't think anyone has the right to be crying over spilt milk here, so to speak.
Posted by: James | March 21, 2006 2:31 PM
Freedom and Islam
http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fuj/latimes9.htm
Go and take a course in world history, before comparing Western democracies to totalitarian regimes.
Where Arkin is concerned: the claim that Danes are visionless and narrowminded.
That's what you are Arkin, visionless and narrowminded. You can't even get your message straight. Your mind is as muddled as those you ridicule. What is your stand, your position, your take?
Are you clever by pooh pooing Rumsfeld for pointing out that the media need to be more responsible, and in the same article calling the Danish government visionless? Isn't it inane of you to prove by your own example what visionlessness means?
Yes, the media is the problem, because people like Arkin want to be both PC, and critical. They have no message, no ideas to argue for. They can only critize, and labbel. That is a problem, because it means that our media recycles callow poserism, second-rate comformist opinions, and then runs from responsibilities.
And then the brave self-haters possible only in the very freedom that bred them.
You guys are literaly LOOOSERS. Litearly.
Posted by: against arkin | March 21, 2006 6:01 AM
No, you brighheads will just blame yourselves, your government, your culture, for provoking, oppressing, and exploiting, those who attack you, and then b--ch about not having freedom of speach, living under repression
Posted by: rara | March 21, 2006 5:57 AM
Because you know that if you so much as try to suggest that Islam is currently being radicalized, you're racist, islamophobic, yadayada.
Posted by: rara | March 21, 2006 5:56 AM
Taking on reactionary Islam, is too much for you PC minded blogheads. If islamofacism lobbed a brick in your face, youd say nada, or blame Bush.
Posted by: rara | March 21, 2006 5:56 AM
You are sooo cool for criticizing the government, the president, our army, our way of thinking. That takes a lot of courage, since it is soldiers dying for this right, not you.
Posted by: rara | March 21, 2006 5:55 AM
THE MOVIE OF THE YEAR!!!!!!!!!
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www.onlinejournal.com
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www.wsws.org
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/
March 20/21, 2006 -- Its not often that a film can affect the body politic of a nation. But that is the effect of the movie released on St. Patrick's Day, V for Vendetta. Set in a near future England ruled by a Conservative Party government-turned-fascist, the hero, a horribly burned escaped political prisoner named "V" who dons a Guy Fawkes mask, cape, hat, and has an array of fancy weapons (sort of a Zorro, Phantom of the Opera, and Batman clone), blows up London's Old Bailey judicial building and the Houses of Parliament as an act of vengeance for the genocide and political repression carried out by the fascist government. As a historical note, Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up Parliament in 1605 with gunpowder in a plot involving Catholics and Spain. He was caught and hanged but soon became a folk hero to England's working class and Guy Fawkes Day is celebrated with fireworks every November 5. [Note to royalist Anglophiles: yes, I understand that many Britons burn Guy Fawkes in effigy on Nov, 5, but many Britons also celebrate his almost feat with fireworks. I've been to Britain too many times during the festival and know what Fawkes means to those who despise the pederasts and imbeciles who make up the British Royal Family and the House of Lords/House of Commons. It's too bad Fawkes did not succeed in blowing the monarchy and Parliament to hell and back in 1605 . . . there would have never been a Puritan/Pilgrim invasion of North America with all of the concomitant religious idiocy and paranoia we experience today -- which means that George W. Bush would likely presently be a bestial sheepherder on some Shropshire farm].
What has our own fascist right wing media hopping mad are the references to the Bush regime and its wars. One political dissident in the movie has a secret room displaying banned art and posters. One of the posters is from the anti- Iraq war London protests -- it displays a U.S. flag and U.K. flag inter-connected by a swastika with the words "Coalition of the Willing." There are references to a civil war- and virus-ravaged "former United States" that has engaged not only in the actual war in Iraq but wars in Syria and Kurdistan. There are comments about America's rendition and there are plenty of black hoods thrown on the heads of political detainees and "yellow" terrorist alerts. Not only has TV come under total fascist control, but Britain's Royal Mail has been privatized and turned into the "British Freight Co." There is also a reference to a genocide carried out by the English fascists in Ireland and it may not have been totally coincidental that a film focusing on an English fascist government's repression of freedom fighters was released on St. Patrick's Day.
The Conservative Party reaches ultimate power by unleashing a virus on Britain killing thousands. It turns out that leading members of the Conservative Party own stock in the pharmaceutical firms that have the vaccine drugs and enrich themselves in the process. Several top officials of the Bush regime have interests in various pharmaceutical firms involved with anthrax, smallpox, and avian flu vaccines --including Donald Rumsfeld, the former CEO of G.D. Searle [sold to Monsanto] -- and V for Vendetta's references to avian flu as a government attempt to hype the media and bamboozle the public is another clear link between the film's anti-fascist message and the Bush/Tony Blair governments.
Britain's near future features a Fox/Sky News type propaganda news network called "British Television Network." Its major racist, right-wing blatherer also happens to enjoy romping around in a specially-built shower in his office (hmmm... I wonder who that might really be?). There is also the bald, pudgy, and thoroughly revolting top assistant and chief dirty tricks operative to the fascist High Chancellor (hmmm...again, I wonder who that could be?). And then there is the English Bishop who happens to like little girls (well, that could be any of our so-called "moral majority" religious leaders, except in some cases, little boys could be substituted for little girls).
In the end, all these fiends are eliminated, one by one, by our man "V." And this is what probably, more than anything else, has the right-wing defecating in their pants. They know that one day they will face a reckoning for the damage they've done to the United States, to Iraq, to the United Nations process and international law, and to peoples and nations around the world. And that reckoning will be far from a slap on the wrists and the right-wing is beginning to wake up to that fact. Some on the right now understand they overplayed their hand and are trying to change their spots.
The left has always been tolerant to a point. But pushed against the wall, the progressives of the world have always discovered how to treat their vanquished enemies -- just look at what happened to Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Julius Streicher, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Pierre Laval, Vidkun Quisling, and other fascist leaders of the 20th century.
V has one bit of advice that is already echoing around the Internet: "People shouldn't be afraid of their government, government should be afraid of their people."
V
It looks like there will be a run on Guy Fawkes masks and maybe quite a few red spray painted "Vs" on various public adverts and walls. And why not? Let neo-con governments and their operatives and lickspittles everywhere know that with a blossoming of red "Vs" that we the people do understand and neo-con governments and their right-wing supporters should be very afraid of the people.
Already, the right-wing, including blogs like Town Hall, Men's News Daily, and WorldNetDaily, are attacking the film, calling it, among other things, pro-terrorist, pro-homosexual, neo-Marxist, anti-Christian, and left-wing pro-Islamo-fascist (by the way, co-star Natalie Portman is Israeli born). Someone named Ted Baehr, writing for WorldNetDaily, called Britain's Parliament, blown up by V in the movie, "Western Civilization's most enduring symbols of democracy and republican government." That's funny, last time this editor went to Britain, I distinctly remember the country being a monarchy. But history is not a strong suit among the right-wing. Their hero, George W. Bush, can't even read a history book although he's probably listened to the book-on-tape version of Mein Kampf.
The right-wing has plenty to be worried about with the movie V for Vendetta. They will first see the push back in the November elections (and woe be it to them if they once again engage in election fraud). And upon electoral victory will inevitably come the indictments, trials, impeachments, imprisonments, electoral recalls, and, if need be, deportations, or as they called them during the days of Guy Fawkes, banishment.
Posted by: che | March 21, 2006 5:53 AM
Contractors Hired to Subvert Bill of Rights
Monday March 20th 2006, 11:35 am
In November of last year, Walter Pincus, writing for the CIA's favorite newspaper, the Washington Post, told us about the Pentagon's CIFA, short for Counterintelligence Field Activity, "a little-known Pentagon agency" that has the "authority to investigate crimes within the United States such as treason, foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage." At the time, a presidential commission, chaired by Laurence H. Silberman and former senator Charles S. Robb, was working to grant CIFA a carte blanc on "domestic criminal investigations and clandestine operations against potential threats inside the United States," in other words "new counterespionage and law enforcement authorities," overturning a 2003 Defense Department directive that prevented CIFA from engaging in "law enforcement activities" such as "the investigation, apprehension, or detention of individuals suspected or convicted of criminal offenses against the laws of the United States" as part of "offensive and defensive counterintelligence efforts."
It should be noted that Silberman is an ardent Straussian neocon, co-chair the so-called Iraq intelligence commission, a member of the secret FISA court, a cover-up artist for Reagan's "October Surprise" and Iran-Contra, and a member of the Federalist Society, a small clique of neocon legal professionals funded by CIA operative Richard Scaife. In short, with Silberman acting as advocate and caretaker for CIFA, we can expect the agency to subvert dissent--for, as Leo Strauss instructed his acolytes, "the rule of the wise [the neocons] must be absolute rule" and of course under such an autocratic system dissent is not only dangerous, it is seditious.
In a follow-up published in the Washington Post today, we learn that CIFA is jobbing work out to death merchants such as Lockheed Martin, "a growing trend at the Pentagon to contract out intelligence jobs that were formerly done primarily by service personnel and civil service employees," Pincus writes. "The trend toward contracting for intelligence analysts will hurt the ability of the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency to retain and keep high-quality people, said a former senior intelligence official who helped supervise the rebuilding of the CIA's case officer and analyst corps.... CIFA Director David A. Burtt II said in a recent interview that 70 percent of his agency's work is handled by contractors," thus taking a large portion of CIFA intelligence activity off the books. Pincus insists on slanting his story toward the "brain drain" aspect of the move toward contractors. However, the privatization of "intelligence gathering" and the complete lack of accountability should be of more concern.
As we know, a CIFA database, known by its codename TALON (Threat and Local Observation Notice), contains "raw information" about "suspicious incidents," as the neocon Paul Wolfowitz put it, for instance a small gathering of demonstrators outside of Halliburton headquarters in Houston, Texas, on June 23, 2004. "CIFA researchers [increasingly privatized] apparently cast a wide net and had a number of surveillance methods--both secretive and mundane--at their disposal," Newsweek reported in January. The CIFA database contains "unsubstantiated reports submitted by informants on the activities of citizens and residents of the US," explains Barry Grey. "There is no public accounting for what happens to this information once it has entered the military intelligence data network. The number of Talon reports is itself classified."
"An internal CIFA PowerPoint slide presentation recently obtained by William Arkin, a former U.S. Army intelligence analyst who writes widely about military affairs, gives some idea how the group operated. The presentation, which Arkin provided to Newsweek, shows that CIFA analysts had access to law-enforcement reports and sensitive military and U.S. intelligence documents" and also trolled the internet. "Truly, if you're secretly plotting to commit acts of terrorism against the American military, among the first things you'll do are stage a public protest [known as the "peanut butter'' demonstration] outside a military recruitment office and/or put up an anti-government web page," writes a sarcastic poster going by the name Hannibal on the Ars Technica forum. "I believe that's on the first slide of the Al Qaeda 'So You Want to Be a Terrorist' PowerPoint presentation. It's in the section titled, 'On the importance of blending in with local radicals, dissidents, and other persons likely to be targeted by the feds.'"
On February 15, 2006, during debate on the reauthorization of the Patriot Act, Senator Byrd, one of a small number of Congress critters opposed to the decimation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, had the following inserted in the Congressional Record: "Are secret Government programs that spy on American citizens proliferating? The question is not, is Big Brother watching? The question is, how many big brothers have we? ... I have become increasingly concerned about dangers to the people's liberty. I believe that both current law and the Constitution may have been violated, not just once, not twice, but many times, and in ways that the Congress and the American people may never know because of this White House and its penchant for control and secrecy."
Tim Shorrock, writing for Mother Jones, explains how "intelligence contractors operate in a world where budgets are classified and many activities--from covert operations to foreign eavesdropping--are conducted in secret. Even the bidding for intelligence contracts is often classified. As a result, there is virtually no oversight of the intelligence community and its corporate partners."
In the 1960s, the Pentagon and the CIA employed this veil of secrecy to "pull off burglaries, illegal entries, use of explosives, criminal frame-ups, shared interrogations, and disinformation" of the civil rights and antiwar movements, according to former CIA undercover operative Verne Lyon. "Given the power granted to the office of the presidency and the unaccountability of the intelligence agencies, widespread illegal domestic operations are certain." In June, 1970, Nixon told the Pentagon, FBI, and CIA "he wanted a coordinated and concentrated effort against domestic dissenters," an effort that resulted in Operation CHAOS and a continuation of COINTELPRO.
In March, 1971, "a group of young CIA executives known as the Management Advisory Group" went public with their opposition to Operation CHAOS and other snoop and subversion programs, partially responsible for the Church Committee investigations in the mid-70s.
However, we shouldn't expect this level of patriotic opposition to the subversion of the Bill of Rights on the part of "intelligence contractors," more interested in profit and the bottom line than protecting the Constitution.
Posted by: CHE | March 21, 2006 5:05 AM
www.onlinejournal.com
www.wsws.org
www.takingaim.info
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=ax5zMpDKuMkM
Dubai's $1.2 Bln Bid for U.S. Weapons Maker Delayed (Update2)
By James Cordahi
March 20 (Bloomberg) -- Dubai, which agreed this month to sell its interest in U.S. ports, said its $1.2 billion takeover of a U.K. company with U.S. plants that make military equipment is delayed while the authorities investigate security concerns.
Dubai International Capital LLC, which is owned by the government of the Persian Gulf emirate, and Doncasters Group Ltd. agreed to delay the transaction by as many as two months from March 31 while government agencies review the purchase, Sameer Al Ansari, Dubai International's chief executive, said in an interview today.
``After what happened with Dubai Ports, the government is looking at this deal more closely,'' Al Ansari said after a press conference in Dubai announcing an agreement with HSBC Holdings Plc.
Dubai's bid may ignite a similar political furor in the U.S. to that the emirate's purchase of London-based Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. caused last month when DP World had to agree to sell interests in six U.S. terminals. Revenue from Doncasters' nine U.S. plants, which make parts for tanks and military aircraft, account for about 40 percent of total sales.
The derailing of the ports plan was a setback for President George W. Bush, who was rebuffed by fellow Republicans and stung by polls that showed strong public opposition to the sale. Dubai is one of seven sheikdoms making up the United Arab Emirates, from where two of the hijackers involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks came.
The Committee on Foreign Investment, a federal body which considers the sale of U.S. assets to foreign companies, started a more detailed 45-day investigation into the Doncasters agreement at the end of February, said Al Ansari.
Al Ansari declined to comment on whether the transaction will go through.
Dubai Investments
Dubai International last year spent $1 billion for a stake in DaimlerChrysler AG and 800 million pounds ($1.4 billion) for Tussauds Group, owner of London's Madame Tussauds waxworks museum.
Doncasters, which is based in Melbourne, England, has plants in Rincon, Georgia; Groton, Connecticut, and other U.S. sites. Its customers include Boeing Co. and General Electric Co., according to information on its Web site.
Gulf Arab governments, flush with record oil revenue, are spending billions of dollars on companies from South Korea to the U.S.
Kuwait's state-controlled PWC Logistics, which won a U.S. military contract last year worth as much as $14 billion to feed troops in Iraq, agreed in July to buy Santa Ana, California-based GeoLogistics Corp. for $454 million. GeoLogistics is an international freight management company with operations in more than 100 countries, according to its Web site.
Posted by: che | March 21, 2006 4:21 AM
If the US/west was at all interested in formulating a message to be directed toward Muslims who either support 'extremists' or who may decide to support 'extremists' (moderates), they would have demonstrated the courage required to directly respond to the positions/arguments being presented and promoted by the 'extremists' - about the actions of the US/west, past and present, throughout the ME.
Too difficult? Wouldn't want to 'legitimize' them or their arguments? Their arguments are not 'rational'? Their arguments are not only being accepted in some circles but they also appear to be accepted as quite rational in those circles. And, these groups have already been legitimized by US/western governments by virtue of their recognition of them with regard to the war on terror. And 'moderate' Muslims? While they may not support 'extremism', they may indeed experience feelings of anti-American/western sentiment for reasons that are shared by them with the 'extremists'. If the US/west wants the attention of the 'moderates', try answering the 'extremists', issue for issue and line by line.
If the 'extremists' are winning the propaganda/information war, it is because they have worked hard to do so but more importantly, it is because the US/west is not willing to respond publicly to certain issues, let alone try to defend its actions at certain times in history. However, this is no excuse for its' cooperative silence on these issues. Even if 'extremists' are not interested in any answers from the US/west, 'moderates' may be very interested in hearing about the US/west's positions on these matters. Additionally, they might also like to know whether the US/west's positions/policies have changed or evolved in any way over the years. Unless/until the US/west chooses to address those issues publicly, expect the 'extremists' to continue to win, and rightfully so, because of the US/west's voluntary state of silence.
As has already been observed, 'spin' will not serve to win this 'war'. The 'extremists' have set the bar quite high and have already identified the issues relevant to the discussion. The US/west can either address the issues being used to justify 'extremism', which are very close to those that support anti-western sentiment, or simply continue to allow others to define the game. The US/west's campaign for 'hearts and minds' doesn't exist. This game is about the issues - and the US/west's 'team' hasn't even managed to locate the starting line.
**
I was pleased to see that Mr. Rumsfeld discovered that history, and not bloggers, will determine the success, or non-success, of the Iraqi conflict. His penchant for personally discovering, processing, and then publicly presenting obvious facts was stunning.
Whole-heartedly appreciated his attempted 'put down' of millions of bloggers, worldwide. Feel badly that he isn't tuned in, though. Bloggers could have assisted him in making his 'discovery' about the relationship between history and Iraq much, much sooner.
Posted by: redcat | March 21, 2006 1:21 AM
Actions speak louder than words.
We preach freedom and democracy, but we indiscriminately round up civilians and abuse them in Iraq.
We are proud of the rule of law, while detaining and abusing people at Guanantamo without even charging them for a crime.
We boast of our free press, while persecuting the reporters who broke the news that the President was spying on Americans.
We chide China for restricting Internet searches, while demanding that Google surrender its records about Americans.
We decry the Belarus election, while not even investigating 'irregularities' in our own 2004 election.
I'm getting the message, and so is the rest of the world. And no amount of well-intentined propaganda is going to change that message.
Posted by: Alan Kaltman | March 21, 2006 12:58 AM
The problem is Americans are unable to hide their hypocrisy. Consider the "offensiveness" of a cartoon; and contrast that with the "no big problem" with a DNS-attack. It depends on what you value. If you value accountability you may answer one way; if you value justification for abuse of power, you may answer another. One man's cartoon is another man's webs site defacement. It merely depends on whether the conduct has or has not been officially sanctioned. In the case of America, it violates the law, then retroactively validates and ratifies violations of the law.
The US likes to talk about principles it does not practice: The Congress asserts judicial review to avoid a court review of the President's conduct. Will there be a review of the real reasons for the reaction to the cartoons? Surely, if the cartoons were -- alone -- the cause of the outrage, how do we explain the demonstrations occurring in Syria, but not Egypt?
The west did what it did over the UAE deal: Divert attention from the unlawful NSA activity, and excuses Congress is giving to assent to the unlawful violation of statute. There is a difference between power and ministerial acts. America's leaders are incompetent. They have no hope of fooling the world. They can only distract attention by focusing on non-sense. If the cartoon is offensive to the White House propagandists, the Joint Staff will violate the UCMJ and use official letter head; but if the riots and violence - arguably under the watchful provocation of the CIA as was done in Iran in 1979 - then the reaction is acceptable and encouraged.
Americans like free speech so long as you are freely assenting to the tyranny, and Bush's unlawful assertion of power. You get extra points if you are silent about the poodles in Congress who have joined this tyrant in rebellion against the Constitution.
Posted by: Constant | March 20, 2006 11:25 PM
Frankly, trying to follow the example set by the U.S. in *anything* seems like a bad idea, particularly when the ruling class and party (of the U.S.) are often indistinguishable from flag-waving, cross-burning, intolerant zealots... For the Gods' sakes, the Netherlands are a far better - albeit still imperfect - role model when it comes to racial issues.
Posted by: Nemo | March 20, 2006 9:48 PM
At the end of the day I'll have to side with the Danish press and support their right of free speech. Of course the argument could be made that the cartoons were provocative and insulting to Muslims. But then if the press backs down every time some mullah/evangelist is insulted, we will only invite more intimidation by the religious lunatics. In this regard the European press showed a lot more courage than the US press, not a single major paper in this country dared reprint those cartoons.
Posted by: Tom | March 20, 2006 11:59 AM
Being a Dane and having been among the audience when you gave your speech in Copenhagen I just want go give a few comments.
The cartoon controversy is indeed THE talk of the town here and labeled the worst international crisis for Denmark since the Nazi-occupation during WWII. Danes are usually proud of being Dane and enjoy waving the flag (in Danish mythology granted by God to King Valdemar the Victorious at a battle in Estonia in the year 1219). Seeing the same flag burned and Danish embassies attacked is a great shock as it to many is seen as an almost armed attack on Denmark, but also as a shock because we are used to think everyone likes us. Now more than a billion dislike or even hate us.
At presently we are discussing whether the conflict is about freedom of speech or how to engage in respectful dialogue. The government argues that the conflict is exclusively about freedom of speech and how extremists want to suppress it in Denmark and the World as such. In this line of thought it is coincidence that the conflict erupted in Denmark. The Danish society or political scene did not play any role. The other argument is that the controversy is less about freedom of speech, which by the proponents of this argument do see as threatened, but more about how we in Denmark talk about and treat minorities. Here the controversy must be seen in context - Denmark being an increasingly xenophobic country. The Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has labeled those proposing the latter argument as sacrificing our fundamental freedoms with an almost Bush like rhetoric of 'either you are against us or you are against us'. From here on the debate has turned exclusively internal with little reference to international affairs. Thus the logic of the introvert 'Duck Pond' has regained power.
Considered more internationally it seems as if our Western allies have had a hard time defending Danish interests on one hand, and staying clear of the implications on Christian-Muslim relations the cartoons may have. Both the EU and individual partners in the West has therefore expressed outrage at the specific attacks on Danish symbols and interests while at same time expressing sympathy for the feelings of Muslims and the right to protection against religious ridicule. This last line is clearly an attempt to make folly of the idea of a clash of civilizations. In this respect Denmark has drawn heavily on established goodwill among our fiends and allies. This goodwill will have to be reestablished along with the good name of Denmark in the Middle East.
So maybe you are right. Maybe there is hatred in the Middle East towards the West. But more likely there is discontent with the very demographic and socioeconomic problems you describe. Maybe there is discontent with the lack of political legitimacy of their own governments. And maybe this discontent fuels frustration and fear. Let's attack those problems instead of viewing Islam in its present shape as opposite to Western ideals. And let's get our rhetoric in line with our actions.
Rune Heiberg Hansen
Political Advisor
The Danish Parliament
Posted by: Rune Heiberg Hansen | March 20, 2006 9:44 AM
The comments to this entry are closed.
"CHE" is a low-IQ Trotskyite of the 4th Internationale who SPAMMS any open Forum he can find in the Internet with his OT SPAM.
He had been banned in several Forums, but still infests WP blogs.
Over at Messner's "The Debate" he became so troublesome and resistant to other posters about his refusal to follow US copyright law and do on topic posting he has been curtailed by the Webmaster.
Arkin....Notify the WP Webmaster and your being hijacked by "CHE" days will be over soon.