Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/185189.php
The Pentagon has set up a new unit to counter inaccurate propaganda. Will it work? I just don't know. It seems to me that they haven't been very good at it in the past.
It wasn't just that they lacked the how-to skills or the resources, but they just don't seem willing to play the game. It's a dirty game. One in which our enemies abroad do not observe the nicities of the Geneva Conventions. The first rule of the propaganda game is to understand that those engaged are enemy combatants and thus legitimate targets. And if you can legitimately kill your enemy then taking out their websites or excluding them from war zones seems a much lesser matter.
You do not treat the cyber-jihad as a matter of criminal enforcement, or of intelligence gathering, but as warfare. It can be fought. It can be won.
It seems to me that the Pentagon is doing what they have always done: preparing to fight the last war. If they are just now getting around to planning for the 24 hour news cycle-- a phenomenon of the 1990s -- then there is no way they are prepared to fight the online cyber-jihad.
The Pentagon has set up a new unit to counter inaccurate propaganda. Will it work? I just don't know. It seems to me that they haven't been very good at it in the past.
It wasn't just that they lacked the how-to skills or the resources, but they just don't seem willing to play the game. It's a dirty game. One in which our enemies abroad do not observe the nicities of the Geneva Conventions. The first rule of the propaganda game is to understand that those engaged are enemy combatants and thus legitimate targets. And if you can legitimately kill your enemy then taking out their websites or excluding them from war zones seems a much lesser matter.
You do not treat the cyber-jihad as a matter of criminal enforcement, or of intelligence gathering, but as warfare. It can be fought. It can be won.
It seems to me that the Pentagon is doing what they have always done: preparing to fight the last war. If they are just now getting around to planning for the 24 hour news cycle-- a phenomenon of the 1990s -- then there is no way they are prepared to fight the online cyber-jihad.