It did not take long for the images of the US Marines urinating on corpses of Taliban fighters to go viral. A moment of lapsed judgment will circulate as long as anyone is interested in seeing it, certainly long after short attention spans move on to other things and the fallout – including, presumably, disciplinary actions for the soldiers – settles.

Predictably, extremist sites have been all over this. In Indonesia, the story has run on Voice of al Islam, Hidayatullah, ar Rahmah, and others. Voice of al Islam made a clever play on words in their headline; they cited the Council on American-Islamic Relations by using its acronym CAIR, which means “liquid” in Indonesia. The headline “CAIR Kutuk Penodaan Mayat Anggota Taliban oleh Marinir AS” means “CAIR condemns the desecration of Taliban Corpses by US Marines,” but it could be read “Accursed Liquid Desecrates the Taliban corpses by US Marines.” The story itself is a pretty straightforward account of CAIR’s reaction – writing to secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, issuing a condemnation, and hoping for justice.

VOI’s subsequent post ratchets up the rhetoric, however. “Animals! American Marines Piss on Taliban Mujahidin.” The story quotes Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, who stated that “actions such as this make the Taliban want to continue to attack America.” For emphasis, the quote was highlighted and used as a pull quote in the text. The behavior is condemned as abominable, wild, and animalistic.

Ar Rahmah’s coverage invokes the Crusader master narrative, linking the act to centuries of perceived conflict and occupation. The headline quotes Taliban Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed’s statement that there are hundreds of similar unreported cases.

The story is also being repeated in the Arabic-speaking world. The bladialyoum blog embedded the video, and refers to the soldiers as barbarians, condemning the occupation of Muslims lands, and linking the act to other perceived acts of aggression against the Muslim world. In this post on Arabic.rt, comments condemn the act, and link it to the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed denounced the act as “barbaric.”

That extremist sites are reporting this story should come as no surprise, nor should it be surprising that mainstream media outlets are covering it as well. In Indonesia, for example, both English language dailies – the Jakarta Post and the Jakarta Globe – ran stories, as did most Indonesian language outlets such as Kompas, which embedded a link to the video on its website. Al Jazeera has been following the story, and updating it as details emerge (such as this report about the identification of US soldiers). These mainstream outlets reach exponentially more readers, and their coverage is nearly identical to the extremists, minus the hyperbole and the explicit anti-Americanism.

Not to say that those interested in combating extremism shouldn’t be paying attention to the extremist sites, but the readers of the mainstream sites are important too. Most of those few who follow the extremist sites have already chosen sides, but many in the mainstream media audience are “middle ground” observers, who may not have a strong opinion about the conflict. Stories such as this may push them toward sympathizing or even supporting extremists.

The story also shows the importance of non-verbal communication in the digital age. The despicable act itself was communication, but seeing and hearing it for oneself has much more of an impact than simply reading about it. Will the images inspire copycats and image manipulators in the same way the infamous images from the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib did? Will they become memes? Cartoon parodies have popped up, in both liberal and (neo)conservative media.

Domestic reaction to the images is mixed. Public officials and military spokespeople are nearly unanimous in their condemnation. So are many among the commentators on mainstream new sites. But many other sources  are not, arguing, essentially, that it is “no big deal.” Floundering presidential candidate Rick Perry’ argued, essentially, that it was no big deal, and criticized President Obama’s (and just about every other public figure’s) reaction. Islamist sites duly reported Perry’s words, and continue to follow the story, reporting on new details such as the identification of the soldiers.

It is, however a “big deal.” The internet age has drastically changed strategic communication, which is why it’s unfathomable that these soldiers thought it was a good idea to film this. As Robert Wright in the Atlantic writes in “The Banality of Urination,” that the act itself was committed is not particularly surprising:

You send hordes of young people into combat, people whose job is to kill the enemy and who watch as their friends are killed and maimed by the enemy, and the chances are that signs of disrespect for the enemy will surface–and that every once in a while those signs will assume grotesque form.

It is, rather, the “transparency of war” and the danger that the act will spread hatred and revulsion among those who view it.

The attention surrounding this act gives the extremists symbolic ammunition and may make the “middle ground” readers forget about the Taliban’s horrendous atrocities, such as their bombings of weddings, volleyball games, and other events that kill Muslims, or training children to behead their enemies. It may appear that they have gained the “moral high ground” for a brief period. Swift and public disciplining of those responsible may help reduce the fallout, but as the conflict in Afghanistan winds down, this is another reminder why the US needs to go to great lengths to try to minimize negative perceptions in the Muslim world.

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On Friday, October 22, Wikileaks released almost 400,000 documents on the Iraq War.  At first Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morrell seemed to downplay the release, claiming the documents were “essentially snapshots of events” and do not “tell the whole story.” But chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen condemned the release, tweeting: “Another irresponsible posting of stolen classified documents by Wikileaks puts lives at risk and gives adversaries valuable information.”  Appearing on the Diane Rheem Show, Morrell also took a more serious tone toward the release in line with Mullen:

Well, what I’m speaking of is our fear is that our enemies can look at these documents and see patterns of behavior, can connect the dots in terms of how we respond in — when we’re engaged with small arms fire, when — what are our — what is our standard operating procedure in the aftermath of an IED attack, how we cultivate sources on working with Iraqis or Afghans, the capabilities of our equipment, response times, things of this nature. These and — listen, we are dealing with — and have been for years — a knowing, thinking, adaptive enemy. of this nature. These and — listen, we are dealing with — and have been for years — a knowing, thinking, adaptive enemy. They are — they know that this is a treasure trove of information that they can mine and make them smarter and better fighters.

Others emphasize different outcomes or downplay the danger these releases pose to troops. Human rights groups, such as Amnesty International, have called for a full investigation of the claims of abuse and torture found in the documents.  Daniel Ellsberg has been particularly outspoken in support of the release.  Appearing on the Larry King show, he responded to the issue of endangering troops by changing the subject:

KING: How do you respond to the White House assertion that this leak puts U.S. forces in danger?

ELLSBERG: You know, the people who put U.S. forces in harm’s way—100,000 men and women in Afghanistan—are the last two administrations, but particularly this one, with a decision to escalate the war. I think it takes a lot of –I don’t know what to say—chutzpah, effrontery, for people who made the reckless, foolish, and I would say irresponsible decisions to escalate a war that I’m sure they know internally is as hopeless as these new revelations reveal it to be.

So a crucial question seems to be: Are extremist groups really mining these leaked documents for information that could put our troops in danger, or is this threat being overemphasized, drawing attention away from issues of official misconduct?

To our knowledge nobody has taken a public look at this question, so we decided to address it by looking at web sites and message boards frequented by extremists, to see how the Wikileaks release is being discussed.  We discovered three “camps” that viewed the release in radically different ways.

Camp 1: That’s nice but…

Members of the first camp exist in virtually all of the forums we surveyed.  They believe the WikiLeaks documents are beneficial.  The documents provide evidence that support their claims against Nouri al-Maliki. These include claims that Maliki has had a role in Shi’a attacks on Sunnis, Americans turn a blind eye to his abuses, Iranian militias are fighting in Iraq, and the civilian death toll in Iraq is far higher than the U.S. will admit.  In their eyes, the documents do not contain new information, but provide only further confirmation of their existing views.

This group considers the documents “half truths.” The contents are “not surprising,” and they “do not want to touch” the documents because they “do not point to the main killers nor their aides and lackeys inside and outside Iraq.” They emphasize that these reports can help expose the “true nature” of Maliki and the American occupation, but relate only a fraction of the atrocities that have occurred.  For some, including the spokesman of Jaish al-Fatiheen, that is enough to have “no desire to touch the documents” any further.

Camp 2: It’s a trap

Those in the second camp advocate staying away from the documents entirely. They are suspicious of them and argue that the documents are part of a conspiracy. In their view, there must be a reason for the leak or some sinister motive behind it. These voices are loudest on the Shumookh al-Islam Forum, which the Quilliam Foundation recently rated as “the second most popular al-Qaeda affiliated Jihadist forum.” It is also endorsed by al-Qaeda’s online logistical network al-Fajr.

One interesting conspiracy theory, promoted on the Shumookh Forum, argues that the Wikileaks documents are part of an American-Iranian plot to fool Sunni Arabs into thinking America is an ally, while Iran and America are actually in a secret alliance. The documents are designed to delude al-Qaeda into thinking Maliki is not a strong ally of the U.S. and decrease their interest in attacking Iraqi ministries and forces. Other conspiracy theories also exist, including the idea that there are new mysterious documents in the list that were not originally there.

Camp 3: Translations wanted

Those in the third camp do not share the suspicions of Camp 2. In fact, they are very interested in acquiring information from the leaked documents. To do so, they call for translations of the documents into Arabic and encourage others to analyze them to find information that can benefit the “mujahideen.”

This indicates a couple of things.  First, they recognize that the documents could support the extremist narrative by helping prove that the U.S. has acted criminally and inhumanly.  But second, this camp realizes that a complete translation might backfire against them, so selective work is advised.  If the documents are treated as credible (and they must be credible or why bother translating them?) and they indicate that the “mujahideen” have committed crimes or atrocities, it has the potential to weaken support for the extremists.

The third camp is found on multiple forums, but seem strongest on al-Hanin Forum, where a separate section of the forum titled “WikiLeaks” was created for users to post translations and discuss the documents. There is a significant amount of activity in the “WikiLeaks” section with one user in particular, named “Sword of the Samurai.” This user has contributed over thirty translations since the section appeared on the form around October 26. Another ongoing forum thread contains translations posted by a user named “Abu Yousef al-Bashir,” now at a length of seven pages with over 2,500 views since October 24.

Analysis

What do these sites tell us about the threat of the Wikileaks documents to national security?  The first camp sees the documents as irrelevant. If the leaked documents do not contain anything new, then nothing has changed.  Most of the posts coming from the second camp, regarding conspiracies, are found on one site, Shumoukh Forum, and those posts ceased after three days of activity.  This suggests that the second camp is probably the smallest and least significant of the three.

It is the third camp, which seeks translation of the documents, which should command our attention. In the hands of this group the Wikileaks documents could, at minimum, provide a strategic communication ammunition for the extremists.  The documents could support their “justification for hostilities” against Maliki and the U.S. and affirm what the extremists have said about U.S. motivations and activities all along.

This brings us to another concern: The documents could serve as a recruiting tool. Non-participants, who may have been skeptical or uninterested in extremist claims against the U.S., could become roused or active in response to new information, largely due to the source. That said, it is important not to overemphasize the scale of the threat here.  There is no shortage of grievances, being deployed by extremists against the United States, whether based in reality or on bizarre conspiracy theories. Further confirmation or expansion of those grievances, especially based on documentation of the past, does not present a unique or novel threat.

Overall, in the immediate sense and judging by the sites analyzed, the Wikileaks documents do not appear to pose a threat to national security in the way conceptualized by Mullen and Morrell. We found only minimal effort to mine the documents to learn more about American battle tactics and strategy on these web sites.  However, the documents may well pose a more significant threat from a strategic communication point of view, providing evidence of bad behavior by the U.S. and its allies.  The release of any such internal material that supports a negative narrative about U.S. involvement in the Middle East is most certainly counter to U.S. interests.

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President Obama’s speech from the Oval Office last night announced the end of combat operations in Iraq. The speech was largely driven by his choice of a defining metaphor:

“We have sent our young men and women to make enormous sacrifices in Iraq, and spent vast resources abroad at a time of tight budgets at home” . . . “Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now, it’s time to turn the page.”

But as I’ll explain, that page-turning metaphor fails to deliver the closure that is so important to a good narrative.

Ever since he assumed the presidency, I have been following Obama’s “narrative gap” on matters related to the conflict formerly known as “the global war on terror.” His speech in Cairo seemed like a good start for defining a new beginning in our relations with Muslims and with the Middle East.

Yet I found his subsequent speech at West Point to be a narrative failure. It neither advanced the themes of the Cairo address nor broke new ground in the way Americans (or indeed the world) were to understand our continuing role in the Middle East.

I was then greatly pleased to see a major leap forward in his masterful Nobel Prize address in Stockholm. There he not only outlined a clear and–in my view–responsible mission for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also complicated the dominant binary of war/peace that so divided public opinion.

Viewed as a narrative trajectory, the previous speeches defined the U.S. mission as a reluctant but noble quest, casting the women and men fighting the war in the role of reluctant heroes who aimed to secure the safety of war-torn countries and reestablish local authority for policing and governing them. The speeches reserved for Obama the behind-the-scenes role of a wise wizard who commands “the long view.”

In such narrative constructions–think of “Lord of the Rings” or “Star Wars”–otherwise ordinary citizens are called to action (usually against their better judgment) to fight dark forces that threaten their way of life (or sometimes the security of the universe). The wise wizards provide helpful advice and direction, but rarely give final answers. Nevertheless, these oft-told tales–whether in fiction, film, nonfiction, or presidential speeches–provide powerful cultural expectations for not only “what should happen next” but also for “how it should (or must) end.” In other words they create expectations for closure.

The president’s speech last night offered him the opportunity to provide narrative closure on Iraq. Did our would-be wise wizard succeed? The short answer is that he did not. Those on the left wanted to hear our president blame his predecessor for an unwarranted war that cost thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, and over a trillion dollars in treasure that has been a major cause of our burgeoning budget deficit. There was no blame for the Bush administration; in fact, the president was gracious in his avoidance of blame. There was even praise for Bush’s patriotism.

For those on the right it was (predictably) even less successful. As Representative John Boehner (R-OH) observed even before the speech was given, it didn’t give credit for the surge where it was due–the Bush administration. David Gergen, commenting on CNN on the speech on behalf of mainstream Republicans, said the message that Obama “loved the troops but hated the war” probably wouldn’t help. Even Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, when asked after the speech whether the war had been worth it, replied somewhat evasively if honestly, “It really requires a historian’s perspective in terms of what happens here in the long run.”

Beyond these partisan interpretations, Obama’s end-of-war speech was also notable for what it did not include. There was no declaration of “victory,” no mention of “democracy,” and no clean announcement of an exit from the country or region. There was no mention of the awkward ironies that permeate our seven-year involvement in Iraq:

• We declared victory after two months of war despite the fact that nothing has been won.
• The democratic government that we promised has yet to fully materialize and is possibly even in serious jeopardy.
• No clean exit was likely, there would be no immediate “happy ending,” because there is rarely a clean-cut outcome in this kind of conflict.

Instead we are “turning the page” from combat in Iraq to combat in Afghanistan, and the story goes on. This is a fact that is neither popular with the American people nor with politicians on either side of the aisle.

Realizing this, President Obama, in his role as wise wizard, once again affirmed the longer view:

“One of the lessons of our effort in Iraq is that American influence around the world is not a function of military force alone. We must use all elements of our power — including our diplomacy, our economic strength, and the power of America’s example — to secure our interests and stand by our allies. And we must project a vision of the future that is based not just on our fears, but also on our hopes — a vision that recognizes the real dangers that exist around the world, but also the limitless possibility of our time.”

Given these responses to the speech, it would be wrong of me to suggest it was successful. There was good in it–praising the troops for their valor and sacrifice, ending the official combat commitment to Iraq, and reminding us that we still have responsibilities to “disrupt, dismantle, and defeat” al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But it was narratively and pragmatically unsatisfying because it clearly demonstrated a lack of closure so necessary to a successful “end of war” speech.

Put in the terms of narrative trajectories associated with heroic quests: order has not been fully restored and justice does not yet prevail. True to his theme, Obama announced only that we had “turned the page.” But what he failed to do was close the book.

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As observers of Al-Qa’ida’s media strategy we notice a trend in their communication: When a conflict around the world involving a Muslim country heats ups, AQ leadership is quick to jump on the opportunity to provide analysis, encouragement, or criticism for the actions of players on the ground.

In the past year, with an imminent U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq and a resurgence of both civilian and military forces in Afghanistan to fight terrorism there, AQ’s leaders have shifted their focus to more localized battles. Their aim is to characterize these fights as part of a larger global counterinsurgency, based upon AQ’s transnational ideology.

By connecting a local conflict to the broader Jihadist movement, al-Qa’ida tries to weave what are almost surely unrelated events into a broader narrative of a global, coordinated, and never-ending attack against the Islamic faith and Muslims. This creates the impression that what appears to be a national issue is really a part of a larger, decades-long conflict. Tapping into nationalist sentiments and manipulating those into a transnational frame appears to be a strategic communication tactic for al-Qa’ida.

The risk in this strategy is that nationalist groups can create headaches for al-Qa’ida. After all it was the Awakening Councils in Iraq that helped curb its spread, promoting a unified country free of transnational extremist elements. In the year prior to those developments, AQ created a fictitious native-born leader, Omar al-Baghdadi, to appeal to Iraqi national identity and pride. As a “local” figure, he could more credibly claim connections between the war in Iraq and the broader perceived persecution of Muslims around the world.

Local groups in Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan also have the potential to threaten al-Qa’ida’s desired monopoly of power in that region. However, recent developments regarding the various factions of the Taliban on both sides of the border are troubling. Three major factions in Waziristan have joined together and pledged their allegiance to al-Qa’ida, while parts of the Afghan Taliban are increasingly declaring their more global intentions as well.

Transnational ideology seems to flourish in parts of the world where there is a weak central government–for example Afghanistan or Somalia.  Countries with strong or even just visible national institutions, like Hamas in the Gaza Strip, are better able to prevent al-Qa’ida’s transnational ideology from gaining a foothold. Hamas often rejects the support of al-Qa’ida when it’s offered by the AQ leadership in video messages.

AQ’s leaders face a challenge in that the global nature of their organization makes it difficult to sustain.  Their current solution is to focus criticism on local leaders in the Muslim world.  This, they hope, will keep AQ relevant and help sustain momentum in recruiting, fundraising, and operations. The latest example of this is their laser-beam focus on Somalia’s continuing struggle for stability.

Normally the words “Somalia” and “government” are always accompanied by the term “failed.”  But that may be changing. The landslide election of Sharif Ahmed earlier this year signals that Somalia might be moving toward a new era of social coherence. As Reuters reported,

Analysts say that Ahmed will have the best chance of all the candidates to unite Somalis, given his Islamist roots and acceptability to other sides.

Yet with the incursion of Ethiopian troops in Somalia in 2006, their subsequent departure just last month, and the waxing power of the AQ-linked Shabaab group, the Mother Ship has taken notice. Since the start of this year, three central AQ leaders–Usama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Abu Yayha al-Libi–have repeatedly directed their rhetoric toward Somalia.

In his most recent message, bin Laden appears very alarmed about the emergence of a semi-functioning government there. He urges local al-Qa’ida forces to overthrow Ahmed’s coalition government. The recording asserts that Ahmed is yet another apostate sellout to the West who has forsaken Islam, and that he must be “dethroned and fought.”

There are many examples of bin Laden (as well as other al-Qa’ida leaders) taking issue with national leadership.  He  rants about quite a few in this latest release alone.  But the interesting thing about bin Laden’s monologue is his effort to exploit tensions between national and transnational forces.

His universal condemnation of all governments everywhere reveals a straegy of elevating his transnational solution by undermining national ones. Throughout the message bin Laden references “Global Infidelity” and the “Islamic world.” The lesson to be learned is that regardless of their political/religious orientations, functioning central governments are a threat to bin Laden and his allies.

This point became increasingly clear when former Islamic Courts Union official Hassan Dahir Aweys publicly denounced the outside influence of bin Laden and al-Qa’ida, despite his alleged connections to the group. Aweys and Ahmed both advocate Somali solutions to Somali problems and this is doesn’t leave room for al-Qa’ida.

In 2006 there was widespread concern that the Somali government would become Taliban 2.0. Now the government has been added to AQ’s hit-list, even with some of the same players still in place. The government taking shape in Somalia is far from ideal as it still has Sharia Law as a touchstone (albeit in more of a cafeteria style pick-and-choose fashion).  But it is worth noting that this rise in national independence has made bin Laden and other al-Qa’ida leaders very nervous. Religiously based nationalism may not be ideal from a Western perspective, but confronting terrorism is full of tough choices.  Supporting leaders like Ahmed in one form or another may not be an appealing choice, but it increasingly looks like a wise one.

The complex nature of this global counterinsurgency warrants a U.S. communication strategy that highlights the importance of opposition to al-Qa’ida’s transnational ideology by supporting more nationalistic local groups. To do that we should give these local actors a megaphone with which to voice their opposition, even if they’re not the kind of people we would pick to run our own country.

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I remember arriving in Karlsruhe, Germany on March 17, 2003.  It was two days before the Iraq invasion.  I didn’t know the date certain of the invasion, of course, but I knew for certain it was coming.  I was quite worried (needlessly, as it turns out) about how I would be received by the Germans.  They, like the rest of “Old Europe,” were vehemently against the war.

So was I.  It was not because I am a peace-nick who thinks there can never be a good reason for military conflict.  On the contrary, one of those reasons had surfaced just a couple of years earlier.  We needed to go to Afghanistan to close down the al Qaeda operation that had developed there over the years.

Like many others I objected to Iraq because of the flimsy rationale that was provided for it, which even at that time was showing signs of wear.  But even more than that, I knew that we hadn’t finished the job in Afghanistan.  By going to Iraq we’d be taking our eye off the ball.

I had heated arguments about this with one of my best friends, a neocon.   The mood among such people at the time was that you were either with the President or against him.  If you didn’t support him on Iraq you were against him.  And if you were against him then you were a candy-ass, Old-Europe-loving, peace-marching leftie that didn’t deserve to be looked at, much less listened to.  There was simply no room for principled opposition.  It was Groupthink on a massive, national scale.

The Wages of (Iraq) War

That form of social pathology led to profoundly bad decision making, as it inevitably does.  Today, even after five or ten revisions in the official reasons why we went to Iraq and stayed there, nobody argues that it was a good idea in hindsight.  Former military commanders and White House officials, and now even the Army’s Combat Studies Institute, are falling all over themselves to document the strategic error/blunder/disaster that was and is the Iraq War.

There are the direct negatives:  The length of the engagement, the military and civilian deaths, and the cost.  But even worse is the opportunity it has given the Bad Guys to recover in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  Just today, the New York Times published an extensive article documenting this.  In a chilling statement it says

Just as it had on the day before 9/11, Al Qaeda now has a band of terrorist camps from which to plan and train for attacks against Western targets, including the United States. Officials say the new camps are smaller than the ones the group used prior to 2001. However, despite dozens of American missile strikes in Pakistan since 2002, one retired C.I.A. officer estimated that the makeshift training compounds now have as many as 2,000 local and foreign militants, up from several hundred three years ago.

It concludes with this dismal assessment of six years of our efforts there:

“The United States faces a threat from Al Qaeda today that is comparable to what it faced on Sept. 11, 2001,” said Seth Jones, a Pentagon consultant and a terrorism expert at the RAND Corporation. “The base of operations has moved only a short distance, roughly the difference from New York to Philadelphia.”

So because of the Iraq adventure, we have allowed our real enemy–the one who has attacked us on our own soil–to retreat, regroup, and plan to attack us again.  It’s hard to imagine a more grave strategic error.

But We’re Stuck

At dinner the other night, a friend who I hadn’t seen for years asked me if I favored getting out of Iraq.  You might think that, given the tone of the preceding critique, I might favor that plan. But alas, as a radical centrist my role is to be an equal-opportunity antagonist.  I told my friend that I want to see us out of there as badly as the next person, but it would be a hugh mistake to leave precipitously, before the government has firmly establish itself.

Doing so would play directly into the Bad Guys’ narrative.  This has been one of our biggest strategic communication shortcomings, and it started with going to Iraq in the first place.  At a recent conference I asked a Pakistani general why al Qaeda’s ideology is so persuasive to some people in his region.  He replied with a question:  “The extremists say that the United States is trying to conquer the Muslims and destroy the Umma. So what do you do?”  Answer:  Invade a Muslim country.  We have also played into the extremists’ narratives of humiliation with our treatment of prisoners in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

If we left Iraq prematurely, we’d be doing it yet again, and in a way that makes us look vulnerable to future attacks.  The Bad Guys think we simply don’t have the stomach for a sustained fight.  Their opinion is summed up nicely by al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al Zawahiri writing in 2005 in a treatise called The Emancipation of Mankind and Nations Under the Banner of the Koran:

I swear to God that we have exposed the secret of these American infidels.  Their soldiers are more cowardly than cowardice, and weaker than languor.  They depend on reconnaissance flights, remote shelling, and recruitment of mercenaries and thugs.  Other than that, there is no courage, perseverance, patience, or steadfastness.

The same matter is addressed by prominent extremist ideologue Abu Bakr Naji in his book The Management of Savagery:

Due to the nature of the psyche of the Taghuts and the psyche of their troops, they are not able to remain under pressure and intimidation for a long period of time. That is one of the reasons—but not all of the reasons – they do not successively and gradually exterminate the Islamic movement; rather, they resort to striking the movement (after) relatively long periods of time. Once that decision is made, a plan is put in place and the matter ends quickly because they know that they and their troops do not have the patience for a long battle, regardless of the extent of their numbers and size.

So, if we were to do anything to even imply that we are turing tail to run, we would validate this strong theme in extremist ideology.  They would be able to say to potential recruits:  “See?  We told you so.  If you will only join us and help increase the pressure, in good time they will completely collapse and we will be victorious.”

This is the real tragedy of the Iraq War.  Even though I regard it as the stupidest strategic move of my lifetime, maybe in U.S. history, there is no good way out.  We are stuck there, tying one hand behind our back.  Meanwhile, we are back to square one in Afghanistan because the roaches just scurried under a different cabinet while we were looking the other way.

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During my usual media grazing I ran across an article published yesterday in Aljazeera Magazine by Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich, in the “reviews” section. I’m not sure what it’s supposed to be reviewing, but on the surface it has something to do with language and the word “islamofascism,” and I am on record as having serious concerns about use of that word.

At the same time I have heard complaints in the past about shoddy reporting and half-truths in al Jazeera. I roll on the floor laughing whenever I hear one of its hosts, Faysal al-Qassem, insisting on Syrian TV that the U.S. controls the Internet from one of its aircraft carriers and can disconnect any country instantly with the push of a button. So all and all, this article seemed like a good candidate for some fact checking.

Sepahpour-Ulrich begins by claiming that the neocons are engaged in a war-against-Islam:

Dominance and ownership of language enabled the neoconservatives to coin the term ‘Islamofascism’ in order to wage war against Iraq. Iran is their next target, while shamelessly and brutally the people of Palestine and Lebanon are being eradicated in the name of ‘democracy’.

There’s no denying that bad things are happening to people in Palestine and Lebanon, but eradication is not one of them. The Palestinian population of Israel is growing at such a rate that some are questioning whether the country will see it’s 100th birthday. And while the Israelis have killed plenty of Lebanese, the toll doesn’t come anywhere near the number killed by other Lebanese in that country’s civil war. Despite all this death it had a population growth rate of 1.19%, According to the CIA . This is eradication?

Next she says neoconservatism is “a Jewish phenomenon,” quoting Jacob Heilbrunn as a source. While there are undoubtedly Jewish neocons, that is hardly the whole story. A review of his book in Publisher’s Weekly says he lacks a grasp of the neoconservatives’ right-wing Christian elements and concludes that

Heilbrunn’s analysis lacks rigor concerning foreign policy assumptions and ideological and economic motives, thus unintentionally leaving his subjects more historically isolated than they really are.

Sepahpour-Ulrich goes on to detail how the Jewish think tanks have infiltrated virtually every aspect of the Free World, committing a multitude of sins. They have been responsible for the Bush war policy, for example.

Washington think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) became home to many influential neoconservatives such as Douglas Feith, David Wurmser, and Richard Perle who came to join the AEI from the Jerusalem-based think tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies (IASPS). A 2003 study by the Institute for Research: Middle East Policy (IRMEP) indicates a correlation between the Bush war policy and the funding of these think tanks.

I was unable to find any 2003 report on IRMEP’s web site that talked about a correlation between Bush war policy and think tank funding. I was also unable to find out anything on the site about who or what is behind IMREP. One blogger claims that this “institute” is one guy named Grant Smith with a web site, a cell phone, a P.O. box, an ax, and a grinder.

The Jewish think tanks have also conspired with Rupert Murdoch, according to Sepahpour-Ulrich, to dominate the media. While there are some media outlets with a well known conservative bias, there are also media outlets with a well known liberal bias. It’s not possible to straightforwardly tie the biggest media monopolies–such as AOL/Time-Warner, Viacomm, and Bertelsmann–to neocon ideologies. Writing in the Columbia Journalism Review in 2005, Brian Montopoli questions all claims about certan ideologies (left or right) dominating the media:

That’s an untenable idea on several counts, not least of which is the fallacy of treating what has been erroneously dubbed “the mainstream media” as a monolithic entity with a single agenda instead of a diverse collection of organizations with their own interests. Then there’s the fact that in any rational accounting of the shortcomings of our currently beleaguered media, ideological bias falls pretty far down on the list. As we’ve noted before, if there’s an overriding bias that controls and corrupts news outlets, it’s a bias toward sensationalism and conflict at the expense of actual newsgathering–a bias that’s driven by pressures for profits and ratings, and one that rides roughshod over any given reporter’s personal ideology.

What have the neocons done with their media dominance? Covered up the “truth” about 9/11:

In that a new UN Human Rights Council assigned to monitor Israel is calling for an official commission to study the role neoconservatives may have played in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, is indicative that this group’s role is believed to be influencing U.S. policies, if not determining it (New York Sun).

Well, not exactly. It’s not a UN Human rights council who is making this call, but one of its members, Richard Falk. He is seems to have beliefs similar to those of the 9/11 Truth Movement, which claims the U.S. government (no doubt at the behest of the Jewish neocon think tanks) brought down the WTC towers with explosives. The same Sun article quoted by Sepahpour-Ulrich notes that Mr. Falk wrote a February 16, 1979 op-ed in the New York Times praising the Ayatollah Khomeini. He said “the depiction of him as fanatical, reactionary and the bearer of crude prejudices seems certainly and happily false,” just months before Khomeini’s followers invaded the American Embassy in Teheran.

She goes on

In line with the neoconservative’s agenda, the mainstream media in the U.S. framed September 11 within the context of “Islamic terrorists.” …As religious extremism was emphasized as the motive for the terrorist plot, all other inquiries were terminated.

Only the mainstream media did not emphasize religious extremism as the cause at all, at least in the early going. A study I co-authored (published in this book) looked at the top words framing coverage of 9/11 in the 66 days following the attacks. The words Islam, Islamic, and Muslim are not part of that list. It is bin Laden and al Qaeda who are portrayed as being responsible for that attacks. They emphasized religious extremism as the motive for the terrorist plot. If this theme has since appeared in the media, then they, not the Jewish neocon think tanks, deserve the blame for it.

My review of Sepahpour-Ulrich’s essay leads me to three observations. First, the things it says are half true. There are neocons who see a war against Islam, believe that it is an inherently violent and evil religion, and have the word “isloamofascism” as their language-marker. They tend to be either conservative Jews or right-wing Christians and are staunch backers of the interests of Israel. Neoconservativeism does drive some prominent media sources (Fox News, for example), and it has heavily influenced the Bush administration, particularly its decision to go to war against Iraq, a Muslim country.

But second, the facts presented in this article are only half true. And it takes someone with an agenda to take such half truths and convert them into a conspiracy theory that says Jewish think tanks have seized the levers of U.S. power in order to pursue their evil plan to destroy the Muslim community. This argument would be amusing it if were not reproducing a key narrative of al Qaeda and related extremist groups. Why would someone like Sepahpour-Ulrich, who is described as

an Iranian-American studying at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. She is a member of World Association of International Studies society, Stanford

distort facts the way she has done here in order to support an extremist narrative? It is also pathetic that an outlet that aspires to be a serious media source would publish such a shoddy piece of journalism, apparently without simple fact checking.

Third, the half-true parts point to the strategic communication value of deeds and actions. While it takes someone with an extremist agenda to distort facts, some extreme facts are very helpful in giving the distortions the ring of truth. Those in the United States who support invading Muslim countries and who spout-off about “islamofascists” are also complicit in the production of distortions like the ones in this article.

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What happens if we leave Iraq? From what I gather, and believe in, Iraq will eventually serve as place that comes of out darkness and stands as a light of democracy to the world. A free will Iraq will show the Middle East and the world that the masses can install a government that represents its people and move away from hardliners and radicals that want to enslave the masses in the name of religion.

Meanwhile the U.S. election process is in full swing. It serves as an example of the democratic process. This election may finally move U.S. politics out of political racism and sexism by having both a woman and an African-American man with real chances to win the highest political seat in the United States. But what happens if the winning candidate has the view that we do not belong in a civil war and need to get out of Iraq? Does all this strategic communication construction fall by the wayside, or is the message reduced to a whisper in comparative terms?

I served in the U.S. Marine Corps for nearly 9 years. When I got orders to Japan, I met the 31st Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Charles Krulak. General Krulak was on a Far East tour and stopped in at the air station. He gave a presentation on the new wars the Marine Corps would face. These wars might be an invasion of a country, a humanitarian relief, police action, or other conflicts. The commonality in all of these future battles, he believed, was that the enemy would be more mobile and stealthier than in the past. He said that our Marine Corps would have to be ready to fight block by block. He called in the “3 Block War”. Soldiers in this 3 Block War could face full military action, humanitarian relief, or peacekeeping.

The troops that we have in the battlefield are our best grass roots communication medium to win the hearts and minds of those Islamists that have not turned to the extremist view. In a recent article entitled Strategic Communication: In Integral Component of Counterinsurgency Operations, Krachuk gives advice that strategic communication planners should use to create a strategic communication. Some of the aims directly involve troops on the ground. Building rapport with the local populace is more powerful than watching a U.S. sponsored television station. Reducing tensions and negative attitudes towards the United States and its allies can be done by simply training the individual troop to be sensitive to the local populace’s wants and views.

Not only would the troops (in the 3 block war) be taught of the belief structure of the people, they would be experts in the strategic communication that countering ideological support for terrorism requires. Counter-narratives could be given to the troops as a pocket book that presented points of view that were contrary to the story told by the terrorists. Such communication says that history does not privilege one idealist view. Rather, a look at history in the area of the Middle East has shown the conquered has also been the conqueror. Another such message that could be carried to the front lines is that we are not on a crusade of Christianity, but rather one of freedom and the ability to decide for oneself the benefits following a given belief. Another is that Islam is an accepted and supported way of life in the United States.

However, what if there are no troops? As a former Marine, my family and I are very familiar with the sacrifices of being part of the U.S. military. In this time, as in monumental campaigns of the past, it is extremely dangerous to be part of the U.S. military. Thomas Jefferson said, “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” Vigilance in this quote means is the process of watching for danger. Of course eternal means always or forever. In this country there are millions who will go to the polls to decide what course of action our country takes in this “War on Terrorism”. All the candidates agree that al Qaeda is a threat, but not all agree on the course of action.

The two front runners for the Democratic Party ticket are Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barrack Obama. The Republic Party nominee will be John McCain. Senator Clinton has defended her vote to authorize the war, but like many Americans has changed from post 9-11 rhetoric that called for whatever means to end the threat. Now she says:

Our message to the president is clear. It is time to begin ending this war – not next year, not next month – but today.

Contradicting President Bush, she says that the Iraqi government is more fractured and ineffective than ever, and that we do not belong in a another country’s civil war. Senator Obama spoke out against the war in 2002 and calls for a redeployment of U.S. troops out of Iraq to other parts of the Middle East. He states that combat troops should be out of Iraq by March 31, 2008. John McCain supports President Bush’s troop surge and will not set a date for troop withdrawal. Instead he calls for committing more troops to counter the insurgency and stabilize the country.

Americans have the right to vote for whatever candidate they choose. In casting that vote, they should realize the cost of withdrawing from Iraq has more ramifications than just reducing the cost of war or lives lost. It also influences how America will position itself in the War on Terrorism and the win the hearts and minds of those people that in the future could either become our enemies or our friends. The 3 block war is not about front lines as was in the past. It is more about deploying strategic communication that will promote individual freedoms in the region.

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by Matthew B. Morris 

John McCain gave what was billed as a major foreign policy speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council on March 26. In the speech he described himself as a “realistic idealist:”

I am an idealist, and I believe it is possible in our time to make the world we live in another, better, more peaceful place, where our interests and those of our allies are more secure, and American ideals that are transforming the world, the principles of free people and free markets, advance even farther than they have. But I am, from hard experience and the judgment it informs, a realistic idealist. I know we must work very hard and very creatively to build new foundations for a stable and enduring peace. We cannot wish the world to be a better place than it is.

Hillary Clinton took advantage of McCain’s speech on foreign policy philosophy to link McCain to Bush policies:

Like President Bush, Senator McCain continues to oppose a swift and responsible withdrawal from Iraq. Like President Bush, Senator McCain discounts the warnings of our senior military leadership of the consequences of the Iraq war on the readiness of our armed forces, and on the need to focus on the forgotten front line in Afghanistan. Like President Bush, Senator McCain wants to keep us tied to another country’s civil war, and said “it would be fine with me” if U.S. troops were in Iraq for 50 or even 100 years. That in a nutshell is the Bush/McCain Iraq policy.

The response from the Obama campaign was similar, with the added argument that Obama represents a real contrast to McCain’s philosophy in his emphasis on issues like “poverty and genocide, climate change and disease” as major international foci for an Obama presidency, along with the threat of terrorism.

McCain framed his foreign policy speech in terms of his lifelong experience with war, emphasizing that his personal disdain for war is shaped by his service in Vietnam. Throughout the speech he expresses his hatred of war, perhaps in an attempt to discredit the image that has been perpetuated about him as a supposed war-monger.

Rhetorically, this serves to set up his experience as the framework within which he would like his philosophy and policies to be viewed. This may serve to distance McCain from Bush, in that while their policies may have some similarities, the experiences that inform their philosophies are very different.

From a strategic communication perspective, there are two issues in McCain’s speech that are especially interesting: public diplomacy and ideology.

Steve Corman has made the case in a previous CSC journal article that credibility is a key issue candidates must deal with in public diplomacy. McCain sees a hasty withdrawal from Iraq as the most dangerous thing America could do to our credibility:

We have incurred a moral responsibility in Iraq. It would be an unconscionable act of betrayal, a stain on our character as a great nation, if we were to walk away from the Iraqi people and consign them to the horrendous violence, ethnic cleansing, and possibly genocide that would follow a reckless, irresponsible, and premature withdrawal. Our critics say America needs to repair its image in the world. How can they argue at the same time for the morally reprehensible abandonment of our responsibilities in Iraq?

McCain’s main public diplomacy effort seems aimed at reinvigorating our alliances:

We need to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies. When we believe international action is necessary, whether military, economic, or diplomatic, we will try to persuade our friends that we are right. But we, in return, must be willing to be persuaded by them.

This represents a possible move by McCain toward a more sophisticated understanding of communication, beyond the transmission model of communication that emphasizes delivering messages to the audience towards a more transactional model. In order to improve on this, it is important to consider whose voices will be heard within this international dialog.

What this and many other comments within the speech show is that his willingness to negotiate extends primarily to those who share our own ideology. The frequent links between “freedom,” “democracy” and “free markets” throughout McCain’s speech show that the underlying assumption behind his philosophy is that neo-liberal late capitalism equals freedom.

While McCain says that America needs to stop supporting the corrupt regimes in the Muslim world, a primary al Qaeda demand, he also indicates that his goal in doing so is to expand the regime of “freedom,” understood as neo-liberal late capitalism. This ideological system excludes a large portion of the world’s population as part of the international discourse, perhaps contributing to the recourse to alternative discourses (such as terrorism) as a means for those outside the hegemonic ideology to send us messages.       

Although it is a difficult task, allowing for freedom of ideological perspective among discursive partners is an important part of opening American public diplomacy beyond being able to communicate with those who think the way we do. It would be interesting to see the candidates take this into account, and show their faith in their own ideological perspective by allowing for the possibility of it being called into question.  

-mm

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Al Jazeera broadcast another message from Osama bin Laden today. If confirmed as authentic, this is the second message from bin Laden in the last two days. Although the translation is not yet available, the message is another call on Muslims to support Palestinians by fighting in Iraq, and apparently makes references to more recent events in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The previous message, which can be accessed here, has been confirmed as authentic and was directed more specifically at the European Union, critisizing Europeans for tolerating the publication of Danish cartoons that mock Mohammed:

If there is no check on the freedom of your words, then let your hearts be open to the freedom of our actions. And it is amazing and to make light of others that you talk about tolerance and peace at a time when your soldiers perpetrate murder even against the weak and oppressed in our countries. Then came your publishing of these drawings, which came in the framework of a new Crusade in which the Pope of the Vatican has played a large, lengthy role.

The terrorism experts over at Fox News question the strategy behind this tape, noting that it lacks any recent references. However, today’s tape mentions last November’s peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians in Anapolis, Maryland, making it unlikely that the second tape is “stale.” Slate.com’s summary of today’s blogs on bin Laden contains speculation that he is dead, but Michael Scheuer (former director of the bin Laden unit at CIA) points out in the Fox story that there’s really no basis for this.

As Zach Justus said in a previous CSC blog, bin Laden seems to stir up new interest every time he releases a message, as if to say “hey, I’m still here.” While this also brings about speculation about his death, it seems this is just a way of dispelling fears of an ellusive enemy. Despite the analysis in American media – both mainstream and in the blogosphere – of the (un)importance of his messages, that we’re talking about him at all seems to indicate that he’s important to us, at least subconsciously.

The strategic impact of his messages on a Western audience is probably minimal, but as Hassan Abdi has observed, the overt messages to the West also contain covert messages to al Qaeda sympathizers. Although it may provide an ego-defense function to dismiss such diatribes from bin Laden, in the end these types of Eurocentric analyses of al Qaeda videos just continue the process of talking past each other so typical in Western media.

-mm

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In a New York Times article today entitled “Violence Leaves Young Iraqis Doubting Clerics,” evidence gathered by investigative reporters on the scene strongly indicates that the appeal of violent extremism may be waning. Are we at a new “tipping point?” Reasons given in the article for believing we may be at a new tipping point in the struggle against violent extremism include a “society weary of bloodshed” and “worried parents” who have stepped up their own vigilance at home and in local mosques. It would appear that the campaign to combat ideological support for terrorism truly begins at home and this new widespread success is in part a result of encouraging local interpretations of extremist clerics’ messages, something we have long advocated as part of a coherent approach to pragmatic complexity in the war of ideas.Another successful strategy that appears to be working among Iraqi youth involves using humor and what the communication theorist Kenneth Burke calls “perspective by incongruity.” By taking a comic (rather than tragic) perspective, young Muslims are encouraged to reframe calls to violence cloaked in religious appeals:

There is a new favorite game in the lively household of the young Baghdad journalist. When they see a man with a turban on television, they yell and crack jokes. In one joke, people are warned not to give their cellphone numbers to a religious man.

“If he knows the number, he’ll steal the phone’s credit,” the journalist said. “The sheiks are making a society of nonbelievers.”

I would very much like to believe that this new widespread discrediting of violence is true and that we are, indeed, at a tipping point. But there is a critic inside of me who wonders aloud if this story isn’t part of a larger propaganda campaign using the tried-and-true “bandwagoning”technique. By reporting a few scattered instances of hopeful change in our struggle against violent extremism, perhaps the larger story is how these examples circulates in various media and new media outlets, thus promoting further change as a result. Hmmmmm. In a previous post, I discussed the idea of “pragmatic propaganda” and this story may, in fact, be exactly that. Only time, and additional accounts, will tell. Either way, this news is good news.

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