Posted on 11/09/2006 3:49:13 AM PST by Cannoneer No. 4
One of the immediate things known in the wake of the American November elections is that the media strategy employed by al Qaeda has succeeded. Having failed to disrupt three elections in Iraq, al Qaeda and other terrorist groups fought to hang in there, and shifted their aim to American newsrooms.
It was a logical choice. In 1968, the Tet Offensive led many in the media to believe that the war in Vietnam was failing. The most famous pronouncement was Walter Cronkite's declaration that the war was a stalemate. Lost in the media defeatism was the fact that American and South Vietnamese troops won the battle, and had delivered a crippling blow to the Viet Cong. Similarly, in 1993, American forces won a firefight with Somalian militias under warlord Mohammed Farrah Aidid – but CNN footage of American casualties being dragged through the street led to a perception of defeat.
In this case, al Qaeda exploited what was already an inherent opposition to the war. Some mainstream media outlets had opposed the war from the start. The failure to immediately find weapons of mass destruction added to the media's growing doubts. As long as al Qaeda detonated IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan, they could increase the perception of a quagmire. By getting the media to focus on the IED-of-the-day, al Qaeda was able to bury the good news (like the training of the Iraqi Army and reconstruction efforts), and was able to weather the loss of senior leaders like Abu Musab al Zarqawi.
The other factor going for them was the fact that members of the mainstream media generally were not sympathetic to the U.S. government. In the last year, media outlets revealed several intelligence programs – often spinning them in a manner that put the intelligence community and the military in a bad light. A reporter for Time magazine, who embedded with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, had his article completely rewritten by editors who felt his portrayal of American troops was too positive. The media did not even admit that documents, recovered during the liberation of Iraq, showing Saddam Hussein was pursuing nuclear weapons, until it could be spun in a manner that made the Department of Defense look bad. The media even started to refuse to publish letters from Department of Defense officials which challenged misreporting on the war. Heroes like Paul Ray Smith, who was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously, were studiously ignored.
Now, the stage is set for al Qaeda to win a major victory. It was a simple matter of getting the American media to ignore the battlefield victories while accentuating al Qaeda's attacks. What could not be accomplished on the battlefield – an American retreat from Iraq – was instead achieved in American newsrooms.
Who does domestic counter-psyops?
We do.
The Media were and are willing accomplices - they're weren't inveigled into it.
I would love to know more about this.
Bookmark
That would be a good thing to have documented.
That's what DefenseTech calls the Army's pitiful attempt to counter al Qaeda's psychological warfare.
When a foreign enemy can ally themselves with roughly half of the population, kill thousands of innocent citizens and have almost half of the population blame the government and few seen to care; when the border apparently is wide open and the President wants to give away citizenship to anyone who can break enough laws to get here; when the government wants to open a corridor right through the center of the country from Mexico to Canada; with all of this taking place, I wonder how close we are to a second civil war.
Closer than you think.
I am so glad other people see this. It's disgusting and I truly believe that those in the so called MSM will eventually have to pay a price for their treasonous acts.
In order for there to be a second American Civil War, one side would have to take a stand from which they would not back down.
If you remember the post-Waco, pre-Oklahoma City militia movement, the saner ones who didn't embarrass themselves too badly over Y2K are quietly getting ready for President Pelosi's Gun Control Act of 2008.
But their chances of success are slim. The TTP's that worked in Anbar will work in Montana, too.
The worst part of this is how this election has dissed the troops. The only people willing to take on the enemy have been debased by the media misinformation campaign that has been going on since 9-11. Exposing them would be nice, but who in the media will report on themselves.
Based on Tuesday, I see a very divided nation, one side content to live their life in denial, the other side totally frustrated that their own people hate their country and allow leftists to misle them with words and fake pictures.
The biggest problem in the short run is that our troops in Iraq will be in very grave danger because some Iraqis will now turn on them to suck up to the terrorists. There is NO spin machine on the streets of Iraq. It is what it is in their eyes, and it aint good. Pray with me that I am wrong.
Very well said, I know this and a whole lot of people out there know this. I thank you guys for what you are doing and appreciate it. Our media, so full of hate, have made a steady drumbeat to defeat our country and misinform the gullible into believing their spin. I voted Tuesday and I voted for American victory. No longer is it " your loss is our gain" the dummies reverse that " our loss is your gain", and the other countiies will "like us" more now
Thanks for your post
For a great article on Islime, go to:
yourarmstoisrael.org
select "a must read"
pick "Article 29" "The Final Endtime Beast"
copy and save for future reference.
If it’s any consolation, this is not the beginning of the end of Western civilization. It is the end of the beginning… of the end of Western civilization.
Three years ago, I wrote a screed called Tet II in which I predicted that American liberals would once again turn victory into defeat – this time in Iraq.
But Bush did not crack, and I found myself actually daring to hope that our Captain MacWhirr would, out of sheer unimaginative stubbornness, tame the coolies in the hold and outlast the typhoon.
Oddly, it was a storm that dashed that hope. Not a typhoon, but a hurricane. Katrina. The delayed result of those breached levies: we will soon enter the new Dark Ages.
I am not blaming this election. It is a result more than a cause. But there are irreversible moments in history, moments after which the toothpaste cannot ever be put back into the tube. We are in such a moment.
Bush seemed about to confront the crisis five years ago. But the war – not the war in Iraq, but the war here over Iraq – undermined his efforts and distracted him from the task. He must take some of the blame for that. Now, we have just elected the team least likely to tackle the job and instituted policy gridlock where we need urgent action. Looking back it was probably all inevitable. It is about who we are. Our failings as a people.
Let me assert a couple of simple facts. I will not try to prove them. They are self evident to reasonable people. Unreasonable people are not my audience, and no proof would suffice for them, anyway.
First assertion: In the modern world of porous borders, massively destructive and easily secreted weaponry, huge concentrations of exposed economic value and apocalyptic religious fundamentalism, preemption is the only viable strategy for combating an implacable terrorist enemy bent solely on destruction. The Maginot Line did not work in two dimensions; it certainly will not in four.
Second assertion, to misquote Captain Segura (Ernie Kovacs): “There are two classes of people: those who can be [terrorized] and those who can't”. Terrorism only works with the consent of the terrorized. If you refuse to be terrorized, terrorism does not work. If it does not work, it will, eventually, not happen. To allow it to work is to invite it to happen. The successfully terrorized victim serves as accomplice to the terrorist.
The Left invites terrorism. Partly because they are weak in the face of life’s adversities. Partly, here and now, because it suits their tactical political agendas. They are the coolies in the hold, rioting over gold – aboard a ship about to founder.
Our enemy knew that this sort of mutiny is the inescapable curse of the American psyche. That they could call and raise, again and again, in Iraq – backing an obviously losing hand. Inevitably, America would fold.
This knowledge emboldened them to launch, and then to persevere in their insurgency – which grew as the anti-war movement gained strength. And vice versa.
The Left, by sensitizing themselves and us to the terror, became an accomplice – a catalyst in the killing and maiming of thousands of American servicemen. The Left, in turn, directly benefited. The more they could make it appear that our policy in Iraq was “Bush’s failed policy” – even at the cost of causing it to fail – the better their political fortunes, as the election proved.
This is not about incrimination – although it does sound like it, I admit. It is too late for that now. And we can’t, ultimately, blame the Left and its chief weapon, the Media. The failure is ours, the American people’s. With popular sovereignty comes responsibility. We have been tested; and found wanting. Now we will face the consequences. And they will bring us, all of us, more than enough penance.
The impending crisis involves nukes. They are paradigm-shifting weapons that invalidate Segura’s Law. You can maintain a stiff upper lip to the occasional terror bombing, but stoical detachment cannot withstand nuclear attack.
If Iraq had succeeded, it might have aborted this future. Brought Western values to the Middle East and disarmed Iran and North Korea. But now, other radical States will actively seek nuclear technology. Iran will not be disarmed. North Korea will, eventually, dispense its weapons.
In a couple of years, we will have passed the point of no return. The toothpaste will be out of the tube. Terrorists will have nukes. And, inevitably, terrorists will use those nukes on us.
Bush’s strategy was preemption: to attach and destroy the terrorist in their homes before they could muster an attack. To eliminate the festering failed States that sustained them.
We will soon adopt a new course: we will “redeploy” out of Iraq – tail between our legs. And the terrorist will follow us home. The nuclear attacks will be random, unstoppable and devastating.
The British could ignore the destruction of the old Commercial Union Building in London a generation ago. America ultimately shrugged off the Twin Towers five years ago. But New York, Chicago, London, Paris… The loss of entire cities will cripple Western economies and traumatize all civilized peoples. We will be locked in an unwinable asymmetrical war of attrition: our landmark cities for their caves and mud-huts.
The only way to fight terrorism, if you cannot prevent the attacks, is to ignore the effects. – as the British tried to ignore the IRA bombings. The only way to ignore nuclear terrorism is to preemptively “redeploy out of the crosshairs. The great city is the emblem of Western Civilization. Within years they will die – abandoned or incinerated.
But the “redeployment” will not be fast enough, or thorough enough. When the strikes come, the toll will be staggering. A thousand fold or more what we have lost in Iraq. Or on 9/11. Then more millions will die of disease and famine.
The great things we have, as a civilization, built on the Earth over one thousand years will evaporate. We will be left, some of us, to scrape out our bitter existence amidst the ruble in what were the suburbs.
But at least the Left will have succeeded in one thing: eliminating the root cause of Islamic radicalism. The gulf that divides Christendom and the Caliphate. The gulf that energizes their hatred for us. For we and our works will have been laid low.
And then…. Who knows? One guess: dung beetles, muttering “Allah Akbar”, feasting on the remains of Western Civilization.
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