Posted on 02/17/2006 2:03:38 PM PST by Libloather
Rumsfeld Says Extremists Winning Media War
By AMY WESTFELDT, Associated Press Writer
20 minutes ago
U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld gestures while speaking Friday Feb. 17, 2006 at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Al-Qaida and other Islamic extremist groups have poisoned the Muslim public's view of the United States through deft use of the Internet and other modern communications methods that the American government has failed to master, Rumsfeld said Friday. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
NEW YORK - Al-Qaida and other Islamic extremist groups have poisoned the Muslim public's view of the United States through deft use of the Internet and other modern communications methods that the American government has failed to master, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Friday.
In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Rumsfeld sounded a theme he frequently raises as a key to eventually winning the global war on terrorism: countering anti-Western messages from Islamic extremists.
"Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but for the most part we — our country, our government — has not adapted," he said.
He quoted Ayman al-Zawahri, the chief lieutenant of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, as saying that their terrorist network is in a media battle for the hearts and minds of Muslims. Rumsfeld agreed, saying that the battle for public opinion is at least as important as the battles on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The extremist groups are able to act quickly on the information front, with relatively few people, while the U.S. government bureaucracy has yet to keep up in an age of e-mail, blogs and instant messaging, he said.
"We in the government have barely even begun to compete in reaching their audiences," Rumsfeld said.
Rumsfeld has often described the U.S. government as being disadvantaged by its ponderous approach to dealing with the media, and he has pushed for the U.S. military in particular to try innovative approaches to getting out its message to the Islamic world.
He has also complained that the U.S. media tends to focus too much on the negative aspects of U.S. involvement in Iraq.
In his speech, Rumsfeld said the military needs to focus more on adapting to the changes in global media.
"In some cases, military public affairs officials have had little communications training and little, if any, grounding in the importance of timing and rapid response, and the realities of digital and broadcast media," he said.
The government's public affairs system is antiquated, he said, working mostly on an eight-hour, five-days-a-week schedule that cannot keep up with the rest of the world.
"This is an unacceptable, dangerous deficiency," he said.
Big Media in the United States does their part to help...
Genius.
We need to bring in Al Gore. He invented the damn thing!
I'm guessing they have someone on the inside. ;-)
This is part of what I was mentioning. In SF we call this psychops.
ping
Let General Honore handle the media. He won't ponder much.
This garbage posing as ‘art’ was deemed offensive to Christians. CNN had no qualms about showing it and offending Christians. It has remained on their web site until today. Nearly five years now.
In fact, if you click on the link above, you will see this ‘work’ - still proudly displayed on CNN’s website.
Now the violent Muslims are rampaging and burning things - again - about a few cartoons, and CNN says, “CNN has chosen to not show the cartoons out of respect for Islam.”
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/02/05/cartoon.protests/index.html
Follow this link and read the last line in the article.
Hypocrisy?
Do not trust the MSM.
Not just Muslims.
This is a part of the conflict in which soft power and the pajamahadeen can help.
Ever since Algore invented the internet, America has been the superpower in cyberspace. Housewives in the Midwest are infiltrating Jihadi web sites. We have a lot more computer-literate people than they do. We need to get them organized and on the same sheet of music.
We need monitors who find the poison and writers who can refute, rebut, and counteract the poison. It doesn't take a soldier to do this.
There was an idea bandied about after 9/11 which proposed that closed circuit television monitors at strategic dams be monitored by a network of volunteers who signed up to watch the screen for specific time blocks. They accessed the CCTV monitors over the internet, password protected, and did their part, at their convenience, from the comfort of home.
ping
If there were any truth in advertising they'd have to include the following quote at the bottom of this propaganda poster:
"Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faiths, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth." - Omar Ahmad, Co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, aka CAIR. President and CEO of Silicon Expert Technologies. A Palestinian who grew up in a refugee camp in Jordan.
Goes along fine with this story...
U.S. Former Vice President Al Gore arrives at the main hall during the 2nd day of Jeddah Economic Forum Sunday Feb. 12, 2006 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)
Kinda hard to win the media war with seditious assholes like Algore and President Carter running around like a bunch of whining Frenchmen.
ping
I wouldn't know. I tuned out years ago.
My thought exactly. I think Rumsfeld was subtley suggesting the same.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.