Posted on 05/30/2007 9:54:13 PM PDT by Chgogal
Al-Qaeda also has developed what can only be judged as a spectacularly successful online university of strategy, tactics and training for guerrilla warfare and terrorist operations (http://www.alsakifah.org). In journals such as those mentioned above and others, al-Qaeda's analysts and strategists have developed a worldview that neatly fits the Islamists' struggle into the context of contemporary international relations, explaining why there are solid geopolitical reasons—such as status quo U.S. foreign policies in the Muslim world, and the West's dependence on Muslim oil and need to defend its access thereto—that make al-Qaeda's war aims of "bleeding America to bankruptcy" and "spreading out U.S. forces" attainable (http://www.yaislah.org, December 25, 2005). On issues of conducting the war, the media organizations of al-Qaeda and its allies have provided detailed instructions on everything from building fertilizer bombs to small-unit infantry tactics, to techniques to resist interrogation, to a several-dozen-lesson course in conducting intelligence operations—including data collection and encryption, recruiting penetrations of state security services and conducting kidnappings and phone taps—authored by senior al-Qaeda lieutenant Sayf al-Adl (Terrorism Monitor, March 29). The use of these media products by would-be mujahideen around the world has been documented during the past year in places like Australia, Morocco, Canada, Germany and Britain, where downloaded materials have been seized when local Islamist cells were broken up by police. In essence, the intense, wide-ranging and highly professional training for insurgents and terrorists that Omar Nasiri described in his recent book Inside the Jihad, and which were once available only in al-Qaeda camps, is now available electronically wherever the internet is accessible.
Most recently, al-Qaeda's al-Sahab media organization has demonstrated an ability to present, and help others to present, a reliable source of near real-time news coverage from the jihad fronts for Muslims. From both Iraq and Afghanistan—where heretofore the Taliban took almost no interest in media operations—there now flow almost daily, high-quality videos of mujahideen military activity against the forces of the U.S.-led coalitions, interviews with important insurgent commanders and tapes of the retribution exacted from those Muslims who cooperate with the "occupiers." These tapes are a solid contribution to al-Qaeda's goal of reducing Arab and Muslim defeatism, and offer Muslims around the world a third news source option. In addition to Western outlets like CNN, VOA and BBC, and the Arab satellite channels like al-Jazeera and al-Arabiyah, al-Qaeda and its allies have, via the internet, given Muslims another option for viewing the news from the war zones, and one with a blatant but well-informed Islamist slant.
Beyond its battlefield successes, therefore, al-Qaeda and its allies have scored an impressive media achievement, moving from the status of jihadi cheerleaders to that of highly modern and competent media operatives and propagandists whose focus is on influencing the Muslim audience. In addition to al-Sahab's ability to dominate the international media for days at a time when it presents new audio or videotapes of bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, it and the other media organizations it supports or cooperates with have established a pervasive media presence via the internet. This not only provides on-demand religious and military instruction and near real-time news coverage, but denies the militaries of the United States and its Western allies one pillar of their military doctrine—information dominance. The success of al-Qaeda and the Islamists in the media arena has denied Western military planners much of their previous ability to shape the battlefield environment by controlling information flows. Indeed, it may be that the U.S. military and its allies are now in the position of having to look for means with which to break the Islamists' information domination on battlefields and contested regions across the Muslim world.
MSM’s Role, Losing the Information War
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1835225/posts
The Missing Context in Media Reporting on Iraq
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1833232/posts
It is hard to believe that the Great Thinkers in Academia, the Government, Military, ect. have not identified this weakness and attempted to at the very least manage it if not minimize it.
Typical nonsense from one of the charter members of the CIA's Let's-blame-Bush-for-Our-Failure-to-stop-9/11 Society.
BTTT!!!
99% of Academia is against us.
As a result of partial regime change in America last November, RINO's, Clintonista hold overs and activist judges, of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Branches of the .gov I estimate 70% are against us.
The Military are well aware of this weakness, but it is against the law for them to conduct counter propaganda or any other psychological operation directed at the domestic audience.
What the Good Guys need is a Good Guy al-Sahab. Is that impossible?
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