Friday, April 28, 2006
Al-Qaeda's Media Strategy
"The al-Qaeda leadership has increased its focus on propaganda and is emphasizing its ideological struggle to make up for diminishing control over the global network, the US State Department said in a report released Friday."
Al-Qaeda's media strategy was the subject of a provocative and interesting essay in the Spring 2006 issue of TNI by Marc Lynch. He noted:
"Even before 9/11 Al-Qaeda adapted with ruthless efficiency to the rise of satellite television and the Internet, grasping before virtually anyone else the political possibilities inherent in new media technologies. Zawahiri and Bin Laden both recognized the revolutionary significance of these developments, with Bin Laden understanding that “rhetoric and satellite propaganda can be on equal footing with unmanned bombers and cruise-missiles.”
"Al-Qaeda, therefore, invested heavily and creatively in propaganda and media from the start. Media became even more central to its strategy after the loss of its Afghan base, when Al-Qaeda metamorphosed into the more virtual, diffuse organization that Peter Bergen memorably labeled “Al-Qaeda 2.0.” The global arena of contention, the absence of a physical territory, and an environment constricted by Western and Arab counter-terrorism operations made the media the premier site of its political action. ...
"Those who suggest that Al-Qaeda cannot win in Iraq miss the primacy of its media strategy: Every day that the occupation of Iraq generates graphic footage of American occupation and Islamist “resistance”, Al-Qaeda wins. Seizing the Iraqi state is hardly necessary, or even desirable, for Al-Qaeda’s media-centered strategy. ..."
Al-Qaeda's media strategy was the subject of a provocative and interesting essay in the Spring 2006 issue of TNI by Marc Lynch. He noted:
"Even before 9/11 Al-Qaeda adapted with ruthless efficiency to the rise of satellite television and the Internet, grasping before virtually anyone else the political possibilities inherent in new media technologies. Zawahiri and Bin Laden both recognized the revolutionary significance of these developments, with Bin Laden understanding that “rhetoric and satellite propaganda can be on equal footing with unmanned bombers and cruise-missiles.”
"Al-Qaeda, therefore, invested heavily and creatively in propaganda and media from the start. Media became even more central to its strategy after the loss of its Afghan base, when Al-Qaeda metamorphosed into the more virtual, diffuse organization that Peter Bergen memorably labeled “Al-Qaeda 2.0.” The global arena of contention, the absence of a physical territory, and an environment constricted by Western and Arab counter-terrorism operations made the media the premier site of its political action. ...
"Those who suggest that Al-Qaeda cannot win in Iraq miss the primacy of its media strategy: Every day that the occupation of Iraq generates graphic footage of American occupation and Islamist “resistance”, Al-Qaeda wins. Seizing the Iraqi state is hardly necessary, or even desirable, for Al-Qaeda’s media-centered strategy. ..."
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War has always been hearts and minds battle - propaganda is after all a weapon.
There is a report out today on the web- the US counter terrorism report for 2005.
I posted the press release on it on my site.
While it does report out the good and the bad very well.
As a reporter; for me - the lead sentence almost seems like a announcement for a "new and improved" streamlined Al-Q.
http://usinfo.state.gov/is/Archive/2006/Apr/28-283728.html
I sometimes wonder if Government writers think that way on purpose or for lack of better things to say.
Anyhow good views - keep blogging...
God Bless
There is a report out today on the web- the US counter terrorism report for 2005.
I posted the press release on it on my site.
While it does report out the good and the bad very well.
As a reporter; for me - the lead sentence almost seems like a announcement for a "new and improved" streamlined Al-Q.
http://usinfo.state.gov/is/Archive/2006/Apr/28-283728.html
I sometimes wonder if Government writers think that way on purpose or for lack of better things to say.
Anyhow good views - keep blogging...
God Bless
The socalled MSM is an arm of the Bush government dissembling, suppressing, propagandizing, and mangling information whenever the Bush government determines it useful, and or effective as a mass marketing tool.
America has no more free press outside of the Blogsphere.
These "Wag the Dog" Al Quaida testimonials smack of the same kind of disingenuous distraction and disinformation the Bush government formally mass marketed to obfuscate the litany of badnews at other critical junctures of failure or catastrophe in the past.
Like the "credible threats", and the silly color coding threat metrics paraded out just when casualties increased, after another embarrassing political or reconstruction failure, deviant perversion or abuse by our brave warfighters, radical deception by the office of the executive, or act of malfeasance, cronyism, or profiteering in the Bush government is exposed and garnering oxygen.
All these distractions inevitably prove hollow and moot.
The failurex, abuses, deceptions, acts of malfeasance, cronyism, profiteering of, in, and by the Bush government lingers and festers, - though the socalled MSM conveniently chooses for some unknown unknown reason to whisk the issues and the Bush government badnews off the radar and simply refuses to investigate, examine, or even discuss the issues for public consumption.
If Al Quaida exists at all, (if it is not some OSP invention conjured in some secret cabal to provide the pretext for the "Pearl Harbor like event" necessary for the fascist warmongers, profiteers, rapturists fanatics in the Bush government to dismantle, dismember, and re-engineer the constitution and fatten select off sheet acounts) - then it would be expected that Al Quaida would use any means possible to frame or defend their positions, no matter how perverted, or depraved.
We can look to the Bush government perception management and disinformation operations for a glaring example of this truth.
We swim in a ocean of lies.
The known knowns are however clear and disturbing.
Iran is capable of developing nukes and calling the Bush government bluff, - little is mentioned or aired with regard to the sordid machinations of NK, or Syria, or Egypt or Yemen, or America's arch enemies in Saudi Arabia anymore, - Hamas head the Palestinian government and continues conducting mass murder operations while Palestinians starve and falter, - Iraq is a costly, bloody, noendinsight horrorshow and the "greatest strategic blunder in American history", - Putin is re-directing Russia's future to the past glories of the Soviet Union, and has Europe over the barrel as it were in terms of oil and energy supply, - China sits on more than a trillion dollars of US treasuries and is making huge demands on the global energy and commodities markets - the Saudi's own almost a trillion in US treasuries, not to mention the worlds largest oil reserves and consequently are awash in imponderable wealth gleaned through our petro dollars and our pathological addiction to oil, - the Saudi's also continue the abundant funding and nurturing of the malignant depravity of wahabism, jihadist islam, and directly or indirectly all the jihadist mass murder gangs unabated including Al Quaida, Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Aqsa, Fatah, blah, blah, blah, - Latin America as region is moving swiftly toward socialist governments fiercely opposed to American interventionalism, - Mexico is next and wanting to legalize certain drugs in the mean time - American immigrants are taking it to the streets in massive numbers in truly democratic opposition to the fascist poliices the Bush government is hoisting to appease it's ignorant and freakish base in redneck America - 95% of the people on the planet loath the Bush government and by proxy Americans, and with good reason - even our former friends and allies are alarmed and dismayed by the radical deceptions, abuses, failures, dereliction of duty, grotesque mismanagement, wanton profiteering, brutish hubris, and fascist policies of the Bush government warmongers profiteers, a rapturist fanatics, - America has absolutely zero credibility on any streat anywhere on the planet outide of the racist lanes in redneck America - the people have no representation, - the political system is fetid and disabled, - the judicial system oppresses the people and protects the superrich(we get the justice we pay for) - Megacorps and oligarchs are immune from accountability and afforded obscene largess from the government, - America somehow allowed our government to sanction torture, rendition, the suspension of habeas corpus, due process, probable cause, freedom of speech, of assembly, and the right to privacy from unwarranted intrusion by the government - and finally even the fascist warmongers, profiteers, and rapturist fanatics in the Bush government warn of that 9/11two is a question of when, - not if.
So from my pedestrian perspective Al Quaida's media strategy is the least of our problems.
Unimaginable oil wealth flowing into Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and other muslim governments will eventually provide the means for jihadist shaitans to acquire or develop WMD which will then be delivered post haste to a city near you with absolutely no restraint.
Here in the Homeland we are trillions of dollars in debt, with the largest most porcine government in the history of America failing to secure the homeland, ruthlessly raping and pillaging the Constitution, eroding, restricting, or erasing the peoples former rights, freedoms, privileges, and protections, - giving the superrich and select oligarchs, klans, cartels, cabals, and cronies superextraordinary government largess, support, representation, and protection, - betraying and perverting the core principles that formally defined America, conducting acts of treason as revenge for whistleblowers daring to expose the truth or factbasedreality - promoting and implementing fascist supremist police, regulatory, military, political, social, and economic policies, - wasting oceans of blood, and pilfering hundreds of billions of the peoples dollars on a catastrophic bloody, costly, failure in Iraq against the wrong muslims.
Terrorist threats, capabilities, and assets have increased significantly, not dimished - and Bin Laden, Zhawari, Zhakwari (if they exist) remain at large and operative working diligently on the WMD sequel to 9/11 - so Al Quaida is only trotted out as a marketing tool when the warmongers, profiteers, and the rapturist fanatics in the Bush government find the news untidy, and need to push the people, and information back.
Focus more on Baker's multi million dollar duplicitous PR campaign to pimp Saudi's as "good friends" of America, and stop wasting our time and terrorizing Americans with whatever slime or bile is spewed out by Al Quaida.
"Deliver us from evil."
America has no more free press outside of the Blogsphere.
These "Wag the Dog" Al Quaida testimonials smack of the same kind of disingenuous distraction and disinformation the Bush government formally mass marketed to obfuscate the litany of badnews at other critical junctures of failure or catastrophe in the past.
Like the "credible threats", and the silly color coding threat metrics paraded out just when casualties increased, after another embarrassing political or reconstruction failure, deviant perversion or abuse by our brave warfighters, radical deception by the office of the executive, or act of malfeasance, cronyism, or profiteering in the Bush government is exposed and garnering oxygen.
All these distractions inevitably prove hollow and moot.
The failurex, abuses, deceptions, acts of malfeasance, cronyism, profiteering of, in, and by the Bush government lingers and festers, - though the socalled MSM conveniently chooses for some unknown unknown reason to whisk the issues and the Bush government badnews off the radar and simply refuses to investigate, examine, or even discuss the issues for public consumption.
If Al Quaida exists at all, (if it is not some OSP invention conjured in some secret cabal to provide the pretext for the "Pearl Harbor like event" necessary for the fascist warmongers, profiteers, rapturists fanatics in the Bush government to dismantle, dismember, and re-engineer the constitution and fatten select off sheet acounts) - then it would be expected that Al Quaida would use any means possible to frame or defend their positions, no matter how perverted, or depraved.
We can look to the Bush government perception management and disinformation operations for a glaring example of this truth.
We swim in a ocean of lies.
The known knowns are however clear and disturbing.
Iran is capable of developing nukes and calling the Bush government bluff, - little is mentioned or aired with regard to the sordid machinations of NK, or Syria, or Egypt or Yemen, or America's arch enemies in Saudi Arabia anymore, - Hamas head the Palestinian government and continues conducting mass murder operations while Palestinians starve and falter, - Iraq is a costly, bloody, noendinsight horrorshow and the "greatest strategic blunder in American history", - Putin is re-directing Russia's future to the past glories of the Soviet Union, and has Europe over the barrel as it were in terms of oil and energy supply, - China sits on more than a trillion dollars of US treasuries and is making huge demands on the global energy and commodities markets - the Saudi's own almost a trillion in US treasuries, not to mention the worlds largest oil reserves and consequently are awash in imponderable wealth gleaned through our petro dollars and our pathological addiction to oil, - the Saudi's also continue the abundant funding and nurturing of the malignant depravity of wahabism, jihadist islam, and directly or indirectly all the jihadist mass murder gangs unabated including Al Quaida, Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Aqsa, Fatah, blah, blah, blah, - Latin America as region is moving swiftly toward socialist governments fiercely opposed to American interventionalism, - Mexico is next and wanting to legalize certain drugs in the mean time - American immigrants are taking it to the streets in massive numbers in truly democratic opposition to the fascist poliices the Bush government is hoisting to appease it's ignorant and freakish base in redneck America - 95% of the people on the planet loath the Bush government and by proxy Americans, and with good reason - even our former friends and allies are alarmed and dismayed by the radical deceptions, abuses, failures, dereliction of duty, grotesque mismanagement, wanton profiteering, brutish hubris, and fascist policies of the Bush government warmongers profiteers, a rapturist fanatics, - America has absolutely zero credibility on any streat anywhere on the planet outide of the racist lanes in redneck America - the people have no representation, - the political system is fetid and disabled, - the judicial system oppresses the people and protects the superrich(we get the justice we pay for) - Megacorps and oligarchs are immune from accountability and afforded obscene largess from the government, - America somehow allowed our government to sanction torture, rendition, the suspension of habeas corpus, due process, probable cause, freedom of speech, of assembly, and the right to privacy from unwarranted intrusion by the government - and finally even the fascist warmongers, profiteers, and rapturist fanatics in the Bush government warn of that 9/11two is a question of when, - not if.
So from my pedestrian perspective Al Quaida's media strategy is the least of our problems.
Unimaginable oil wealth flowing into Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and other muslim governments will eventually provide the means for jihadist shaitans to acquire or develop WMD which will then be delivered post haste to a city near you with absolutely no restraint.
Here in the Homeland we are trillions of dollars in debt, with the largest most porcine government in the history of America failing to secure the homeland, ruthlessly raping and pillaging the Constitution, eroding, restricting, or erasing the peoples former rights, freedoms, privileges, and protections, - giving the superrich and select oligarchs, klans, cartels, cabals, and cronies superextraordinary government largess, support, representation, and protection, - betraying and perverting the core principles that formally defined America, conducting acts of treason as revenge for whistleblowers daring to expose the truth or factbasedreality - promoting and implementing fascist supremist police, regulatory, military, political, social, and economic policies, - wasting oceans of blood, and pilfering hundreds of billions of the peoples dollars on a catastrophic bloody, costly, failure in Iraq against the wrong muslims.
Terrorist threats, capabilities, and assets have increased significantly, not dimished - and Bin Laden, Zhawari, Zhakwari (if they exist) remain at large and operative working diligently on the WMD sequel to 9/11 - so Al Quaida is only trotted out as a marketing tool when the warmongers, profiteers, and the rapturist fanatics in the Bush government find the news untidy, and need to push the people, and information back.
Focus more on Baker's multi million dollar duplicitous PR campaign to pimp Saudi's as "good friends" of America, and stop wasting our time and terrorizing Americans with whatever slime or bile is spewed out by Al Quaida.
"Deliver us from evil."
The trouble with a media strategy is that is cannot be sustained without real advances on the ground. Eventually, the rhetoric becomes hollow if trends and events don't vindicate it. The simultaneous appearance of messages from bin Laden, Zawahiri, and Zarqawi may be coincidental, but it seems clear that the message from Zarqawi was prompted by a fear that his base in Iraq might defect if a new government comes together.
The question in Iraq is whether a new government will be any better than its predecessor at detaching the Sunnis from the insurgency, for which bringing the Shia militias under firm control is a prerequisite. I guess we'll begin to know soon.
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The question in Iraq is whether a new government will be any better than its predecessor at detaching the Sunnis from the insurgency, for which bringing the Shia militias under firm control is a prerequisite. I guess we'll begin to know soon.
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