Strategypage: Information Warfare

Strategypage: Islamic terrorists are encouraging their supporters, who can write in English, to get on American web sites and pretend to be friends or family members of American soldiers or marines. The "media jehadis" are instructed to tell stories in line with the anti-war tone of American and European media. Things like soldiers committing suicide because they were forced to take part in atrocities in Iraq. Or wounded soldiers suffering, or killing themselves, because of the poor care and abuse they have received from the army. The media jihadis are told to make it sound like they are simply passing on what a soldier said, not to pretend to be a soldier or marine. Media jihadis are told not to discuss anything from the Moslems side, and Moslems should only be referred to as innocent victims. Never mention the Sunni-Shia conflict or Islamic terrorism. Posters should not stick around for discussions, lest they be found out. Care should be taken to select screen names similar to other English speaking posters. Keep messages simple, so as not to betray the fact that you are not a native English speaker.

 

This is a clever strategy, and whoever started posting it openly on Arab language web sites, demonstrated a keen understanding of how the media works in the West. Bad news is more believable, and stories like this are already spread by the mass media. On some American anti-war sites, American posters are already inventing such stories. Some will be believed. That's the way the world works.

 

This strategy is already being executed by American media is very subtle ways. For example, most American media stories about the suffering of Iraqi civilians leaves out the fact that most of these victims are Sunnis, or Shia who have been attacked by Sunni terrorists. Outside of Sunni and partly Sunni areas, where 70 percent of the population lives, economic conditions are much better, and there is little violence. But by concentrating on the Sunnis, you get an anti-war human interest story, without revealing that you are examining the self-inflicted tribulations of the people who have caused all the problems in the first place. Information War doesn't get any better than that.

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