05.28.15
Posted in Bioterrorism, War On Terror at 1:39 pm by George Smith
The US government bio-defense laboratories produced the best bioterrorist money could buy. That was Bruce Ivins, the anthrax mailer.
Ivins brought on an incredible surge in spending to counter bioterrorism in this country. A huge nationwide infrastructure was built and augmented. I wrote about one of its keystone facilities here.
Billions and billions of dollars spent. Half a billion on the one in the link above, per year, alone.
Post Bruce Ivins, number of bioterrorism incidents: ZERO.
This week, a mistake in the anthrax defense program shows the facilities reach around the world, including government and private sector labs. Not really a big surprise. It’s what taxpayer money built. It’s a big business.
From the Los Angeles Times:
At least 26 people are being treated for potential exposure to deadly anthrax after an Army bio-defense facility in Utah mistakenly sent live samples to private and military laboratories in as many as nine states, including California, and South Korea, officials said Thursday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it was working with state and federal agencies to investigate how the anthrax samples were sent from the Army’s Dugway Proving Ground, a vast facility in southwest Utah where researchers try to build and test defenses against chemical and biological agents, including viruses and bacteria.
The CDC said it had launched its inquiry last weekend after it was contacted by a private commercial lab in Maryland that had received live spores.
This is a very big and embarrassing deal, although the specifics as to why are not really addressed in the LAT piece.
Ivins produced live anthrax spores, dry powder. In that state, anthrax is very dangerous. The spores float and get everywhere.
The US government’s bioterror-defense programs are not, repeat that — not — supposed to be producing live anthrax spore powder. That’s what Bruce Ivins did, something he kept secret during his clandestine work at Fort Detrick.
And you’re not supposed to make spore powder for reasons which now are very obvious.
Wet anthrax, slurry, sort of OK, as a research necessity.
What, precisely, was the state of the mailed samples?
The newspaper only mentions that “spores” are supposed to be “inert,” dead, rendered so by exposure to gamma rays.
Here’s a potential clue. Twenty two of the twenty six being treated are at Osan Air Base in South Korea.
“A joint U.S.-Korean program at Osan aims to boost bio-surveillance capabilities on the Korean Peninsula,” reads the newspaper.
This could mean someone opened a sample tube of dry spore preparation. And when it was discovered it was live, it was assumed everyone in the room, or who had opened it, had potentially been contaminated. Because of the very nature of the stuff.
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05.20.15
Posted in Culture of Lickspittle, War On Terror at 2:23 pm by George Smith
The Big Fraud. And I experienced a part of it first hand in 2004 and 2005. It’s why some people read this blog.
The alleged al Qaeda London ricin ring is a subject I never thought I’d return to in the context of presidential contenders in 2015.
Jeb “Mistakes Were Made” Bush and Marco Rubio are disgraces. So is David Brooks in “Learning from Mistakes.”
The UK poison cell allegedly linked to al Qaeda in Iraq was part of the Bush administration’s call for war. (Of course, it was not the only factor. It was an issue, however, that I had first hand knowledge of.)
This alleged London poison cell, infamously said by Colin Powell and the Bush administration to be linked to al Qaeda in Iraq was not an honest mistake. It was a fraud. Period.
And I was the first to write that. I was a consultant to the defense in the London ricin trial for GlobalSecurity.Org
It’s all here and here and here.
Plagiarizing myself:
One of the last claims in Colin Powell’s presentation to the UN Security Council on February 5, 2003 blew away like dust in the wind late last week in the Old Bailey, London’s central criminal court.
The trial of the infamous “UK poison cell,” a group portrayed by Secretary of State Powell as al Qaida-associated operatives plotting to launch ricin attacks in the United Kingdom and in league with Muhamad al Zarqawi in Iraq, found nothing of the sort. The jury did find “the UK poison cell,” known as Kamel Bourgass and others (Sidali Faddag, Samir Asli, Mouloud Bouhrama, Mustapha Taleb, Mouloud Sihali, Aissa Kalef), not guilty of conspiracy to murder by plotting ricin attacks and, generally speaking, not guilty of conspiracy to do anything. Kamel Bourgass had been previously convicted of murder of a British policeman in an unpublicized trial.
In addition, the jury found Bourgass (and only him) guilty of conspiring to be a public nuisance with poisons.
A planned subsequent trial of other Muslim men who had been rounded up in the operation which eventually netted Bourgass was then canceled.
There was no UK poison cell. The alleged tip that led to it was obtained by torture, by an informant in the UK who had been tortured in an Algerian prison, and another man who had been tortured in one of the American gulags. (The UK informant later recanted and his information could not be used in the trial precisely because he had been tortured.)
“The ‘detained al Qaida operative’ in the above slide was Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi,” I wrote in 2008. “It is now well-accepted the al-Libi was tortured into a number of admissions, statements made to placate his captors.”
A Senate report from the Select Committee on Intelligence on the subject of Iraq and weapons of mass destruction read:
The other was an Al Qaeda detainee, Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, who had reportedly been sent to Eqypt by the CIA and tortured and who later recanted the information he had provided. Libi told the CIA in January 2004 that he had ‘decided he would fabricate any information interrogators wanted in order to gain better treatment and avoid being handed over to [a foreign government].'”
“There’s a fable going around now that the intelligence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was all cooked by political pressure, that there was a big political conspiracy to lie us into war,” wrote David Brooks yesterday.
The New York Times got rid of Judith Miller. It should lose David Brooks. Stubbornly, it won’t.
From what was called “the Downing Street memo” in 2005:
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
In 2005 the US press definitely did not want to hear the London ricin ring was a fraud. And Judith Miller was still working for the Times. (She saw my pieces at GlobalSecurity.)
From my blog:
The US newsmedia declined to cover the results of the trial of the so-called London ricin ring. The verdict came at a time when much of the newsmedia was still toeing the line on the Bush administration’s reasons for war with Iraq …
At Newsweek, Mark Hosenball also got his details from [my] GlobalSecurity posting.
Newsweek’s subsequent article was a disgrace, attempting to spin the verdict as evidence that if accused terrorists were allowed to go to trial in England, a jury would bring in the wrong verdict. Hosenball shoved my name in at the bottom of his article [I was his primary source] in an attempt to bury where the news actually came from. No one wanted to hear or print the real story about a big terror plot that had turned out to be tiny or that innocent men had been found not guilty during a lengthy and fair process.
“A much-touted ricin-plot terrorism case in the United Kingdom ended in a muddled verdict today, raising new questions among U.S. officials about the ability of British authorities to secure convictions against major terrorist suspects,” Hosenball wrote.
The jury had left off guilty men, Newsweek implied. It was a setback in the war on terror.
“The mixed outcome dismayed U.S. counterterror specialists who were convinced that Bourgass and his four codefendants were in fact acting as part of a broader international terror plot,” continued the Newsweek journalist.
Hosenball then roped in a source, Evan Kohlmann, who had nothing to do with the ricin trial.
“This is very disturbing,” Kohlmann, billed as a U.S. government consultant on international terror cases, told the reporter. “These are dangerous people … ”
Muddled verdict. There was nothing muddled about it.
The jury was clear and so was the case. Nobody bought the idea that a mere 20 castor seeds in a jewelry tin on a dresser constituted something in a real plot organized by al Qaeda through Iraq to cause mass death in the United Kingdom.
“The Iraq invasion was always an insane exercise in brainless jingoism that could only be intellectually justified after accepting a series of ludicrous suppositions,” wrote Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone this week.
“The bulk of [our reporters hid behind the morons in our business, people like Tom Friedman and David Brooks and Jeffrey ‘I trusted the Germans’ Goldberg, frontline pundits who were pushed forward to do the dirty work, the hardcore pom-pom stuff,” he continued.
“Many others, particularly the editors, quietly sat by and let lie after lie spill onto their papers’ pages …”
And who’s doing the pom-pom work today?
Why, it’s Mark Hosenball at Reuters, writing about the alleged trove of information seized at bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad,” coincidentally just declassified a week, one whole week [!], after Seymour Hersh’s story that the hit was arranged, bin Laden had been in the custody of Pakistan’s intelligence service, and not much information, if any, was retrieved at all.
If you follow the Reuters link to “bin Laden’s bookshelf” at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence you’ll see it’s another big bag of mostly unimportant nothing: Lots of US-origin public domain materials downloaded from the Internet, some American political books (including one by Bob Woodward), and 100 or so boring and relatively meaningless memos from bin Laden to an small assortment of al Qaeda lackeys.
You could fit all of it on your PC.
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05.11.15
Posted in Culture of Lickspittle, War On Terror at 9:53 am by George Smith
I watched Zero Dark Thirty, Hollywood’s treatment of the hunt for Osama bin Laden and his eventual killing. It was unendurably long. And with so many lies already documented from the war on terror, well over half of it was easy to despise.
After the bin Laden mission, continuing with the movie, the members of SEAL Team 6 were deified. Even their fucking dog was celebrated.
In keeping with the character of the nation, Seymour Hersh today writes in the London Review of Books that much of it was bullshit.
Osama bin Laden had been a prisoner of the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence service, essentially under house arrest in Abbottabad, an invalid being kept as leverage against the Taliban and al Qaeda in AfPak.
Pakistan was given “goodies” so a SEAL team could be sent to the house in Abbottabad to execute him. ISI soldiers were removed from the compound, the electricity turned off, the Pakistani air force stood down.
Pakistani advisors accompanied the SEALs and had even coached the team on how to breach the compound. Bin Laden was unarmed.
In other words, the way was paved for the mission, the ground prepared and they still managed to crash a helicopter, the result being that a new story had to be cooked up.
Excerpt:
‘Of course the guys knew the target was bin Laden and he was there under Pakistani control,’ the retired official said. ‘Otherwise, they would not have done the mission without air cover. It was clearly and absolutely a premeditated murder.’ A former Seal commander, who has led and participated in dozens of similar missions over the past decade, assured me that ‘we were not going to keep bin Laden alive – to allow the terrorist to live. By law, we know what we’re doing inside Pakistan is a homicide. We’ve come to grips with that. Each one of us, when we do these missions, say to ourselves, “Let’s face it. We’re going to commit a murder.???
‘They knew where the target was – third floor, second door on the right,’ the retired official said. ‘Go straight there. Osama was cowering and retreated into the bedroom. Two shooters followed him and opened up. Very simple, very straightforward, very professional hit.’ Some of the Seals were appalled later at the White House’s initial insistence that they had shot bin Laden in self-defence, the retired official said. ‘Six of the Seals’ finest, most experienced NCOs, faced with an unarmed elderly civilian, had to kill him in self-defence? The house was shabby and bin Laden was living in a cell with bars on the window and barbed wire on the roof. The rules of engagement were that if bin Laden put up any opposition they were authorised to take lethal action. But if they suspected he might have some means of opposition, like an explosive vest under his robe, they could also kill him. So here’s this guy in a mystery robe and they shot him. It’s not because he was reaching for a weapon. The rules gave them absolute authority to kill the guy.’ The later White House claim that only one or two bullets were fired into his head was ‘bullshit’, the retired official said. ‘The squad came through the door and obliterated him. As the Seals say, “We kicked his ass and took his gas.???’
None of this should really come as a surprise in the corporate dictatorship engaged in forever war.
And it probably won’t displace the official account.
But it again belies the alleged power and expertise of the American military. Much money was spent; they crashed a Black Hawk helicopter, anyway. (And remember all that stuff about stealth? More excrement.)
“Seals cannot live with the fact that they killed bin Laden totally unopposed, and so there has to be an account of their courage in the face of danger,” it reads. “The guys are going to sit around the bar and say it was an easy day? That’s not going to happen.”
Hersh’s account won’t be believed in many quarters. My take it that much of the American media will ignore it. When they have something to say it will be to Gary Webb him.
There are no good people in Hersh’s account. The only reason different facts have come out in such volume is payback and politics, via at least one source in Pakistan and one who worked the job at the CIA who felt betrayed.
On and on it goes, explaining that everything in the government account of bin Laden’s killing — was just more crap for public consumption.
There wasn’t even a burial at sea. Gunfire had torn bin Laden’s body to pieces. His head and what was left were tossed in a body bag. Remnants were thrown out of the helicopter over the mountains, “according to the Seals.”
On top of all of it, the administration and CIA chief Leon Panetta used the bin Laden raid to justify some of the uses of torture.
The Obama administration’s tale and, later, the movie Zero Dark Thirty delivered a story that “enhanced interrogation” had contributed to finding bin Laden when it was, perhaps, a Pakistani official who had given him up.
For reward money, $25 million. Which is, in a matter of fact way, easy to believe.
It’s here.
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05.02.15
Posted in Bombing Paupers, War On Terror at 11:49 am by George Smith
The local air traffic controllers aren’t fans of the East Africa Air Pirates:
Unlike other U.S. military bases around the world, Camp Lemonnier has to use civilian air-traffic controllers hired by the government of Djibouti, the Post said. The base shares its two runways with Djibouti’s only international airport, a French military base and a contingent of Japanese military planes.
As traffic at the base has increased, the controllers’ dangerous habits and dislike for drones have disrupted U.S. military operations and prompted repeated warnings about the risk of a deadly accident, the Post said.
Controllers sometimes punished U.S. flight crews by forcing them to circle overhead until they ran low on fuel, the Post said.
In one case, an observer told an air traffic controller that an unmanned plane he was monitoring was low on fuel. The controller said he did not care because drones “only want to kill Muslims in Yemen and Somalia,” the report said.
They play video games and sleep on the job, too, it says.
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04.25.15
Posted in Bombing Moe, Bombing Paupers, Culture of Lickspittle, War On Terror at 12:28 pm by George Smith
From the New York Times:
He praised the intelligence professionals for their work even as he reflected on the costs. “This self-reflection, this willingness to examine ourselves, to make corrections, to do better, that’s part of what makes us Americans,??? Mr. Obama told them. “It’s part of what sets us apart from other nations. It’s part of what keeps us not only safe but also strong and free.???
Leon E. Panetta, who served Mr. Obama as C.I.A. director and then as defense secretary, said the president was especially engaged in counterterrorism operations and wanted regular briefings, always asking about civilian casualties. “You hit some of these targets, and you get a lot of people in a shot, and what you wind up doing is asking yourself, ‘Is every one of those guys you get a bad guy?’ ??? Mr. Panetta said.
I bet. Bad guys. Always with the good guys and bad guys thing.
“We came, we saw, he died,” Hillary Clinton joked about Mo Ghaddafi after B-2 bomber strikes took out the rivets holding his military together.
Now Libya is a failed state with a local chapter of ISIS. But we bombed the paupers and got the bad guy.
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04.24.15
Posted in Culture of Lickspittle, Shoeshine, War On Terror at 3:30 pm by George Smith
“Mistakes happen, says William Banks, a professor at Syracuse University’s Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism” on the drone strike that killed two humanitarian aid workers, one American and one Italian, in Pakistan.
That’s a quote from the BBC, courtesy of one of many scholars flacks for the forever wars devoted to dropping bombs on the poor people of the world. “Even if you’re up close and personal, it can be difficult,” Banks adds. It’s difficult to tell the “bad guys from the good guys.”
This is what passes for pithy comment, scholarship and critical thinking from the American academy on our many wars in 2015. That’s because the American system virtually wiped out everyone who wasn’t attached to the payroll of the Department of Defense or the national security infrastructure after 9/11. Experts on the matter, you see, are only necessary as fonts of simple-minded justifications, suitable for public consumption, for whatever it is the war machine is doing around the world.
What does Syracuse know about national security and terrorism? Nothing. Its “institute” didn’t exist until 2003.
A visit to its homepage (laugh at it’s unintentionally hilarious acronym) shows it to be almost all middle-aged and older white guys. Like most of these things, funded and fertilized by national security money, it’s a dumping ground for lawyers, military men from the wars still wearing their uniforms for their bio pictures, and lower and middle tier officials from the Pentagon. Plus, they can’t even hire someone to keep their web links working correctly.
“At times mistakes occur because of poor judgment,” continues the BBC. (No link, I won’t do it.)
Then the Beeb White House reporter digs up still another lawyer from the University of Houston to furnish yet one more upper class servant-of-the-military to white-mansplain how it is the war on terror is fought. For the one times ten to the sixth power time.
“There was ‘faulty intelligence,’ says Jordan Paust, an international law professor at University of Houston.” But the target site appeared to be “lawful … despite the unintended deaths,” he tells the Beeb.
“Someone’s got to make a choice …. That’s not necessarily a war crime.”
Faulty intelligence. Hard time telling the “bad guys from the good guys.” Even if you’re up close and personal it’s difficult.
A sack of potatoes could have thought this stuff up.
Do the war flacks passed off as scholars know how bad they sound? Certainly some of them do. But that’s why they’re paid. We need people to convincingly pretend they’re serious and thoughtful so that the news doesn’t veer dangerously into discussions of systematic callousness, inequities, blood and long-term consequences.
And there’s nothing that can be done about it. Except write something supercilious on a blog, something no one will like or share because … why, exactly?
Well, what to like? There’s no appropriate social media reaction widget.
The New York Times editorial board gets to the Bombs of Hope and Renewal matter:
The Obama administration has helped the Saudis with intelligence and tactical advice and by deploying warships off the Yemeni coast. Now it is wisely urging them to end the bombing. The White House seems to have realized that the Saudis appear to have no credible strategy for achieving their political goals, or even managing their intervention.
Seems baldly disingenuous, does it not? There are smart people at the New York Times. When they say “the Saudis appear to have no credible strategy” they certainly know it’s a strategy cooked up and targeted by the US Africa Command after it was surprised by the eruption of revolution. (Google US Africa Command and “stability operations” for a bleak laugh.)
“The deployment of the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier and other warships to the Arabian Sea this week was intended [to help the war effort], writes the Times. “American officials said they were prepared to intercept a nine-ship Iranian convoy headed for Yemen and believed to be carrying weapons for the rebels. Fortunately, the Iranian vessels turned around, avoiding a possible confrontation.”
Yes, an entire nuclear carrier surface action group is needed off one of the poorest countries in the world, just in case.
Perhaps the President or the Times ought to concede that letting Special Operations Command and the East Africa Air Pirates drone crew give Yemen the business for a few years hasn’t done the world any humanitarian favors.
Yemen has almost always teetered close to being a failed state. In 2013, the country’s electrical production was 850 megawatts, down by almost half of what it was the year before.
By contrast, the cities of Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena consumed 962 gigawatt hours of electricity in 2012 for residential use alone. Pasadena, by itself, it’s probably safe to say, has indescribably more electrical production capacity at its disposal than the entire country of Yemen.
Yemen, then, is patently one of the worst off places in the world, it’s deteriorating electrical production capacity only one measure of its very weak and fragile structure.
The US government, or its military, surely cannot say with any straight face (although they may try), that unleashing a vigorous anti-terror campaign upon the country did not significantly contribute to its current terrible condition.
More national security servant whitemansplaining on assassination campaigns in the poors regions:
“Core Al Qaeda is a rump of its former self,??? said an American counterterrorism official, in an assessment echoed by several European and Pakistani officials.
The Pakistanis estimate that Al Qaeda has lost 40 loyalists, of all ranks, to American drone strikes in the past six months – a higher toll than other sources have tracked but indicative of a broader trend. Now, they say, Qaeda commanders are moving back to the relative safety, and isolation, of locations they once fled, like the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, and Sudan.
Yet militancy experts caution that it is too early to sound the death knell for Al Qaeda’s leaders, for whom patience and adaptability are hallmarks, and who, despite the adversity, remain the principal jihadist militants focused on attacking the West.
“People always want to know when the job will be finished,??? said Michael Semple, a militancy expert at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland. “I don’t think we can talk about that. They’re on the back foot, rather than being eliminated.???
The job will not be finished. That would mean the need for so many facile “militancy experts” might come into question.
Militancy experts. Say it again. Sounds delicate, like something for which you have to have brains.
Is there a metric, a “militancy quotient,” used to measure countries we’re working over because terrorists? What’s the quotient of Yemen? Pakistan? Iraq-Syria-Libya?
The newspaper does sort of glumly concede al Qaeda men are has-beens next to ISIS, though.
“A Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s [Barack Obama’s] embrace of drones, partly on humanitarian grounds, is sure to increase their legitimacy as instruments of war in the future,” reads the New Yorker. “But how can Obama’s choice be squared with the accumulating record of mistakes?”
In 2014, Camp Lemmonair in Djibouti (or US Africa Command’s home) was the launching pad for 16 drone sorties a day, most of them into Yemen.
Mark Fiore on Death & Destruction, Inc.
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01.19.15
Posted in Bombing Paupers, Culture of Lickspittle, War On Terror, WhiteManistan at 3:41 pm by George Smith
I’m not surprised Clint Eastwood’s movie about Chris Kyle, American Sniper, broke box office records this weekend.
Are you?
Only a minority of Americans have been involved in the forever war. But reverence to the military and service is a deep part of WhiteManistan’s character, I’d say strongly influenced by a universal nagging guilt.
So when a movie on the forever war comes along, particularly one made by Clint Eastwood, it has a great chance of success.
WhiteManistan hasn’t had many war movies to stir a righteous enjoyment in the last decade. I skipped Zero Dark Thirty but did see Lone Survivor which I didn’t think was anything special.
Americans have the military they deserve, one that runs itself with little or no oversight. In payment we’ve been asked to stay out of its way, pretend to like it, swallow the ill will and tragedies that are the consequences years later, give it any resources it needs and keep believing that all of it [fill in the blanks with your favorite myths, received wisdoms and stuff].
Buy me a ticket and I’ll review it here.
It’s 20 dollars in Pasadena.
Good-looking commercial mythology, seen watching football on Sunday.
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12.16.14
Posted in Culture of Lickspittle, War On Terror, WhiteManistan, Why the World Doesn't Need US at 11:57 am by George Smith
Another day, another milestone, in WhiteManistan:
A majority of Americans believe that the harsh interrogation techniques used on terrorism suspects after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were justified, even as about half the public says the treatment amounted to torture, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
By an almost 2-1 margin, or 59-to-31?percent, those interviewed support the CIA’s brutal methods, with the vast majority of supporters saying they produced valuable intelligence.
In general, 58?percent say the torture of suspected terrorists can be justified “often??? or “sometimes.???
The only good news is the pool was restricted to a sample size of 1,000.
I have a hard time believing such a small sample provides much meaningful information in a country as segmented and economically riven as the United States.
Many people just can’t be reached on the telephone anymore, for a whole slew of good reasons.
[One man interviewed by the Post] said torturing people during war was appropriate if there was reasonable suspicion the individuals had important information that could aid the United States.
The person was thirteen when we started torturing people. Representative? I’m thinking maybe not so much.
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10.01.14
Posted in Bombing Paupers, Culture of Lickspittle, War On Terror at 12:45 pm by George Smith
When the American bombing campaign opened against ISetc, early news announced the destruction of “refineries.” This was said to be hitting the caliphate in its pockets, depriving it of an unstated amount of money from oil revenue.
Well, what about those refineries?
From the Los Angeles Times, six days ago:
Making the first major push to choke off financing for Islamic State, U.S. and allied Arab warplanes bombed a dozen small oil refineries in eastern Syria on Wednesday that U.S. officials said were part of a $2 million-a-day revenue stream for the Sunni Muslim extremist group …
“These small-scale refineries provided fuel to run ISIL operations, money to finance their continued attacks … and an economic asset to support their future operations,??? [said a leaflet from US Central Command.]
The statement said the facilities produced 300 to 500 barrels of refined petroleum per day …
By Sunday:
Six U.S. and 10 allied Arab warplanes also bombed a dozen “small oil refineries” in eastern Syria, the Pentagon announced. The raids made headlines, but the facilities proved to be improvised stills used to produce total of only a few hundred barrels of gasoline a day.
More and more, the dilemma is how to package strikes against a group of people, an agency, an emerging country, that lacks the power to provide any opposition to bombing campaigns?
How do we always do this? By invoking the magical word — asymmetric!
As I’ve defined it previously, an asymmetric threat is a fancy term used only as a deception. It describes going to war with anyone who has less resources, money, manpower and technology than the United States.
Which is to say — everyone else — from the angry but poor rabble at home to emerging power in the Middle East.
An example of a press cheerleader, describing the asymmetric power of ISetc, last week with the headline:
Modern airpower versus tribal warriors
Someone named James Kitfield explains it for the non-participating American public:
In the annals of warfare there have been few conflicts as asymmetric as the United States against the Islamic State, which pits a global superpower at the head of an international coalition against a brutally ambitious terrorist group …
This taking and holding of territory is not textbook asymmetrical strategy for a weak combatant. To pursue it, al-Baghdadi relies on a deep connection and understanding of the disaffected Sunni militant groups and tribes who rose up to embrace his black banner. When IS fighters swept out of Syria into Iraq, it may have looked like a standard if daring military maneuver, but it was more akin to an organic uprising by viral flash mobs of locals, with Twitter the method of choice for tactical communications.
[He neglects to mention the big part about the America-trained and equipped Iraqi army running away and deserting.]
“The enemy will spread disinformation in hopes the media will achieve what they cannot, which is to put restrictions and limits on our use of airpower,??? said [retired USAF General Dave Deptula, who ran the Bombing Paupers campaign — bin Laden, notably, escaped — over Afghanistan in 2001]. “ISIL knows it has asymmetric advantages on the ground, but we have our own asymmetric advantage: we can project power from the air, without projecting vulnerability.???
“The key is using our advantage in airpower to apply unrelenting pressure that impacts ISIL and its allies psychologically as well as physically, because in 21st century military operations the most important battle space is your adversary’s frame of mind,??? said Deptula …
As Obama declared at the United Nations, such men understand only one language. And the message the United States and its allies are delivering from the air needs no translation.
Fine talk.
Nothing has inspired minds in the Middle East more than over a decade of no-translation-needed we’ll-beat-’em-into-bench-holes bombing campaigns and special operations. The result is probably not what Deptula had in mind when being consulted at Pebble Beach, or wherever he was.
As for destroying stills that provided “a few hundred barrels of gasoline a day,” we bombed the equivalent of a couple gas stations in LA County.
That’s some real strategy. Or delusion, depending on your choice in words.
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09.26.14
Posted in Culture of Lickspittle, War On Terror at 2:32 pm by George Smith
With unlimited resources, money and manpower, the US can’t change its image in the Middle East. It’s worse than shit. And it’s even more laughable that it would try to do so during a bombing campaign, one that I’ve pointed out faces no real resistance.
Today, the New York Times ran a piece on State Department attempts to rally people in the Middle East against ISIS and jihadism. That means providing content for social media.
Largely, it’s been a flop as a quick look at the ugly statistics on YouTube show.
The obstacle faced, and it’s a substantial one, is simple to grasp.
How do you counter the social media and propaganda efforts of an emerging nation that relies on its image, for atrocity and blood, as a real world equivalent of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre?
Has this even occurred to those hired by the State Department to make this video?
Compared to beheadings and news exultatant mass killings — a body being tossed into a pit, dead people at the side of the road, someone strung up with razor wire, it’s all small beer.
You either go for the full live dismemberment by chainsaw or you don’t go at all, so to speak.
And, of course, it seems to also not occurred to anyone at State that having a video where one has to sign in to see it because it contains material that’s objectionable was self-defeating.
So State uploaded the above video twice and apparently gained a dispensation from YouTube to let the second one alone. (Hint to state: Delete the earlier version, it makes you look dumb.)
Here’s a link to the State Department channel, ThinkAgain Turn Away.
The only video with significant views is the one embedded here. And a lot of its views are now due to domestic media publicity.
What do you think?
It’s about what one might expect from a country where the State Department is, in function, nothing more than an appendix.
The nation’s foreign policy is little more than tactical bombing, special ops black bag jobs, sale of arms to human rights abuser/allies in the region and financial sanctions. Of what use could be any media operation posting brief videos featuring slightly menacing music on YouTube?
Writes the New York Times:
The “Think Again, Turn Away??? video mocks the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS or ISIL, even briefly showing some of its beheaded victims. But some critics have questioned its deeply sarcastic tone: “You can learn useful new skills for the Ummah! Blowing up mosques. Crucifying and executing Muslims. Plundering public resources.???
Yes, a video of oil spilling out of a barrel, taken from Vice online, will surely do it.
“About 50 people” work for the State Department’s counterterror social media effort, informs the newspaper.
By contrast, the ISIS capitol in Syria currently being bombed by the US military has “scores” of young men posting pro-ISIS news from Internet cafes in the city every day.
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