Thursday, October 14, 2004
THE STRATEGIC RAMIFICATIONS OF MISINFORMATION IN SW ASIA
"If a man knows himself and knows his opponent he need not fear a hundred battles.
If a man knows himself and knows not his opponent for every victory he will suffer a defeat.
If a man knows neither himself nor his opponent he is a fool and will suffer defeat in every battle."
Excerpt from "The Art of War," by GEN Sun Tzu, c. 500 B.C.
One may query as to why the US & its coalition allies including the Iraqi interim government ostensibly appear to be losing the battle for the hearts and minds of the world's Islamic populace and particularly in the Middle East.
Shouldn't we ask from the get-go if there's an adequacy of communication qualitatively speaking and whether these attempts to mollify the frustrations of the masses are bearing fruit? One may propose that a pro-coalition media conduit along the lines of Al Jezeera with hopefully approximately the same viewing audience will effectively counter the continuously bad press we've been encountering in SW Asia and elsewhere.
Do we currently have such a medium?
Me thinks not. And therein lies the rub. On the other hand there can be a profusion of communication but if the message is too massaged with excessive amounts of spin then the expectation should be one of unbelievability or resultant incredulity.
Our Sec'y of Defense has publically groused recently about misinformation and disinformation from Al Jeezera and its ilk on an on-going basis. On the other hand perhaps it would be wise to back up a mite and take a moment to define terms. Misinformation refers to blatantly erroneous assumptions, invalid postulates and/or facts. However, what is far more ominous and odious is disinformation. This is the art of interspersing or parsing bits of veracity with tidbits of patently fallacious pronouncements or in other words, infectiously regurgitated and carcinogenically-laced pablum.
Another better definition is from Professor Richard Shultz's book, "The Strategy of Soviet Disinformation." "The objective of disinformation is to lead the target audience to believe in the veracity of the message and consequently to act in the interests of the entities conducting the disinformation operation. It seeks to deceive, misinform and/or mislead the target."
Our enemy is a past master at dissembling or deception, i.e., oftentimes utilizing the cloak of religion to foist their brand of tyranny and absolutism on humankind.
Currently we're involved in a monumental struggle with adversarial forces over who's to prevail on a seemingly ethical and moral basis. There are those who masquerade under the guise of radically fundamental Islamism. However our supposition is that these disaffected hostiles may have initially begun their insurgencies with legitimate goals and aspirations in mind only to be permanently corrupted by the exercise of their formidible influence over others they experienced as a consequence. The fear and demand for blind obedience they subsequently inculcated in their followers on a global basis is a given.
One cannot help but recollect the maxim that, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
We therefore contend that this psywar campaign may only be succeeded by seeking the causes rather than always reacting to the effects of their machinations. Being proactive rather than responding in a defensive knee-jerk fashion to their every whim & fancy is the key to prevailing against these unrelenting foes.
On the other hand, for every deceitful and misleading message disseminated to the populace there must be an immediate and commensurate retort from the Iraqi govt and/or coalition forces and this volley has to be of necessity logical, rational and reasonable rather than the strident and emotionally charged disinformation of the naysayers. Once these distortions of fact have been successfully countered it is then incumbent upon us to illustrate all the benefits and nuances of having a democratically oriented and freely elected government and to hammer home those attributes on a relentless basis.
But first one ought to positively identify precisely who these adversaries are, why they've become so aggressively hostile to all purported "non-believers" and what the actual game-plan is for Iraq and adjacent nation-states not to mention their global aspirations. Plus obviously clearly delineating the consequences of the pervasive infrastructure damage that they have wrought upon the Iraqi populace dollar-wise or more to the point dinar-wise.
Of course there will be a requirement to frequently stipulate the billions of $ we're pouring into Iraq which should include the contributions from Great Britain, Japan & other allied nations.
Every day this information must be reiterated on our radio and TVsat-stations and ideally in directly televised town-hall meetings with the people of Iraq. Naturally dialogue is the answer here not just purveying continuously monotonous and boring monologues.
One may surmise warfare is 80 percent psychological and only 20 percent actual physical combat.
In Vietnam we won all the battles but ostensibly capitulated the war due to our failure to focus adequately on the nuances of psywar, i.e., the Military Assistance Command, VN/MACV neglected to "know" our opponent or at least to promulgate that we knew him thereby producing the impression that we really didn't realize who and what our opponent was. One should mention that subjective micromanagement from the White House and the Department of State also compounded the quandary.
After Operation Linebacker which was the highly effective strategic bombing campaign on North Vietnam in December of 1972 that country was on its knees economically. They had effectively lost the war on a strategic basis but did we follow up with a winning diplomatic stance and a PR campaign sufficiently disseminating this remarkable accompishment? The answer in my considered opinion is a resounding no because we were again reacting on the defensive, only trying to respond to the flood of negative press rather than capitalizing on our achievements and negotiating from a position of strength.
In summation I'd like to reiterate if I may that if we don't steer clear of this lock-step response to our adversaries we'll lose the psywar battle soon and thereby capitulate to the naysayers and/or our enemies by default.
Woe be unto us if this situation prevails.
Don Zweifel
Placentia, Ca.
Sources: Book title: "Operation Linebacker II," i.e., strategic bombardment during the VN conflict,
Office of USAF History, United States Air Force, Maxwell AFB, AL
Book title, "Dezinformatsia, The Strategy of Soviet Disinformation," by Richard Shultz, Pergamon Press, 1986 National Strategy Information Center, Inc.
Bio
Education:
Two years, Orange Coast College, '91-'92
Four years, Chapman University, '93-'97
One year, Western State U., College of Law, 1973
USAF Air University., 2001
Co-chair, MCAS Tustin, Ca. Restoration Advisory Board, 2004
First Vice Commander, District Two, AmVets/American Veterans, 2004
And other veteran and military associations.
