| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: WoT |
| US losing propaganda war to al-Qaeda |
| 2006-02-18 |
| The United States lags dangerously behind al Qaeda and other enemies in getting out information in the digital media age and must update its old-fashioned methods, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Friday. Modernization is crucial to winning the hearts and minds of Muslims worldwide who are bombarded with negative images of the West, Rumsfeld told the Council on Foreign Relations. The Pentagon chief said today's weapons of war included e-mail, Blackberries, instant messaging, digital cameras and Web logs, or blogs. "Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but ... our country has not adapted," Rumsfeld said. "For the most part, the U.S. government still functions as a 'five and dime' store in an eBay world," Rumsfeld said, referring to old-fashioned U.S. retail stores and the online auction house respectively. U.S. military public affairs officers must learn to anticipate news and respond faster, and good public affairs officers should be rewarded with promotions, he said. The Pentagon's propaganda machine still operates mostly eight hours a day, five or six days a week while the challenges it faces occur 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Rumsfeld called that a "dangerous deficiency." He lamented that vast media attention about U.S. abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq outweighed that given to the discovery of "Saddam Hussein's mass graves." On the emergence of satellite television and other media not under Arab state control, he said, "While al Qaeda and extremist movements have utilized this forum for many years ... we in the government have barely even begun to compete in reaching their audiences." Rumsfeld also cited the methodical U.S. response to a Newsweek magazine report that interrogators at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had placed the Koran, Islam's holy book, on toilets and flushed one down. After riots around the world killed 16 people, Newsweek retracted the story. "It was posted on Web sites, sent in e-mails, repeated on satellite television, radio stations for days, before the facts could be discovered," Rumsfeld said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #9 Hooah, Frank. ;-) |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-02-18 16:22 |
| #8 Robin - the Union Tribune doesn't even bother to verify who I am - they know my email addy and letters to the editor rants :-) Little less successful with the local news, which follow the national news memes, since that's where they get their goods (and promotions and....) |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-02-18 16:17 |
| #7 He lamented that vast media attention about U.S. abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq outweighed that given to the discovery of "Saddam Hussein's mass graves." He expected the same press that covered up Saddam's crimes during the '90s to suddenly reveal them now? C'mon, Rummy, you're smarter than that. Get with the DOJ and find a way to charge some CNN executives with aiding and abetting crimes against humanity. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2006-02-18 15:14 |
| #6 I agree with you - except (and it's a big exception) that we are badly losing the public opinion / perception war. And while we can tough that out for a while, do you really want it to get to the point where the UN (and all its members except us and perhaps Israel) declares an economic boycott of US goods and international arrest warrants for US officials? Because that's what some are pushing for. And while they seem like loonies, the UN statement on Guantanamo is an example of an issue that Merkel and Blair are getting behind. At some point soon we all have got to openly declare support for the WOT or we will lose in the worst way - the way we lost Vietnam. |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-02-18 14:58 |
| #5 In a war it always seems like you're losing, the enemy seems to be advancing everywhere, until one day you wake up and realize you've won, and the enemy was never really as strong as you thought he was. Any impression that we are losing any aspect of this war is only due to the fact that we are exercising only about 1% of our power against this enemy. |
| Posted by: HV 2006-02-18 14:29 |
| #4 Just to add to that, I think that if the American public wanted to they (we) could force the MSM to cover Iraq etc. more even-handedly. This is not a flame, but a call to action. How many people who post here are writing or calling the press and the TV news stations regularly on this issue? Or have invited a vet to speak at their church / civic group / school to give firsthand info? This war is way too important for us to leave it up to the military or to a handful of leaders alone. And while milblogs help to get out detailed stories and keep our morale up, there's a lot more that really needs to be done IMO. Michelle Malkin is covering a New Black Panther protest at the Danish Embassy in DC today. Go read who the leaders are and what they have said in the past, and if you're in the area consider getting together with Protest Warriors or some similar group. If we don't all start speaking up we may lose the ability to do so - or to influence what becomes of our country and our society. |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-02-18 10:27 |
| #3 You have a CSA who listens to the MI people and virtually shuts down their bloggers who are the only consistance source of positive news from the front I wouldn't lay this at Schoomaker's feet. We're damned lucky he came out of retirement. Don't forget his special forces background or the fact that he retired when his unit's work with Able Danger was shut down. |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-02-18 10:21 |
| #2 That's because USA fallows the precepts of DWEMs instead of native Peoples traditions. IMHO, in the fight for Muslims "hearts & minds" we must combine (i) Native American traditions (Aztecs) and (ii) Egyptian tradition (from the embalming procedures). |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2006-02-18 10:13 |
| #1 Look to your own house Rummy. You're generals only want to fight the battle on the line and ignore the second front at home. You have a CSA who listens to the MI people and virtually shuts down their bloggers who are the only consistance source of positive news from the front. Yeah, yeah, I know op security. Those weasels don't understand the trade off between support at home and some casualties in the field. If you are unwilling to take casualties, don't fight! And there is no reason to fight if you win the battle but lose the war at home. Didn't you learn that from Vietnam? Fear and paranoia are the leverage of the MI people. They just about got closed down after GWI because they couldn't, wouldn't support tactical commanders. Now they're justifying their jobs by inducing fear and loathing in our own ranks. Now you notice a propaganda war is in effect. Time to start at home. If you can't do it at home, how in the hell do you expect to win it in a foreign environment? |
| Posted by: Thrineper Spigum8159 2006-02-18 08:04 |