Monthly Archives: April 2008
MindWar
Amid all the hoopla, outrage, paranoia, fear, uncertainty and doubt expressed over the influence operation pulled off before and early in OIF are occassional nuggets of PSYOP goodness like this: From PSYOP to MindWar: The Psychology of Victory by Colonel … Continue reading
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Filed under PSYOP
Steadfast Incomprehension
Had Karzai’s parade gone according to plan there would be no images of Sunday’s National Day ceremony now appearing on any of the international channels or newspapers. A burst of small arms fire and a few mortar bombs transformed it … Continue reading
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Filed under Old Media, PSYOP, The Forgotten War
“We’ve got to make sure that the people understand that the military is not influenced by the events of the day and what could be considered partisan politics.”
Beggin’ the Colonel’s pardon, but, with all due respect, sir, grass is not blue and the sky is not green. Politicized Military Would Lose Public Trust, Official Says The People have to understand that the military serves the political masters … Continue reading
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Filed under Idea War
High-Payoff Targets
From TF 134 Strategic Communications Plan: KEY AUDIENCES In fire support terms, High-Payoff Targets (HPTs) are those targets whose loss to the enemy will most contribute to the success of the friendly course of action. In communication terms, high-payoff targets … Continue reading
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Filed under G-2
These Clowns Failed
Rather than spin it as a propaganda victory, we should be ridiculing their incompetence. A big deal should be made of the bravery and professionalism of the Afghans in Karzai’s Personal Security Detail. Pashtuns respect successful assassins. They’ve been whacking each … Continue reading
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Filed under The Forgotten War
Is PSYOP Based on Junk Science?
Psychology: The Hard Truth about a Soft Science Genghis Khan didn’t have psychologists, but he did PSYOP. Spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt amongst one’s enemies has a much longer history than the “discipline of psychology.”
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Filed under G-2
30 Pieces of Silver or $150,000 USD
Taliban bitten by a snake in the grass We’re across the Rhine and we don’t even know it. Okinawa will be bad. Victory is nigh.
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Filed under G-2
The moral and intellectual deterioration of the American media has reached an advanced stage
The moonbats really hate the idea that Rumsfeld ran a successful influence operation on them. Not a perfect influence operation. Not an influence operation that wouldn’t impact the credibility of future influence operations. But it worked. For a while. We … Continue reading
Filed under G-2
“We don’t need to make these cops as good as the 82nd Airborne,”
“We just need to make them two-and-a-half times better than the enemy.” The New Strategy for Afghanistan’s Cops isn’t so new to regular readers of this blog.
Filed under IW, The Forgotten War
Abnaa al-Amriki
Regime change in America has been the shared short-term common goal of both the oppositional elements within our own polity and the stateless, amorphous, ad hoc group of Islamic religious extremists who are conducting a global insurgency of opportunity against … Continue reading
Filed under Idea War, IW, PSYOP Auxiliaries
Hawkman’s Secret Identity Revealed
Excellent review here. “American combat soldiers don’t want pity.” Yon says, “They’re ready to fight to the end; they just don’t want it to be for naught. They have been fighting for two nations, one of which didn’t seem to … Continue reading
Filed under G-2
The Al Qaeda Media Machine
Information Operations By mid-2007, some Al-Qaeda-related Web sites were broadening their agendas. “Media jihad” included entering online forums with large American audiences in order to influence “the views of the weak-minded American” who “is an idiot and does not know … Continue reading
“No, it doesn’t embarrass them because they don’t consider Zawahiri and terrorism to be real threats to the country.”
Those to whom this most applies will deny the allegation and demonize the alligator: They think Republicans and people like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Halliburton and global warming represent the real threats. But it’s apparent to me … Continue reading
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Filed under G-2
But Can He Walk the Walk in 9 Months?
Secretary Gates Remarks at Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base, Montgomery Alabama An unconventional era of warfare requires unconventional thinkers. That is because this era’s range of security challenges, from global terrorism to ethnic conflicts, from rogue nations to rising powers, cannot … Continue reading
Filed under IW
Liberty Is Not the Gift of the State
Mark Steyn is a very smart guy. You Regulars should pay attention. As for “gun-totin’,” large numbers of Americans tote guns because they’re assertive, self-reliant citizens, not docile subjects of a permanent governing class. The Second Amendment is philosophically consistent … Continue reading
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Filed under Idea War
Controlling What We Think We Know
George Orwell is credited with saying “He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.” Old farts like me who remember 30-volume sets of Encyclopedias made from dead trees often have tidbits of … Continue reading
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Filed under G-2
Political Warfare
The Many Forms of Radical Islam All Threaten America by Peter S. Probst . . . American-based Islamists and the groups they represent are increasingly reliant on sophisticated Political Action operations designed to eviscerate government capabilities to uncover and dismantle … Continue reading
Filed under G-2
CW4 Sabrina Nero — Somebody You Should Know
Soldier’s Efforts Bring Fresh Eggs to Troops Hard to explain to somebody who has never experienced a military Dining Facility in the morning the real significance of this accomplishment. Man, I missed real eggs! The first meal I begged Cannonette to … Continue reading
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Filed under Heroes
Outside The Comfort Zone
Wish I was back at KAF. Read Outside the comfort zone: 24th MEU leaves the wire for the first time. I hope they come up with some kind of competition between the Canadian LAV III’s and the USMC LAV’s. 8-wheeler motocross?
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Filed under The Forgotten War
