On The Third Hand

Warblog Archives

Friday, 21 Dec 2001

Fox News has an interesting article today, titled "The Power of Propaganda". It's a good overview of "psychological operations", with history and basic information about methodology. One thing I"ve noticed about the (few) articles about psyops in this war is that none of them mention the Internet as a method of dissemination. I can't believe they would overlook it, but that might be the case. Admittedly there is little "Arab street" on the net, but there are members of the 'elite' who might benefit from some interesting rumors, or even facts.

In addition to psyops (aimed at the enemy), there is also propaganda, which can be used on neutrals and allies and even citizens. There is a good deal of this on the net (from all sides), but there always has been. I'm wondering whether the military is missing something, and whether there might be some useful things we all could do online in either the propaganda or psyops areas. This would not necessarily be something for bloggers, (although I am very fond of the Instapundit's PsyWar Update). Things we could say in chats or e-mails to anti-war types to make them think, doubts that could be 'inserted' into the minds of enemies through questioning e-mails to their sites... anything like that could be useful.

My question to my readers (all three of you...) is whether you'd be interested in doing some brainstorming on ideas. With any luck we might get the military to hire us all at high salaries as cyber-psyops consultants (yeah...dream on). At any rate, it might be fun!

Tony Blair published a dossier yesterday, praising the success of the war, and also blasting "10 media views that proved to be wrong". Pundits mentioned included Robert Fisk (twice), Susan Sontag, John Pilger and George Monbiot. I think he'd have enjoyed some of the dissections in the blogging community... or maybe he should start his own blog.

For those who enjoy dissection of nonsense columns, I highly recommend this one by Paul Sperry in World Net Daily. He's claiming that the war isn't won until Osama and Omar are caught (and by implication, that the war is won if they are caught). He also manages to mention oil interests (and imply that Bush can't win because of them), announce that we didn't win the war in Iraq either, and imply (by almost saying the opposite) that Bush wants an oil pipeline across Afghanistan. Y'all have fun. I'm simply going to borrow Tim Blair's commentary on Glen Sack's defense of Tali-boy John. "[vomiting]"

Thursday, 20 Dec 2001

Tim Blair's headline on the new pair of Australians found fighting for the Taleban: "AUSTRALIA CANNOT LOSE IN AFGHANISTAN: We're fighting on both sides!" He also seems to come up with some interesting names for these blokes. I recall David Hicks being "Taliban Dundee", "Wombat of Islam" ;these two appear to be "marsupial Muslims". I almost hope more Aussie Taliban are found, just to see what new name he comes up with.

Meanwhile, I'll just resort to calling our own home-grown nutcase "Johnny Wanker". I can always claim it was a typo...

There's an excellent article by Charles Krauthanner in Time, which gives a good overview of why the "Arab street" has been so meek and quiet lately. It explains a number of things that is hard for those of us in the west to understand about Islamic fundamentalism (and it also applies to other extremist religious philosophies). His thought on how the belief that "God is on our side" can turn on the losing side was very enlightening. I heartily recomment this one.

Link via Transterrestrial Musings' Rand Simberg.

Microsoft has just issued a new security patch for its "very secure" Windows XP system. It also recommends: "customers using Windows 98, 98SE or ME should apply the patch if the Windows Universal Plug and Play service is installed and running."

In related news, don't click on any attachments in e-mail that are called "christmas.exe". There's a new MS Outlook virus out.

The term "feminist" seems to have come to mean "radical feminist", mostly because they yell the loudest. They say that all women are victims of all men. If a man at work makes a comment about a woman's appearence, they claim she is being sexually harassed. If a man at a workplace dares to ask a woman out, she's in danger of being victimized by the patriarchal culture if she doesn't file suit immediately. I wish they would all go read this Washington Post article. Maybe they might consider fighting against real victimization. I'm not holding my breath, though, even if I do look good in blue.

Thanks to MommaBear for the link, which she got via Dan Hartung's Lake Effect (which I've got to add to my blog list).

There is a Santa Claus.

Seems that Moira Breen is a fellow Floridian. That figures... she and I disagree on far too few things. We seriously agree on Cuban coffee, methinks. Great stuff (and I've been accused of attempted murder when I brewed it for friends). I'll declare myself neutral on the black-bean question, I like them with any kind of rice! (Yep... totally off-topic for this blog, but I can't be bellicose all the time.)

Wednesday, 19 Dec 2001

I've been a bit busy on non-bloggish things today, sorry! Quasipundit is taking up my slack, it seems, Will has a new Pundit Watch and Tony has a new From Left Field. Blogging from Borders doesn't seem to have slowed Instapundit down much, and Fred Pruitt has the latest war news. There's plenty to read out there. I'll add a bit more to read...tomorrow!

Tuesday, 18 Dec 2001

One of the two women appointed to the Afghan transitional government is "Suhaila Seddiqi, a surgeon and former army general", who had a few choice words to say to western feminists just recently. More power to her, I say.

Gun control advocates are getting desperate:"Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) wants the Department of Justice to keep personal data on law-abiding gun buyers from the National Instant Check System (NICS), and to offer the information for unlimited use by state and local agencies."

I wonder if they'd let a woman play buzkashi. The US soldier in this picture looks like he's having a blast!

Seems the captured Al Qaeda are scared to tears by Americans.

" December 18, 2001 -- Hounded out of their caves and captured on the run, Osama bin Laden's vaunted al Qaeda fighters broke down in tears yesterday and begged not to be turned over to the Americans."

I wonder if that rumor about doing sex change operations and dropping the new ladies back into a fundamentalist Islamic society got over there.

It seems that Yemen has decided to get rid of the Al Qaeda in their country. It must have somehow occured to them that if they don't do it themselves, they'll have our help. Whether they want it or not.

The Captain of USS Clueless notes that the true mission of the Kittyhawk is known, now that she is on her way home. The captain says:

"The actual base from which the Special Forces were operating was always rather hazy; there was this idea that it was from some nebulous base in Pakistan somewhere. Indeed there probably were such bases, but home base was on a ship. That just makes immense sense; I wonder why no-one I've read had guessed it."

There are a number of blogs that I read, though not every day. I've made a page listing them and added it into my right-hand "interesting blogs" menu. Just for fun, I've also got some humor links at the bottom of that page. Enjoy.

John Sutherland of the Guardian has a list of "Fifty-two things they do better in America". It is a refreshing change from the usual "the US does everything wrong" Guardian articles.

Those who prefer to read Dutch (Not Deutsch) may enjoy this blog. It has a pretty active forum too. (For those who haven't asked, yes... I can read some... I just can't speak or write it without giving native speakers a bad case of giggles.) It's not exactly a "war blog", but does have some good politics/war articles.

Fred Pruitt has lately been putting his pungent comments on various subjects in a cleverly different-colored font, thereby drawing my eye. This would be a great tactic, if it didn't cause me to spew coffee all over the keyboard at times. Thanks Fred. Go read him anyway, just make sure you aren't drinking or eating anything while you read.

Monday, 17 Dec 2001

I got a link to an article by Chris Matthews about a tv interview with Tom Ridge (thanks to an Instapundit reader). I saw the actual show. During the interview, Tom Ridge said, "I think every single able-bodied man or woman, from this point forward, looks at themselves as a potential air marshal." Chris Matthews neglects to mention that Tom Ridge emphasized the words "or women", probably in reaction to a certain amount of "men... men... men... men..." rhetoric coming out of Chris' mouth (don't mind me, I just don't like Matthews). I got the impression, while watching the interview, that Chris was a bit perturbed by the idea that the government could not protect everyone absolutely--or he was upset that Mr Ridge admitted that inconvenient little fact.

What I've noticed with most government officials since September 11 has me a bit worried. They don't seem to have noticed that most of us would really like to know what we can do (other than spend money). They are still trying to make us think they can "take care" of us...but it is all smoke and mirrors. Federalizing airport security will just give those bored people higher wages, but the government hopes it will make everyone "feel safe". National ID cards have been proposed, in fact, international ID cards have even been proposed. ID cards would make us even less safe, because there is nothing that cannot be copied or forged. Those ID cards would invite trust and decreased alertness; terrorists would take advantage.

The only way we will ever get total security on airplanes is to ground the planes and lock them. I know I have a few readers among "gov" and "mil" organizations, so the rest is an open letter to the US government and military (pass it on):
Tom Ridge is right, we "the people" are all Air Marshals. There will never again be a successful hijacking of any plane that has American passengers unless the hijackers kill us all. The airlines who are confiscating tweezers and nail clippers are just being silly. Have your "federalized force" worry about guns with bullets that can puncture and cause decompression. Search checked luggage for bombs rather than grabbing nail files.

You should quit trying to make us "feel safe", and start telling us what we can do to help make ourselves safe. We aren't stupid. We know that the only way to make each individual in the US safe is to have an army guard for each civilian. You in the government don't realize that you have a good portion of the population volunteering for the job. The increase in gun purchases and requests for concealed weapons permits should give you at least a little clue. Give us some concrete suggestions, and you'll have an army of over 100 million to defend the home front. We've been trusting you, despite our worries, and it's long past time for you to trust us!

I have acquired a certain admiration for Tom Ridge. He is a realist, and seems to be one of the few government officials who thinks the people should be told whatever the government can tell, and be trusted not to panic. He gets a lot of flack because he lets out vague warnings, but he really cannot do anything else in public. It works like this: if the government has good knowledge that (for instance) waste-treatment plants are targeted, they cannot announce that in public, because there may be other targets they do not know about. If they announce that they know about one, any terrorists will know what the government does not know. They will then know they can "safely" attack those other targets. So he gives vague warnings, and puts up with the complaints. He does what he can, and follows the ancient advice of "first, do no harm". Give him a break, and if he says "alert", be on alert!

Before September 11, we Americans found most of our heroes and heroines among the famous. Few of those movies stars, musicians and athletes were truly heroic--but they were all we had. On September 11, we learned what a true hero is. A real hero does the right thing when the chips are down. The police and firefighters who rushed into the WTC to rescue who they could, ordinary people who helped the helpless escape, passengers who fought--all heroes. The real heroes were not the famous, they were just people who did what they could when they had to.

There's another country, very different from ours, which also has heroes and heroines among its common people. I'd like to introduce you to one group.

In a place called Kandahar, there's an Afghan man called Abdul Ali. He's a former UN worker, who directed many of the US strikes on the city. He worked with women, who smuggled his satellite phone from house to house under their burqas, risking their lives to do so. He could not have safely carried it. One of the women said ""I did what I did to get an independent country, for the future of my nation."

Even in places that are by no means "land of the free", there can still be a "home of the brave".

Sunday, 16 Dec 2001

And I don't care. In fact, I don't think anyone should be thinking that we can't "win the war" unless we catch him. The most insulting thing we can do to a man like that is to consider him irrelevant. The one thing we must do is to cripple the terrorist networks so that they find it very difficult to attack again. If we can do that effectively, we have won. The man-monster is irrelevant except to give us a focus. He did not do this alone, he was the financier, but I doubt he was the strategist.

I'd rather we find Osama missing a few limbs and begging in the street a few years down the road. I think that would be a very appropriate outcome.

And today's Pundit Watch is up. Go read!

You ladies and gents are hereby invited to ignore Europe and join NAFTA. We'd love to have you. You won't have to let the Europeans run your government, and the US doesn't want to run your government. You may even keep the extra "u" in words like humour and use s instead of zed. We'll even let you keep the British pound as a currency that is actually worth more than a dollar!

We won't even try to censor Robert Fisk's nonsense. Though... we might mug him if he comes here, just to see if he'll be as understanding about why we despise him.