Get ready for The Pentagon's hip new online propaganda campaign:
The Pentagon has been given formal approval to start an online propaganda campaign against the Islamic State following a recent push by the US Department of Defense (DoD).
Congress approved the National Defense Authorization Act for 2016 last week and included in it a whole section (1056) on "Information operations and engagement technology demonstrations."
The section states that the Secretary of Defense "should develop creative and agile concepts, technologies, and strategies across all available media to most effectively reach target audiences, and to counter and degrade the ability of adversaries and potential adversaries to persuade, inspire, and recruit inside areas of hostilities or in other areas in direct support of the objectives of commanders."
In other words: counter the unexpectedly sophisticated and effective propaganda machine that the Islamic State has put into place in Iraq and Syria.
The section authorizes the Pentagon to carry out these operations for seven years – until October 2022 – and notes that it expects funding requests in that time: "The Secretary of Defense should request additional funds in future budgets to carry out military information support operations to support the broader efforts of the Government to counter violent extremism."
George Washington University has published an analysis (PDF) of the "American Isis Twitter scene".
Don't do drugs and join ISIS, kids.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @08:36AM
Are they going to do pair propaganda? What about test-driven propaganda?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @08:55AM
I feel safer already!
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Tuesday December 08 2015, @08:55AM
They are doing 'B' testing on the moon.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Tuesday December 08 2015, @09:18AM
So.... the Pentagon, the United States Pentagon, being the beacon of truth that it is, is going to start a propaganda war? Do they know to whom?
I forgot which Soylentil gave the counter terrorism advice, "Hearts and Minds", but it applies here. It's a huge mistake to think that ISIS can be battled ideologically, and the greatest propaganda machine is the bullet. Let's look at the intended audiences. Apparently, on our own soil, that is pissed off disillusioned/disenfranchised men that are Muslim, come from Muslim cultures, and are willing to commit violence. I'm also of the firm belief, that many of these men in ISIS are attracted by two things:
1) A rather immediate redistribution of power and wealth away from their local oppressors, with not just an idea to strike at the enemy, but pull off something reminiscent of Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great; the conquering of entire nations. AQ never wanted a caliphate stretching from the shores of Isreal to Pakistan and beyond. Just your general ideological terrorist demands and the age ol', "America fuck off and stop messing with our countries". ISIS is a bit more ambitious, which greatly fires up the interests of the disenfranchised both locally and abroad. Everybody hates corruption, everybody hates their oppressors, and ISIS is selling what many angry men are willing to buy.
2) Sex. ISIS promises you a world where a vagina is simply a warm hole capable of cooking meals for you. Available at your nearest outlet mall for bargain prices. There are Americans over there guilty of raping women and children, and I suspect that is a primary motivating factor for them. Their sicknesses when it comes to their relationship with women. Not to troll, but Islam does have a well deserved reputation for not fully respecting women as human beings and people. Muslim men that claim to be moderate and love their wives, most likely do. Only that small percentage of Muslim men, who would be sexual deviants anyways, are emboldened and attracted to situations where their sick desires are satiated by 2nd class citizens unable to defend themselves.
We need to stop calling ISIS terrorists and looking at their recruitment as being largely ideological. ISIS is simply assembling an army of highwaymen, robbers, and sexual deviants to opportunistically take advantage of great regional instabilities. Which means it's fucking hilarious for AQ to be battling ISIS, as they created ISIS as much the United States helped create AQ. A lot of people are guilty of helping to create that regional instability and the general feeling across the world that the 1% are not only oppressing us, but are actually killing the planet and our future.
I have no idea what you could possibly say to these potential men to dissuade them from the life of crime, violence, and vengeance that they wish for. Unless it's snuff films where they show how quickly, brutally, and horribly they could die. Which means they're competing with locals again on that level, in countries that already have violence deeply ingrained as a way of life. Put simply, a beheading is something they deal with in the world from time to time. In the US, a beheading would only be thought to be Jeffrey Damer making a popcorn bowl, or the Mafia making a point. Not something that really happens to "real" people. The Middle East understands violence a lot more than the average American city, Chi-Raq excluded.
I most certainly have no idea what to say to the women that fall in love with terrorists. We would need to talk that chick in love with Charlie Manson, but that brings us back to psychiatric evaluations and not so much propaganda.
ISIS are not terrorists. Just criminals wearing the masks of terrorists getting what they already wanted. Money, Power, and Sex. Which is why ISIS is actually winning. They were playing a different game the whole time. AQ gets the believers, ISIS gets the psychotic assholes who only care to see the world burn.
What would be far more effective, is to loudly announce a head-buying program where an ISIS member will be given $5,000,000 USD, forgiven of their crimes, and setup anywhere in the world in the same way victors from the Hunger Games were treated. Life-long guarantee of easy street. Just as the long as the head belongs to one of the faces on 52 different cards. Available from propaganda drops all over their countries. Just watch how fast you see criminals turn on one another if I'm right and their not actually motivated by ideology, but just criminal intents.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ticho on Tuesday December 08 2015, @10:24AM
Actually, AQ also wanted, and still want the caliphate promised by the prophecy, but they did not plan to establish it themselves. From the excellent analysis at http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/ [theatlantic.com] :
"Bin Laden viewed his terrorism as a prologue to a caliphate he did not expect to see in his lifetime."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:07PM
That's more about what some of the leaders believe. Much of ISIS leadership is former baathist military personnel who were fired/imprisoned when the US took over Iraq and the baath party was about as secular as you can get in the part of the world. The caliphate/armageddon stuff is mostly about legitimizing recruiting. But just like recruits for any other army, many of the young men join up for the adventure and the violence, the ideals are more lip service.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday December 08 2015, @07:42PM
, and the greatest propaganda machine is the bullet.
If it's so great, why does it consistently fail to work?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Tuesday December 08 2015, @10:41PM
I should have been more clear. In this *specific* instance the only propaganda capable of working *is* the bullet. That was my point, that ISIS is wholly beyond all attempts at diplomacy or education. Those are men literally lost to the devil inside of them, and as such, *only* respond to fear. It's how their personal economies are setup inside of them.
Some men can only be killed, not stopped, nor educated, nor redeemed. I actually believe there is a snowball's chance in hell you could negotiate with AQ if we wanted to do so. Like speaking with the Palestinian terrorists, some of them truly only wish for their own people to not be so, well, oppressed and without hope. Sure, they ask for Sharia law, but that's not unreasonable given their culture, and not the same thing.
ISIS has no morals, or the ability to even engage in such conversations at all. AQ never created a sex trafficking group, and instead put out pamphlets and manuals internally about proper behavior. ISIS has, and continues to act well outside of Islam, operating a sex trafficking group, and acting exactly like a criminal organization.
Just what kind of diplomacy or propaganda do you think has a hope of working? What would you say to them? Why do you think it would turn them away from the life of crime and justice that ISIS offers?
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday December 08 2015, @10:15AM
Doing drugs only seems a safer alternative, won't get you in gitmo.
On the other side, joining ISIS even when sober doesn't seem like a bright idea.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday December 08 2015, @10:21AM
How dare they even attempt to travel aboard? They're not humans, no rights apply to them.
(sad grin)
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:16PM
> Doing drugs only seems a safer alternative, won't get you in gitmo.
Yeah, so much better to have all your property confiscated and spend a decade-plus in pound-you-in-the-ass prison only to be unemployable once released.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:01PM
They will probably ham-fist it. One of the islamfoes' standard refrains is that muslim leaders don't condemn terrorism. Except they do, constantly. But because they are all living under dictatorial regimes they are perceived as having been co-opted by the government, governments who get away with all kinds of terrible human rights violations. So the extremists say, "You condemn us, but you won't bite the hand that feeds you. So you are hypocrites and your claims are not legitimate."
The US is going to have that problem tenfold. We'd probably have a lot more success at ridiculing extremists than having any sort of reasoned arguments. If there is one thing ultra-conservatives suck at, it is humor. Make people genuinely laugh and it doesn't really matter how tainted the origin of the jokes are, just as long as they are honestly funny and not just transparently self-serving.
Long term though, the US should stop supporting dictators under the belief that they create stability - they just put the crazy in a pressure cooker and when it eventually blows it is a lot more damaging than a constant slow trickle would have been.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:23PM
Srsly, u guys are going to spend that much on an information campaign against an ancient egyptian goddess?
tsk tsk tsk... priorities america... priorities. No wonder your country is in such a mess
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2015, @02:01AM
If the Islamic State were truly effective at promoting itself, there wouldn't be hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the area for Europe. They would be going to, or staying in, I.S. territory.