It is both. And yes, you do have to take enemy propaganda into account when making military strategy. Because if we end up behaving the way their propaganda predicts, they become stronger.

MrNoodle you're fantastic : in 10 lines, you always give rise to 2 pages of good comments. On the one hand, that make me… cheerful ! :)
(Hoping that won't hurt you)

About US influence in Eastern Europe :
Ukrainian president Iouchenko’s wife is US, his three children have US nationality.
He was famous in having been poisoned by Russians and his spotty face was showing it. In fact he had plastic surgery in Austria and didn’t respect the precautions like no alcohol…
Info coming from Ukrainian medias. French medias have never said it. Ukrainian people are already disgusted with Orange Revolution (organised by US)...

We do not behave as their propoganda predicts. Our rules of engagement, rules for prisoner treatment, and rules for interacting with non-combatants are more stringent, more bend-over-backwards conciliatory than those of any armed force in history. Anywhere.

The only place enemy propoganda is having the desired effect is on our own soil. The "insurgents" (a misnomer, as they are not from Iraq, nor are they fighting on behalf of Iraq -- they target civilians) are failing. Iraqis are not joining insurgent forces -- in fact, they're working with us, fighting alongside us, and refusing to give in to terrorism.

Where enemy propoganda works is in the American media, who are on a constant mission to prove wrongdoing on the part of American forces and leadership. Soldier A shot someone without provocation. Soldier B didn't handle the Koran with latex gloves, thus offending the prisoners. Theinsurgencyiswinningtheinsurgencyiswinningtheinsurgencyiswinning. Day after day after day. Nary a single kind word about a soldier, unless they are thoughtful enough to die and provide more proof that theinsurgencyiswinningtheinsurgencyiswinningtheinsurgencyiswinning. Hell, the terrorists hardly even NEED al Jazeera. They have the New York Times.

You have stated that the Muslim Brotherood is a bunch of little organizations all over the world. OK. You call it the Muslim Brotherhood.

GW calls them Al'qaeda. (I know that's spelled wrong, but I dont care enough to go look find it to correct.)

Seems to me that the idea is the same. A bunch of people that don't mind killing civilians and innocents or themselves, all of whom are Muslim, and extremists.

So GW tries to "label" them as Al'Qaeda. You label them the Muslim Brotherhood. Doesn't matter what you call them. They are still the enemy.

I don't know if I agree with this statement. I tried reading this several times so as not to misquote, mislead, or take out of context thereby angering you... :D . The propoganda is working very well off our soil. You have to remember, there are lots of people over in Iraq who have been led to believe that we are responsible for the misery in their country via the embargos. There are lots of folks over there who hate us after all these years just in general. When someone says something bad about the U.S., they are more apt to believe it than not. The terroists know this and use this very well. If it didn't work, they why bother release statements, videos, audio tapes. True, some of these have the United States as a targeted audience in mind, but it is very effective in Islmaic countries as well. I might not aide much in recruitment purposes, but it does bolster support and serves as justification for thier actions. Yeah, a lot of what is reported by the terrorists are not true (reports of abuse, number of dead woman and childern), but lots of people over there are not willing to give us the benifit of the doubt.

We are seperated from Ireland by an ocean, and it is not the policy of our country to fund terrorists (conspiracy theories aside). Our citizens have the freedom to behave quite badly. Those who send money to the IRA are culpable in the crimes the IRA commits. If Ireland wants them punished, they should get the justice they deserve. If some idiot doesn't like it, and joins the IRA in protest, he is a tard, and yes, he is now as culpable as the first idiot. If a third idiot decides "hey, what's with all this anti-IRA stuff?" and decides to go down the same path, how is that Ireland's fault? Ireland should stop taking out IRA bombers because it makes idiots mad? Screw em to the nth degree.

Killing lots of terrorists. Training Iraqis to do the same. Providing infrastructure and terrorist-killing services while leaders from the Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish factions meet and try to come up with a constitution. Making sure that constitution doesn't allow for things like executing children while their mothers watch. Making sure it does allow for things like schooling and jobs for girls. Making the country the most inhospitable place outside of the US that a terrorist could ever hope to find himself condemned to.

Above all else, not bailing out because we're afraid the enemy might get more angry at us. Screw em.

re: Hobbs

Of course there are people who believe the anti-US propaganda. But not the kids who line up for candy and photographs with the soldiers.

Oh wait, they're dead. Killed by the noble freedom fighters.


(I don't get mad at these discussions, not really. It's just mystifying how people's outlooks can be so different given that we're all looking at the same information)

I didn't say rules. I said behavior. Of course there are rules against things like Abu Ghraib and Guantanimo and "disappearing" prisoners, but they also need to be followed. And even if every rule of engagement were followed to a tee, we invaded a country on false pretenses! Nothing could have assisted enemy propaganda more than that.

Did you read the blog of Michael Yon, which UT linked to in the Image of the Day on the IED? In that blog, Yon writes about his experience with our troops as they caught a terrorist red handed, trying to blow up a bomb buried under a road in Mosul. They take the terrorist back to his house to search it. His mom is very proud of her boy:

Sure, there are some foreign terrorists in Iraq. But there are native Iraqi terrorists too. And they enjoy the support of many of their fellow Iraqis.

And what did we see shortly after this occured? Riots in the street by civilians protesting the freedom fighters...no. They blamed the U.S. Fist-pumping marches denouncing the U.S. "occupation." :mad2: Grrr! Drive me nuts! :mad2:

So.

The behavior of a minority of individuals indicts the whole country (vis-a-vis American actions).

And...

The behavior of a minority of individuals does NOT indict a whole country (vis-a-vis terrorism).

mmmmk.

And we didn't invade a country on false pretenses. As I recall, we didn't ask for their permission in the first place. We did get bad intel on WMD, but that was only one of several reasons Bush gave at the time. It was the sexy one, but not the only one. At any rate, dragging this up every time you are forced to admit that we need to win this war is bad form.

Dude, have a sandwich and a soda. Seriously. This is not about being able to find a reference to an American media story published in some Arab media that is unfavorable to us, and by extension, helpful to the cause of some of their viewers? Trivial. Don't you think even GWB's "axis of evil" is burned into the the crawl on tv screens around the world? Does that make GWB the sympathizer? What about the broadcasters of his remarks?

Just have your lunch. I, too, find work intruding on my part of the conversation today.

Cheers.

I was kidding. I didn't look for shit. I went to Wendy's :lol:


Still missing the point though: The terrorists don't need to make their own propoganda, they can use ours.

I'm not sure if you're arguing with me or not.



I really have to get back to work.

Hrm. Yah. Conspiracy theories, Mujahideen aside. And I'm not sure where the ocean fits in.
Whether they are culpable tards or not is irrelevant, and I agree they are. The issue is whether the punishment works. Killing a terrorist is a pyrrhic victory if you end up with two more. If England had decided to fight the IRA by bombing a whole town, they would have been worse off than before.

Ocean = our idiots can't take a donkey over the border to fight for the cause.

"We can't hurt anybody, it will be misconstrued and even more people will dislike us" is the opposite of the attitude that will win the war. If 100,000 terrorists are killed and that causes 20,000 to join the cause, that's 80,000 to our favor. We're not worse off because of the new 20,000

If the Brits bombed a town because it was infested with terrorists, I feel sorry for the non-terrorists who died. Not sorry enough to allow the terrorists to hide under their skirts, however.

I'm not indicting the whole country. I'm indicting the administration that fights tooth and nail every attempt to investigate the widespread abuses in the many detention centers the US operates. The coverup is worse than the crime, for the purposes of PR.

:eyebrow: The rest of them didn't hold up either, which is why he went with WMDs. And I've been referring to the invasion the whole time. Why the surprise?

But there is no equivalence between the number of terrorists and how angry the left is that we went to war.

Well, a majority of the country now feels that Iraq was a bad idea, so it's not just the "left" anymore. And I expect the growth of that number does have a link to the failure of the war to curb terrorism.

As for those who were against the war from the start, it was the expectation that becoming the agressors in an invasion would be counterproductive in the war on terror. The realization of that expectation is more an occasion for sadness than anger, I guess.

So Afghanistan was a mistake then?

Because they are constantly bombarded by agenda-driven media that steadfastly refuse to report anything that might be construed as positive for this administration.

Exactly. my. point.

I have read on the various military forums that our soldiers are discovering members of other mid-east nations among those fighting the US troops in Iraq. Some of these inviduals may qualify for the label "terrorist." Some may be no different from any soldier who joins to fight in a cause he believes in. My friend who is Canadian who joined the US army and fought in desert storm - was he dispatched by the Canadian leadership? The French came to our assistance in the War for Independence. The French were politically motivated to do this because they were on the outs with Great Britain at the time. I'm not sure of your point here. The peoples of the Muslim world believe what they believe, just as we do. I agree with you assessment of the bomber's motives, but I think your list is rather short. I suggest that there are other motivating factors.

You are deliberately mis-interpreteting the stance of those to the left of the political spectrum. I do not presume to be the spokesperson for such a large group of people, but nowhere have I come across any statement from a democrat or someone of a liberal persuasion who says, "I want the US to fail." My feeling is that given the current situation the US is DOOMED to fail. This thought brings me no joy, as you seem to believe. I would rather that my country succeeded, thank you very much. I don't see how it can. Just become some Islamic terrorist bombs the London subways or commits some other act of atrocity, does not mean that I consider this individual to be my new best friend. I do, however, look at cause and effect, and I see how US foreign policy has created a reason for the terrorist to act as he did - a reason is not an excuse, by the way. There is no excuse for the slaughter of innocent civilians. Just because I feel Bush's actions are wrong, does mean that I rejoice in the death of children at the hands of an Islamic fundamentalist, nor does any other member of "the left." If I cannot speak out against the actions of my government which I feel are wrong without being accused of giving aid and comfort to the enemy, then I might as well go live in North Korea or some other totalitarian regime.

No one is forcing you to give up your lunch hour. You feel strongly enough that you decided to make that choice, so don't try to guilt trip us over your own free decision of what to do with your lunch break.

The Iraqui's must have the WILL to run their own anti-terrorism programs. So far, I have seen the US do nothing that will fill a significant number of Iraqui's with this desire. As it currently stands, with current policy, hell will freeze over first.




:juggle:















See above. What different thought?

Sadness, AND anger. And helplessness, futility, astonsishment, bewilderment, confusion, resignation, and determination, among others.

Sadness at the profligate needless waste of American lives in a futile, wrongheaded, ill-conceived and poorly executed aggressive war of invasion. Sadness at the loss of life for all who died.

Anger, well, I seemed to have covered this already.

Helplessness at the continuing flailings of an administration that doesn't know where it's going or how to get there but confidently presses the pedal to the metal while observing "We're making good progress". Progress is a vector quantity, having magnitude and direction.

Futility at the prospect of looking at the same evidence and seeing those in power draw the wrong conclusions, time after time.

Astonishment at the seemingly willful inability of the loyal opposition in our country to disregard evidence, facts and truth as mere inconveniences in pursuit of the elusive "victory" (or "security" or "freedom").

Bewilderment from being surrounded by a swarming array of moving targets and shifting goals, an overall lack of direction.

Confusion at the constant changes in the messages from our leaders: WMD, democracy, terrorists, al-Qaeda, Saudia Arabia, Iraq, oil, GWOT and The Fight Against Global Aggression or whatever it's called today...

Resignation to the fact that our country is on a path that takes enormous efforts to change, and that popping a vessel over today's idiot takes away one more chance to make a difference tomorrow.

Determination to work as hard as possible that the mistakes of this period in our history be remembered and learned from and not repeated.

Afghanistan was started at a time when most of the world, even many moderate Muslims, had sympathy for the US. We took advantage of that to invade a country that had a direct and certain connection to the attack on our soil that generated that sympathy. Afghanistan wasn't even remotely close to the recruiting value of Iraq.

For those of you who get nerd boner over the whole footnoted, annotated thing in your political argyments, here's the text of an interesting presentation on the AFC, the antiwar organization in WWII that gained notoriety when its poster child, Charles Lindbergh, showed himself to be a Nazi supporter.

Some of the parallels to today's situation are striking, even though the political parties are reversed. But my favorite part was in the endnotes:

Roosevelt was a neocon! Be still my heart.

My point was the terroists use this opportunty for bad publicity for the Americans soldiers. U.S. miltary + kids = death and distruction. The obvious culprits are of course the freedom fighters, but the blame gose to the U.S. eventhough it is obvious who is at fault. The insurgent propoganda machine keeps on rolling along.

In Iraq most attacks are on other Arab Muslims, so who is being recruited for what now?

Basically, we have a war between people who find Fox News completely unbiased and truthful, and people who think the same of Al-Jazeera.

It would be nice if the skeptics could be left alone.

I will remember this sentence (vis-a-vis US politics) : Mrnoodle does NOT indict whole US people ! :biggrin:

For that, I am immensely gratified. Have you heard some of those people? :crazy:

Well done !
In order to really agree :
Do you remember my questions in #340 ?

Sort of. I remember reading the radio interview, which had an ex-army colonel talking about coups d'etat and other Art Bell-type nonsense. One of those "we have an expert who knows a bunch of secret stuff that no one else is covering, but we are presenting it LIVE!!! on our midnight radio show".

Then you asked, "what if it had happened in France?" And I refuse to answer, because to do so would Godwin the thread. :angel:

Too nice ! :)


but sooooooo easy :(

No answer HM?

It's important for us to get the narrative right. We aren't getting it from anywhere else so we have to depend on each other. This morning Belmont Club looks at Michael Yon's latest dispatch and points out bin Laden's response to Somalia. What gave him strength was American withdrawl:
Yon's latest also includes the point that one of the terrorists that the soldiers are fighting was previously captured, spent time at Abu Ghraib, was released against protest and returned to fight. He didn't have to be recruited. He was a bad guy and remained a bad guy after thinking about it in prison.

Regular Yon readers will know... Abu Ghraib is like a vacation, six months in air conditioning with three squares. It's important for us to get the narrative right. We aren't getting it from anywhere else.

They subscribe to the same mentality that mrnoodle is championing. They see some other Muslims as assisting the enemy and say screw 'em. Or they figure it's just too bad if some innocents happened to be near the American targets.

What gave him strength is that America went into Somalia without any smoking gun. Insufficient reason to be there and no comprehension of WHY we entered are why the withdrawal was necessary AND why bin Laden would have been emboldened.

You would think we would have learned from Somalia about the dangers of invading a nation without a smoking gun. And yet even in the Cellar, some advocated the same mistake in Iraq using mythical reasons such as WMDs. And so bin Laden is laughing at America - emboldened by the extremist rhetoric that protected bin Laden. Some Americans were even so foolish as to think our own allies (Germany and France) were against us rather than first learn the lessons of Somalia and what those allies were warning about.

Bin Laden still runs free because too many Americans here forget where the smoking gun exists ... Afghanistan. So instead we blame Saddam for 11 September and run off to another Vietnam. Then when it becomes a quagmire, we then blame it on Somalia? Where does this extremist rhetoric come from?

Where does it come from? You invent it through your miserable reading comprehension skills.