I was studying "Civilian Irregular Information Defense Group" and posted a comment on
'Trans-Regional Web Initiative' Friday, 18 January 2008 by cannoneerno4.
( Excellent article )
USSOCOM: new multiple language web sites.
They are outsourcing the effort to build websites in different languages to counter the Terrorist propaganda, lies, and present USA efforts in balanced terms in support of U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) in the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT).
And I suspect the military are scared as hell of it, will blanket it with all variations of rules, regulations and red tape.
A blogger in the Military must get permission of 5 or 6 officers before they can post, and each post must be reviewed. These reviews come from Officers in theater in combat, and have much better use for their time. And instead of thousands of Blogs in real time from US military personnel they have close to none.
The Military's concept of the Internet is utilitarian communications channel, suspect, dangerous
and high risk.
They tend not to view the Internet as the ultimate war weapon.
Intead of viewing the Internet as a
"Social Change Engine", a hearts and minds access tool: the Military consensus is the INTERNET is a leak vector, career killer, mine field.
But it is a start, they will no longer be MIA on the Internet.
What bench mark would I use to gage its sucess?
A million hits a year to an Arabic website.
If you have that kind of traffic they you are hitting the mark/interest of your surfers.
And you then have an audience to influence, a real chance to connect to the hearts and minds.
A consideration would be a forum, dual english/arabic, where the Jihadiies can talk directly to
USA Info warriors. I don't fear what the terrorist say, I fear not answering their lies.
The expectation is not to convert the hard core, but to influence the 'Lurkers' the visitors who don't post but just read, they out number the posters by at least 4 to 1.
And your demographic will be the same as the terrorist use to recruit.
The main site would have an automated news feeds related to Arabic interest in the Middle East.
VOA type commentary, Drudge type breaking news, and hot viral videos.
A huge draw would be to match up Terrorist videos, with US videos of same incident, a chance to see the action from both sides. This alone would flood the site with visitors.
I'm a member of some Military forums, both covert and in the open.
And the experience has been generally disappointing.
Innovation, breaking free, exploring new uses, and utilizing the full potential, and concepts of social change are not the de-rigeur, rule bound and archaic web concepts are usually the rule of the day.
The aspects of the Internet as a social weapon, the context for the concept is generally lacking.
Process is key to deployment.
The faulty paradigm is that generally the USA would be un able to influence opinion.
This thought co-exists with that of a man in a cave running the worlds biggest, and most successful Brand of social change engine in the world, out maneuvering the worlds Greatest multi media force, USA culture.
This Internet operation is going to be very difficult to engender a success.
The mixing of the Militarys Oil ( control/order ) with civilian Water, ( savvy/Innovation ) is going to take a very strong civilian counter part to stand against the built in risk aversion/fear attitude the Military has towards the Internet.
I am defining Internet Anthropology in this case as the study and research of the interactive interfacing of human culture with this technology.
Observation, synthesis and action are the essence of applied Anthropology.Internet Paradigms
( From a paper I wrote in 2000 )
5 Internet Paradigms
Depth and Breadth of Internet.
Paradigm #1) Biological paradigm.
The Internet almost seems alive, it not only knows when someone touches it, but who touched it (IP adr) when and for how long. And ( I'm taking some license here) but can tell me when the data on my web page has passed over the light receptors in your brain. It seems almost alive in terms of telling us when it is being used, where person is, what country, time on site, pages visited, length of time on each page, how they got to my web pages.
Paradigm #2)
Law of supply and demand.
There ARE many examples of new Internet processes. Lets look at a few. The "Wall ST. Journal", January 1, 2000 had an extensive Issue on 'So long Supply and Demand' and 'the New Economy'. As a veteran stockbroker I feel the laws of supply and demand ARE eternal, but ARE they? Lets look and see are these laws slipping?
1. The Industrial companies of the S&P 500 during the 1990's created $245 BILLION dollars of new wealth by converting atoms to bytes as in software. They send copies of the program over the Internet and rearrange the bytes on your computer. There is almost an unlimited source of atoms & limited demand, and as the software improves it becomes more valuable ($). Under the old laws of supply and demand they worked something like this, supply + demand = price. If there is a small supply the price tends to go up and if there is small demand the price tends to go down. But we have almost a reverse of Supply and Demand, We have an unlimited supply and limited demand. The Internet is presenting us with new paradigm a New Process.
2. Free.
Computer programs are given away free over the Internet, (winamp.com, equal to a $200 stereo system, Free) because they make more money selling cheap but great UPGRADES, and from advertising than if they sold the original product. Another example is giving away Internet service, 100 megs bytes of computer space, because they make more from the advertising they sell on these pages, than if they charged for their products.
Once you write a computer program each additional copy is almost costless. This is a new process to make money by giving away your base product. These Internet companies carry very little inventory unlike General Motors or a manufacturing corporation, they just move bytes on your computer into the form of their program via the Internet. New corporations with unlimited product supply, computer programs, no inventory, instant delivery, and potential world wide market is a NEW paradigm. We will have stock market corrections, but we are playing with a new economic paradigm. And we have not seen the new mega Internet corps. yet, only the seeds of germination of their seeds, forms and concepts. ( Google went public in 2004 at $100 per share, Friday it was over $600)
Paradigm #3)
Third world internet usage.
It used to be that one had to know a specific computer language just to get a program to run, "msdos", now it is point and click. Even the African, Bushmen in south Africa, ARE helping in a conservation project with 'palm pilots', which have had a Global positioning System added. When they see an animal the push a icon key that relates to that animal, they are able to track herd movements, sizes, directions, deaths etc. even though they don't know any computereese.
( Bushmen and jahidies both learned the WWW )
New process.
And there ARE many translation programs available that automatically translate a document or web page on the web.
Paradigm #4 )
Arbitrage.
Arbitrage used to be used only in financial and commodity markets. When there were market imbalances, buy low on one market and sell higher on another market. But it now applies to labor markets, Lucent Technologies and Consolidated Edison have turn to India and Ireland for software testing, because of cheaper labor. Just these two points present a potential new process, for a capitalistic motive to place Internet backbone and computers in third world countries for Free because of a profit motive from labor arbitrage.
Icon oriented programs or translation programs and labor arbitrage opens the door for the possibility of profit from outfitting the third world with computers. Which would also allows the developing world to market finished products world wide via the Internet not just export raw goods with the help of IMF and the World Bank.
It also places in their hands tools for their own concepts in 'social change engines'. I have seen news reports that Bill Gates has plans to orbit 300 satellites for world wide wireless Internet.( This was 7 years ago )
5th paradigm,
What is the internet?
A book, telephone, magazine, stereo, movie, typewriter, mail, news, stock trading, catalogs, bulletin board, diary, meeting place, business, fax, library, photo album, radio, search engine, etc. No it IS none of these and IT CAN BE ALL OF THESE!
"New uses and discoveries for the INTERNET will center on "PROCESS" & "ORGANIZATION". ( ie terrorism, process and organization, I didn't see terrorist using it 7 years ago though )
Using these paradigms we see the Internet is (sic) almost alive, has changed the laws of economics, and will probably encompass the entire world for economic reasons, and its uses and functions are limited only by our imaginations. The point I want to get across is that by putting "intelligence (data)" into a paradigm and tracking its growth our understanding is far more broad and comprehensive and immediate, than just by looking at facts and data. This is very important concept when trying to understand the Internet. There are now more pages on the internet than have been printed since the invention of the printing press.
Web pages are NOT like: Newspapers, magazine's, video, photo albums, radio, CD's, US mail, telephone, games, library or graffiti. Web sites can be like all of these combined.
An example of a successful 'social change engine' used only one of these, a book! Upton Sinclare's book "The Jungle" also was a prime example of applied anthropology, there were great changes in the meat packing industry sanitation and for workers conditions as a result of this book.
Could the Internet be used as a Social Change Engine like Sinclare's book?
Hegel (1770-1831) may have expressed it best. In his terms, we discover an antithesis and develop a thesis out of which emerge a synthesis, and this dialectical process continues as each generation becomes more enlightened. We seek rational insight not just the ambition to amass a mere heap of facts, an encyclopedia. Like Hegel we believe in the unconquerable faith that reason does exist. However truth exist only as a possibility, a potential. It is only when this idea is accompanied by action that this idea as well as abstract characteristics generally, are realized or actualized. For in and of themselves facts are powerless. A WEB PAGE WITH OUT HITS, followed by action, IS JUST A PILE OF WORDS AND GIFS, images, encyclopedia.
By Adapting Professor Keyan Tomselli's concepts of semiotics, as presented in his book " Appropriating Images" we are able to track a web sites many messages, i.e. the conceive text, the produced text, and received text. We can track levels of understanding, orders of significance, and any discrepant decoding. And review the pages ORGANIC's, how alive the page is. HOW I can connect it to the visitor, and improve this communication connection to the point of action on the part of the visitor.
Observation, synthesis and action are the essence of applied Anthropology.
I am defining Internet Anthropology in this case as the study and research of the interactive interfacing of human culture with this technology, to the point of action.
Al Qaeda understands this concept and is currently
running the Internet Paradigm.BelowFrom 6/16/2007 11:06:00 PM
al Qaeda is different than ever before.
They have morphed from a controlled corporate structure to a free form franchise.
Moved on from a centrally controlled payroll to affiliations under the same BRAND.
They have suffered many defeats which has caused them to switch battlefields
and methods. They have opened new fronts in Lebanon, Algeria, London, Germany, China, and many other locations because they are loosing troops, cadre in Iraq, but the major shift has been to the Internet.
The USA is allowing al Qaeda to control the Internet paradigm.
USA controls the battle field but al Qaeda controls the Internet and consequently the hearts and minds.
If USA kills them it is called a victory of martyrs.
If they are jailed they plead torture and disrespect,
and then they produce videos of them beheading civilians.
They show videos of USA attacks and claim civilian casualties.
They show videos of their attacks and claim all USA troops were killed.
Al Qaeda hide in the shadows and attack easy targets, and call them selves brave.
USA patrols the most dangerous parts of Iraq protecting the public and AQ call them
infidels.
AQ videos an attack with their cell phone, email to their media section and they have it out on the Internet in 30 min. of the attack.
On balance,
USA's losses are very good, any KIA, is sad.
But compared to WWII rates the USA army is doing a remarkable job.
Around 150,000 troops at WAR, and KIA are 3 or 4 a day.
And they are not setting around is some safe fort,
they are out on patrol looking for AQ.
Hunting AQ, snipered, IED, Shaped charges.
AQ instruction manuals say to be like dust or a gas, unnoticed and just disappear,
to always seek a safe easy target.
USA troops are trying NOT to kill civilians,
AQ is trying TO kill civilians, Market bombings.
USA troops are trying to stop a civil WAR.
AQ is trying to start a civil WAR.
USA troops are trying to build a country.
AQ is trying to destroy the country.
USA troops patrol the streets.
AQ hides in shadows.
USA troops are trying to give the Umma the VOTE.
AQ is trying to KILL the Umma.
AQ says fighting the USA troops is like trying to run in STEEL RAIN.
AQ IS BASTARDIZING ISLAM.
USA troops know the difference between AQ and Islam.
( Al Qaeda has managed to
brand the USA as the bad guys even in light of ll the above. )
And USA is loosing the media war, loosing the hearts and minds to al Qaeda...
They have suffered many failures, many of its top cadre killed, failures in
attempted take overs of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and attempted
establishment of government in Somalia.
By by corrupting the Koran al Qaeda has established a base of followers world wide
who are subject to his brand of propaganda, even though it violates the very basic principles of the Islamic religion.
By effectively using the Internet he has established a a cadre of members in Europe, England
the Maghreb, far and near East and Asia.
His "Brand " labels him as the primary symbol of terrorism, in the West and the successful
symbol of resistance in the Muslim world.
His primary goal is to establish a caliphate and destroy Israel, Jordan, Pakistan,and Saudi Arabia.
But he mis-calculated on his strategy with the USA, he thought he could lure them
into a short war in Afghan and defeat them much like the Russians.
So far USA has focused on attacking al Qaeda not its ideas, or the false brand
of Islam they have established, which has allowed world wide recruiting.
Al Qaeda's hypothesis is its Achilles heel, it is in violation of Allah's word the Koran
And AQ is not being attacked in this quarter.
AQ media arm is recruiting via the www more wannabees, their social change engine is running at full speed, and the rest of the world has yet to field any social change engine other than military.
AQ media arm promotes its propaganda daily, and are moving into a NEW PHASE OF PROPAGANDA PROLIFERATION and recruitment and funding. ( Breaking )
AQ is being defeated militarily every day, but their propaganda proclaim their continually victory.
The number of their deaths, defeat by western standards, are celebrated as victory's of martyrs.
While the West talk of pull out.
The media arm of AQ is more dangerous than AQ in Iraq, The media arm is the deep well for the suicide bombers, cannon fodder and homegrown terrorist, wiping them out will go along way to stopping recruitment and home made wannabes.
They are not being engaged on the Internet, they are winning on the WWW with USA as a "no show".
USA needs to deploy the mother of all "Social Change Engines".
al Qaeda has Weaknesses:
Pakistan has arrested more high level AQ than any where in the world, because Pakistan is the seat of AQ.
They still have a base of operations in Pakistan and continue to erode that government.
When USA does pull out of Iraq all the AQ assets will shift to Afghanistan.
AQ has become a criminal enterprise with kidnappings, extortion and Bank robberies, They have so much money in Iraq now they can send money back to AQ in Pakistan.
AQ is trying to create a new state in Western Iraq, in effect seceding form Iraq.
Hamas has carried out dozens of suicide attacks against Israeli.
The founder of Hamas supported AQ, but refused an alliance with them.
Hamas has been independent, and realizes it is an national case not international problem.
Hamas has rejected the sectarian violence AQ espouses,
And Hamas won the elections last year and AQ then became critics of Hamas,
stating they had sold out for wining using a political movement.
AQ has apologized for Hamas for their surrender to the political answer
to the violence in Gaza.
AQ fears a solution to the Arab-Israeli war movement, as it removes a leg of their
logic in recruiting.
The Israeli Arab problem is a basic recruiting tool and they do not want an answer, they want cannon fodder, recruits, financing not peace.
AQ may view Hamas as an enemy if they move towards peace with Israel.
Any move in that direction will bring Hamas under attack by AQ.
Iran and AQ have "convergence of interests." and inclined to co-operate, on a temporary basis. When USA leaves Iraq they will become mortal enemies.
Fighting to corrupt the soul of Islam....
al Qaeda is vulnerable, these vulneriblities need to be exploited and USA needs to be setting the Internet Paradigm, not al Qaeda. The ammunition is there, use it.
USA is building civil projects ( water systems ), and inside on their PC they read "the baby killers are building their water system" . NO wonder USA is loosing the war for minds and hearts.
From 6/16/2007 11:06:00 PMGerald
"Iraqi Insurgent Media: The War Of Images And Ideas" by RFE/RL
The book-length report, "Iraqi Insurgent Media: The War Of Images And Ideas" by RFE/RL regional analysts Daniel Kimmage and Kathleen Ridolfo, provides an in-depth analysis of the media efforts of Sunni insurgents, who are responsible for the majority of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq.
The popularity of online Iraqi Sunni insurgent media, the authors contend, reflects a genuine demand for their message in the Arab world.
The entire reportGerald
Godspeed on the USSOCOM: new multiple language web sites.
Paradigm Hunters/EngineersLabels: anthropology, language, multiple, new, sites, USSOCOM, web
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