The Counterjihad Infowar, Part II

In The Counterjihad Infowar, Part I, I reviewed an article by Wretchard of Belmont Club and an article in the October 2006 Military Review. The rest of the post was the chronicle of the opening of my eyes on how to take strong, but not violent action to protect the civilization I hold dear against those would destroy it, from both inside and outside.

There are others who are mining the same vein, working towards the same goal.

1. The first is Grim, who presents a Strategy for the Long War at Blackfive. Grim bases his analysis on an article in the New Yorker about David Kilcullen, a counterinsurgency expert. Grim focuses on three facets of the goal.
   

   There are three concepts to understand. The first is “information warfare.” The second is David Kilcullen’s concept of “Disaggregation,” which the article asserts may be the grand strategy we need for the Long War, the equivalent of Containment in the Cold War. The third is consequences: the need for sticks as well as carrots.

   Finally, Grim states several times that the only information warfare that will work against global and local Jihadists depends on telling the truth, no matter how unpleasant.

2. The second is Baron Bodissey who writes here and here about the Counterjihad. On the nature of the Jihad and Counterjihad:
   

   Our success on the battlefield in Iraq and Israel’s success in Lebanon have been overshadowed by the enemy’s success in manipulating the news coverage of these events.

   Our soldiers are superb and their martial skills are the greatest that history has ever seen. But we may yet lose the war because the people who control the portals of public information are cowardly and treasonous.

   The information war has become more important than the bombs-and-bullets war.

   On the role of the blogosphere and other amateur volunteers:

   Last month’s election freed me up from any attachment whatsoever to the government as an active force against the Great Jihad. Here’s the way I see it:

   • The legacy media control the view that most of the public has of what happens in the “War on Terror”.
   • They want us to lose because Republicans are in charge.
   • Therefore they threw the election to the Democrats.
   • Thus we will get what we voted for from our elected officials: retreat, denial, passivity, appeasement, and dhimmitude.

   But that’s just the government that I’m talking about, and the government is not where the action is now. The synchronicity of the election and my involvement with the 910 Group has opened a view into a whole new way of doing things. If we wait for the government to do things, we are doomed. If we expect the government to follow the prudent course and prosecute the Counterjihad with the appropriate zeal, we are living in a fantasy world.

3. Stop the Project defines the Counterjihad in opposition to the Moslem Brotherhood’s “Project” to establish a pure Islamic Caliphate and eventually conquer the world for Islam and Sharia. As Stop the Project notes, the front lines in the Counterjihad will be occupied by Muslims and Ex-Muslims all over the world who are fighting for freedom. Support of Ex-Muslims, freedom-loving Muslims, and less-Muslim Muslims, along with all others who fight and speak for freedom and against Jihad and Sharia and the horrors they bring, will be a central feature of a successful Counterjihad.
4. Col. Baker has these observations that shaped his brigade-level information operations:
   • It is imperative to earn the trust and confidence of the indigenous population in your AO. They might never “like” you, but I am convinced you can earn their respect.
   • To defeat the insurgency, you must convince the (silent) majority of the population that it is in their best personal and national interest to support Coalition efforts and, conversely, convince them not to support the insurgents.
   • For information operations to be effective, you must have focused themes that you disseminate repetitively to your target audience.
   • Target audiences are key. You should assume that the silent majority will discount most of the information Coalition forces disseminate simply because they are suspicious of us culturally. Therefore, you must identify and target respected community members with IO themes. if you can create conditions where Arabs are communicating your themes to Arabs, you can be quite effective.
   • Being honest in the execution highly important. This goes back to developing trust and confidence, especially with target audiences. If you lose your credibility, you cannot conduct effective IO. Therefore, you should never try to implement any sort of IO “deception” operations.

   Though we the homeland Counterjihad do not live in Iraq or Afghanistan we do live among those who do not see eye to eye with us. To get our message out we must use the same rules of leverage and honesty that military forces in hostile circumstances follow for success.

Summing these strategic rules up, they are:

• Speak the truth and do it quick. Get the message out fast and often. Do not wait for the enemy to spread lies and false rumors about us or those we hold dear, but speak up with the facts. Even the most vicious ridicule of the enemy must have truth at its core.
• Repetition, repetition, repetition. Repeat focused messages until you can repeat them in your sleep. Have flyers and prepared messages ready for common situations. This puts the enemy off balance and it innoculates our brothers and sisters who have not yet committed to defend civilization against the Goebbelsian lies of the Qutbists and Khomeinists who want to force us to abandon our civilization.
• Befriend and educate tastemakers, community leaders, and the media. Conversely, do not associate with crazy people or fanatics, and curtail any fanatical expressions or behavior in yourself. Our friends and associates reflect on us and our cause.
• Follow a policy and process of disaggregation to break up problems that appear big into as many small problems as is feasible, and then attack each small problem in a focused way. Spread the work of opposing jihad around to your brothers and sisters in the Counterjihad Infowar. Do not let fear or jihadist terror fool us into believing or stating wrongly that they are all united, more powerful than they are, or that they are more powerful than we are.
• Along with using disaggregation to divide and belittle the enemy, we the Counterjihad Info Ops must be united, proud of the God and civilization we defend, and speak out boldly to defend them.
• Support any Muslim striving for freedom, music, representational art, humor, equality of opportunity, the liberation of women, the end of slavery, and the end of organized Jew-hatred and conspiracy theorizing. Muslims face death for anti-Islamic acts and beliefs. Our message is much better than the Islamic message, and the proof is in the fact that we don’t have to threaten to kill people to convince them to believe.
• Do not depend on the Government or Media to help us defend civilization. Treat them as we would treat a strange dog, ever wary that it will bite.
• Support each other. We are the best friends we have got.
• Let the chips fall where they may. Do not protect those who disrupt Counterjihad Information Ops from the consequences of their acts. Play the victimization and outrage game as skilfully as CAIR and the ACLU do it.

What remains is to formulate a tactical plan that implements this strategy in our own local situation. That will have to wait for Part 3.

Please discuss.

Submitted to Big Dog’s Open Post