DRAFT

Storming the Reality Studio:

Leveraging Public in the War on Terror

Brendan Matthew-Gordon Kelly

Prepared for the 47th Annual International Studies Association Convention March 22-25, 2006 San Diego, CA

Abstract

This paper ar gues that the war on terror is understood on both sides as an idea war, an event that signifies the triumph of Constructivist theories over strictly Realist interpretations of international politics. It further argues that this is a watershed event, in which information operations have finally taken a primary role in military strategy. Finally, it argues that this is most visible in cyberspace.

On February 17th, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spoke before the Council on Foreign Relations to argue that America was losing the information war in its struggle against radical Islam:

Rumsfeld also said al-Qaida and other Islamic extremist groups have poisoned the Muslim public's view of the through deft use of the Internet and other modern methods that the American government has failed to master.

"Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but for the most part we - our country, our government - has not adapted," he said. 1

This argument is problematic for several reasons. First, it fails to consider the possibility that the Muslim world’s “poisoned” view of the United States has nothing to do with Al-Qaeda or other extremist organizations.2 But even if we accept Rumsfeld’s argument at face value, these statements are still problematic. The fact is that America, the home of Hollywood and Madison Avenue, has dominated the art of political spin for decades. The relationship between the military and the entertainment industry has grown so symbiotic that one scholar has labeled it the “military-industrial-media-entertainment” network.3

1 “Rumsfeld Says Extremists Winning Media War.” USA Today (February 17, 2006) 2 A legitimate argument asserts that America’s current troubles are larger than a simple image problem. In this worldview, America’s terrorist woes are the result of longstanding foreign policies, and cannot be dispelled with any amount of PR. This position is best summarized by Osama Siblani, publisher of the Arab American News: "The United States lost the public relations war in the Muslim world a long time ago. They could have the prophet Muhammad doing public relations and it wouldn't help." Without actually disputing this argument, it should be noted that this argument is not sufficiently nuanced. For example, it does not explain why its propaganda strategy, which had worked so long for America, is failing now. Nor does it consider that radical Islam is directed against many countries other than the U.S. Finally, it does not consider the way in which non-state actors and foreign governments manipulate information for their own advantage. 3 Der Derian, James. Virtuous War: Mapping the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network. (Westview Press, Boulder CO, 2001)

In response to September 11th, the US government harnessed the power of this relationship to launch a coordinated public relations campaign spanning print, broadcast, and Internet media.4 This public relations campaign complements a broad counterterrorism strategy utilizing all tools available to government, incorporating public diplomacy, strategic deception, and psychological operations. It was–and is– nothing less than a full-fledged attempt to disrupt terrorism by any means necessary. In light of these facts, it is simply incomprehensible to insinuate that the US has “not adapted” to the media age.

What Rumsfeld means is that the openness of Western media has allowed other voices to emerge that challenge the American position. What Rumsfeld is arguing, in effect, is that the US military policy of “full-spectrum dominance” must be pursued in the information sphere as well. America must be prepared to fight dirty, even if it means propagating misinformation and declaring preemptive strikes on any information sources not sympathetic to the American perspective.

This attitude is in strong contradiction to the ideals of Western democracy, which prizes freedom of expression. It is in this way—clinging to outdated notions of free speech—that Americans and their government “have not adapted” to fighting wars in the media age.

The Internet earns a special place in this debate. As a global, two-way , the Internet has always had the potential to unite geographically-dispersed networks. Recently, this potential has been exploited by jihadists, and it has become

4 “The Art of Networking and Public Diplomacy.” Charlotte Beers, Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. April 11, 2002. a truism that the Internet is a haven for terrorism.5 Presumably this is a problem because the Internet serves as a virtual “command and control center” allowing for direct between Islamists cells. Recently, however, the propaganda value of the Internet has also been acknowledged, noting that it gives Islamists a direct window to global audiences and potential converts.

The terrorist threat has been invoked as a justification for sweeping surveillance powers in the electronic sphere.6 It is ironic that the Internet, an American- dominated and “inherently democratic” institution, should cause such problems for American intelligence. For a decade, cyberenthusiasts have proclaimed the Internet as a panacea for authoritarianism and censorship, due to its distributed architecture. Analysts have been predicting for years that the Net will bring down authoritarian rule in places such as China, Cuba, and the Middle East to usher in American-style democracy. And yet, now it is America that faces a global threat from the open information infrastructure.

However, rather than prove the cyberlibertarian thesis, the Americans may yet turn the power of the Net against their extremist enemies--just as China has made impressive steps in curbing the Net. However, unlike the Chinese, who have adopted a defensive information posture by firewalling off their country, the US is practicing an offensive information strategy in which it actively reaches out to identify, degrade, and (occasionally) silence opposing viewpoints.

5 Coll, Stephen and Susan B. Glasser. “Terrorists Turn to the Web as Base of Operations.” Washington Post (August 7, 2005): A01 6 Risen, James. State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration. (Free Press, New York, 2006)

This paper argues that the war on terror is understood on both sides as an idea war, and that both sides have launched coordinated media attacks to influence public opinion. It further argues that this is a watershed event, in which information operations have finally taken a primary role in military strategy. Finally, it argues that this is most visible in cyberspace.

Understanding the War on Terror as Information War

The Global War on Terror (GWOT) has changed the face of the map, bringing NATO to Afghanistan, and coalition forces to the streets of . But the war on terror cannot be understood by looking at a map, as it is not limited to military actions. The war on terror is primarily a war of ideas; a battle of differing shapes of the future. Public officials have long acknowledged that the global war on terror is primarily a war of ideas.7 In this conflict, the greatest battleground is not Afghanistan or , but the public . The great prize in the ideational war is the idea of legitimacy, as insurgents and state security forces alike attempt to mold the ideosphere in their favor, striving to convince skeptical publics that they are the rightful spokespersons.

Information warfare is not a new concept, and nothing is fundamentally different in its application today. What is different is the proportion of resources and attention dedicated to information operations. In past military conflicts, information operations were regarded as secondary to actual “kinetic” combat, and intended to bestow an advantage on one’s conventional military forces. But in modern information warfare, the battle of ideas has supplanted and replaced the actual

7 “National Strategy for Combating Terrorism.” February 2003. conflict. The pseudo-military discipline of “perception management” strives to alter an adversary’s worldview and obviate the need for combat. This is a shadowy discipline, marrying fields of public diplomacy, psyops, and strategic deception. Most importantly, perception management is targeted against friend and foe alike, and must be cultivated in times of peace, giving rise to oxymoronic statements like “peace-time military operations.”8

It is a situation in which the presentation is the real battle, and the actual combat between armed adversaries is secondary. The situation has come to vindicate the arguments of postmodern philosopher Jean Baudrillard, who argued over fifteen years ago that representation (the “hyperreal”) was replacing the real in international politics.9

In military jargon, “information operations” is an umbrella term that refers to attacks against military command and control centers on one hand, and psychological operations against hostile populations. Traditionally, it has been possible to separate these two functions. But the GWOT is exceptional for two important reasons: first, the idea war is largely preemptive, without clear distinctions between active combatants, potential recruits, and sympathetic audiences. Secondly, modern global communications are so interrelated that it is difficult (if not impossible) to prevent “targeted” misinformation from flowing back to friendly audiences.10

8 “PSYOP must be refocused on adversary decision-making, planning well in advance for aggressive behavior modification during times of conflict.” Roadmap, p. 6 9 Baudrillard theorized that deft use of media allowed the “hypereal” to deter the actual. Baudrillard, Jean. The Gulf War Did Not Take Place. (Indiana University Press, 1995) 10 Because American law restricts the use of propaganda against domestic audiences, this distinction has important legal ramifications. The DoD’s “Information Operations Roadmap” acknowledges this issue: “The increasing ability of people in most parts of the globe to access international information sources makes targeting particular audiences more difficult. Today the distinction between foreign and domestic audiences becomes more a question of USG [US government] intent rather than information dissemination practices.” Information Operations Roadmap, 26 Nominally, the war on terror is a war of ideas. But in execution, it is not so much a war of ideas as it is a war over control of ideas. The phrase “war of ideas” connotes a slugging match between differing ideals in which one (presumably the superior one) will emerge victorious. But contemporary military strategy is not willing to leave such important details up to chance. Instead, it desires to actively influence the memetic contest by silencing enemy messages, maximizing friendly ones, and diluting the infosphere with strategic misinformation. This change in emphasis is summarized by a new doctrine rumored to exist in military planning, D5E.11

This strategic reassessment signifies the final triumph of Constructivist theories over strictly Realist interpretations of international politics. In internal documents such as the “Information Operations Roadmap,” the shift in military thinking is plainly visible: the US military is shifting emphasis from warfighting to preemptive “aggressive behavior modification.”12 The complex IR discipline of Constructivism is recast as “Human Factors Analysis.”13 By admitting that wars are not determined by force alone, Realism is forced to accommodate notions of “perception” and “reality construction” in its strategic calculus. The degree to which this has been internalized in military circles is seen in STRATCOM’s official declaration that information is as vital as bombs and tanks in war. Is it not entirely appropriate— perhaps even symbolic--that STRATCOM, the command center for America’s strategic nuclear arsenal, has been given command of global information operations?

11 Supposedly, D5E is shorthand for “Destruction, Degradation, Denial, Disruption, Deceit & Exploitation.” This term was first published by William Arkin, who alleges that the DoD adopted this policy in early 2002. Although the term cannot be found in official military publications, it coincides nicely with the “Five Principle of Information Warfare” redacted in the Information Operations Roadmap. See William Arkin, “The Military’s New War of Words.” . (November 24, 2002) 12 US Department of Defense, “Information Operations Roadmap.” (October 30, 2003) 13 DCID 7/3 (“Information Operations and Intelligence Community Related Activities”) defines human factors analysis as: “The psychological, cultural, behavioral, and other human attributes that influence decision-making, the flow of information, and the interpretation of information by individuals and groups at any level in any state or organization.” Part of any revolution in military/business affairs is a new lexicon to describe it. In the new propaganda war, previously nebulous concepts like “hearts and minds” have been replaced with coldly bureaucratic terms like “IO battlespace.” The shift in imagery from organic beings to abstract dimensions is entirely appropriate. In memetic theory, the ideosphere refers to the sum total of ideas held in the collective consciousness, although it is sometimes used to refer to the media that carry such messages (particularly since the advent of the Internet and the growth of cyberspace). It is in the sense that the military discuss controlling the ideosphere. Although the end goal is to dominate the ideosphere, they are really talking about the mediasphere (since media function as memetic carriers) as a means to dominate the ideosphere. This is the IO battlespace.

Leveraging the Media

These changes are especially relevant to the GWOT because outclassed opponents have always had to rely on asymmetric warfare. Today’s “terrorists” must by necessity wage an information war. Because they lack the resources to achieve military victory in the traditional sense, terrorist strategy inevitably requires winning the long-term information war. Popular opinion is the prime arena in this conflict, and public mediasphere is the theatre in which the battle will be fought. In this regard, it is beneficial to view media sources as natural phenomena. Like a river, public media are a powerful force that can be channeled and redirected to achieve desired goals.

By definition, “terrorism” aspires to capture public attention. Al-Qaeda, for example, has always shown a flair for dramaturgy, ranging from massive simultaneous explosions to gruesome beheadings. Islamist propaganda frequent alleges that all Western media is controlled by a monolithic Zionist-Crusader conspiracy. While this must be dismissed as obvious political posturing, it helps to conceal the considerable disadvantages faced by terrorists in their asymmetric information war from target audiences in the Muslim world. These groups do not have the size, resources, or global reach to bring their message to Western audiences.14 Without major media networks of their own, terrorists have had to “hijack” the existing media by doing what they do best: creating horrific public spectacles to draw attention to their cause. This strategy demonstrates that terrorists understand that Western media are not wholly controlled by States, and can be manipulated under the right circumstances.

However much Islamists may want to believe it (or at least want everyone else to believe it), Western media are not simple extensions of their governments. Media are independent entities driven by their own motivation. This motivation is usually the pursuit of profit, which tends to make media sympathetic to the viewpoints of business and government.15 Because of this predictable weakness, media can be pressed into service by crafty information managers. But in spite of this weakness, Western media do not exist solely as government mouthpieces, and in fact often lead antagonistic relationships with government actors (particularly in the military). For example, the greatest blow to American efforts in the propaganda war was publication of pictures from Abu Ghraib, which the media did without any provocation from Islamist organizations.

14 Contemporary US military strategy recognizes the importance of media vectors and actively seeks to deny their use to the enemy. William Arkin has alleged that beginning in early 2002, the DoD moved to a new policy of D5E; “Destruction, Degradation, Denial, Disruption, Deceit & Exploitation.” Arkin, William. “The Military’s New War of Words.” Los Angeles Times. (November 24, 2002) 15 Chomsky’s “propaganda model” of media demonstrates how simple market forces drive media to favor the viewpoints of business and government. Noam Chomsky. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. (Pantheon, 2002)

The Pentagon and the Fourth Estate have been described as having antithetical missions.16 The Pentagon is charged with protecting American interests, which often means maintaining secrecy in the name of operational security. But the press has an equally important mission: to supply the information necessary to educate the populace and keep democracy functioning. It is therefore appropriate that we should scrutinize media management strategies with some skepticism.

The art of leveraging friendly communications has undergone great refinement in recent years. In an effort to minimize the randomness of the “CNN effect,” Western governments (particularly in America) have gone to great lengths to study the way in which media can be best managed and controlled. The purpose of this was to prevent demoralizing images, such as the video footage of American soldiers dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. Of course, once media has been tamed to prevent unwanted images, it is tempting to harness the media for political and/or strategic advantage. Showing that it has learned from previous mistakes, the military now openly talks of media as a “force multiplier.”17

Using “friendly” media to support the national war effort is nothing new. Usually such support means selective reporting to boost domestic morale and distract citizens from the hardships of a wartime economy. However, with Gulf War II, we see the

16 Summarized by Tom DeFrank (New York Daily News) as “the two great institutions of our society and government that have totally contradictory objectives and purposes here.” Quoted in “The Media and the War on Terrorism.” Ed. Hess/Kalb. The Brookings Institution (2003) 17 According to FAIR: “a 1996 unofficial strategy paper written by an Army officer and published by the U.S. Naval War College ("Military Operations in the CNN World: Using the Media as a Force Multiplier") urged military commanders to find ways to "leverage the vast resources of the fourth estate" for the purposes of "communicating the [mission's] objective and endstate, boosting friendly morale, executing more effective psychological operations, playing a major role in deception of the enemy, and enhancing intelligence collection.”” (FAIR, http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1983) Regardless of the origins, the Army now openly promotes its public affairs officers as “force multipliers” in public source presentations. deployment of strategic misinformation, and other military PSYOPS style operations that are usually reserved for an enemy. The problem is not so much the concept, as the audience and the vector with which these messages are being delivered.

For example, George Friedman, founder of private intelligence company Stratfor, alleges that the otherwise baffling campaign of “shock & awe” reported in Western media was a coordinated PSYOPS effort to scare the Iraqi army into surrender before hostilities began.18 Friedman makes the same allegation regarding the “failed” decapitation strike against Saddam that immediately preceded the air war. Finally, in 12/01/04, the Los Angeles Times published a story alleging that a US Marine lieutenant had deliberately lied to CNN in order to provoke a response from Falluja’s defenders.19 If these allegations are true, then they mark an important threshold: the use of trusted domestic media to distribute military misinformation to a foreign adversary. The rationale for such action is clear: the world watches CNN for its global reach, its timeliness, and (presumably) its reliability. To distribute misinformation through this channel is an attempt to capitalize on the good reputation of Western reporting. And it is a strategy made all the more attractive by destroying all competing media prior to deployment.

While delivering tactical misinformation through public news channels may be the most egregious violation, it is not the most insidious. That role is reserved for strategic influence. Distributing strategic misinformation is trickier than tactical

18 See George Friedman, Inside America’s Secret War: Inside the Hidden Worldwide Struggle Between America and Its Enemies. (Doubleday, 2004) The phrase itself, “shock and awe,” refers to the title of book n military strategy that describes shock and awe as “aimed at influencing the will, perception, and understanding of an adversary rather than simply destroying military capability.” (Conversino, Mark J., “Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance, Navy War College Review, Summer 1998) 19 Mazzetti, Mark. “PR Meets Psy-Ops in War on Terror.” Los Angeles Times. (December 1, 2004) “Pentagon Debate Rages Over 'Information Operations' in Iraq.” CNN (December 2, 2004) http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/12/02/pentagon.media/ misinformation as it requires greater care to hide the origins of the information. This was the purpose of the proposed Office of Strategic Influence. Although the OSI was disbanded in a media furor, it is clear that its work continues through private contractors such as the Rendon Group and the Lincoln Group. The Lincoln Group, SAIC, and SYColeman have all been awarded contracts by the Joint Psychological Operations Support Element (JPSE) to produce veiled propaganda in Iraq. There are many more examples of “strategic influence” about in Iraq itself, where various companies (on the payroll of the Pentagon) either pay to sneak favorable coverage into existing Iraqi media, or just outright create such media as a front for strictly propaganda purposes.

Traditionally, it has been easy to maintain a separation of strategic misinformation from domestic propaganda. But with the globalization of media, this distinction is eroding. For democracies, this leads to thorny legal (not to mention moral) questions.20 If an informed citizenry is essential for functioning democracy, then what does it mean to use strategic misinformation against domestic audiences? On a larger level, what does it say about the virtues of democracy if it must stoop to lies in order to spread itself?

Many observers have questioned what kind of precedent this sets for a developing free press.21 However, Lincoln Group spokeswoman Laurie Adler ignored the normative debate and defended the group’s work on pragmatic grounds:

20 The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, amended in 1972 and 1998, prohibits the U.S. government from targeting the American public with military disinformation. 21 Unnamed senior Pentagon official: "Here we are trying to create the principles of democracy in Iraq. Every speech we give in that country is about democracy. And we're breaking all of the first principles of democracy when we're doing it (planting stories)." Quoted in “US Military Covertly Pays to Run Stories in Iraqi Press Lincoln Group spokeswoman Laurie Adler says the articles produced by the Lincoln Group are tr ue and “counter the lies, intimidation and pure evil of terror.”22

The lines are identical with Rendon, Al Qaeda, and the Iraqi insurgency. All the players in the propaganda war claim that they are countering the lies of the opposition. A popular video of the Iraqi insurgency exhorts: “Do not believe them, for their losses are greater than they admit.”23 An al Qaeda communiqué discusses the need to document resistance operations because “they can afford to lose a jeep, but they cannot afford to lose the idea of security.”

But mostly, the problem with the disinformation campaign is that it is shortsighted. By compromising the credibility of Western sources (and PSYOPS or not, “shock and awe” was decidedly underwhelming from the American perspective), the American military damages the ability of Western media to promote Western values in the larger information war, driving potential listeners to seek alternate sources of information. As the Internet is a major source of alternative news, this strategy plays into terrorist hands by making audiences (both domestic and foreign) more inclined to accept alternate explanation of US aims and motivations.

In the early days of the , visitors flocked to the Al-Jazeera website, presumably because it showed coverage that American networks would not air.24 The irony of the situation is that if people had more faith in the credibility and objectivity of the Western media, then they would have less need to seek alternative

22 Quoted in Kelly, Matt. “3 Groups Have Contracts for Pro-U.S. Propaganda.” (USA Today, 1/31/2006) http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20051214/a_propagandainside14.art.htm 23 This version of the video is noteworthy since it is dubbed in English, and aimed at international sympathizers. It tells viewers that the insurgency doesn’t need arms or fighters, but asks that they pressure their government to sever diplomatic relations with America, and to denominate their currency reserves in something other than dollars. sources. Al-Jazeera in particular seems to have earned the ire of the Pentagon, with media planners saying “we were losing the information war to Al-Jazeera.”25 Whether out of political expedience, government coercion, or personal politics, it is noteworthy that Internet company Akamai refused to provide assistance to Al-Jazeera when its servers were repeatedly attacked by hackers during the first days of the Iraq war.26 There is also the mysterious death of journalist Tariq Ayoub, which Al- Jazeera asserts was a deliberate act of intimidation by the American military. The suspicion is strengthened by allegations that President Bush wished to attack Al- Jazeera stations, as presented in the Downing Street memo. Finally, the fact that Al- Jazeera offices have come under attack in Kabul, Basra, and Baghdad is suspicious.

Part III: Fighting The Net

The changed attitude of the US military towards the Internet is demonstrated in the “Information Operations Roadmap.” Gone is the rhetoric supporting the Internet as a tool of democracy. Instead, the Roadmap exhorts commanders to “fight the net.” Public officials often suggest that the Internet is a major factor contributing to the resilience of terror networks, and this insinuation is repeated in information security circles. The danger is often presented in terms of real-life security; i.e.—ad-hoc terror networks are using the Internet for command and control purposes. Through email, chat rooms and webportals, terrorists are able to plan and coordinate attacks on physical locations.

24 Google reported the highest number of searches in its history for “Al-Jazeera,” and Lycos said the number of searches was more than three times the previous record for “sex.” 25 William Arkin reports that Navy Rear Adm. John Cryer III (who managed information warfare for the Combined Air Operations Center during the Afghani war) said: "It was our belief ... we were losing the information war early when we watched Al Jazeera," (Arkin, William, The Military’s New War of Words,” LA Times, November 24th, 2002.) 26 Junnarkar, Sandeep. “Akamai Ends Al Jazeera Server Support.” CNET (April 4, 2003)

But the threat analysis should not be limited to command and control type communications. The issue of security can be expanded, if we classify the war on terror as primarily an idea war. Taken to its logical extreme, all messages that strengthen the enemy message should be regarded as hostile. Under this logic, Islamist websites are no longer free speech as protected by Western ideals, but enemy propaganda centers that are legitimate targets in times of war.

There are many ways to control information on the Internet. Some nations attempt to control the kinds of information that citizens can access. Many nations, most notably China, employ some sort of firewall technology to restrict access to certain sites. In addition to passive information policies, there are also active ones. For example, the so-called “cyberjihad” features massive coordination to launch distributed denial of service attacks against unpopular sites. Internet vigilante groups such as Internet Haganah take this a step further, by hounding Islamist sites from their severs and chasing them across cyberspace.

US counterterrorism officials have acknowledged this fact by referring to al Qaeda as a “virtual organization,” that exists primarily on the Internet.27 The idea is even complete with lyrical popular images, such as Hamid Kar evocative description of al Qaeda operatives marching into exile with pictures of Mohammed Atta emblazoned across their laptop screens.28

In cyberspace, the information war becomes literal, as rival hackers rain packets on their enemies’ websites. Officially, America does not have a policy on offensive

27 Transcript of CNN interview with Peter Bergen aired May 13, 2003. 28 Quoted in Stephen Coll and Susan Glasser’s “Terrorists Turn to the Web as Base of Operations” information operations.29 To use State authorities to shut down unpopular websites is probably a violation of International law, and would certainly be harmful to international reputation. (One needs only look at how China is pilloried in the international press for its efforts at internet censorship.) This line of thinking is not especially popular in the West, as it violates basic notions of free expression. But one must also contemplate how easy it would be avoid State responsibility by passing this to non State actors to perform.

In earlier incarnations, the term “cyber jihad” usually referred to minor hacks in cyberspace, such as website defacement or denial of service attacks. (In cyberspace, the war of ideals becomes literal. The so-called “cyber jihad” pits groups of hackers against each other in a juvenile attempt to win the information war through acts of defacement and denial.) This has become especially visible in cartoon controversy. The role of Islamist sites is made visible by sites which include video instructions on launching DoS attacks, and include lists of target websites.30

Pursuing its own version of strategic influence, on January 12, 2006 the Global Islamic Media Front (a clearinghouse for Islamist propaganda) released a new strategy in the “Information Jihad,” which calls for jihadists to infiltrate Western internet fora and engage in acts of covert persuasion.31 Like US covert propaganda, an essential component of this strategy is disguising the source of this information to maintain credibility.

29 Although it is of course interesting to speculate on the nature the “Offensive Information Operations,” segment of Rumsfeld’s 2003 Information Operations Roadmap, which is heavily redacted. 30 A list naming thousands of attacked servers is available at the website of European IT security organization Zone-H. Preatoni, Roberto. “Prophet Mohammed Protest Spreads on the Digital Ground. Hundreds of Cyber Attacks Against Danish and Western Webservers Spreading Rage in the Name of Allah.” (Zone-H, 2/10/2006) http://www.zone-h.org/en/news/read/id=205987 It is not careless to say that terrorists have always attempted to leverage the media; the very name “terrorist” refers to acts of grotesque spectacle as a way to bring grievances before a larger audience. In the “Management of Barbarism,” (Idarat al- Tawahhush), author Abu Bakr Naji lays out a strategy for jihad, focusing particularly on information operations and their importance.32 Likewise, this document makes it clear that the now-common insurgent practice of kidnapping foreign media correspondents (often coupled with gruesome public executions) is not just an attempt to gain airtime. It is a calculated terrorist strategy to personalize the war for average citizens, rather than leave them insulated from their ruling elites.

Of course, this tactic of personalizing the war would be less shocking to Western audiences if they were viewing a less sanitized version of the war in the first place.

31 al-Jabhah al-'ilamiyah al-islamiyah al-'alamiyah 32 “New Online Book Lays Out al-Qaeda's Military Strategy”, Jamestown Foundation, http://jamestown.org/news_details.php?news_id=100 BIBLIOGRAPHY

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