The Internet: A Portal to Violent Islamist Extremism

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Originally Posted by Norfolk

I'll take the bait.

First off. If you walked into the lines of any Combat Arms unit in the English-speaking world, and asked for a show of hands of who was right-wing, most of the hands would go up; when you asked who was left wing, maybe a few defiant, or embarrassed individuals might raise their hands, to the (at best) the jeering of all the rest or (just as likely) the general annoyance of said. In general, I doubt that you would be able to find very many individuals, especially inside the Combat Arms, who would admit to be "left-wing". Even outside the Combat Arms, the troops tend to be right-wing in their views.

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My suspicion based on my sons units in the last few years is that you are correct. I think in the US the percentage of more liberal types may be slightly larger in the ranks but not much so. Interesting corollary from this old guy is that in my day, politics and such were just not discussed at all. Times change...

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The Officer Corps, even though they are perhaps more likely (I suspect) to have individuals of leftist persuasion in their midst, not only tend to be rightist in their persuasions, but over the last generation or so a discernible "hardening" into right-wing tendencies has visibly occurred.

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My sensing is that is also true though i suspect that if one asked the Officers for a party preference it would fall out pretty much in accord with civil society norms; to wit, a third each Democratic, Republican and Independent.

Your second paragraph is totally correct in my observation. As is the third.

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Fourth... Thus, the Military attracts, and is seen to be attractive to, those of the Right, and repellant to, those of the Left.

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Too true. As is your fifth, I think.

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marc is correct about his suspicions with regard to existing social conditions and individual identity. But given the fact that social scientists aren't exactly beating down the Military's doors to get in and do serious, open-minded research and study on the matter, there's not a lot of serious, objective, documented proof on this. Just the testimony of those who are or have been in, the Military.

I think that the Composition, much more so than the Size and Structure, of the military is most affected by this; but is has a lesser, though real impact on the latter matters.

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I'd also suggest that some degree of that polarization has always been there, certainly was in my day. It is slightly greater today and we're just much more vocal about it now. More vocal about everything, in fact... :)

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Originally Posted by Ken White

Smedley

I agree the bonuses are a bad idea.

I agree that most of what you say applies to other ranks as well. more so than the Army seems to realize... :(

I agree on the 1/4 command time versus inane staff jobs and having been forced into several of those due to age and civilian status late in life for about 12 straight years in a HQ echelons above reality I have horror stories out the wazoo about aimless unnecessary work...

I really agree with and understand your last paragraph and it truly and seriously pains me to say that the problem went for all the 45 years I was in or working for the Army and it is obvious that it still occurs twelve years later.

That is a huge lick on the Generals.

They are going to face a grass roots rebellion fairly soon and they do not seem to either realize it or be very concerned about it. SAD. :mad:

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Let the Reaction Begin!

(You didn't expect someone so far out on the Right that he considers Conservatism to be a concession to Modernism and that Genghis Khan doesn't even make his B-List to call for a Revolution, did you?)

Fight to a Finish

The boys came back. Bands played and flags were flying,
And Yellow-Pressmen thronged the sunlit street
To cheer the soldiers who’d refrained from dying,
And hear the music of returning feet.
‘Of all the thrills and ardours War has brought,
This moment is the finest.’ (So they thought.)

Snapping their bayonets on to charge the mob,
Grim Fusiliers broke ranks with glint of steel,
At last the boys had found a cushy job.

. . . .
I heard the Yellow-Pressmen grunt and squeal;
And with my trusty bombers turned and went
To clear those Junkers out of Parliament.

Siegfried Sassoon

Oh marc, now I've got this warm, fuzzy feeling all over.:D

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Originally Posted by marct

What, in your opinion and coming out of your bull sessions, would get you and your compadres to say "Yeah, this is worth re-upping"?

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Correct numbers 1 and 3 from the list. That will render number 2 irrelevant. I think that most of us would trade a pay CUT for 1 and 3 being remedied.

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Originally Posted by Norfolk

I'll take the bait.

First off. If you walked into the lines of any Combat Arms unit in the English-speaking world, and asked for a show of hands of who was right-wing, most of the hands would go up; when you asked who was left wing, maybe a few defiant, or embarrassed individuals might raise their hands, to the (at best) the jeering of all the rest or (just as likely) the general annoyance of said. In general, I doubt that you would be able to find very many individuals, especially inside the Combat Arms, who would admit to be "left-wing". Even outside the Combat Arms, the troops tend to be right-wing in their views.
The Officer Corps, even though they are perhaps more likely (I suspect) to have individuals of leftist persuasion in their midst, not only tend to be rightist in their persuasions, but over the last generation or so a discernible "hardening" into right-wing tendencies has visibly occurred.

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Great post. Reminded me of an article in Democracy Journal: "The Progressive Case for Military Service" by Kathryn Roth-Douquet:

http://democracyjournal.com/printfriendly.php?ID=6566

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There are two fundamental reasons for the present rift between progressives and the military. First is the emergence, during the twentieth century, of a rights-based philosophy on both the Left and the Right that sees government as a counterpoint and even a threat to the individual. Second is the Left’s re-action against the military after Vietnam, a reaction that was itself rooted in rights consciousness and, over time, solidified into a presumption that military values, and the members of the military themselves, are antithetical to progressive values.

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If progressives should feel bound by their principles to serve, they must also learn to reassess today’s military and its mission. Although the war in Iraq dominates the headlines, today’s military is less about fighting wars and increasingly about deterring them, enforcing international protocols, peacekeeping, nation- building, democracy promotion, and a wide variety of activities, precisely the tasks that a hypothetical " progressive military" would undertake.

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Hi Schmedlap,

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Originally Posted by Schmedlap

Correct numbers 1 and 3 from the list. That will render number 2 irrelevant. I think that most of us would trade a pay CUT for 1 and 3 being remedied.

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Originally Posted by Schmedlap

1. The career of an Army officer is 1/4 command time and 3/4 staff time - and most staff work is mindless, meaningless work that could be done by people with far less training and physical prowess.

2. Most of us have social lives for one weekend, in every fourth month of even-numbered years - and/or recently divorced. The rest of the time, we're in the field, in Iraq, or pulling an all-nighter at work. If the two-month double rotation at NTC were really as worthwhile as the OC's claim it to be, then maybe this would be seen as more than just an unnecessary wet blanket on our non-existent social lives.

3. There is little to no merit involved in personnel moves. A Brigade's command queue is not based upon merit. It is based upon year group and date of arrival at the duty station (some BDE's might vary). There is tremendous frustration among Captains waiting for a command and seeing a known dud take a company simply because it's his turn when everybody, to include his rater and senior rater, openly admit that he is a dud... but it's his turn!

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It sounds to me, being an academic with an absolute bias towards seeing meaning structures everywhere ;), that you are saying that sacrifice is worth it if it ain't frittered away in a) makework and b) is recognized and rewarded. Is that a pretty fair summation?

Marc

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Originally Posted by marct

It sounds to me, being an academic with an absolute bias towards seeing meaning structures everywhere ;), that you are saying that sacrifice is worth it if it ain't frittered away in a) makework and b) is recognized and rewarded. Is that a pretty fair summation?

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I'd say that (a) is correct. In my opinion, recognition and reward (aside from service being its own reward) are, and should be, irrelevant. I don't know anyone whom I would call a peer who is in the Army for the money, medals, or even the high regard in which our society holds military service.

From MEMRI

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In a message posted March 2, 2008 on the Islamist forum Al-Ikhlas (hosted by Piradius.net in Malaysia), a member calling himself "abumuslim22" urged his fellow forum members to engage in "media jihad," and provided advice and safety tips.

More...

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Much more at the link.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...9471721&page=1

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A private Israeli intelligence company told ABC News Monday there was a surge of online discussions in extremist Islamic forums about blowing up planes three weeks before Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's attempt to bring down Northwest Flight 253. The discussions recommended using "improvised detonation chain" devices, exactly like the one used onboard the Detroit-bound flight.

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"These discussions were about the exact same technique used on the Detroit flight," he said. "There were very detailed instructions on how many grams of chemicals to use, so as to avoid detection. They also talked in great detail about what liquids should be used."

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More at the article, but the take away for this post is this article IMO clearly illustrates how the internet has changed the character of this war by enabling any extremist community of interest (local or global) to collaborate and collude (to facilitate rapid learning and operational planning), which in turns rapidly increases their proficiency (forcing us to the same), thus the speed of co-evolution (cat and mouse) increases. Also known as the Red Queen Effect.

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At the same time he claims there have also been terrifying online exchanges about using aerosols filled with biological agents to attack planes.

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"These are not kids talking about using biological agents to attack planes. These are two very sophisticated participants who are experts in chemical and biological agents."

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Again, more detail in the article. The author also notes that the extremists basically swarm to these internet sites after an attack, or attempted attack, to discuss ways to do better next time (post operation self critique).

The implications identified in this article should be enough to wake most up to some rather frightening implications of what the future holds for us. Are we prepared to operate effectively in this environment?

Hi Bill,

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Originally Posted by Bill Moore

The implications identified in this article should be enough to wake most up to some rather frightening implications of what the future holds for us. Are we prepared to operate effectively in this environment?

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The extremely short answer is "no, but...". Strangely enough, this process has been going on for about 25 years now using the 'net, and even longer in other areas (I've done a fair bit of work on how it impacted HR). The kludges that developed in the HR area are also being replicated in the military / security area, which just goes to show that Darwin was right :D!

Okay, let me pull this apart a bit. There are two central "problems" that are driving this phenomenon at the structural level. The first is that many necessary resources have been "locked" in "hard" organizational structures (classic, centralized and bureaucratic organizations). This "locking", however, has also allowed for an increasing split intra-organizationally between those parts of the organization that monitor the environment and those that "produce" the organizations "product". Increasingly, there is a divergence between the interests of these organizational sub-sections (cf Nuala Beck's Shifting Gears). So, in order for people to access the resources they actually need (vs. what they are told they need), they go increasingly outside of the formal system.

In the case of HR, this would mean that people looking for jobs would avoid the HR hiring process and people looking to hire would frequently do the same (using personal referral networks, setting up "pirate" hiring boards, etc.). In this case, the resources are being accessed via these "pirate" discussion boards which, in many ways, are analogous to the SWC ;).

I said there were two central "problems", and this brings us to the second one, which is how do you communicate with people who have the resources (knowledge, information, etc.) that you need? One of the ideas behind the establishment of centralized bureaucratic organizations was to create a formal communications structure: a common language (e.g. doctrine, etc.), expectations of who should "know" something (the concept of an office vs. a person), and methodologies for communications (e.g. procedures, memos, etc.). When this communications structure becomes less than needed to meet the immediately important environments of those effected by it, people will start to go outside of it; which is what the irhabi crowd is doing and, also, what the SWC crowd is doing.

So, when you ask "Are we prepared to operate effectively in this environment?" and I said "no, but...", what I was getting at was that it is actually impossible for an organization with relatively poor communications structures to compete with one that has much better information structures. Now, here's where the "but..." comes in....

In order to effectively compete, you have to formalize the organizational use of those communications structures that are outside of the organization. This means that the organization has to give up some of its core tenets, such as centralized control over the "message" and the forms of communications. This is already happening with the US forces to some degree, and that is a change that I am really happy to see.

There are, actually, some organizational changes that could be made as well but those, as the saying goes, are "beyond the scope of this paper" :D.

Cheers,

Marc

Bill,

I too read this news report and wondered why the Israeli company Terrogence went public - as it appeared to be "bolting the door after the horse bolted". The story says:

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...the threats were serious and sent a warning to his company's clients worldwide which include in his words, "Western governmental agencies.

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Some Israeli analysis has been way off, like OBL was moving to Iraq and I wander what sort of company this is. In this field do you really want to give away anything, unless it is self-promotion? A quick Google search gave no clues on this company.

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I too read this news report and wondered why the Israeli company Terrogence went public

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David, I always wonder the same, but giving them the benefit of the doubt they could simply be providing a public service by going public because they lost faith in our bureaucracy to act on this information.

As for some wacko Israeli analysis, you always have to be aware (especially from Israel's right) of their attempt to disguise analysis with an attempt to influence. I'm confident they're not the only ones (seems like the UK did something similar once or twice :D). Debka.com is a good example, they have a lot of good information blended with an occassional doze of disinformation.

Not sure what anyone would have to gain personally by leaking this, so I'm not as suspect about this particular post. This isn't classified information, it is a company that does open source research.

Marc, I'm still thinking about your post, but definitely an interesting response. Bill

http://www.terrogence.com/home.html

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Terrogence Ltd. specializes in collection, analysis and assessment of Middle-Eastern and Jihadi related intelligence. These include, among others, evaluation of relevant global terror threats, up-to-date reviews of political-military affairs in Iran and the Persian Gulf, worldwide Jihadi and Palestinian terror groups as well as public opinion at large in the Muslim world.

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http://www.nationalterroralert.com/u...ag/terrogence/

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ABC News reports details on an Israeli intelligence company that monitored jihadist web discussions about plane bombing tactics weeks before the Detroit attack.

Most of the analysts at Terrogence are former Israeli intelligence operatives. From a converted chicken coop in a village in central Israel they monitor Islamic internet sites devoted to global jihad and terrorism. Their mission is to identify new and credible threats against western targets.

According to Terrogence founder Gadi Aviran the online discussion ran to 25 pages and continued until a critical posting in late November by a known extremist with a proven track record in explosives. This individual has been monitored for several years and is widely respected by participants in the forums. His posting in Arabic read:

“You can ignite a detonator using a medical capsule and put concentrated sulphuric acid into it, and then put it over the explosive materials.”

They believe the “medical capsule” mentioned in the post could easily refer to a syringe as used in the attack on North West Flight 253.

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http://www.globaldashboard.org/2008/...nter-jihad-20/

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But can you be sure that your net-brother – Mohammed007 – is who he says he is? Is he really a Salafist preacher, once a fatherless 18 year-old car-thief, but now radicalised by a six-month stint in Wormwood Scrubs and ready to preach anti-Western Jihad? He might be.

But he might also be a 25-year old Arab-speaking intelligence analyst, working for Israel’s Terrogence, a private company founded by ex-spies to take Jihadists on in cyberspace. Its experts, most of them ex-members of Israeli intelligence, have created radical Muslim identities to talk their way into hundreds of closely guarded global jihad websites and forums.

Remember when Tony Blair had to cancel a trip to Gaza? That was because of a tip from Terrogence, who picked up chatter, and passed the information on. What about the thwarted attack on the Vatican’s computer system. Terrogence discovered a plot to attack the Holy See’s network and helped the authorities take evasive action. When a Jihadi activist watched a National Geographic documentary and got the idea of blasting the wall between the Paris sewage system and the Metro, Terrogence analysts were on hand to pick up his idea and prevent the Paris underground from being flooded.

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Marc, I really enjoyed this post. We have so much talent in the free world that is stifled by government bureaucracy when we attempt to pull it into the defense establishment, not exactly a "locked" bureaucracy, but one that adapts too slowly in a time of rapid change. Our bureaucracy acts like a restriction plate in a race car that effectively limits its top speed.

The talent we need to deal with today's non-traditional/irregular threats (maybe they are traditional/regular by this point, and we're simply living in the past) lies largely in the civilian world in small companies and within talented individuals (not the large defense companies, which are as bureaucratic as the military). The challenge is to incorporate this talent without destroying the talent.

Posted by Marc,

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Hi Bill,


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Originally Posted by Bill Moore
The implications identified in this article should be enough to wake most up to some rather frightening implications of what the future holds for us. Are we prepared to operate effectively in this environment?

The extremely short answer is "no,

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We are improving, but the speed of our evolution is restrained by the bureaucracy, while our more nimble foes can adapt much more quickly. It would be a different story if the deciding factor was who could develop the best fighter jet or stealth bomber. It doesn't take a lot of money to compete with us in the infosphere (blogs, twitter, other social networking sites, publically available encryption systems for e-mail, etc.). So how do we does a large, locked in bureaucracy compete and dominate in this sphere?

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There are two central "problems" that are driving this phenomenon at the structural level. The first is that many necessary resources have been "locked" in "hard" organizational structures (classic, centralized and bureaucratic organizations). This "locking", however, has also allowed for an increasing split intra-organizationally between those parts of the organization that monitor the environment and those that "produce" the organizations "product". Increasingly, there is a divergence between the interests of these organizational sub-sections (cf Nuala Beck's Shifting Gears). So, in order for people to access the resources they actually need (vs. what they are told they need), they go increasingly outside of the formal system.

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Many of us frequently reach outside the big machine for needed expertise, and SWJ is one example. Other examples are small companies forming like Terrogence Ltd. and Palantir that are agile enough to stay competitive with the threat (if they're left in the free market/open market system. Of course the challenge is getting money from the bureaucracy to fund this talent (relatively small in the big picture). You submit your requirement up through a long chain of approvers, many who don't understand your requirements, and are liable to kill the request before it sees the light of day (death in the middle). Yet you hear our leaders tell us we need to adapt. Much easier said than done.

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I said there were two central "problems", and this brings us to the second one, which is how do you communicate with people who have the resources (knowledge, information, etc.) that you need? One of the ideas behind the establishment of centralized bureaucratic organizations was to create a formal communications structure: a common language (e.g. doctrine, etc.), expectations of who should "know" something (the concept of an office vs. a person), and methodologies for communications (e.g. procedures, memos, etc.). When this communications structure becomes less than needed to meet the immediately important environments of those effected by it, people will start to go outside of it; which is what the irhabi crowd is doing and, also, what the SWC crowd is doing.

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Exactly, but we can only share ideas outside the structure, getting the funding is another issue.

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I said "no, but...", what I was getting at was that it is actually impossible for an organization with relatively poor communications structures to compete with one that has much better information structures. Now, here's where the "but..." comes in....

In order to effectively compete, you have to formalize the organizational use of those communications structures that are outside of the organization. This means that the organization has to give up some of its core tenets, such as centralized control over the "message" and the forms of communications.

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On the messaging part I agree, and I see a trend towards decentralization, but that isn't the only issue. We need to restructure the staff, restructure the funding approval process, restructure the fighting force, etc., and we need to be able to do it quickly. More later.

Sam Liles (aka Selil) has been beating the drum for a long time on the incapability of large bureaucracies (military and civilian; government and private) to meet the varied challenges of "Cyberfare". Check out his webpage.

His 2007 predictions make him a spectacular hitter and lousy fielder (in baseball terms). :)

This cheerful note for the future:

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Security will be exactly where it started. Since the 1970s we haven’t moved very far forward and I really doubt we are going anywhere fast. Ok, I cheated. This has been true for nearly 40 years so can I really go wrong?

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Regards

Mike

Hi Bill,

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Originally Posted by Bill Moore

Marc, I really enjoyed this post. We have so much talent in the free world that is stifled by government bureaucracy when we attempt to pull it into the defense establishment, not exactly a "locked" bureaucracy, but one that adapts too slowly in a time of rapid change. Our bureaucracy acts like a restriction plate in a race car that effectively limits its top speed.

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Thanks :). It's one of those Catch-22 situations unfortunately; the bureaucracy slows us down, often to the point of immobility, but, at the same time, it is absolutely necessary to have a bureaucracy (I won't go into the reasons why right now; I'm just coming off of a long discussion about bureaucratic stupidity in the hiring process :wry:).

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Originally Posted by Bill Moore

The talent we need to deal with today's non-traditional/irregular threats (maybe they are traditional/regular by this point, and we're simply living in the past) lies largely in the civilian world in small companies and within talented individuals (not the large defense companies, which are as bureaucratic as the military). The challenge is to incorporate this talent without destroying the talent.

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The basic kludge to meet that need is to hire "consultants". The problem with that lies in both the hiring process, which is extremely problematic in most governments, and in what, exactly, consultants are supposed to do.

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Originally Posted by Bill Moore

We are improving, but the speed of our evolution is restrained by the bureaucracy, while our more nimble foes can adapt much more quickly. It would be a different story if the deciding factor was who could develop the best fighter jet or stealth bomber. It doesn't take a lot of money to compete with us in the infosphere (blogs, twitter, other social networking sites, publically available encryption systems for e-mail, etc.). So how do we does a large, locked in bureaucracy compete and dominate in this sphere?

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It can only do it in one of two ways (okay, these are they only two I see off the top of my head, but there probably are others...).

First, it attempts to annihilate its opponents and impose a Stalinesque reach and control that, ultimately, destroys it; the USSR, the ewestern Roman Empire of Theodosius, and the Byzantine Empire are historical examples of both. It ultimately fails since it can only react to the internally generated image of reality that it portrays (I can think of some corporate examples as well...).

Second, it can cheat and institutionalize elements that oppose its basic values of standardization and mediocrity. SF is one example of this type of thinking, but there are others. Personally, I think that what DoD should be thinking about is identifying individuals who think outside the box and are involved in the current counter-irhabi efforts, and put them on small retainers.

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Originally Posted by Bill Moore

Many of us frequently reach outside the big machine for needed expertise, and SWJ is one example. Other examples are small companies forming like Terrogence Ltd. and Palantir that are agile enough to stay competitive with the threat (if they're left in the free market/open market system. Of course the challenge is getting money from the bureaucracy to fund this talent (relatively small in the big picture). You submit your requirement up through a long chain of approvers, many who don't understand your requirements, and are liable to kill the request before it sees the light of day (death in the middle). Yet you hear our leaders tell us we need to adapt. Much easier said than done.

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Oh too true! Seriously, a lot of it does come down to funding especially since most of the people with this talent just do not want to work for a bureaucracy, and why many of them are either self-employed or work in tiny organizations. That was why I thought of the "retainer" solution as one possible alternative. Without some type of funding, then you are reliant on volunteer time which can be a problem...

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Originally Posted by Bill Moore

On the messaging part I agree, and I see a trend towards decentralization, but that isn't the only issue. We need to restructure the staff, restructure the funding approval process, restructure the fighting force, etc., and we need to be able to do it quickly. More later.

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Looking forward to it!

Cheers,

Marc

I think this fits here. From ICSR a short commentary:http://icsr.info/blog/Chasing-Web-Jihadists#comments