Blogs to Watch

[SWJED]

Iraq the Model


BMT

I often link to Iraq the Model from the SWJ Daily News Links Page. Also, the Wall Street Journal often picks up posts for inclusion in their Op-Ed page.

[tequila]

I'm not sure why these guys are so popular. Perhaps because they write in English for an English-speaking audience, and they tell us what we would want to hear? I think so (the same goes for other popular Iraqi English-language bloggers, like Riverbend and Raed in the Middle for the anti-Iraq War side the political spectrum). I believe these guys ran in the last Iraqi elections, where they managed to secure the votes of their family members and few others --- perhaps accurately reflecting the political popularity of a pro-American secular liberal in Iraq today.

The journey of the Healing Iraq blog, run by an atheist Sunni dentist who eventually fled for New York is instructive --- originally started as a very loud pro-American Iraqi blog, perhaps the first that was so pro-Western in its approach. He then had a cousin forced off a bridge in Samarra by American troops in this nasty little incident, which ended the career of LTC Nathan Sassaman and resulted in six months' jail time for one of the soldiers involved, which he posted about in some dismay, at which point most of his prowar American supporters deserted him and whereupon he gained an antiwar American audience.

[tequila]

IWPR is a good resource for several conflict zones:

Afghanistan

Africa

Balkans

Caucasus

Central Asia

Iraq

It's a program that builds local media resources by training locals as professional journalists.

[zenpundit]

While this may strike some of active duty pros at the SWC as a " People Magazine" version of what they usually read here, WIRED magazine has a defense and national security blog Danger Room, edited by Noah Schachtman

Fun site. Lots of graphics, videos, short posts, futuristic military technology. That sort of thing.

Hat tip to Younghusband at Coming Anarchy.

[bismark17]

Thanks for posting that. I would never have found this one on my own.

[zenpundit]

Aviation Week has a new military news and defense technology blog ARES, edited by Sean Meade who is also the webmaster for former Pentagon strategist Thomas Barnett.

Here's a sample of Sean's work:

"Speaking of video, Multi-National Force - Iraq is also posting and pushing video.

DefenseLink today reports that, not only does MNF-Iraq have video on its website, it's putting up video on its own YouTube channel as well. "

and

"Air Force Link reports that the first MQ-9 Reaper has flown into Creech AFB, NV.

First impression: What a wicked name!

Second impression: the possibilities for word play and association and 'cute' headlines are endless: Blue Oyster Cult, Will Farrell and Christopher Walken on SNL. I'll give in on this one title and then try to resist ;-)

The Reaper's turboprop engine is able to run at 250 knots, can fly up to 40,000 feet and is able to stay in the air for more than 20 hours.

"One of the big differences between the Reaper and the Predator is the Predator can only carry about 200 pounds (of ordnance). The Reaper however, can carry one and a half tons, and on top of carrying Hellfire missiles, can carry multiple GBU-12 laser-guided bombs," said Capt. Michael Lewis, 42nd ATKS flight scheduler."

[Stan]

zenpundit,

Thanks for the link !
Very interesting articles and some great pictures and videos !

I especially like the 'Hollywood joins the war effort'

"I wouldn't have thought it possible to have two references to the movie 300 on this blog in a single week, but when Hollywood gets accused of waging psychological operations against Iran, how can we not share the information?"

The government spokesman, Gholamhossein Elham, described the film as "cultural intrusion" and an attack on Iran's ancient civilisation. "Such a fabrication of culture and insult to people is not acceptable by any nation or government," he told reporters. "[Iran] considers it as hostile behaviour which is the result of cultural and psychological warfare."

Regards, Stan

[SoiCowboy]

http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com

Usually has good articles. Had a search and didn't see it up.

[Tom Odom]

My second Ambassador in Rwanda, Robert (Bob) E. Gribbin has a blog called, Africa Reflections. He offers fare both heavy and light ranging from the genocide in Rwanda to golfing in Africa. Here is a post as a sample:

Thursday, April 12, 2007
Rwanda - President Bizimungu Freed

Lost in the flurry of reports from Rwanda last weekend commemorating the 1994 genocide was the news that President Paul Kagame pardoned former President Pasteur Bizimungu and released him from prison. Bizimungu had served five years of a fifteen year sentence for treason. Bizimungu was reportedly delighted (who would not be?) with the news. He was cautioned by officials to become a law abiding citizen.

Bizimungu’s initial arrest and conviction were contentious. Although there was probably some corruption mud on him, his troubles really arose from political reasons. As a Hutu, President during the early RPF era (1994 to 2000) and untainted by genocide, Bizimungu was apparently deemed to pose a credible threat to continued insider dominance by Kagame and the clique around him. After falling out with the inner leadership and resigning in 2000, Bizimungu announced his intention to contest for the top post in the upcoming election with his own new party on his own platform. However, fearing a possible return to ethnic politics, the Tutsi element was determined to prevail. Accordingly, a number of measures were adopted to make it impossible (as in Bizimungu’s case) or very difficult as regarding the effort by former Prime Minister Twagiramungu or other Hutus to run. Naturally, little of this was couched overtly in ethnic terms, even though the code was known by all.

I judged at the time that President Kagame had little to fear from an electoral challenger. He had the name recognition, the power of the military and the power of incumbency. He was the savior of Rwanda and its true leader. Given the way that Rwandan society works, his election would almost be automatic. Yet, electoral success was assured by arrest of Bizimungu and intimidation of other candidates. The message as (correctly) read by voters was continuation of Kagame’s rule.

Once won, however, the question arose of what to do with Bizimungu? Charges (even partially trumped up ones) could not be dropped as that would fly in the face of Rwanda’s very determined efforts to institute a rule-of-law regime nationwide, especially in dealing with genocidaires (which Bizimungu was not, but resolving his case prematurely would smack of favoritism). Also, failure to move forward on the Bizimungu case would indicate that the charges against him were more political than real. Finally, stubbornly proud Rwanda did not want to be perceived as caving to international pressure to free the former president. Thus, the legal process had to run its course. This involved a trial, conviction, sentencing and appeals. Only when all the legal maneuverings were complete could exercise of the presidential power of commutation be considered.

To his credit, when the time was propitious President Kagame exercised his power and had his former colleague released. I judge the decision to have been overdue, but it certainly was a mark of political maturity. Pasteur Bizimungu poses no political threat to the regime, yet his release does indicate that old animosities must pass on and that all Rwandans can and ought to live together harmoniously. That is good news. Rhetoric and reality should always match.

[zenpundit]

Very interesting IO/PSOPS focused milblog, Swedish Meatballs Confidential.

"Blogs and Military Information Strategy"

Eye catching visuals to boot, though maybe "Not Work Safe".

[SWJED]

Swedish Meatballs Confidential - I only read it for the articles .

"Best I.O.-Related Blog Ever"
[...with significant caveats, of course.]
-Michael Tanji (a darn fine sport! -M1)

"I'm reaching out to Swedish Meatballs. Who are you? Inquiring, and confidential, minds want to know."
-Mountain Runner

"We are not quite sure what to think of the rather interesting but not entirely worksafe blog. On the one hand, we find some of the pieces quite excellent but we dislike attempts to play insider baseball with Beltway politics (especially writ large.) We find such discussions border too often on conspiracy theory. But when they focus on information operations and military matters, they prove worth reading. (We also rather like the manner in which they characterized our link - "Kent's Something of Import".... clearly an artifact of translation software, but it carries with it a flavour of the Victorian...)"
-Imperatating Kent(s?)

"He's pretty smart. Plus, his, um, artwork, evades the filter on my DoD computer...
Nice"
-A testy guy named Isaac (testy is good, too)

"Bizarre site, no? I don't know who he/she is, but I'm afraid to link to him/her for risk of being dragged in by the lewd patrol."
- Armchair Generalist

"Swedish Meatballs Confidential focuses on unwrapping programs of propaganda, PSYOPS and "perception management" from across the spectrum of media outlets. It's saucy, too. This group knows what the #### is going on. Read it, and you will too."
-Anything They Say

"Swedish Meatballs has learned how to dress up a web page about information operations, diplomacy, foreign affairs and related matters to make them more understandable."
-Main & Central

"Very interesting IO/PSOPS focused milblog.
Eye catching visuals to boot, though maybe not `Work Safe´"
-Small Wars Journal council member Zen Pundit

"...it's a hoot"
[...criminally recontextualized. -M1]
-Pundita

[SWJED]

... sorry Zen - just saw you already posted a link.

[Rockbridge]

Swedish Meatballs Confidential - I only read it for the articles .

Guess that depends on where you work .... Some interesting graphics, and equally interesting articles, but a bit heavy on the conspiracy theory stuff. If we were really able to successfully run operations as complex as the conspiracy theorists believe, we wouldn't have as many problems as we do now.

[Anthony Hoh]

Should have used the same visual approach to 3-24...might actually get a few more Soldiers to read it.

[St. Christopher]

From the author of How to Fight the War of Ideas Like a Real War and the editor of the forthcoming Public Diplomacy Reader, Mike Waller maintains a blog at politicalwarfare.org. Not only is this a good place to learn more about getting offensive in the Info War, but Dr. Waller uses it from time to time to expose anti-American propagandists, sloppy journalism, and stubborn members of the government who refuse to "wake up" to the new realities of irregular and political warfare.

Mike also teaches courses at the Institute of World Politics in DC. Anyone looking for continuing education or even a pro class on propaganda should definitely check it out.

Du4

[bismark17]

I'm not getting the link to work. Hopefully the server isn't getting killed by all of the readers of this site. I would be willing to bet there is far greater readership of the smallwarsjournal.com site than the conventional metrics would suggest. I suggested this site to a DEA specialist at Quantico while attending a course a few years back and found he was already going to it so the word is out there.

[St. Christopher]

I'm not getting the link to work. Hopefully the server isn't getting killed by all of the readers of this site. I would be willing to bet there is far greater readership of the smallwarsjournal.com site than the conventional metrics would suggest. I suggested this site to a DEA specialist at Quantico while attending a course a few years back and found he was already going to it so the word is out there.

Apologies, looks like the routing link is broken... try this one:

http://jmw.typepad.com/political_warfare/

[Jedburgh]

Conflict Early Warning and Early Response Blog, linked to Carleton University's Country Indicators for Foreign Policy site.

This is the Blogosphere’s first blog on the theory and practice of conflict early warning and response. The purpose of this blog is to openly share how our thinking on early warning has changed and continues to change as we seek to maximize the impact of our work in operational conflict prevention. What works? What no longer works? What’s next?

[Chris Albon]

Very interesting. Conflict prediction has always been a fascinating topic, especially with advances in data mining.

[Voodoun]

This came up on another forum, maybe many of you are familiar with it, but its the first I'd heard of it

http://www.xeper.org/maquino/nm/MindWar.pdf

and is anyone familiar with the author? seriously, I'm pretty open minded and not religious in the least, but wow. seriously, WOW.