Merv I don't disagree, but I would love to quote your source that the enemy said 80% of their battle space is the media if you can find and share it. I know we have all read and heard a lot over the years, so you may not have it at your fingertips.

From an effects based approach, the information system is definitely the most important, as it has a disproportionate impact on all the other systems such as political, economic, social, military, etc. We can win every kinetic battle and still lose if we can’t effectively influence the info sphere.

Although we discussed at length the failure of our ability to influence the info sphere in previous discussions, this is the first example I have seen where you framed the argument using the OODA loop construct, which is simply brilliant. Obvious in hindsight, but not until you pulled open the curtains.

I think we should run with this a little more. We may be able to convince our public affairs officers to get off their duff and respond quicker, but I don’t think that is the right answer. For those of us in the military, we all know we’re repelled by most commercials, and news on the Armed Forces Network (AFN). It comes across as simpleton in nature and disingenuous, I rather Korean, German, or Japanese television. Instead of having a polished prince presenting the approved official side of the story after the response has been murder boarded a few times, why not let one of our NCOs or younger officers speak directly to the media about what happened right after it happened? It may not be polished, but it will be genuine and from the heart and people will have no choice but to believe it. That is the type of IO that will have an impact.

I won’t even attempt to sugarcoat what we did in Abu Grab, and in my opinion the failure of our leadership to aggressively respond to it, gave the enemy an IO victory of enormous scale. Of course ever so slowly we brought several of the culprits to justice, but it was a behind the scenes show. How do you manage the damage for something like this? You don’t manage it, you stand on principle, what people around the world love us for, and you aggressively respond to the crime. Concurrently, and equally if not more important, we show what the terrorists are doing to the population, to include pictures of the tortured bodies. Hell, I read a depressing story today about a 12 year old Iraqi boy that was tortured to death, why wasn’t that one the front page or headline news? We have to show a clear contrast, which means we admit our mistakes, and in the case of the guilty we punish them. The terrorists are murdering pricks who brag about their atrocities online! Why can’t we get that across to the Arab street? It is a story right there to be told. We wear the white hat, that is obvious to us, but it isn’t all that clear to the Arab world. We can do better, much better.

I don't want to divert too much from the COG versus EBO argument, but this has merit.