Economic Warfare

[Rex Brynen]

Proxy wars - Muslim Brotherhood, PIJ, Hezbollah, the insurgency in Kazakhstan, etcetera, most insurgencies (http://www.tkb.org/Home.jsp) are also proxy wars. (Proxy war meaning they are supported from outside by a nation or a tolerated financial support system for political ends.)

The Muslim Brotherhood is hardly anyone's "proxy warrior."

Cultural warfare - In this area exclusively we excel. MTV, Disney, our movies, to a mild degree our news media. All of that undercuts them. It is one of their motivators, to fight us by indoctrinating their children in madrassas. Their defense is madrassas, and it has worked pretty well.

Madrassas (and I assume by this you mean Islamist madrassas, since the word itself is simply Arabic for "school") are relevant in some areas--and completely irrelevant in others, where education is overwhelming state-run.

I'm not sure how effective Disney or MTV is in undercutting anything. After all, a fondness for video games and sports bars didn't stop the 9/11 hijackers.

support of dissidents and subversion - See what Walid Shoebat, former Palestinian terrorist, has to say about this. ( http://www.shoebat.com/ ) I watched a protest when he spoke, and it required serious security.

Oddly, Shoebat claims:

As a young man, he became a member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and participated in acts of terror and violence against Israel, and was later imprisoned in the Russian Compound, Jerusalem's central prison for incitement and violence against Israel.

Actually, the PLO doesn't have "members" --its possible to be an employee (which he wasn't) or a member of a constituent organization (Fateh, PFLP, etc).

The Russian Compound, among other things, houses a police headquarters and an interrogation center. While individuals may be detained there for limited periods, it generally isn't used as a prison for extended detentions.

If I am banned for this post, you will know why, and you will understand that the information/cultural warfare's tentacles extend right into this "Small Wars Journal", where simple discussion of facts not allowed.

They were highly stereotyped non-facts, Brian, which is why Jedburgh called you on them.

However, you may have a point--I've always wondered if he might be a really, really, really deep cover AQ sleeper.