Oh, so bloggers have become the new Smart Bomb ? I don't think so.
When has a blog been able to actually do anything measurable in the real world ? How many online petitions have actually been successful ?
And waging psychological warfare via blogs is really only feasible if the enemy has Internet access - something that I doubt many Irakians have at this point in time - and more to the point, is only useful if the enemy understands English.
Not the enemy HQ, of course, the global population. And even if English is the commercial language of a great part of the international establishment, I don't think that the majority of Iranian, Jordanese or Chinese web surfers have enough grasp of English to bother reading a blog written in that language.
The US Army may have a point, though. It seems clear that "the enemy" will put up blogs, in English, to sway the American opinion. As such, it is imperative that there be blogs, in English, to countersway where necessary.
But it is not "the enemy" that needs blogging attention, it is the American population, in order to ensure continued support for the war effort.
Psychological warfare at its best : replacing the real target with a straw man.
The US media (and to a great extent the UK ones too) have long been recruited to the establishment, and usually parrot the government line unthinkingly. Witness the invasion of Iraq, which was not criticized by any important US newspaper, radio or TV station. It must be terribly upsetting for our brave lads to find that there are still scattered outposts of people who say what they actually think. Those subversive agitators must be stamped out, or - at the very least - drowned out by an orchestrated pro-government claque.
Oh, so bloggers have become the new Smart Bomb ? I don't think so.
When has a blog been able to actually do anything measurable in the real world ? How many online petitions have actually been successful ?
And waging psychological warfare via blogs is really only feasible if the enemy has Internet access - something that I doubt many Irakians have at this point in time - and more to the point, is only useful if the enemy understands English.
Not the enemy HQ, of course, the global population. And even if English is the commercial language of a great part of the international establishment, I don't think that the majority of Iranian, Jordanese or Chinese web surfers have enough grasp of English to bother reading a blog written in that language.
The US Army may have a point, though. It seems clear that "the enemy" will put up blogs, in English, to sway the American opinion. As such, it is imperative that there be blogs, in English, to countersway where necessary.
But it is not "the enemy" that needs blogging attention, it is the American population, in order to ensure continued support for the war effort.
Psychological warfare at its best : replacing the real target with a straw man.
The US media (and to a great extent the UK ones too) have long been recruited to the establishment, and usually parrot the government line unthinkingly. Witness the invasion of Iraq, which was not criticized by any important US newspaper, radio or TV station. It must be terribly upsetting for our brave lads to find that there are still scattered outposts of people who say what they actually think. Those subversive agitators must be stamped out, or - at the very least - drowned out by an orchestrated pro-government claque.