"The terrorists" have never had a hope of defeating the West militarily. The size and sophistication of the civilized world's armed forces (not just America's, but European, Japanese and other militaries as well) make it an impossible goal.
But jihadists can still make progress on achieving their Salafist objective of establishing a new Caliphate by by sapping the West's will to "reform" the Middle East. Their chief weapons in this fight are media weapons; their chief strategy is propaganda. The physical strength to resist a new Caliphate rests on the strength of the people's will to spend blood and treasure to oppose the Salafists, and through propaganda the will to resist can be drained away. A population which is convinced that resistance is futile will not make an organized and successful effort to so do.
MFN-Iraq has released a story about successful resistance by Iraqi forces to a large, coordinated attack by Jihadists in Mosul. Their accurate but tepid description: "
Iraqi Security Forces repel attacks in Mosul". CNN also reported the story, but their lead downplays it even further: "Iraqi forces thwart jailbreak plot". The header suggests to the casual headline-scanning reader that a police investigation may have caught a few plotters meeting in a basement, or perhaps inmates were caught digging under the wall one pocket-full of dirt at a time. Useful stuff, but not the kind of thing of which propaganda wars are won.
Compare and constrast with this loose collection of non sequiturs from the WaPo: "7 Killed on Bus in Iraq; Parliament Hit". This type of story drains the will the American people on two levels. First, the header concentrates on the loses inflicted, reminding the reader of all the bad consequences of violence in Iraq. Secondly, the story presents a jumbled collection of anecdotal violence in Iraq, and any casual reader without a frame of reference will find the story disorienting. People don't like being disoriented and confused; it's painful, and while some will insist on digging deeper and "figuring out what the heck is going on", some will shy away and vote to pull out of Iraq in attempt to make the confusing stories go away. It's a bit irrational, but that's human nature for you.
Even more subversive are the videos and pictures distributed by the Jihadists themselves from their own websites and via news networks like Al Jazeera. The Jihadists always take pictures, and use pictures from successful operations as part of their propaganda strategy. Because Western forces do not document their successful operations in the same way (for good operational reasons), and because the Jihadists do not distribute the recordings of their losses, the overwhelming majority of media available to the Western and Middle Easter public are of Jihadist victory (even if the victories are as small as a single burned out car or a couple dead civilians). If these documents are thought of as a propaganda arsenal, Jihadists then become stronger with each military victory, while military defeats leave them no weaker.
As long as Western forces refuse to toot their own horn, and as long as the Western media won't do it for them, this pattern will continue. It may feel sensationalist, but a MFN-Iraq headline like: "Major terrorist attack thwarted by Mosul police; lots of terrorists die" (followed by a lede like "Salafist jerk-offs bring dump-truck to a tank fight...") would be a victory separate and apart from the operational victory. It would reinforce the belief among the Iraqi and American publics alike that "we can beat these guys", and replace fear of an enemy with ridicule.
Until that happens though, al Qaeda is still winning the media war.
Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the initial tip.
But jihadists can still make progress on achieving their Salafist objective of establishing a new Caliphate by by sapping the West's will to "reform" the Middle East. Their chief weapons in this fight are media weapons; their chief strategy is propaganda. The physical strength to resist a new Caliphate rests on the strength of the people's will to spend blood and treasure to oppose the Salafists, and through propaganda the will to resist can be drained away. A population which is convinced that resistance is futile will not make an organized and successful effort to so do.
MFN-Iraq has released a story about successful resistance by Iraqi forces to a large, coordinated attack by Jihadists in Mosul. Their accurate but tepid description: "
Iraqi Security Forces repel attacks in Mosul". CNN also reported the story, but their lead downplays it even further: "Iraqi forces thwart jailbreak plot". The header suggests to the casual headline-scanning reader that a police investigation may have caught a few plotters meeting in a basement, or perhaps inmates were caught digging under the wall one pocket-full of dirt at a time. Useful stuff, but not the kind of thing of which propaganda wars are won.
Compare and constrast with this loose collection of non sequiturs from the WaPo: "7 Killed on Bus in Iraq; Parliament Hit". This type of story drains the will the American people on two levels. First, the header concentrates on the loses inflicted, reminding the reader of all the bad consequences of violence in Iraq. Secondly, the story presents a jumbled collection of anecdotal violence in Iraq, and any casual reader without a frame of reference will find the story disorienting. People don't like being disoriented and confused; it's painful, and while some will insist on digging deeper and "figuring out what the heck is going on", some will shy away and vote to pull out of Iraq in attempt to make the confusing stories go away. It's a bit irrational, but that's human nature for you.
Even more subversive are the videos and pictures distributed by the Jihadists themselves from their own websites and via news networks like Al Jazeera. The Jihadists always take pictures, and use pictures from successful operations as part of their propaganda strategy. Because Western forces do not document their successful operations in the same way (for good operational reasons), and because the Jihadists do not distribute the recordings of their losses, the overwhelming majority of media available to the Western and Middle Easter public are of Jihadist victory (even if the victories are as small as a single burned out car or a couple dead civilians). If these documents are thought of as a propaganda arsenal, Jihadists then become stronger with each military victory, while military defeats leave them no weaker.
As long as Western forces refuse to toot their own horn, and as long as the Western media won't do it for them, this pattern will continue. It may feel sensationalist, but a MFN-Iraq headline like: "Major terrorist attack thwarted by Mosul police; lots of terrorists die" (followed by a lede like "Salafist jerk-offs bring dump-truck to a tank fight...") would be a victory separate and apart from the operational victory. It would reinforce the belief among the Iraqi and American publics alike that "we can beat these guys", and replace fear of an enemy with ridicule.
Until that happens though, al Qaeda is still winning the media war.
Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the initial tip.
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