{"id":14199,"date":"2011-12-01T01:00:10","date_gmt":"2011-12-01T04:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=14199"},"modified":"2015-06-27T19:14:25","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T22:14:25","slug":"us-military-fights-extremists-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/01\/us-military-fights-extremists-online\/","title":{"rendered":"US Military Fights Extremists…Online, Foreign and Domestic"},"content":{"rendered":"

A recent article at the New York Times <\/em>highlighted an effort by the US military to engage in an information campaign<\/a> with those who might be, or might be recruiting, “militant adversaries in cyberspace.”<\/p>\n

The “war” they’re fighting?<\/p>\n

In recent months, Mr. [Ardashir] Safavi and his teammates spotted posts that included doctored photographs of Osama bin Laden purporting to prove that Al Qaeda\u2019s leader had not died in an American commando raid. They turned up blogs stating that the Pentagon was accelerating war plans for invading many Muslim nations, and others amplifying Taliban accusations that American troops rape with impunity across Afghanistan.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These targeted sites mentioned in the article appear to be primarily foreign language and are apparently foreign run:\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The team includes 20 native speakers of Arabic, Dari, Persian, Pashto, Urdu and Russian, the latter a shared language across the Muslim countries of the former Soviet states of Central Asia…<\/p>\n

All of the online postings carry an official stamp acknowledging sponsorship by [US] Central Command.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The article notably leaves out the fact\u00a0such “propaganda”\u00a0also occurs on American or English-language websites.<\/p>\n

For example, Michael Weinstein has routinely said the permissible conduct of members of the US military emboldens America’s adversaries and even “advance[s] [their] cause<\/a>.”\u00a0 His research assistant, Chris Rodda, published a list of accusations against the US military that “convince[s] the Muslims we’re on a crusade<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Believe it or not, the US military occasionally engages in those domestic “information campaigns” as well.\u00a0 It is not unusual to see a Public Affairs officer weigh in, with name and duty title, on a blog or news article comment in an effort to correct misinformation.\u00a0 More specifically, the Air Force encourages <\/em>its members to engage in information efforts to present an accurate image of the US Air Force.\u00a0 From its publication New Media and the Air Force<\/em>:<\/p>\n

All Airmen are encouraged to use new and social media to communicate about topics within their areas of expertise, or their interests…<\/p>\n

When you see misrepresentations made about the Air Force in social media, you may certainly use your blog, their’s, or someone else’s to point out the error…<\/p>\n

In general, the Air force views personal Web sites and blogs positively, and it respects the rights of Airmen to use them as a medium of self-expression.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Internet misrepresentations about the US military are common, whether from ignorance or an activist agenda.\u00a0 Correcting those errors can positively influence and protect\u00a0the military mission.<\/p>\n

It might be as simple as helping a future recruit understand what his expectations really should be, say, about how his religious beliefs will be treated in the military — when some\u00a0paint the (inaccurate) picture of religious persecution in the US military.<\/p>\n

It might be as complex as providing a balancing (and correcting) view for those who write vitriolic (and incorrect) diatribes accusing the US military of being on a “crusade” against Islam.<\/p>\n

Efforts to undermine the military’s mission, as well as the freedoms of those in it, with “lies, misinformation or just misperceptions,” aren’t occurring just outside <\/em>America’s borders.<\/p>\n

The engagement team at CENTCOM isn’t the only one that sometimes has to “deflect baseless and often irrational insults, confront adversaries with factual evidence and expose extremist propaganda that might otherwise go unrefuted.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recent article at the New York Times highlighted an effort by the US military to engage in an information campaign with those who might be, or might be recruiting, “militant adversaries in cyberspace.” The “war” they’re fighting? In recent months, Mr. [Ardashir] Safavi and his teammates spotted posts that included doctored photographs of Osama bin Laden purporting to prove […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[58,134,2459,2458,175,2460,44,85,2,5218,7,2464,443,63,2461,2463,230,2462],"class_list":["post-14199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fighter-pilot","tag-afghanistan","tag-air-force","tag-arabic","tag-ardashir-safavi","tag-chris-rodda","tag-dari","tag-islam","tag-mikey-weinstein","tag-military","tag-military-religious-freedom-foundation","tag-mrff","tag-new-media-and-the-air-force","tag-osama-bin-laden","tag-pentagon","tag-persian","tag-russian","tag-taliban","tag-urdu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14199\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}