US plans to 'fight the net'

[zer"0"]

The Truth is out there.

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"What is truth?" - Pontius Pilate

Edited February 1, 2006 by zer"0"

[Gabrielle]

The truth is in the eye of the beholder.

[Diamond]

[julianw]

The truth is in the eye of the beholder.

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Eye of the beholder?

 

 

Care to explain?

[~Di]

To take something out of context is more than just to lift it from the sentences surrounding it, it is to alter the meaning in doing so.  The article links to the original Pentagon report, and though I only read the executive summary, I don't think the quotes are truly taken out of context.

 

You cannot know unless and until you have seen the sentences in their actual location in the document, and read the surrounding passages to comprehend the original intent.

 

If this is an op-ed piece, what is the argument the writer is trying to make?  I don't get the feeling he's either for or against the policies suggested in the report, merely that he finds much of it fascinating or surprising.

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You don't get the feeling he's either for or against the policiies suggested in the report? Are you serious? He uses the bolded word Propaganda , Credibility Problem and US Digital Ambition paragraph headers. Do you honestly not believe that those titles are selected to portray certain beliefs? Does not the fact that he spends a large portion of the article stressing things like Psyops, and referring to pentagon-sponsored sites as "propaganda" does not imply to you that the writer is coming from a, shall we say, disapproving position here?

 

I love the way he starts out: "Bloggers beware." Huh? Beware of what? There's no quote from the document that indicates the US military is out to shut down bloggers, but clearly the writer would like to leave the impression that there is. Just sensationalistic cuteness, trying to grab a reader's attention? Perhaps. Otherwise known as... propaganda... the pushing of one's own agenda through select dissemination of information. FWIW, that's what most of us do here on this forum as well. And we cheerfully admit it.

 

But back to the article, perhaps a bit of sarcasm in the writer's journalistic effort would be revealing:

 

"It recommends that a global website be established that supports America's strategic objectives. But no American diplomats here, thank you. The website would use content from "third parties with greater credibility to foreign audiences than US officials". Did you catch that? All this in response to a government paper discussion ways to get their message out. Kinda like Radio-free Europe in the old days. But that was good. The fact that nearly every other government on earth uses the same kinds of media, electronic and otherwise, to get their own message out escapes this writer, because he does not, as a real journalist would do, compare what the US military does to what is common in other countries. In fact, he pretends that it has never happened anywhere else on earth. It's obvious to anyone who reads this that he considers the US studies on media/internet options to be bad, very bad. Certainly the person who posted this article agrees that it is very, very bad, because he added his own comments to the originating post: "Amazing arrogance on display here by the Pentagon." Apparently he didn't think any further explanation as to why the Pentagon studying potential enemy attacks via communications and media, and how to thwart those attacks would be considered "amazing arrogance." And he didn't because the writer of the article did it for him.

 

Following are a few other statements that I believe reveal quite clearly the fact that the writer is not reporting and comparing journalistic fact; rather, he is announcing his own conclusions as fact:

 

" When it describes plans for electronic warfare, or EW, the document takes on an extraordinary tone. It seems to see the internet as being equivalent to an enemy weapons system. " Well, duh. Since Al Qaeda uses the internet to feed not only it's own propaganda to the world (the USA isn't the only country on earth that uses propaganda to impart its own slant on things), but also to organize its attacks and sow terror through video of beheaded hostages, I suspect every government on the planet sees the internet as a vital enemy weapon. Any government with half a brain is making its own plans on how to protect their own electronic media, and how to interrupt the media of an enemy using the internet to wage war upon them. Wouldn't such plans be prudent? I sure think so. The author of this article does not.

 

" The US military seeks the capability to knock out every telephone, every networked computer, every radar system on the planet. Are these plans the pipe dreams of self-aggrandising bureaucrats? Or are they real? "; And upon what statement does the writer base this stunning conclusion? Upon this... "And, in a grand finale, the document recommends that the United States should seek the ability to "provide maximum control of the entire electromagnetic spectrum".

US forces should be able to "disrupt or destroy the full spectrum of globally emerging communications systems, sensors, and weapons systems dependent on the electromagnetic spectrum".

 

Well, yeah. This is an internal security document where brainstorming about potential security risks might occur and how they could be thwarted. How to thwart the ability of terrorist organizations to use the internet to, well, sow terror? Seek a way to disrupt it. I strongly suspect the British military has similar plans on their drawing board as well. They're just smart enough not to hand it out to foreign journalists who will pick out portions to publicly mock and "interpret" through the filter of their own bias.

 

" The fact that the "Information Operations Roadmap" is approved by the Secretary of Defense suggests that these plans are taken very seriously indeed in the Pentagon. " Does it now? Another conclusion. Where, one wonders, are the quotes from Pentagon officials this writer contacted in order to get information and clarification on that and other conclusions he has printed in this piece with no attribution beyond his own interpretation and belief.

 

 

" The roadmap, however, gives a flavour of what the US military is up to - and the grand scale on which it's thinking... And that the scale and grandeur of the digital revolution is matched only by the US military's ambitions for it."; Ooooo, obviously up to no good! That drips from every carefully chosen word. And you still do not see any bias in this article, any deliberate sway in not only what it chooses to stress, but more importantly what it refuses even to acknowledge?

 

None of what I've written should be construed as approval on my part of the document in question, because I have not read it; nor should it be construed as approval for other botched attempts to plant media stories positive to the US effort around the globe. However, since my opinion that the article is commentary, not hard news, has been questioned so I am backing up my opinion with specifics. There are more, but these should suffice.

[SteveThaiBinh]

To take something out of context is more than just to lift it from the sentences surrounding it, it is to alter the meaning in doing so.

You cannot know unless and until you have seen the sentences in their actual location in the document...

Indeed, and neither can you. So why do you accuse him of taking the sentences out of context, as follows:

one BBC commentator's rather jaundiced opinion as he pulls out-of-context sentences to which he personally attributes his own belief as to motivation, intent and conclusion.

 

You don't get the feeling he's either for or against the policiies suggested in the report?  Are you serious?  He uses the bolded word Propaganda , Credibility Problem and US Digital Ambition paragraph headers.  Do you honestly not believe that those titles are selected to portray certain beliefs? 

Propaganda is what it is - that's the correct term for it. If you see that word as having a negative connotation, that's up to you and of course most people would agree with you, but that's not the point. If the BBC journalist is choosing not to use the Pentagon's preferred euphamisms for propaganda, that's evidence of his independence, not anti-US bias.

 

Just because FoxNews decides to say 'Homicide Bombers' does not mean the rest of the world is anti-American because it decides not to follow suit.

The fact that nearly every other government on earth uses the same kinds of media, electronic and otherwise, to get their own message out escapes this writer, because he does not, as a real journalist would do, compare what the US military does to what is common in other countries.  In fact, he pretends that it has never happened anywhere else on earth.

While a comparison with what other countries do would be interesting to me, certainly, I do not accept that by failing to include such a comparison the writer has turned his article into a jaundiced op-ed piece. The article's focus is the US report, and the article draws attention to some of the more interesting parts of the report. While the selection of those points naturally reflect the journalist's interests, I do not agree that they reveal a consistent pro- or anti- position on his part.

None of what I've written should be construed as approval on my part of the document in question, because I have not read it; nor should it be construed as approval for other botched attempts to plant media stories positive to the US effort around the globe.  However, since my opinion that the article is commentary, not hard news, has been questioned so I am backing up my opinion with specifics.  There are more, but these should suffice.

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This is an interesting debate (to me at least, possibly not to anyone else :D ), and I'm glad that it's stayed good-natured. The full report (with some deletions for classification) is there on the web-site, but I'm not going to lose half an hour of my life reading it and I don't expect anyone else to, either.

 

There is a lot of biased, jaundiced anti-US (and anti-European) journalism out there, and I admit and regret that fact, but this article is not an example of it. We are becoming too quick to devalue or dismiss any piece of journalism whose content or tone we don't immediately like, or which comes from an organisation we don't like. I'm not happy to see this article dismissed as jaundiced opinion or as suggesting the US is turning communist, because neither is the case. Judged on its merits, this is a good article, humorous in places, both reporting the facts (ie the content of the report) and including commentary which, importantly, is neither adulatory nor hostile to its subject matter.

[~Di]

We'll have to agree to disagree then, because it is quite clear to me that the writer of this article wished to put the most onerous possible spin on the report, and did so with clear bias.

 

I agree that we have probably spent more time than necessary discussing this, but I too am glad the spirit of our disagreement remained fairly chipper!