[Infowarrior] - America's war on the web

[Richard Forno]

America's war on the web

 http://www.sundayherald.com/54975

While the US remains committed to hunting down al-Qaeda operatives, it is
now taking the battle to new fronts. Deep within the Pentagon, technologies
are being deployed to wage the war on terror on the internet, in newspapers
and even through mobile phones. Investigations editor Neil Mackay reports

 
IMAGINE a world where wars are fought over the internet; where TV broadcasts
and newspaper reports are designed by the military to confuse the
population; and where a foreign armed power can shut down your computer,
phone, radio or TV at will.

In 2006, we are just about to enter such a world. This is the age of
information warfare, and details of how this new military doctrine will
affect everyone on the planet are contained in a report, entitled The
Information Operations Roadmap, commissioned and approved by US secretary of
defence Donald Rumsfeld and seen by the Sunday Herald.

The Pentagon has already signed off $383 million to force through the
document¹s recommendations by 2009. Military and intelligence sources in the
US talk of ³a revolution in the concept of warfare². The report orders three
new developments in America¹s approach to warfare:

lFirstly, the Pentagon says it will wage war against the internet in order
to dominate the realm of communications, prevent digital attacks on the US
and its allies, and to have the upper hand when launching cyber-attacks
against enemies.

lSecondly, psychological military operations, known as psyops, will be at
the heart of future military action. Psyops involve using any media ­ from
newspapers, books and posters to the internet, music, Blackberrys and
personal digital assistants (PDAs) ­ to put out black propaganda to assist
government and military strategy. Psyops involve the dissemination of lies
and fake stories and releasing information to wrong-foot the enemy.

lThirdly, the US wants to take control of the Earth¹s electromagnetic
spectrum, allowing US war planners to dominate mobile phones, PDAs, the web,
radio, TV and other forms of modern communication. That could see entire
countries denied access to telecommunications at the flick of a switch by
America.

Freedom of speech advocates are horrified at this new doctrine, but military
planners and members of the intelligence community embrace the idea as a
necessary development in modern combat.

Human rights lawyer John Scott, who chairs the Scottish Centre for Human
Rights, said: ³This is an unwelcome but natural development of what we have
seen. I find what is said in this document to be frightening, and it needs
serious parliamentary scrutiny.²

Crispin Black ­ who has worked for the Joint Intelligence Committee, and has
been an Army lieutenant colonel, a military intelligence officer, a member
of the Defence Intelligence Staff and a Cabinet Office intelligence analyst
who briefed Number 10 ­ said he broadly supported the report as it tallied
with the Pentagon¹s over-arching vision for ³full spectrum dominance² in all
military matters.

³I¹m all for taking down al-Qaeda websites. Shutting down enemy propaganda
is a reasonable course of action. Al-Qaeda is very good at [information
warfare on the internet], so we need to catch up. The US needs to lift its
game,² he said.

This revolution in information warfare is merely an extension of the
politics of the ³neoconservative² Bush White House. Even before getting into
power, key players in Team Bush were planning total military and political
domination of the globe. In September 2000, the now notorious document
Rebuilding America¹s Defences ­ written by the Project for the New American
Century (PNAC), a think-tank staffed by some of the Bush presidency¹s
leading lights ­ said that America needed a ³blueprint for maintaining US
global pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power-rival, and shaping
the international security order in line with American principles and
interests².

The PNAC was founded by Dick Cheney, the vice-president; Donald Rumsfeld,
the defence secretary; Bush¹s younger brother, Jeb; Paul Wolfowitz, once
Rumsfeld¹s deputy and now head of the World Bank; and Lewis Libby, Cheney¹s
former chief of staff, now indicted for perjury in America.

Rebuilding America¹s Defences also spoke of taking control of the internet.
A heavily censored version of the document was released under Freedom of
Information legislation to the National Security Archive at George
Washington University in the US.

The report admits the US is vulnerable to electronic warfare. ³Networks are
growing faster than we can defend them,² the report notes. ³The
sophistication and capability of Š nation states to degrade system and
network operations are rapidly increasing.²

T he report says the US military¹s first priority is that the ³department
[of defence] must be prepared to Œfight the net¹². The internet is seen in
much the same way as an enemy state by the Pentagon because of the way it
can be used to propagandise, organise and mount electronic attacks on
crucial US targets. Under the heading ³offensive cyber operations², two
pages outlining possible operations are blacked out.

Next, the Pentagon focuses on electronic warfare, saying it must be elevated
to the heart of US military war planning. It will ³provide maximum control
of the electromagnetic spectrum, denying, degrading, disrupting or
destroying the full spectrum of communications equipment Š it is
increasingly important that our forces dominate the electromagnetic spectrum
with attack capabilities². Put simply, this means US forces having the power
to knock out any or all forms of telecommunications on the planet.

After electronic warfare, the US war planners turn their attention to
psychological operations: ³Military forces must be better prepared to use
psyops in support of military operations.² The State Department, which
carries out US diplomatic functions, is known to be worried that the rise of
such operations could undermine American diplomacy if uncovered by foreign
states. Other examples of information war listed in the report include the
creation of ³Truth Squads² to provide public information when negative
publicity, such as the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, hits US operations, and
the establishment of ³Humanitarian Road Shows², which will talk up American
support for democracy and freedom.

The Pentagon also wants to target a ³broader set of select foreign media and
audiences², with $161m set aside to help place pro-US articles in overseas
media.

02 April 2006