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[infowar.de] SH 02.04.06: America's war on the web
Naja, nichts wirklich Neues, ausser, dass wahrscheinlich im Fall eines
Angriffes gegen Iran im Sinn des CONPLAN 8022 massive Cyber und IW-Attacken
durchzuführen. Dennoch werden sie es nicht schaffen, die mehreren tausend
islamistischen Websites abzudrehen.
mfg
Georg Schöfbänker
http://www.sundayherald.com/print54975
Sunday Herald - 02 April 2006
America's war on the web
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
document's recommendations by 2009. Military and intelligence sources in
the US talk of "a revolution in the concept of warfare". The report orders
three new developments in America's 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 Earth's 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: "This 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."
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 Pentagon's over-arching vision for "full spectrum
dominance" in all military matters.
"I'm 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," he said.
This revolution in information warfare is merely an extension of the
politics of the "neoconservative" 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 America's Defences ? written by the Project for the New
American Century (PNAC), a think-tank staffed by some of the Bush
presidency's leading lights ? said that America needed a "blueprint 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 interests".
The PNAC was founded by Dick Cheney, the vice-president; Donald Rumsfeld,
the defence secretary; Bush's younger brother, Jeb; Paul Wolfowitz, once
Rumsfeld's deputy and now head of the World Bank; and Lewis Libby, Cheney's
former chief of staff, now indicted for perjury in America.
Rebuilding America's 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. "Networks are
growing faster than we can defend them," the report notes. "The
sophistication and capability of ? nation states to degrade system and
network operations are rapidly increasing."
T he report says the US military's first priority is that the "department
[of defence] must be prepared to 'fight the net'". 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 "offensive cyber operations", 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 "provide maximum
control of the electromagnetic spectrum, denying, degrading, disrupting or
destroying the full spectrum of communications equipment ? it is
increasingly important that our forces dominate the electromagnetic
spectrum with attack capabilities". 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: "Military forces must be better prepared to use
psyops in support of military operations." 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 "Truth Squads" to provide public information when
negative publicity, such as the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, hits US
operations, and the establishment of "Humanitarian Road Shows", which will
talk up American support for democracy and freedom.
The Pentagon also wants to target a "broader set of select foreign media
and audiences", with $161m set aside to help place pro-US articles in
overseas media.