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Richard Clarke on Cyberterrorism and Iraq
An anonymous reader writes "Richard Clarke, former counter terrorism advisor to the US National Security Council, has revealed that before invading Iraq, the U.S. government used the Internet to communicate directly with Iraqi soldiers by sending them personalised messages saying, "We're about to invade. We're going to overwhelm you and if you resist us we're going to kill you. But we don't want to do that. So really the best thing for you to do when we invade is to go home." He said the soldiers got the message and most of them went home. Clarke, who many will remember for publicly criticizing the Bush administration, also emphasized the importance of cybersecurity. "Just because it doesn't create a lot of body bags, doesn't mean it's not important. It's vitally important for our economies," Clarke said."
dropping propaganda leaflets from an airplane.
I can't imagine too many of the Iraqi grunts with email or IM. Maybe the upper eschelon officers.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
A turned enemy is far more valuable than a dead one.
The war in Iraq will never be won because Bush is focused on kiling the enemy -- and not too worried about killing innocents. Every dead civilian is probably going to create 2-5 enemy insurgents (former friends and family of the dead)... The more people you kill the more enemies you end up with.
Unless he's willing to just Nuke the country then this is is gonna continue ad-infinitum.
The interesting thing is that all of those messages probably gave the baath party the idea of going home (with their weapons) and waiting until the US had moved in -- thus leading, in part, to the current dilemma.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
And that's because what the article fails to mention is that the message was SOLELY AIMED at people in charge for intimidation purposes. Few, if any, "soldiers in the Iraqi" army saw the message or were made aware of it.
The purpose of the mesaage (IMHO) was also to trace a few of these higher ups to see where they were.
Do you remember the deck of cards? Saddam was the Ace of Spades, etc etc. Well, I'm sure this email was sent to that whole "deck of people" - and I'm sure it served a minute amount to find those people.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
The truly unfortunate thing in my mind is that it apparently didn't occur to anyone to keep up this communication after the invasion when there was still a chance to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis. Maybe if we had continued to treat Iraqis with the same sort of basic level of respect we wouldn't be in this lovely guerilla warface mess we're faced with now.
Buy hey, there's always next time, right?
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
[snip]if you believe how he tells it, he was involved in every national security crisis in the past 30 years and if it wasn't for him, by golly, we'd all be doomed. He almost single-handedly saves the day every time![/snip]
Ok, stop bashing on the guy just because he disagreed with Bush and was asked to leave. I see alot of this, if your not with us, your against us posts about people who disagree with Bush.
This is still America and you can disagree, for now...
But anyways, Richard Clarke has been around for over 30 years fighting terrorism. I'm sure he has seen a little more than the average slashdot poster, his experience shouldn't be disregarded with such disrespect.
Check out Wikipeida on Richard Clarke.
Aside from that, Clarke is a smart guy with some awfully impressive credentials. Regardless of what the GOP Smear Machine(tm) tried to do with him after he dared to testify that Iraq wasn't involved with 9-11, his input should not be disregarded lightly.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Unfortunately, it's the soldiers who went home who're now shooting at the coalition soldiers.
The vast majority of Iraqis would like us to just leave - even if it means that we don't spend another dime on reconstruction and there is no western investment in the country. Every single poll I've seen has more than 95% of iraqis wanting this.
Why should we be there fighting the desires of the Iraqi people? If our goal was to get rid of Sadam, we've already done that, so why stick around?
Oh, the real reason is so we can steal their oil. And I do mean steal.
Plus, most iraqis I've heard interviewed prefer Sadaam to the US. They say things like "at least Sadaam was an Iraqi."
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Mod me down as off topic, but I'd like to personally thank the parent poster for his service and his lucid post.
Contrary to the image seen on TV, some of the Iraqi units did stand and fight -- talk to anyone in the US units who were at the front line of the attack (of course, many of those are now back in Iraq for their second or third tour, but some are Stateside). The assault wasn't the advertised "cakewalk"; there was real fighting. Of course, those Iraqis who fought, often as not, died as a consequence.
As for most of the remainder -- who didn't want to be there in the first place, and had no love for Saddam and his cronies -- they did what men in any army in history would do in a similar set of circumstances: they deserted as soon as the opportunity arose to do so without risking punishment.
And finally, some percentage -- it is unclear how many -- disappeared, went into hiding for about six months, and then emerged to fight a classical guerrilla war. Which, unfortunately for the stability of the region, they are doing with considerable skill. Some folks that earlier deserted (particularly Sunnis; the Shi'a have decided to wait until they can win the election that the US is generously arranging for them) have joined them, as have an unknown number of outsiders.
This is a nice neat plausible story without the email, which probably had little if any effect. The Iraqi Army (as distinct from Baath apologists and lackies, plus their fearless leader) had no illusions about its chances against the US -- after all, this organization fought two major wars within the memory of its current officer corps. They probably found the emails a bit of comic relief prior to dealing with the inevitable.
"All successful systems accumulate parasites" -- Hal Hixon
Nor is this constrained to resistance forces. The evacuation at Dunkirk was probably Britain's finest hour in World War II, because the citizens took it on their own to sail in anything that could move on water, through the German bombers and artillery, to rescue escaping allied troops.
However, you'll notice something about both of these examples. No side had an overall advantage. In the case of Russia, the Germans used armor heavily, which is not a good tactic in urban warfare. Their tanks were built for high speeds, which is why they did well in Africa (being defeated largely by superior numbers) but that meant defensive capability and tight cornering were not part of the design.
In the case of Dunkirk, we see a similar situation. The German aircraft were designed to strike fast and run fast. Both the aircraft and artillery were designed to hit big, slow-moving targets. That made them utterly ineffective against something as tiny or as manoeverable as a sailing boat.
The fact, then, that the opponents in both cases were relatively puny was offset by the limitations of the attackers.
At Tora Bora, we got to see both sides. When the Afghan troops were used, the defenders had the advantage, because they had superior terrain. When the US carpet-bombed the entire region, though, relatively little escaped. (Carpet-bombing is frowned upon by the International community, precisely because very little tends to survive. You can't exactly aim to miss the guys who are too wounded to fight, have surrendered, etc. This puts it on the no-no side of the rules of engagement. On the other hand, most nations aren't stupid enough to argue the finer points with a country with 20,000 lb. MOABs.)
In Iraq, we're seeing a similar scenario panning out. Where the US uses Iraqi troops (or their own troops in small numbers), the resistance tends to do quite a bit of damage. However, when the US uses air strikes, missile-armed UAVs, the really heavy tanks (where an RPG just means someone has to go out and re-paint the star on the side) or very large numbers of troops, the US tends to walk right over the opposition.
Do I think the opposition is likely to last? Probably. There are a few too many "unfortunate incidents" which could push the undecided voters - sorry, undecided Arabs into opposing the US presence. There are some serious allegations that such incidents, far from being the product of "a few bad apples" were actually approved policy. If that pans out, I can imagine that we'll start seeing some serious fireworks.
Will the resistance defeat the US? Probably not. At least, not directly. It's currently a war of attrition, and the US can afford the current casualty ratio. Now, if the insurgents were to scatter in the desert and wait it out, then re-invade Iraq once the US left, they'd probably win and the US would be unlikely to go back. (Well, provided the oil stayed flowing.)
The current tactic, though, seems to be geared more to draining the US of the financial resources needed to maintain any presence in the Middle East. That might work. Indirect wars have been fought before. (Napoleon's famous remark of armies marching on their stomach was in reference to the fact that you can destroy an army far more effectively by eliminating the supplies than by direct confrontation.)
Certainly, the US is heavily in debt, inflation is becoming a problem and consumer confidence is very low. However, the war would have to continue at current levels for several more years to destabilize the US economy enough to cause severe problems. The insurgents would also need t
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The coalition, however, has thrown lots of people in jail and tortured some of them, sometimes tortured them to death- which is probably a worse way to go than having your head hacked off, which isn't pretty but at least it's quick. American soldiers have also executed unarmed prisoners.
I'm not saying that the rather amateur torture exploits of the soldiers at Abu Ghraib compare to the professional job done by Hussein, who institutionalized it, or that the occasional summary execution of an insurgent is comparable to Saddam's mass graves. But when we do imprison, torture, and execute people it sort of reduces our moral superiority argument to "Well, you see, but we don't imprison, torture, and execute people nearly as much as Saddam did," which somehow doesn't exactly fill my heart with patriotic pride. If we really want to convince the world that our intentions are decent, and if we really want to convince the world that we're better than the thugs we took out, there should be zero tolerance of this kind of shit- and the accountability should run to the top of the chain of command, where it belongs.
I call bullshit. Just because you supposedly went over to Iraq doesn't mean you know shit about what's going on. In a previous post of yours, you dismissed the Abu Gharib atrocities as not really atrocities, saying:
"Wearing panties on your head and being forced to pose nude for photographs is not an attrocity -- except in your morally twisted mind."
Forgetting that there was at least one Iraqi prisoner beaten to death and then posed with, as well as numerous instances of proven sexual abuse and many allegations of rape and torture. You don't think that's an atrocity? I don't think your opinion is very valid.
"The only place we weren't really welcome was in the Sunni Triangle area which is full of old Saddam loyalists who had everything to lose a nothing to gain with Saddam being kicked out."
That's funny. I was pretty sure al-Sistani and al-Sadr, who have nothing to do with the Sunnis or the Sunni triangle area were pretty pissed at the continued American presence. Oh, I'm sure they're just an exception too, right? Or maybe you'll claim they're all foreign al Qaeda fighters, even though most media reports say otherwise.
In past posts, you've also made the claim that the sarin gas that was fired at troops constitutes weapons of mass destruction. You also dismiss the idea of globalization entirely ("This globalization stuff is something non-U.S. nationals have come up with as an excuse to damage the U.S. economically and politically because they can't do so militarily."), and then you go on to tell all those who oppose you "Go burn a flag and worship Stalin or something."
How are you different than every other republican card-carrying asshole, other than the fact that you claim you served in Iraq under the Marines? Even if that were true, that doesn't mean the things you say are right. The testimony of an anti-war military personnel (like the ones in the commercials of operation truth) doesn't necessarily mean his viewpoint is correct.
But you keep trying to feed your viewpoint of the Iraqi population being basically thankful children for American invasion. Forget the fact that over 15,000 civilians have died as a result of the American attacks and no end to such conflict is in sight. Iraqis are happy that Saddam is gone, but they're not happy the United States is there. It's the facts. And no amount of bullshit from you could prove otherwise.
Your post looked interesting until i felt on that :
being ruled by Saddam and his religious minority
Saddam was everything you want but a religious dictator. Actually he was hated by other Arab nations because he wasn't religious. Some of his top trusted lieutenant were christians damn it. Ever heard of Tarek Aziz ? He's christian.
So, I fear you either are making all this "testimony" up or you lack the critical thinking allowing you to understand that only a thin minority of people came to talk to you. And if they came, of course they were friendly, else they wouldn't have come.
Either you're a troll, or you're way over your head by expanding a few anecdotial encounters to a global view of Iraq. If you think that most iraqis have forgotten the fact that US did back up Saddam, you're a dreamer.
and I've pointed it out before. Define "terrorism" in this context. How you can hold up Titus' genocide against the Jews -- he ordered the complete destruction of Judea -- as an example of stopping terrorism is beyond me. It was an attempt to steal gold and, of course, put down Jewish resistance to the Roman empire. Perhaps the morons modding this crap up every time you post it would stop to think if they knew you were advocating genocide based on an example of the near extermination of Jews that was actually an influence on Hitler's strategy of annihilation during WWII.
You didn't even address his character assassination by the Bushistas after his testimony to the 911 Commission. Your comment that he thought "cyberterrorism" was a bigger threat than bin Laden just shows how uninformed you are. Clarke publicly admitted being partially to blame for 911, but his book makes very clear that if anything, people thought he took the OBL threat too seriously prior to 911. And of course the biggest problem is that the Bush Admin stopped listening to him entirely until 911. "Cyberterrorism" was a subset of his concerns, but for him, al Qaeda was the biggest threat America faced since the Cold War, and he made that eminently clear.
Let's say a large military power (China?) decided that OUR (U.S.'s) leader was a dangerous crazy with access to WMDs. They invade, depose and occupy for a period of time. Would YOU sit by and wave to the invading troops, bringing them hot Starbuck's and wishing them well, satisfied they were only here for YOUR benefit? I wouldn't. I might even decide to be a giant pain in their ass.
I like my women like I like my coffee. In a burlap bag tied to a donkey.
Selection bias. The Iraqis that don't want you or any other foreign military presence in their country will not walk up to you and tell you that. You might shoot them.
I could claim the same with the news media, and if you were thinking on this objectively you'd have figured that out yourself. As I said, with the news guys, if it bleeds, it leads. Nobody gives a damn what good stuff is going on, they want to show you the bodies, the beheadings, and the smoldering car bombs. No wonder everybody over here thinks the place is a mess, you've been fed nothing but a steady diet of bad news.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
If there's oil theft going on, it's not coming from the Americans. There aren't lines of Texaco supertankers sitting at port just greedily sucking the country dry all so Bush and Halliburton can make a buck. Iraqi oil is being sold to whoever wants it at market prices
With the profits going where?
The news reports I've heard say that the profits will go to the US to pay for the cost of occupying the country. Sounds like theft to me!
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
It's when you fail to welcome your New Overlords that you might be considered a terrorist
That's what they said shortly after the invasion. We're still waiting.
And how long did it take for us to fully restore Germany, Italy, and Japan to their pre-war electrification and production levels? I'll give you a hint: it was a lot longer than two years. You're being too impatient, not understanding the size and scope of what's required to change a country that's been mired in dictatorship and sanctions for decades.
This isn't some quick in-and-out intervention here, Iraq is a long-term project. It's not going to be a nice and tidy, wrapped up in between commercial breaks. The President never said it would be and neither did the generals or the Pentagon. In fact, both parties said the exact opposite. You should give people time to do their jobs before condemning their efforts as failures.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky