A few days ago, a Marine Corps major, David High, argued that the fight in Iraq isn’t really an insurgency at all.
There is not a web of like-minded (much less amenable) patriots gaining succor and inspiration from the populace. There are a thousand disparate cabals and petit punks and opportunists, each with competing motivations and interests… The permutations are endless and motivations intertwined.
All of which, from what I’ve understand, is interesting and true; I’ve heard reports of more than 75 distinct groups fighting the U.S. over there. But it’s also kind of irrelevant. Because these insurgents may not need a cohesive ideology to thrive. Technology, in many ways, has taken its place.
It used to be that a small group of ideological-driven guerilla leaders would spread information, tactics, training, and cash to their followers. No more. Internet-enabled insurgents with only the loosest of real-world connections can now share all of that freely online. These guys don’t have to like each other. They don’t have to agree with one another. They don’t even have to interact, really. All they have to do is post material to the Net. John Robb — who’s doing some of the smartest thinking and writing around on the subject — calls it “Open Source warfare.“
Without using the term themselves, the Washington Post has just finished a must-read three-part series on these Open Source guerillas. Here’s a snippet from today’s final installment:
An entire online network of Zarqawi supporters serves as backup for his insurgent group in Iraq, providing easily accessible advice on the best routes into the country, trading information down to the names of mosques in Syria that can host a would-be fighter, and eagerly awaiting the latest posting from the man designated as Zarqawi’s only official spokesman.
“The technology of the Internet facilitated everything,” declared a posting this spring by the Global Islamic Media Front, which often distributes Zarqawi messages on the Internet…
This and other Arabic-language forums hosted discussions on the latest news from Iraq, provided a place for swapping tips on tradecraft, circulated religious justifications for jihad, and acted as intermediary between would-be fighters and their would-be recruiters…
Many postings to the boards were not official statements from al Qaeda but unsolicited advice, such as the recent notice called “the road to Mesopotamia” posted on an underground Syrian extremist site, in which one veteran offered a detailed scouting report, down to advice on bribing Syrian police and traveling to the border areas by claiming to be on a fishing trip.
The bulletin boards also make information quickly available from Iraq, where fighters are gaining combat experience against the U.S. military. In one case cited by John Arquilla, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in California, would-be insurgents in the Sahara Desert were able to ask for — and receive — information from the ground in Iraq about how best to build bombs.
In this way, the new Iraqi “non-insurgency” may be tougher to beat, ultimately, than the more ideological guerillas of the past. With such a diverse band sharing information so quickly, there’s no one “leader” or group of leaders to eliminate. In fact, taking out the most visible leaders might only make the Open Source network more efficient, by eliminating unnecessary nodes.
Some might read Major High’s comments, and take comfort. Me, I’m nervous as hell.
THERE’S MORE: Major High — and a whole lot of other people — respond in the comments section. Be sure to read.
Great article!!
I wonder if the military/CIA/whoever is spamming them with lies, advertisements and dangerous half-truths? I’ve set up several message board type communities and that’s always a tremendous problem.
Seemingly it would be quite easy to spread enough disinformation to make the whole network unreliable and dangerous.
My question is this. With all the computing power the US posseses, why are these sites still running? Are there no hackers out there willing to lend their skills to the CIA/USMilitary for an actual good cause??? Speaking as someone in the webdesign industry, its really not that difficult to make a site drop, unless someone’s spent buttloads of $$$ to protect it(i.e. corporate networks).…..
Maybe we, as concerned patriots could volunteer our “services”… I can think of a few people who’d do it just for the he** of it.…
I assume, and this is a big assumption, the “network” is a little more complex than a few webpages that could easily be brought down. Do we know if they use other protocols to pass information? Ftp perhaps? Anyhow, I think it’s worth looking into.
The Major’s remarks are interesting. Although his points may in fact be valid he appears to want to lay blame for the insurgency in Iraq anyplace but as a massive counter intelligence failure.
Although inter group information passing is surely critical to a successful insurgent operations it is not a sure fire formula for success. The knowledge of where to plant an IED, the time when the American’s are not looking to install the decice, what type of target are you going to be attacking and the expected protection of that target are what is giving the insurgents tactical success.
Information security with in the American forces has clearly been braoched. The insurgents are in fact sitting in on mission planning. Until this problem can be solved the insurgents are in control and can operate at will.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
“Stewart’s Platoon”
replying to David:
Yes, it should be fairly easy to take down these sites, but that should be weighed against the value in keeping them alive to conduct surveillance (not hard if they’re using an open forum) and to insert disinformation (as Steve pointed out).
Shutting them down may mean that they move to another means of communication that is not as easy to monitor or disrupt.
In many ways, it is the Democratic Internet Ideal: A redundant, distributed communication mechanism.
It brings up the real question: Within Iraq at least, why should the Internet be free? China does a pretty good job keeping the net restricted, why don’t we buy the same things from cisco and have our puppets, err, the Iraqi constitutional authority, set up a censorship regimn.
The biggest weakness from the Insurgents point of view is that the data does have to be reachable by a wide audience, thus instances are easier to find and shut down. Covert channels are good for communication among known entities, but aren’t so good for broadcast dissemination of informaiton.
To address the question of “Wireless Sites” and closing them down.
When was the last time a “Command Detonated Bomb” was set off in Israel?
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
“Stewart’s Platoon”
why arent we shutting these sites down? becouse we cant. These sites are fully mobile, changing locations regularly. frequently hosted on hijacked systems. Theyve been under attack. it hasnt shut them down.
Nicholas asks: why cant we shut down their access in Iraq? maybe we can. but the implication of the first wapo article, and its a really scary implication, is that disafected muslims all over the worlds will start forming terrorist cells and comitting terrorist acts with no contact, training or recruiting with any member that we might consider an AQ leader.
There is a very positive aspect missing.
The Internet also allows to effectivly argue against terrorism in Muslim communities. It allows dissidents in dictator countries to communicate. It allows discussion and proliferation of counterterrorism methods.
It would take years for John Robb’s ideas to trickle down to those who need to know them without the Internet.
It is just another form of communication which works for BOTH sides. Just as printing did after Gutenberg.
At higher levels of conflict your goal (one of many) is to break the will of the opposing leader group. If there is no defined ‘leader’ than you are reduced to breaking the will of the individual actors. This seems to be the situation that the author is describing. Previously al-qaeda has been described as an idea more than a distinct organization and this seems to track with that.
So we’re faced with large numbers of locusts and no definable point of origin, no center of mass to operate against. Guess we’ll just have to keep stomping.
It’s easy enough to take down these sites, but they will just move them somewhere else.
There is a serious effort to collect information from these internet spaces (Web sites, FTP sites, Email lists, etc)
There is a serious effort to corrupt the information on these ineternet spaces
Taking the internet away in Iraq is a step back from the goal we are working toward. Beyond that China has never had good luck useing firewall to keep infomation out, there is always a way around them.
All of this together means that this has to be a fight for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. Once we have that the Terrorists can’t win.
Trying to attack websites is missing an important point about the internet — it’s not the protocols or the mechanics that matter, it’s the social agreement to exchange information in a particular way. (The End-to-End philosophy)
They could just as well use similar structures with different data bearers — trees of telephone calls, email lists, couriers. Not as well, mind. And another point: the marginal cost of mirroring a website is not very high. I’d suspect it costs us more to shut one down than it costs them to set one up.
Also, much of the information isn’t in “jihadi websites”. If you need information about making explosives, the properties of mobile phone base stations, or US tactical doctrine, you can find it on the web without going anywhere officially Suspicious. It’s all about ad hoc groups who subscribe to the ideology of the jihadi movement (which spread pretty well pre-web), use the huge availability of technical information, and coordinate at the lowest possible level.
Are people actually scared of information and knowledge? Its been open-access at libraries for decades for anyone who would like to read up on military tactics and training. Even now, you can visit Globalsecurity.org and read all the US Field Manuals (from Artillery to Z) as Alex pointed out. Even a read of a spy novel would reveal some tricks. So what’s the problem?
It is common knowledge that the internet is routinely monitored, so why do people assume resistance fighters would use it to communicate?surely their communications would also be subject to the same surveillance.
I’m also surprised that most of you seem to have missed the english resistance sites run by Americans (unit371), Canadians (jihadunspun) et al who host videos, forums allow people to TALK without fear of persecution.
I also think its ironic that the internet bills these guys are running up are being paid to american communications companies such as Comcast.
Finally, no one owns the internet so please leave it alone. I’m happy with it, thanks.
Just one more comment in this debate and I’m out of here.
Small Jamming deviced are common in Israel and are available over the internet to anybody other the Americans. They can’t be shipped into the United States.
These deives are used in most public conveyances in Israel, that’s why making a Mobile Phone call is so hard in that country.
This technology along with RFID’s on automobiles (Homeland Security is now using this on the Mexican border now) could save a lot of American and Iraqi lives.
The only reason why the U.S. Colonial Administrators chose not to use this lifesaving technology is that the Mobile Phone and Win-Fi infrastructure franchises for Iraq are Saudi owned.
The picture of President Bush holding hands with a Saudi Prince on the Ranch in Texas is worth a thousand lives.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
“Stewart’s Platoon”
Just so happened that Iraq was very conveniently located between Syria and Iran, and nobody would cry over their leader (outside of Chirac and Kofi Annan). As trite as “I’d rather fight ‘em there than in Kansas” sounds, I think there is a grain of truth to it. As JSAllison so aptly says above, I guess we just have to keep stomping.
Agree with you on John Robb, he’s been a fav of mine for a while.
Hey, maybe you covered this already — could you say the techniques our military uses, as described in the New Yorker’s story from last year, Battle Lessons: What the generals don’t know qualify as open source too?
b and ALex suggest that the web will be AQ’s undoing becouse it can present opportunites to argue the potential terrorist away from violence. I disagree.
Once your into the world of AQ terror sites you can ignore the web pages with counter arguements that you done want to hear.
There were a lot of FUBAR’s going into this, BUT (and this is a big BUT) the Marine is right. It was a conscious choice made on the part of the administration. If we had taken the time to build up our forces first, the terrorists could very easily have regrouped and attacked us again. War is hell. That is a simple and greatly understated fact. For those of you who wish to complain about the losses we suffer over there, REMEMBER THAT THOSE MEN AND WOMEN GAVE UP THEIR LIFE WILLINGLY SO YOU CAN SIT SAFE IN THE STATES WITHOUT A TERRORIST DETONATING A BOMB IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD. I do not pity our soldiers. I do not cry when they die. I rejoice that they were brave enough and loved this country enough to die so that my wife and daughter can be safe. In Biblical terms, Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this, to lay his life down for another.” The soldiers of this great nation do not just love the U.S. but they love us. And they are willing to pay the ultimate price for us to live. So stop complaining and whining! Be thankful that someone was willing to die for you. As for the insugency; they are becoming more technologically advanced, they are adapting at a rapid rate, and they are waging a PR compaign against us. Yes we need to wage a better PR war. Yes we need to wage a better technological war. Yes we need to adapt faster. AND WE ARE! The problem is not with the administration or with the military or even with Iraq. IT IS WITH US! Americans in general have an attention span that can be measured in minutes, hours and days. We have forgotten why we went over there. As far as I am concerned, the media should be forced to reply the 9–11 attacks at least once a week to remind us. They took them off the air because they were considered too graphic. Have you taken a look at video games, or movies or even television lately? Violence is something today’s youth understands. Do not insult our soldiers, their families, the victims of 9–11 or this nation by forgetting why we are there because I can guarantee you that they haven’t.
Anyone else noticing the irony of hating the United States and everything its stands for while using the very technology that the US military made possible to spread that hate?
I can’t be the only one that sees that…
The over-all article and its links is the better value than the original inspiration from the Marine Major. Although the comments on the original article are correct with respect to the dramatic increase in foreign fighters in Iraq (OSS and its partners have done an OSINT study of the foreign fighter population), the Major’s core idea is correct and consistent with what we are seeing elsewhere.
Answering the person that asked why we can’t mobilize distributed hackers to support CIA and the Pentagon, and why American computing power cannot be applied, there are three aspects to this:
1) 90% of the world, including US hackers, want nothing to do with CIA lawyers and CIA security, both of which are so entrenched in Cold War mind-sets as to make them virtually dysfunctional if not pathological in modern open society.
2) CIA and the rest of the IC are stove-piped bureaucracies–cows lcoked into a feeding trough that secrets are put into–they are no more capable of turning into mustangs grazing the range than George Bush is of morphing into Jimmy Carter.
3) US computing power today is largely broken because it is too expensive, too proprietary, too isolated, and too narrowly focused. Only Google offers a scalable distributed global web architecture for multinational multiagency multidisciplinary multidomain information sharing, and this (M4 IS) is heresy in the eyes of the US intelligence and conventional military mind–they would rather lose than go open source.
“The vast majority of “terrorists” fighting us now in Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and had never done anything hostile towards us before. We’re now *creating* “terrorists” (people who have a reason to hate us) faster than we’re killing them.” Posted by: Ed Cogburn at August 12, 2005 05:08 AM
Terrorist attacks before 9/11
August 9: A suicide bomber in Jerusalem kills seven and wounds 130 in the Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing; Hamas and Islamic Jihad claim responsibility.
2000
October 12: USS Cole bombing kills 17 US sailors.
The last of the 2000 millennium attack plots fails, as the boat meant to bomb USS The Sullivans sinks.
1999
December 14: Ahmed Ressam is arrested on the United StatesCanada border in Port Angeles, Washington; he confessed to planning to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport as part of the 2000 millennium attack plots
December: Jordanian authorities foil a plot to bomb US and Israeli tourists in Jordan and pick up 28 suspects as part of the 2000 millennium attack plots
1998
January 3: Gunmen open fire on Shi’a Muslims worshipping in an Islamabad mosque, killing 16 people injuring 25.
1997
November 17: Luxor Massacre Islamist gunmen attack tourists in Luxor, Egypt, killing 62 people, most of them European and Japanese vacationers.
1995
Bombings in France by a GIA unit led by Khaled Kelkal kill seven and injure more than 100.
1994
December 24: Air France Flight 8969 is hijacked by GIA members who planned to crash the plane on Paris but didn’t succeed.
1993
June: Failed New York City landmark bomb plot.
February 26: World Trade Center bombing kills 6 and injures over 1000 people.
1986
September 5: Pan Am Flight 73, an American civilian airliner, is hijacked; 22 people die when plane is stormed in Karachi, Pakistan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents
It goes on ED COGBURN… With Libya being a major player before that. We didn’t create these people. WE have forgotten what they have already done. Take the time to follow up each of these incidents with the link provided and understand who the participants are how they are rleated and how some of the attacks were building blocks for attacks like the world trade center and 9/11. It’s not just about us as Americans it’s about the world as non Islamic radical believers.
The groups we still fight in IRAQ today are ones that buy into the ideological crap that is espoused by the members from previous groups. These are related entities through ideology and with the Internet are now effectively bound together, rather than loose groups with less efeective means of communication and have less of a communications asset. This form of communication is a great asset to them, just as it has been for the women of Iraq.
Folks, let me ask you a question.. Could it be, that the question is not whether we are smart enough, but, are we out smarting ourselves?? I often wonder if it is not possible that we are forever seeking some grande, extraordinary new defensive/offensive weapon to cause a spectacular end to all conflict.. Much as was the case in the ending of WW2.. Could it not be, that there is a perfectly simple, noncomplex solution out there, that would leave all the Great Military Minds scratching their heads, and saying “why didnt I think of that” ?? With all the nanotech, backscatter, jamming, and impulse systems coming of age, could it not be that we just need to pull the door to get it open, instead of push it ??
For those of you who wish to complain about the losses we suffer over there, REMEMBER THAT THOSE MEN AND WOMEN GAVE UP THEIR LIFE WILLINGLY SO YOU CAN SIT SAFE IN THE STATES WITHOUT A TERRORIST DETONATING A BOMB IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD.
This is a variation on the old “Walk and Chew Gum” argument combined with the so-called “Flypaper” strategy, and it is devestatingly inaccurate. This idea is based on a false perception of scarcity. The argument goes something like this:
Because the U.S. military is fighting a broad, disparate insurgency (which is made up of both nationalist “resistance” guerillas as well as Al-Qaeda-type international terrorists from other countries) in Iraq, terrorists will not be able to attack us in the U.S.
Think about it for a second — why the hell not? Even if one million or two million or three million terrorists flock to Iraq to fight U.S. soldiers there (and we are NOT seeing anything close to numbers of this magnitude), why would this prevent five, ten, or twenty terrorists from entering the U.S. to attack us here? In fact, I believe the prevalence of this half-baked idea makes it more likely that we will be attacked while the war in Iraq is going on. Think about it from the perspective of information war — if the U.S. public believes we can’t be hit while we’re fighting overseas, and media types and government officials keep saying it on TV (which is broadcast around the world 24/7), isn’t it at least possible that some AQ or other terrorist network cell member thinks to himself: “Oh yeah? You can’t be hit? I’ll show you!“
That may be farfetched, so I’ll back down from that precipice to a much more stable one — the belief that we can’t be hit with another terrorist attack while we’re at war in Iraq makes us, as citizens, complacent, and complacency is dangerous.
News flash: We CAN be hit again, no matter how many terrorists are in Iraq fighting us.
Our soldiers are brave and they’re doing a great job with the crappy hand they’ve been dealt. But that doesn’t mean the military’s civilian leadership is pursuing sound policy (see, for example, “flypaper strategy”).
Sorry for the rant.
http://muldowney.photo-illusions.com