Sunday Herald (Scotland): America's war on the web

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Mon, 3 Apr 2006 00:00:46 -0700 (PDT)

Sunday Herald (Scotland): America's war on the web

 

 

 

http://www.sundayherald.com/54975

 

 

Sunday Herald

 

 

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.

 

02 April 2006