Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Fighting the Information War.

When President Bush begin fighting the war on terror the left was upset. They viewed our approach as too focused on war and violence. The war for hearts and minds quickly became a cliche in the press. The left argued that we were not fighting the war for hearts and minds adequately.

However, it soon became apparent the left does not even have the stomach to fight the war for hearts and minds either. Every time it was learned our government was launching some media organization to fight this war, the left would whine about how our government was engaged in spreading propaganda.

Wretchard at The Belmont Club looks at the situation in an aptly named blog entitled The Lamp Under the Bushel Basket first he notes that Iranian sponsored media organs in Iraq are more well funded and our appeasement minded State Department isn't keeping up but also freely hands weapons to our enemies. In addition he features commentary that notes how there was a scream in this nation about the our government paying local Iraqi newspapers to write articles favorable to our effort. Wretchard than offers some final notes.

He offers a story about a conference of scholars in the Netherlands. The conference included the likes of Daniel Pipes, Bat Ye'or, Robert Spencer, and Ibn Warraq. The occasion of the conference? To commemorate Pim Fortyn that Dutch politician assassinated by a leftist. The event was held under tight security and high secrecy (the description is real cloak n daggerish).

Wretchard concludes:
It might be only a slight exaggeration to say that Daniel Pipes, Bat Ye'or, Ibn Warraq and Hirsi Ali by themselves do more information warfare damage than the whole State Department cumulatively. Private effort should definitely not be discounted.
Source: The Belmont Club - The lamp under the bushel basket


My take is he is correct. In fact, I am rolling out a new honorific and will work on creating a special blogroll dedicated to those bloggers who fight the information war against the enemy. This would include bloggers such as Wretchard, Bill Roggio, Wayne (at Babylonandon), LGF, Iraq The Model, Boghie,and others who spend a significant amount of their time blogging on the WOT.

I can not claim credit for what I will name this blogroll, that honor belongs to Kos the leftist blogger who calls pro-WOT bloggers the 101st Keyboardists. I will not follow that mold exactly but I will refer to this blogroll as the 1001st Keyboard Division (i.e. the 9th Keyboard Division, digital medium digital enumeration). This is a poke at Kos (this little fish is going after a biggie) and his leftist minions and true recognition of the importance of the information war and not just the lip service the left pays to it.

Kos a veteran of the army puts down right wing bloggers as the fighting keyboardists and is a variation of the chicken hawk theme and is just as silly perhaps even more so. We all have a contribution to make in the fight.

My grandfather at the outbreak of WWII went to volunteer for the service. The recruiter told my grandfather to get back to the plywood mill and keep the mill cranking out plywood as it was a vital war material. That is even though my grandfather's contribution was not on the frontlines but it was every bit as valuable.


BTW, feel perfectly free to grab the above image and use it, I would appreciate credit but don't require it.
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