What Doesn't Get Reported About the War on Terror
by James Dunnigan
September 29, 2004

Wars, especially at the time they are being fought, tend to generate a lot of lost stories. No surprise there, as wartime secrecy and anxiety produces lots of reassuring, exploitative or self-serving theories by those not-in-the-know. Actually, some of those in-the-know play the deception game as well, creating propaganda that masks more important stories. And this is no where more true than with the current war on terror, and is especially true when you get to the action in Iraq. Some of these lost  stories eventually got some play, while others are still largely out of sight. We covered all of these, for years, on StrategyPage. But you won’t find much coverage elsewhere. Here are what we consider the ten most important lost stories.

Troopnet. Until the 1990s, military innovation was slow because there was no quick way for the millions of soldiers on the planet to communicate with each other. New ideas spread slowly. For the last century, military journals spread some ideas. But editors, and often the senior officers, decided what was published, and the circulation of these journals was quite small anyway. The Internet has changed that, dramatically. Anyone can get on the Internet, and no one censors what is said. The result has been dramatic. New tactics, opinions on weapons and equipment, practical advice on how to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, and just the sheer sense of community, has appeared and changed the way thing work in the military. You hear some stories about how al Qaeda uses the Internet, but it is used much more, and to greater effect, by professional soldiers, particularly Americans.

Smart Soldiers. Three decades of using only volunteers, continually raising recruitment standards, and a growing culture of innovation has created a force of American troops who are not only bright, but also inclined to quickly coming up with innovative solutions for new battlefield problems. Many of these innovations are kept quiet, or secret, lest the enemy have a better chance of figuring out a counter solution. But plenty of novel thinking is right out in the open, but rarely gets reported or recognized. And when it is mentioned, the reporter tends to think it's an exception. It's not. 

The Iraqi Civil War. The fighting in Iraq is constantly misreported as an “insurgency,” evoking images of Vietnam or World War II guerillas. In actuality, the fighting is the attempt by Saddam’s enforcers to hold off their encounter with a democratic Iraq’s application of punishments for past crimes. Saddam’s army was defeated, but his secret police and enforcers went home and kept fighting. Saddam’s people believe that they have a choice between getting back control of the country, or suffering prison, or worse, for old sins. But for complex political reasons, the media lovingly depicts these murderous thugs as brave freedom fighters. It’s generally ignored that nearly all the violence is occurring in areas dominated by Sunni Arabs, who are but 20 percent of the population. Kurdish and Shia Arab areas are quiet. Calling this fighting a civil war is being generous, as one could make a case for it simply being a case of organized crime writ large. It’s gangbusters, not guerillas. 

Uninformed Media. Few reporters in Iraq speak Arabic, or know much about Iraqi history or how military operations work. This means much reporting is flawed and misleading. To make matters worse, news editors outside Iraq often decide what stories to pursue, more concerned with what they, or the audience back home, wants to see, rather than what is actually happening in Iraq. Reporters are woefully ill informed about military matters. Some of this ignorance is obvious, like misidentifying weapons and units. Using the phrase “exploding mortar” rather than “exploding mortar shell” is a favorite. The mortar is the metal tube, or barrel, from which the mortar shell is fired. Worse yet, the methods and results of military operations are continually misinterpreted and misunderstood. Many reporters revel in this ignorance, feeling that getting too close to the troops will compromise their journalistic integrity. Alas, integrity, and reliable information, are in short supply.

The Cultural Crises in the Arab World. In the last half century, despite enormous oil wealth, the Arab countries have fallen behind the rest of the world in most categories that matter (economic, education, scientific, political.) These failures have been the main cause of the unrest in the Arab world, and the growth of radical groups like al Qaeda. It’s been popular, for the last half century, for Arabs to blame everyone but themselves for these problems. But even Arabs are now having second thoughts about these popular excuses for Arab failure. There are problems within Arab culture, and only now are they being openly talked about by Arabs. But solutions will be difficult, and won’t attract much media attention. It’s dull stuff, cultural failure, but it’s where the key to the future of peace in the Middle East will be found.

The Lifecycle of Terror. These things don’t last forever. Terror has been around for a long time, and there’s quite a history of how long terrorist campaigns last and why. The current al Qaeda led mayhem is headed for self-destruction, a fate hastened by the very media that the terrorists depend so much on for recruiting and fund raising. Compelled to constantly out-do themselves, the terrorists constantly commit more horrific attacks. The recent slaughter of children in Beslan, Russia, horrified many supporters of al Qaeda, and forced many Moslems to at least face the fact that nearly all the terrorists running around these days are Moslems, and the only thing the terrorists are doing is to make the rest of the world think all Moslems are either terrorists, or supporters of terrorism. Historically, when terrorism doesn’t appear to accomplish anything, the terrorists fade away. As long as al Qaeda was being cheered on by the Moslem media, more slaughter made sense to the killers. But with most Moslem nations now actively fighting al Qaeda, and the Moslem media turning against them as well, terrorism is beginning to fade. There’s also the generational thing. The bloody end of terrorism thing is a young man’s game, and eventually the young men realize that the game is over. 

Triumph of Evil. The terrorists have a lot of supporters among their victims. Al Qaeda declared war on the Infidels (non Moslems, and Moslems that didn’t agree with al Qaeda) in the late 1980s. No one took it too seriously until September 11, 2001. Then things got strange. The invasion of Afghanistan  was condemned by many Moslem nations, despite the fact that most Afghans were glad to see the Taliban and al Qaeda go. How could anyone support keeping the Taliban and al Qaeda in business? For the same reason the UN never backs removing tyrants from power. Too many nations are run by thugs who see themselves as next on the list. There are many democratic nations who have economic and diplomatic interests with nations run by tyrants. The invasion of Iraq brought that out. China, France and Russia, the three nations that did the most business with Saddam Hussein, and who were owed billions for weapons sold to Iraq, were firmly against removing Saddam from power. Same thing is now happening with Sudan and the atrocities in Darfur. China and Russia do a lot of business with Sudan, and see a change of government as bad for their investments. Other Arab nations defend the Sudanese government, because any condemnation of what is going on in Darfur could be applied to other Arab nations as well. For whatever reason, this angle does not get much attention, and evil wins another round.

Understanding America. The Moslem world condemned the American invasion of Afghanistan. The rest of the world condemned the American invasion of Iraq. The world can’t understand why Americans do this. What the world ignores is that Americans are people (or descendents of people) who fled horrors all over the world. To most Americans, thugs like Saddam appear rather more sinister than he does to the more worldly cultures elsewhere. But for most Americans,  the “old country” (for Euro-Americans) produced the likes of nazism, communism, concentration camps and so much more we would rather stay far away from. This is why the United States was so reluctant to get involved in the World Wars. The world sees America in terms of what the old world was, America sees itself in terms of what it sought to build in the “new world”. So what’s with these crazy Americans? Try life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 

Battlefield Internet. The war on terror began just as the U.S. armed forces were beginning to introduce new communications systems that resembled the Internet. This was no accident, as many military people were quite enthusiastic about the Internet, and wanted to get that same kind of functionality in combat. The war on terror allowed the battlefield Internet to be developed more quickly. Now that it is in use with many units, and the results are revolutionary. Units operate much more effectively, and the large amount of positive feedback spurs development even more. It was once thought that it would take a decade before individual troops would get this kind of communications. But it’s being tested in Iraq now (for platoon commanders.)

Politics versus Reality. Email is changing how wars are reported, but not how they are described by partisans. The war on terror is being fought in an age of global, instant, communications, at least if you have a satellite phone. But many of the troops have Internet access, which is especially useful when they are in a combat zone. So you don’t have to wait for the official version of what’s going on, or for reporters on the scene to get their stories to the folks back home. The troops send email, or pick up the phone, sometimes a cell phone, and call. This has caused a lot of confusion, because the media reports of what’s happening are often at odds with what the troops are reporting. This has been particularly confusing in a year where there’s a presidential election race going on. The Democrats decided to attack the way the war on terror, and particularly the actions in Iraq, was being fought. Part of that approach involved making the situation at the front sound really, really bad. But the troops over there seemed to be reporting a different war. And when troops came home, they were amazed at what they saw in the newspapers and electronic media. Politics and reality don’t mix. 

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