The Dark Side of the Internet — military astroturf bots

In part 2 of this ongoing series, I called out Clay Shirkey (and boy extension, Michael Shermer, Jeff Jarvis and other Internet utopians) for their failure to wrestle with the idea that Western democracies, especially now that we are in a "War on Terror" will have little compunction about Internet-spying and games-playing on their own people. Beyond the history of 19th-century Europe, the First Red Scare and the War on Drugs in the U.S. would have provided enough food and information on those lines for thought.

In current times, I mentioned the HBGary Federal e-mail promoting its ability to set up cyberbots, or astroturfing bots, to "game" liberal blogs and other sites on the Internet.

Well, now it's happening.

The U.S. Army is devising software to do just that. Now, the Pentagon says it will be used only overseas.

Centcom spokesman Commander Bill Speaks said: "The technology supports classified blogging activities on foreign-language websites to enable Centcom to counter violent extremist and enemy propaganda outside the US."

He said none of the interventions would be in English, as it would be unlawful to "address US audiences" with such technology, and any English-language use of social media by Centcom was always clearly attributed. The languages in which the interventions are conducted include Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Pashto.

Centcom said it was not targeting any US-based web sites, in English or any other language, and specifically said it was not targeting Facebook or Twitter.

Right. Remember the quaint idea that the CIA would only operate overseas? That one was shredded 40 years ago. And, we saw how the NSA shredded that overseas-local distinction with its warrantless domestic wiretapping.

Remember also this is the same Army that recently got busted for having brainwashed U.S. Senators about Afghanistan.

Notify Clay Shirky, Michael Shermer and other Internet utopians ASAP.

(Hat tip Discover magazine.)

The Army lied about Pat Tillman …

So, why wouldn’t it lie about the overall friendly fire death rate in Iraq and Afghanistan?

The Army's official stats for the current Iraq war suggest that fewer soldiers were killed by fratricide over the past six years than the total number of service members killed by fratricide during Operation Desert StormStorm.

That’s why people like Andrew Bacevich are skeptical, very skeptical.

Read the full story for more.

The deal is, parents, spouses and other family of those killed by friendly fire are usually accepting of the accidents of war. The cover-ups, when they get exposed, are another matter entirely. And, THAT’s more corrosive of morale than war fratricides, no matter what the Army thinks.

Not just enlisteds leaving the Army

Officers from West Point are refusing to re-up after their initial term:

West Point cadets are obligated to stay in the Army for five years after graduating. In a typical year, about a quarter to a third of them decide not to sign on for another term. In 2003, when the class of 1998 faced that decision, only 18 percent quit the force: memories of 9/11 were still vivid; the war in Afghanistan seemed a success; and war in Iraq was under way. Duty called, and it seemed a good time to be an Army officer. But last year, when the 905 officers from the class of 2001 had to make their choice to stay or leave, 44 percent quit the Army. It was the service’s highest loss rate in three decades.

Col. Don Snider, a longtime professor at West Point, sees a “trust gap” between junior and senior officers. There has always been a gap, to some degree. What’s different now is that many of the juniors have more combat experience than the seniors. They have come to trust their own instincts more than they trust orders. They look at the hand they’ve been dealt by their superiors’ decisions, and they feel let down.

The gap is widening further, Snider told me, because of this war’s operating tempo, the “unrelenting pace” at which soldiers are rotated into Iraq for longer tours — and a greater number of tours — than they signed up for. Many soldiers, even those who support the war, are wearying of the endless cycle.

Meanwhile, many Army generals are bringing this on themselves by their arrogance:

Soon after (Lt. Paul) Yingling’s article appeared, Maj. Gen. Jeff Hammond, commander of the Fourth Infantry Division at Fort Hood, Texas, reportedly called a meeting of the roughly 200 captains on his base, all of whom had served in Iraq, for the purpose of putting this brazen lieutenant colonel in his place. According to The Wall Street Journal, he told his captains that Army generals are “dedicated, selfless servants.” Yingling had no business judging generals because he has “never worn the shoes of a general.” By implication, Hammond was warning his captains that they had no business judging generals, either.

The article linked is an excellent one about an Army career development school for captains. Many of them there are ready, willing and able to challenge general officers’ perceptions and comments about Iraq. Who knows? Maybe we will see more and more material, in various forums, like the recent New York Times column from members of the 82nd Airborne.

Army lists media as same threat level as drug cartels

Seriously. No bullshit. The media is now an official threat to the United States Army. Read on:

It looks like it’s official: the United States Army thinks that American reporters are a threat to national security. Thanks to some great sleuthing by Wired’s “Danger Room” blogger Noah Shachtman, the Army's new operational security guidelines (OPSEC) hit the Web in a big way yesterday, and the implications they have for reporters — who are grouped in with drug cartels and Al Qaeda as security threats to be beaten back — are staggering.

Make no mistake, this is a very big deal, and every American citizen, not just reporters and soldiers, needs to understand the implications of the Army’s strict new policy, because it directly affects how citizens receive information about their armed forces: information that it has every right to get.

Shachtman reproduces a slide from the new “OPSEC in the Blogosphere,” document, which lists and ranks “Categories of Threat.” Under “traditional domestic threats” we find hackers and militia groups, while “non-traditional” threats include drug cartels, and — yes — the media. Just to put that into some perspective, the foreign "non-traditional threats" are listed as warlords, and Al Qaeda. In other words, the Army has figuratively and literally put the media in the same box as Al Qaeda, warlords, and drug cartels.

While snake oil salesmen like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh would surely rank the American press up there with Bin Laden and his homicidal ilk, for the Army to do so is shocking, displaying a deep ignorance on the part of at least some segments of the uniformed military over just what the media’s role in a democracy is, while sending the unambiguous message to soldiers and DoD employees that reporters are to be treated as enemies.

Under the new rules, all Army personnel and DoD contractors are told to keep an eye on reporters and anyone seen speaking to the press, and that they should “consider handling attempts by unauthorized personnel to solicit critical information or sensitive information as a Subversion and Espionage Directed Against the U.S. Army (SAEDA) incident.”

Great. Even less reason to trust the military’s comments about Iraq than we have now. Even more reason to be suspicious of kowtowing embedded reporters.