Strategic Communication – Moon of Alabama

May 8, 2006

Strategic Communication

I got my eyes upon you, and all the things that you do
Some close they eyes but mine can see, all the evil surroundin´ me
Paris: Evil

Last Thursday Reuters had this frightening story: Islamists using U.S. video games in youth appeal

The makers of combat video games have unwittingly become part of a global propaganda campaign by Islamic militants to exhort Muslim youths to take up arms against the United States, officials said on Thursday.

The gaming industry shuddered.

Tech-savvy militants from al Qaeda and other groups have modified video war games so that U.S. troops play the role of bad guys in running gunfights against heavily armed Islamic radical heroes, U.S. Defence Department official and contractors told Congress.

The games appear on militant Web sites, where youths as young as 7 can play at being troop-killing urban guerrillas after registering with the site’s sponsors.

In a public hearing on "Terrorist Use of the Internet for Strategic Communications" DoD public diplomacy specialist Dan Devlin and SAIC, a defense contractor, presented this to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

Reuters’ report continues:

One of the latest video games modified by militants is the popular "Battlefield 2" from leading video game publisher, Electronic Arts Inc of Redwood City, California.
…
"I was just a boy when the infidels came to my village in Blackhawk helicopters," a narrator’s voice said as the screen flashed between images of street-level gunfights, explosions and helicopter assaults.
…
SAIC executive Eric Michael said researchers suspect Islamic militants are using video games to train recruits and condition youth to attack U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq.

Mr. Michael delivered his expertise within a $7 million DoD contract to screen 1,500 militant websites.

But unlike the US Army, which is indeed conditioning the 7 million registrated users of its official shooter game Americas Army, the tech-savvy Islamic Militants turn out to be a bit less dangerous.

What had been presented to the Intelligence Committee was identified by regular Battlefield II players as a video made by using an official game extension available for some $25.

The dangerous narrator’s voice in the video was taken from the movie Team America World Police. The movie was made and published last December by a long-time gamer and is available as wmv-file on archive.org.

The gamer’s nom de guerre is SonicJihad, the title of an album by Guerrilla Funk rapper Paris. "Islamic militants to exhort Muslim youths to take up arms against the United States" – indeed!

The Reuters story resides uncorrected at Fox News, the Washington Post, Yahoo and lots of other sites.

The DoD and its contracter were obviously feeding false information to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and to the global public.

Maybe they did know this and broke the law by spreading domestic propaganda

But then, maybe they did not know, but are unable to differentiate a video of a game from an actual game. Maybe they are just too dim to determine that an "militant islamist video game" is unlikely to use an English language character as "Islamic radical hero", underlying Irish dance music and Dutch and English in-game messages.

In the second case, of course, SACI and the DoD’s "public diplomacy specialist" should be fired for utter incompetence.

Will the committee and the public ever be told?
And what conclusion will the House committee and the public draw from this horrible game played by 7 year old troop-killing urban guerrillas on the Internet?

It’s all too easy, if I was evil that’s how I’d rock it
Make sure that my propaganda won’t ever stop it
Got 120 channels, but it’s nothin´ to watch
Now 11:55 be the time on the clock, believe…
Paris: Evil – wav audio-file

(Updated with "Paris" at 11:00am)

Posted by b on May 8, 2006 at 12:28 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Whatever happened to the “enjoy the draft” video? Can’t seem to find it anymore on the net.

Posted by: gylangirl | May 8 2006 13:45 utc | 1

well, I guess I will not ever post anything from Reuters again without checking it out completely.
I feel a little embarrassed, thanks b for setting me straight

Posted by: dan of steele | May 8 2006 13:46 utc | 2

I will not ever post anything from Reuters again without checking it out completely
Unfortunatly it is often impossible to check if those few news agencies do report truthfully. You just have to take everything with a grain of salt.
In this case Reuters as well as the committee got suckered by SAIC and the DoD. They should have checked their sources much better, but in a competitive time-sensitive environment…

Posted by: b | May 8 2006 14:04 utc | 3

“…they should have checked their sources much better, but in a competitive time-sensitive environment…”
Well yes b, but then that would require them to actually commit journalism, which I believe is a violation of the new Reporters’ Guild Union rules.

Posted by: Lurch | May 8 2006 14:45 utc | 4

These guys better watch out:

MONTREAL — Video games have used dialogue from movie stars, rappers and athletes, but Army of Two may be the first to incorporate a presidential speech.
The game, which is being produced here in a downtown loft by EA Montreal, a development studio for Electronic Arts, will prominently feature a recording of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address, in which he warned about the influence of the military-industrial complex.
If Army of Two, which is set in the moral gray zone of private military contractors, is something of an artistic stretch for video games…

Rummy’s might send them to Gitmo for their ‘artistic stretch’.

Posted by: Night Owl | May 8 2006 15:13 utc | 5

Sonic is the little Blue Hedgehog. Sonic Boom is also a gaming machine. Anyway that’s beside the point.
Jeez. This must have something to do with the powerful media committees the jihadist have, according to Rumsfeld.
The truth is: they don’t know, they don’t care, and they project. They always (or often, anyway) accuse the ‘enemy’ of doing what they do themselves. That’s no accident, it sends a powerful message of superiority. We /insert your favorite atrocity/ but it is our right and morally justified, or pragmatically necessary, or just part of our culture, etc. If they /x/ it is because they are sneaky, devious, barbarians, despicable, evil.

Posted by: Noisette | May 8 2006 16:50 utc | 6

Thanks, Noisette. I was going to post something along those lines.
I’ve played military games from the age of six starting with Risk/chess/Stratego and then on to Avalon Hill & SSI ‘historical simulations’ at eight. This interest in historical military conflict (we’re damned if we don’t leave it there, in the past) has carried into the pixel age.
I was playing Full Spectrum Warrior. Was. The ‘game’ is so obviously propaganda in its depiction of evil ragheads and virtuous grunts. The creepiest aspect is how it can immerse you in the adrenaline pumping mayhem and chaos of a firefight (one’s pulse does race) while sanitising the carnage done to flesh. No matter the simulated severity of wounds to squad mates, the uniform is only stained by red pixels which disappear immediately if you can carry him to a medic – no TBIs here. There are no civilians. Every raghead is a valid ‘tango’.
It is a recruitment tool

Posted by: gmac | May 8 2006 18:41 utc | 7

gmac
then on to Avalon Hill & SSI ‘historical simulations’
Used to play a lot of AH games as a kid as well.
‘1776’ was always my favorite.
Others were:
Tactics II
Kingmaker
Squad Leader
Third Reich
Gettysburg
Luftwaffe
Richthofen’s War
Starship Troopers
Panzer Leader
Blitzkrieg
Wooden Ships and Iron Men
Of course there’s also Axis and Allies, but it’s not quite in the same league.

Posted by: Night Owl | May 8 2006 19:35 utc | 8

Naa. Those are good but I still play my old Diablo II LOD game and go in for a casual kill or two (or 100) after watching Neocons blurt lies and threats on C-SPAN and the AOL Message Boards every morning (the latter is a bad habit: don’t try it). How I love the smell of demons in the morning! Welcome to the cosmic struggle.

Maybe they should make a video game where you build a US embassy in Iraq the size of three football fields with your own Kuwaiti-owned business and your goal is to finish it before America pulls out while dealing with insurgents. You start with $600,000,000 of borrowed money and have to bribe various right wing US officials and lobbyiests for more when you run out avoiding while special prosecutors! Hey! Use a good graphics engine, throw in some music from NIN and you’ve got a winner! Maybe you can earn extra life and mana by mocking liberals and making fun of Cindy Sheehan! Good training for Republicans!

For the record, once again the Crawford Creep’s use of the term “Crusade” is coming back to haunt all of us!

Posted by: Diogenes | May 8 2006 20:46 utc | 9

Fisk: ‘unknown Americans’ are provoking civil war in Iraq
Also see, “Combat terrorism” by causing it: A warning to car drivers (in Arabic) May 11, 2005.
And
Civil War: What is the U.S. role in Iraq’s dirty war?
From Democracy Now’s headlines today:

Report: 4,100 Civilians Killed in Baghdad During First Three Months
In other news from Iraq, the Los Angeles Times, reports at least 4,100 civilians were killed in Baghdad during the first three months of the year. Many of the dead were found hogtied and shot execution-style. Many bore signs of torture such as bruises, drill holes, burn marks, gouged eyes or severed limbs.
Execution-style killings are now claiming nine times more lives than car bombings.
At Least 80 Killed In Iraq In Bombings & Executions
In Iraq, at least 80 people have died since Saturday. A series of car bombings in Baghdad and Karbala killed 30 people on Sunday. Another 51 bodies were found in the capital. All of the dead were handcuffed, blindfolded and shot in the head and abdomen.

*Waves at necro-ponte.*

Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 8 2006 21:05 utc | 10

Even more PsyOps.
Interesting account of al-Arabiya journalist Atwar Bahjat faked beheading?
The gruesome beheading video delivered to the Sunday Times purporting to be of slain journalist Atwar Bahjat is a hoax. Her body has been found and she has not been beheaded.
The question remains was someone beheaded? Or was it a complete hoilywood style hoax?
*Waves at necro-ponte’s Death squad’s*

Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 8 2006 21:38 utc | 11

My older Bro’ & I subscribed to SSI and got a new game every other month in the post. I’ve played all those listed by the Hootmon and many, many more.
Risk is virtually unplayable when your bride and her maiden of honour have an unnatural knack for rolling boxcars. To balance that, I played Diplomacy – no dice, just pure negotiation – and cheating if you get away with it.
1776 is good (still have it) and involves an innovative (for its time) formation system in resolving combat. Wooden Ships is a great game as is Jutland – as long as you had a large enough floor space to play on.
October War
Firefight
Terrible Swift Sword – 3 days of Gettysburg
Waterloo
La Battaille de la Moscova
Operation Market Garden
– these last four require 1/2 a ping pong table for the map and Garden the whole table
…
If only we could leave military history behind us

Posted by: gmac | May 8 2006 22:56 utc | 12

My older brothers used to thoroughly thrash me at Risk, so I began cheating by rolling 3 dice when defending and smoothly picking up the lowest die as the roll was settling. Didn’t help much, but it was satisfying to fool my brothers.
One reason that war-games and violent movies remain so popular is that they are odorless. If they smelled anything like they looked and sounded, they would be unbearable. Adrenalin rush without the utter stink of mortal fear is junk emotion–gets you high without any nourishing wisdom.

Posted by: catlady | May 8 2006 23:55 utc | 13

Like most violence that passes for entertainment… extremely soul-damaging.
I’d throw in a Malooga-esque epithet describing consumeristic voyeurs supporting a death-glorification industry, but I’m too tired to think of one.

Posted by: gylangirl | May 9 2006 1:06 utc | 14

not only is popular violent entertainment odourless, it isn’t violent enough

Posted by: gmac | May 9 2006 1:17 utc | 15

Gmac, Full Spectrum Warrior was actually designed as a training tool for soldiers in the military. It was later turned into a commercial release. Which is to say nothing of America’s Army, a video game designed by the American military, using taxpayer dollars, exclusively to recruit trigger-happy young gamers.
America’s Army has some very interesting ironies attached to it. First of all, the training sequence took place at Fort Benning in Georgia, famous for the School of the Americas.
Also, it was an online, team squad-based game. But that meant that one side had to play the terrorists, and the other the Americans. However, the US didn’t want people actually playing as terrorists, so they changed it so that whichever side the player was on, was the Americans, and the other side was the terrorists – moral relatavism defined!

Posted by: Rowan | May 9 2006 2:11 utc | 16

There’s CG, and then there’s RT.
Nothing beats being wedged tight in a packed
Afghan traffic circle with dozens of other
demolition-derby beaters, heat like a sauna,
dust like a Kalahari sand storm, looking up
to the gutteral diesel roar of a ghost-ship
camo Stryker passing, a ski-masked helmeted
darth vader sweeping with his long .50-cal.
Nothing beats it, except looking away in horror,
and seeing an immaculately white-linened black-
bearded Muslim, calming sitting by the curb on
a prayer blanket, his hands out, with no legs.
Then, piercing eyes from a passing blue burqa.
Then, street urchins, selling smoke from cans,
dodging the furious traffic sweeping past them.
Do you see?
No matter.
[Hoo-Ahh!]

Posted by: tante aime | May 9 2006 3:53 utc | 17

Full Spectrum Warrior—like Ender’s Game, huh?
Buggers. Bug wars. “Yeah, but it’s a dry heat, man.”

Posted by: catlady | May 9 2006 5:39 utc | 18

Thanks to Uncle $cam for the links. I’m too old to remember video games when I was a kid but I do remember reading “Blackhawk” (perhaps my memory of the title is faulty) comics despite parental disapproval. They featured a band of anti-communist para-military types who regularly pummeled and slaughtered hordes of Chinese communists. It was only years later, when I was a grad student, that a friend pointed out the obviously fascistic inspiration of that comic series. I felt dumb for not having recognized it on my own.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | May 9 2006 6:19 utc | 19

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