Camera Phones and Security

I tend to disagree with Andrew Exum a lot, but his recent op-ed is spot-on, and reflects one of my earlier posts about security and social media. The case of the American troops caught snapping pictures of themselves posing with dead Taliban is disconcerting, but the questions it raises about camera phones in combat are synonymous with the questions it raises about camera phones and both personal and organizational security. The implications are different for every person and every organization - for example, I probably don't have to worry as much about a stalker collecting information about me from pictures I post of myself online as would a hundred-pound cheerleader. In the business realm, a local flower shop will have less cause to hire a public affairs officer to clear the release of employees' camera phone photos than the Department of Defense. "Ex" is right: some of this will improve as policy makers retire and are replaced by a senior officer and NCO corps that understands technology - as "natives", to quote Ex. That said, I think an issue still stands, because whereas the retiring officer and NCO corps views security through a post-Cold War framework in which information required tight controls, but was also much easier to control. Today's young people come from a culture in which it's natural to share every detail, all the way down to the time and location of the restaurant that you've just "checked into". A greater understanding of technology and its capabilities (positive and negative) is important, but so is strong training on why some information is sensitive and worthy of protection. The same concept applies to individuals and private organizations.

A Victory for Afghan Security

Earlier this week, the Taliban staged what has been described by media sources as a daring raid. I'm of the mind that this gives undue credit to the Taliban, as high profile raids are no substitute for support from the populace and the military superiority required to stage militarily costly attacks on an enemy. The Taliban boasts neither widespread voluntary support from the Afghan population, nor the military capability to openly challenge ISAF or Afghan forces. Raids like the one that took place earlier this week serve no military purpose, and are purely designed to give the appearance of strength to those who don't know to read between the lines. Unfortunately, what high profile raids lack in military effectiveness, they more than make up for in propaganda value.

The security situation in Afghanistan isn't promising. Good news is scarce, and bad news is plentiful - like the latest example of troops behaving inappropriately with Afghan human remains. The aftermath of the raid produced some rare good news, because Afghan security forces in Kabul repulsed this latest attack with minimal support from their coalition partners. I doubt this is the paradigm shift that wins the war, but it's at least encouraging. It will take a lot more stories like this for this conflict to end in anything other than a protracted continuation of the conflict.

Ironically, this story comes in the wake of Russian concerns over NATO's stated 2014 withdrawal deadline. Russia's vocal concern is ironic, given that Russia has made no attempt to volunteer its support, and has actively complicated ISAF's efforts to establish redundant supply lines in Central Asia. Afghanistan's fate could have a greater direct impact on Russia's national security than on America's, which makes Russian statements and policies all the more ironic.

Timothy McVeigh and Terrorism

As I've continued my graduate school pre-readings, I've come across several mentions of the Oklahoma City Bombing and Timothy McVeigh in the context of domestic terrorism. After 9/11, Oklahoma City was repeatedly invoked for one reason or another, as it was the most recent violent mass casualty event prior to the al Qaeda operation. Yesterday, a question struck me: did the Oklahoma City Bombing meet the technical definition of "terrorism"? The same question could be asked of the ongoing Anders Behring Breivik trial in Norway, or the Beltway Sniper case. All of these incidents were obviously horrific, unjustifiable outrages committed against scores of unarmed and innocent civilians, and by posing the question, my intent is not to detract from that outrage in any way. My question is more a matter of semantics, with limited relevance to discussions of security policy.

Most definitions of terrorism include the concept of influencing political decisions - essentially, violence is used against civilians or other non-combatants in order to cause widespread fear, which then influences the political process in favor of demands made by the terrorist. The influence on politics is a key element of the definition of "terrorism". In the case of the Oklahoma City Bombing, while McVeigh's motives for carrying out the attack were influenced by politics, he doesn't seem to have stated a desired outcome or made any policy demands. I've seen no evidence that McVeigh had any policy demands to accompany the horrific violence he had committed, and he stated that the bombing was an act of revenge for the events of the Waco Standoff several years earlier. The question, then, is whether "terrorism" is the right word to define the Oklahoma City Bombing; or would another, such as "mass murder", be more appropriate? The same could be said of Anders Behring Breivik, who distributed a manifesto shortly before carrying out his attack, but who doesn't appear to have had specific policy demands.

To a great degree, this question identifies a difference without a distinction: the methods we employ to stop al Qaeda from detonating car bombs are the same as the methods we employ to stop another Timothy McVeigh from detonating car bombs. Where the distinction could become important is in the discussion of policy objectives aimed at mitigating threats of terrorism. By associating the likes of al Qaeda, ETA, and the Real IRA with the likes of Timothy McVeigh or Anders Behring Breivik, security strategists and public officials tend to generalize methods for prevention and interdiction. I would make a comparison to heart disease and cancer: both are insidious diseases that can kill you; their causes, treatments, and preventative measures share some commonalities; but if a physician were to treat them as the same disease, said physician would likely do a poorer job of addressing both, whereas identifying key points of similarity and key differences allows for more effective mitigation of both. In the same way, it seems logical that a mass murderer like Timothy McVeigh not be summarily lumped in with a terrorist group like al Qaeda, so that the commonalities can be addressed while simultaneously focusing on the aspects which divide the two in order to more effectively prevent and mitigate attacks by both.

Ironic Music from IRIB

I recently discovered that Iran's strategic communications agency, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), has finally started offering its programs as both streaming audio and as podcasts. It's noteworthy that it took Iran at least a decade to catch up to the BBC, which had mastered both streaming audio and podcasting nearly a decade ago. I downloaded the Thursday, 29 March 2012 "Voice of Justice" program and burned it to an audio CD. I used to regularly listen to the IRIB's "Voice of Justice" program via shortwave radio when I lived in Virginia, but that signal was difficult to tune in on the East Coast, and I have little hope that I'll be able to tune in now that I'm back on the West Coast.

While listening, I was surprised to recognize some of the buffer music from one of the news segments. I checked on YouTube and confirmed that, sure enough, IRIB was using Alan Silvestri's theme from the 1986 Chuck Norris film The Delta Force as buffer music for their propaganda broadcasts. For those who are unaware, the real Delta Force's first mission was Operation Eagle Claw, the failed attempt to rescue the Americans held in the Iran Hostage Crisis. Reality is truly stranger than fiction.