USA Today has nice things to say about ridicule

USA Today ran a fantastic column this week arguing for the use of ridicule in a strategic PSYOP campaign against our terrorist enemies.

The Hoover Institution's Peter Schweizer wrote the USA Today piece, which ran on March 23.

I especially like the feature because it has very kind things to say about my White Paper, "Ridicule: Instrument in the War on Terrorism," published by the Institute of World Politics.

American propagandists made vicious fun of Hitler during World War II, starting when the US Army took over the Walt Disney studios in Burbank, California, the day after the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor.

It's hard to become terrorized when your enemies are worthy of ridicule. It's also hard for a terrorist to get recruits and support if people are making fun of him.

Think of how we could parody Osama bin Laden, with that effeminate way he walks, and especially that and limp wrist?

Did Ukrainian officers spy for the Russians in Iraq?

Pentagon revelations of Russian spying against the United States for Saddam Hussein won't surprise people who have observed the behavior of certain Ukrainian officers working with the US in Iraq.

The political leadership of Ukraine is friendly toward the United States, but Kiev chose never to uproot the old, Russian-controlled KGB structures in the country, and some US officials have complained that Ukrainian military intelligence remains heavily penetrated by the Russian GRU.

A captured Iraqi document from the time of the US-led invasion in 2003 purports to be the summary of a letter from a Russian official to Saddam Hussein. That document, according to the Washington Post, mentions that the Russians had "sources inside the American Central Command in Doha" who spied on the coalition's top commanders.

FourthWorldWar is reliably told that certain Ukrainian officers serving in the coalition's top decisionmaking structures liberally help themselves to large amounts of internal documents, and that no US counterintelligence presence has been there to stop them.

Could there be a connection between Ukrainian traitors who still work for Moscow and the recent revelations from Iraq? We should use the opportunity to help Ukrainian leaders clean house.

Signs of a world power?

The pathetic nature of the United States' diplomatic prowess manifested itself again, this time in the United Nations, where Washington was trounced 170-4, with 3 abstentions.

The vote was on a new UN Human Rights Council that would replace the discredited UN Human Rights Commission.

Belarus, Iran and Venezuela abstained.

Not even our closest NATO allies stood with us on this one, even though many shared the United States' misgivings that the new body would ultimately mock itself.

The only UN member states that voted with us: Israel, Marshall Islanda and Palau.

Shame on the rest of the world. And shame on us for letting the vote get out of control.

Conservative McGovernites

Nobody has a monopoly on virtue, and the Left isn't the only segment of society that can be duped by foreign propaganda.

Right now, it looks like a number of conservative Republicans are falling victim to the propaganda of the enemy and spreading thoughtless messages of demoralization while our nation is at war.

My colleague on the Center for Security Policy's Academic Council, Victor David Hanson, has begun taking names: William F. Buckley, Niall Ferguson, Francis Fukuyama and George Will.

Some of them cite the blowing up of the Samarra shrine and the roadside bombings that claim lives of our servicemen practically every day.

Those bombings are not military attacks. They are acts of armed propaganda.

The conservative commentators should know better. They should be ashamed. Whatever they think of the president and his team, they should be pushing for victory and not falling into the terrorists' propganda trap.

Osama bin Laden must be thrilled. He apparently follows the political debate in the United States, so such comments from the president's own political camp must only give him and other terrorists the confidence they need to keep killing our people.

In his January speech to Americans on Al Jazeera, bin Laden noted "the outcome of the US opinion polls, which indicated that the overwhelming majority of you want the withdrawal of the forces from Iraq."

"In fact," bin Laden continued, "reports indicate that the defeat and devastating failure of the ill-omened plan of the four - Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz - and the announcement of this defeat and working it out, is only a matter of time, which is to some extent linked to the awareness of the American people of the magnitude of this tragedy."

The al Qaeda leader acknowledged that the United States still can win the war, and commented on what would happen if the US lost. "I would like to tell you that the war is for you or for us to win. If we win it, it means your defeat and disgrace forever as the wind blows in this direction," he said.

Bin Laden indicated that the US can't win the war by weapons alone, underscoring the point that the US is not using the huge psychological warfare resources at its disposal:

"Do not be deluded by your power and modern weapons. Although they win some battles, they lose the war. Patience and steadfastness are better than them. What is important is the outcome."

That outcome, pathetically, depends on American pundits' perseverence. They should do what is right and try to win the war.