Mash-Up for Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Al-Jazeera has a cartoon depicting what may unfortunately be an Arab view of American democracy through our diplomacy of deeds to date. (Courtesy Memri)

The Chinese have published a new English-Chinese Dictionary of Military Terms.

This dictionary contains 23,000 English terms and 20,000 Chinese terms, including army organization, operational command, training, ordnance material, minor tactics, service support, space technology, computer, electron, autocontrol, biology, nuclear energy etc.

IED-porn on YouTube is the old rage. Now it’s being used to share simulations of VBIED attacks, presumably for training. (h/t Internet Haganah)

Swedish Meatballs posts their own version of RAND’s “Enlisting Madison Avenue” report.

Bob Pape applies his book’s thesis that most suicide attacks are from groups fighting against a military occupation of their country to today’s Iraq. His prediction:

If foreign occupations do indeed provide the strategic fuel for insurgencies, Pape said, Americans should expect to see a spate of Shiite suicide attacks. He said he could not predict when the insurgency would take that disturbing turn but said it would be soon: “We’re heading toward the cocktail of conditions that favor suicide terrorism from the Shia.”

Jihad_fields_logoAnd, finally, from Danger Room comes the observation that terrorists keep blogs too (the guy heading DOD’s Office to Support Public Diplomacy knows that, but don’t tell Karen Hughes, you’ll ruin her day).

Islamists use the Web to spread propaganda, communicate anonymously, share training guides, get organized — even sell t-shirts.  So it’s not exactly a shock that Muslim extremists are blogging, too.

Dancho Danchev reviews a handful of terrorist blogs — and warns that “these are just the tip of the iceberg, but yet another clear indication of the digitalization of jihad.”

One particularly active site Dancho highlights is Jihad Fields are Calling: Allah Send Us To Bring People Out From the Slavery of The People to The Slavery of Allah.  And it’s got all the features you’d expect from a top-flight — if crude — propaganda operation.  Here’s a diary from a woman who claims she was drugged and raped in Abu Ghraib.    There’s a silly, downloadable, anti-Bush wallpaper for your PC.  Over here is another one, celebrating “the most feared weapon in Iraq” — the improvised bomb.  In another place are theological justifications for “waging a war against atheism.”   You get the idea.

The point is, these guys are using all the tools they can to spread their message, and wage the information war.  Is the U.S. really prepared to do the same?