GMTA?
[ by Charles Cameron ]
It’s not exactly news —
Napoleon supposedly said “Even in war moral power is to physical as three parts out of four” — and these two quotes say pretty much the same thing, translated and updated, don’t they?
Kudos to my blog-friend Christopher Anzalone, who keeps the rest of us current on digital Taliban offerings, AQ graphics and more. His Views from the Occident: Twitter Specials blog is my source for the interview with Abdul Sattar Maiwand, web-master of the official Islamic Emirate [ie “Afghan Taliban “] site, while David Betz blogged on Gaming Social Networks for Influence and Propaganda at Kings of War (Department of War Studies, King’s College London).
The interview with Maiwand gets into detail that will interest students of information operations and/or contemporary uses of technology — here’s a taste of something close to my good (and frequently prophetic) friend Howard Rheingold‘s notion of wireless quilts:
The news that is posted on the website is converted to SMS messages and sent to a number of people, who send it to other people. Each of them sends it to his acquaintances inside and outside Afghanistan and so a chain of dissemination begins. Each ones tries to spread the news more and more. We have seen many people requesting their friends and relatives to forward the news they receive to at least 20 other people, etc…and so this news becomes widely circulated in popular circles. Through the grace of Allah, we have seen many among the general populace rejoice when news reaches them of the victories of the Mujahideen over their enemies.
But you might like to read the whole thing…
