Yoni's shared items

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Do Unto Iran, As We Do Unto Ourselves

Is the media extremely easy to manipulate and take advantage of, yes?

Are they willing to report first and ask questions later, yes?

If people hear a lie often enough, can they really stop themselves from believing it a little, no?

We are really good at making half-truths (or 1/16th truths) and pushing the issue via repetition online and in the media until what was absurd and stupid is transformed into a serious problem for a political candidate or organization (e.g. Obama is a secret Muslim, ACORN's primary goal is to steal the election)

This we all know, but the question we haven't really asked is: How we can use this to bring down our enemies?

I am having trouble finding it, but I recently read an article that attributed Iran's influence in the Middle East to its Shiite connections and importance, given it's comparably weak military power. Iran is a center of religious study for all sorts of religious radicals and big shots in the fundamentalist world. It's like they all "went to college" together.

After reading this article, it occurred to me that if their strength is in their religious credentials, then we should attack them. Which brings me back to my previous point, we have been practicing these attacks for decades in the US and we're really good at it (see Swift Boating of John Kerry and examples from above).

Given that, I suggest we pursue an aggressive counterintelligence campaign to cheapen and ruin the squeaky clean radical credentials of the awful folks ruining lives and funding bombs in the middle east and beyond.

How do we do this? I see two primary methods:
  • Rumor mongering via blogs, "leaks" to news outlets and word of mouth campaigns (e.g. Achmedinejad is a secret Christian, the leader of Hamas is a fan of American Idol and secretely doesn't believe in Allah, etc.)
  • Photoshopping of key leaders doing/saying less than flattering things (e.g. kissing a man, respecting women and Israel, mocking religious icons, etc.). The Photoshopping should work great in communities that don't even have computers or have even heard of Photoshop.
Overall, the trick is repetition and playing upon the incredible vulnerability and gullibility of the human mind. Thoughts? Better ways to go about this?

Update: This is what I'm talking about (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/09/iranian-clerics-affair-ca_n_156623.html). Let's keep it going!

Some inspiration for a future post:
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/01/02/home-securitys-secur.html

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