A Somewhat Stale Remaindered Reference

Dr. Laura's son is apparently both a soldier and a pervert -- and not the friendly kind either. His "MySpace page, publicly available until [last] Friday when it disappeared from the Internet, included cartoon depictions of rape, murder, torture and child molestation; photographs of soldiers with guns in their mouths...and a blog entry headlined by a series of obscenities and racial epithets." I'm sure he's a repulsive little chickadee, but what really struck me about the linked article (from the Salt Lake Tribune) was this astonishing bit:

Army spokesman Robert Tallman ... said "it may be possible that our enemies are actually behind this.

"Our enemies are adaptive, technologically sophisticated, and truly understand the importance of the information battlespace," Tallman continued. "Sadly, they will use that space to promulgate and disseminate untrue propaganda."

I checked (i.e. googled): "Army spokesman Robert Tallman" is not just a figment of the Salt Lake Tribune's imagination. So a no-foolin' public representative of the U.S. Army honestly hinted that the likes of Al-Qaeda would spend their time mocking up fake MySpace pages for the purpose of discrediting the relatives of minor American media personalities. Just so we're clear on that.

Incidentally, "the information battlespace" appears to be something of a term of art in military circles. For instance, a company called Zel Tech has a DARPA contract to create an "IPIB [Intelligence Preparation of the Information Battlespace] process," which seems to consist of a checklist, a database, possibly some flowcharts, and a set of metaphors ("This project addresses ... whether it is feasible to identify cyberspace analogs for kinetic concepts such as terrain, weather, and adversary doctrine"). It's jarring to see how abstract and downright philosophical some of this wartalk gets. A 2006 article in the Air & Space Power Journal ("the professional journal of the United States Air Force"), subtitled "Affecting the Strategic Battlespace with Effects-Based Public Affairs," promises to consider "the application of nonkinetic effects or means to the information battlespace" but pauses first for some ontological clarification: "In order to understand why [Air Force Public Affairs] must operationalize and become effects driven, one needs to understand the nature of effects." This leads almost directly (seriously!!) to a discussion of blogs.

Remember when Russia (maybe) inflicted cyber-warfare on Estonia? "'If you are implying [the attacks] came from Russia or the Russian government, it's a serious allegation that has to be substantiated. Cyber-space is everywhere,' Russia's ambassador in Brussels, Vladimir Chizhov, said in reply to a question from the Guardian."

Everywhere.