IO Sophistry -- 'Infiltrator' Redefined

Another volley in the BS IO.

A NATO study has found that nearly 90 percent of such killings stem from personal disputes or outrage rather than insurgent plots to infiltrate the security forces or use them as cover for attacks.

NFW.

John M. agrees that it is infiltrators.

It is clear that USG + MIL - in order to make their ridiculous IO narrative fly - have redefined "infiltrator" to mean someone who simply puts on a black market uniform and slips behind enemy lines to grease Coalition forces. I'm sure CI folks would object to such a limited definition. Even with such sophistry, the narrative proves false.

As we have argued for years (since the mess hall in Mosul, Iraq was blown up by someone mil announced was wearing a "black market uniform" - and investigation revealed to have been a infiltrated employee of the base), there is a determined information campaign to downplay the infiltrator problem in particular and the seriousness of insurgent challenges to post 9/11 US-led war efforts in general.

Domestic-facing Morale Operations do pay dividends. Ask many Americans who was the winner of the Iraq War and you will discover - to the surprise of everyone in the region - that it was the USA.

Indisputable that something like this is planned for our eventual withdrawal from Afghanistan.

AnglaVakt In Afghanistan

Another initiative, now a priority, is a program named “Guardian Angel.”

Also, notice that they have cleverly modified the "black market uniform" IO narrative. For the last month or so they have claimed that investigations determined that these are mostly not infiltrators (ridiculous on the face of it), but "disaffected" members of Afgh mil and police. They don't bother with the obvious implication if this was true - that treatment from US trainers or the shitty operational atmosphere or something equally bad was causing basically decent recruits to decide to turn on their Western allies.

They still do the "afghan uniform" misdirect in every case. Even when - as WaPo reported - the attacker wasn't even wearing a uniform. (The tea boy mentioned in NYT piece served the Afghan commander more than tea.)

US command has officially changed the designation from "green on blue attacks" to "insider attacks." And now we have this manpower-intensive "Guardian Angel" approach ...

The dire implications for the mission remain the same as when we first discussed the problem a couple of years ago. If our only hope for a decent exit from AF is to stand up a sizable security apparatus, and we have this disastrous "insider attacks" issue, we are fucked.

Hence, the only approach is to have a bullshit information operation to downplay the problem.