Honeybees, Snakes and Ghosts
And How They are Defeating the Terrorists
Maybe we are making this whole Global War on Terror much more difficult than it needs to be and perhaps our approach should be much simpler, less strategic and involve something as ubiquitous as honeybees. Instead of spending millions of dollars on strategic drone strikes, we simply deploy the old run of the mill honeybee, oh, and why we are at it, we throw in some snakes too. Then we can craft a story that the Honey Bees and snakes are actually the re-incarnated victims of the particular terrorist group seeking retribution. We put the snakes and bees in the terrorist camps and watch what happens. Sound like a plan? Sounds crazy to me.
Well may be this isn’t so crazy after all, according to the Nigerian newspaper Vangaurd, members of terrorist group Boko Haram (BH) have been fleeing their jungle hideouts because of the bees and snakes and the thought that these are their reincarnated victims coming back to haunt them. The BH leadership is disbanding and fleeing the shelter of the jungle in an effort to escape what they see as certain death from retribution. Yes, this is actually happening and it should give us pause to consider that right in front of us something very interesting is happening; the terrorists have a weakness; they are afraid of ghosts.
Using mystical propaganda as a strategy in psychological warfare is not a new concept and many countries have used creative methods to gain an advantage on their adversary by creating myths and stories that inspire fear. Psychological Operations (PSYOP) has been used effectively in some instances to change the hearts and minds of an enemy population thereby giving an advantage to the propagandist. What the Boko Haram story should probably tell us is that terrorists are not a bunch of mindless methodological robots carrying out an ideology. There are psychological beings not unlike us, and with that psychology there are vulnerabilities that could be exploited to the extent that it helps with influencing their agenda and ultimately their motivation to do harm.
According to Ed Rouse in his article on the history of PSYOPS he states that every effort should be made to understand the world through the eyes of your enemy. He highlights an oversight that President Bush made during the removal of Saddam Hussein where the President referred to Saddam as being just like Adolph Hitler. This appalled the European world but it did little to influence the radical Arab world and their dislike for the Jewish Nation State of Israel. To them, what Hitler tried to do was similar to what they were trying to achieve. The lesson learned here is that you should completely understand the context and mind of your enemy.
It is probably appropriate here to wrestle with the question: is tricking your enemy the same as torturing them? This question really drops us onto the slippery slope of psychological interrogation and its similarity to the torture discourse. Is manipulating someone’s thoughts considered torture? The competing narratives on torture is well traveled territory and perhaps this is the wrong place to have this discussion, however it provides a backdrop for discussing the nuances of what is torture and what is not. Some would argue that deception and intentional manipulation of thought could be considered two different things. All you have to do is look at a football play and you would conclude that the motivating factor in each play is deception.
Deception is inherently built into adversarial conditions. As Sun Tzu states in the Art of War; “all warfare is based on deception”. Some would argue that deception is an acceptable tactic in warfare whereas others would argue that putting a hood over someone’s head is a form of psychological deception and considered torture. The intent of this essay is not to answer this question but to provide a dialogue for what might be considered acceptable deception and what is not. The distinction here probably has more to do with what side you sit on and what perspective you have regarding the psychological damage of deception. This may be a topic for the philosophers to wrestle with, however, the consequentialist would argue that the end result is less terror and some scared terrorists that in the long run will probably survive because they have ended their terrorist ways…sounds like everybody wins.
Picture Credit: http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1123315/thumbs/o-HONEY-BEES-DYING-facebook.jpg
