US 'war czar' to attack internet safe havens

[mawilson 2,133]

The White House has at last managed to find a general willing to become "war czar".

The administration had been having difficulty filling its new post, formally titled

"assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for Iraq and

Afghanistan policy and implementation."

At least three senior military officers have reportedly turned down the job. One of

them, retired Marine full general Jack Sheehan, went public last month saying he

hadn't fancied becoming war czar because he didn't think the Bush administration

had any coherent regional policy.

Now, however, the President's men have managed to recruit lieutenant-general

Douglas Lute, a relatively unknown Washington player.

As war czar he will have powers to coordinate the efforts of different US government

departments and help obtain a good result for America in war-torn Southwest Asia.

And the good general has some interesting views - particularly on the technology

front - as evidenced in this article.

"We can kill and capture the enemy and go after the camps," Lute said. "But the

intangible parts of the network defy a conventional approach.

"They have a safe haven on the internet," he went on. "No one in the US military has

been tasked with the mission of attacking these intangibles. Until we do they will

operate with impunity.

"You need a network to defeat a network."

There isn't any doubt that Lute would like to go after al-Qaeda, the Taleban, Mehdi

Army et al specifically on the internet. As war czar, he might well be able to get such

ideas implemented.

"This war is more about will and perception than firepower," he said. "We have

concluded that, in that sense, we are not equipped to attack the enemy. We must

attack the intangible part of the network if we are going to win."

It'll be interesting to see how these ideas get implemented now that Lute has leapfrogged

his superiors at the Joint Chiefs and speaks with the Commander-in-Chief's voice.

The internet may be about to become a more dangerous place. It's to be hoped that

Lute can manage to avoid any cases of friendly fire as he launches his digital assault.

Source