September 14, 2007: One of the salient truths about the global war on terror is that it is not one that the coalition can lose on the battlefield. In many cases, the opposition is largely incapable of winning a victory in direct combat. They have to rely instead on winning through the media - in essence, turning their losses on the battlefield into wins either because that is how the media portrays an engagement, or because the media makes the victory look ugly due to casualties or other allegations.

The latest terrorist attempt to turn defeat into victory comes from a report based on transcripts of Guantanamo Bay detainee hearings. Detainees claimed various forms of abuse, including withholding medicine and interrupting prayers. In one sense, these are rehashing old complaints to generate significant heat on the United States. Of course, while the terrorists are at Guantanamo Bay, they can't do much else.

It should be noted that captured al Qaeda manuals have instructed terrorists to falsely claim abuse, including torture. This is because the media have shown a pattern of reporting lurid allegations, while the later reports that investigations have shown the allegations had no merit, are usually buried. Partially, this is due to the fact that the allegations are more newsworthy than a report that says nothing happened. It is also due to the fact that no media outlet wants to admit that they have been suckered by phony claims.

This is not the first time. In 2005, there were a number of incidents, including claims that American guards flushed a Koran. The Koran-flushing turned out to have been done by a detainee. However, the initial reports triggered riots in Moslem countries. Also in 2005, a United States Senator compared American troops at Guantanamo Bay to the Khmer Rouge and Nazis, citing FBI claims of abuse. The FBI claims, however, turned out to not have much basis in fact. Very few instances of the line being crossed were verified, and in some cases, they were provoked (one female interrogator smeared a detainee with red ink after the detainee spat on her).

Detainees also admitted a number of assaults on the guards - often involving bodily fluids (either spitting or hurling feces). These assaults have outnumbered misconduct by guards by a very wide margin. Yet, the media views the detainees sympathetically, and human rights groups continue to stick up for them, even when the charges have been proven false. The goal, of course, is to make keeping terrorists at Guantanamo Bay too controversial and force the United States to put terrorists into the legal system, which has resulted in al-Qaeda getting information about what the intelligence community has been able to find out.

In essence, the terrorists are fighting a media war because they cannot win the real war. The good news for them is that the media war tends to succeed. That is bad news for those trying to stop attacks. - Harold C. Hutchison ([email protected])