US Military Intelligence

March 3rd, 2008, in Internet, by Patung

American military intelligence agencies and how they gather information about Indonesia.

A referral to this site from a Google search a few days ago:

indonesia matters pesantren alzaytun

So presumably the person who did the above search at Google had read the article on this site about Al Zaytun Islamic boarding school in West Java at some time in the past, and now wanted to find it again, and used Google to do so.

Nothing really interesting in that by itself, except the person’s ISP domain address - socom.mil - the United States Special Operations Command (wikipedia page, their website, although it’s inaccessible for me even via a proxy, Google cache version).

Socom

The stats from January to February this year show that the visitor from socom.mil is a regular here, usually initially using Google to find stories, and these were some of the searches he/she did:

megawati sby 2009
gp ansor banser
Ahmadiyah
danish consulate attack in surabaya
Nahdlatul Ulama organization
Nahdlatul Ulama organization oficial papers
nahdlatul ulema
muslim garis keras indonesia
meaning of mukmin
islamization soft in indonesia
pesantren al zaytun

These kinds of visits to IM are not uncommon, from American and also Australian government agencies, particularly from

pacom.mil (U.S. Pacific Command)
pacfa.fleet.navy.mil (U.S Navy Pacific Fleet)
dss.mil (U.S Defense Security Service (DSS))

It may only be some people who work at the agencies, or maybe their family members if it’s a live on the base setup, searching for stuff in their spare time, or otherwise.

And we don’t know what other sources of information they have of course but it seems peculiar that they apparently view websites like this, and searching for stuff on Google generally, as being useful sources of info on militant Islam in Indonesia, or things about Indonesia generally, in intelligence gathering terms.

Tags: Ahmadiyah, Al Zaytun, American Intelligence, Ansor, Banser, Google, Intelligence Agencies, Java, Pacific Fleet, Pesantren, Socom.mil, Special Operations, Websites

6 Comments on “US Military Intelligence”

Rambutan Says:
March 3rd, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Now you scared him away.
Anyway, I guess open source intelligence is quite common. Just a question of correctly processing the information you are collecting.
dewaratugedeanom Says:
March 5th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
As a reincarnation of Gajah Mada and ‘Commandante’ of the Reconquista of the Great Empire of Majapahit I myself also use this site to gather intelligence on the current state of affairs in Indonesia. Especially the psychological profile of its respective commenters and their use of gravatars is an invaluable source of information.

Majapahit will rule again. Merdeka!
sputjam Says:
March 10th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
We all know how the Us intellgence network operates. They go for the three ‘B’s- booze babes and bitch. Afetr scrwing half of Iraqi women crazy, they finally got the information they were looking for. And the rest is history.

After the debacle, they realised that the information obtained on the internet is more realistic and cheaper financially.

Forget about Majapahit. It never did rule anything. It was an influence, made up of local warlords, who were allies. Same with other so called empires in the malay empire. We did not threaten anyone. It was always the other way round.
Aluang Anak Bayang Says:
March 10th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
@ sputjam

I believe you are the 4th ‘B’ - Bulls**ter. You must be one of the jealous Melayus descended from the Sri Vijaya who was eventually wasted by our ancestors. The Mojopahit Empire was comparable to the Persian Empire and the Tang Dynasty. Eat your heart out.
dewaratugedeanom Says:
March 11th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
sputjam said

We all know how the Us intellgence network operates. They go for the three ‘B’s- booze babes and bitch.

I know it’s a dirty job but somebody’s got to do it.
sputjam Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Aluang said-

The Mojopahit Empire was comparable to the Persian Empire and the Tang Dynasty. Eat your heart out.

The great empires left great legacies in engineering/science/arts/culture to present generations.
What legacies did mojopahit empire left mankind?