Het Britse bedrijf Strategic
Communication Laboratories (SCL Group), waarvan de VS tak ofwel
dochtermaatschappij het vermaledijde Cambridge Analytica is, viel fiks
door de mand (met bewijzen >> gelekte officiële documenten) voor o.a. het manipuleren van
verkiezingen, terwijl voor ‘Russische manipulaties na godbetert 2 jaar nog steeds geen
flinter aan bewijs is geleverd……..’ Overigens ook in WikiLeaks zijn bewijzen te vinden van VS manipulaties van verkiezingen elders… Zo de waard is vertrouwt deze zijn/haar gasten, om nog eens een cliché aan te halen, al is de waard de VS …..
SCL gebruikte in 2009 m.n. Jemen als
proefgebied voor haar smerige spelletjes….. De in Jemen ontwikkelde
onderzoeks- en psychologische tactieken, werden later gebruikt tegen
bevolkingen de wereld rond, o.a. in landen als Libië, Syrië en
Iran……
SCL heeft een dubieuze reputatie van
stoken in conflictgebieden, zoals deze organisatie dit heeft gedaan in Nigeria, Oekraïne, Litouwen en
in meerdere westerse landen…… (zie de link onder het hieronder opgenomen artikel)
Randi Nord, schrijver van het hieronder opgenomen artikel, eerder gepubliceerd op Geopolitics Alert, neemt m.n. Project Titania onder de loep, dit is het project van SCL dat in 2009 van start ging in Jemen, een project waarvan men de uitkomsten heeft ingezet in een aantal andere landen…..
Heel smerig is het gebruik van informatie door SCL, informatie die door o.a. NGO’s werd verzameld…… SCL Group gebruikte (en gebruikt) deze informatie voor psychologische manipulaties en zelfs voor psychologische oorlogsvoering……. SCL Group lanceerde Project Titania t.b.v. een militaire onderaannemer genaamd Archimedes……..
Sinds Project Titania van start ging hebben de VS en de Verenigde Arabische Emiraten (VAE) 18 ‘black site prisons’ geopend in Jemen, ofwel geheime gevangenissen waar men martelt en de ergste vorm van marteling >> verkrachting toepast op gevangenen die niet eens zijn veroordeeld, gevangenen van wie niemand uit de achterban weet waar ze zijn, zoals je zal begrijpen uit het voorgaande…..
Cambridge
Analytica Parent Co. Used Yemen as Test Site for Global Manipulation
Tactics
London (GPA)
– Leaked documents show that Strategic Communication Laboratories
(SCL), the parent company of the notorious Cambridge Analytica,
carried out a surveillance operation embedded among local Yemeni
populations in 2009. The research and psychological tactics of
deception were likely later used against populations around the world
including Libya, Syria, and Iran where SCL Group carried out
various operations to influence social climates on behalf of their
clients.
SLC
Group has a dubious history of stirring up trouble with
“psychological warfare” in places like Nigeria, Ukraine, Latvia
and many Western countries.
The
leaked documents, obtained by the Grayzone
Project,
detail a program called “Project Titania” carried out in Yemen
which SCL Group appears to have used for honing their psychological
manipulation skills. Grayzone spoke
with a media professional who SCL attempted to recruit for an
operation in Iran in 2009.
According
to SCL Group, they launched Project Titania on behalf of an entity
called Archimedes — a U.S.-based military contractor. This
highlights the dangers of private companies like Facebook and Google
merging with the military-industrial complex.
Since
launching Project Titania, the United States and United Arab Emirates
have opened 18
black site prisons in
Yemen for arbitrarily detaining, torturing, and sexually abusing
Project
Titania
Strategic
Communication Laboratories (SLC) launched Project Titania in 2009
between June and July in very specific areas of Yemen’s Marib
province and al-Mukalla city in Hadramaut province. Working on behalf
of their client (a U.S.-based military contractor), SCL Group chose
these locations after careful consideration and research about
al-Qaeda’s (AQAP) growing presence.
Project
Titania included four main phases: motivation and segmentation,
research plan, field phase, analysis, and reporting. The experience
SCL Group gained and the tactics they used were later employed
throughout the rest of the world for other clients.
In
Yemen, SCL’s goal with Project Titania was to reduce what they
called “non-desired behaviors” or NDB by using something called
“communication campaigns.” In Project Titania’s case, “the
non-desired behavior” involved young men joining terrorist groups
like al-Qaeda. Research leading up to the communication campaign
included recorded interviews and questionnaires with local Yemenis
while deceiving respondents about the interview’s or
questionnaire’s purpose.
The
victims’ responses were later used to determine if NDBs (joining
terrorist groups)
could
be reduced through deceptive intervention techniques.
Open-source
Deskwork
A
large portion of Project Titania took place before the foreign agents
even began conducting interviews. Researchers at SCL Group used
open-source information from NGOs, local publications, census data,
“earlier studies,” and other entities deemed relevant or
accurate.This draws into question the role non-governmental
organizations play supporting the military-industrial complex.
The
public doesn’t hear about this scenario too often, but it’s
really not uncommon for U.S. military contractors or other
individuals with ulterior motives to seek employment at NGOs. In
2015, the Yemeni resistance group Ansarullah (aka. the Houthis)
apprehended a U.S.
military contractor working
undercover for the Red Cross in Yemen. The contractor, Scott Darden,
was tasked with setting up sleeper cells and safe houses for U.S.
commando units inside Ansarullah-held territory.
Going
Undercover
SCL
Group employed what they called “Researchers” to conduct recorded
interviews with local Yemenis to gather psychosocial information
about relevant issues, historic context, language, literacy, channel
exposure, channel credibility, noise, values, attitudes and beliefs,
current behavior, common enemies, binary opposition, decision paths,
power structures, message appeals, skills, intent, motivations, and
everything else that makes a person tick.
SCL
Group’s “Researchers” told the victims that the questionnaires
and interviews were for seemingly benign purposes like market
research. “Prior
to completing the interview or the questionnaire, all
participants will be given a rationale for the study (i.e., that the
study is part of a university research programme or a market research
programme),” the
document reads.
Each
questionnaire contained 35 questions and took about 30 minutes to
complete. SCL Group carried out 30 in-depth interviews and a
staggering 300 guided interviews during a mere month-long period in
the two target locations. The respondents were also asked to provide
their gender, education level, income level, religious affiliation,
and other demographic data in addition to the psychosocial questions.
Understanding
and Using the Data
Groups
of eight Researchers were lead by a team leader known as a Research
Leader. Their goals were to answer the following questions about
al-Qaeda in Marib and al-Mukalla but it’s easy to see how the same
strategy was later applied elsewhere among different populations with
different goals.
Accessibility: how
easy is it to gain access into the group or contact people in the
group?
Salience
of Impact: how
likely is the communication campaign to change NDB?
Problem
Relevance: how
relevant is a factor to the client’s goals and objectives?
Measurability: any
instance of applying numbers to the behavior
Influenceability: how
likely is the campaign to influence the target audience behavior?
The
research described here was part of a larger campaign to influence
behavior in Marib and al-Mukalla. The entire project included three
steps: identify campaign target groups (CTG), understand
campaign target groups to develop an influencing plan, and
understanding a target audience to create an influence path to the
CTG.
A
Few Things…
In
Project Titania’s case, the “campaign target group” included
young men at risk for joining al-Qaeda but, again, it’s very easy
to see how this same strategy could be applied in numerous situations
to produce a desirable social climate for any client.
It’s
possible that these tactics were used by one entity or another for
several purposes since 2009 including in now-current war zones like
Syria or Libya as well as elections in various countries throughout
the entire world.
The
detailed assessment and analysis SCL Group conducted of Marib and
al-Mukalla shows that similar or affiliated entities like Cambridge
Analytica run into no trouble gathering publicly available or
user-provided information from social media, NGOs, censuses, and
other sources before even lifting a finger to conduct their own
questionnaires or interviews.
However,
SCL Group’s detailed assessment of Yemen’s 2009 current and
future political situation were not at all accurate as they described
the overall political security as “country collapse currently
slim.” We all know how that’s worked out.
The
report mainly appeared concerned with AQAP and, to a lesser extent,
Yemen’s southern separatist movement al-Hirak. Unsurprisingly, SCL
Group highly underestimated Ansarullah’s potential for gaining
enough public support to control the capital city and most of the
northern provinces. Their report knocks the Houthis for “draining
precious military resources” (the then-president Ali Abdullah Saleh
was receiving military support from the United States to keep
al-Qaeda at bay).
The
report also counters Saudi
Arabia’s line that
Ansarullah (the Houthis) are a terrorist group. The document mentions
that hostilities might occur, but it mentions nothing about violent
terror attacks on civilians akin to al-Qaeda. If SCL Group (or the
U.S. military contractor they were conducting Project Titania on
behalf of) believed that the Houthi group was apt to launch similar
attacks or behave like al-Qaeda, SCL probably would have lumped them
into the project’s research.
It’s
also worth mentioning that since Project Titania, the United States
and United Arab Emirates have set up a series of 18 black site
detention centers throughout areas of Yemen under their control. The
victims are swept up under the guise of fighting al-Qaeda, but locals
say the men were arbitrarily detained and forced into confessions
with physical and sexual torture.
These
documents were released by the Grayzone
Project as
the first in a two-part series. Featured photo: a woman walks near
the Marib ruins by Will De Freitas on Flickr.
====================================
Zoals al vaker op deze plek verzucht: het is de allerhoogste tijd dat de VS, Groot-Brittannië en bedrijven als SCL voor het Internationaal Strafhof (ICC) worden gedaagd!
Zie ook:
‘Martin Vrijland ontmaskerde SCL groep al voordat The New York Times dat deed over verkiezingsbeïnvloeding‘ (SCL is o.a. mede verantwoordelijk voor de coup in Oekraïne, de coup tegen de democratisch gekozen president Janoekovytsj, dit deed SCL als onderaannemer van de VS regering en in dit geval in innige samenwerking met Hillary Clinton,destijds minister van BuZa Hillary Clinton, die hier maar liefst meer dan 4 miljard dollar voor uittrok….. SCL werkt voorts nauw samen met de uiterst agressieve oorlogshond van de VS, de NAVO….)
Read
more about US imperialism in Yemen:
Zie ook:
‘‘Russiagate’: Intel-raport over Russische bemoeienis met verkiezingen opgebouwd met leugens en is politiek gemotiveerd, aldus Matlock, voormalig VS ambassadeur in Moskou‘ (zie ook de links in dat bericht)
‘De Russiagate samenzweringstheorie dient de machthebbers………‘
Mijn excuus: zag na plaatsing dat ik was vergeten de VS te noemen in de kop.
