Fensterwald's First Law

[Ed Jewett]

"Every intelligence operation has at least two objectives."

First, a general comment:

This strikes me as good strategic thinking... as if it comes almost directly from the book "Strategy: The Art of the Indirect Approach" by Sir B.H. Lidell-Hart who talks about things like twin objectives (creating a fork in the future path from which one might chose the best next option) (really forcing the opponent to act, then selecting the next objective based on the opponent's weakness) (simple examples are the classic chess moves like pin and fork), etc. That book is a delicious, delightful, almost mandatory read for both history, military strategy and tactics, and other purposes. [There are three such over-arching sources... this is #2. Lao Tzu's "The Art of War" is #1, and Boyd's work on the OODA loop and related matters/briefings is the most recent. Everything else, IMHO, is hogwash.]

It is also seen in a slightly different way in the use of multiple army corps by Napoleon, a triplicate spread of self-driven units that collectively acted as an entrapping net.

Second, just to keep the ball rolling (this may require some clean-up and re-assembly as others chime in)(I'll volunteer to help), here are some possibilities:

A) MLK:

To defuse and counter the empowerment of African-Americans;
To send a message to urban-dwellers to pipe down or revolt (see above);
To prevent MLK's role and value in any anti-Vietnam peace movement.

B) 9/11

To terrorize the American people (especially with the repetitive imagery inside the news coverage) and create fear; to create psychological shock, to traumatize, and to condition or stupefy the American people further;
To enable the war(s), support for their funding, and to 'identify' the enemy of the moment;
To drive a legislative agenda (most notably the Patriot Act);
To boost and bolster Bush's political ratings and agenda;
To create funds thgrough theft and fraud for further black ops, the secret intel budget, etc. (see the theft of trillions from the Pentagon, the stock market games and "puts", the theft of the gold from the basement (?), and possible theft electronically from computers inside the WTC;
To rectify the asbestos problem in the towers;
To fund Israeli efforts and operations;
To cover-up prior acts, crimes or destroy forthcoming legal action (see WTC#7, especially).

I concur with Magda; this has the possibility of being a useful tool and approach both retroactively, in "real time" as events go down, and in terms of a political or public information agenda.

One must also consider other events, tools and strategies that were running in parallel with or synchronously with the given event.

COINTELPRO comes to mind for MLK, for example. The whole "continuity of government" thing was operative in several of the ops within the US.

And we ought to consider thinking in the same way in terms of what it is that we do and how we do it ... multiple objectives.