China's Flying Propaganda Machine Revealed

China Now Has a Flying Propaganda Machine - The Daily Beast http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/06/14/china-now-has-a-flyin...
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1 China Has a Flying Propaganda Machine
DAVID AXE
2 Did Ex-Marine Inspire Orlando Killer?

MICHAEL DALY
3 Jaime Lannister Tells All

MARLOW STERN
4 Prosthetic Arm Doubles as a Tattoo Gun

PETER SLATTERY
5 Blade Runner Destroyed Our Lives

TOM SYKES
1 of 8 6/15/2016 3:22 PM
CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? 06.14.16 5:03 PM ET
China Now Has a Flying Propaganda Machine

DAVID AXE
If war breaks out, the Chinese would try to broadcast disinformation, encouraging
troops to desert or surrender, analysts note. Now Beijing has a tool to help spread the
word.
The Chinese military has a new warplane with an unusual purpose: to beam propaganda
and disinformation into hostile territory.
In that way, the new, four-engine Y-8GX7 psychological operations planealso known by
its Chinese name, Gaoxin-7is analogous to the U.S. Air Forces EC-130J, which it says
conducts military information support operations and civil affairs broadcasts in F.M.
radio, television and military communications bands.
A flying radio outpost might seem rather retro, even quaint, in the internet era. But in
many of the worlds worst conflict zones, internet access is limitedand people still get
much of their information from radio and television.
EC-130swhich has its own nickname,

Commando Soloand similar U.S.
aircraft like it have broadcast propaganda
in nearly all U.S. conflicts since the
Vietnam War. Perhaps most famously,
EC-130s flew over Libya during the 2011
international intervention in that country,
in one case advising Libyan navy sailors to
stop resisting and remain in port.
If you attempt to leave port, you will be attacked and destroyed immediately, the
EC-130J crew warned via radio in English, French, and Arabic. A Dutch ham radio
operator overheard and recorded the broadcast.
According to the Air Force, the EC-130Js deployed to the Middle East in 2015. While the
flying branch didnt specify exactly where the psyops planes went or why, its likely they
supported the U.S.-led war on ISIS, perhaps bombarding militant fighters with warnings
similar to those the EC-130J crews broadcast over Libya five years ago.
The Pentagon has been in the aerial psyops business for more than 50 years. The Peoples
Liberation Armyas the Chinese military is formally knownis comparatively late to the
game. Over the last decade or so, the PLA has steadily integrated more and more
psychological operations into its military planning. In 2011, the Chinese military
established a new psyops headquarters in Fujian province.
The headquarters location is no accident. Fujian is directly across the Taiwan Strait from
Taiwan, Chinas most bitter rival. The Chinese Communist Party in Beijing refuses to
acknowledge Taiwans independence from the mainland and has threatened to invade the
island country if the government in Taipei ever formally breaks away. The United States
is obligated by U.S. law to defend Taiwan from attack.
Locating the psyops base in Fujian puts it within radio broadcast range of Taiwan. Since
1958, the PLA has produced the regular Voice of the Strait propaganda radio program
targeting Taiwanese listeners. The new psyops plane could boost the radio propaganda
effortduring peacetime and war.
The addition of the Gaoxin-7 will greatly enhance and extend the reach of the PLAs
psyops activities against Taiwan, noted Aaron Jensen, a former U.S. Air Force airman
and academic who has written extensively about Taiwanese security issues.
The psyops Y-8GX7 first appeared in photos that circulated on Chinas firewalled Internet
in 2013. For the next three years, there was virtually no reporting on this version of the
Y-8GX7. And then on June 8, Twitter user @rajfortysevena self-described satellite
imagery expertspotted one of the psyops planes in commercial satellite imagery.
The Y-8GX7 that the Twitter user identified was parked at an airfield, presumably in
China. The psyops Y-8GX7 fleetthere are reportedly at least three of the aircraft in
existencebelong to the Chinese air forces 30th Electronic Countermeasures Regiment,
based near Shanghai, just 400 miles from Taipei.
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would probably play a major role in the fighting. The PLA would likely seek to
broadcast disinformation and propaganda across Taiwanese military networks, spreading
confusion and encouraging Taiwanese troops to desert or surrender, Jim Thomas, John
Stillion, and Iskander Rehman wrote in a 2014 report for the Center for Strategic and
Budgetary Assessments, a Washington, D.C., think tank.
PLA psychological operations might also be conducted by air, with the transmission of
media from the recently-fielded Gaoxin-7, Thomas, Stillion, and Rehman added.
Beyond Taiwan, the psyops Y-8GX7s could still prove useful to Beijing. China is locked in
an increasingly tenseand occasionally violentconflict with Vietnam, the Philippines,
Indonesia, and other neighboring countries over East and South China Sea islands that
two or more countries claim, and which could grant the clear owner legal access to
potentially billions of dollars, worth of fisheries, oil, and natural gas.
GET THE BEAST IN YOUR INBOX! In the last couple of years, Beijing has built
airfields on several of these disputed islands.
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With its medium-sized airframe, the
By clicking "Subscribe," you agree to have read the Gaoxin-7 could operate from some of the
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[Chinese]-controlled islands, Jensen wrote.
Broadcasting propaganda to, say,
Vietnamese or Philippine garrisons occupying other contested islands, the Y-8GX7 crews
could try to convince the troops to mutinyor at least wear down their morale and make
management of far-flung forces harder for rival governments.
The open question is whether Chinas aerial propaganda would actually work. The
American governments own experience is informative. While the military credits the
EC-130s for convinc[ing] Iraqi soldiers to surrender in the first Gulf War, the U.S.
Broadcasting Board of Governors spent $24 million and six years flying a propaganda
plane around Cuba.
The Cubans just jammed the signals.
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CHILLING 06.14.16 5:15 PM ET
Was Orlando Shooter Omar Mateen Inspired by This

Bank-Robbing Ex-Marine?
MICHAEL
DALY
He was the Blind Sheikhs personal bodyguard, son of prominent Brooklyn citizens,
from a strong military family. Authorities say he also radicalized and inspired men like
Omar Mateen.
The one Islamist who has been identified by a senior law enforcement source as a
radicalizing influence on mass murderer Omar Mateen is presently at liberty despite
having been convicted of murders of his own along with shooting three police officers
and wounding a fourth with a pipe bomb, as well as numerous robberies of banks and
3 of 8 6/15/2016 3:22 PM
post offices, possession of explosives, and hostage taking.

He is now known as Abu Taubah, but his legal name remains the one used in a Nov. 5,
2012 government memo that summarized his criminal history:
The defendant, MARCUS DWAYNE ROBERTSON, has been an extremist for many
years. In the early 1990s, the defendant was a leader of the Forty Thieves, which was a
group of Muslims who conducted numerous armed robberies of Government
installations and banks to generate funds that were used, among other things, to buy
weapons and explosives. As part of his crimes, the defendant murdered several
individuals; participated in assassination attempts; used pipe bombs, C-4, grenades,
other explosives, and automatic weapons; participated in a robbery resulting in a
hostage situation; and attempted the murder of police officers. Following the first Gulf
War, the Forty Thieves stockpiled weapons and explosives in preparation to fight
against the perceived threat of internment of Muslims by the United States. The
defendant served as personal protection for the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel-Rahman, and
personally gave over $300,000 of the stolen funds to mosques that the defendant
attended.
As he was subject not to Sharia, but to the American criminal justice system, Robertson
managed to secure what one former FBI agent termed the deal of the century. The
memo continues:
The defendant was arrested in 1991, testified for the prosecution, and served 4 years in
prison.
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ISIS Reportedly Claims Witnesses Say The Orlando Gunman Is The

Orlando Shooter As One Orlando Shooter Had Latest Mass Shooter To
Of Its Own Been To Pulse Nightclub Use An AR-15
Court papers filed by his attorney in 2015 report that Robertson is the son of two of
Brooklyns more prominent and respected citizens:
Robertson was born in the late 1960s to Clarence and Mable Robertson. Both of his
parents were educators and community leaders holding positions in government their
entire careers. His father is retired from the Brooklyn, New York District Attorneys
Office. He recently (April 18, 2015) was honored with the Outstanding Citizen Award by
Brooklyns Medgar Evers College where he had previously served as Vice-President. His
mother, Mable Robertson, retired as the long-time Principal of P.S. 399, also in
Brooklyn.
The papers describe an idyllic home life in Brooklyn with siblings as eminently
respectable as the parents:
Robertson grew up in a home where education and dedication to the community was
strongly encouraged. [Marcus Dwayne] Robertson, and all three of his siblings have
served in the Armed Forces. His oldest brother, Alonzo, served in Army intelligence, the
CIA, and then spent fifteen (15) years in the NSA. His brother, Malcolm, and his spouse
both served in Iraq. Finally his youngest brother, Martin, was in the military police with
the Army.
Marcus Dwayne Robertson had become a Muslim at 12, but he still seemed on much the
same path as his siblings in 1989.
4 of 8 6/15/2016 3:22 PM
his own behalf in a 2011 weapons and tax fraud case that came two decades after the deal
of the century.
He went on, When I got out of basic training, I became a member of what they called at
that time special ops, special operations capable or command. It was Second Force
Reconnaissance Company. It was a response to the Iran hostage thing. So we did
extremist hostage rescue or counter-terrorism.
He served in Japan and Okinawa before transferring over to the Marine Reserves and
returning to New York.
When I came back to New York, I started working security, that type of thing, he
recounted to the court. But thats when I got into a life of crime. I was arrested in 1991.
He had been indicted as a leading figure in the Forty Thieves by the U.S. Attorney in
Brooklyn as well as the Brooklyn District Attorney, where his father worked. He was
further charged by authorities in Pennsylvania.
One can only imagine the great distress of his parents and siblings. Their manifest
respectability may have made the government more amenable to offer him a deal.
I began cooperating with the government in 1991, and I pled, he reported in his 2012
testimony. I thought it would be beneficial. I pled guilty to zero to life in 1991 And I
didnt know what the sentence was going to be.
Robertsons security work included acting as a bodyguard for Omar Abdel-Rahman, the
blind radical sheikh who had come to America in 1990. Robertson must have become all
the more valuable an informant after the February 1993 bombing of the World Trade
Center. Rahman was later convicted of plotting to bomb various New York City
landmarks, including the Lincoln Tunnel.
I helped against different terrorist organizations that were in the communities at that
time, Robertson further testified on his own behalf in 2012. The tunnel bombing, a
number of those types of situations at that time.
The government expressed its gratitude when he was finally sentenced in 1994.
Time served, pretty much, Roberson recalled. Four years, the time served.
His home was torched and the U.S. Marshals were tipped that he was in danger. He and
his wife were enrolled in the Witness Protection Program and settled in Kansas with a
new identity.
I became a teacher at the I.S.K.C., Islamic School of Kansas City, Robertson testified.
Islamic law and Arabic sciences.
He had risen to dean after four years. He also became the Muslim chaplain at the federal
penitentiary in Leavenworth.
Through that, I met this other individual and we got married, he recalled.
Now with two wives, he moved to Oklahoma for a time, then traveled to Senegal and on
to Mauritania to further pursue his Islamic studies. He continued on to Egypt, with both
wives as well as the children he now had with each.
And we were all overseas in Egypt, he recounted. He continued his Islamic education
there. The institute for memorization of Quran, he said.
He also worked in the research department of a major Islamic book publisher.
They published books in English, and I Americanized those books, he said. That was
part of what I did there The other time, I was working with the government.
He further specified, The secret police there.
In a civil suit he would bring against the government in 2012, Robertson says that he
attended a meeting of Egyptian and American intelligence officials. He further says that
he was recruited to perform covert operations in places the American government had
no credible operatives.
Plaintiff worked as a covert operator for the FBI Terrorist Task Force from 2004 until
2007, performing operations in the United Sates and internationally with and against
suspected and known terrorist organizations, Robertson says in court papers.
5 of 8 6/15/2016 3:22 PM
when he moved back to the United States, according to court papers filed by his attorney,
served as a confidential source in domestic terrorism investigations from Atlanta to Los
Angeles.
His day job during his two years in Los Angeles was with City Hall. I worked for the
mayors office with a group called Unity II, and I was doing gang intervention, he
recounted. I was the case manager for the Bloods in Los Angeles.
He elaborated, I would collect the murders and the shootings and see if they were
gang-related, and work with the gang team for the police departments there, and I would
also help the young people. I would go to the different junior high schools and high
schools and talk to them about getting out of the gangs and find ways for them to get jobs
and talk to people, job owners, and prepare them to take job interviews.
He may have fallen afoul of his handlers, for he returned to New York, finding himself
homeless in his hometown, briefly living in a shelter. He testified that he then used his
own job skills and landed one with a company called D.F. King. Its a brokerage, a Wall
Street firm, he explained.
He worked there for roughly 18 months before founding a company of his own.
FIKS Fundamental Islamic Knowledge Seminary, he said. Its an online Islamic

college and we also show up in person and teach.
He added, I was the teacher. I taught classes and I ran the summer school for the
children In New York, you have a lot of children that come from war-torn countries and
are likewe call them mutants. So we take them on trips throughout New York City and
make them feel good about being Muslim and show them other Muslims who are working
within the society to show that they canthat they fit, too.
He testified that he came to have a following throughout the Muslim world.
We startedwe put online our videos and then people asked for websites. So we made a
website, he said. Then people started inviting me to give lectures in different countries
and we had approximately a following in about 23 different countries.
Sometime around 2009, a Florida businessman whom Robertson identifies as Tony Osias
called him and suggested he move FIKS to Orlando. Robertson agreed on the condition
the man supply him with two houses.
Because of my two wives, Robertson later explained in court.
The move was all the more appealing because he now also had 15 children.
You know, New York is cramped, he noted.
He settled with the family in Florida. He testified that his daily routine included a
morning martial arts workout with world kickboxing champion Michael Bell.
Ive been doing martial arts since I was, like, 8 years old, he testified. So I wanted the
opportunity to train with him. So I found him and I would get up in the morning time,
because he accepted me, and I would train with him for about an hour.
In late 2010, Robertson was joined in Orlando by a young man named Jonathan Jimenez,
whom he had been mentoring back in Brooklyn.
Mr. Jimenez, Ive known him since 9/11, Robertson testified.
Since 2001? his lawyer asked.
I say 9/11, Robertson said I forget the exact year Since the event on September 11th.
He was approximately about 15 years old.
Robertson continued, He resided in both garages of my homes Since I have more than
one wife, I would go from one home to the other every day.
One problem with polygamy in the United States arises when it comes time to file a tax
return. The IRS was not about to accept as dependent two wives and their respective
children. Robertson told the Florida businessman who brought him down there that he
needed a tax preparer who was flexible, but not of a particular ethnicity.
This may sound funny, I dont like to work with black people, Robertson later testified.
Because theres always some type of scam going on sometimes and I want the work done
6 of 8 6/15/2016 3:22 PM
Never mind that Robertson is black. The businessman said that he himself was a tax
preparer and prepare he allegedly did. A number of Robertsons children became
Jimenezs dependents.
Federal investigators say that Robertsons mentoring of Jimenez had come to include
another kind of preparation, this for terror training in Mauritania. Electronic
eavesdropping recorded Jimenez telling an informant how Robertson had tutored him in
various ways of killing and of Robertson wishing aloud that a huge tornado would wipe
out America.
May it destroy the land of the disbelievers, he says in one recording.
The former Marine and brother of soldiers speaks of the importance of killing American
service members.
Its obligatory if you see them and you can kill them and get way with it, Robertson
said to Jimenez, according to court papers.
In 2012, Robertson and his protg were arrested on terrorism and tax fraud charges.
Robertson was remanded and spent his time awaiting trial behind bars preparing a
handwritten lawsuit charging the government with defamation of the defendants
character for calling him a terrorist when, he claimed, he had only been doing its
bidding. The case was dismissed.
In the criminal proceedings, Jimenez pleaded guilty to lying to a federal agent in

connection with a case of international terrorism. He was sentenced to 10 years.
A search of one of Robertsons homes had produced a .45 caliber pistol and he also faced
weapons charges as he went to trial. He waived a jury and took the stand, recounting a
tale that left the judge in no doubt that he was guilty of tax fraud and the illegal
possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
But Robertson somehow managed to convince the judge to set aside the terrorism charge.
Robertson was sentenced to four years, the same penalty he ended up receiving back in
1991 for a crime that should have earned him the maximum of a zero to life term. He
again was freed after what was essentially time served.
One thing that did not come up in court is that the followers of FIKS came to include
Omar Mateen and that Robertsons teachings were what a senior law enforcement source
describes as virulently homophobic.
As the innocents who died at the scene still lay inside the Pulse nightclub, FBI agents took
Robertson in for questioning. He was soon after released because there was no legal
reason to hold him.
At last report, he was again at liberty.
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China Now Has a Flying Propaganda Machine - The Daily Beast http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/06/14/china-now-has-a-flyin...

READ THIS. list

2 Did Ex-Marine Inspire Orlando Killer?

3 Jaime Lannister Tells All

4 Prosthetic Arm Doubles as a Tattoo Gun

5 Blade Runner Destroyed Our Lives

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? 06.14.16 5:03 PM ET

China Now Has a Flying Propaganda Machine

EC-130swhich has its own nickname,

The Cubans just jammed the signals.

CHILLING 06.14.16 5:15 PM ET

Was Orlando Shooter Omar Mateen Inspired by This

post offices, possession of explosives, and hostage taking.

Flash plugin failed to load

ISIS Reportedly Claims Witnesses Say The Orlando Gunman Is The

He also worked in the research department of a major Islamic book publisher.

He further specified, The secret police there.

FIKS Fundamental Islamic Knowledge Seminary, he said. Its an online Islamic

He testified that he came to have a following throughout the Muslim world.

Because of my two wives, Robertson later explained in court.

You know, New York is cramped, he noted.

Mr. Jimenez, Ive known him since 9/11, Robertson testified.

Since 2001? his lawyer asked.

May it destroy the land of the disbelievers, he says in one recording.

In the criminal proceedings, Jimenez pleaded guilty to lying to a federal agent in

At last report, he was again at liberty.

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