The American occupation of Germany (1945-1949) stands as a model exercise in democratization by force. In fact, top figures in the Bush administration, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, have compared the American experiences in postwar Germany and postwar Iraq. This article examines American information control policy in Germany and Iraq (2003-2006). Comparative analysis indicates that the American information control policy was very different in the two cases. In Germany, the U.S. Army and the Office of Military Government U.S. (OMGUS) exerted rigorous control over the media to block Nazi propaganda and introduce the American political agenda of democratization. With the emergence of the cold war, OMGUS used all the avenues of mass communcation and cultural affairs-newspapers, journals, feature and documentary films, posters, and radio-to shape the content of information in the American zone and sector. In Iraq, coalition forces failed to exert a similar degree of information control. As a result of this strategic error, the insurgency and other civilian movements opposed to the American presence have been able to control information and spread anti-American messages.

The Israeli-Hezbollah War of 2006 provides recent, glaring evidence of how the current information environment has impacted the way warfare is conducted today. Hezbollah masterfully manipulated and controlled that environment to its advantage, using (at times staged and altered) photographs and videos to garner regional and worldwide support. If this doesn't sound new, it shouldn't...especially if you are an Israeli. Hamas effectively used the same techniques to turn the Battle of Jenin in April, 2002 into not only a strategic informational victory, but a historical legend of resistance that lives on today in the hearts and minds of Palestinians. The Israelis, having won total tactical victory in Jenin, literally snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by abrogating the information battlespace to Hamas.

Threats along America's borders have taken on a new and ominous character. In the past, United States customs and border officials were focused on relatively benign matters of enforcing laws surrounding trade and immigration, protecting agriculture and economic interests from pest and disease, and processing people, vehicles and cargo. 1 In the last three decades, however, these issues have been joined, and eclipsed, by growing apprehension surrounding matters of far greater concern than illegal immigrants in search of economic opportunities. The migration of gangs across the nation's borders and into our cities, organized criminal elements trafficking drugs and human beings into the United States, and the specter of terrorists and terrorist devices seeping through our borders to the north and south, all combine to contribute to a growing set of dangers to our people. Moreover, a compounded threat is emerging at the intersection of these concerns, wherein criminal and terrorist elements may unite toward the attainment of shared and separate goals. The combination of these elements elevates the potential disruption to our society beyond the responsibilities of law enforcement to matters of defense.