In the meantime, ISIL is pushing toward Baghdad, at the same time flooding social media with updates and spreading its message with corporate sophistication. As a radicalized jihadist army, they have advanced on the ground in Syria and Iraq and invaded microblogging sites, conducting psychological warfare via social media techies posting a near-constant stream of updates and photos of extortion, murder, and rape. Similarly, they have attracted legitimate companies to advertise and sell products online on ISIL’s websites, mainly because the violent material posted has attracted millions of visitors. From a public relations stand point, they are utilizing social media to present a good side, with personal family stories of their fighters and their personal lives, which draws followers and sympathizers in the Muslim world and the West. At the same time, they portray valiant stories of bravery and heroism among their fighters, which attract the attention of young fanboys from around the world, including the U.S. The group is on the cutting edge in displaying how influential social media technologies can be in the hands of extremists. Various reports indicate that ISIL has recruited individuals from throughout Europe, with up to an estimated 7,000 maintaining passports from across the European continent. Last week alone, over 40 suspected ISIL and Nusra (aka al-Qaeda in Syria) fighters were arrested in Kosovo. The ISIL fighter holding Mr. Foley in the Twitter video on Tuesday is suspected of being a Brit. Recently a British rap artist traveled to Syria to join ISIL and was photographed holding the severed head of an ISIL victim. Additionally, as many as 400 with U.S. passports, whose whereabouts are currently unknown, may have joined the ISIL jihad. We have already seen a young man from Florida recruited to ISIL and trained as a suicide bomber in Syria. An online video showed him describing his intent and disdain for America. Later, his suicide attack was prominently filmed and presented on numerous ISIL and other jihadist websites. Just this past week ISIL made in-roads in Ferguson, Missouri, to call for ISIL sympathizers to join in the violent disruptions. Another major concern is the potential for ISIL to establish small cells in Europe and subsequently the U.S. for the purpose of creating panic and mayhem by via small-scale attacks similar to the situation during the Boston Marathon – or perhaps of reproducing Foleys ordeal on American soil. For ISIL, there is no concern as to whether individual actors are confronted or caught. Since Barack Obamas 2009 Cairo speech, the battle in the Middle East has been essentially relegated to drones and air strikes. Competent national security and military strategists and strategically focused practitioners of radically focused Islamic-based terrorism will tell you that drones and or air strikes are not a strategy, but rather merely operational tools employed for tactical and operational military effects. Just as armored warfare was just one operational arrow in our overall strategic quiver against Hitler in WWII, the strategy in the clash with radical Islamic terrorism has to be against the ideology that promotes and sustains it. On Tuesday, the parents of Daniel Pearl, the American beheaded by al-Qaeda in February 2002, closed a note of sympathy and support to James Foley’s parents as follows: “[T]he civilized world needs to take more seriously the growing threat of terrorism and the ideology that breeds it.” Until a competent and coherent national security strategy and policy against the radical ideology of Islam – be it ISIL, Hamas, Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah – is formulated, we will continue to face the wrath of Islamic terror. If this state of affairs is allowed to continue, we may well be the ones defeated. Read more: americanthinker/2014/08/isil_sends_a_message_to_america_.html#ixzz3BQ2WosZP Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook
Posted on: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 15:42:53 +0000
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