The Blogosphere for Killers: Tech-savvy terrorists use the Web for propaganda and incitement

From the Opinion Journal. H/T to the Jawa report:

The Blogosphere for Killers
Tech-savvy terrorists use the Web for propaganda and incitement.
BY DANIEL HENNINGER
Thursday, July 12, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

Living as we do now afloat the incoming and outgoing tides of media, perhaps the aborted London and Glasgow car bombings of a fortnight ago are worth another thought before these attempted mass murders drift away on the sea of bad memories. What about those doctors? The apparent complicity of U.K.-resident Muslim physicians in the attempted murder of innocent British civilians had many in the West asking why. The short answer is that these trained M.D.s somehow convinced themselves that these British people didn't deserve to live--that it would be morally good to kill them. That's insane. Why would they think that?

The best answer I have seen in a long time is found in a new study of Islamic media propaganda by a research team from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. "Iraqi Insurgent Media: The War of Images and Ideas" by Daniel Kimmage and Kathleen Ridolfo (with Radio Free Iraq correspondents, two of whom were abducted and murdered this year) is an astounding compilation of the high-tech methods being used by the insurgency in Iraq to propagate the ideology of the Islamic jihadist movement. This is the blogosphere for killers.

What I've never understood is why we let media outlets like Al-Jazeera (or CNN, for that matter) report the propaganda they do. First, why don't we simply knock out the capabilities of Al Jazeera? Didn't we do that in WWII (the last war we really won) to stop the Nazi propaganda machine?

The reach of insurgent and jihadist propaganda increases exponentially when it is picked up by Arab TV--Al-Jazeera, of course, or the Al-Rafidayn satellite channel in Cairo or even the Iraqi Al-Zawra, which claims to be operating from a satellite truck in Iraq.

In an interview this week, RFE's Mr. Kimmage said they have presented the media study to both the House and Senate intelligence committees and to government national security agencies. Reactions range from "wow" to "we already know all that." In any event, what would they do? This is propaganda on an unprecedented scale.

If you are a young Muslim male, even a doctor, with a PC in Egypt, the Gulf states, Somalia, Morocco or Glasgow, as always with the Web you are marinating your mind in its content, and the content here is homicide on a mass scale. The answer--technical or political--is not obvious to me. But the one unacceptable answer is doing nothing.

Indeed. Are you listening, Congress? How about you, Mr. Bush? Thank God for the blogosphere.

Read the entire article here.