U.S. uses Yemeni Web sites to counter al-Qaeda propaganda
By Karen DeYoung and Ellen Nakashima
State Department officials recently carried out a counter-propaganda campaign on Web sites being used by al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen, challenging the group’s anti-American rhetoric with information about civilians killed in terrorist strikes, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday.
When al-Qaeda recruitment propaganda appeared on tribal sites in Yemen, Clinton said, “within 48 hours, our team plastered the same sites with altered versions . . . that showed the toll al-Qaeda attacks have taken on the Yemeni people.”
Yemen unrest: Violence in Yemen has repeatedly erupted between government and opposition forces, as well as between the government and al-Qaeda.
In a speech to the Special Operations Command in Tampa, Clinton cited the campaign as an example of growing counterterrorism cooperation among the State Department, the intelligence community and the military.
She said that State Department experts also are working with Special Operations Forces on the ground in Central Africa, helping to encourage defections in the Lord’s Resistance Army, led by Joseph Kony.
As the U.S. military has expanded its operations into areas formerly reserved for diplomats, Clinton has been an advocate for expanding her department’s reach, with civilian-military operations she calls “smart power.”
“We need Special Operations Forces who are as comfortable drinking tea with tribal leaders as raiding a terrorist compound,” she said. “We also need diplomats and development experts who are up to the job of being your partners.”
She added: “We can tell our efforts are starting to have an impact” in Yemen, where the group al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is based, “because extremists are publicly venting their frustration and asking supporters not to believe everything they read on the Internet.”
Clinton said the campaign was conducted by the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications, based at the State Department, with expertise drawn from the military and the intelligence community.
The State Department’s activities are the latest in online counterterrorism efforts to stem the spread of radical Islamist ideology that stretch back at least a decade.
The U.S. Central Command has a digital engagement team that monitors blogs and forums, targeting those that are moderate in tone and engaging with users, said Maj. David Nevers, former chief of the team.
“We try to concentrate our energy and efforts . . . [on] those who haven’t been radicalized. The idea is to go where the conversation is taking place, using . . . extremist commentary or propaganda as a jumping-off point to people who are listening in,” Nevers said in an interview earlier this year.
Said Evan Kohlmann, an international terrorism consultant who tracks jihadist Web sites: “The fact is that al-Qaeda engages in tactics and ideologies that are by their nature exceptionally divisive and controversial. Highlighting that does a tremendous amount of damage to al-Qaeda’s image, to its recruitment campaigns and its effort to launch renewed attacks.”
But Kohlmann questioned the effectiveness of the tactic.
“Is publicizing this stuff on tribal forums reaching a wide enough audience to make a difference?” he said. “If you’re already living in Yemen and in a tribal area, you probably don’t need to go to a Web site to join al-Qaeda.”
But my issue is with the behavior of the US trying to do one thing one place, something else somewhere else, and then claiming something entirely different back home.
Clinton not to long ago was carrying the banner of open and free democratic internet message to China, coupled with human rights. China as you know is pretty rough on dissenters to their style of government.
So how is these actions different than that of China? China does the same thing with those dissents that have fled the country. They go after them, monitoring the internet, hacking the web to find out info, pretty much the same thing the US is doing here, strictly against it's own laws. What it makes the US and this is really starting to show in the world diplomatic circles is a major hypocrite. That's right, world wide diplomats from other countries no longer trust the US to do what it says it will do nor trust it to enforce and stand behind those ideas it expresses to be what it stands for.
To understand this, all you have to do is start looking at the actions of the US. Sweden got diplomatic as well as trade pressures to act against TPB. Wikileaks uncovered tons of just such same actions against other countries, in particular Spain.
My point here is that the US is saying one thing and doing exactly the opposite. At home you are hearing all the drum beats of cyber-security being such an issue. Why would they think that unless it was as a retaliation for just such actions as this article outlines.
The real security if you must have one and are fearful of it, is to remove internet coupled sensors and monitors and there can be no hacking. So that reasoning is just an excuse for something else. That something else is for big pay for big corporations or more corporate welfare.
Sorry but I do not buy it is ok to hack a website in a foreign country if it drives fears of retaliation of the same back home as a result of that meddling. I find it additionally hypocritical that the US is willing to put hackers into jail here in the US for attempting to get into military networks while at the same time supporting hacking of other websites.