Another sign of al Qaeda’s limits on soft power

OP-ED: “Fight Terror With YouTube: Why Al Qaeda can’t make the leap to the more interactive web,” by Daniel Kimmage, New York Times, 26 June 2008, p. A23.

Like an authoritarian entity, al Qaeda wants its walled-garden when it comes to the web: environments and messages it can control.

That gets harder over time for al Qaeda in theory, and yet the Internet restrictions imposed by authoritarian Middle East governments plays into its hands, so says this RFE/RL analyst.

His answer? Push connectivity and let the P2P generation sort it out on its own:

There is a simple lesson here: unfettered access to a free Internet is not merely a goal to which we should aspire on principle, but also a very practical means of countering Al Qaeda. As users increasingly make themselves heard, the ensuing chaos will not be to everyone’s liking, but it may shake the online edifice of Al Qaeda’s totalitarian ideology.

Connectivity is the cause for the friction, but also the force that ultimately wins.

Comments

[Dan]

not sure if I agree with you and Kimmage on this one, in effect saying that all states should "let the intellectual market sort this one out on their own and everything will be fine." Have you seen the videos in question, from Chechnya to Iraq? They are not subtle and not all amateurish. Bloody ambushes against Russian and American troops, some quite professionally done (the video I mean, not just the fighting), interspersed with quotes/clips from Bush and of course the obligatory close-ups of dead Muslim babies, all of which make the case for glorification of the violent jihad against the crusader - and globilization. Quite effective. I bet they're confident about their ability to make their case in an open forum.

Better than the alternative, though, of the state trying to suppress it - ineffective since they're available as DVDs at any bazaar in the region. Trying and failing to suppress in an open forum takes away from the state's legitimacy in the eyes of the fence-sitters.