Hyping The Terrorist Internet: The "You Name It" Problem

As most readers know, I have a healthy respect for the dangers of terrorist use of the Internet. But at the same time, I think U.S. media and policymakers tend to oversell the impact and uniqueness of how Al Qaeda and its admirers and adherents use the Web.

While reading Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America's Secret Campaign Against Al Qaeda it occurred to me that this is the "You Name It" Problem.

"General Abizaid was the Centcom commander and he essentially felt like we were losing daily, not just the broader battle of ideas, but we were losing the war in Iraq and Afghanistan because the way the terrorists dominate in either putting out beheadings or you just name it," said a counterterrorism official involved in the discussions.

A paragraph or two later, Abaizaid is quoted directly:

Yet when you looked at the enemy, the enemy was moving in the cyberspace world in a way that allowed them to recruit, train, organize, equip, proselytize, educate -- you name it! -- conduct intelligence operations.

"Recruit, train, organize, equip, proselytize, educate -- you name it! -- conduct intelligence operations" is actually just "recruit, train, equip and conduct intelligence operations" when you remove redundancies. Serious, yes, but a shorter list.

Meanwhile, the phrase "you name it" is designed to invoke all manner of mysterious goings-on that we are encouraged not to actually name, so that they can remain mysterious.

The vast majority of work and activity taking place on extremist forums is the same activity that extremist networks engage in offline. The Internet is a magnifier and accelerator, as it is in other aspects of life, but it has not, for the most part, fundamentally changed the work of extremism.

Some things are easier, like exposing people to various sorts of training manuals in dangerous techniques. Other things are harder, like ensuring that recruits are actually competent to perform dangerous techniques. Inspire magazine is a terrorist magazine just like dozens of its predecessors. It's not something fundamentally new, it's just being distributed more efficiently and at lower cost.

We need to be concerned about the ways that Internet use expands the reach and speed of terrorist organizations, but we also need to stay grounded, understand the basics and describe them in clear and concrete ways.

During a recent conversation about the Internet as a "driver" of radical activities, I pointed out that terrorists used printed newsletters and magazines before there was an Internet. Yet no one talks about the role of paper in driving extremist activities.

The Internet is an important tool, but it's just a tool. We should be talking about WHAT extremists are doing online, rather than marveling at the fact they are doing it ONLINE.

For more about Internet radicalization, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: CVE, Domestic-Extremism, Internet, Jihadist-Forums, Radicalization

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Finding A Way Forward For CVE

I recently came across an interesting discussion on an extremist Internet forum about a particular brand of ideology and whether it had outlived its usefulness. The discussion continued for more than 130 pages (when rendered as a PDF), and it was a fascinating look at how extremist ideologies can decay and even collapse.

As I've said before, I am not a fan of the idea of government policies for Countering Violent Extremism (CVE). But I recognize the desire for such strategies and approaches, and I continue to think about the issue in an effort to find ways to contribute something positive rather than complain from the sidelines.

With this recent example in mind, I went back and revisited the Obama administration's new "strategy" for fighting violent extremism. I found myself thinking about goals and end states for counterradicalization programs. Part of the problem I have with the President's plan and others I have encountered has to do with their goals.

WRONG CVE GOALS

1. Make good citizens
2. Instill values
3. Create community or government partners
4. Actively address or remove grievances
5. Change underlying beliefs

I outlined most of my objections to these goals in a previous post and one before that. The short version is that I think it's devilishly difficult to tell people how to think, especially when those people are already suspicious of you. The goals above smack of social engineering and manipulation. Manipulation is what the bad guys do. It shouldn't be what we do, even if it was likely to work, which it's not.

That doesn't mean we have to sit idly by and ignore centers of radicalization, such as online forums, groups within communities, or within formal terrorist and extremist networks here and abroad. We just need goals that are more realistic and that reflect what actually happens when people abandon violent extremism. To that end, I suggest that we want would-be violent extremists to arrive at the following end-states:

RIGHT GOALS – The Five Ds

1. Discouraged
2. Disillusioned
3. Divided
4. Doubt-filled
5. Directionless

Discouraged means that would-be extremists believe they cannot achieve the goal of promoting or institutionalizing their ideology. Most -- but not all -- people will be reluctant to take action if they believe that action is pointless or purely symbolic.

Disillusioned means that they have lost faith in specific leaders and co-ideologists whom would-be extremists see as failing to live up to the ideals they espouse. It's important to keep in mind that while violent ideologies seem negative to those of us on the outside looking in, adherents seem themselves as idealists and utopians. A disillusioned idealist creates powerful negative energy within a community.

Divided is an obviously desirable trait. The more disagreement and paranoia fester within a group of people, the less capable that group is of collective action. There are multiple lines of disagreement that can be opened and aggravated by strategic government policies and disruptive psychological operations.

Doubt is one of the most powerful emotions we can experience as humans, and it saps the will to take dramatic or extreme action. Doubt can apply very broadly within extremist communities -- it can mean doubt about particular elements of the ideology, doubts about co-ideologists' sincerity or intelligence, doubts about the pragmatism of the movement's goals, or doubts about the safety of forums in which extremist conversations are held. Doubt is an element of the first three goals, and can also be a goal unto itself. The important thing to remember is that there is great utility in planting seeds of doubt that deter action, as opposed to trying to uproot an entire existing worldview and replace it with a new one.

Directionlessness is the final piece of the puzzle. Even if extremists manage to overcome the first four Ds to  remain committed and unified, differences over strategic direction can render them paralyzed. This is a particularly tricky area for government to meddle in -- namely because there is always a risk of pushing individuals or the collective into a specific direction. I suspect it is better to look at directionlessness as a barometer for success rather than as a tactical goal.

Aside from the considerations I have written about previously, this approach has a couple of specific advantages. All other considerations aside, it's simply easier to destroy than it is to create. And most CVE discussions are about creating positive communities by targeting people who have not yet been radicalized rather than disrupting extremist communities as they exist.

Perhaps more importantly, the Five Ds approach is not exclusive to Muslim radicalization. For all that people talk about not singling Muslims out for corrective actions, the fact is that the President's CVE prescription and most others I have encountered target Muslims very specifically and call for tactics of engagement which cannot realistically be applied to, say, white supremacists or pedophiliac religious cults.

Remember that online conversation I mentioned at the top, the one that got me thinking about this again? It was found on a white supremacist forum. Disruption has the potential to work with any kind of extremism, and it's essential that any CVE policy we undertake be flexible enough to deal with threats from all quarters.

For more about radicalization and American jihadists, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: CVE, Domestic-Extremism, Radicalization

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

White House Strategy On Violent Extremism: Full Of Sound And Muted Fury

The first thing that leaps out at you when you read the strategy to "prevent violent extremism" rolled out by the White House yesterday is the extraordinarily high ratio of words to ideas. In a document with only eight pages of text, one finds very little content.

There are very few action verbs to be found, and absolutely no research cited in support of the documents many underlying assumptions.

The concept of fighting the radicalization of Americans at the "idea" level has grabbed Washington by the throat, and there is precious little prospect that it will loosen its grip any time soon. At virtually every level of government, people and teams have been tasked to battling radicalization.

The White House document reflects much of the conversation about radicalization inside the Beltway. Everyone urgently believes that something has to be done, but no one is quite sure exactly what. And the current bipartisan philosophy of American government emphasizes immediate action over considered strategy in any given situation.

What little remains after deleting the torrent of unfocused rumination runs into many of the problems I have previously identified with counter-radicalization at the government level. To its credit, the White House strategy document acknowledges several of these issues. Unfortunately, its response is to soldier on anyway.

There are a handful of basic proposals here.

One section calls for "Enhancing Federal Engagement with and Support to Local Communities that May be Targeted by Violent Extremists. "Targeted" here means "targeted for recruitment," which should have been clearer. This section makes no mention of the word "Muslim," which was a deliberate but misleading choice by the White House which I will address later on.

Under this heading, the White House lays out a very broad range of possible problems in communities which should be addressed under the theory that they somehow contribute to radicalization. These include "jobs, education, health, and civil rights."

There is no evidence that the first three factors substantially contribute to radicalization. If I am understanding the document correctly, the idea is that engaging at-risk communities with these services is important because it means those communities are not ONLY interacting with the government as the subject of investigations. In other words, the federal government should be Nurturing Mother, in addition to its roles as Disciplinarian Father and Watchful Big Brother.

Another section calls for "building expertise" in preventing violent extremism. I would be interested to know who has such expertise, because there aren't many successful initiatives in this space to which one can point. The bright spot in this section is the following sentence:

Misinformation about the threat and dynamics of radicalization to violence can harm our security by sending local stakeholders in the wrong direction and unnecessarily creating tensions with potential community partners. We also are working to support and expand community oriented policing efforts by our state, local, and tribal partners, and to assist them in enhancing cultural proficiency and other foundations for effective community engagement

That is jargonese for "no more Walid Shoebats and Robert Spencers training law enforcement," which is a good, if obvious, move.

Under the heading "Countering Violent Extremist Propaganda While Promoting Our Ideals," the White House puts forth a fairly confused set of principles which don't seem to move the needle much. Again, the obvious point is the most successful here -- continuing to communicate through government messaging that the U.S. is not at war with Islam. Of course, that theme has been a constant element of our messaging for a decade now, and yet it still finds plenty of traction for reasons that are the subject of another analysis on another day.

Promises to focus on communicating "clearly about al-Qa’ida’s destructive and bankrupt ideology" presume that government understands this ideology well and how it contributes to violence by extremists, which is a pretty questionable presumption.

Under the guiding principles, a series of bold-face statements really begin to get into the weeds of concepts that don't work and/or are likely to become political hot potatoes. For instance, there is an assertion (expanding on the element noted above) that providing social services to communities can help prevent radicalization. Ask Norway how that approach is working out for them. And I repeat, there is absolutely no hard evidence to suggest jobs, health care or education are statistically significant factors in radicalization. What studies do exist suggest just the opposite -- that these issues have no meaningful impact on the problem.

The principles also touch on the question of civil liberties and civil rights. Unlike the aforementioned, there is some support for this as a factor in radicalization based on what radicals tell us in their own words. I explore this more fully in my book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam. Unfortunately, this issue isn't as cut and dried as one might hope. Civil rights are sometimes part of the fabric of what leads someone to violence, but not always, and how radicals perceive their civil rights in America does not always correspond to the reality of their civil rights. This is also a topic for more detailed discussion another day.

The guiding principles end with some uplifting talk about what should not be considered part of the violent extremism paradigm. The statements as formulated are correct (i.e., opposing U.S. policy doesn't make you a violent extremist), but they also smack of artificial limitations on how we should talk about this issue, which are probably not helpful. While opposing U.S. policies doesn't make you a violent extremist, most violent extremists do oppose U.S. policy, so it's not exactly a non-issue here.

All of these points are orbiting a central problem with the approach outlined in the White House strategy, which is that it is focused on the poorly defined problem of "violent extremism" rather than the clearly defined problem of "violence by extremists."

While it might appealing to fight the "ism" as the perceived source of the "ist," we're talking (to some extent) about the same distinction the Obama Administration made between a war on terrorism and a war against terrorists. The administration chose the "ist" over the "ism" in that calculation, and the same general principle applies here.

Stopping those who attempt to commit violence is an achievable goal. Stopping the ideas that fuel violence is not. If Al Qaeda's ideology is "bankrupt," it will collapse in the free market of ideas and become even more isolated on the fringes of society than it already is.

Our role as a society is to hold the line responsibly until that collapse in complete and avoid playing the role of "enemy of Islam" that Al Qaeda has written out for us.

On that front, a final note: The White House sought to stress that the principles in this document are not focused primarily on Muslims but can be applied to all sorts of violent extremism. I am hard-pressed to see how this strategy of engagement and community relations could be applied to white supremacists or the sovereign citizen movement. And Al Qaeda ideology is the only ideology discussed in the report.

The report explicitly states that efforts to fight extremism should not isolate communities as targets of government scrutiny. If that's really the goal, the White House should try to produce a product in this space that isn't transparently targeting Muslim extremism above all else.

Or even better, they can make the credible, non-religious, non-bigoted case for why Al Qaeda-related extremism deserves a special focus compared to other forms of extremism (primarily their emphasis on mass casualty attacks).

Make the case and be blunt about it. There's more than a whiff of hypocrisy in this document, and that smell easily ruins the bouquet.

For more about the radicalization of Americans, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: Counterterrorism, CVE, Domestic-Extremism, President-Obama, Radicalization, White-House

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Napolitano Has Got To Go

I don't like to get into politics on this site, but Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano appeared on CNN's "The Situation Room" this evening and blew my mind. Host Suzanne Malveauz asked a direct and fairly simple question: How did she prioritize the threat of domestic extremism vs. Al Qaeda extremism vs. Other?

MALVEAUX: What is the biggest threat now facing Americans?

Is it from a domestic attack, is it from local groups or is it from foreign groups like Al Qaeda?

NAPOLITANO: You know, I don't have the luxury of ranking those things.

Remember the outrage after the underwear bombing incident, when she claimed "the system worked"? This statement makes that one look brilliant. I was willing to hold my tongue last time, hoping it was a gaffe rather than an indicator of incompetence. But if DHS can't prioritize terrorist threats, then we're in big trouble.

Obviously, someone in the federal government is deciding how to allocate resources for homeland security, and that person had better be making that decision based on the priority of the threat. But that person is supposed to be the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

Answering "What is the biggest threat?" is the JOB DESCRIPTION of the DHS chief. Anyone who can't mount a sensible response should not be filling one of the most important jobs in this country.

Napolitano has got to go.

Here's the rest of the exchange. Note that Malveaux can't quite believe the answer either, although she was too polite. Regular host Wolf Blitzer would have been better in this "situation."

NAPOLITANO (continued): We have to lean forward and be prepared for both, that it could be an international terrorist or a domestic terrorist. It could be someone who is a -- a U.S. citizen who now has been trained in an international camp and come back.

All of those things are phenomenon that are currently happening in the United States. All of them are things that, you know, we are constantly working, as I said, to -- to minimize the risk that they could actually go from those kind of extremist and violent extremist beliefs into violent action.

MALVEAUX: But certainly, Madam Secretary, there's a way of measuring which -- which organization, which group, which individual is -- is most prepared and perhaps the most potentially threatening to the United States?

NAPOLITANO: Well, I -- I'm not sure. I think that's a -- you know, I think that's a question the media might ask.

I'm not sure that's quite the way that law enforcement would respond. Because if we are attacked internationally, it doesn't give any comfort if I say, yes, well, internationally, it was ranked number two or -- or the reverse.

Labels: Al-Qaeda, Analysis, DHS, Domestic-Extremism, Janet-Napolitano, Weblog

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink