Winning Middle Eastern Hearts and Minds

September, 2014

The State Department social media initiative designed to engage with ISIS terrorists and jihadist sympathizers is “embarrassing,” “ineffective” and “distressing,” the head of a prominent intelligence group wrote Tuesday in a scathing editorial.

The “Think Again Turn Away” campaign and Twitter account, launched by the State Department in December, in part, to dissuade on-the-fence jihadists from joining the fight against the West is actually serving to embolden and legitimize the social media presence of bloodthirsty terrorists already on the ground, Rita Katz, the director of the SITE Intelligence Group, wrote in a Time magazine article published online Tuesday.

[...]

The account regularly (engages) in petty disputes with fighters and supporters of groups like IS (also known as ISIS), Al Qaeda and Al Shabaab, and (argues) over who has killed more people while exchanging sarcastic quips.”

  NY Daily News

December, 2015

How do you convince the people of that region to like you when you’ve spent decades bombing, invading and droning them, arming and propping up the tyrants who suppress them, lavishing Israel with the weapons, money and UN cover used to occupy and brutalize Palestinians, and just generally treating their countries like your own private plaything for war and profit?

[...]

As a 2004 Rumsfeld-commissioned study about the causes of Terrorism put it: “Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom,’ but rather, they hate our policies;” in particular, “American direct intervention in the Muslim world,” our “one sided support in favor of Israel”; support for Islamic tyrannies in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia; and “the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.” As a result, trying to change Muslim perceptions of the U.S. without changing U.S. policies of imperialism and militarism is the ultimate act of futility.

  Glenn Greenwald

And yet, I keep having a niggling question in mind, aptly put by Mark Twain: are we being run "by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it?" Maybe its both. Maybe the people behind the power actually don't give a shit whether we are liked or hated, and they rely on useful idiots who actually think it matters to try to put an acceptable face on empire.

Last year, the State Department announced with great fanfare a new social media campaign to counter ISIS’ online messaging. They called it “Think Again, Turn Away,” and created Twitter and Facebook accounts in that name. Its self-described purpose on Facebook: “Our mission is to expose the facts about terrorists and their propaganda. Don’t be misled by those who break up families and destroy their true heritage.”

It was a massive comedic failure from the start. And that failure continues. Yesterday, Think Again, Turn Away’s Twitter account promoted and hailed someone they think will serve as an inspiring thought leader for Muslims around the world: [Ayaan Hirsi Ali].

[...]

Last year, [Ali] revealed her choice for who should win the Nobel Peace Prize: Benjamin Netanyahu; “he does what is best for the people of Israel, he does his duty,” she said.

[...]

Earlier this year, she told a gathering hosted by Israeli Consul General that she previously tried to convert to Judaism and hoped one day to try again. She has spouted some of the most virulent anti-Muslim bigotry, the worst of which may have been her 2007 interview with Reason, where she said she rejects the notion that “we” are at war only with radical Islam but instead are at war with Islam generally.

[...]

To combat ISIS’s message, the State Department is promoting someone who has articulated a bloody, vicious vision of global war against Islam that coincides perfectly with ISIS’s greatest dream.

So, sometimes (as when the White House Correspondents gala dinner event roasting George W Bush contracted Stephen Colbert to give the main presentation), these idiots are tone deaf and not so useful.

Or...once again, are they serious but inept, or are they intentionally making matters worse under the guise of attempting to make things better?

If the U.S. Government were actually serious about trying to change how it is perceived around the world, it would change its behavior that – as its own study found – causes massive anti-American sentiment around the world. In lieu of that, they continually attempt to propagandize people into changing their views, and the only thing remotely surprising about that choice is how remarkably inept they are at doing it.

I'm just not sure. The only thing I'm sure of is that it doesn't matter whether it's ineptitude or intention; we are all well and truly fucked.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.