Foreword by Clare Lopez, Former CIA (See below), Frequent SUA Contributer:
We would first have to educate and train a U.S. IC cadre to actually understand Islam and Islamic Jihad & Shari’a the way the enemy understands and manipulates our psyche and society. We haven’t the capability or the mentality to do psy ops anymore, because we’ve allowed the enemy’s psy ops to defeat us. [We have] not even [been] allowed to call it either Psy Ops or an enemy, or Islamic Jihad anymore. How [do we] formulate a strategy to victory when we don’t even admit there’s an existential war in the first place?
by Marc Ambinder
As the U.S. struggles to manage its efforts to influence opinion about Al Qaeda abroad, Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula has produced its first English-language propaganda magazine.
It’s called “Inspire,” and you can read parts of it below. A U.S. official confirmed that the pages correspond to the version its open-source collectors had obtained.
“Inspire” includes a “message to the people of Yemen” directly transcribed from Ayman Al-Zawahari, Al Qaeda’s second in command, a message from Osama Bin Laden on “how to save the earth,” and the cover includes a quotation from Anwar Al-Awlaki, the American born cleric who is believed to be directly connected to the attempt to destroy an airplane over Detroit by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on Christmas Day. (The director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Michael Leiter, made that disclosure at a security forum in Aspen, CO, Fox News reported.)
The table of contents teases an interview with the leader of AQAP who promises to “answer various questions pertaining to the jihad in the Arabian Peninsula.” It includes a feature about how to “make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom.”
AQAP’s first effort to post the magazine to jihadist websites failed Wednesday, as many of the pages were contaminated with a virus. (I half seriously believe that U.S. cyber warriors might have had a hand in that little surprise.)
The U.S. is quite worried about Al Qaeda’s new publishing ambitions, which mark a more sophisticated effort to engage the English-language world and to recruit English-speaking Muslims to join the cause.
The copy was obtained from a private researcher. AQAP had advertised for days that the magazine would appear with the interviews specified in the table of contents. It is possible, although not likely, that the magazine is a fabrication, a production of a Western intelligence agency that wants to undermine Al Qaeda by eroding confidence in its production and distribution networks. The U.S. is engaged in direct net-based warfare with jihadis; this sort of operation would not be too difficult to pull off.
Since I am not completely certain that the clean PDF doesn’t contain a hidden virus, I’ve elected not to post it just yet.
About the author:
Marc Ambinder is the politics editor for The Atlantic, where he curates the influential Politics channel on TheAtlantic.com and contributes to the magazine. He is also a contributing editor to National Journal and chief political consultant to CBS News.
At the Hotline, Ambinder was the founding editor of “Hotline On Call,” a pathbreaking political news blog. He also worked as a producer and reporter for the ABC News Political Unit and was one of the founders of ABC’s “The Note.”
In 2009, he was part of the team was awarded the Columbia University School of Journalism’s Dupont Silver Baton for Katie Couric’s interview with Sarah Palin. At ABC News, his work included Emmy-nominated research for “This Week.” The Politics site has been nominated for a Webby and has won several national awards, including the Golden Dot from George Washington University’s Democracy Online project.
He covers politics, policy, national security and science.
Born in New York City, raised in Central Florida, he’s a 2001 graduate of Harvard and lives in Washington, D.C.
About Clare Lopez
Clare M. Lopez is a strategic policy and intelligence expert with a focus on Middle East, homeland security, national defense, and counterterrorism issues. Lopez began her career as an operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), serving domestically and abroad for 20 years in a variety of assignments, acquiring extensive expertise in counterintelligence, counternarcotics, and counterproliferation issues with a career regional focus on the former Soviet Union, Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. She has served in or visited over two dozen nations worldwide, speaks several languages, including Spanish, Bulgarian, French, German, and Russian, and currently is studying Farsi.
The goal is to stop al-Qaeda's etc. intention to fight the USA. This is a holy war; the end will only come when we want our God in charge of our nation and stop trying to impose our anti-God ways on other nations. We cannot continue to ignore God's warnings.
God is against nations joining together for protection, provision and control etc.; He frustrates, confuses and destroys their plans (G-20, UN, EU, NATO, Quartet) (Psalm 1 and 2, II Chronicles 16:7-12; 20:35-37; Leviticus 26, Isaiah 8:9-14; 30:1-7)
Our government and world leaders including UN have been repeatedly warned throughout the wars and rumors of wars that God is against nations joining; and they have been repeatedly warned that this is a holy war and can only be won when we want God's wisdom to rule.
Leviticus 26 is God's promise HE will send terror and 4 x 7 curses UNTIL WE turn to Him in truth. This must be our military strategy:
Twitter: Email Pres Obama “I want Ten Commandments, as written Exodus 20, as nation’s standard; I will not work, buy or sell on 7th day Sabbath.”
Divine-Way