The Propaganda War

In what I sincerely hope is a seminal essay, Dr. Rusty Shackelford of The Jawa Report lays out in detail why we are losing the propaganda war against global jihad. In a word, Internet; and our reluctance to "censor" our enemies by shutting down terrorist websites.

But Dr. Shackelford has a new twist on an old concept to win the fight: privateers.

If hackers are our modern pirates, why not turn their mischief to the common good? A hacker is bad when they shut down my site. A hacker is good when they shut down the site of the enemies of the United States. Given the proper reward structure and immunity from prosecution, hackers could turn their skills toward winning this war.

I'll go Rusty one better. Don't shut the sites down. Turn them. Take them over and post our own propaganda on them, while allowing potential jihadis to think that the original site owners are still speaking.