November 20, 2009

Laughable: Only 50 al Qaedaish Arabic Websites
Believable: Over 200 English Language al Qaedaish Websites

It's very self serving for the Saudis to claim that, thanks to their efforts, there are only 50 or so websites which openly support al Qaeda. The number is completely bogus. Sure, many of the large websites have been shut down -- most famously the al-Ekhlaas forum, al Qaeda's semi-official online meeting place -- but there are a lot of smaller websites popping up all the time.

Now the number 200 for the same types of websites, but in English, seems much more believable:

The number of English-language sites sympathetic to al-Qaida has risen from about 30 seven years ago to more than 200 recently, said Abdulmanam Almushawah, head of a Saudi government program called Assakeena, which works to combat militant Islamic Web sites.

In contrast, Arabic-language radical sites have dropped to around 50, down from 1,000 seven years ago, because of efforts by governments around the world to shut them down, he said.

It's disturbing how after atrocities like Fort Hood happen how interest in these websites becomes intense. Give it another three months of talking heads claiming that there's really nothing that can be done for all of this interest to go away.

I understand the argument that some of these websites are valuable intelligence assets, and I am sympathetic to it. The major caveat, of course, is the word some.

However, the argument that nothing can be done since this is the internet and therefore can't be controlled or that nothing should be done on the grounds of free speech are both rather pathetic.

The latter because it is morally repugnant: one can kill our enemies but not suppress their speech?

The former because it is simply not true.

We have over hundred thousand troops at risk in Iraq and Afghanistan, many of them engaged in missions with low value. With a few hundred men we could eliminate 99% of the online jihad. The other 1% could be left up to gather intel. Just keep the Justice Department out of it and we're halfway to victory.

By Rusty Shackleford, Ph.D. at 11:26 AM | |