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Islamic State's Bloody Message Machine
(Washington Post) Walter Pincus - The Islamic State may practice medieval barbarism in Syria and Iraq, but its worldwide media operations are 21st century. It's active on social media, it has pamphlets, weekly illustrated magazines, billboards, T-shirts, baseball hats and even propaganda offices in Syria and Iraq. Its recent output of videos has been prodigious. The three professionally staged beheadings of two American journalists and a British aid worker shocked the world. Whatever their original purpose, they instead generated U.S. public demand for immediate action against the Islamic State and greater international support for President Obama's decision to expand the bombing to Syria. In a Sept. 21 speech, the Islamic State's chief spokesman, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, says Americans "will pay the price as you walk on your streets, turning right and left, fearing the Muslims. You will not feel secure even in your bedrooms. You will pay the price when this crusade of yours collapses and thereafter we will strike you in your homeland."