back to article Wanted: Americans to join Al Qaeda

Al-Qaeda is getting better at using the Internet to tempt Americans into joining their cause. And that increases the threat of homegrown terrorism in the US, a Senate committee warned today. In a report, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, urged the Government to return fire with a co-ordinated …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    Every merkin's future

    will feature feature tightly controlled internet access for all, with only homeland security approved websites being accessable to the general population.

    I would use the joke icon, but I bet some IT illiterate senator from the Deep South is already drafting a bill.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Happy, and Sad.

    Happy that the internet has taken away so much of the old propaganda power governments had, sad that they still use all these fear tactics to take away our freedom. Bye bye net neutrality; I'll be moving to Canada when it dies.

  3. Steven Swenson
    Thumb Down

    Why us?

    Islamic fundamentalist terrorists hate us and want us dead. Why would they try to convince us to join them?

    Just more scare tactics from our government, ladies and gentlemen.

  4. kain preacher

    @Steven Swenson

    "Islamic fundamentalist terrorists hate us and want us dead. Why would they try to convince us to join them?"

    Why, its simple an person that's is fair skin and blue eyes fly's under a lot of peoples radar. Some one thats born in the US with no previous history of violence is the perfect patsy. Sure they hate us and what better way then to us one of us to kill us.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    @ Happy, and Sad.

    Go ahead and move to Canada. The actions on both sides of the problem represent fundamental human traits. Fundamentalism and over responses to it will develop in any civilization at some point. Perhaps in the future an island of rationality will move from place to place. The lucky will move to that place, the unlucky will not and the mediocre will sit at their computers and bellyache about how crappy their government is.

    Mine is the black pvc hooded nihilistic looking one.

    Cheers!

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    Net is recruiting what now?

    Sergeant, maybe?

  7. Steven Raith
    Coat

    Corrected...

    "By speaking directly to potential followers in the Blair and Brown cabinet, G W Bush and others are able to control their message, suppress dissent, and offer a hateful worldview that dictates, based on a perversion of the Christian faith, that violence is the only remedy to rectify perceived wrongs," the senators wrote.

    Childish, I know, but I couldn't help myself.

    Mine is the overly heavy one with the wires poking out - I'll be avoiding the tube today...

    Steven R

  8. Frank

    Meaning of Words

    "..the Islamic faith..", "..Islamist terrorists..", "..Muslim.."

    There are three different adjectives used here. Can anyone tell me what they mean, what the difference is between them and also, more particularly, what a US Senate Committee means when they use them?

    Language, it's funny isn't it?

  9. benito darder oliver

    US foreign politics are like an endless "shooting themself on the foot"

    Curious to se how totalitarian regimes don't like to see others use their tactics...

    Btw, it could be interesting to see how this ends... Like the zombies from Doom who attacked each other without reason?

  10. The Cube

    How long before this becomes part of the Republican campaign?

    I give it a week until some repugnant republican sympathiser tries to make this Obama's fault...

  11. H5N1
    Pirate

    What goes around, comes around.

    It seems that finally the US may be getting a little of what it dished out in the 70's to the south American countries and the coups that they supported.

    What this comes down to is economics. Google "Milton Freidman" and you'll see that his extreme ideas of a free market without regulation is what has caused the poverty of millions, starting with Chile and the other S American countries to Asia to Poland to Russia and now to Iraq.

    The difference is that Muslims are a tad more resilient than the rest of the world when it comes to change they don't want, and hence they are fighting back.

    Go for it extremists - stick it to them where it hurts, until the US's privatised war runs out of money, there won't be peace for them either.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Al-Qaeda is getting better at using the Internet

    Cooped up in a cave with nought but a flickering screen and truck loads of narcotics is obviously the prime software development environment.

  13. michael

    re:US foreign politics are like an endless "shooting themself on the foot"

    "Btw, it could be interesting to see how this ends... Like the zombies from Doom who attacked each other without reason?"

    the zombies on doom allways had a reasion to shoot each other tey only atacked eatch other if there friends hit them first

  14. Julian Bond
    Alert

    Posters

    We need posters. This is crying out for a cartoon picture of Osama pointing a finger with "Your Country Needs You" underneath it.

    Given the story about the DoD building a blogger misinformation team, are we sure that the groups apparently trying to recruit Americans are in fact Islamic Fundamentalists?

    This all gets more and more like The Execution Channel by the day.

  15. Daniel Wilkie

    Missing the Point

    Where's the link to the video? A Rapper brandishing the Koran in one hand and a gun in the other, it's Vanilla Ice all over again. You can't tease us with somethign like that then withhold the evidence, it's Friday!

    At least a Playmobil reconstruction... Perhaps in the style of Captain Dan and the Scurvy Crew's "Blackbeards Treasure"?

  16. Robert
    Pirate

    blah blah blah

    blah blah. same old shit. how can we use todays fear to gain tomorrow's control? The US gov't has NO business controlling the spread of an ideology. That's for the people to decide. We're always on the edge of McCarthyism as long as the gov't is trying to protect itself from its own people.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Under the sub-editor's knife

    "By speaking directly to potential followers in the United States, the U.S. Government and media are able to control their message, suppress dissent, and offer a hateful worldview that dictates that violence is the only remedy to rectify perceived wrongs," the senators wrote.

    Welcome to 1984.

  18. Wayland Sothcott

    The War On Subtitles

    Evils terrorists will stop at nothing. Subtitles are the latest threat to our freedoms and western way of life. Valnerable Americans could be radicalized through the use of Enlglish subtitles on terror videos.

  19. Simp
    Happy

    "Welcome to 1984."

    I have been thinking that we live in an ever increasing totalitarian regime for a long time now. We have ministries of government that go to causes completely different to their title and telling us what to do more and more.

    "Remember remember the fifth of Novemeber, gunpowder treasing and plot". Guy Fawkes wasn't just a story, it almost happened and represents a silenced voice acting. That's what happens when you take away a voice, someone can only act, and the only way we let a lot of people from around the world act to us is in hostile embrace.

    Open up your arms and smile! Say yes more and see the sun, it's Summer

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    re:blah blah blah

    as i recall second ammendment to the u.s. constitution gives citizens the right to bear arms. one reason the founding fathers did that is to make sure that government WAS afraid of the people in the first place....second is to make revolution legal when it happened due to oprresive and unfair government when majority of people become very irate with it and civil way of getting rid of it are gone.

    but to be honest i do not recall when exactly us became we the sheeple of united herd animals love our buthchers and fear mongers that cause us to be scared of world at large...

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "treasing"

    "Treason" perhaps?

    How can we have a revolution when no-one can even spell?

    Can you imagine this lot writing a new constitution as the dust of civil war is settling?

    It'd be barely bloody readable.

  22. Pete
    Thumb Up

    @JonB

    As long as you know the right words to shout at the top of your voice while storming the Bastille, no-one needs to spell during the actual revolution itself. And don't worry about the constitution afterwards - it will be written on a Wiki, changeable by all citiziens of the brave new world, and anal spelling types will just come along from time to time and clean it up.

    Aux armes, citoyens!

  23. Gordon Fecyk
    Go

    Dismantle the Internet for National Security reasons!!!!!1!111!

    Like, ZOMG, terrorists are using the Internet to recruit new members!

    The Internet was great while it lasted, folks, but it's clear that this American-created network is the greatest threat to American peace since the American invention of the Atomic Bomb.

    As patriotic Americans, I call upon you to disconnect your modems, cancel your America Online subscriptions, and turn back to the Glass Nipple of the 1970s. Dismantle the Internet one AOL user at a time, I say!

    It's time for all Americans to return to the halcyon days of the Transistor Age! I think our national motto should be, "What's wrong with a number two pencil?" Albert Einstien didn't need a Casio FX-115M scientific calculator, and neither do we! Do The Right Thing!

    (Credit where due: that last paragraph is a direct quote from Rob Rosenberger, Master Sargent, Retired, United States Air Force.)

  24. bambi

    Cut em off

    just cut off the US from 'The Internet' problem solved.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Don't worry about the constitution afterwards - it will be written on a Wiki

    Oh dear god. Not a Wiki!

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Hmmm....

    ....what's the pay like? Benefits?

    I wonder how long until those cheesy-ass "get your degree in 13 months" places start advertising it.

    Get your degree now, in

    -Legal Secretary

    -Computer Applications

    -Business

    -Auto Mechanic

    -Medical Transcriptionist

    -Terrorist cell leader

    Call now!

  27. Chris Hipp
    Alert

    Recruitment incentives?

    What's next? Signing bonuses and free college tuition?

    Jus' axin'. ;-)

  28. Treacle
    Pirate

    What's in it for me?

    Since I don't believe in the "27 virgins in heaven" thing, what is Al Q going to offer me to join their little club?

  29. Jeff
    Flame

    Here's your message...

    It's not a religious war.

    The U.S. was never there to attack Islam. There are millions of happy Muslims in the U.S. free from persecution unlike in most Muslim countries.

    How can there be a 'Jihad' without religion?

    'Religious leaders' are using this excuse to mobilize angry youths who aren't yet old enough or wise enough to understand what's really going on. Just pawns.

  30. Steve Mann

    @Treacle

    27?????

    It was 72 last year!

    Not only do they want us to join their f***ing gang so they don't actually have to do the dirty stuff themselves, they're planning on shortchanging us on the virgin front too.

    Bastards.

  31. Richard Welser

    Huh?

    What terrorists...... Oh, they mean the ones on Pennsylvania Avenue, the Pentagon and Langley.... by all means, cut them off from the internet.

  32. David
    Black Helicopters

    Wouldn't that read better as...

    "By speaking directly to potential followers in the United States, he US governent and others are able to control their message, suppress dissent, and offer a hateful worldview that dictates, based on a perversion of the Christian faith, that violence is the only remedy to rectify perceived wrongs."

    Like I've been saying.... Shrub plans to stay in power past the end of this year. And he'll seek to achieve that by making the US sheeple believe that postponing the election is necessary due to some "emergency" or other.. Eg war with Iran and/or further terrorist activity in the US.

    Abou time you yanks took up arms and removed your own "weapon of mass distruction". If bush doesn't leave office willingly when his time is up, force him out. Or face something that makes the Teleban look like a bunch of anarchists.

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lieberman again

    "During the 110th Congress, under the leadership of Chairman Joseph Lieberman (ID-CT), the Committee continued its investigation into the threat of domestic radicalization and homegrown terrorism inspired by violent Islamist ideology. The Committee has held five more hearings exploring a range of subjects, including an assessment of the homegrow"

    Lieberman, ever noticed it's the same voices talking up terrorism all the time.

    "The use of the Internet by violent Islamist extremists is constantly in flux, with websites appearing and disappearing regularly."

    So how do these propaganda websites find their audience if they appear and disappear regularly?

    "...For those who want to know more about violent Islamist ideology...."

    Ahh, so the terrorist seeking information on explosives find them, wait, how can that work if they're already been indoctrinated and seeking the info? Which came first the chicken or the egg?

    "Some material is produced by organized groups committed to advancing this ideology around the world, while other material is produced by self-starting individuals, who themselves may have “signed on” to the ideology’s virtual network. These self-appointed amplifiers of the violent Islamist message may not be part of a known terrorist organization, but they choose to advance the cause, not necessarily with guns but with propaganda."

    Yeh free speech is a bitch when you disagree with it. So lets do some of that free speech stuff.

    Lieberman is Israel's man, he votes always the best choice for Israel. He consistently talks up the threat from terrorism and often links it to Iran as the center of all evil, because Israel sees Iran as a threat to it's power and wants Iran bombed.

    Terrorism is the least of the USA's threats, the biggest threat to the USA's way of life is the collapsing $ courtesy of GWB's leadership abilities (he has a history of running companies into the ground with too much debt and getting his Saudi friends to bail him out). The right wingers talk up terrorism because it distracts from their antics with the money supply.

    IMHO, Terrorists are people without a viable future who feel dispossessed. They seek out a way forward with their lives and blowing stuff up is the path offered to them by Lieberman and his ilk. i.e. they are pissed off at the way America is heading, Lieberman says America should be afraid of AQ inspired home terrorist, hence they become home grown terrorists because that is what Lieberman et al say is the opposite of America. Terrorism is a *counter* culture, it's not about being part of something, it's about being *against* something.

    The people doing the steering here are the Liebermans & Ritas of the world. They define their enemy so that pissed off muslims can be steered to join that enemy. That in turn creates the big scary SPECTRE that they (Lieb et al) seek to bomb.

    The fix as ever is to take what they say with a pinch of salt, boot out GWB and his ilk, stabilize the $ so that prices don't keep shooting up, restore freedom of speech, so that everyone is brought back into the discussion table, and get your basic energy food and housing sorted so that poor people can see a viable happy future within the USA, oh and the justice thing, remember that?

    Shit happens, scrape Bush off your shoe and move on.

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