Pentagon spends HALF A BILLION US Taxpayer Dollars (allotted by Congress) in order to make fake online propaganda videos to track potential al-Qaeda recruits

[Roma_Victrix]

Pentagon paid PR firm $540 million for fake Al-Qaeda videos in secret Iraq propaganda



What will our government think of next? Something brilliant, no doubt. Instead of fixing crumbling infrastructure and foul drinking water in Flint, perhaps half a billion more could be spent on programs such as the following:

* 24-carat gold toilet seat lids for the US Congress and Library of Congress
* all-expense-paid vacations for every US Congressmen and Senator to Barbados for six contiguous weeks, an annual privilege over a ten-year period
* a giant Late-Antique-inspired statue of Obama (or his predecessor Bush) dressed as an Eastern Roman Emperor holding the Globus cruciger, to crown the sculptures of Mount Rushmore
* boot-camp-style DARE courses to teach children about the dangers of marijuana and its insidious effects on society, such as relieving your 81-year-old grandma's arthritis

These all sound about as sensible and useful as this fake propaganda video program. Seriously, they couldn't just hash together some cheap clips or use PRE-EXISTING ONES in order to track potential jihadis online?

[Surgeon]

* all-expense-paid vacations for every US Congressmen and Senator to Barbados for six contiguous weeks, an annual privilege over a ten-year period

I mean, if we can keep them away from writing new legislature...

Maybe it can be a one-way trip for all ten years

[Harith]

And here I am belittling Iraqis when they say Al Qaeda is a Zionist-American conspiracy

It really starts to make you lost your confidence in rationality.

Nuttiness aside, I'm sure it will be brushed off as one of those "keeping us safe" strategies like the NSA, NYPD jihadist recruiting efforts and surveillance of muslims

[ABH2]

I really get terrified of the people who have been close to or in government, but don't realize how incompetent it truly is. It takes, in my view, a baffling amount of cognitive dissonance to stay blind to it.

The people who want to give them more money and power at all times, or let them run healthcare even as they've shown they can't manage a far smaller system in the VA is appalling. Veterans are dying waiting for treatment while bureaucrats lie to collect bonuses at the same time that we have a real push for nationalized healthcare. Meanwhile, Obama's just over there thinking if only he could reform the DMV, Americans would love and trust government...

[bigdaddy1204]

This sounds like a joke. Unfortunately, I fear it may be true. That money could have been spent on literally ANYTHING and would have been better spent. At this point I am convinced that only a period of authoritarian rule by me, with full and absolute control over everything everywhere, could fix the world.

[Roma_Victrix]

All hail BigDaddy1204, Imperator Caesar of the World!

It's got a nice ring to it.

DMV, Americans would love and trust government.

LOL. Is the DMV more popular than the US Congress now? One must wonder.

[bigdaddy1204]

All hail BigDaddy1204, Imperator Caesar of the World!

It's got a nice ring to it.

Thank you, Roma Victrix. I hearby appoint you as Vice President of my new global government, and delegate to you the task of implementing sane (or insane, as you prefer ) policies around the globe. This is going to be fun.

[Basil II the B.S]

Americans CLEARLY can't afford healthcare and education, wasting money like this is more important.

DO NOT LET ANYONE TELL YOU AMERICA ISN'T GREAT

[IrishBlood]

I'm so jaded and desensitized to this kind of madness that when I read about it in the news I barely raised an eyebrow, nothing surprises me any more

So what exactly was this propaganda used for exactly? To drum up support for intervening in Iraq against ISIS?

[sumskilz]

So what exactly was this propaganda used for exactly? To drum up support for intervening in Iraq against ISIS?

Actually a lot of them were Islamist propaganda videos that were used to track Al-Qaeda sympathizers, because the videos installed spy software when the person watched them. They also did fake news stories to make Al-Qaeda look bad in the Arab media and created an anti-Al-Qaeda ad campaign aimed at Muslim viewers.

[Emperor Arcturus Mengsk]

This is like bombarding poor people with advertisements that thievery is great and noble and then follow them around until they commit one and arrest them.

Actually,

this is more like a cop pretending to be a prostitute in the US and offer herself to someone and then arrest them when they accept

Because in America, and only in America, prostitution is illegal, unless your friend Dave is in the corner holding a camera and then puts in on the internet.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjeq3NYUw2M

[Roma_Victrix]

This is like bombarding poor people with advertisements that thievery is great and noble and then follow them around until they commit one and arrest them.

Actually,

this is more like a cop pretending to be a prostitute in the US and offer herself to someone and then arrest them when they accept

Because in America, and only in America, prostitution is illegal, unless your friend Dave is in the corner holding a camera and then puts in on the internet.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjeq3NYUw2M

I really do love that stand-up routine. In either case, yeah, it is kind of like that, only way more serious, because we're talking about potential terrorists, not people looking to "bump uglies" with a hooker. In either case, the efforts outlined by Sumskilz, such as the fake ad campaigns, shouldn't have run the US taxpayer a whopping 540 million dollars. That is egregious and a perfect example of idiotic largesse.

[Emperor Arcturus Mengsk]

I really do love that stand-up routine. In either case, yeah, it is kind of like that, only way more serious, because we're talking about potential terrorists, not people looking to "bump uglies" with a hooker. In either case, the efforts outlined by Sumskilz, such as the fake ad campaigns, shouldn't have run the US taxpayer a whopping 540 million dollars. That is egregious and a perfect example of idiotic largesse.

Understandably the US is worried about terrorism, but wouldn't that mean that if I lived there and watched that video just to see what it is, then I would have spyware installed on my computer and be on a watch list, and then if I come to TWC and say something funny about terrorism I would be bagged in the street and driven off to a secret facility???

I know it's difficult to fight the shadow system of terrorism recruitment without being shadowy yourself but I'm personally not sure if it's worth it for everyone to be watched for it.

I'm split!

Like the hero Snowden said () "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say,"

[Roma_Victrix]

Like the hero Snowden said () "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say,"

Ouch! That is a good one...even if he is living in Putinland.

[sumskilz]

In either case, the efforts outlined by Sumskilz, such as the fake ad campaigns, shouldn't have run the US taxpayer a whopping 540 million dollars. That is egregious and a perfect example of idiotic largesse.

You know it gets expensive when you're spending money on pro-Jihadist propaganda to track potential terrorists and then you have to spend money to make anti-Jihadist propaganda to counter the pro-Jihadist propaganda you've been distributing. Obviously they couldn't have done the first part of the plan with bootlegged real Jihadist propaganda, because that would have no doubt been a violation of international copyright law.

[Love Mountain]

They spent money to make propaganda. Great.

[tgoodenow]

In related news,

The federal government spends $1.5 billion annually on public relations -- $1 billion on PR and advertising contracts, and another $500 million on salaries for 5,000 federal PR employees, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The government also spent 1.5 billion more on more propaganda.

[JCdestr0yer]

Wait 540 million dollars on a videos. Jesus it's not like there are other more important things to spend that money on. Even still that amount any of us here could make a video and it would not cost that much.

[Emperor Arcturus Mengsk]

Perhaps if they distributed the money to all the poor muslims that might join al-Qaeda it would prevent more terrorism than baiting people into joining to arrest them later! ?????

[sumskilz]

Perhaps if they distributed the money to all the poor muslims that might join al-Qaeda it would prevent more terrorism

Evidently not if their appeal is anything like their successors...

Recruits into the Islamic State terror group are better educated than their average countrymen, contrary to popular belief, according to a new World Bank study.

Moreover, those offering to become suicide bombers ranked on average in the more educated group, said the newly released study Wednesday titled “Economic and Social Inclusion to Prevent Violent Extremism”...

Almost without exception, fighters joining IS’s Syria and Iraq-based forces had several more years of education in their home countries — whether in Europe, North Africa or elsewhere in the Middle East — than the average citizen.

The data shows clearly, the report said, that “poverty is not a driver of radicalization into violent extremism.”

Isil recruits better educated than their average countryman, World Bank study finds

Although they did find a correlation with unemployment rates among the educated and country of origin, kind of a weak link in my opinion, but still jobs may do the trick better than cash.