There is a good article today in the Wall Street Journal [ In a Shift, Islamic State Tries to Show It Can Govern] about the messaging of ISIS, best known for its burning a pilot alive video and beheadings of almost anyone who isn't following their radical ideas. The article quotes Charlie Winter, Quilliam Foundation in London, who analyzed videos and shows some interesting results. The kind of messaging that made them famous in every television and Internet video, has dropped to 2% of the total, replaced by "What a nice place we live in" kinds of videos. They have finally discovered what Al Qaeda figured out years ago, that mass casualty videos may get them money in the short run, but it isn't sustainable. It turns off more people than it recruits. They also are finding out that people would rather leave areas they rule, than stick around to be governed by people who commit such acts. They are not very popular outside their own circles.
We should remember that thousands have come to fight with them after viewing the worst of their propaganda. They are attracting the kind of people they want to use to fight, and killing is a part of that. Recruiting people to kill others gets you a particular class of recruits. This is the kind that would normally be found in prisons, or under treatment for mental illness because they kill for no good reason. When lots of those kinds of folks start showing up in your country, they are not good at stopping their behavior when a battle is won. Having them move in next door is even more troublesome. They settle disputes differently than a normal population. In the long run, they don't make good neighbors and they don't make good leaders.
This is a long term problem that will not go away because they change their messaging. It is a plague they deserve. It keeps them looking over their shoulder at something other than drones or air strikes.
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