Throwing bad money after worse money — our money, of course. My latest in PJ Media:
Even in its final months, the Obama administration continues to pour taxpayer money into its disastrous projects designed to “counter violent extremism.” The projects have failed, and were foredoomed to fail because of the administration’s policy of denying and ignoring the enemy’s motivating ideology.
The New York Times reported Thursday:
[T]he Obama administration has revamped a program designed to lure foreign fighters away from extremist groups like the Islamic State, focusing on a series of new advertisements and social media posts that seek to appeal to emotion rather than logic.
Emotion, logic, whatever. No such approach can work as long as the administration refuses to admit what inspires Muslims to join jihad groups in the first place.
This latest bout of wishful thinking and fantasy-based policymaking comes at a high cost to the taxpayer:
Money for the program, which is managed by the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, tripled this year, to $16 million, after administration officials concluded that past efforts that had attempted to scare potential militants away from the extremist groups were not working.
At least the government correctly concluded that, indeed, the programs were not working:
[M]ultiple reboots have shown how hard it has been for these programs to find traction. … [R]ecent attacks in Turkey, Iraq, France and Bangladesh seemed to show extremism has been spreading.
But this time, the Times assures us, it’s going to be different:
The new initiatives have been tailored to keep the United States government’s involvement as low-key — and in some cases, as secretive — as possible, because overt American backing for some projects had turned off the exact group of disaffected young men that the campaign is trying to reach.
So the State Department finally realized that Muslims who hate America will not be dissuaded via appeals from … America?
Baby steps! Still — not going to work. The Times reports:
“[T]hese new efforts include using Facebook videos, Instagram ads and other social media that have been designed to convince young men and women that joining the militants’ fight means breaking their mothers’ hearts, tearing apart their families and leaving their loved ones to lives of emptiness.”
So the latest plan from the Obama administration rests on this assumption: A young man who thinks he is serving Allah in a cause commanded by the supreme being — and who thinks that being killed will secure a place in Paradise for himself and (in accord with statements attributed to Muhammad) for his family — will be dissuaded by realizing his mother might miss him.
The State Department is forbidden, as a matter of policy, from studying or understanding the jihadi worldview. They instead operate under the assumption that Muslims aspiring to jihad have the same basic values and priorities of modern secular Westerners. This assumption is, at best, unproven.
This Keystone Kops myopia is longstanding. The Times writes:
[P]ast efforts from the administration had sought to frighten potential jihadists with warnings that waging war against the West would get them killed, but officials concluded that the warnings actually served the opposite purpose of glorifying militancy.
The willful blindness necessary to believe that jihadis — who repeatedly avow that they “love death” — could be dissuaded from jihad in any significant numbers by fear of death is breathtaking. It epitomizes how wrongheaded the administration’s approach has been from the beginning.
Even the Times acknowledges this about the initiative, while citing unnamed “critics”:
[The initiative] was unlikely to have done anything to dissuade young people from joining either Al Qaeda or the Islamic State.
However, while the New York Times admits that the administration’s program to dissuade jihadis has thus far been completely ineffective, it has no idea why.
In reality, all possible versions of this program are doomed to failure because they manifest no understanding whatsoever of the jihadis’ worldview, beliefs, assumptions, motives, and goals. None of this is surprising, since the Obama administration has forbidden the examination and discussion of all of that.
Take, for example, one image that the State Department published on Twitter. It says:
Women under ISIS are enslaved, battered, beaten, humiliated, flogged.
Obviously this would deter someone from becoming a jihadi only if he already thought it was terrible for women to be enslaved, battered, beaten, humiliated, and flogged.
The State Department wonks who came up with this weren’t allowed to learn from the Qur’an. So they obviously don’t know that the Qur’an mandates the enslavement of infidel women (4:3; 4:24; 23:1-6; 33:50; 70:30) and the beating of disobedient women (4:34).
A Muslim who knows that is unlikely to be troubled by the prospect of the Islamic State beating or enslaving women.
The Times adds:
On Sept. 11, 2014, for example, an Al Qaeda leader posted on Twitter that ‘on this day, in 2001, the USA’s largest economic shrine, the idol of capitalism was brought to the ground.’ The State Department quickly responded on Twitter by posting a photo of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State leader, wearing a Rolex watch: “Nobody’s a bigger fan of the fruits of capitalism than so-called #ISIS Caliph.”
This, too, was myopic: from an Islamic standpoint, the Rolex was not a sign of hypocrisy, since Islam does not have the reverence for asceticism that Christianity has. Rather, it was a sign that Allah had blessed the caliph, since blessings are promised to the pious in both this world and the next – and those blessings specifically include the spoils of war against non-Muslims…
Read the rest here.

Angemon says
Almost as if they have no clue about the ideology behind ISIS or something…
panda says
Interesting, and realistic post, Angemon.
Let’s look a bit at the gang at Foggy Bottom from a speculative way:
1. They (and Obama and friends) are incredibly stupid. No, they are not. Every time I read about some guy calling Obama an idiot I cringe — he and his minions are NOT idiots — they are highly skilled manipulators.
2. They are clueless about islamic theology. The underlings, perhaps. The higher-ups in the bureaucracy — not so, they just don’t want to believe it. The really higher-ups, the enforcers, are well aware of the sword of islam — they are just ostriches burying their heads in the sand and doing what they are told. The Nuremberg defense all over again.
3. The real higher-ups? One-world order proponents who understand the ills of islam and actually think they can control it to their advantage. These are the doctrinal authors who collude with evil as they ARE evil.
The nation has got to wake up. I’d say that the odds of that happening are 1 in 10 at best …
Peter says
Clearly, the Obama administration continues to do everything it can to defy reality. Maybe it will reap some of the consequences of its stupidity and delusions before it leaves office, even if at our expense.
Jay Boo says
“I want a government that will destroy our schools, stifle the economy with low paying service sector jobs, put the UN in charge of foreign policy, give safe have to terrorists, raise taxes to pay interest on massive deficits incurred from “buying” Democratic votes, pander to Islamo-facist enemies and actively promote racial strife and cop killings”
But President Obama, that is treasonous.
You belong in jail beside Head-bump Hillary and John Kerry.
Ready, Aim, — (You’re fired)
linnte says
If I can read in Qur’an the commands to Jihad, so could the State Department. Our Muslim President is deliberately making fools out of Government employees and the American people.
JIMJFOX says
You’ve got it. ‘Truth is the new hate speech’ [P Geller]
and as such is… VERBOTEN!!
خَليفة says
Looks like the plan is simple – divert money so that it CANNOT be used in more useful ways to help Americans or increase the security of Americans. Which begs the question, where are these funds actually going? Are they being used for “ransom” or jizya payments? Or just lining pockets?
This is the very definition of crazy – doing the same thing again and expecting a different result.
I can see Kerry as a crazy Doctor trying to save the life of a wonder soldier,
Kerry: “We will have to remove his leg to save his life. Okay, that didn’t go as well as expected. Nurse, what is the patient’s status?”
Nurse:”He is still dying.”
Kerry: “Looks like we need to cut something else off. Nurse, prepare the head for removal.”
Jay Boo says
Using the State Department’s past behavior as a guide, they will likely hand out AK47’s and ammo to wanabee jihadis at a live fire Demo to show that guns are bad.
John Billings says
I would like to share something from my personal FB page. This is for all the leftists who think that pro-freedom people like us are “bigots”.
I just had this excellent fantasy, first time in decades that I have fantasized about saving a woman in distress. In my fantasy, three white thugs were attacking and molesting a young woman wearing a headbag.
I ran toward the scene, simultaneously pulling out my Mace brand spray. I shouted, “Stop! Back off!” but they were inflamed with lust and anger, and kept at the woman. I went right up to them, and tried to pull one away. Then he and his fellow thugs turned on me.
I let them all have short bursts of Mace in the face, and they all started wiping their eyes and choking. I pushed them aside, and asked the woman if she was all right. She nodded, yes.
Then one of the thugs tried to get at me again, so I kicked him hard in the groin, and he went down. The woman was crying now from shock, so I told her I would call the police. I called 911 and requested an ambulance because that thug I kicked did not look so well. Damn! that feels good.
Guest says
And here’s another fun fact: we have to pay for it with our tax dollars.
common sense says
I can’t help myself on a Friday when I need a laugh especially when chronically wrong Kerry is involved.
“Islam and the west are absolutely interchangeable” – this message brought to you by the fools of the dept of dhimmitude.
gravenimage says
Robert Spencer, PJM: State Dept Triples Budget of Failed Program to Dissuade Jihadis
……………….
Yep…that’s the ticket…
steve says
Why is Stan Laurel in charge anyway…?