The Hidden War

The Hidden War

The internet is a wonderful thing, it has to be, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this right now. Every day millions of people log on to check their email, read the news, look at sport scores, and buy stuff on eBay.

Most people know that there is a seamy side to the internet as well. We know from countless media reports and public service announcements that child predators have made the internet their stalking ground. There is something, however, going on on the internet that you may not have ever even heard of.

Jihad.

While you're logging on to read KFAB.com every day, thousands, if not millions, of radical Muslims are flocking to Islamist "news" sites, forums, and blogs. One thing that was overlooked in the coverage surrounding the release of Osama bin Laden's videos on the 9/11 anniversary was the fact that it wasn't released to the media. It wasn't given to Al-Jazeerah, al-AP, or al-Reuters. It was posted to an internet forum.

I've visited some of these websites, and the people who frequent them are fed a daily diet of "Death to America and Israel." Suicide bombers are glorified, the death of innocents celebrated, and video of terrorist attacks on Coalition troops are treated like manna from Heaven. The internet is also being used to recruit, empower, and yes, actually train future terrorists.

It gets worse. Some of these websites, which are run by terrorist organizations like the Taliban, Al Qaeda in Iraq, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, are hosted by companies right here in the

United States. To be fair, most of these companies don't even know what is being uploaded to the servers they've sold space on. Sadly, some either don't care or won't do anything about it under the guise of "free speech." Unfortunately for them it's a violation of Federal law to do business with State Department designated terrorist organizations.

Luckily some people are noticing. Two websites of prime importance monitor these sites and work to get them removed. One is Internet Haganah, and the other is The Jawa Report. When they get information about an American company hosting a terrorist site, they post the information for their readers, who then help contact the company in question. Jawa currently has three examples up now, go here, here, and here.

Another front in this hidden internet battle is the popular video hosting site YouTube. Sure, it's a great place to catch 8,000 variations of Numa Numa Kid, or watch "Revolution of Dance" for the hundredth time, but it's also being used to disseminate terrorist propaganda. Do a simple search for words like "jihad" or "martyr" and you'll get a plethora of terrorist made videos.

There's also a well-organized cadre of hard-core Islamist terror supporters that search for videos that they think are insulting. If they find one that even gives a whiff of countering their message, they flag the video as "inappropriate" and get the YouTube poster banned.

Can you do anything about it? Sure you can. Visit the sites linked above regularly, and complain to the American companies when they're found to be hosting terrorist propaganda. If you're a YouTube regular, and you have a login, search out jihadi propaganda and flag it as inappropriate. Keep flagging it until it disappears.

Our military is valiantly fighting radical Islam around the globe. Everywhere the enemy tries to make a stand, our brave men and women pound them into the dust. It's the least we can do to fight these fanatics where they think they're safe, right here on our American-invented internet.