Why Do They Film Us?

Part of the Obama administration defense of downplaying jihadi terror attacks--on top of arguing they aren't an "existential threat" to America--seems to be that we don't want to give their actions unnecessary publicity by visibly reacting to the attacks. This argument had a point in the 1980s, but is no longer a valid concern.

Consider that the purpose of Islamist terror attacks isn't only to terrorize us into submission or to kill Infidels (which includes the majority of Moslems, too, truth be told) who won't submit to their vision of how Islam should be defined.

One purpose of terror attacks is to mobilize Moslems to support and join the jihad. And for this purpose our media coverage does not matter.

Sure, in the pre-Internet era, you needed Western media coverage to get the scenes of bloodshed out to the Moslem world so they can see what their glorious jihadis are doing in their name.

Today, the jihadis just film or produce media imagery themselves--even filming their own bombers and gunmen in action or in martyrdom videos--to publicize their killing sprees without needing the Western media to do the job for them. Put on the Internet, the videos reach their target audience directly without the middle men of Western media.

So now, reacting to the terror attacks doesn't play into terrorist motives as long as our reaction is one of resolve to defeat and kill the jihadis--to the ends of the Earth and without letting up until the job is done.

That kind of public reaction will bolster the resolve of Westerners to fight the jihad and defend Western civilization.

Jihadis use their media branches to fight the war and mobilize their resources to win. Why can't we do the same?