Fight Al-Qaeda with satire, ridicule: researchers

AFP via Yahoo! News ^ | April 17, 2010 | Michel Moutot

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Satire and ridicule can help win the fight against Al-Qaeda by stripping it of its glamour and mystique, a team of researchers argue in a report released in London and in comments to AFP.

Beating the Islamist movement is as much about winning the battle of ideas and undermining Al-Qaeda's counter-culture cachet as it is about conventional anti-terrorism operations, said the report.

"Terrorism must be defeated through the deliberate 'toxification' of the al-Qaeda brand; not by making it seem dangerous, but by exposing it as dumb," Jamie Bartlett, one of the report's authors, told AFP.

"Al-Qaeda has to be ridiculed as the equivalent of a middle-aged dad at a school disco: enthusiastic, incompetent and excruciatingly uncool."

[Oldeconomybuyer]

[Darkwolf377]

Yeah, they really seem like the type to change their behavior due to biting satire.

[Darkwolf377]

"Al-Qaeda has to be ridiculed as the equivalent of a middle-aged dad at a school disco: enthusiastic, incompetent and excruciatingly uncool."

I really wanna slap this person.

[FES0844]

If CARTOONS are banned, how can ya fight it?

[FreedomPoster]

That’s the first thing that came to my mind.

[Big Mack]

Sort of like what the Obummers ans the state run media are doing with the TEA Party movement here in this country.

[pieceofthepuzzle]

“Al-Qaeda has to be ridiculed as the equivalent of a middle-aged dad at a school disco: enthusiastic, incompetent and excruciatingly uncool.”

I’m sure militant tribal members in Afghanistan who think having multiple teenage wives is normal and that cutting off someones head is proper punishment, and blowing themselves up is serving God will really worry about being characterized as ‘uncool’.

[cripplecreek]

Ridicule can be a very effective tool. They obviously don't like it much when we laugh at cartoons about Mohamhead.

Jeff Dunham's Achmed the dead terrorist is a great example of the way it should be treated. I also think we should be constantly reminding the islamderthals that we haven't seen Bin Laden for several years now and if he were a real man he would show himself every so often. Did he get a sex change or something, or is he shacking up with a goat?

[FES0844]

The author who suggests this should publish a comic book & see if that works!!

[Clink]

SILENCE. I keel you!

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Bottom line: Kill them with harsh language.

[newfreep]

Liberals/Socialists are soooo stupid!

This is akin to taking a knife to a gun fight. Such maroons!

[gogogodzilla]

No, but it’ll most likely affect their pool of potential recruits, aka teenagers. The last thing any teenager anywhere wants to do is associate with anything “uncool”.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Someone needs to apply the same logic to the Che brand.

[Russ]

Reminds me of the scene in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" where they are trying to storm the French castle and the French (Jihn Cleese) are fighting back with insults and epithets. That skit pointed out the absurdity of fighting an enemy with sarcasm and ridicule.

The best way to fight them is with bullets. Keep killing them in numbers and the recruit pool will soon dry up.

[LibLieSlayer]

NO... I’d rather we just exterminate them.

LLS

[LibLieSlayer]

“Nuke ‘em from orbit man... it’s the only way”

LLS

[KarlInOhio]

Reminds me of the scene in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" where they are trying to storm the French castle and the French (Jihn Cleese) are fighting back with insults and epithets. That skit pointed out the absurdity of fighting an enemy with sarcasm and ridicule.

From a description of the Piranha brothers in Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Vercotti: Doug (takes a drink) I was terrified of him. Everyone was terrified of Doug. I've seen grown men pull their own heads off rather than see Doug. Even Dinsdale was frightened of Doug.

Interviewer: What did he do?

Vercotti: He used sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and satire.

Presenter: (voice over) By a combination of violence and sarcasm, the Piranha brothers by February 1966 controlled London and the South East.

I have suggested (like anyone listens to me) similar stuff before. I thought, however, that the best way is to make sure that some "moderate" mullahs are well funded to get their voice out. Make sure they always have enough money to publish books and release CDs or now web videos. Get them to tell the world that suicide bombing is the path to hell instead of to paradise. Of course, they would be ruined if they were seen as being attached to the CIA so it could never be told to any organization which would announce it publicly to our detriment like al Jazeera or Congress.

[McGruff]

Fight Al-Qaeda with satire, ridicule: researchers

[PowderMonkey]

Bring in the clowns! Throw S.C.A.T. (Special Comedy and Tactics).