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From Wikipedia: > Raymond Ibrahim, as a researcher at the Library of Congress, found a significant difference between Al Qaeda's messages in English directed t

From Wikipedia: > Raymond Ibrahim, as a researcher at the Library of Congress, found a significant difference between Al Qaeda's messages in English directed to a Western audience and al Qaeda's Arab messages and documents directed to an Islamic audience. The Western-directed messages listed grievances as grounds for retaliation employing the "language of 'reciprocity.'" Literature for Islamic audiences contained theological motivations bereft of references to the acts of Western nations.[55][56] But people will trip over themselves to swallow literal propaganda. The underlying assumptions is also highly racist: "Americans view them as terrorists, but the Muslim world views them as freedom fighters!" No, Al-Qaeda supporters view them as freedom fighters. Surely people know that Bin Laden doesn't represent every Muslim, and that most of the Muslim world didn't support the 9/11 attacks?

rootusrootus 3y ago
We have a similar problem today with Christianity. Who is a evangelical/Christian nationalist that wants a theocratic government, and who is a normal American who believes in our fundamental principles and respects individual freedom but happens to have Christian faith themselves?
throw310822 3y ago
> But people will trip over themselves to swallow literal propaganda. And which do you think is propaganda, the religious discourse to the Muslim public, or the grievances discourse to the Western public?
megous 3y ago
And what's propaganda about adapting your presentation to the target audience? Just in general? If I live under occupation, I don't need to constantly remind it to the locals. They get reminded each time they get randomly sent back at a checkpoint and miss work or cancer treatment, because the checkpoint occupant is frustrated today, or whatever. Western audience, which has no concept of day to day abuses, however, may need a different message. (just an example)
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  If you are inconsistent in your stated motivations, it means you are a liar and your statements are suspect.
  - megous 3y ago
    So what's the inconsistency? The english text of letter to americans is full of religious shortcommings of US (He's basically complaining in oh so many words that the US is not governed under religious islamic law)
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      There is no problem if things are consistent. Im saying it is a problem if the "presentation" is adapted to have inconsistent or contradictory messages based on the target audience. Surely you would agree that is an indication of propaganda, opposed to a true statement of belief. Once you agree that, then the question is if different Al-Qaeda statements are consistent across different audiences. The US letter answers(Q1) "Why are we fighting and opposing you?" Bin Laden gives about 30 reasons, none of which have to do with the religion of the US. Q2) "what do we want from you?" is a mixed bag of religious and political demands. I primarily addressing your question: >what's propaganda about adapting your presentation to the target audience? Just in general? My answer was it becomes a problem IF you are contradictory.
      - megous 3y ago
        No movement or religion is internally consistent in its full set of ideas. Especially religions. You'd have to have a movement that is really single mindedly focused on one thing and very fundamentalist, to be able to limit the inconsistencies, to have some consistent baseline of ideas and goals. Whether something is propaganda or not has more to do with the methods and goals, and scale of the communication effort. Like a sustained effort to influence masses of people to do something or change their thinking via a onesided communication, a communication that does not even acknowledge that some opposing ideas exist and actively suppresses them. If it does acknowledge them, it presents them as carricature in order to reject them. It plays into pre-existing biases and weaponizes them, etc. Yes, inconsistency may or may not indicate propaganda, depending on how big it is, and if there are attempts to hide it, or not acknowledge and discuss it if someone raises the questions. For example, recently I added a comment under this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0163ne8AQO4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0163ne8AQO4 simply stating the fact that this is the old covenant from more than 30 years ago, and there are newer communications that update/contradict it, and linked to the new updated thing https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full It was an only comment with actual sourced argument and was deleted almost immediately. So this 50 million USD campaign to spread the "truth" is definitely propaganda. Mass marketed, manipulative, and censuring rational discussion and information that may take away from it's goal of influecing the masses to justify continuing the current war, and avoiding ceasefire/peace. (and the campaign is named "for peace", at that, lol, very Orwellian) One, fairly obscure letter does not propaganda make. It's more like a manifesto, or whatnot. But yes, if al-qaeda had a sustained campaign specially targetted at western audience, to make it look different from what it's like to locals, to achieve some goals that would benefit the group, then sure, I'd call that propaganda.

rootusrootus 3y ago

We have a similar problem today with Christianity. Who is a evangelical/Christian nationalist that wants a theocratic government, and who is a normal American who believes in our fundamental principles and respects individual freedom but happens to have Christian faith themselves?

throw310822 3y ago

> But people will trip over themselves to swallow literal propaganda. And which do you think is propaganda, the religious discourse to the Muslim public, or the grievances discourse to the Western public?

megous 3y ago

And what's propaganda about adapting your presentation to the target audience? Just in general? If I live under occupation, I don't need to constantly remind it to the locals. They get reminded each time they get randomly sent back at a checkpoint and miss work or cancer treatment, because the checkpoint occupant is frustrated today, or whatever. Western audience, which has no concept of day to day abuses, however, may need a different message. (just an example)

s1artibartfast 3y ago
If you are inconsistent in your stated motivations, it means you are a liar and your statements are suspect.
- megous 3y ago
  So what's the inconsistency? The english text of letter to americans is full of religious shortcommings of US (He's basically complaining in oh so many words that the US is not governed under religious islamic law)
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    There is no problem if things are consistent. Im saying it is a problem if the "presentation" is adapted to have inconsistent or contradictory messages based on the target audience. Surely you would agree that is an indication of propaganda, opposed to a true statement of belief. Once you agree that, then the question is if different Al-Qaeda statements are consistent across different audiences. The US letter answers(Q1) "Why are we fighting and opposing you?" Bin Laden gives about 30 reasons, none of which have to do with the religion of the US. Q2) "what do we want from you?" is a mixed bag of religious and political demands. I primarily addressing your question: >what's propaganda about adapting your presentation to the target audience? Just in general? My answer was it becomes a problem IF you are contradictory.
    - megous 3y ago
      No movement or religion is internally consistent in its full set of ideas. Especially religions. You'd have to have a movement that is really single mindedly focused on one thing and very fundamentalist, to be able to limit the inconsistencies, to have some consistent baseline of ideas and goals. Whether something is propaganda or not has more to do with the methods and goals, and scale of the communication effort. Like a sustained effort to influence masses of people to do something or change their thinking via a onesided communication, a communication that does not even acknowledge that some opposing ideas exist and actively suppresses them. If it does acknowledge them, it presents them as carricature in order to reject them. It plays into pre-existing biases and weaponizes them, etc. Yes, inconsistency may or may not indicate propaganda, depending on how big it is, and if there are attempts to hide it, or not acknowledge and discuss it if someone raises the questions. For example, recently I added a comment under this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0163ne8AQO4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0163ne8AQO4 simply stating the fact that this is the old covenant from more than 30 years ago, and there are newer communications that update/contradict it, and linked to the new updated thing https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full It was an only comment with actual sourced argument and was deleted almost immediately. So this 50 million USD campaign to spread the "truth" is definitely propaganda. Mass marketed, manipulative, and censuring rational discussion and information that may take away from it's goal of influecing the masses to justify continuing the current war, and avoiding ceasefire/peace. (and the campaign is named "for peace", at that, lol, very Orwellian) One, fairly obscure letter does not propaganda make. It's more like a manifesto, or whatnot. But yes, if al-qaeda had a sustained campaign specially targetted at western audience, to make it look different from what it's like to locals, to achieve some goals that would benefit the group, then sure, I'd call that propaganda.