“Those who came here insulting Islam and the Koran, I will take revenge on them,” said a Taliban suicide bomber with a chilling smile. Moments later he drove a truck loaded with 10,000 kg of explosives into U.S. Forward-Operating Base Salerno in Khost, Afghanistan, killing two U.S. soldiers.
It was all captured on a Taliban propaganda video narrated by an Al Jazeera reporter. (Video below.) It’s currently available for anyone to see on YouTube. More shocking, the Taliban have their own YouTube channel, though it is mostly dormant.
Yet when the White House pushed YouTube to censor a movie “offensive” to Muslims, YouTube made it unavailable for viewing in Islamic countries.
“The Innocence of Muslims” stands accused of starting the Islamic riots raging around multiple U.S. embassies, and it is now blocked in Egypt, Libya, India, Indonesia and Afghanistan.
Meanwhile YouTube does little to police jihadist videos, which often given a veneer of journalistic respectability by having been broadcast by the anti-American and anti-Israel Al Jazeera network.
Al-Jazeera serves as more or less a propaganda outlet for jihad, broadcasting footage of killed and captured American soldiers, ignoring Palestinian terrorism and coloring reports to enflame Muslim opinion against the West. The network has regularly failed to assist the U.S. government in tracing video sources provided to the channel by al-Qaeda operatives.
(None of that, by the way, matters to liberal American journalists, who’ve advocated wider U.S. cable distribution for Al Jazeera English.)
One video featured on the Taliban channel is of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Sgt. Bergdahl is the only American prisoner-of-war from the Afghan conflict, and is rumored to be held captive by the militant Pakistan-based Haqqani network.
“The videos show a steep decline in Bowe’s appearance and mental health. In the first two videos he displays a measured calm, a kind of doped-out serenity that is missing from the most recent installments. Each is typical jihadist propaganda, using Bowe to recite lines criticizing American foreign policy,” Mark McDonald of the International Herald Tribune reported in June.
According to David Reaboi, the vice-president of Strategic Communications at the Center for Security Policy, videos like this are common on YouTube. “There are a ton of doctrinal pro-Jihad videos available,” he said. “A few weeks ago I flagged a video, and it’s still there.”
The most gruesome finds include videos of Taliban soldiers posing with severed heads, and a public execution of a woman accused of adultery. Footage of Taliban training tactics are easily obtained through a simple search.
“America Will Not Be Able to Succeed”
The video of the attack on FOB Salerno remain published on YouTube. They’re a typical example of Jihadi propaganda.
“The documentary-style video was released by an al-Qaeda-friendly Islamist group. The brazen assault was carried out on June 1 at Forward Operating Base Salerno in Khost, Afghanistan,” The Daily Mail reported.
It lovingly detailed the planning of the operation and the training. A Taliban operative showcased his skill with firearms by firing two machine guns at once. Terrorists were shown in what looks like American combat uniforms during live fire training with assault rifles, rockets and grenades.
Later, the terrorists gather around a mock-up of FOB Salerno and discuss the best way to infiltrate it while viewing satellite images. They load 10,000 kg of explosives into a truck and before the attack commences the driver smiles, saying “America will not be able to succeed.” He encouraged other to join the cause of Jihad.
Those horrifying words were his last, and minutes later the truck drove into Camp Salerno and exploded. Flames and smoke engulfed the screen as the base is leveled. The explosion is recorded from three different angles, while gleeful jihadists chant “Allahu Akbar,” translated as “God is greater.”
The video is rudimentary propaganda, meant to help recruit young Muslims and demoralize Westerners. Yet the “Innocence of Muslims,” not the video glorifying the killing of American soldiers, is censored by YouTube.
Reaboi told CMI this problem extends to Facebook along with YouTube.
“Facebook does the same thing. There was a group called the “Sharia War on Women” which explained how mainstream Islamic law hurts women. It disappeared overnight, and Facebook took it down because it was declared ‘hate speech’ by Muslims,” Reaboi said.
Free Speech Under Fire
America’s freedom of speech consistently incites Islamic anger, and America’s media desperately grasp at any chance to depict the “fragility” of Islam or fawn over the “compassionate Taliban.”
Rep. Ted Poe (R) of Texas expressed concern about the White House asking YouTube to remove the video.
“It is concerning that the president has no problem telling a private entity what it should do, but he has continued to remain silent on the multiple YouTube videos uploaded by terrorists. These videos are aimed to recruit new members and promote attacks on America, which are not protected under free speech,” Rep. Poe said in a statement.
The Washington Post reported Google implicitly invoked the concept of “clear and present danger” when the company blocked “The Innocence of Muslims.”
“’Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter now play this adjudicatory role on free speech,’ said Andrew McLaughlin, a former top policy official at Google who later worked the Obama White House as deputy chief technology officer,” The Post reported in September.
YouTube defended its position and cited the company’s terms of use. In the terms the company encouraged “free speech and defends everyone’s right to express unpopular points of view,” but the site does not permit hate speech.
YouTube did not respond to any of CMI’s attempts to contact them.
