NYPD Deputy Commissioner John Miller said last Monday, on the 5-year-anniversary since the raid that took down Osama bin-Laden, that ISIS has grown into a global menace specifically through their incredibly influential marketing techniques.
“Fighting and winning the war on terrorism will take more than military power,” stated Miller forcefully; it will also take new messaging strategies—which he noted is the main recommendation coming out of a major meeting of law enforcement experts.
New Yorkers have become accustomed to heavily armed NYPD officers on patrol as a deterrent to any attack. Miller said ISIS has become very adept at marketing — and that’s really where the battle exists for Americans who wish to combat terrorism.
Miller dissected the Islamic State’s recruiting success as part of a wide-ranging discussion at the 9/11 Memorial Museum about counterterrorism.“They got something that Al-Qaeda never got,” he noted reflectively. “They’re not like the old Bin Laden films with him talking for 40 minutes, pointing his finger at the camera,” Miller said. “They’re fast moving images and stimuli. They understand that imagery is more important than the individual, that the message is more important than the messenger.”
He further explained that Al-Qaeda was amorphous — “You couldn’t just dial up 1-800-Al-Qaeda and sign up…but ISIS turned that all around. For the generation of people they are trying to attract, they made it extraordinarily more tangible.”
ISIS puts out regular films and has a presence on YouTube and Twitter, making it far easier for those who crave the honor and valor they promise to put their desires into action. “If you look at the films, they promise this utopian thing. All races, forming the Islamic state together…they show people from all over, of all races, coming from countries where they hate Muslims and now these people are heroes.”
Miller noted that the narrative of valor, belonging and empowerment that ISIS employs is extremely powerful, and the same ideas the United States Army uses to recruit officers as well. However, he noted that in regard to ISIS, these promises constitute a “particularly powerful elixir for people who have none of those things.”
“Somewhere tonight,” he warned, “they’re probably in the basement of their parent’s house — around 27 years old, living at home because they can’t find a job, aren’t making it in the workforce. They didn’t really make it in school, they’re not really making it with their family, not making it with his friends — not making it at all, really; they feel like they can’t do anything right. And they’re all alone with their iPad watching these films and seeing what they can do. All they have to do is attack somebody here, kill someone there.”
Miller pointed out that ISIS now has the ability to recruit those who are not even in close proximity to them. “They say that ‘if you can come here and fight, great; if not, fight our enemies where you are.’”
“ISIS is coming here and fighting on our land,” he declared. “I think the idea that a country like the United States, who are known to be thought leaders, can’t come up with a counter-narrative to an organization whose main message is ‘Come here and kill people and cut their heads off’ is shocking,” he opined.
Miller, who famously interviewed Osama bin Laden back in 1998, was able to reflect on that interview and on the raid sent to kill him five years ago and offered this strategy, among others, on how to combat terrorism in its evolved form today.
Miller concluded that the fight against terrorism is far from over, but being able to prevent these attacks from happening by making the ISIS’ narrative less powerful is a tool we should incorporate into our wheelhouse.