operation and european military operation. the connection between the two and the refugee flow is not something that would be on our plate to work so i think you will see these things tend to be , the european side will tend to look at where can we do something that's a little more substantial and give it a little more time to plan in this budget whereas on the isil cited think it will tend to be more operationally focused on operations in the middle east. it is. >> i want to thank you for coming out on this day in a lot of great . . cfa. [applause] >> thank you. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] exampf boston, the election went off. >> "washington journal" continues. host: alberto fernandez way to encounter

the islamic state's social media campaign. forre the court nader counterterrorism communications. explain what the office doesn't how tries to achieve its goals. guest: that was a small -- looking atting al qaeda propaganda before the great rise of isis. reallyop shop issue a treated with less significant than advocates. since i've retired from the government, i do not know what they are done in the past year.

it was always a small operation. tiny. i testified in front of the house in 2012 and the chairman said, you are the head of the smallest organization to ever testify over this organization. people, some of them detail ease from other parts of the government. a handful of people focusing on social media, operators in the languages, arab village -- arabic. then we added a tiny english program at the end. that is what it was. host: you left in february why? guest: i retired. host: what is your thought about the state of that department, especially with isis and what has become such a potent campaign? the center was started at a time when a lot of people in washington in and outside of the

administration -- there was that victory moment of president bush on the aircraft carrier that we all talk about this administration's victory moment in the last three years, between -- i noticed there was strong support at the beginning when secretary clinton was there. after she left, i think there was less support. it became very politicized. perfect for me that i was retiring anyway. the center for counterterrorism committee kaisha spirit you can check it out online and check out their webpage. you can also check out their social media pages on twitter. we will show you a few. if our viewers want to call in and they have questions about this battlefield that the united states is fighting isis, alberto

fernandez is our guest for the next 40 minutes or so. democrats -- republicans -- -- pendents if you are outside the u.s. -- speaking of this battlefield, how did each side wind? what is the strategy on the different sort of battlefield? guest: first of all, it needs to isisid over and over, propaganda is unprecedented. it is powerful and they use it in very interesting ways. they are the most successful terrorist group in history on the use of media or without exaggerating. that sounds very daunting. need to remember when we talk about propaganda and messaging, it is connected to the real world. isis's propaganda goes through the roof one mobile falls.

there is a connection between messaging and the real world. the rise of the islamic state is what gives the propaganda power power andility, that that strength. not the other way around. were -- we confuse the medium with the message being put out. how: you can get a sense of the cbc is trying to counter what isis is putting online. spoke to an islamic state inspector in turkey, face hidden and voice disguised. >> i joined them out of fear, he says. who joined really believed killing and whipping was the way to spread islam. when they discovered that was all wrong, they cannot leave. ♪

the defector said he watched the commander gives a knife to his eight euros son. he made him cut off a prisoner's head, he told me. he said the sun should learn early -- the son of amir should learn early. ♪ host: this is part of the state department's think again, turn away campaign. messagingive is this guest: we are ridiculously

outnumbered by isis and social media and we need to recognize that. the challenge is, how do you measure--how do you something that does not happen? it is inherently difficult. but this is good. i think it is a good effort. it has been shown empirically to be powerful. it is not bad. couple of problems with it. you do not know who the person is because they are afraid for their life. you do not know the name or their face. isis propaganda is about me talking to you and openly declaring my views and loyalty. defectors, people who are the terrorist organization, will be

leery about going on television. learning much of a curve has there been to get something that you say is good at this point? have there been failures? guest: lots of failures. but it was created because of failure, because of the recognition that after 10 years after 9/11, the u.s. government had not donee west such a good job countering terrorist propaganda. is good. work of cscc i think working level people being freed from political stance in white house are doing good work but it always has been the islamication state has a network of propaganda. right now, strangely enough, we are outgunned and outmanned.

i am not talking about the u.s. government or cscc. you take everyone in the world messaging in that anti-isis phase, and they are still outnumbered in what isis brings to the battle. up first in virginia, the line for independents. you.r: thank i think we give some legitimacy to the islamic state when we call them the islamic state. why can't we come up with another term? the organization is what some people call them in the middle east. it is a battle of words. when we use the islamic terror, there is a huge risk in our domestic politics. i would imagine people like being called islamic terrorists. i will take your answer off the air. in arabic there either

called -- the islamic state organization. that is what al jazeera calls daesh.r they are called be careful about language but also have to be careful not to be afraid of your shadow. if the islamic state makes a -- you need to .hallenge them somebody needs to challenge them on that. sometimes see propaganda in the middle east and they will say things like, we don't understand why the islamic state did this. why did they bought these temples? well actually, there are ideas taken from islam which are the

reason for them being blown up to we need to be careful not about stigmatizing people or but we in this battle, also need to take the ideological fight to them in that space. the u.s. government is probably not the best to do this. who could it be? there are nongovernment actors getting involved. anonymous said they will take on the islamic state. it takes a network to fight a network or do you need more of everything to you need .he direct approach you need the voices of young people, or people sarcastic or annoying or trolling or all of that. it is not one thing because that is what isis does. it is a network producing a variety of different materials for different audiences.

host: ali is waiting, essex, maryland, line for democrats. caller: i'm a muslim and an american. theroblem i am having with the rhetorice, now coming from the republican branch is really not helping. we should also stop calling these people islamic state just. they are not a state or they are a bunch of crazy people. we're just giving them credit. just wish the saudi government that america is reporting is pretty more of this problem. cowards, anytime there is a problem, they will come to the western world for help to why

can't they go to this fight? i think those are some good points. the question of, who are they and what do they represent, the islamicdoubt state in quotation marks, what it tries to do is appeal to a specific islamist worldview and that worldview is bigger than the islamic state. for decades, governments in the region have moved the needle in acertain direction, toward specific type of self as him solecism. state's's image and appeal to muslims is part of a larger battle occurring about authority, credibility, worldship in the muslim and especially in the sunni arab muslim world.

michigan, david is waiting on our independent line. isis andhe leader of present. a trusted this guy so much, they put him in charge of the prisoners so that they would not riot. the biggest problem was when they disbanded the iraqi army, they put the officers in with this leader. the united states wonders why they hire having so much trouble and they had the chance to beat this guy. when baghdad he was briefly in campbell, for a few months, he was not a leader. he was a radical, a radical , aric, a university student person who was not a good guy, but he was not a leader and not the leader of the islamic state.

we need to be precise about the details about that. host: bringing it back to the conversation about propaganda and online. you talk about tactics here. you mentioned trolling individual engagement, one-on-one, not really effective or a good use of u.s. resources? why not try to engage the individual accounts one-on-one? not a bad idea. the problem is you just don't have the numbers. just talking twitter alone, an average of 40 to 50,000 pro isis accounts. at cdc -- at cscc, there were three. it had six twitter handles. isis and ice's supporters had 40 or 50,000. of which, maybe 3000 -- i'm not should have engaged, but there is something very important and that is how they radicalized.

occurs ondicalization a one-to-one basis. me talking to you, that is something that may be explored and maybe government cannot do, but government can do with a private sector. you need someone who will basically have those long conversations with people who are on the fence about whether or not to become terrorists or not. more akin to the work that social workers or people who work with gangs or with other pathological tendencies people tend to have. it is something that needs to be done. cscc never had that mandate. host: one of the arabic twitter handles, following 400 people, aret 5000 followers, what these islamic state groups get in terms of followers? just a few followers per thousand? the way it works on social media especially twitter,

it has a central node that puts out the propaganda. from those places by the fan boys, by a network of then expand and amplified, retweet, shouted out, etc.. you're talking about yes, tens of thousands of people doing that. host: our guest for about the next 30 minutes or so, alberto fernandez, former court nader for the center for -- coordinator for the cscc. thank you for taking my call and thank you for c-span. i do not envy you. you don't know where you could reach these kids who might be thinking about going to the other side or finding the appeal of ice is overwhelming. my understanding is they are cast this as a clash of civilizations with the west against islam. last week, i read that they

cannot induce their own population into joining the they actuallythat rented the elements of the colombian army and that will be there expeditionary force. if these folks cannot be induced to defend themselves and have to kind of capability that the people do not want any i do not see how we could get past that. it would seem to help them in the idea that it is us against them. that is the real problem here because it is not. my understanding from all of these numbers is that they would probably take care of isis inside about three months. my understanding also is that isis was born in the jails of egypt and the jails of jordan and those jails are still bulging. these people could be replaced in state. where does this end?

guest: the first point he makes is the radicalization process is very personal and individualized. it varies from person to person. think about it in your own life. one person is a republican and the other person is a democrat. one person follows this religious tradition and the other follows another one. it is not unusual, some people have different lifestyles. the radicalization process is very personal and very intimate. that is a problem if you try a one-size-fits-all or strategy. it is important to be clear about these things. us -- supposedly, allegedly is getting these colombian troops not to fight isis but to fight these long, drawnout wars in yemen, where basically the gulf states are fighting in yemen and they do not have enough soldiers. it actually has nothing to do with the isis fight or with the clash of civilization. let's go to hot springs

national park, arkansas, a line for republicans. go ahead. our caller is not there. haven,aiting in winter florida, line for democrats. good morning. go ahead. you are on with mr. fernandez. mine is more statement paradigm i think it is more radical and radical you have got to fight fire with fire. isis and justht kind of mess around. you have got to go in there and take care of business. militaryuilds a strong , and show them what we can do. and just take care of the problem. on theheard a few people way, that is too bad because otherwise, they're not going to fight. the iraqis are going to fight.

you know, saudi arabia's are not going to fight. so if we have to put an end to isis, put an end to it and do not play with it. if you have to go over and take them out of jordan prisons, get rid of them. it is time that america put its foot down. there is something to what he said in his colorful fashion. there's something in their message, we are winners by permission of god. god has west our victory. a narrative based so intimately on victory is fragile in the be seenat it needs to as winning. if you can show them as losing, show them as losing territory, toies they had falling

someone else, that is punching a big hole in the narrative. they talk about conquering the world. it is a way of weakening their narrative. host: on twitter -- guest: perhaps. i think there was a tendency after the cold war to think the american model, the western model, the liberal and democratic free market model, because it is inherently right, that we were just going to, you know, rain worldwide. we have seen the rise of new authoritarians. and some old authoritarians from isis, andrussia and iran, etc. the idea that we could sit on and hollywood, madison

avenue, etc., would take care of it, has been proven to be wrong. let's go to pennsylvania where ruben has been waiting on our independent line. good morning and thank you for taking our call. in your opening remarks, you mentioned when you last -- you that it had become politicized. i wonder if you could tell us more about that. always aere is tendency to have a political interference in anything that becomes important. basically, if what you're doing is not important, there is less interference. became more important, it was more interfered with, especially by the white house. .t is not a problem with cscc i am not saying anything that is a secret. in the administration, the power of the national security council, interfering into the

daily work of other government agencies, including the state department, is probably at a historic high, looking back in history. is there an example of how that could be seen? guest: that is probably a better question for them. was a lot of micromanaging in the last few months, including flaky things like, maybe we should have another name or another labor -- another label or some be like that, as if that was the issue. there is the challenge of micromanaging that is a problem that the state department today in other parts of the of the u.s. government, not just one operation. to who we, go maryland, on our line for republicans. caller: you seem extremely knowledgeable about the subject. can hear you have a role of

the tongue with some of the dialect so you actually understand what is going on in the middle east. that we will out propaganda folks in the middle east is probably not going to work because, in order to radicalize somebody, you have to be personal. one-on-one relationships in one-on-one conversations that we are not able to get into. i think what we should frankly read by is try to example. to the extent we do have certain ideals and ideas we need to bring forward, we stand firm on those ideas. ask you a question about some of the interference. did you see some of the interference as productive or mostly nonproductive? i guess he means political interference. it was a maid -- a waste of time, most of it.

political interference is a fact of life in washington and actually not a very big deal. not come withes additional resources. that is a problem where you are byically getting whipsawed people in different directions, and it does not have to do with getting more money or more support. with you are embarrassed because john oliver made fun of what you did and that embarrasses the white house. it has nothing to do with isis. so yes, this is a problem. agree we need to be bold and stand for our ideals. the isis project is about a very specific thing. countered with a real vision of something. you cannot fight something with nothing. it does not mean the u.s.'s view alone needs to be put out there. this is an ideological struggle and also it is a

struggle in another way, a military struggle. there is the problem of basically producing a counter narrative which actually holds water. that is a problem. can you talk a bit about twitter and facebook and the private companies and what role you see them playing in the effort against isis, if any? we have done quite a bit of research on that in my current position. social media companies need to do more. they have begun to do more. some have done a better job or facebook has done a better job for example in cleaning up radical content online, than say twitter. other entities, we did a big report on this, russian, german app called telegram, heavily used by isis. they will always look to see

what is the most ungoverned space out there and social media. i am not one for censorship. i believe in free speech. but social media companies need to, at the very least, hold participants to their own terms of reference in their own rules. sometimes, that is not happening. host: where can viewers go to see that report? emory.org and you can find all kinds of materials about radicalization and radical islamic people talking in their own words. host: 15 minutes left in this segment. waiting in columbus, ohio, a line for independents. diane i amd morning skeptical about all the news that comes out about isil. the press has made up stories come alive, put out propaganda as usual. not verified. they talked about mass graves, 700,000 people were buried alive, or what have you.

then they could not verify the mass grave they had reported. they talked about crucifixions, people being buried alive. the beheading of children. no evidence. nothing given. they had an article put out by the united press in the paper if oneat showed that looks closely at the picture, a , dismembered, near a car in front of a building that said suicide bomber killed so many people. it shows this manikin. not a a manikin and person. i called the newspaper and i said, what kind of news are you putting out on here, where you have manikin's when you look closely, it is really a manikin and not a person? host: i am sure you have looked into what has been put out by them. kind of ais

ridiculous comment he made it i rely on ice is propaganda and not news reports. we go straight to the source to what are they actually saying and what are they actually doing. it is just ludicrous. there is footage by isis of mass murder. you don't try to hide it. they boast about it. they glory in it. one video i saw, i actually wrote a report for it, for live beheading of nine members of the sunni arab in augusted -- tried of 2014 in syria. not fantasize like when they kill americans. the arab muslims were beheaded live in the video. host: who is that directed to? who do they want to see that? that was basically to tell a very important constituent of isis, the sunni arab muslim tribes of syria and

you get out of line, we will crush you, we will mike the example at the time of the prophet mohammed, where the entire tribe was taken and all the men were beheaded and the women and children were sold into slavery. trevor is waiting on our line for democrats. caller: i wondered if i was thinking about this in the wrong way. focusing on the outrageous and appalling tactics of the leadership. there must be a mass of people willing to support them. not necessarily driven by ideology so much as hopelessness and humiliation. are there points where we could actually negotiate with these elements? could we address legitimate grievances? i could not imagine isis would be so compelling if we, for example, took a harder line on israel and their criminal activities.

i say this as a jew. would it be different? do we have to think about this only as a militaristic or social media way? does not talk much about israel. isis talks about subjugating the world. talks basically for the west presenting two options. islam oru convert to submit yourself to humiliating -- of that, changing u.s. foreign-policy or being tough on israel, that somehow will earn us brownie points, with the audience that could be radicalized by isis, that is frankly ludicrous. waiting in new york, line for republicans. go ahead. caller: good morning. i look at this at several levels. the first is i think the muslims themselves have to discredit isis.

the silent majority, you do not see them demonstrating or marching in the street or making orir own propaganda films telling fellow muslims that there are parts of the koran that are against mass killings. not understand the math psychopathy, that there are so many psychopaths that are willing to just kill people. it reminds me of nazi germany with all of their propaganda. was boots ony, it the ground that destroyed the nazis. that is the same thing that has to happen here. unfortunately, when you blame global warming and lack of jobs for the rise of isis, this craziness and the jv team, how is that going to defeat isis? you know, it is

interesting. of course, the notorious jv team comment came as isis took the city of pollution. it was played down as kind of a local thing and not actually as a very important thing. a struggle going on in the muslim world, especially in the sunni arab muslim world. it is a crisis of authority and about who rules under what kind of rule, under what kind of world feel. that is actually much larger than isis. entitiesne of many fighting that battle. so yes, the ultimate victory is why the muslims, among the muslims. we have to remember when we are talking about isis, and they have been extraordinarily successful propaganda, without a doubt. only been ablee to radicalize a tiny minority of the muslim world. we are talking about very small numbers. talking about over one billion people, even small number's

should be a concern. isis sees itself as a revolutionary vanguard. it would like to have every muslim with them, but for them, a committedto have and violent focused minority that can impose its will on everyone, similar to 1917 russia. team, you talked how was it taken by isis and the propaganda afterwards that you saw? did they care or pay attention to that comment? guest: not at all. what they did was they carefully and quietly use the victory in -- to producee the most successful video they ever made. a clanging of the swords number four. this 50 minute video about fallujah is the one that set the stage for the seemingly miraculous, amazing fall.

it was probably one of the most successful efforts of psychological operation in the history of warfare, something that will be studied in the future. host: directed at recruits? defendersected at the of the population there. demoralizing it from within. it was very successful. host: time for a couple more calls. larry it -- margaret is waiting on our line for independents. would: getting current, i like to know why and particular, that the paris attacks, the continual bombing of isis enemies is not doing any good. i am talking about the united states. a lot of bombing, france, a lot of bombing. russia, a lot of bombing. what is happening with all the bombing that it is not having

any effect? thank you. guest: it has had an effect bearded prevented isis from expanding further than it would have. been a direct contributor to the fall of the whole range of important sites in town from isis. from the dam taken last year with heavy air support by the to carita, to beijing, the problem is this. this is nothing new. bombing stuff from the air is not enough. you need to have people on the ground to take territory. we need those allies and all of the names i mentioned of laces that is been taken away from isis, were taken away from isis in collaboration with somebody on the ground here and whether it is kurdish forces or the iraqi army or somebody. host: how does isis explain the

fall? how is it viewed? not explain it at all. they never talk about that. they present an image of victory. they're like a puffer fish. it blows itself up to make itself look to your and meaner and better than they are. video they released west week in english to threaten the united states, they talked about the success of the islamic state. how can you talk about success when they are actually losing ground in syria and iraq? they talked about the franchises, the branches of islamic state popping up all over the place. not all of them are real, but some of them, nigeria, boko haram, part of isis. libya, sinai, those are real and very dangerous branches of the islamic state. so they use the growth of these ranches to show success. to show growth.

the other thing they use are the spectacular terrorist attacks. isis prefers to conquer territory on the ground. to be seen as taking cities, to be seen as having its territory expanding. like anysence of that, good, news generating entity, like a politician does, or kim kardashian does, they will look for whatever gets them attention. the soggy potato ship idea. military victory is the best thing. if you do not have that, how about cutting someone's head off in a bizarre way that will get everyone worked up? church orblowing up a a mosque or an ancient temple? how about a terrorist attack in the city of light in paris. all of those things are substitutes or kind of a power projection for what they would like to do, which is grow the state. if they cannot grow the state, they will find all the ways to get in your face and get on the news. in ohio, line for

democrats. thank you for waiting. i have a question. if isis is using propaganda and ideology, why don't the united states and all of these 65 plus countries come to help with our counter propaganda and ideology to fight isis? obviously, conventional weapons does not win against isis. why don't somebody come up with a strategy that is different? that is my question. it brings us back to where we started. guest: thank you for that. they are the physical state in the middle east, slowly being drunk. it is slowly under a lot of pressure. that is the good news. but that ms. is the virtual state, the image, the propaganda image, it is still

extraordinarily powerful. it found ways to fudge the difference between losing on the ground and winning in cyberspace. so yes, we need to do a lot more in social media, and there are commonsense things you can do. you need to have more numbers, a one to one approach. multifaceted types of materials and stuff. you need to make their stuff more difficult to be online. you need to do all of those things. the biggest solution to the problem is military victories. it is openly and clearly crushing them, and that everyone sees they are being crushed. they do tend basically on the idea that if they are winning, it is because god has blessed them to win. host: alberto fernandez, our guest. if you want to follow him on twitter --