Different directions. Do they play by the rules of the game . Do they use extra electoral means when they are trying to win votes . The big one is do they use violence . Do they think violence is a legitimate way in terms of communicating and achieving their goal. I think you will find by and large that islamists have a foundation it is a religious orthodoxy but plays within the current mandate. Extremists have a different game. They want to use violence. Their aims are very. Steve how do islamists used digital that field here. What are the goals of these kinds of group . Guest lets take islamists first. They are interested in audience segmentation. Often times, they have been historically not as influential. They see this information battlefield as a new arena. Want to recruit people, to raise money for the political party, they think of them sometime in a pan arab identity. They want to recruit people with no borders. Extremists are different. They use things like lacks one incidents. The return on investment for isng a big terrorist attack exponential. Isis gets a lot of free media when they are doing these beheading videos. When they produce game of thrones type apps for young people. For a very low investment, they are able to put themselves on the map. Host you mentioned isis. Are they proven to be the best at using the tools on the digital battlefield . Guest they have. If you think of taliban as the Elementary School and al qaeda as the middle school, isis is in college. They have built an ecosystem. Amboise. Carefully about different ways they can communicate their method. It is a content work. Is an information battlefield. It is not as well understood. We kind of know about social media. I am talking about a whole spectrum. Dark web. Eb, they perfected a way of how to reach people in a way that is sophisticated and with the mantra that there are thought audience the bigger the impact. Byt i want to explain that some of the specific platforms you go through. Use different platforms in different ways. Twitter, facebook, youtube, or dark web spaces. Lets start with twitter. How do extremists or islamists used twitter. Guest twitter is interesting because they are able to use bots. Use they are trying to amplify their message. Thatget folks out there they know will violate the terms of service. Then they regenerate. Part of it is how can we do that . Putother way they use it is out things that dont cross the terms of service. On twitter, they will have do things where he puts eight picture of an apple and he will say the caliphate is bound to fall. Terms oft violate the service. E is not advocating they will come to the edge. There will reach one audience on twitter, then they will move them to an encrypted app. Then, they have a whole range of how to reach people. Go to facebook. Is it a different tactic and strategy that is being employed on facebook . Guest on facebook what they will do is they are looking for facebook is great for them in terms of how they can see where they can get the likes and they can see where they get people who are sympathetic and engage with them. It is like finding the needle in the haystack. Somebody that is sort of reaching out. Someone that is a fence sitter. They might see someone who likes something that seemingly is proisis. For them, it is about targeting. That is where facebook is important. Twitter is about amplification. Host youtube is another social media platform. Guest youtube they can visually tell the narrative. Even if their videos get taken down, they can regenerate or put them in other places. They do everything from twominute highlight reel clips to raw, authentic video from person on the street. The idea ofed to visually telling the narrative. Theyre not going to sit and read a hundred page book. This is the topic until 9 00. Guest for me, i grew up in rural america. I grew up in a small town. I grew up intellectually curious. People would ask me and say what is going on in the middle east . I would say, i dont know. They would want me to explain to them. I dont know. I drive a truck. I play tennis and baseball. I dont know. I have no idea. But that planted a seed in me. I wanted to go abroad and make sense of what was going on in iraq. These are black boxes for people. Almost the way we saw with the soviet union. I went abroad and i went into camps. People, whatoung made you join. What drove you to this point. Understanding, we need to understand what is going on in the cinnamic. We miss out on the first part i dont wantee to write about this. I want to solve this. I want to put together a Manhattan Project to mobilize people. I met hundreds of religious leaders on the front lines. Thats what i talk about in the book. How did you make it into the camps . Guest i was doing my doctoral work. Interestingly enough, not many people go in that area. I took the chance to try to get into the Northern Areas of pakistan. I came to them as a journalist. Explain to me why youre doing what youre doing. They wanted to talk because no one ever asks what they are doing it because of the danger and what they represent. Area, you have to have a political family. It is a futile system. System. I was able to interest them i was able to interview them. Book, it my earlier led to this book as how to explain that idea . Almost like a Customer Journey. Led you to ar work drop in the Trump Administration under secretary tillerson. What was your role fair . Produced white papers, corn interNational Security, we try to think about ways of how do we tackle some of the main key issues . Host and your job now is at the broadcasting board of government. What is that . Guest it is an 800 million global media agency. Middle east broadcasting network, it is an amazing platform. 7000 hours of broadcasting per day. In 71 my witches. For me, the work that the telling arethey are critical. There telling americas story. Reaching audiences all over the world. My goal is how can we doubled that audience . And here with us for the next 45 minutes. Taking questions and comments as we talk about the Digital World war. Phone lines again. 202 7488001est democrats, 202 7488000 independence, 202 7488002 i wish you could elaborate on the bots. Guest tom, that is a great question. They looked at the role of Silicon Valley and bots. On, 4014, started using bots because for them, one is cheap. Cheap, itt is scales up exponentially, and they are able to reach an amplification and resonance in the way that they normally would not. Back then, some of the Companies Like twitter and facebook were a little slower and did not have the teams to take them off the internet, so their ability to live on and able to gain traction was much higher. Bots,he sophistication of they learn from the russians and the elections last year, so they use those tactics because they are able to reach key audiences in urban areas. Host explain isis 3. 0. Guest the way i thought about it was in early 2014, most people were caught off guard by the rise of isis. We were still talking about al qaeda and taliban. The people that noticed isis where the web operators, people that sought them online. They started seeing virtual beheadings, and it took a long while to mobilize against that. In my head, now we are talking three to four years later, what is next on the horizon . Ul and pictures from mos people want to say mission accomplished, but it is not because isis has continued to adapt. What are the next iterations around the corner . When we thought of al qaeda, we were thinking cameras and caves and an ice came along. Isis came along. We are seeing that new iteration and whether they have the staying power is a new issue. I think of them as kind of a cloud caliphate. They are thinking about the information battlefield in a unique way and they are using crowdsourcing to recruit people, using bitcoin to raise money. This is the new iteration, and they are thinking about extremism on a new level. Host they are not as interested in creating a physical caliphate that they would have to defend physical space . Guest that is right. They are almost exclusively in this virtual space. You do not have to travel anywhere. You can stay where you are. It is a different approach and they may be realizing there is a whole suite of things they can do like shutdown electrical grids or steal intellectual property, things that have an effect. U. S. O we as the government, international community, mobilize . We have the best thinkers in Silicon Valley, the best tech people, the best military. Young people all over the world are trying to get on the front lines of this, that we have a collective action issue. That is why i advocate for a new Manhattan Project. We have that type of urgency. Host pittsburgh, pennsylvania, james is waiting on the line for independents. Caller my name is james and i do not think there is a politician out there better than me. My thing is why . Why are we still wanting to blow each other up . Why are these young kids wanting to commit suicide, putting on vests and blowing up themselves . These are children. What is so wrong in the world now that people feel so depressed they want to kill themselves . What is wrong . President trump is out there golfing. We got your question, the why is what james wanted to know. Guest that is a key question and a subject of my research. The why part of it is identity grievances. These young people grow up and see a system that does not change around them, lets say in the middle east. They grow up with dictators and being a failed arab revolution, so they want to do something. A lot of young people a lot of the work i did was interviewing defectors. I wanted to understand why young people went to isis. I want to ask them, what was it about their propaganda that attracted them. Many of them said, we want to get rid of bashar assad. They got sucked in and by the time they got there, it was too late. There are a lot of dictators in the region, and they feel like if i play by the rules of the game it will not work. They oftentimes are not very religious at all, are not appealing to that idea. A lot of them have criminal backgrounds and Mental Health issues, but they get recruited because they want to try to do something. To me, the idea is these honorable the youths, we have to provide them with a positive alternative narrative. Host if they can find their way to an isis recruiter, why cant the United StatesGovernment Shutdown those avenues . Guest part of it is it is hard to find oftentimes. They oftentimes are communicating with an encrypted platforms, tweeting on things that it is difficult to get access to, and many groups are using coded language. They will use things like kitten , two of my favorite things. Kind of like gangs, using colorcoded things and visual things. It is almost like a see something, Say Something. The same ways you think about child pornography and identifying diseases, we have to have a new approach, almost like a Public Health approach to thinking about getting leaders on the front lines. Oftentimes, i make a point that all radicalization is local so if you look at it, you start seeing patterns. For example, in tunisia, 80 of foreign fighters come from one small neighborhood in tunis. If you look at the same thing in belgium, you start looking at the pattern. This is not everybody is a potential extremist, it is a small sliver coming from one area. It may be a charismatic leader. There may be a chain of people being recruited. Connecticut, avon, line for democrats. You are on with haroon ullah. Caller i have a question regarding viruses on websites. A lot of them can come from downloads, but these click save advertisements, do you think these will change . I want to believe i have been randomly selected to win two free ipods. I like to believe i am the 999 thousand 999th visitor on this website. , do youest question is think this will change and there will be viruses out there . Guest you bring up an important point. The click bait attracts people for a variety of different reasons, and i think there is something being pioneered by google and other folks called the redirect method. It is using this idea of click. Ait to identify vulnerable use when i Google Search something about syria or about identity grievances, on the righthand side it will come up ads. Those can be targeted, because you can see what people are searching for. Maybe on google, how do i buy a ticket to go to syria . The ads on the righthand side, through this redirect method, it makes it so that people think they are speaking to them and when they click on it, it leaves them down a path that gives them information. Often information they are seeking can move them away. Isis is not what you think it was. It is not club med for foreign fighters. Here is another thing if you want to do something productive, here is a peace corps or something productive, because young people do not want to be told no. I want to do something. Host a part of your book focuses on the history of this digital battlefield. In every country in which they have a presence, islamists have proven more adept at using established then governments, and indeed almost all other politically active forces, crippling ruling parties first in the court of Public Opinion and then on guest they had to go underground because there were no Public Forums to congregate. They were banned or censored. They had early on to look for ways using cassette tapes, using other means of going underground because they were afraid of statesponsored violence. So they were able to pioneer certain things on the internet before others as it was about survival. Host you mentioned cassette tapes. Talk about the history with the iranian revolution. Play a bigette tapes role in spreading the message, because as many people know, the ayatollah was abroad and exiled in europe most of the time. How do you get lectures he was giving to people that were hungry for this content . It literally was a whole system of basically cassette tapes traveling in suitcases and carryon baggage, and people taking it all over and making copies in their basement, and people congregating in a basement to listen to lectures. That is how, early on, how communication traveled and how these lectures modal dated motivated and mobilized people. I must 30 years later, the information battlefield is so much wider. Host lewis is in pikesville, maryland, line for independents. Caller i think the whole mantra is common sense. , you have interviewed those students in the areas, but the americans need to hear some of the students answers, and this is what i mean. You need to substitute the word radicalize for pest off pissed off. They have seen their homes destroyed, their fathers and mothers destroyed, and leaders decapitated. If you keep decapitating the leaders, you have no one to talk to, and they see desperation. It is like somebody in 1776, the british came in with central georgeand killed off washington, thomas jefferson, so they had no leaders to negotiate freedom. You need something with the word radicalized and put in the word pissed off. Cause. Will die for their when is the last time you heard someone say they will die for jesus . And let usmmon sense hear some of the answers the students have. Host dr. Ullah . Guest you are exactly right, defector stories are so powerful. Oftentimes times when i would speak to them, i would ask them in one word describes isis. I thought they would Say Something like dangerous or horrid or horrible, that they would say words to me like trust, the longing, identity the longing, identity belong ing, identity, and i am talking to them almost like there is a disconnect. I am listening to their narratives, what is the propaganda they are reading and what are they consuming . The factors need to be on the front line. I took a datadriven approach. Might doctoral work was that defector stories are the most popular antidote, and it is important to understand their grievances. That is the first step. Host what is the flames of war video series . Guest that is a sort of whole suite almost like a game of thrones type video series, where extremist groups are smart and realizing, we cannot reach out to young people with a 140 page book, but we need to reach out with something visually interesting, that is entertainment, that is drama, because they are coming out of the videogame generation. And are playing video games a lot of it, it is my cheese know and adrenaline filled, and they want to see machismo and adrenaline filled, and they want to see something that will get them excited. Host the daily mail focuses on isis propaganda posters, some of their recent propaganda pieces targeting attacks in the west in the new year. I am wondering if you are seeing qs same thing in the visual cues that they are giving out, talking about attacking the west. I know you have seen this series. Guest the thing that you can see from this is they are doing things that are visually provocative. They are doing things that they know this is the main generation. They are reaching out to gen y z and millennials so they are doing things that are planting the seeds for young people who have identity grievances, and that is why it is so key. The more i talk about this Manhattan Project, we have so many people on the sidelines ready to fight against this. We have religious leaders all over the world and in the u. S. We have thousands of young malallas. On social media, by Research Shows 1 of people are content creators. 9 share content and 90 are passive consumers like me and you. We need to get more people off that 90 into the front lines of the battle, because those stories are organic and articulate and can turn the tide. Host speaking of threats during the holidays and the new years, the story from the New York Times the ball dropping in times square has long drawn heavy security but this year the send rooftop observation teams and counter snipers into more buildings. Officers will be patrolling hotels leading up to the ball drop on new years eve. For the first time, the Police Department is planning to attach reflective markers to the outside of buildings at certain intervals so that in the event of an attack, officers can quickly figure out what floor a gunman is on. There are no direct Credible Threats to new york city, to times square specifically, or to our new years eve events generally, james oneill, the new york police commissioner. We have about half hour left in this segment. We are talking to her room,uthor of haroon ullah asking viewers to call in. Bill called from mount airy, maryland, a republican. Caller good morning. I wanted to ask do you look at the war as more of a means of suppressing or cutting off the message, or by countering the message and showing how they are losing the war or that they will not win or that there is a better way to go . How do you measure success . Host fantastic questions guest fantastic questions. We have to think about what they have done on the physical battlefield. The have set up a david and even ifnarrative so they lose on the physical battlefield they can win on the informational battlefield. We have to think broader than the war. God bless our military and our folks on the front lines. They are doing their job, but the problem is what we are finding is that in the virtual caliphate, in the virtual sphere they are able to build on these identity grievances. They want a war with the west. A want a civilizational war. I think it is important not to buy into the rhetoric of feeding into what they want. They want that because it legitimizes their viewpoints. I think it is very important to understand we have to present alternative, positive pathways for these young people. My work and this gets to your tatnd question tit for messaging does not work. Somebody telling me the caliphate is bountiful and i am like, no, we will oftentimes have in that titfortat that i am reinforcing someones predisposed belief, and they are more stronger. Host does it matter who the messenger is . Guest yes, that is why defector narratives are very important because they have credibility. Let me tell you why this path does not work. The messages are important, but it is also about content. A lot of people say u. S. Government produced content does not work. I will tell you, bad content does not work produced by anybody. That can be effective. We have to think of it in a way that is almost in terms of a content war, in terms of media savvy, interns of in terms of, in the middle east the number one drama is a drama called selfie. It is making fun of isis, a an going around with a take on isis, and it was incredibly popular. 20 Million People watched her episode. That is incredibly important. They made death threats. 10 selfieed programs as they are directly tackling, dispelling the narrative in a smart way that is entertaining. Host on the issue of counter and article focuses on this issue. Many experts and radicalization are asking a question if you cannot beat them, why not ban them . Instead of coming up with more theirt, why not make toxic material much harder to find on the internet . Better yet, why not just remove it altogether from the web . I am unconvinced counter ridratives work, hany fa says. Guest i think there is a role for censorship and a lot of the Internet Companies have realized , from their Business Model they do not want toxic stuff on their ecosystem, but oftentimes we overplay the role of censorship. These groups are evolving really quickly and using a coded language. Are we going to stop start nutella and kittens . This is a content war. You can see about taking stuff down, but at the end of the day it is about producing content that overwhelms them in this Freedom Exchange of ideas, and that is why we have to think of war in terms of aggregating and distributing content, and mobilizing people. Host pennsylvania, on the line for democrats, good morning. Caller i am a student at the university of pennsylvania and a have to say part of my week i will sit down and watch [indiscernible] fccsaying because of the Net Neutrality rules, a fast lane and a slow lane, so i would like you to talk about that. About to talk standardized host you are going in and out a little bit. Did you get the question . Guest i think he was talking about censorship and information battlefield. The main thing is we need to mobilize young people to tell their own stories. That is the key thing. Things like the selfie stories malala, these dry out isis. I have taken a datadriven approach and the voice of women, young women, mothers, moves the needle. Im not just talking about behavior change, i am talking about something that can stop young people. Host what is the medium that we send that throw . Pointtopoint contact . Largescale facebook blasts . What is the best way . Guest if you think about the Customer Journey and audience segmentation, oftentimes the large blasts do not work as well. I think the redirect method that google has done is very influential and is very targeted. It is looking for people that are already searching. You have people going along this journey. You have to think about, where do people consume their information . We go places to consume it information that reinforces our ideas. I could blast something out on fox news or cnn, but young people may not be watching that. They are watching Something Else , the middle east broadcasting network. We have to think more carefully about how to reach those key audiences and the stories we want to tell. Host are we doing that in the Trump Administration . Did we do that in the Obama Administration . Guest i think there is some issue of that. It was not until this past august that our Cyber Command became a unified command. Host explain that. Guest it became a full Operational Command within our out things onrry this informational battlefield before they needed others authority. We are coming to understand the seriousness of what to do on this information battlefield. Under the Previous Administration we created the Global Engagement center, based at the state department, which is an idea of it takes a network to defeat a network. To me, we have to put more resources in and that is why i come up with the Manhattan Project. Our military band is about 400 million. Llars 400 this is time intensive, peace people intensive. We have to think about the 1940s. We need the best and brightest, to recruit them from the private sector, combine them with what we have in government, and mobilizing the young people stories. Host what did the Trump Administration request for this specific task in their budget request . Guest the budget has been increasing. I think this year they are around 60 million and they have requested more money. It is moving in the right direction. We have to work with partners, this is a key part of it. It takes a network to do a network. Largesty as good as the Civil Society group in the world. That is our diplomat in all of our embassies and conflicts, they will be able to strike those partnerships whether it is with them or content hubs in the middle east, that is where the real key is. Arizona,ve in phoenix, on the line for democrats. Caller i have kind of a twopart question. I hear that a lot of people get radicalized online, so it does not seem to matter when they are from if they can just get online. The other one is, you mentioned the fact that before the internet came along, they had to use cassettes and things that had to be distributed which took longer and therefore made it even harder to spread the ideas in a timely manner. Is an effective strategy, how come they just dont shut down the internet to religions . Guest you know, i think that a lot of my Research Shows, the lone wolf phenomena actually does not play out. T is a bit of a misnomer young people do not get radicalized sitting in a basement watching videos. They often have hundreds of people in touch with them to convince them and recruit them and get them, play on their identity grievances. We have to think about that sort of local radicalization. Again, on censorship, i am pretty clear. It has a small role but we cannot overemphasize that. It is a content war. You can spend all your time trying to take down content that you will never be successful because they are already three steps ahead thinking about contact content that does not violate the services. Host we are talking with haroon ullah. If you want to call in with your questions or comments, republicans, 202 7488001, democrats, 202 7488000,. Ndependents, 202 7488002 on the line for independents is brian. Caller what i would like to comment on, in addition to what you are discussing, all of the other problems that have evolved with the internet hacking, Identity Theft what bothers me is the goliaths that control the internet and make piles of money. Apple, google, microsoft, bill gates, on and on. These people are sitting on piles and piles of money. Why arent these Large Organizations spending some of that money they are sitting on fighting extremism, fighting hate, fighting people that caused the death of other people , fighting the cyber criminals . We do not hear anything about it. They have literally, between the five biggest companies, they are sitting on trillions of dollars of profit. What are these five organizations doing . Guest great question. They are better understanding it, and i have to say i have seen over the years they were slow to recognize it but have really come to the forefront. Facebook had their head of global policy, a fabulous job of putting money toward projects to fight extremism. They recognize as much as anyone else, from a business standpoint it does not make sense for these people to be polluting their ecosystem, so we have to continue to push them. We need to continue to push the companies to put more resources into this. We do find that they are now starting to put more money in it , and the reason is because of a business standpoint. Host to linda in truman, arkansas, the line for democrats. Caller i would like to know what the author thinks about video, aish bin laden propaganda video that stated that what they were fighting for was to overthrow white world rule, that they were tired of white people ruling the world and that they wanted equal treatment. I would like to know if that that is not and if what they are actually fighting over. Guest interestingly enough, when we look at al qaeda and isis, they want a war with the west. They think everybody in the west is a culprit. In a lot of ways, they are sort of racially neutral. They see anybody living in the west as sold out and try to make them the other. That is the civilization of war they want. I will tie back to something brian mentioned. Recently in the last few months, Internet Companies created something called a global forum for fighting extremism. They set appendix consortium and they are putting money into it because they recognize they need to be on the front lines of this and cannot be just relying on government. Host another piece from your book rather than pushing islamic parties further into the arms of extremists through policy suppression, western earners powers would be wide tensions between these groups and to look for point of shared interest with islamist parties, interests that basis ofserve as the dialogue and cooperation. Guest when i was working in pakistan, i had to make a decision. I might disagree with a religious leader or somebody on almost every point, but if they are antiviolence, antiextremism, that they are advertising antial qaeda, they may be homophobic and they may not believe the same Democratic Values i do. On the ground, i want to find a way to work with that person because they are able to stop young people from joining these groups that ultimately could harm National Security. Those are the tough decisions we have to make, but i think we have to think about where those points now . It is a great line and that is why we rely on our diplomats. Ofhink the hallmark protecting u. S. Security is making those decisions. Host who are the best groups we should be looking for looking to to help us question mark guest a lot of Islamist Groups we have an uneasy relationship with. What i am advocating for is that we at least have dialogue to try to think about it, whether it is back channel, is often times these groups are able to moderate the more extreme element in their country, or have a conduit to talk those people off of the fence. We have to understand where these young people, where are their grievances coming from . Host is that happening . Guest to some extent, that is much as i would personally like. We have to allow our diplomats to do that kind of work, because that is the real hard work of diplomacy. I think of diplomacy as not jazz concert in budapest, but doing the hard work that protects u. S. National security. Host at what point could that backfire . Guest if you end up supporting or enabling a group that is able to not just demonize americans, but really ends up hurting u. S. National security, because if you enable a group that is recruiting and their sole purpose is to hurt our National Security interests, it can backfire. Oftentimes, we are too risk averse because often times we block out this whole segment of people dealing with religion. Is where our diplomats have done some of the best work they have done. , it a question on twitter believe talking about United States content. When does content become propaganda . Guest when you think about it, taking from isis, content becomes propaganda in terms of what the aim is. The aim of propaganda is often to confuse people. Defectors who give me a oneword answer, propaganda would drive them to do something they knew was not authentic, but would buy them a ticket. Oftentimes they lured them there and gave them jobs, so for young people, it is too late. Host how do we get them to see what we are putting out as content, as a different way of living and not just as u. S. Propaganda . Guest the message is important, key influence is important. Thinking about, where do people get their information . Many people are willing to be key influencers. Religious leaders, community leaders, women that are leading. We have to think about those partnerships, because it takes a network to defeat a network. Is in manning, South Carolina on the line for republican. Caller good morning. War, dideft the iraqi we leave the encryption devices with iraq . Did isis get a hold of those . Do we have any way of detecting if they use those . Guest that is a good point about encryption. Very simply, isis recruits people with technical backgrounds. They are recruiting engineers and young people that are coders and have access to build these programs and infrastructure. Host who is an example of someone you met . Guest i met a young person in dubai who was recruited by isis. He had gone to university and was an i. T. Specialist. They recruit young people with these backgrounds so they can use these new apps. We are talking about twitter and facebook, but they have moved on. They are using things that a lot of people do not know. It has more downloads than snapchat in 25 countries. They are using new apps that are more sophisticated and provide them a different platform. Host explain what these different platforms are, what are they doing that people are not seeing from facebook or snapchat . Guest it was designed by a saudi entrepreneur, young person, to give honest workplace feedback. It is almost a version of your Old High SchoolBulletin Board when we were growing up, for people to put things on anonymously and say, do not wear pink shirts or ripped jeans. App happened was that the the game a forum for bullying, and isis and others use it for recruiting because you can target vulnerable use. The design is different but the way it is being used is the same as twitter and facebook. Is on the line for republicans in South Carolina. Caller did it have anything to do with us possibly going to war with iran . Guest the one thing that we find is that the iranians are very good at propaganda. The t out a lot of using various outlets and proxies to put out propaganda. A lot of it is mobilizing this Manhattan Project. How can we be ahead of it . Host to jeff in california, line for independents. Caller i came in a little late, so i did not get your educational background. I am very interested whether you have an intelligence background as well. Georgetown. Ch at i did my doctoral work as a senior fellow at harvard. I was there for many years, did my graduate degree. I do not have an intel background, but i served shoulder to shoulder with many intel officers when i was at the embassy. I worked with our special forces. That is where my perspective comes from. I think of myself as a field person. I look at myself as not being done from d. C. The work in the field. Host is that something where you will continue your work . Guest absolutely, and that is why it is a fantastic platform. They are out there telling stories. There is over 2600 affiliates throughout the world. We are partnering with radio stations and tv as well as digital platforms. Been waiting has in malden, massachusetts, line for democrats. Caller hello. With theem here violent extremism and the terrorism is all brought on by this country. E go over there we have been over there since world war ii and we have killed more people over there. Aboutman that called up the white world taking them over, and embassy in iraq is bigger than vatican city. We are infested with cia and contractors, soldiers of fortune. Host what is your question . Caller my question is, that is why we are being bombed, being attacked. We are over there pushing up around. Thus pushing them around. They will push back. Until we get out of there and come back, and then they come after us we are legit. We are the problem. Host your thoughts . Guest at the end of the day, it is about understanding the narratives and grievances. That is why defectors stories are so important. We do have to understand. It is easy to otherize and demonize. They direct a lot of their most gruesome content in english. These young people that were telling me trust and belonging were not looking at beheadings. They were looking at isis handing out candy at circuses or talking about rooting out corruption. 80 of their messaging in arabic is positive. They are using this scary, bloody, gory, horrific stuff to scare me and you in english. Int david is waiting california on the line for independents. Caller i want you to give me a second or two, because what you have here is a lot of islamophobia. He is contributing to it. All of whatd that he is saying for this propaganda and his take on everything, is from a Granite Point of view that islam equates with terrorism. S identity grievant stuff grievance stuff, and it makes it where anyone who is a muslim who has a grievance, a true and natural grievance as one of your callers pointed out, about the things of the american foreignpolicy than they are suspect if they go online and pronounce some of these tagsances, things that them. When i am suggesting to this guy is that what he is doing is , andtuating islamophobia making it where muslims do not have freedom of speech. Host haroon ullah, is that what you are doing . Guest no, i fully agree with what you said. Islamophobia contributes to supporting isis. They use those narratives and pick up what islam of folks are using in their propaganda to use it in their war. Part of what i found in my work is the stories of american muslims serving in the military, as teachers and doctors and engineers, have been here for hundreds of years, though stories are incredibly powerful as isis propaganda will say things like there are no mosques in the u. S. Than is more in the u. S. Anywhere else in the world because of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Thomas jefferson had a copy of the carranza. That is koran. Factor of integral who we are and it tackles their core thesis. Host the book is Digital World war, islamist this week, washington journal features authors published this past year. Coming up on saturday, the author of the book nomad land surviving america in the 21st century, and on sunday, the author of the gatekeepers how the white house chiefs and staff to find every presidency. Define every presidency. Every month for the past 20 years, one of the nations top notch fiction authors has joined us on our program for a fascinating threeour conversation about their work. Just for 2018, we are changing course. We have invited 12 fiction authors on to our set. Authors of historical fiction, National Security thrillers, science writers, social. Ommentators their books have been read by millions around the country and around the world, so if you are a reader, plan to join us for booktv. N it all kicks off on sunday davidy 7 at noon with ignatius, a Washington Post ,olumnist, and the author of 10 National Security thriller. You can join us live on sunday, january 7 or watch ondemand on