To change the minds of more than 16 million Muslims who could support the Islamic State, almost entirely via social media, the U.S. State Department has a counter propaganda team of just about 20 people, according to a senior Pentagon official. Translation: the U.S. is not doing enough to out-tweet ISIS.
Michael Lumpkin, assistant secretary of defense for special operations/low-intensity conflict, said the Defense Department provides 25 percent of them at State’s Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications, orCSCC that focuses on counter extremist rhetoric all over the world (an outfit of about 66 people). “In the CSCC, there’s 20 some odd people who are working that particular mission set and we’re providing about 25 percent of them, detailed at the Department of State to assist with that mission … The fact that we have 25 percent of the CSCC detail to fill critical positions over there tells me that they don’t have the manpower to put against the mission like they would,” he told Congress on Thursday. The State Department confirmed that the number of Defense Department employees working the CSCC detail was 5.
Read the Remainder at Defense One
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