There’s one high-powered weapon that the U.S. needs to deploy against ISIS to really hit home, says Sen. Marco Rubio.
YouTube.
The Republican presidential hopeful on Monday said that the U.S. not only needs to fight ISIS in Syria and Iraq, but needs to upload videos of the America’s exploits to the Internet in order to combat ISIS’ slick propaganda and recruiting tactics.
“I want the world to see how these ISIS leaders cry like babies when they’re captured,” the Florida senator said at a town hall event in Iowa. “I want the world to see how these ISIS leaders, once captured, begin to sing like canaries if they survive.”
He was adamant that only a local Sunni Muslim-Arab force can lead the charge against ISIS in the region, but said the U.S. will have to embed special forces alongside them for tactical knowledge and skills.
And he said the U.S. should broadcast its exploits.
“We should be carrying out attacks against (ISIS) leadership nodes, videotaping the whole thing, and putting it up on YouTube so the world can see these people are not invincible,” Rubio said. “I want these young fighters around the world that are thinking of joining ISIS because they’re unstoppable to have second thoughts about it once they see how easily humiliated they are by American power.”
ISIS’ use of social media and technology has been called out as one of the most alarming capabilities of the terror group by national security officials. The group produces high-quality recruiting videos and reaches out to would-be terrorists from all over the world using Twitter and social media to expand its reach far beyond its territory in Iraq and Syria.