The late Jacques Littlefield was reputedly the largest collector of military vehicles in the world. During a recent tour of the collection the docent started off with a safety warning, saying “A tank doesn’t care who it hurts.” Those words came back a bit later in the tour when he showed a video clip of an insurgent on a building top using a rocket-propelled grenade to blow up a tank on parade in the street below. Where did the video come from? YouTube! The insurgents had uploaded it to show what they could do, even during (more-or-less) peaceful moments.

The insurgents are becoming increasingly sophisticated in using social media for a variety of purposes. And they are adept at using all the hacker tricks, e.g., hijacking unrelated topics to spread their message.