From the Bin Laden Letters: Reactions in the Islamist Blogosphere
From the post:
Following our initial analysis of the Osama bin Laden letters released by the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point, we’ll more closely examine interesting moments from the letters and size them up against what was publicly reported as happening in the world in order to gain a deeper perspective on what was known or unknown at the time.
There was a frenzy of summarization and highlight reel reporting in the wake of the Abbottabad documents being publicly released. Some focused on the idea that Osama bin Laden was ostracized, some pointed to the seeming obsession with image in the media, and others simply took a chance to jab at Joe Biden for the suggestions made about his lack of preparedness for the presidency.
What we’ll do in this post is take a different approach, and rather than focus on analyst viewpoints we’ll compare reactions to the Abbottabad documents from a unique source – Islamist discussion forums.
There we find rebukes over the veracity of the documents released, support for the efforts of operatives such as Faisal Shahzad, and a little interest in the Arab Spring.
Interesting visualizations as always.
The question I would ask as a consumer of such information services is: How do I integrate this analysis with in-house analysis tools?
Or perhaps better: How do I evaluate non-direct references to particular persons or places? That is a person or place is implied but not named. What do I know about the basis for such an identification?