People’s diplomacy

From the New York Times, a story about a grassroots propagandist:

Unlike Mr. bin Laden, the blogger was not operating from a remote location. It turns out he is a 21-year-old American named Samir Khan who produces his blog from his parents’ home in North Carolina, where he serves as a kind of Western relay station for the multimedia productions of violent Islamic groups.

Filed under public diplomacy… foreign thought brought in from the "outside" and broadcast internally, if coordinated or not.

Question: is this kid like late-1940’s U.S. communist "sympathizers" standing on their soap box?

See also

• America should hire al-Qaeda’s PR Agent
• Noah Shactman’s Terrorists Keep Blogs, Too (June 25, 2007)