Yes, it's a complicated thing, the US hacking other websites. It certainly brings up free speech issues, which I'm sure the gov't will counter by saying that even in the states speech that incites violence is not protected. No, they do not think this will change the thinking about them among the Yemeni people, because just as a matter of numbers this isn't a story that is going to get a whole lot of play on Yemeni news, and quite frankly a website a few days old from a radical fringe group is not going to have a whole lot of eyeballs from a nation that doesn't have particularly many eyeballs on a computer This kind of attack is not meant to deal direct blows on the target, but sustain a war of attrition. Every time a site is attacked like this they're hoping it slows down the enemy, have them see things from a different side, frustrate their ability to recruit. If you think this was meant to win hearts and minds, you're sorely mistaken. Winning hearts and minds isn't done with flying robots raining explosives down on people's heads. Whether the US will ever be able to win hearts and minds, if it's even possible under any circumstances, is debatable. But they are not really trying all that hard to do it right now.