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| Pâ•qidꞋ Yi•rᵊmᵊyâhꞋ u |
Which of the following is protected free speech and which is enemy propaganda?
"Pres. Bush and his administration deceived the public about the reasons for going to war in Iraq."
"Pres. Bush and the American government are anti-Muslim fascists and colonialists."
While you might hear the former statement in a televised American political debate or an American political advertisement, the latter statement is clearly beyond the pale of acceptable political discourse for Americans. Where is the distinguishing line between acceptable criticism that constitutes free speech and enemy incitement and propaganda? Answering the question is essential to distinguishing enemy propagandists and activists from sincere and patriotic fellow Americans who simply have different perspectives and opinions.
Prof. Daniel Pipes (Harvard Univ.) offered a few questions designed to distinguish moderate Muslims from terrorist Muslims (Do you believe in modernity?, http://www.danielpipes.org/article/1322, 2003.11.26). Pointing out that the FBI and Defense Dept. badly misevaluated Abdurahman Alamoudi, Pipes advises that it's not easy. For public figures and institutions, Pipes notes, "The best way to discern moderation is by delving into the record — public and private, Internet and print, domestic and foreign." But for everyday encounters with everyday people, a far better set of touchstones is needed than Prof. Pipes offered. These touchstones "need to be specific, as vague inquiries ("Is Islam a religion of peace?" "Do you condemn terrorism?") have little value, depending as they do on definitions (of peace, terrorism)."
Two other notes Prof. Pipes makes also merit mention. (1) "It is ideal if these questions are posed publicly – in the media or in front of an audience - thereby reducing the scope for dissimulation." (2) "No single reply establishes a militant Islamic disposition (plenty of non-Muslim Europeans believe the Bush administration itself carried out the 9/11 attacks); and pretense is always a possibility..."
While Prof. Pipes writes from his relative Ivory Tower of academia, intellectuals and government elite, many of the questions he poses would receive short shrift in a chat forum of any major liberal American newspaper. I recommend that Prof. Pipes take on a nom de plume and engage in some of these battles, as I have, before attempting to write about solutions.
To understand how to differentiate between acceptable criticism that constitutes free speech and political discourse for Americans, on the one hand, and incitement and propaganda by America's enemies is all that's required. Where the line between moderate Islam and terrorist Islam is drawn then becomes a matter of "Who, besides Muslims, cares?"
Moreover, distinguishing between friend and foe is, fortunately, far simpler. The "pale" is regularly set, defined, sometimes overstepped and often refined by American politicians from both sides of the aisle. While American citizens have the right of free speech to exceed these bounds by error and within reason. When they do so without reasonable evidence they become unpatriotic at the least and flirt with the enemy in advocating enemy propaganda. Always compare and contrast what you hear in everyday encounters with evidence you have personally fact-checked. Don't simply accept some the report of some journalist or media. What contradicts facts is illegitimate public debate: slander, propaganda, bigotry and incitement — all tools frequently wielded by enemy propagandists.
The qualification without reasonable evidence is pivotal. Free speech protection in America was designed by the founding fathers to enable citizens (not foreigners, by the way) to voice religious views and legitimate criticism against the government, not freedom to irresponsibly float every lie and slander in the public forum that confuses the issues and wrongs honest people. Enemy propagandists survive on baseless lies and slander. A case in point is the play "Embedded" by Tim Robbins that misrepresents the journalists embedded with the troops in the Iraq war as puppets of the military, something all of the journalists with one voice debunk. Typical of this crowd of enemy propagandists was a member of the play's audience who dismissed a U.S. Marine Major in full dress uniform who actually fought in Iraq and exposed the play as a fraud perpetrated on the public as a Nazi. These are the words of America's enemies and the axiom is true that 'birds of a feather fly together.'
Some enemy methods are transparent and should be pointed out as such: "America is wrong unless you can prove America is right." That's patently an enemy propagandist line. For Americans, America is right unless proven wrong. With whom the onus of proof properly lies often decides debate. When you see the former argument posed, you're witnessing the propaganda of the enemy. Argumentum ad ignorantiam, evasion of the onus of proof and arguing, instead, from ignorance andor silence, is the most frequently used tactic of our enemies. It should be the first thing you look for and reject. Today, we're awash in examples of this tactic. "American went to war with Iraq over WMDs and there aren't any." Really? Prove there aren't any! That was the initial premise, something Iraq refused to do, and never did. We're still looking for enough WMDs that went missing according to UN records to massacre most of the inhabitants of several of America's largest cities, something our enemies dismiss as an insignificant "5% still unaccounted for." There weren't any nukes. There certainly were WMDs.
When you hear statements like "Pres. Bush (or any American president from either political party) is a fascist (or Nazi)" think about the reaction if it had been uttered by his political adversaries — without proof. The difference between legitimate political disagreement and an enemy then becomes easier to distinguish. If no evidence is provided backing up such allegations then it's demagogic incitement. If you hear hate-driven incitement that no political adversary would even contemplate floating in public debate then you're witnessing at best the remark of someone unpatriotic and, more often, the words of an enemy propagandist – and you should point it out as such. Speech that goes beyond these is even further beyond the pale of legitimate "free speech" and that needs to be pointed out even more emphatically.
When an initial false premise is swallowed, then every argument built on that initial premise that is false, produces a false conclusion. The term for this in logic is ex false quodlibet.
Terrorists, their enablers and sympathizers can also be distinguished by their attempts to evade assigning blame and responsibility for 9/11 on (1) Arabs, (2) Muslims, (3) Wahhabi-Islam, and (4) Saudi (as the ultimate source of the extremist Muslim doctrines). They can similarly be distinguished by their attempts to defend Islamic charities closed for funding terrorism and college professors who have been charged with colluding with terrorists.
Israelis are middle-easterners who routinely subject themselves to searches at American airports and identify themselves to police when requested just like middle-eastern Muslim Arabs. But Israelis and Israeli Americans support security measures – as must any non-subversive Arab American. If they argue that searches and going around unmasked infringes on their rights then they're enemies, not patriotic Arab Americans.
In today's war on terrorism, our enemy can also be distinguished by unwillingness to actively and consistently oppose groups defined by the United States as terrorists — including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Khiz b'Allah ("Hezbullah"). Here, one must exercise greater diligence. Muslims define terror in a way that specifically condones massacres and atrocities against noncombatant Israelis and Jews. Thus, they refuse to categorically and unequivocally condemn killing noncombatant Israelis and Jews as terrorism.
Prof. Pipes proposes including questions concerning secularism and acceptance of modernity and western goals. However, Pennsylvania Quakers and ultra-Orthodox Jews reject secularism, modernity and many western moral values without being terrorist Muslims, terrorists or enemies of America. Such indecisive questions merely muddies the water and adds to the confusion. More to the point is whether an interlocutor thinks that violence is ever justified in furthering Islam and a Caliphate (Islamic world ruler). However, two of Prof. Pipes proposed touchstone questions are helpful here: (1) "Are Sufis and Shi'ites fully legitimate Muslims?" and (2) "Do you see Muslims who disagree with you as having fallen into unbelief? Is takfir ([impugning as infidel] fellow Muslims with whom one has disagreements as unbelievers) an acceptable practice?" ("Takfir" is a verb cognate of "kuffar" — "infidel.")
There are two questions that I find most productive, but only after looking at all of the earlier questions:
The "self-criticism" question posed by Prof. Pipes: "Do you accept the legitimacy of scholarly inquiry into the origins of Islam?" Similarly, does converting out of Islam merit execution? Does insisting that Muhammad is a false prophet merit punishment (or worse, execution)? This line of reasoning is the 'Achilles heal' of any logically invalid, i.e. irrational, religious group. This begins — or ends — intelligent discourse.
The mother of all questions: "Do you believe that Muslims who blow up non-Muslim non-combatant "infidels" — including Americans, Jews and Israelis, go to paradise as a consequence of their action, or into the eternal fires of hell?"
Ultimately, inexorably and inescapably, both Christianity and Islam, being displacement theologies, are, therefore, dependent for their own legitimacy upon invalidating — at any cost — their predecessor religion(s) from which they spawned. As it was in the early days of Christianity, this is the core issue generating today's Islamist terrorism and conflict.
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| Sword of Islam – to terrorist's knife from (proud) Mom's kitchen |
In contrast to the subsequent displacement theologies,
With the relatively recent invention of "The Rapture," the main body of Christianity seems to have managed to defer this conflict until "The Rapture." As long as there is no "Rapture," the point is moot and there is no existential need for Christianity to eradicate its predecessor religion (nor reason for Jews to fear).
Islam, by contrast, doesn't defer judgment to a future divine and spiritual event paralleling the Christian "Rapture". In fact, "now" seems to be a primary appeal of Islam to the masses – who want everything now. Consequently, they must prove Islam valid now by physically eliminating "infidels" (especially focusing on predecessor religions: Jews-Israel first and Christians), in order for their own religious beliefs to be valid. Without a religious solution, that implies unending war until eradication of one or more of these groups. Islam, alone, is absolutely intolerant of contradictory evidence (destroying evidence, even bulldozing it away on Har ha-
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