“Why Don’t Muslims Condemn Terrorism?”

News Abroad

by Irfan Khawaja

Mr. Khawaja is adjunct professor of philosophy at The College of New Jersey and Montclair State University.

As I write, my part of the country is on “Orange Alert,” waiting more or less fatalistically for a repeat performance of September 11, 2001. We all hope that it won’t happen—that it’s a false alarm, or an attack averted by foreknowledge—but bluffing aside, no one knows what will happen, or if anything will, when it will. And there is a sense in which an attack is, and always has been inevitable: Al Qaeda is not defeated, and has not given up. Given all that, it may be worth revisiting an old question, unresolved since 9/11 itself: Why is it, Americans invariably ask, that Muslims have been so reticent about criticizing terrorism?

William Bennett makes the complaint succinctly in his book Why We Fight: Moral Clarity and the War on Terrorism (2003):

It is no doubt a measure of how adroitly Muslim Americans have adapted to our general ethos of entitlement that they and their representatives should so uninhibitedly denounce even the most timid expression of concern about the Islamist danger as ‘Islamophobia’ or as an infringement of their ‘rights.’ But they do, and this has proved an effective tactic of intimidation. Considering the lengths to which our country has gone to accommodate Muslim requirements, it is also sheer effrontery. (p. 108)
If, as we have been assured, moderates really do outnumber extremists in the Muslim world…then they will have to stand up and begin the arduous work of reconstruction from within by criticizing, criticizing, criticizing: wresting the souls of their children from the clutches of self-pity and resentment, taking on the extremists at every point, defining their patrimony anew, and trusting to their convictions, their faith, and the God of history for a vindication that may yet be theirs. (p. 111).

I have a certain sympathy for Bennett’s complaint (though not for his book as a whole). But what explains the attitude he criticizes?

The answer, in my view, lies in the psycho-politics of civil war. It’s an underappreciated fact that the current terrorist episode is most fundamentally a civil war, a war of Muslim against Muslim over the soul of Islam, which for a variety of reasons has spilled out of the Muslim world and into the rest of it. Wars of this sort lead inevitably to euphemism, reticence, and rationalization intended to paper over the reality of the conflict: brothers find it hard to admit that they really are making war against each other. It’s a futile, inexcusable pretense, but Americans ought to stop pretending to incomprehension of it, as though they themselves were innocent of the vice. To see what I mean, consider some ways in which the same denial crops up in American attitudes toward the American Civil War, the one that supposedly ended at Appomattox Court House some 140 years ago.

Start, for instance, with the place where the war began: Fort Sumter, and turn to the website of the National Park Service’s Fort Sumter National Monument, where you’ll find the following account of the fateful events of April 12, 1861:

History provides us with defining moments from which we judge where we are with where we have been. The Civil War provides the United States with one of its critical defining moments that continues to play a vital role in defining ourselves as a Nation. Fort Sumter is the place where it began.
America's most tragic conflict ignited at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, when a chain reaction of social, economic and political events exploded into civil war. At the heart of these events was the issue of states rights versus federal authority flowing over the underlying issue of slavery.
Fueled by decades of disagreement and confrontation, South Carolina seceded in protest of Lincoln's election and the social and economic changes sure to follow. With Fort Sumter as an unyielding bastion of Federal authority, the war became inevitable.
A powerful symbol to both the South and the North, Fort Sumter remains a memorial to all that fought to hold it.

Reading this, one find oneself wondering: does it describe a historical event or a chemistry experiment gone awry?

The first paragraph starts out unassailably enough: history, it tells us, provides us with defining moments that it is our obligation to judge. But we can only judge individuals who, being responsible for their actions, make decisions of their own free will. And oddly enough, every subsequent paragraph in this passage occludes who those individuals were, how they decided, what they did, what the consequences were, and who was to blame for the aftermath. Instead, the conflict “ignited.” A “chain reaction…exploded.” The fuse was lit. The stage was set. Mistakes were made. Snap, crackle, pop: and the war came.

Granted, we get the unavoidable one-line reference to moral and political issues: states rights, federal authority, slavery. But no sooner are these issues mentioned, they are blotted out, and we revert once again to mechanistic metaphors: South Carolina, gassed up on a contention-causing “fuel,” more or less drove into secession like a driver who’s lost control of his vehicle, quite possibly hydroplaning on the issues that were “flowing over” slavery.

Reflecting on this mealy-mouthed abdication of moral judgment (paradoxically issued in the name of moral judgment), consider what Abraham Lincoln had to say about the same situation in his first Inaugural Address of March 4, 1861:

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."

Agree with Lincoln’s interpretation or not, here at least we return to the scene of history as made by human agents as opposed to “chain reactions.”

The contrast between the nineteenth century speech and the twenty-first century website couldn’t be clearer. The website treats the aggression against Fort Sumter as though it were a chance event that just happened to happen. Despite the pro forma references to judgment, its narrative is an act of evasion: it goes as far out of its way as possible to avoid, even to subvert, the task of judgment by pretending that we can somehow understand what happened at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861 in a value-neutral way, standing outside all judgments about what should have happened. But Lincoln—in line with the contemporary school of moral philosophy known as “moral realism”—knows better. The what of a human event is inherently tied to its could have, would have, and should have. Dissociate the one from the other and you cease to understand what the event was about.

Now, you could say that a national park is a park for all Americans, Unionist and Confederate alike, and thus ought to respect all opinions about the war, pro-Lincoln or pro-Davis, pro-Anderson or pro-Beauregard. But that’s precisely the cheap “inclusive” thought that facilitates the Muslim whining that Bennett opposes.

Imagine that we apply the preceding “inclusive” logic not only to Fort Sumter but to the memorial which is to be erected at the site of the new World Trade Center. In fact, most Americans regard what happened at the WTC on 9/11 as an unmitigated act of aggression by Al Qaeda. But not all do. According to the Washington Post (quoting the Jersey City Police Department), some Muslims in my hometown of Jersey City, New Jersey celebrated the 9/11 attacks from their rooftops (see Serge F. Kovaleski and Frederick Kunkle, "Northern New Jersey Draws Probers' Eye: Many in Area Feel Wrongly Targeted," Washington Post, September 18, 2001, p. A6).

Let me emphasize, as I have on previous occasions, that these celebrants were a tiny, tiny minority even of the Muslims of Jersey City, and that by far the majority of rumors about Muslim American celebrations of 9/11 have been false and malicious hoaxes. But the fact remains that if the Jersey City PD and Washington Post are to be believed, those handful of Muslims did celebrate 9/11, and if they are a minority, so are Confederates. If the National Park Service can placate the Confederates, why not placate Muslim American celebrants of 9/11 to the following tune?

History provides us with defining moments from which we judge where we are with where we have been. The 9/11 attacks provide the United States with one of its critical defining moments that continues to play a vital role in defining ourselves as a Nation.
The conflict ignited when a chain reaction took place that led several jet planes to careen toward the Towers, crashing into them, knocking them down, and leading to a tragic loss of life—killing thousands in the towers, hundreds of rescuers, the passengers and crew on the aircraft, and nineteen others caught in the maelstrom.
A powerful symbol to all, the World Trade Center remains a memorial for all involved in the events of that day—those who mourned, and those who cheered; those who fell victim, and those who victimized them.

Is the comparison of Al Qaeda to the Confederacy really so far off? Al Qaeda managed to kill a few thousand Americans—certainly more than bad enough. But if Lincoln was right about whose “hands” led to the Civil War (and I agree with him), Jefferson Davis, P.T. Beauregard, Robert E. Lee & Co. were responsible for starting and conducting a war that killed 600,000 Americans—twenty times what Al Qaeda has so far managed. And yet a taxpayer-funded national park devoted to the “memory” of the Civil War is willing to manufacture excuses for the Confederates that no one would dream of manufacturing for Al Qaeda. Meanwhile, Lincoln’s “divisive” take on the events is for official purposes to be relegated to the memory hole. Can people who play such games with their own history really demand that others make assiduous judgments about theirs?

Consider a second, initially trivial-sounding example. Not long ago, I was driving down the Pennsylvania Turnpike, when I decided to stop for a snack at a service plaza near Gettysburg. Browsing the postcards on sale there, I had trouble believing my eyes. Here I was, a few miles from Gettysburg—site of the most climactic battle ever fought on American soil, site of a Southern offensive stopped by the tenacity and heroism of Northern arms, and site of carnage that for the length of the casualty list, simply dwarfs 9/11 by comparison. So how did the postcards depict this battle?

I’m looking right now at one of those postcards. It depicts three Gettysburg monuments with a Civil War cannon superimposed over them. The cannon is flanked on its right by an American flag, and on its left by… the Confederate flag. Looking at this juxtaposition, you get the impression that Gettysburg was some kind of friendly football scrimmage between rival schools— Union U. versus Confederate State. You also get the lamentable impression that the game ended in a tie. Since it obviously wasn’t a military tie, the implication seems to be that it was a moral tie. And the lesson is that both sides fought as “bravely” as the other, so that both sides deserve our respect.

That suggests another fruitful Pennsylvanian analogy. If what happened at Gettysburg was just a friendly—if competitive—scrimmage, why not say the same of United Flight 93? Our side won the scrimmage, to be sure, but Al Qaeda, our worthy adversary, played good and hard—and you have to respect that. Maybe someone can start marketing postcards with a crashed plane surrounded by an American flag and an Al Qaeda logo.

If you think that’s an outlandish analogy, you’ve probably forgotten that Pickett’s charge was after all a suicide mission, differing only by degrees from Mohammed Atta’s. And if you find yourself nauseated and bewildered at the Muslims who cheered 9/11 from the West Bank and Gaza (or Jersey City), maybe you’ve forgotten William Faulkner’s description of Pickett’s charge from his 1948 novel, Intruder in the Dust:

For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't even begun yet, it not only hasn't begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances.…This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago....

The operative words are “desperate and unbelievable.” No one could reasonably have believed that Pickett’s charge could have succeeded at any earthly goal. Nothing was going to be gained by it, except in a notional and fantasized universe essentially indistinguishable from the Islamist paradise of the “72 virgins.” But if Faulkner is to be believed, a whole generation of Southern lads grew up admiring Pickett to the point of interiorizing and wishing to emulate his suicidal desires. How different is that, really, from the kids in Pakistan or Nigeria or wherever touting their Osama bin Laden T-shirts?

Examples of this sort should make us pause to think about the ways in which the iconography of the Confederacy lives essentially uncontested in the American landscape and imagination. Drive west or south across the country—or for that matter, down into south Jersey (since southern Jersey is debatably south of the Mason-Dixon line, southern Jerseyans fought for the Confederacy, and New Jersey was the only northern state Lincoln didn’t carry in 1860)—and you see the Stars and Bars defiantly littering the landscape. No one is ostracized for flying it or sticking it on anything, as they certainly would be if they painted or stuck “Go Al Qaeda!” on the side of their barn or the back of their pickup.

In Richmond, you can visit the Museum of the Confederacy; in New Orleans, there’s the Confederate Civil War Museum. Nothing untoward about either place, right?

And why should there be? Not long ago, the Stars and Bars fluttered proudly over the South Carolina statehouse (as it did in Georgia and I believe, still does in part in Mississippi), and it took the longest and loudest of protracted battles to induce its champions to take it down. A blast from the past of the nearly-forgotten South Carolina conflict reminds us of its tenor:

Inflammatory remarks by state senator Arthur Ravenel made national headlines in Jan. 2000 when he defended the flying of the Southern Cross, referring to the NAACP as the "the National Association of Retarded People." He then apologized to "retarded people" for associating them with the NAACP. At the time of the February Republican presidential primary, party differences on the issue were thrown in sharp relief: the Republican contenders declined to take a stand except to say that the issue was a state matter; the Democrats were outspokenly against the flag remaining.

They call it the Party of Lincoln.

But then, we have in the Republican Party an Attorney General who admires the “heritage” of the Confederacy in Southern Partisan magazine, praising the “patriots” Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis. And Ashcroft was in good Republican company there, appearing in Southern Partisan alongside such moral luminaries as Trent Lott, Jesse Helms and Dick Armey. It’s funny how conservatives never seem to notice the cultural relativism involved when Southern traitors magically become “patriots” and when their treason is justified in the name of specifically “Southern values.”

Meanwhile, we have state forests devoted to the loving memory of Nathan Bedford Forrest (a founder of the Ku Klux Klan), schools named after Robert E. Lee, honor societies named after Jefferson Davis, and a historical society devoted to the praise of the mass murderer William Clark Quantrill. And don’t get those Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy mad by suggesting that we do away with any of these embarrassing archaisms. That would hurt their feelings, and when Confederates climb aboard the multiculturalist bandwagon, that’s the last thing you want to do.

As various right-wingers manufacture increasingly desperate and embarrassing excuses for the “right to secession,” Lincoln-bashing has come back in vogue. And while people are willing to debate whether Ronald Reagan belongs on Mt. Rushmore, no one much cares to remember that Mt. Rushmore was itself the creation of an ardent member of the Ku Klux Klan (see Simon Schama’s Landscape and Memory). As for Reagan’s views on the Botha government in South Africa, or on the ANC or apartheid generally, let’s not go there. Why should we try to remember what his eulogists have so assiduously induced us to forget?

Reflecting on all this, I think I have an answer to the “Why don’t Muslims condemn terrorism?” question that is snappier than most. Let’s try it in Letterman format.

Muslims don’t condemn terrorism for the same reason that:

10. Americans can’t condemn the firing on Fort Sumter 140 years after the fact.

9. Americans think Gettysburg was a tie.

8. So many Americans proudly fly and defend the Stars and Bars.

7. Americans open museums in praise of the Confederacy.

6. Americans have an Attorney General who is an admirer of the Confederacy.

5. Members of the so-called Party of Lincoln defend a flag of treason and spit in the face of its founder.

4. Americans still admire Confederate traitors and outlaws like Lee and Quantrill.

3. Mt. Rushmore still exists.

2. Ronald Reagan was able to find excuses for apartheid in “African tribalism,” while his eulogists have now chosen, en masse, to forget that moment and dozens like them.

But the real #1 reason that Muslims don’t condemn terrorism is that moral evasion is not a uniquely Muslim trait, but a human capacity practiced everywhere by everyone--especially by those at war with themselves, unable to admit it, and unable to come to resolution about it. If Americans looked harder at their own Civil War, I suspect, they might see that more clearly. But, despite the vast profusion of books, articles and pamphlets on the topic, despite the popularity of Ken Burns’s Civil War film, despite the pious lectures we hear about the evils of racism and the value of “multiculturalism,” Americans cannot seem to stare the facts of the Civil War (what to speak of Reconstruction) directly in the face even after 140 years, without swathing it in euphemism, rationalization, and outright lies. That is why their criticisms of Muslim euphemism, rationalization and dishonesty ring so hollow.

“There was a right side and a wrong side in the late war,” said Frederick Douglass, thirteen years after the fact, on “Decoration Day” (what we now call Memorial Day),

which no sentiment ought to cause us to forget, and while to-day we should have malice toward none, and charity toward all, it is no part of our duty to confound right and wrong, or loyalty with treason. If the observance of this memorial day has any apology, office, or significance, it is derived from the moral character of the war, from the far-reaching, unchangeable and eternal principles in dispute, and for which our sons and brothers encountered hardship, danger, and death. [“There Was a Right Side in the Late War,” speech delivered at Union Square, New York, May 30, 1878, in Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings, ed., Philip S. Foner, abridged and adapted by Yuval Taylor, p. 632.]

It’s futile to expect Muslims to come to terms with their past if we can’t come to terms with ours. We can’t demand “the arduous work of reconstruction from within” (William Bennett’s phrase) from a position of moral ambivalence about our own Civil War and Reconstruction. Nor is there any sense to blustering about “taking on the Muslim extremists at every point,” when the Attorney General of the United States holds his office after literally confounding “right and wrong” and “loyalty with treason.” Ultimately, “the moral character” of our Civil War and theirs is the same: The key to understanding why Muslims don’t criticize terrorism is to ask why we don’t criticize the historical equivalent; the key to understanding why we fight is to understand why we fought.

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Andre Zantonavitch - 9/19/2004

Why don't Moslems condemn terrorism? Because they're slime. That's it. That's all you have to know.

No doubt many or even most are quasi-decent individuals -- at least on some level. It's hard to say. It depends what you mean. But there's NO doubt that they come from a grossly inferior society and culture.

Islam is a very different religion than judaism, christianity, mormonism, and moonyism. The first two, for instance, were created in order to destroy reason and philosophy. As such, they had to incorporate many elements of the hugely civilized, truly virtuous, highly RATIONAL culture of Greece and Rome. Otherwise they wouldn't have been plausible and competitive intellectually.

Islam, on the other hand, was created out of the Dark Age. It was a product of the horror and terror of church "doctors" Tertullian and Jerome. It was the raw evil of "saint" Augustine raised to a whole new level (heavily aided by fanatical jews).

But it's even worse than this. Moslems never had a Reformation in response to the Reasonist ascent of the Renaisssance and Enlightenment.

And it's even worse than this. Virtually all moslems live in dictatorships. This lets them put the most uncivilized, destructive, and terrible elements of their belief-system first.

So islam is three orders of magnitude -- three massive levels of evil -- worse than the judeo-christian West. Whenever George Bush and Tony Blair say that moslems are normal-type people and have a normal-type religion -- they're lying.

Ten or twenty years ago, insightful and high-integrity people used to observe the nightmare of Iran and say "The problem in that part of the world isn't radical islam -- it's islam." We in the West need to regain this insight -- and then some.

It's not as if they don't make their nature abundantly clear. We Westerners just prefer to look in the mirror and then lie thru our teeth about this. This is a head in the sand approach which is morally depraved and doomed to failure.

Ultimately, the problem here is political correctness. It's the Western evil of multiculturalism, diversity, inclusion, and identity politics. It's moral equivalency writ large. The reason moslems don't condemn terrorism anything like the way jews and christians do is because, relatively speaking, they are cultural, intellectual, and moral SLIME.

David C Battle - 9/17/2004

Kawaja, Udi,

brilliant! very entertaining indeed. You had me in tears!

David C Battle - 9/16/2004

and by the way, I very much enjoy your writing.

David C Battle - 9/16/2004

Khawaja,

ok, I'll concede, especially because I'd rather believe you're right. But here we have a respected islamic scholar who says the wahabi strain has infected American islam, and that it's a threat:

http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm?include=detail&;storyid=273232

just for your information

David C Battle - 9/16/2004

It doesn't matter whether I'm "doing exactly what the blame the jews" muslims do; I happen to be right, and they happen to be wrong. And you're in denial, like them.

You know for a fact that there's a large minority of muslims who don't even believe muslims perpetrated 9/11. Do I have to google it for you? I can't even believe you've not even caught wind of this? Does the ivory tower insulate you from this kind of information?

Start here; from the mouth of an Arab:

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/stalinsky200405060835.asp

No wonder they condemn 9/11. They think Jews did it!

Steven L. Frank - 9/16/2004

If one was to speak out against Islamofascist terrorism while living in a Muslim country he would be killed.

Udi Mauzner - 9/15/2004

Good one mustafa, you really are an american, you know ?

Udi Mauzner - 9/15/2004

No, I don't feel silly at all. If you present yourself as an Arab (Khawaja sounds very NJ, almost like Springsteen), don't be surprised that people take you for one.

Actually, I've skimmed several of your references (I think that condemnation should be obvious, even from just skimming). The common thread, in your own words, is:

"Since the attackers were Arab Muslims, we need to ask what we might specifically have done to inspire such rage in them. As it turns out, there are such things, and since there are, while we should condemn the attacks, we should also admit that our policies are partly responsible for their having taken place."

Indeed, an unequivocal, unambiguous condemnation if I ever saw one.

As to saying that I have no idea, well, that's just a step away from calling me an imbecile, and three steps away from blowing up in my face. But, I'd be partly responsible for that, so condemnation of your act should be a-priori half-assed, to say the least.

Don Adams - 9/14/2004

I have followed your comments throughout the various threads which have developed in response to your article, and while I appreciate the arguments you present, what I appreciate even more is the tone in which you present them. Not all of the postings in response to your article have been respectful -- or even relevant -- but you have maintained your dignity and composure. The more Peter Clarke and those like him engage you, the more ridiculous their juvenile insults appear.

Udi Mauzner - 9/14/2004

OK, lets get serious. Why is it so hard to find condemnation in your (and other Arab Intellectuals) publishments ?

Get serious. You are not an American. You're playing the typical Arab Intellectual game: you flee to a democratic country, and use freedom of speech to delegitimize that democracy. When someone tries to respond - you wave that same freedom you are trying to destroy as a shield. A perfect self-destructing mechanism, just like suicide bombers.

Newsflash: the arab/muslim countries are not pluralistic, diverse, open-minded democracies. Arab Terrorism is not an inevitable result of internal cultural debate. It is a reflection of the Arab vision for the world: a primitive, tradition-centric society where the strong rule and oppress the weak, women, animals, and basically anything that threatens their dynasty of force.

Don Adams - 9/14/2004

One need not agree with all of the line items in an analogy between Al-Qaeda and the Confederacy in order to accept its broader merit. Indeed, Mr. Khajawa makes several detailed comparisons with which I disagree, and I noted earlier that there are profound differences between Al-Qaeda and the Confederacy. But they, and the Third Reich along with them, are alike in that each is organized around an ideology of racial or religious superiority, and each has engaged in historically significant campaigns of hatred and violence. It seems to me that these elements by themselves are more than enough to serve as the basis for certain useful analogies.

More to the point, as I have noted before – and as Mr. Khawaja has confirmed – this is but a component of his thesis, not the thesis itself. The ultimate point of his article was that it is a complicated and difficult thing to condemn those to whom one feels culturally or otherwise connected. The arguments put forth by both you and Mr. Lamovsky confirm this rather neatly. You, for example, argue that we should not judge the Confederacy by our standards, but rather by theirs. They didn’t think what they were doing was evil, so why should we? This is interesting in two ways. First, it simultaneously acknowledges and excuses their barbarity. Why refrain from judging them by our standards, if not because they will be found morally or otherwise deficient? Second, you conveniently ignore the fact that neither Al-Qaeda nor the SS think (thought) of themselves as evil, and both are (were) vigorously supported by many of their cultural kin. If we are going to judge the Confederacy by its standards, why not judge Al-Qaeda and the Third Reich by theirs? This kind of double-standard is exactly the kind of thing I meant when I referred to in-group bias, and I truly could not have come up with a better example than you have provided.

David C Battle - 9/14/2004

Khawaja,

it's quite likely that many of those mosques which condemned 9/11 are the same mosques which deny muslims were even involved in that attack, and instead blame it on jews and zionists. You know I'm right.

Andrew Pine - 9/13/2004

While I do agree with the assertion that there is an element of forgiveness given to members of one's own group that would not be given to an outsider, I, like Mr. Lamovsky, cannot abide by the comparison of the Southern Confederacy to Islamic terrorists.

Most importantly, by applying today's standards of morality to the Confederates and their position on slavery you make it sound as if the Confederacy was fighting for something that the majority viewed as evil. Even the people in the North did not view slavery as evil, nor did they view Blacks as equal to whites. This distinction is important, as it colors the very nature of the conflict. As with other ideas and ideologies that we now view as evil, you cannot apply those standards to a people living hundreds of years ago – even dozens of years.

The Nazi comparison to the Confederacy is even worse. The Nazi’s aren’t viewed as evil because of their antiquated Fascist ideology, nor for waging a war. They are viewed evil because they committed genocide. They killed 6 million innocent non-combatants including women and children. This part of their legacy has much more in common with the Islamic terrorists than any convoluted connection to the American Civil War. Confederate soldiers fought for their states, regardless of the moral implications of the political ideal, they fought for their perceived rights, and they fought as soldiers. Only the politically ignorant would have the nerve to say that every Nazi foot soldier was an evil minion of genocide. Saying that every Confederate soldier was similarly evil is just as foolish. But, it is fair to say that every person who straps explosives onto themselves and walks into a crowded shopping center, or airplane, or grade school is nothing less than evil and cowardly. This is the distinction that should be made.

I think it is unfair to lump every act of insurrection associated with Iraq or Palestine or Chechnya as terrorism. I know there are those who do fight with honor - those who attack the soldiers who they view as their oppressors. That is war. That is honor. But attacking civilians with no goal other than fear and bloodshed is terrorism.

The terrorists, who use religion as a guise for hatred, cannot claim a different moral code. They live today. Their acts and goals go against the very religion they espouse. They are killing innocents not for military or political gain, but rather for the purposes of revenge and fear. And in this revenge other Islamic people, mainly those in the Middle East, do take a certain amount of pleasure. They have been oppressed and exploited by Western countries and their puppet governments for most of the century, and probably deserve some revenge.

But, this revenge has nothing to do with Islam. Muslims around the world should denounce these acts as the perpetrators have hijacked their religion and are using it for their own personal vendettas. A more fair comparison would be if a small group of Southern fanatics were to kidnap a group of Africans today in the name of the U.S.A. or the Confederacy for slavery. Would Americans remain quiet? Would we not speak out against them because of some perceived kinship we have with others from our country?

Apparently, if we did, that would be understandable, even acceptable according to Mr. Khajawa.

Udi Mauzner - 9/13/2004

Sorry, I couldn't find that. Try harder next time - sounds like you are condoning it, not condemning it.

Terrorism is a real threat for all of us, not just an academic plaything for you to practice your postmodernism 101 on.

Udi Mauzner - 9/13/2004

Is it because of Reagan ? Mt. Rushmore ? Derrida ? Multiculturalism ? or maybe its simply because you don't condemn terrorism as a method of settling disputes (especially among the muslim brothers) ?

-Udi

Stephen Davis - 9/12/2004

Forgive me for jumping in--but what Ohio bombing?

David C Battle - 9/12/2004

Of course, your comparison to "militia" terrorism is silly. For one, it was an isolated incident and hardly requires that kind of response. And secondly, what constituency do you suggest should come out and protest them?

A better comparison is the KKK; they are quite regular in their hate marches (or used to be), which always brings out white protestors to denounce them so them. Would it be too much to ask muslims to denounce en masse their own "KKK"?

But allow me to answer my own question. Yes, it would be too much. Because islamic terror isn't limited to a fraction of a percentage as white supremacy is. Islamic terrorism represents a very large minority of muslims, and I suspect most of them, even those who aren't terrorists, feel as you do: that the U.S. had it coming to us.

And that's why there are no muslim million man marches.

Don Adams - 9/12/2004

What I find most interesting about your argument is that you are so willing to separate the Confederacy from its cause. Consider the following words:

“Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.”

It has become fashionable to downplay the role of slavery in the Civil War, but this is the opening paragraph of Mississippi’s secession statement. Your comment that “There is zero comparison between naming streets in Virginia after Lee and Jackson and naming German streets after generals who fought a war of aggression and conquest dreamed up by a genocidal psychopath” is underwritten by the notion that it is possible to honor Confederate generals without endorsing the regime for which they fought, but not possible to do so for German generals. (This is a particularly interesting element of your argument, because German generals were held in much the high same regard by their American (and British) counterparts as were Southern generals by theirs. Apparently you believe we should take our moral cues from Joshua Chamberlain, but not from George Patton). Perhaps it is possible for you to dissociate the Confederacy from it cause, but I wonder, do you believe it is possible for an African-American to do so? Would an African-American view a statue of Jefferson Davis or the flying of the Confederate flag differently than a Jew would regard a tribute to the Nazi military?

Your more charged comment that “The difference between honoring Confederates and tacitly supporting Islamic terrorists is the difference between honoring dead soldiers and supporting living murderers” is similarly underwritten by a willful disregard for cause and context. The average souther soldier was surely not a murderer on par with the 9/11 hijackers, but he was nonetheless fighting in the name of a cause which was every bit as depraved as radical Islam. The fact that you are willing to compartmentalize southern soldiery from southern ideology is exactly the kind of evasion Mr. Khawaja was referring to in the first place. There is no suggestion here that you support slavery, but that is exactly the point: Muslim reticence regarding terrorism does not by itself confirm that they “support living murderers” any more than your admiration for southern soldiers confirms that you are in favor of slavery.

I realize that your argument is that because Confederate tactics were different than Al-Qaeda’s there is no way to compare the two. My argument is simply that however profound their differences, each ultimately represents a facet of evil, and yet there are those who find it difficult to condemn one or the other depending on group affiliation. That is precisely the nature of in-group bias, and even after some considerable thought since our exchange began, I believe it is a fair characterization of the dynamics involved in comparing Muslim responses to Al-Qaeda and American treatment of the Confederacy.

Arnold Shcherban - 9/12/2004

Somehow, I didn't see even 100 man anti-militia march converging on Washington mall, after Ohio bombing that
killed hundreds of children, not mentioning men and women.
They can do as much about islamic terrorism, as you,
Mr. Battle could do about domestic non-Islamic terrorists, as Mc'Viegh, KKK, anti-abortion ones, anti-something else, etc.

The long-sustained US and UK imperial foreign policy is mostly (though, of course, not exclusively) responsible for the modern wave of Islamic terrorism, which, by the way, when it is targeting not this country itself, or its allies, don't invoked even remotely close furor among
Washington bosses.
Russia, before Chechen's war didn't have any problems with Islamic terrorism. So, if Islamic fundamentalism was/is in the culture war with modern civilization, why
the Chechen and Arab terrorists didn't attack Russian civilians before?
Stop interfere with Third World couintries internal affairs, let them handle their natural and human resourcers the way they want to, and in a short time
you will see zero level of terrorist activity against
the Western world.
That' is the only and the most effective way, provided
this country really want to eliminate terrorism.
The main problem, as I see it, lies in the fact that the
planners of American geopolitics (both, Republican and Democrats), as controvercial and anti-American, as it may sound, desperately need some level of terrorism/threat coming from anywhere!
Otherwise, they cannot sustain their imperial and hegemonistic designs and high corporate profits.

David C Battle - 9/12/2004

When I see a muslim million-man march converge on the Washington mall, then I'll believe it. Heck, I'd settle for a thousand-man march. Until then, they seem more concerned about those "nasty stares" than they do about islamic terrorism.

Brian Martin - 9/11/2004

Concerning your problem with the account at the Fort Sumter Web site, can you give us an example of what would you have written instead?

I also have problems with some NPS web sites. Those sickos list the Sand Creek Massacre as a Union victory in the Civil War? http://www2.cr.nps.gov/abpp/battles/co001.htm

[Is the comparison of Al Qaeda to the Confederacy really so far off?]

Let's work this out now: Did Al Queda send diplomats to attempt a peaceful solution before their assault on the WTC and Pentagon? The Confederate commissioners attempted to meet with Lincoln, but were rebuffed. Did Al Queda give those on the planes, WTC, and the Pentagon a chance to evacuate before the assault began? The Confederates did at Fort Sumter. Al Queda murdered 2800+ Americans. The Confederates killed no one in the assault, the 2 Union deaths were a result of a cannon bursting as the Union was in the process of firing a 100 gun salute after the surrender. The Al Queda attackers died in their assault. The Confederates suffered no deaths. I could continue in this vein, but for the sake of brevity will not.

Yes, in my opinion the comparison is really far off.

[Jefferson Davis, P.T. Beauregard, Robert E. Lee & Co. were responsible for starting and conducting a war that killed 600,000 Americans]

At the time of Fort Sumter, Robert E. Lee was still a member of the U.S. Army and is in no way responsible for starting the war.

[Pickett’s charge was after all a suicide mission,]

Perhaps to your line of thinking...not to mine. Do you also consider the assaults at say Normandy Beach and Iwo Jima to be "suicide missions"?

[the Stars and Bars fluttered proudly over the South Carolina statehouse (as it did in Georgia and I believe, still does in part in Mississippi),]

Actually it was the Confederate Battle flag that flew over the capitol at South Carolina, was a part of the Georgia flag and still is part of the Mississippi flag. The Stars and Bars is a completely different flag. It can be seen at: http://www.ruffinflag.com/S&;Bpoly.jpg

[Meanwhile, we have state forests devoted to the loving memory of Nathan Bedford Forrest (a founder of the Ku Klux Klan),]

The KKK was founded several months before Forrest became involved. The actual founders were: John C. Lester, Major James R. Crowe, John D. Kennedy, Calvin Jones, Richard R. Reed, and Frank O. McCord.

[As various right-wingers manufacture increasingly desperate and embarrassing excuses for the "right to secession,"]

I've seen debates concerning the legality/illegality of secession in debate groups and Civil War magazines. (not sure if they were "right-wingers" or not) What about the article linked to would you describe as "desperate and embarrassing"?

Concerning your "top 10 list", #9 I've never met anyone who considers Gettysburg a tie, have you? #7 Are not both The Museum of the Confederacy and the Confederate Museum in New Orleans over 100 years old, how many have opened recently? #5 How many Americans have even heard of Alvan E. Laboy, much less spit in his face? #4 Lee followed in the footsteps of the man he admired. He fought for one gov't and then later against them, just like George Washington.

Jesse David Lamovsky - 9/11/2004

I understand the sociological arguments here, Mr. Adams. But the analogy still does not hold even on this basic level, because of the fundamental nature of the Confederacy, and the Confederate war effort, versus that of Islamic terrorism, as well as the nature of Confederate nostalgia itself. The Confederates fought with a certain amount of honor, they fought generally within the rules of civilized warfare, and one does not have to be within the in-group to respect their effort, the justice or injustice of their cause aside (certainly U.S. Grant and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain did not support the ideals of the Confederacy, but they had no qualms about honoring the men who fought for those ideals). The whole Lost Cause mythology centers around the Confederates as sacred losers- they lost, it is a good thing they lost, but they gave it the old college try, and should be respected for that. This is a different dynamic than that of the perceived widespread Muslim silence in the face of Islamist terrorism. The former has little or nothing to do with moral evasion regarding the rightness or wrongness of the Confederate cause, whereas the latter has everything to do with moral evasion in the face of mass murder. Am I being overly literal in making these distinctions? I certainly don’t think so. I have no quarrel with Mr. Khajawa’s assertion that Islamic terrorism is a component of a civil war within Islam itself. But 9/11 has no parallel in the Civil War (even on Quantrill’s worst day, he did not target women and children). The difference between honoring Confederates and tacitly supporting Islamic terrorists is the difference between honoring dead soldiers and supporting living murderers. I do not think I am nitpicking when I reject this analogy.

If Mr. Khajawa wants to make foolish statements like "Americans think the battle of Gettysburg was a tie", or that Pickett’s Charge was in effect a 19th century suicide bombing, he should get called on them. There is zero comparison between naming streets in Virginia after Lee and Jackson and naming German streets after generals who fought a war of aggression and conquest dreamed up by a genocidal psychopath. And a battlefield is a place to honor soldiers, period. It is not, nor should it be, an arena for political proselytizing.

Don Adams - 9/11/2004

Your efforts to distinguish Al-Qaeda and 9/11 from the Confederacy and Fort Sumter are puzzling, to say no more, and your comparison of Union conduct to Confederate conduct is simply irrelevant. Mr. Khawaja did not argue that Al-Qaeda and the Confederacy are precisely analogous, nor did he make any claims about the conduct of Union forces. His suggestion was simply that even to this day many Americans have difficulty condemning either the cause of the Confederacy or its terrible consequences in unequivocal terms. His analogy only "strains supportability" if one incorrectly identifies its central elements (and, for that matter, if one is so literal as to require every detail of an analogy to match up in precise terms in order to accept its validity). The essence of his analogy is not between Al-Qaeda and the Confederacy, but rather between the moral, social, and cultural response of many Americans to the Confederacy and that of many Muslims to Islamic terrorism. His point is that condemning even the radical fringe of a group to which one belongs is an exercise in ambivalence for everyone, not just moderate Muslims. He is right to say so, and there is both documentary and theoretical evidence to support his position.

Sociology provides the well-established theory of “Social Identity Theory.” According to this theory, human beings are essentially programmed to notice differences between themselves and others, and to use these differences as the basis for favorable or unfavorable estimations of one another. That humans tend to look unfavorably upon those they perceive as different is self-evident. What bears mentioning here is that there is empirical evidence which confirms that humans are far less judgmental of those in their “in-group” than they are of those in an “out-group” even under substantially similar circumstances. As noted by one sociologist, “The main empirical findings of SIT (social identity theory) refer to what is called in-group bias. This observed pattern refers to the tendency to favor the in-group subject over the out-group subject in evaluating behavior. Put in other terms, individuals who belong to the same group will be judged better than individuals of another group given the same characteristics. This kind of benevolence for fellow has been shown to be quite robust.” (https://mail.sssup.it/~ploner/groups/node7.html). This is as direct a confirmation of Mr. Khawaja’s underlying premise as one is likely to find.

As for the validity of the analogy itself, the ambivalence and tentativeness he says are at the heart of certain Civil War memorials goes far beyond those he mentions in his article. Fredricksburg and the Spotsylvania National Military Park are a tour-de-force in moral evasion. Start with the fact that there are major streets named after Lee, Jackson, and others southern generals, and dozens of local businesses unashamedly attached to the war (“Battlefield Insurance”). This kind of thing apparently lacks a moral dimension for you, but if Germany were to begin naming streets after Runstedt or Mannstein, or if a German business called itself “Blitzkrieg Housekeeping,” I suspect you would not find such associations to be morally neutral. More to the point, you can spend as much time as you would like in the National Park Service facilities attached to each of the major battles fought in Spotsylvania County, you will find essentially no references to slavery. What you will find are memorials dedicated to “all the heroes” who fought on both sides, shrines to the military genius of Lee and Jackson, and countless other instances in which the purely martial aspects of the war are entirely dissociated from the economic, cultural, and yes, moral issues which gave rise to the war. You will even find that the museum bookstores are divided into “north” and “south” sections, suggesting there are still two distinct bodies of thought on this matter, even two regional cultures not yet fully merged.

To an outsider, or a historian of the future, such signs would serve as evidence that Americans are still unable to fully denounce the excesses of their past and organize around a common moral center. Mr. Khawaja argues that this is true of Islam as well, and that this dymamic is at the heart of the apparent tepidity of Muslim responses to terrorism. I agree with both his analogy and its sociological underpinnings.

Jesse David Lamovsky - 9/10/2004

All those &#8220s and &#8221s are supposed to be quotation marks and apostrophies. For some reason, my PC isn't translating them into text when I copy-and-paste from Word. My apologies.

Jesse David Lamovsky - 9/10/2004

There are plenty of reasons why Mr. Khajawa’s analogy, though not completely unsupportable, at least strains supportability.

Fort Sumter wasn’t an act of terrorism. It was a military assault, on a military target. It had been anticipated for several months (Lincoln’s promise in his First Inaugural to “hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts” was a fairly direct reference to Sumter, and Major Anderson had moved his command from Fort Moultrie to Sumter in December, citing the defensibility of Sumter compared to Moultrie), so it lacked the deadly spontaneity of a terrorist attack. The attack was also nearly bloodless- one casualty, a man killed by an exploding powder magazine after the assault had ended.

The portion of Lincoln’s First Inaugural quoted above puts a different spin, I think, on Mr. Khajawa’s assertion that the Confederates have 100% of the responsibility for Sumter, and thus the war itself. Lincoln had decided to resupply the fort’s garrison over the objections of a majority of his cabinet, who had preferred the fort be evacuated, as were many outposts of Federal control in early 1861. Lincoln, it can be argued, wanted to force an armed confrontation over Sumter, giving him an excuse to seize the kind of power he felt he needed to crush the rebellion. The events that followed Sumter- Lincoln’s call for 75,000 troops, his assumption of nearly dictatorial power- speak for themselves.

Whatever one thinks of the tactical merits of Pickett’s Charge, it was decidedly not intended to be a “suicide mission”. To be sure, it was an assault that, in retrospect, had very little chance of succeeding, but General Lee intended the attack to succeed, there is no doubt about that. He had ordered frontal assaults before Gettysburg (notably at Gaines Mill, a success, and Malvern Hill, a failure). Five months after Gettysburg the Union Army of the Cumberland broke the siege of Chattanooga with a successful frontal assault that, on paper, had less chance of succeeding than Pickett’s at Gettysburg. Pickett’s Charge was not delivered as some kind of nihilistic act of self-abnegation; it was delivered with the intent of breaking the Union center and winning the battle. Besides, George Pickett himself apparently had no “suicidal desires”- he survived the charge.

And it should be pointed out that the conduct of the Union Army in the South came a lot closer to the level of state terrorism than did that of the Confederate Army in its two forays into Northern territory. General Lee, who Mr. Khajawa insults as an “outlaw”, gave strict orders forbidding destruction and mass expropriation of the property of Pennsylvanians during the Gettysburg campaign. To be sure, such expropriations did take place, and to assert that the Confederates were simon-pure throughout the war would be a lie (Fort Pillow, the burning of Chambersburg, the kidnapping of free blacks in Pennsylvania, etc.). But the atrocities inflicted by Federal troops in Georgia, in the Shenandoah Valley, and elsewhere were sanctioned by the Lincoln administration. William Quantrill’s depravations, though horrifying, should be discussed in the context of war as it was fought in Missouri and Kansas- and in that region, both sides had bloody hands indeed.

Mr. Khajawa also assumes secession= treason. The Confederates sought not to forcibly overthrow the Federal Government; they sought to replace its authority in their native region. The distinction matters. Before the Civil War, secession was a concept that had been bandied about fairly often, and not just by Southerners. The mainstream consensus that secession= treason was one that didn’t exist until after the war, and even then the Federal government didn’t bring Jefferson Davis to trial on treason charges because it feared an acquittal, from a Northern jury, on the grounds that secession was not unconstitutional. And it is overstating things to claim that Confederate flag-boosterism is part and parcel of the GOP. It was a Republican governor who ordered the Battle Flag brought down from atop the Statehouse in South Carolina a few years back.

In short, I think Mr. Clarke is right- I don’t think the Al Queda/Confederacy is a proper analogy. In the mainstream, moral judgments on the dominant issues of the war have long since been made. To deny this just because people fly the Battle Flag (and they have their own reasons for doing so; it is typical progressive arrogance that claims to know their reasons), and people look up to Lee and Jackson is stretching things. Like the Religious Right, contemporary “Confederate sympathizers” are more a liberal bogeyman than a political movement with actual power, unlike Al Queda and its tributaries.

James E. Thornton - 9/10/2004

How do Muslims counter the literalist interpretations of the Quran and Hadith? I have posted "the Sword Verse" and the Hadith about killing Jews. My understanding is that the radicals follow the Hanbali school of Islamic jurisprudence and reject Qiyas and Ijma. How do you fight that ideologically? I believe that the terrorists know more about the faith than most Muslims.

Jeffrey Imm - 9/10/2004

<Now - this is the type of group we need to see more of, and more activity like Pakistan's Air Force. Americans respect people who fight back against violent extremists.>

Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism

http://www.freemuslims.org/news/article.php?article=148

We are so Sorry for 9-11
September 11, 2004
By Kamal Nawash

This September 11 marks the third unforgettable anniversary of the worst mass murder in American history.

After September 11, many in the Muslim world chose denial and hallucination rather than face up to the sad fact that Muslims perpetrated the 9-11 terrorist acts and that we have an enormous problem with extremism and support for terrorism. Many Muslims, including religious leaders, and “intellectuals” blamed 9-11 on a Jewish conspiracy and went as far as fabricating a tale that 4000 Jews did not show up for work in the World Trade Center on 9-11. Yet others blamed 9-11 on an American right wing conspiracy or the U.S. Government which allegedly wanted an excuse to invade Iraq and “steal” Iraqi oil.

After numerous admissions of guilt by Bin Laden and numerous corroborating admissions by captured top level Al-Qaida operatives, we wonder, does the Muslim leadership have the dignity and courage to apologize for 9-11? If not 9-11, will we apologize for the murder of school children in Russia? If not Russia, will we apologize for the train bombings in Madrid, Spain? If not Spain, will we apologize for suicide bombings in buses, restaurants and other public places? If not suicide bombings, will we apologize for the barbaric beheadings of human beings? If not beheadings, will we apologize for the rape and murder of thousands of innocent people in Darfour? If not Darfour, will we apologize for the blowing up of two Russian planes by Muslim women? What will we apologize for? What will it take for Muslims to realize that those who commit mass murder in the name of Islam are not just a few fringe elements? What will it take for Muslims to realize that we are facing a crisis that is more deadly than the Aids epidemic? What will it take for Muslims to realize that there is a large evil movement that is turning what was a peaceful religion into a cult?

Will Muslims wake up before it is too late? Or will we continue blaming the Jews and an imaginary Jewish conspiracy? The blaming of all Muslim problems on Jews is a cancer that is destroying Muslim society from within and it must stop.

Muslims must look inward and put a stop to many of our religious leaders who spend most of their sermons teaching hatred, intolerance and violent jihad. We should not be afraid to admit that as Muslims we have a problem with violent extremism. We should not be afraid to admit that so many of our religious leaders belong behind bars and not behind a pulpit. Only moderate Muslims can challenge and defeat extremist Muslims. We can no longer afford to be silent. If we remain silent to the extremism within our community then we should not expect anyone to listen to us when we complain of stereotyping and discrimination by non-Muslims; we should not be surprised when the world treats all of us as terrorists; we should not be surprised when we are profiled at airports. Simply put, not only do Muslims need to join the war against terror, we need to take the lead in this war.

As to apologizing, we will no longer wait for our religious leaders and “intellectuals” to do the right thing. Instead, we will start by apologizing for 9-11. We are so sorry that 3000 people were murdered in our name. We will never forget the sight of people jumping from two of the highest buildings in the world hoping against hope that if they moved their arms fast enough that they may fly and survive a certain death from burning. We are sorry for blaming 9-11 on a Jewish or right wing conspiracy. We are so sorry for the murder of more than three hundred school children and adults in Russia. We are so sorry for the murder of train passengers in Spain. We are so sorry for all the victims of suicide bombings. We are so sorry for the beheadings, abductions, rapes, violent Jihad and all the atrocities committed by Muslims around the world. We are so sorry for a religious education that raised killers rather than train people to do good in the world. We are sorry that we did not take the time to teach our children tolerance and respect for other people. We are so sorry for not rising up against the dictators who have ruled the Muslim world for decades. We are so sorry for allowing corruption to spread so fast and so deep in the Muslim world that many of our youth lost hope. We are so sorry for allowing our religious leaders to relegate women to the status of forth class citizens at best and sub-humans at worse.

We are so sorry.

Jeffrey Imm - 9/10/2004

Irfan -
I see your point of view, and do not claim that Moderate Christians are perfect. However, there is a HUGE difference between any comments by Attorney General (which may or may not be taken out of context) and Islamist Terrorists who are killing people EVERY DAY.

If this is the "worst" that one can find in lack of Moderate Christian response, it speaks volumes. It makes an unconvincing comparison at best.

I think the point that is not addressed, however, and which may be more relavent and to this specific topic is to the reasons WHY you "sympathize with <the> fear <of Moderate Muslims>".

While I may have a web site attacking Nazis and Christian Extremist groups, and a news group attacking their actions every week (http://www.againstnazi.com and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/againstnazi/), with my name, and indications of where I live, I don't expect KKK or Christian Identity to come shoot me tomorrow. Not saying they won't, mind you. It's just not an expectation.

The questions are "who is at the fringes" - or perhaps "how large are the extremists"? I am incentivized to create a new site to focus on Christian Identity here and make them more prominent in my attacks as a Moderate Christian.

I also am aware that percent-wise few real Christians think these groups are even remotely "Christian". These groups and Nazis may allege some involvement in Christianity but only a very small fraction of Christians believe this. Therefore, I would have no fear of going to any Christian church and publicly denouncing and ridiculing them - and by the way, I have done so here - and in other parts of the country.

Perhaps the issue is different with Islam, because the radical Muslims have too much weight now? They represent too much of the population or at least sympathizers?

Jeffrey Imm - 9/10/2004

Irfan -
Very good dialogue on this posting in general on every side, good to hear the different opinions.

I also believe that Pakistan is the "Ground Zero" (hopefully, not literally - but it could easily come to that) as to the struggle is Islam between Radical and Moderate Muslims. The attack on the international terrorist base by the Pakistan Air Force is exactly what I am talking about. Real force to fight terrorism. And certainly there is a huge struggle behind the scenes to see who will win in controlling Pakistan - Moderate Islam or Radical Islam.

chris l pettit - 9/9/2004

Your last questions and point about bin Laden are spot on...this is the logic of poor Irfan as well...

CP
www.wicper.org

Jeffrey Imm - 9/8/2004

An article on CAIR - there are plenty of others out there like this. I am not attesting to the validity or invalidity of this. But Moderate Muslims have to realize that this is out there, and yes considered truth by "reaasonable people". Again Jihadists keep defining Islam due to the lack of aggressiveness by Moderate Muslims, so who can be surprised? This is just a minor example of what the perception is of CAIR-like organizations. Americans respect people who really are there to fight extremists. The USA and the American people have a long history of supporting those aggressively fight against violent extremists. And the Moderate Muslim groups that are actively doing that are: ..... ?

=================================================

Preaching violence

March 17, 2004

By Joel Mowbray

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20040316-085118-1135r.htm

Appearing on Fox News recently, the spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Ibrahim Hooper, said that in 20 years worth of trips to mosques, "I've never heard violence preached; I've never heard anti-Semitism or anti-Americanism preached."
When asked in a subsequent phone interview with this columnist if his statement also holds true for any Muslim events, conferences and rallies he has attended, Mr. Hooper said it did and added, "In fact, if I had heard that I would have called them on the carpet and asked them why they're saying such hate-filled, divisive things." (In a follow-up conversation, Mr. Hooper said he did "not include rallies.")
Mr. Hooper's claims, however, are somewhere between disingenuous and just plain dishonest.
At a now-infamous Washington rally on Oct. 28, 2000, then-president of the American Muslim Federation Abdurahman Alamoudi shouted to a cheering crowd, "We are all supporters of Hamas." In the second phone interview, Mr. Hooper acknowledged being there but claims he did not hear Mr. Alamoudi.
In the media frenzy that followed, though, neither CAIR nor Mr. Hooper publicly criticized Mr. Alamoudi's avowed support of the terrorist organization.
Less than a year later, Mr. Hooper joined roughly a dozen leaders of various Muslim groups in staging a "sit in" in front of the State Department in June 2001. During the event, American Muslim Council Director Ali Ramadan Abu Zakouk "preached violence" by labeling the mass murder of innocent civilians in suicide bombing attacks as a "God-given right."
"The question of resistance to occupation is a God-given right. And the occupied people can use any means possible for them. They have no limitation," Mr. Zakouk explained. Mr. Hooper was listed as the contact person for the press release sent out in advance of the "sit in," though he first claimed he "did not remember" and later that he "did not hear" Mr. Zakouk's defense of suicide bombings.
Videotape footage of the event (provided by the Investigative Project), however, clearly shows Mr. Hooper standing barely a few feet behind Mr. Zakouk as the comments were made.
Without video or a published record noting his participation, it is impossible to know what other pro-violence, anti-American or anti-Semitic propaganda Mr. Hooper has personally witnessed. But there are plenty of examples of reprehensible rhetoric spouted either by CAIR officials or at CAIR co-sponsored events — any of which Mr. Hooper, as longtime CAIR spokesman, would almost surely be aware of.
At the Islamic Association of Palestine's third annual convention in Chicago in November 1999, CAIR President Omar Ahmad gave a speech at a youth session praising suicide bombers who "kill themselves for Islam." "Fighting for freedom, fighting for Islam — that is not suicide. They kill themselves for Islam, " he said.
The executive director of CAIR's New York chapter has made similar comments that would likewise fall under the heading of "violence preached." At an interfaith event shortly after September 11, CAIR-NY's Ghazi Khankan started with the obligatory disclaimer that "those who attack civilians are wrong," but then he explained that any Israeli adult was a "soldier" and thus not a civilian.
Mr. Khankan rationalized as follows: "Anyone over 18 is automatically inducted into the service and they are all reserves. Therefore, Hamas, in my opinion, looks at them as part of the military." Driving home the point that it's OK to blow up any Israeli adult, Mr. Khankan added, "Those who are below 18 should not be attacked." (When asked about this speech — but not being told who gave it — Mr. Hooper said, "I condemn it.")
CAIR co-sponsored a May 1998 New York conference titled, "Palestine: 50 Years of Occupation," where one of the guest speakers taught participants a song that included lyrics: "No to the Jews, descendants of the apes."
Mr. Hooper insists that CAIR was not a co-sponsor of the event and added, "I don't even know if that happened." But an e-mail sent out to a Muslim e-mail list the day before the event clearly identifies CAIR as one of the 11 co-sponsors — and audiotape of the conference (provided by the Investigative Project) recorded the anti-Semitic song.
Even when given the opportunity by journalists to "call on the carpet" designated terrorist organizations, Mr. Hooper demurs.
When asked by The Washington Post in November 2001 if he would condemn Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Mr. Hooper responded, "It's not our job to go around denouncing." Asked by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in February 2002 to condemn Hamas and Hezbollah, Mr. Hooper called such questions a "game" and explained, "We're not in the business of condemning."
Asked in an America-Online-sponsored chat in August 1998 who was responsible — the terrorists or America — for the East Africa embassy bombings, Mr. Hooper wrote that, although he condemned the bombings, "a great deal of what happened is responsible due to misunderstandings on both sides."
When it comes to "misunderstandings," though, Mr. Hooper's record leaves none as to whether or not he has heard or directly knows of plenty of violence and anti-Semitism preached by Muslim leaders.

Joel Mowbray occasionally writes for The Washington Times.

Jeffrey Imm - 9/8/2004

Ifran -
Think about what that means - "ruining his life". Isn't it "ruining" one's life, and worse than their live, abandoning their soul to do other than to fight religious terrorists?

I do like your Confederate example, as many Christians have and continue to fight the Ku Klux Klan, at great personal risk. They also fight the Christian Identity movement and other Christian extremist terrorists: yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

What do you think those Christian moderates who would fight the Ku Klux Klan, Nazis, etc., would be willing to do if the KKK slammed jet planes into the World Trade Center, or the Capital building (more likely)?

Do you think Moderate Christians would shrink from a fight against Christian terrorists for fear of "ruining our lives"? I think most Christians would laugh at such a concept. Seriously.

I would hope that God and Allah gives us more courage and conscience than that to pursue the beliefs that we claim to have.

How would Muslims feel having to corral and fight the terrorist Ku Klux Klan on a global basis - while Moderate Christians sat back and sent out paper airplane memos of our tut-tut-tut condemnations as they burned Mosques and lynched Muslims in the street, chopped off innocent heads of Muslims, and slaughtered little Muslim children?

(And instead we concentrated on holding fund raisers to ensure that Christian civil rights were protected.)

The Moderate Christians I know have more courage than that. We have shown that. We have put the KKK in jail. We have gone after Christian Identity. We have crushed Nazis. And we will do so, again, and again, and again. How could we LIVE with ourselves, how could we respect our covenant with God almighty if we did not?

This from the religion of turning the other cheek, not the great "warriors" of Islam.

Think about how non-Muslims feel as Moderate Muslims keep "pondering" what they should do against Jihadists.

Fear of "ruining his life"... that is poor salve for losing one's soul and losing one's religion to maniacs.

Wasn't it the USA that stood up for Muslims:
-- with Turkey over Greece in Cyprus
-- with Afghanistan over the Soviets
-- with Kosovo over Yugoslavia
-- and numerous others

Outside of Israel/Palestinian conflict, hasn't US Christians frequently defended (and with our lives protected) Muslims in foreign lands?

It is the role and the duty of Moderate Muslims to stand up and defend their religion - not from "conservative talk show hosts" - but from Jihadists.

Moderate Muslims would be surprised to see how understanding and supportive the American people would be of this.

But the lack of a REAL ACTION by Moderate Muslims - only leaves the Jihadist to DEFINE who and what a Muslim is. And they are convincing the world that THEY are the definition of Islam - more and more every day.

Allah help you if that continues.

E. Simon - 9/8/2004

Thanks Irfan - just want to be clear in case I was misunderstood about conscientious condemnations... I'm referring to politically oriented religious organizations much moreso than individuals or populations as a whole. At least in the U.S.; poll after poll in the West Bank however, disputes this.

E. Simon - 9/8/2004

Do you really want to get into this one?

I have no doubt that various factions will have no problem publically condemning terrorism when it suits them politically. But that is miles behind doing so as a matter of conscience. That is a big portion of what Irfan's piece is all about.

As a primer, you might do yourself a favor by reading Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qureia's statement yesterday and comparing it to the P.A.'s previous pronouncements.

Jeffrey Imm - 9/8/2004

Per the Ottawa Citizen (of all places)

"After Sept. 11, many people insisted that militant Islam despises Americans and other westerners for what we do rather than for what we are. The idea that Islamic terrorists hate us for what we are was too disturbing to contemplate, for it means there’s no way to appease the enemy. If our foreign policy were the problem, we could change it. If the problem is our pluralism, secularism and modernism — the fact we don’t organize our societies according to principles of Islamic law — then we’re in trouble."

Therefore, there is only one way to truly win a war against Islamist Terrorism. It must be fought by Moderate Muslims, and it must be won by Moderate Muslims.

As long as non-Muslims are fighting against Islamist Terrorists, then the world will at best remain at an impasse. Non-Muslims can not do the fighting for Moderate Muslims here. Moderate Muslims have a responsibility to themselves and to Allah to choose sides, and decide how they will take on their responsibilities.

Until Moderate Muslims actually battle Islamist Terrorist and LEAD this war (rather than watch from the sidelines and issue memos indicating their condemnation as innocents are killed), then the Non-Muslim world will continue to be suspicious as the actual loyalty and commitment of Moderate Muslims to a peaceful and civilized world.

3 years later... we are still waiting.

Jeffrey Imm - 9/8/2004

Actually, I have visited CAIR's website. I suggest everyone visit it for themselves at:
http://www.cair.com/default.asp

Is that "the other side" of a **CIVIL WAR** in Islam?

I would interpret it as the "NAACP" of Islam, which is concerned with Muslim Civil Rights in the United States, and providing education to ensure that people understand their view of Islamic beliefs. That is great.

On the CAIR Web Site, there is a:
"Hate Hurts America Campaign" as a prominent part of this; note - this is not talking about Jihadists - but "This campaign is based on the premise that the increasing attacks on Islam by conservative talk show hosts nationwide is not only offensive to Muslims and other people of conscience, but also harms the United States by creating a downward spiral of interfaith mistrust and hostility."

For example, "CAIR is calling on the nation's largest radio network to apologize for anti-Islam remarks by talk show host and comedian Jackie Mason, who recently called "the whole Muslim religion" a "murderous organization" that teaches "hate, terrorism and murder." and "How to Challenge Anti-Muslim Hate on the Radio".

There is the CAIR 2004 Election Update, Join CAIR, Donate to CAIR today, "CAIR Condemns School Killings in Russia", "11 Members of Congress Sign 'Fire Boykin' Letter", "Who Gets Muslim Vote Isn't Done Deal", "Racist Note Left on Arizona Muslim's Vandalized Car", etc.

Outside of the SINGLE item condemning school killings in Russia - CAIR's web site has nothing obviously to do with a war against Jihadists and Islamist Extremists. It has to do with fighting their perceived enemy "conservative talk show hosts", and addressing Islamic Civil Rights in the USA.

CAIR has the right to do that, of course. However, that is not the topic of this discussion thread or the author's posting here, which is "Why Don't Muslims Condemn Terrorism?"

Where is the WAR against Islamist extemism?

Peaceful disagreement in paper memos that takes exception to slaughtering children and innocents?

Honestly, if you think asking that very fair question is bigotry against Islam, you need to revisit history. There have been real wars between factions in religions, and they have not been fought with paper airplanes.

Given the 1000s of deaths in this country by those claiming to represent Islam, the hostility against Muslims has been remarkable minimal and restrained. But that does not answer the question posed by the author: "Why Don't Muslims Condemn Terrorism?"

The author does not claim that CAIR is fighting Jihadists. They may be, but I have not seen this. And after 3 years, why haven't we?

When will the silence be broken?

Or will there only be paper airplanes by the Moderate Muslims (read mostly by people who wrote them) in the civil war against Extremist Jihadists?

Laura Nichol - 9/8/2004

I am so sick and tired of western pundits and pontificators sitting in self-righteous judgment over Muslims who supposedly "don't condemn terrorism." Anyone who's on the mailing lists of the many Muslim organizations in the US, Canada and Europe constantly receives their official press releases and statements adamantly condemning all acts of terrorism. My mailbox is full of these instant press releases with vehement condemnations of the recent atrocity in Russia by Chechens (incl. links to deeply outraged reactions from Muslim members of these groups), the kidnapping of two French journalists in Iraq, the killing of 12 Nepalese workers in Iraq. The beheading of Nicholas Berg alone flooded my inbox with these press releases, which included links to articles and online public forum discussion boards from the region itself and from the various Muslim groups in the West with strong language decrying the act. Reports of condemnations by the leader of Hezbollah, the leading clerics of the preeminent Sunni group in Egypt, pronouncements by the Muslim gov't of Pakistan and Malaysia routinely are published on al jazeera and the news pages of Muslim online publications. I regularly look into Muslim women's websites, the Muslim section of beliefnet.org, al-fatiha (the gay Muslim group) and several others from different parts of the world and I always see these condemnations.

But the anti-Muslim bigots in the West have selective ears -- they don't listen, no matter how many times such condemnations occur, nor how loud they are. One of the FIRST public condemnations of the 9/11 attacks came from Lebanon's Hizbullah (naturally, since they hate the Al Qaeda group). None of these condemnations are ever publicized. In France, Muslim groups have all united actively and publicly (attending demonstrations, going on news shows) IN SUPPORT of the government's refusal to rescind the headscarf ban in defiance of the demand by the hostage-takers holding two French journalists in Iraq. This, despite these groups' opposition to the ban. But--again--none of this is ever noticed by western pundits. If you don't bother to pay attention or to listen, then you won't know what they're saying. Go on the website of cair.net or the Islamic North American Association or the Islamic Council of Britain and see it all for yourself.

Jeffrey Imm - 9/8/2004

This is very interesting from a theoretical perspective. However, there is one gaping hole (in the perception of most Americans, and much of the world) in this theory:

Where is the other side (e.g., Moderate Muslims) in the Civil War?

Or how can you have a Civil War in Islam with only one side fighting? That is the true problem facing Islam and its defenders today. The analogy would ring true if the public viewed two sides truly fighting for control, but they don't. They only hear and see the Jihadists.

To use Ifran's analogy, for example, if the Jihadists represent the "South", where are the Moderate Muslims representing the "North"?

I have made an effort to try to find those Muslims who are actively fighting Jihadists. It has been hard to do. What I find are an individual here and there, where I see (literally) mobs shouting "Death to America" and they have been doing so for the past 20+ years. There are untold books, films, etc. on those who represent Radical Islam.

Where is the Moderate Muslim voice?

Here is what I have found:

-- Irshad Manji, Canadian author of The Trouble With Islam. Great book, great author, powerful individual for moderate Islam. Going around the world to promote her cause and the rediscovery of "ijtihad". I think she is great. However, she is one person. Just ONE. Look at her web site and the many hateful responses that she is receiving from Muslims: http://www.muslimrefusenik.com/

-- Small Group in Arizona organized by Zuhdi Jasser had a rally at the end of April 2004. "Hundreds of residents from across the Valley gathered Sunday night at Phoenix's Patriots Square Park to join what is believed to be the nation's first Muslim rally against terrorism." However, "The majority of the estimated 250 in attendance Sunday night were not Muslim."
Story is at: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0426terror-rally26.html

-- Saudi Arabia Government individuals have finally condemned some terrorist actions (while still claiming they are inspired by "Zionism"), but only because the Jihadists are killing other Muslims. I will never forget the words of one Saudi interviewed after an attack - this is not jihad - there were not even any Americans here...

-- Now I am certain that if one really looks long and hard for weeks at a time, you can also find some additional obscure, unknown moderate Muslim denouncements of violence (kept very quiet - why?)

As one writer, Robert Spencer, asks:
"Oh Moderate Muslims, Where Art Thou?"
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=10665

One is left then wondering who is on the other side of the Civil War that Ifran references in his analogy. How can you have a war if only one side shows up?

In everyone else's view, when only one side shows up to fight - that is a "victory".

The American people really are very deeply disturbed by the situation. We are innately very fair people, and very much believe in freedom of religion. George Bush, painted as a Nazi by much of the far-left, even has defended Islam as a religion of peace.

But how long will the silence continue?

I personally empathize with Moderate Muslims.

My original religion, Presybterian Christian, had been taken over by far-left radicals who have an axe to grind against Israel. I created Web Sites, traveled across the country to speak out against such Presbyterians, and had mass letter writing efforts condemning the Presbyterians antisemitism. I did acheive getting a public apology from the Presbyterian Peacekeepers in having a radical Palestinian represent the Presbyterian religion, which I also widely publicized. In the recent actions at Richmond where the Presbyterians decided to pull out funding from Israel organizations, I spoke directly with the Chief Clerk of Presbyterian Church Government. Now, to be candid, I am a Reformed Presbyterian, not a member of the Presbyterian Church of USA. But I knew that the layman would know no difference and I aggressively fought PC(USA). I have not won. But I will no longer represent myself as a Presbyterian and I have very publicly left the Presbyterian Church.

The majority of those here in the USA, which is a mostly Christian nation, just barely understand the difference between Sunni and Shiite Islam. So they would understand my story, but to understand a message from a moderate Muslim group, that group has to work 500% harder and get 500% more publicity to be understood.

I think to myself - can you imagine what you would have done if a Leftist Presbyterian group would have flown planes into the World Trade Centers? (Just that - and not all the 1000s of threats and terrorism around the world - just that one single terrorist action).

I will tell you. Moderate Presbyterians would go with axes, sledgehammers, crowbars, and they would TEAR DOWN EVERY SINGLE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH by hand as a blasphemy to God. They would denounce and probably end the Presbyterian religion. Moderate Presbyterians would loudly and vehemently protest against Leftist Presbyterians in the street, in Washington DC, in every city in America. In all probability, there would be bloodshed. I would be very surprised if some outraged Moderate Presbyterians did not physically attack Leftist Presbyterians.

OK - what is my point? That I would encourage violence? No.

My point is that if this were my (old) religion, there would be no question that there was a civil **WAR** literally between two factions of the Presbyterian Church. No one would wonder what Moderate Presbyterians thought, because they would know and see. There would be no articles titled: "Oh Moderate Presbyterians, Where Art Thou?"

So as Ifran has made his analogy between the US Civil War and a "Civil War" within Islam, I am fairly asking "where is the other side fighting?"

That is the question that non-Muslim Americans have been asking for 3 LONG SILENT YEARS. What is the answer?

E. Simon - 9/7/2004

Irfan,

I regret the distress you feel with regards to Mr. Ashcroft's obviously hypocritical and selective condemnations as they relate to his own personal affections. We have come nowhere near ultimately and unequivocally resolving the cultural implications of the Union victory on a geographically universal level within the U.S. I do think, however, that it is important to accept that the socio-political implications, at the federal level, of such sentiments will not translate into a reversal of previous trends and lead toward greater injustice toward Black Americans, for instance -- at least not at this time. Certainly at other times in our history (the Civil rights era, for instance - which was not so long ago), we could not afford to be assured that this was the case. It is easy to lose faith that, given his sentiments, he will uphold his oath of impartiality in prosecuting the law, but as with most other attorneys I know personally, I think it is entirely possible that he views his professional obligations as even more sacrosanct.

I am not knowledgeable enough to concede that this is exactly the case with Aziz's mildly(?) pro-jihadist sympathies within the Pakistani government, for instance, and my uncertainty would stem from a shorter history of political stability in this case. It is opportune that the discussion brings me to Pakistan, since along the lines you note, Pakistan is ground zero when it comes to honestly and introspectively accepting the inevitably of how truly ruthless its government must be in order to have a fighting (pardon the pun) chance at successfully confronting this problem. I think the current U.S. administration, by and large, appreciates this fact as well as the overall precariousness of their situation.

But perhaps that dovetails with the point you were trying to make all along. We do ourselves no favors by accommodating a false need to sense a “delicate balance” between the Jihadist movements and the efforts aimed at their destruction. In this respect, perhaps Musharraf is quite a bit more “enlightened” than the Arab leaders. Unfortunately the Middle East is putting itself in the position of having to play catch-up on multiple levels, and they are only compounding.

Hopefully this response will come across as somewhat sensible. I regret the handicap of not having completed the registration on this computer at this time in order to read the article in its entirety. If, after getting the chance to do so, my perception of the context changes, I'll respond with a modified post.

Regards-

James E. Thornton - 9/7/2004

"The hour [Judgment Day] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. A Jew will [then] hide behind a rock or a tree, and the rock or tree will call upon the Muslim: 'O Muslim, O slave of Allah! There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him!" - Sahih No. 5203 and Ahmad ibn Hanbal's Musnad, No. 9029

"And when the forbidden months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever you find them and take them captive, and beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they repent and observe Prayer and pay the Zakaat, then leave their way free. Surely, Allah is Most Forgiving, Merciful." - The Quran, Sura 9, Chapter 5

E. Simon - 9/6/2004

(to borrow Jonathan Dresner's term...)

Good piece, Irfan - as usual.

I do think I'd like to point out some interesting distinctions between Confederate nostalgia, (and unfortunately - I would assume - in some cases, activism) and Islamic extremism. I recently read an article in the WSJ by Amer Tahiri, written shortly after September 11, 2001. In it he briefly outlines three reasons that make it difficult to confront extremist ideologies within the religion - including the inability to excommunicate, the tradition of death penalty for ex-conversion or blasphemy, and a lack of a centrally recognized theological authority whose judgment and pronouncements would supercede those of anyone else who might issue a fatwa. When taken together, it seems it would make for a politically difficult challenge in confronting or purging the dangerous ideas that might be put into practice.

So while we cannot yet get the entire nation to come to terms psychologically with the implications of accepting the Union victory, especially as regards what some see as their heritage, we do (and did) have a centralized legal and ideologically legitimated authority, who is unafraid to speak with the moral appeal that a Caliph or modern dictator wouldn't. Using force of arms in fighting on behalf of the Confederate cause is not much of an issue nowadays. Nor does talk of reinstituting slavery seem to go far - even, I would imagine, in Southern Partisan magazine. Lynchings (and cross-burnings) have remained a problem despite their decline, but we have legal legitimacy in dealing with them, and the last bastion of rebel-specific inequality, the institution of segregation, has been struck down. So the nostalgia I see as a bit less dangerous as a means for translating ideology into a more insidious daily scenario.

As far as ex-conversion, there is currently no legal penalty for rejecting a personal appeal to Confederate heritage, and certainly not a death penalty for doing so. And as for the last pillar of excommunication, well those who would exercise a deprivation of rights of Southern blacks (through lynching, etc.) would end up in jail today. Purging any remaining beliefs (the excommunication analogy), remains more challenging, but for reasons I've already touched on, less pressing. Over time it would be my hope that these societies and American subcultures would find a better way to come to terms with their more nefarious attributes of times past, but the most important problems no longer vex the majority of us. And once the naked iniquities of political Islamic extremism are similarly vetted out, I'm sure Americans will respond to analogous lingering expressions not so much with the outrage they currently display, but with the same exasperated sighs of an ever so slightly more complacent sense of resignation.

Irfan Khawaja - 9/6/2004

In a passage of this essay, I wrote:

"...Lincoln-bashing is back in vogue and openly promoted by think-tanks supposedly claiming inspiration from the Declaration of Independence."

The link I provided goes (correctly) to the Independent Institute, but I said (somewhat confusingly) that the Independent Institute claims inspiration from the Declaration of Independence.

In a general way I'm sure it does (as this article suggests: http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?ID=228), but at the time I wrote the essay, I was clearly confusing the "Independent Institute" with the "Independence Institute" (http://i2i.org/), which is more explicit about claiming inspiration from the Declaration of Independence.

So my criticism should be understood as aimed at the Independent Institute (of Oakland, CA), not the Independence Institute (of Golden, Colorado). Apologies for any confusion.