[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 111-7]
STRATEGIES FOR COUNTERING VIOLENT EXTREMIST IDEOLOGIES
__________
HEARING
BEFORE THE
TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
FEBRUARY 12, 2009
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TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE
ADAM SMITH, Washington, Chairman
MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina JEFF MILLER, Florida
ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island JOHN KLINE, Minnesota
JIM COOPER, Tennessee BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
JIM MARSHALL, Georgia K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas
BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana THOMAS J. ROONEY, Florida
PATRICK J. MURPHY, Pennsylvania MAC THORNBERRY, Texas
BOBBY BRIGHT, Alabama
Kevin Gates, Professional Staff Member
Alex Kugajevsky, Professional Staff Member
Andrew Tabler, Staff Assistant
C O N T E N T S
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CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2009
Page
Hearing:
Thursday, February 12, 2009, Strategies for Countering Violent
Extremist Ideologies........................................... 1
Appendix:
Thursday, February 12, 2009...................................... 37
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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2009
STRATEGIES FOR COUNTERING VIOLENT EXTREMIST IDEOLOGIES
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Miller, Hon. Jeff, a Representative from Florida, Ranking Member,
Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee 3
Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Chairman,
Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee 1
WITNESSES
Ibrahim, Raymond, Associate Director, Middle East Forum and
Author of The Al Qaeda Reader.................................. 3
Doran, Dr. Michael, Visiting Professor, Wagner School of Public
Service, New York University, and Former Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense (Support for Public Diplomacy)............ 7
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Doran, Dr. Michael........................................... 58
Ibrahim, Raymond............................................. 44
Miller, Hon. Jeff............................................ 42
Smith, Hon. Adam............................................. 41
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Mr. Smith.................................................... 65
STRATEGIES FOR COUNTERING VIOLENT EXTREMIST IDEOLOGIES
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities
Subcommittee,
Washington, DC, Thursday, February 12, 2009.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:46 p.m., in
room 2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Adam Smith
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
WASHINGTON, CHAIRMAN, TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND
CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. Smith. I am going to go ahead and call the meeting
quickly to order and adjourn it, unfortunately. We have three
votes that were just called. We could probably get a couple of
minutes in before we have to leave, but I don't think that
would be very helpful. So what we are going to have to do is we
are going to have to adjourn. We will be back as quickly as we
can, which, honestly, will be about 45 minutes.
So I wish I could offer you something other than to say
wait if you can, we would appreciate it, and certainly for our
witnesses we appreciate your indulgence on that. It is just the
way the schedule worked out. We should have a pretty clear
block of time once we get these votes done, is my
understanding.
So we stand adjourned, and we will be back.
[Recess.]
Mr. Smith. Thank you. We will now reconvene and we were
actually right about the 45-minute break. That doesn't happen
often, so I am glad that worked out.
I want to thank the panel today for joining us and the
members. I will make a very, very brief opening statement, and
then we want to turn it over to the ranking member, Mr. Miller,
and then take the testimony from our witnesses.
We are joined this morning by Mr. Raymond Ibrahim, who is
the Associate Director for the Middle East Forum and also
author of The Al Qaeda Reader, and Mr. Michael Doran, who is
the Visiting Professor from the Wagner School of Public Service
at New York University and the former Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense (Support for Public Diplomacy). We
appreciate both of you being here today.
The purpose of the hearing is to get a little bit of a
broader understanding of the terrorism threat, specifically
from al Qa'ida and accompanying ideologies. What this
committee's prime focus is on is on counterterrorism. We do a
lot of work at the Special Operations Command, which is the
lead command in fighting the war on terror, and we try to take
as comprehensive an approach as possible.
There are obviously lots of very small bits and pieces to
what we do, giving Special Operations Command the proper
support, and we also have some jurisdiction on cybersecurity
and information technology (IT) issues, and we are very
concerned about that, the broad defense threat reduction
efforts of Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and other
agencies and also counterproliferation, Weapons of Mass
Destruction (WMD), and we drill down into each one of those
specific topics in this subcommittee to figure out how we can
be most helpful in those areas.
But overall what we have most tried to do under my
leadership and under Mr. Thornberry's leadership when he was
ranking member on the committee is try to take the
comprehensive approach to try to truly understand what we are
fighting and how to defeat it so we don't get stovepiped in
little different pieces of it and not understanding the big
picture.
The main purpose of this hearing is to help with that
broader understanding of fighting, the threat from violent
extremists. To understand, as the military knows better than
anyone, we cannot win this simply by identifying all the
terrorists in the world and then killing or incapacitating
them. That will not work.
That is necessary in order to disrupt the existing networks
and prevent attacks against us and other Western targets, but
it will not ultimately defeat our foe. This is an ideological
struggle, and we need to understand that ideology, and we need
to confront it in a comprehensive way that includes far more
soft power than hard power, and that is what we are hoping to
learn from our two witnesses today, is to get a little bit more
background on what the ideology is that we are fighting and
what the best way to confront it is, what we have done right,
what we have done wrong, and what we need to do better.
So I very much look forward to the testimony and the
questions. A final thing I will say is we will adhere to the
five-minute rule, particularly on the questioning, something I
learned. I paid you a compliment a moment ago, Mr. Thornberry,
so you walked in a second too late, but you can ask people
about it later.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith can be found in the
Appendix on page 41.]
Mr. Smith. We have a small group of people here, but I
find, nonetheless, the Q&A flows better if members are mindful
of a time limit. So, most members, you will have more than one
opportunity. As far as witnesses are concerned, we do have a
clock. In general, I like to keep the statements in the less
than ten-minute area. I find the dialogue works better.
I believe Mr. Ibrahim has asked for the time on our clock,
and it only has five minutes on it. So we will wait five
minutes and then start the five-minute clock and give you some
idea when the ten minutes are up and then we will go into Q&A.
With that, I will welcome the committee's ranking member,
Mr. Miller, I very much look forward to working with him. I
enjoyed working with him on the Armed Services Committee.
Again, I just wanted to say what an outstanding job Mr.
Thornberry did as ranking member during the last two years. You
do have very big shoes to fill.
Mr. Miller. Okay, okay, okay. We know the former ranking
member was a good guy.
Mr. Smith. We are confident you will fill them. With that,
I will turn it over to Mr. Miller.
STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF MILLER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM FLORIDA,
RANKING MEMBER, TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND
CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. Miller. Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure to be back on
this subcommittee. I do look forward to continuing the good
works of the past years. I have a full statement I would like
entered into the record, but because of the time that we have
lost with votes, I would like to go ahead and hear the
statements. So thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Miller can be found in the
Appendix on page 42.]
Mr. Smith. Great. Thank you. Mr. Ibrahim, the floor is
yours.
STATEMENT OF RAYMOND IBRAHIM, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, MIDDLE EAST
FORUM AND AUTHOR OF THE AL QAEDA READER
Mr. Ibrahim. Mr. Chairman, what I would like to address
today specifically, well, is many-fold, and the first thing is
ultimately the consideration about how one can go about
implementing a strategy to counter radical Islam and its
ideologies. The fact is it is necessary, I think, to go back
and recognize the abysmal failure that has permeated, more or
less, all approaches, both, I think, governmental and
otherwise.
And that, I think, roots back to the academic world and
academia where, of course, many of the future analysts and
thinkers come from, which is to be expected, in that the
academic world has tended to all but ignore Islamic theology,
Islamic doctrine, Islamic history, or to minimize it and
overlook it and, instead, presents what is more intelligible to
the Western world view, which is, I think, somewhat normal for
all humans. They end up projecting what they believe are norms
to other peoples.
And so in academia, for example, where I come from, you
cannot discuss this--you know, if when we talk about terrorism
and radical ideologies, to actually go back and try to
demonstrate that there is some sort of body of doctrine that
supports it, is usually completely--it can be anathema in
certain circles and you can lose your position--and there are
actually entire books written about this.
Now, why that is, and is it, you know, because of political
correctness and people are in search of tenure is not the
point. So what I am saying is ultimately there needs to be kind
of a revolutionizing to the academic approach to understanding
terrorism and appreciating the Islamic doctrines that make the
backbone.
And in connection, what has been happening is--and this is
what I mean by people in the West or Americans tend to project
to their world view is the following concept:
Wherever you go, ultimately you will be told that Islamic
radicals, al Qa'ida, all that they are doing is ultimately
rooted in political grievances, and they themselves will say
that, specifically when they are addressing Western audiences
and Americans.
They will say, we are attacking you because--and the list
can go on and on, from of course the usual Israel and
Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan--but you will even see other
accusations such as Osama bin Laden telling Americans who are
attacking you because you failed to sign the Kyoto Protocol or
because you exploit women and things of that nature.
Now, the logic behind radical Muslims and radical Islamism
in general in doing that is that they are smart enough and they
are aware to know that by using the language of political
grievance they will strike a chord with Westerners and
Americans who will immediately assume, yes, this is what it is
all about. These people are angry, and they are articulating
their frustration through an Islamist paradigm because that is
all they know, but fundamentally, if all these political
grievances are ameliorated this will all go away.
Now the problem with that, and this struck me immediately
when I was working on my book and translating The Al Qaeda
Reader, is even though I was aware of all their political
statements to the West via Al Jazeera and other mediums
demonstrating this, which is them saying you started the fight,
you are doing this and now we are fighting you back, when you
look at the writings that they send to fellow Muslims, which
discusses this animosity, all of these political grievances
disappear and all you are left with is essentially what Islamic
law demands. And it doesn't matter anymore if the U.S. does
this or the U.S. does that.
And when you start studying Islamic law, and by Islamic law
I am not talking about what Osama bin Laden has interpreted, I
am talking there is an entire body and canon of Islamic law,
also known as Sharia, which is very well codified and which has
existed centuries before Osama bin Laden came on the scene.
So to give you an example, according to Islamic law or the
Islamic world view, the entire world is separated into two
divisions. On the one hand, you have what in Arabic is called
Dar al Islam, which means the abode of Islam or the abode of
peace, and that is the good guys. This is where Sharia
dominates and this is where Muslims thrive.
On the other hand, what you have is the abode of war, and
that is where we live, essentially, anywhere in this world
where there is a majority of non-Muslims, aka/infidels, who
live and Sharia law is not governing them.
Now, when I say this a lot of people say, well, this sounds
ridiculous, but the fact is this is as well codified in Islamic
law as any of the Five Pillars of Islam. So a lot of people
will tell you Islam, praying and fasting, going on the Hajj and
giving charity, these are not open to debate.
The fact is, jihad, in order to spread Islamic authority
and Islamic rule, is in the same category. It is not open to
debate. It is considered an obligation on the entire Muslim
body.
Now, what I am talking about now is law, is doctrine. I am
not here to say that every Muslim wants to do this, every
Muslim is actively trying to subvert the West and trying to
implement Sharia, and so I always make a distinction between
what the law says and what people do. What people do is
irrelevant and what they believe in or if they want to overlook
that or they want to reform it, that is one thing. But that
also brings a point that if this is the law, if this is the
codified world view, no matter how many Muslims are, quote,
unquote, moderate or how many overlook it, I believe there will
always be a significant few who do uphold this world view.
And then when you really look at numbers, even if we were
to say, I mean, given the benefit of the doubt, that 20 percent
of the Islamic world are radical, are the sorts who would
implement this hostile world view, that is not very reassuring
because the nature of the war, terrorism, which now no longer
requires numbers and force, because, as we have seen, 19 men
were able to create horrific damages on 9/11.
So that is the problem. It is not necessarily which Islam
is right. The fact is the traditional form of Islam is such
that there are very many intolerant positions vis-a-vis non-
Muslims, and this is a problem when people use the language of
al Qa'ida and radical Muslims have hijacked Islam. That is
simply not true because what they are doing is they are
implementing it.
Now, it is true they may try to distort things. They may
engage in sophistry which goes a long way, and I will give you
an example. So I just got done saying according to the Islamic
world view there is this concept where Muslims must always go
on the jihad, on the offensive. So radical Muslims will then
come in and say look, this is how it is. Now how much more is
to be expected of us if we are now defending ourselves in
Palestine or in Iraq or in Afghanistan? And that kind of
argument ends up mobilizing lots of Muslims because they see
the logic, on the one hand, far from actually going on the
offensive which, I might add is seen as an altruistic thing.
Muslims don't believe when they go on jihad in order to
subjugate infidel lands, they don't see that as, you know,
unjust. They see that as pure altruism because we are bringing
the light of truth and Islam to the infidels.
I say all of this, not by conjecture, but by reading
extensively Arabic books that demonstrate this, and the logic
is sound from their perspective.
So ultimately what I am saying is it is necessary to begin
taking the doctrine seriously, not just being content with
saying, well, Muslims are doing this because they are angry
because of Israel or because of this. And one consideration to
keep in mind that I think dispels that point of view is that a
lot of people in this world are disgruntled and oppressed, but
you don't see this sort of behavior from other places.
You won't see a Cuban living in a Communist regime driving
in a truck and saying, you know, Jesus is great and killing
people, or you don't see Chinese in oppressive Communist China
also retaliating in this way. So I think there is reason to
take seriously these doctrines. And once they take these
doctrines seriously and methodically begin to understand them
and incorporate them, I believe a more appropriate strategy
will come into being. Because to sit and say we are combating
terrorism in and of itself, anthropomorphizing a word like
``terrorism'' as if it is a person or a concept or even an
ideology, when in fact it is just a method, doesn't help us.
And so we know, for example, Sun Tzu, to go back to a
classical war doctrine, said ``Know your enemy,'' and that is
very important. But, unfortunately, here it seems that the U.S.
is having problems even acknowledging who the enemy is.
And to give you a few examples, maybe you are familiar with
the words ``matter debate,'' where there was a memo circulated
around the government trying to advise writers and thinkers and
analysts not to use Islamic-laden words such as ``Sharia'' or
``mujahid'' or even ``jihad'' and instead just use the generic
``terrorist.''
I think that completely handicaps any kind of approach to
trying to formulate a strategy, because you are in effect, by
limiting and censoring your language, you have limited
knowledge in and of itself because there is--language and
knowledge are obviously linked.
And also I read recently, and it is one thing, as I know in
the academic, the civilian academic world to have encountered
what I am discussing, which is this total lack of appreciation
for Islamic doctrine, but it seems to have begun to infiltrate
even the military. For example, I was reading at the U.S. War
College that one of their members or faculty members wrote
essentially an apology for Hamas saying that they are
villainized and misunderstood when in fact if you study Hamas
and see what they say, they are a complete jihadi organization
which upholds all of those things that I have delineated,
including the offensive aspect towards the world. And they
often say, forget about Israel, but ultimately there should--
Sharia law needs to eventually, according to our beliefs, be
spread around the world. So in a nutshell that is what it comes
down to.
I believe that we need to start taking more seriously what
they say, their epistemology, their background, their world
view, which is so obvious. And this is the irony, it is
everywhere you look, there it is. It is not like they hide it
so much.
When I worked for the Library of Congress, for example, I
worked in the Middle Eastern Division and so I had access to
thousands of Arabic books. It seems to me any one of those
books that I would read would give you a better insight into
their mind than the average American book that comes out,
because the American book comes out, once again, colored by a
Western philosophy which all but ignores doctrine and theology.
And I think I am up.
Mr. Smith. Okay. We will certainly explore a lot of those
themes in our questions.
Mr. Ibrahim. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ibrahim can be found in the
Appendix on page 44.]
Mr. Smith. We appreciate your testimony.
Mr. Doran.
STATEMENT OF DR. MICHAEL DORAN, VISITING PROFESSOR, WAGNER
SCHOOL OF PUBLIC SERVICE, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, AND FORMER
DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE (SUPPORT FOR PUBLIC
DIPLOMACY)
Dr. Doran. Mr. Smith, Ranking Member Miller, former Ranking
Member Thornberry, thanks very much for having me again.
Your letter of invitation asked me to look at--come up with
a number of recommendations for a whole of government approach,
and I was very excited to see that.
I am working now at NYU. I started my job there on the 20th
of January. Before that I served at the National Security
Council (NSC) as the Senior Director for the Near East and
North Africa and the Department of Defense as the Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Support to Public Diplomacy
and as a Senior Adviser to the Under Secretary for Public
Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Jim Glassman, at the State
Department. And this multi-agency experience I had has made me
focus like a laser on this issue on the whole of government
approach.
I think your question is absolutely the key question that
we face. We can't really put together--we can't really put
together--or we can have all the greatest strategies in the
world on paper, but until we are organized to deliver it
strategically we are going to find ourselves falling all over
ourselves.
So I have written a lengthy statement, which I will submit
for the record, and I will keep my introductory comments here
very, very short.
I basically discuss in this statement where we could put
this what I call a strategic operational center for strategic
communications. I think that countering violent extremism is
part of a larger government enterprise, which I am calling
strategic communications.
When you listen to the debates out there, there are
basically three options that you hear. Option number one is to
put it at the NSC. Option number two is to create a new kind of
United States Information Agency (USIA) or something like it,
and option number three is to keep it in--the lead for this in
the Office of the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy
and Public Affairs or State ``R''.
In my statement, I come down in the end on the side of
keeping it in the State Department because I think that the
organization needs to be a strategic operational organization,
and that kind of militates against putting it in the NSC. You
need, absolutely, for strategic communications to work
effectively, it has to have a lot of support from the President
and from the White House. There needs to be somebody at the
White House who is very much focused on it, but there also
needs to be an operational center. And no matter how you think
about this, you keep finding yourself coming up against the
State Department. Nothing that we do abroad, outside of areas
where we are in a hot war, nothing that we do abroad can be
done without the support and concurrence of the State
Department.
So I argue that we should put it there. But there is a
problem there in that the Under Secretary of State for Public
Diplomacy and Public Affairs is a weak under secretary. When
they broke up USIA, they took the remnants and they put it in
the State Department, but they took away a lot of the autonomy
that the organizations had. In the old USIA they could conceive
and carry out public diplomacy strategies. Currently if the
under secretary has the lead for countering violent extremism,
if he is the commander of the overall effort, he has no troops
in the field because all the public diplomacy officers in the
field report to the ambassador, they are rated by the
ambassador and by the regional bureau back at State, not by the
undersecretary's office.
So we have given--in the Bush administration we gave the
lead to the under secretary, but we didn't give him the
resources and the authorities necessary to actually carry--
conceive of a strategy and carry it out.
And the other factor that I discuss in there as well is the
general mission of ``R''. Back--``R'' was--USIA came to
maturity during the Cold War. In that conflict with the Soviet
Union, where we had a strategic rival that had a whole
different social, political, economic way of life, the key
issue for us was to brand America, was to show our way of life
to the rest of the world in order to demonstrate its
superiority.
That is basically what most of the programs, historically,
in what is now ``R'' have done. So there is a general bias in
the organization towards those kinds of activities that tell
America's story.
The kind of conflict we are in now, where we don't have a
peer competitor, strategic rival, where a lot of the debates
that have strategic importance for us are not debates about
America but debates about the identities of people, debates
that look rather parochial from a distance but end up
generating violence, it is no longer as important to tell
America's story. Telling America's story is still extremely
important, but there is a whole 'nother dimension there that we
need to be investigating, and we need that organization, the
strategic organization at the State Department, to be focused
on that to a much greater extent than it has been.
Now, Jim Glassman, if you go back and you look at his
statements, you will see that he got this completely. He
started a number of different programs to try to move the
organization in that direction, and he distinguished himself
from all of his predecessors, the under secretaries that
preceded him, in that he vigorously engaged with the Department
of Defense and with other agencies that have a role in this
strategic communications endeavor.
Just having them, just having the designated lead say I
want to coordinate with the rest of you, I want us all to be on
the same page and have the whole of government effort, had a
hugely empowering impact on the different communities within
the other agencies that are engaged in this.
I mean, if you look at the strategic communications
communities in the different agencies you will see that they
are all kind of comfortable in each one of their organizations,
because in every organization it is always going to be the
regional guys who are the heavyweights, and the people who are
working on the communications piece are always kind of
afterthoughts. So if you have a powerful proponent who has all
of the government lead for this, who is saying I want to work
with you, it has a way of elevating all of them.
I will stop there and we can take questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Doran can be found in the
Appendix on page 58.]
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much. I have a lot of questions
for both of you, but I am going to adhere to the five-minute
rule as well. We will come back around.
I will start with Mr. Ibrahim, and I think you make an
outstanding point, an understanding of the basis of this
ideology, and al Qa'ida's ideology, is core to how we intend to
defeat it, and we tend to brush over that.
There are two points I would like to explore, however.
First of all, the reason I think that people brush over it, the
reason in particular for that State Department memo that you
mentioned, was because, you know, one thing we have long
understood is the moment those who actively adhere to the
ideology that al Qa'ida and others advance is a relatively
small percentage of the Muslim population. You can disagree
with that if you want, because you know better than I, but I
think that is the case.
And what we are leery of, you know, is creating an approach
to counter al Qa'ida that unites 1.3 billion Muslims against
us. And I have learned from firsthand experience in talking
about this issue that any time you link what bin Laden is doing
to Islam, you offend--I have not met the Muslim who that does
not offend. Maybe I will at some point, but I have not yet.
So the strategy is to try to separate al Qa'ida from the
broader Islamic religion and not give them that imprimatur, if
you will, to give them that stamp of legitimacy that elevates
them in the Muslim world. So I am curious what you think about
how we can sort of split that difficulty.
The second part of this, which seems to be connected, you
seem to be saying that al Qa'ida is, in fact, representative of
the entire Muslim world. That is what the Koran says, that is
what it says that all Muslims should do, which is a big problem
if that is the case. And I have read a little bit about this,
certainly not as much as you have.
But within all religions there is always that tension
between, you know, our job is to make everybody else in the
world like us, a sort of growing reality in the modern world
that that is simply, you know, a recipe for mass destruction
and death, and so we can't adhere to it.
So new philosophies are developed. Certainly Christianity
went through that to some extent when you look at the
Inquisition and other things that happened where they began to
accept that they could adhere to their faith and allow others
to have a different one, and we have to be able to do that. We
have to be able to find some way so that there is a bulk of
Muslims who they could be very strict adherence to their faith
and accept others.
And your testimony seems to imply that there is very little
hope for that. In fact, that is just the way it is. There is no
other way to interpret the Koran, and this is the only thing
that is necessary for good Muslims.
The question would be, how can we explore their options,
because there are moderate Muslims who don't adhere to that
theory that everyone has to adopt their religion. Is there any
wiggle room in there in terms of how do we interpret that. And
how do we do that and deal with the challenge of not uniting
the Muslim world against us by condemning their entire religion
and dumping them all into one category.
Mr. Ibrahim. All right. Thank you, very good questions. I
might start with the second one, actually.
I don't--I think one of the biggest intellectual
difficulties many people have is they think there is al Qa'ida,
which is a radical Islamic group, and then maybe Hamas or
Hezbollah and mainstream functions. And that distinction is I
think valid, but what needs to be understood is, I believe, for
example, if al Qa'ida were to disappear tomorrow that is not
going to make their ideology also disappear. Because their
ideology, as I was saying, is ultimately traced back to all of
these doctrinal world views that were codified centuries
before. And that is why it is almost like, if you will permit,
the Hydra monster that the mythical Hercules went and fought.
Every time he chopped a head off, two more grew up.
Mr. Smith. Granted, but a whole lot of Muslims haven't
followed that stream of thought.
Mr. Ibrahim. No. No, I understand.
Mr. Smith. So there is hope there.
Mr. Ibrahim. Yes. And this is the strategy that I would put
forth, is that classical jurisprudence and doctrine is very
clear-cut. In fact, in Sunni Islam, mainstream Islam, which 90
percent of Muslims adhere to, the way every--and this is why I
always stress on this concept of epistemology, in that we can't
even begin to understand how they formulate the world view. But
according to Sharia, every action that any human being can do
is classified as being obligatory or recommended or permissible
or discouraged or forbidden.
Okay. Now, the concept of jihad, in Arabic the sabil Allah,
in order to understand, this is one of the obligatory ones.
Mr. Smith. If we make it very specific, the obligatory part
that is the problematic part of that, is the obligation to
force everybody else in the world to live under that law.
Mr. Ibrahim. That is correct.
Mr. Smith. It is your interpretation that is just black and
white.
Mr. Ibrahim. That is black and white. Now, having said
that, I am not--I do not believe every Muslim believes that.
But here is the problem, and this is why I think radicals have
a better leg to stand on, because they are better textually
grounded, better grounded in doctrine. The logic is the Koran
is the verbatim word of God, for instance. The Koran says to
Muslims, and so the Koran says go fight infidels until you
subjugate them.
Mr. Smith. You would give me the same look if you said that
about the Bible, by the way, so that wasn't specific to the
Koran.
Mr. Ibrahim. Right.
Mr. Smith. Go ahead.
Mr. Ibrahim. And then there is the hadith, and this is even
more important in certain respects than the Koran when it comes
to articulating Islamic law, and that is even more clear-cut
insofar as how Muslims are to do this.
Now, again, does your average Muslim want to do this? No,
not necessarily, but this is the strength that the radicals
have and that is why they have a stronger voice because they
can always go back and say well, this is what it says. Why
aren't you doing it? When you start saying, well, I am trying
to make it a better fit into the 21st century, I am trying to
reform it, that is considered apostasy because God's word
transcends time and space. And so if God said in the seventh
century do X, Y and Z why now are you going back to say no, we
want to change it.
Now, I know this sounds very dismal.
Mr. Smith. I guess I have to cut myself off and let Mr.
Miller----
Mr. Ibrahim. Okay.
Mr. Smith. I understand that. I think, you know, one of the
things that all religions as they move into modernity have to
accept is that it is a lot more flexible than that, that God
contemplated a changing world, that he didn't lock in all of
the stocks a long time ago. That is one of the keys, I think,
to getting people----
Mr. Ibrahim. That is fair, but tell that to a Muslim.
Mr. Smith. We have to, we have to tell that to Christians
too with great frequency, but I have to get to Mr. Miller. We
can resume this later.
Mr. Miller.
Mr. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Carrying on, you know, Mr. Ibrahim, the power of rumors is
very strong.
Mr. Ibrahim. Power of rumors?
Mr. Miller. Rumors.
Mr. Ibrahim. Okay.
Mr. Miller. In the Arab world in particular, and what I
want to know, and in Iraq, I guess, in particular, what can we
do to combat those rumors?
Mr. Ibrahim. The rumors such as that the U.S. is here to
obliterate Islam and things like that?
Mr. Miller. Sure.
Mr. Ibrahim. The thing is about the Arab world
specifically--and I know this firsthand--is this is a lot of
paranoia and conspiracy theories permeated. And so the concept
to your average Arab that these people are here just to help us
just because they are being altruistic is--might be
problematic, especially because you have all these other groups
like al Qa'ida who will go out of their way and exploit and
say, no, that is not what they are doing. You know, they are
doing this and this ultimately is better represented with
Israel and the Zionists. Everything, maybe you are aware but
things like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Mein Kampf
are best sellers in the Arab world, that kind of thing.
So in a way if you give olive branches and make
concessions, that might be seen in a good way or that might be
seen as, well they have an ulterior motive, or by the more
radical types that it will be seen as an admission of defeat.
And, see, that is a different thing going back to the different
world view. When you give in to certain peoples, they think you
are weak and this is more evidence that we are right. And so it
actually brings on a greater offensive from them.
Now, granted, again, I am talking about a select group of
people, not everyone.
And the bottom line is a person can identify himself as a
Muslim, and that doesn't mean that he believes in any of the
things that I have just said, because that is like a person
whom I think he is a Christian or a Jew or whatever, and he
just has a very liberal interpretation.
But I am talking about the core people who fall into just
following the straight black and white world view that Islam
teaches, and I think this is the ultimate intellectual barrier
for Westerners to understand.
Coming from the West, being that it is coming from a
Christian heritage, whether Westerners today practice it or
not, I think I have taken for granted the notion of separation
of church and state, which actually has precedence in the New
Testament when Jesus said, ``Render unto Caesar what is
Caesar's, render unto God what is God's.'' A split. And I think
that helped actually let the West develop this thing.
That is totally antithetical to the Islamic world. Islam is
all about submitting. That is what the word means. What are you
submitting to? You are submitting to the will of Allah, as has
been articulated in the Koran, in the hadith, which are the
words of Mohammed and his actions and deeds. And so to come and
say we want to separate, you know, what Islam teaches, and that
is the whole thing. Islam is very much caught up in very
mundane things, you know. You are supposed to eat with a
certain hand. You are supposed to, you know, not wear gold
rings, and people take this seriously. And that is why we have
to not condescend and think, you know, they are just reacting
that way because they are angry and they are trying to fall
back on something. Maybe some are but others take this
literally because it has been going on for 1,400 years, and it
is understood that this is how you implement true Islam. So,
again, that goes back to the problem.
So trying to formulate a response, it is--I believe the
best way is far from trying to tell people, going back I think
to Chairman Smith's original question about the memo and trying
to separate al Qa'ida from mainstream Islam, while that is a
noble endeavor there is another aspect to it, which is
basically the Muslim world is not waiting around to see what
kind of legitimacy the U.S. is going to confer on al Qa'ida,
because the U.S. is seen as a non-Muslim infidel entity, which
is already on the wrong path. So whether it calls al Qa'ida
jihadists or not, or calls them--I have read the memo where
other words are posited like ``muhara,'' which means like a
pirate--I don't think that is going to go very far in the Arab
Muslim world because the U.S. is not in a position to actually
make an opinion that has to do with Islam in the first place.
Mr. Miller. Is there such a thing as a good Muslim and a
bad Muslim?
Mr. Ibrahim. There are good people and bad people, and
there are good Christians and bad Christians and good Hindus
and bad Hindus. But see, and that is the thing----
Mr. Miller. Are there good Muslims and bad Muslims?
Mr. Ibrahim. But--and that is the thing. If you think of
them----
Mr. Miller. My question was, you just said there were good
and bad Christians. You just said there good and bad Hindus.
But are there good and bad Muslims?
Mr. Ibrahim. There are good and bad Muslims, but we have to
understand what we mean by the word ``Muslim.'' I think a lot
of people think by the word ``Muslim'' they conflate it with a
certain race or certain culture or certain ethnicity. But to me
a Muslim is literally a man who, or woman who is, as the word
means, submitting to the will of Allah. That is a true Muslim.
Mr. Miller. I am just trying to find out--Pensacola, where
I come from, we have what I would call pretty radical Christian
beliefs in regards to bombing of abortion clinics. I don't
think that is right, and I am willing to speak out against
that.
Mr. Ibrahim. Right.
Mr. Miller. My question is, you know, are there Muslims
that are out there speaking out against those that I think have
hijacked them. And my time has run out. Would you think about
that and then----
Mr. Smith. Give a quick answer to that.
Mr. Ibrahim. Okay. Well, basically the abortion thing,
which I hear a lot about, it ultimately to me comes down to----
Mr. Miller. By the way, I am pro-life when I say that.
Mr. Ibrahim. Okay, I understand. What it comes down to, to
me anyway, is can this person who claims to be a Christian find
precedence in the Bible that tells him to go and, you know,
bomb an abortion clinic. I would argue no, at least not in the
New Testament.
Now, compare that with the last time I did a survey,
several thousand statements, direct by Mohammed, saying go and
wage war and subjugate infidels. So this is what I mean.
Yes, people can say I am a Christian or whatever religion
and do bad things, and people can say I am a Muslim and do
great things. So I really--I try not to get into the realm of
human will but more what doctrine teaches.
And as long as the doctrine is there, and this is the
problem, there will be those who will take it seriously. Even
if they are the minority--and I am not saying the majority of
Muslims believe this, because I think the majority of Muslims
don't even know about these doctrines--but--and that is what
makes the radicals more powerful because they are able to go
and delve into these arcane doctrines, bring them out, bring
out the classical jurisprudence, and then show these things.
And then how is a moderate, who wants to be a moderate,
going to actually have a leg to stand on to counter all that
without being accused of apostasy, which, by the way, according
to Islamic law earns a death punishment.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Andrews.
Mr. Andrews. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the
gentleman and to the witnesses.
Mr. Ibrahim, if I were in the Iraqi Parliament, and I
wanted to make the argument that people should use any means
necessary to expel the American occupiers from our homeland,
and I used as the textual basis of that of the Judeo-Christian
text in which the Christians and Jews are instructed there is
only one God. Thou shalt have no other God but me. I am the
only God. And I cited that as authority for the proposition
that Christians and Jews have a responsibility to expel others
from the realms of power, and that is why the Americans are
occupying my country. Would I be on legitimate ground
theologically?
Mr. Ibrahim. I would argue no and I think I can give you a
better example from the Bible.
Mr. Andrews. Why won't you take mine. Why would I not be on
valid theological ground?
Mr. Ibrahim. Because, where exactly in the Bible does it
say that?
Mr. Andrews. Well, the Ten Commandments instruct Christians
and Jews that they should believe in one God, and that is the
God of the Judeo-Christian heritage. So if you believe in some
other God then you are apostate, right?
Mr. Ibrahim. But there is no imperative in the Bible--as
opposed to the Koran and the hadith--saying or inciting
Christians to go and subjugate the rest of the world.
Mr. Andrews. Well, it depends on what we mean by
imperative. You could make the argument that most of the Old
Testament is a chronicle of wars waged by the Israelites in
order to gain territory, because they are God's chosen people.
So even though there may not have been an explicit command to
go to war, there is book upon book that says you should wage
war to claim what God has promised you.
And wouldn't that be consistent with what the Iraqi
dissenter would say about us?
Mr. Ibrahim. Not really, and there is a very subtle reason.
In fact, the Old Testament wars are the examples that I was
going to go to because those are usually the ones that are
cited as showing how the Old Testament can just be interpreted
as being a religion of conquest as much as Islam. And I will
give you--the simple anecdote is the Book of Joshua, where
Joshua is commanded to go--and essentially it is almost like
genocide and he kills everyone, including animals, you know,
every human, beast. He just totally purges.
The difference between that imperative, and, you know,
anyone can make a moral decision about that, whether it was
right or wrong or what happened----
Mr. Andrews. No, I didn't tell you to make any moral
judgments. I am talking about doctrinal----
Mr. Smith. Please let him finish.
Mr. Andrews. Go on.
Mr. Ibrahim. But the difference between that and what you
have in Islamic text is that if you look at it, and I have
looked at it closely, they were very temporal in-the-now
commandments from Yahweh or God. Basically if you read it, it
commands the Hebrews to go and kill the Jebusites and the
Jebusites and the Philistines until you get this piece of land.
It was not, as opposed to the Islamic doctrines, an open-
ended command. And if you look at the language in the Koran----
Mr. Andrews. But couldn't one argue that God's word in the
Old Testament isn't temporal, just as God's word in the Koran
is not. And if--in the time of Joshua the command was to
dominate a particular piece of land on the west side of the
Jordan River, then the command in global times is to command
the whole globe, including what we now call Iraq.
Mr. Smith. If I could dive in here, God's word is temporal
if he says it is temporal. But if he says it is not, it is not.
That is the distinction.
Mr. Ibrahim. That is what I am saying. In the Koran it says
fight them. The key word you always see is fight them until
they are subjugated. Fight them. And so this is why it became
codified into the Islamic world view as a perpetual warfare
between the abode of Islam and the abode of war until the
latter has been subsumed----
Mr. Andrews. I actually think this discussion, which I
appreciate very much, goes to the point that I was trying to
implicitly make. History is replete with circumstances where
people interpret the meaning of religious commands as they see
fit. So, for example, one could argue that the Koran's mandate
to go evangelize, to mix cultural references, but to go do so,
has--is really more of a cultural and educational command and
not necessarily a violent one.
Now I think you would disagree with that, but the
hypothesis I am asking you to respond to is that couldn't a
good Muslim be someone who uses the tools of the arts and
culture and persuasion to try to convince others to submit
rather than a means of violence. Is violence necessitated by
the Koran?
Mr. Ibrahim. No--actually, you are not supposed to go on an
offensive jihad until you first invite people to Islam. If you
can do it peacefully, that is fine. But jihad is the last means
if they refuse, and this is how it has been historically. You
have to remember, for example, to Muslims the golden era of
Islam is Mohammed and the first what are called righteous
caliphs which thrived for about four or five decades. In that
period alone Islam burst out of the Arabian peninsula----
Mr. Andrews. My time is running out, but I would ask you
this. Was the Crusade a Judeo-Christian jihad, offensive jihad?
Mr. Ibrahim. The Crusade was a belated response to 400
years of Islamic depredations and annexing Christian lands.
Mr. Andrews. Was it offensive or defensive?
Mr. Ibrahim. It depends on how you look at it. It was for
Jerusalem and Jerusalem was annexed by force by Muslims from
the Christian Byzantine Empire. By force. And so the crusaders
were going to get it back. And so is that offensive or
defensive?
Mr. Andrews. Your testimony was terrific. Thank you very
much.
Mr. Ibrahim. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Shuster.
Mr. Shuster. I thank you both for being here today. I am
going to start with Mr. Doran first, and I have a question for
you, Mr. Ibrahim.
Our strategic communications counter ideology of al Qa'ida
extremists out there in the U.S. Would you talk a little bit
about that? What can we do better? You mentioned the U.S.
Information Agency in establishing that. Can you sort of go
into more detail as to what you think we should do, what you
think we have done well, and what we haven't done well?
Dr. Doran. Well, let me start with what we have done well.
I think that in Iraq we have learned a lot of lessons. The
successes with the tribes of al Anbar, this is a tremendous
reversal, very quickly. And if you look at counterinsurgency
doctrine that was used to--that informed our policies, our
successful policies, you see that information operations and
communications is a huge part of it.
So what I am saying is when we see a success like that,
obviously that is in an area where the Department of Defense
has total control, what mechanism do we have in our government
to look at successful programs and say, ah, how do we replicate
this program in another part of the world, or how do we take it
and maybe if we want to take it out of an area where we have a
hot war to an area where the Department of Defense is not in
the lead, how do we take it and massage it and change it so
that we can apply it to these other areas?
In order to do that, there has got to be a thinking,
learning strategic center in the government that is looking at
all of these different programs that are going on out in the
field and adopting best practices and applying them, applying
them elsewhere, and that currently doesn't exist. That is the
problem.
We got to the point under Glassman in the last
administration where we could start to see what right looked
like about how you would pull these things together. There were
still--don't get me wrong--there were still lots of obstacles
to creating a kind of the unified, all of government team that
was working together. But we had a community of people from all
the different key agencies who were working together, and we
had a central locus where they could at least be brought
together to discuss these issues, and that is what I think is
sorely lacking.
There are lots of things we are doing out there that are
very effective. There is no doubt about that. The greatest sort
of all of government cooperation that you see, the greatest
example of it, is really at the country team level. If you have
got an ambassador at the country team level who is interested
in this, he has got all the representatives of the agencies
right there, and they are coming up with innovative programs,
that works very well.
We have got a big broad interagency coordination at the NSC
level, but that--all the kind of planning and operational
cooperation at anything above the country team level is
extremely difficult, and that needs--someone needs to, I think,
not someone, the President has to focus on that, put somebody
in charge of it, demand that they achieve results and then
follow up on it.
Mr. Shuster. And you place it at the State Department
instead of NSC?
Dr. Doran. I would. We have--there is a deep--throughout
the government, there is a deep fear of an operational NSC, and
there is something about the strategic communications influence
that goes operational very quickly. So it is hard to run things
like that out of the NSC. I think the NSC should be engaged in
oversight and should be pulling the team together at various
intervals, but there has got to be a strategic operational
center.
Also, it has to be resourced. I mean, things happen, you
know, priorities change. You have to have an organization that
has money, resources, that it can move to effect the
perceptions of everybody else as well, and the NSC can't do
that either.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you, and then my final question which is
going to be a big question, Mr. Ibrahim. Where is the hope?
Your testimony sounds awfully bleak. Give me a piece that I can
smile about.
Mr. Ibrahim. No, I understand. I present all of this, and I
understand that it doesn't offer much hope. But the reason I do
it is to essentially show that there needs to be a radical
shift in the intellectual approach to the problem.
And I believe that if that is done, everything else will
fall into play. And by saying that, I am not talking about, you
know, an Armageddon-type war. I believe that once people start
taking this seriously, then they will be able to implement
something.
For example, I am a firm believer that a lot of people
always discuss interfaith dialogues and bringing Christians and
Jews and Muslims together to talk about their commonalities. I
think it is time to bring them together to talk about their
differences and for them to be open, and for, you now, non-
Muslims--to essentially put Muslims in the hot seat and say,
look, you have got this entire body of doctrine which is not
ambiguous in the least. You have got all this history which
essentially manifests that doctrine, and we know it. What is
the deal, essentially. I mean, in other words, put the ball in
their court.
But as long as we go around saying, no, that is not the
problem, and, you know, this and that, but to be objective, and
not in a condescending or insulting way, and just simply say,
look, you have got about a few thousand texts that you all say
are authoritative from the Koran to the hadith to the words of
Mohammed, to the words of the Islamic scholars, theologians and
jurists, and they all say, X, Y and Z. Okay. Now, what is the
deal. How do you--how can you tell us this is not the fact?
I think by doing that one of the important things is they
for the first time will see, you know what? These people
actually have, you know, a reason to be the way they are or to
be skeptical or to be cautious, and that goes back to saying a
lot of Muslims don't even know their own texts. So by bringing
it to them and throwing the ball in their court and showing
them, your own religion teaches lots of violence and
intolerance vis-a-vis the other and show us how that is not the
case. I think that would go a long way into creating some sort
of interreligious, on the international level debate, and that
might help, for instance. But as long as we ignore it----
Mr. Smith. The time is up. We have to go on. Move on to Mr.
Cooper.
Mr. Cooper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to the
distinguished witnesses.
It is my understanding that one of our admirals has said
the most single successful war on terror was tsunami relief in
Indonesia, humanitarian aid, temporary involvement, relief,
that worked.
Meanwhile, in other parts of the world we have been engaged
over the last 20 years in rebuilding, what, 6 Muslim nations
and almost no gratitude, in fact a lot of hostility provoked.
No understanding in the Arab street that we are helping these
folks, even though in Iraq and Afghanistan alone, just in
existing outlays, we have paid, we would have hired every man,
woman and child in both countries for about 40 years.
So in terms of an effective strategy to reach out to folks,
don't we kind of need to bypass ideology, deal with
humanitarian and time limited and nongeographic, and that seems
to work if recent history is any guide, sidestep these
doctrinal issues.
Yes, sir. Mr. Doran.
Dr. Doran. If I could just say a couple of words about the
doctrinal issues, I disagree with Mr. Ibrahim on a couple of
key points. He mentioned the words, that ``words'' memo. I
actually was very supportive of that memo and pushed it around
that government as much as possible.
What we found in extensive polling was that when Americans
talk about Islam, use Islamic terminology, there is what we say
and then there is what Muslim audiences hear. It is one of
those cases where the minute we use Muslim terminology
audiences turn off and they hear, ah, you have got a problem
with Islam. It is very much what you were saying, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Smith. And I tried that from a dozen different
understanding angles with a bunch of different audiences, and I
discovered exactly what you just said.
Dr. Doran. Yes. Any time you talk to Muslim audiences you
have that experience.
Mr. Smith. Well, you are a non-Muslim presuming to
understand their religion, and they are offended by that at
first blush.
But go ahead, sorry.
Dr. Doran. Yes. It has the unintended consequence of
validating al Qa'ida's ideology which says that the United
States is at war with Islam. So we just find it more effective
that we talk about, we talk about interests, we talk about--we
talk to people in terms of categories of identity, like tribes
of al Anbar, Iraqis, and so on, that doesn't put the religious
question forward.
It is one of those old things like the old question about,
you know, when President Nixon said, I am not a crook, you
know. When you deny the frame, you reinforce the frame.
So what people don't hear I am not a crook, they hear
``crook.''
So we sort of want to change the dialogue and get it off of
religion. That is not an argument about--that is not an
argument about theology and. It is saying, let's, to the
extent--to the extent that we have any control over the tenor
and the subject matter, let's move it off of the theological.
And I would still stand by that. I think it is quite a good
idea.
On the tsunami relief, the question is what is our
strategic goal in all of this, and that goes to what I was
saying about the State ``R'' and the telling America's story.
We have an interest out there in seeing to it that certain
ideologies are weakened. What people think about the United
States is not always the primary--and I would say that is
usually not the primary factor that is going to weaken or
strengthen those ideologies.
So, yes, we do want people to have a good view of the
United States, and we want to carry out actions that they find
completely compatible with their own interests. But we have--
there are groups out there that we want to strengthen, there
are groups that we want to weaken, and we need an information
system, we need an influence system that can target those
enemies and create information flows that weaken them, and that
doesn't necessarily have to do--those information flows don't
necessarily have anything to do with the United States and its
actions.
Mr. Cooper. Well, the most effective information flow might
be medicine or a new American President whose middle name is
Hussein or avenues like that that kind of diffuse the
controversy. Is there a more failed position in all the Federal
Government than the ``R'' Bureau, if we look at all the
mismanagement and ineptitude?
Dr. Doran. No, I don't think the ``R'' Bureau is a failed
bureau. I think the problem isn't--the problem is one of
leadership.
Mr. Cooper. There been about 12 leaders in recent years.
Even I can remember Charlotte Beers.
Dr. Doran. No. The ``R'' Bureau has had, I think it is four
in the last eight. But if you look at it--I don't have the
numbers in front of me, but if you look at it about half the
time there has been no leadership there.
So the position has been, the under secretary's position
has been empty quite a lot. When I say leadership, it really
has to come from the top.
There has to--you have to--the White House has to decide
that it wants to create the all of government team, and then it
has to put somebody in charge of creating the team and demand
results. We haven't had that. We haven't had that yet.
There are huge--all of the communities that are--even the
communities within the Department of Defense that are tasked
with influence and information were carrying out a radically
different kind of role before 9/11. So we have suddenly taken
what are basically tactical communities or communities that
were directed toward mission X and we suddenly said, aha, you
have this strategic communications mission. But we haven't
stepped back and said how do we need to revamp all of this in
order to pull it together for all of that mission.
Mr. Smith. I am going to pause on that, and we will revisit
that issue.
Mr. Ibrahim. May I also briefly respond to the ``words
matter''?
Mr. Smith. Very quickly, go ahead.
Mr. Ibrahim. About this whole ``words matter'' memo, the
points that I would like to stress, first of all, is, like I
said, I don't think the kinds of words we use are going to
either estrange Muslims or win them over, but I do think they
need to be used carefully. And this goes back to what I am
saying about learning and getting a better doctrinal education
of what these words mean, and then using them properly.
So, for example, I remember in that memo words like
``Sharia'' were not supposed to be mentioned, words like
``caliphate'' were not supposed to be mentioned, even words
like ``ummah.'' Now, as long as they are being mentioned in a
context that is applicable and legitimate, I don't see why a
Muslim would be so estranged by that.
On the other hand, like I am saying, whatever words we use
I don't think are going to make a dramatic difference there,
but I do think they make a dramatic difference here in the
U.S., because if we do away with all these words which carry so
much meaning and then instead just supplant generic words, then
the people who talk who need to know what is going on won't
have the necessary knowledge because it is a generic concept.
Mr. Smith. I think we are talking about two slightly
different things, which I will explore in a minute. But I want
to get to Mr. Thornberry.
Mr. Thornberry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Doran, I have always believed the first step is to
really understand not only the enemy, but the culture, the
religion, that we are dealing with. You have been in at least
three different positions. How would you rate today our
government's understanding of what we are facing of the
religious background that has been discussed here, as well as
the culture, the tribes, and so forth, when you deal with
various countries?
Dr. Doran. I think that the understanding has increased
exponentially.
Mr. Thornberry. I know it is better, but on a scale of one
to ten, where are we?
Dr. Doran. You see, you're asking me to have perfect
knowledge. I would say 7.5. If you look at the quality of
analyses about the Fatah, I watched as it got better and better
and better, so that we understood down to the tribal level the
motivations of individuals, motivations of the tribes.
The intersection, one of the important things--and this is
another area where I disagree a little bit with Mr. Ibrahim.
The problem we have got is, we have people who are motivated by
the ideology, who believe the theology as understood by al
Qa'ida; and then we have other groups that ally with them for
reasons of their own self-interest, who calculate for whatever
reason that they benefit from the violence of these guys. You
saw this in Iraq.
So our job is to separate out, to drive a wedge between the
global jihadis and the others who are aligning with them for
whatever reason. But more and more I see that we understand
that better.
Mr. Thornberry. But you have to have that deeper
understanding in order to have effective strategic
communications, in order to drive that wedge and separate them
off.
In your comments at the beginning you made a comment about
having the ``R'' Bureau kind of the leader where the government
comes together. One of the concerns I have had is that too
often strategic communications is an overlay to what we are
doing rather than a part of the strategy from the beginning, an
integrated part of the strategy, so that rather than spin some
sort of kinetic operation to make it look as good as it could,
maybe you shouldn't do it at all because of the implications of
it.
Can an ``R'' Bureau or anything else integrate strategic
communication into the planning of what we do, not just try to
spin it after it is already done?
Dr. Doran. That is a huge problem. It is a huge problem in
terms of military operations, it is a huge problem in terms of
policy.
The key isn't ``R'' Bureau; the key is a strategic
proponent for all of this. The under secretary of ``R'' that I
am talking about would be a much different ``R''. You would
shift the balance between the regional bureaus and the ``R''
Bureau, and you would have an empowered under secretary with
access to the President. So you would have an individual there
at all of the key meetings who would be reminding everybody
that they need to think about the effect of our actions on
perceptions out there first. That is the only way I can think
about doing it.
I always come back to the organizational piece and to the
creation of a powerful proponent in the government who can make
all of these arguments. Absent that, I don't know how we do it.
Mr. Thornberry. When Secretary Gates was before the full
committee a week or two ago, I asked him about an incident,
just as an example, where there was a firefight in Iraq. Before
our guys got back to the base they had rearranged the bodies to
make it look like our soldiers had shot Muslims as they were
praying. This was on the Internet, and we didn't respond for a
week.
So part of what you are talking about, isn't it speed of
making decisions? It can't come under Washington and be
thrashed out at any level; you have got to be fast, and you
have got to have tactical control over that or else a tactical
operation becomes a strategic issue. Is that not part of what
we are dealing with?
Dr. Doran. Yes, absolutely. And let me give you some grist
for your mill.
We have an enormous amount of combat camera footage that
can show what we are doing, but it is very hard to get all of
that declassified. Once things go into intel channels, they get
locked away. And because we don't have a powerful proponent
saying from the beginning--look, the enemy's narrative, it is
pretty easy to see, it is you are killing babies, you are
killing innocents, that is their narrative, it is as simple as
that.
So we know from the outset, no matter what we do, that is
what is going to be claimed against the U.S. So we have to say,
what is the counter story that we are telling?
Right now, the counter story we are telling is, Oh, we did
that by accident, or, We don't know; we'll get back to you in
two weeks. That doesn't work. But--knowing the counter story is
one thing, but then setting up the processes to make sure that
we have the information going out immediately that supports our
narrative is what is lacking.
Mr. Smith. I want to follow up on that, because I am
totally with you and Mr. Thornberry on the need for the
strategic approach and how we organize it and coordinate it and
the fact that that is, I think, really what we have been
lacking in the last six or seven years in a comprehensive
approach to defeating these violent ideologies.
And it is not a war on terrorism--I think it is important
we understand that--it is a war of the ideology that Mr.
Ibrahim has described, and how are we comprehensively trying to
counteract that down to the tactical level, like the example
that Mac mentioned, up to the strategic level of what our
message should be and we don't have any sort of comprehensive
strategy. And I am with you on that.
Where I part ways and what I want to explore is with the
notion that the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy should be
the person to lead this effort. Lots of arguments here. The
first one is that is what we have been trying for the last six
years or so, and it is been a complete failure in terms of any
sort of broad strategic planning.
Second, under secretaries do not, almost by definition,
have access to the President. They just don't, because their
most direct boss wouldn't want that to happen. So if we imagine
that we are going to create an under secretary position that is
going to have access to the President, then I think that is
just a very faulty premise from the start.
All of which is a long way around to my thinking that the
NSC is where this has to be, because the National Security
Adviser does have access to the President. Most specifically,
also within the current NSC there is a gentleman on the NSC
staff who has access to the President, had access to him for
two years, who has been charged in this general area amongst
others; and that the only way to get sort of the comprehensive
approach is to put that responsibility there. Because even if
we fix the problem that you mentioned within Public Diplomacy,
which is the fact that they went regional--even if you do that,
all that does is that unifies State.
The comprehensive strategy that we are talking about
requires many different agencies to do that. I mean, we could
tick through all of them. And State is just not going to have
that type of influence over it.
With that, I apologize, I got riled up by Mr. Thornberry's
question there, and I wanted to explore that.
I will let you respond, and then I have got to go to Mr.
Langevin.
Dr. Doran. Couple of points: First of all, NSC has to be
deeply engaged, there is no doubt about that. My point is,
there has to be a strategic operational center, somebody who is
following day to day what is going on on the ground, moving
resources from here to there and so on.
Mr. Smith. Across agency lines.
Dr. Doran. Yes. It doesn't necessarily--now, because of the
Economy Act, you can't move resources across, but you can----
Mr. Smith. You can talk to them.
Dr. Doran. You can talk to them and you can say, Hey, you
are doing X, I am doing Y, and our friends over here are doing
Z. According to your authorities, couldn't you actually do Y?
And they can say, Yes, we can do that.
And then that frees me up to take the money from Y and put
it somewhere else.
Now, we got to that stage under Jim Glassman. That is the
first time that ever happened, where we all sat in a room and
said, Here is the goal we want to achieve in region X, here is
what we are doing; and we started horse trading like that. That
is the first time it ever happened. That kind of thing has to
go on.
Ultimately, as I said in the beginning, to me, all roads
lead to the State Department because they have the lead for
foreign policy, they are out there putting together our
strategy in every other realm. And so they have got to be
deeply involved from the----
Mr. Smith. They have to be deeply involved. And I will
exercise my prerogative to take the last word, though I will
revisit this in a second to say that all roads do not lead to
the State Department in this issue because there is a huge
military component to it, there is a huge intelligence
component to it.
So the roads do lead in slightly different directions. And
I will let you stew on that for a second and you can come back
at me in five minutes.
Mr. Langevin.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This has certainly
been a fascinating discussion.
I really do thank you for your testimony, to both our
gentlemen here today.
Let me ask you this: In terms of how we do communicate, and
not wanting to enflame the situation making it any worse--I
mean, we all speak to various groups, and when we speak about
this issue, how do we speak about it in such a way that we
refer to the terrorists, who and what they are, but not, you
know, communicate in such a way that we offend those people in
the Muslim world with whom we need to align, people that do
want peace and that we need to work with against those people
who want to cause death and violence?
Let me stop there, and then I will go to my other
questions.
Mr. Ibrahim. So how do we speak? You mean to the more
moderate elements without alienating, how do we utilize words?
Mr. Langevin. Right. How do we let them know that we have
no conflict or issue with Islam, but we do have a problem with
violent terrorists?
Mr. Ibrahim. Well, I think you just more or less--the way
you put it. You can say, we, per se, have no conflict or issues
with Islam, but we have these terrorists who go around quoting
from your core texts and who reveal, usually, a greater
appreciation--a lot of these terrorists are usually top
graduates from theological schools. And so the question would
be, we are not out to have a crusade or anything against you,
but your guys are saying that this is what your religion
teaches.
And that is why I am saying to have a real debate without--
I will give you an example of where debates normally end.
Someone will say, well, the Koran has verse X, Y and Z which
says, Go and fight infidels. And then the person, whoever it is
who would respond, will say, yes, but also the Koran says, Live
in peace, and this and that, and so it is open to
interpretation.
But what most people don't know is that, again going back
to the juridical roots of Sharia law, a system was created,
which is called abrogation, which means basically any time in
the Koran there is a statement that contradicts the other--and
there are many--for example, live in peace with your neighbors,
go and subjugate them--the rule of thumb is always, you go with
what was revealed to Mohammed later.
And so--when you look at the Koran, the vast majority of
the most violent verses were the ones revealed to him later,
and so, according to Islamic theologians, they have abrogated
the more peaceful ones.
So my point is, not to sit there and say, Well, you have
violent verses, and they say, Well, we have peaceful ones. And
then we say, Oh, okay, it is open to interpretation. Take it to
a further scholarly level and introduce this concept and kind
of tell them this is where you are going.
So all I am saying is to actually bring it out into the
open without being offensive, and just, from an inquisitive
point of view, saying, We have been studying your own
scriptures, your own top authorities, and this is what they are
telling us. And then when you say, a moderate response, this is
also how they come back--and also from a doctrinal point of
view--so how are we supposed to understand?
Now I think that would go a long way, if for no other
reason than showing Muslims that, Hey, our own religion does
have these issues, and maybe we need to start addressing them,
as opposed to ignoring them and going out of our way to tell
them, oh, it is a matter of misinterpretation; and then no one
wants to address it.
Mr. Langevin. I want to go to Mr. Doran in just a minute.
But getting back to Mr. Shuster's question, where is the hope
and where do you see this going? What is the ultimate ending?
Because it is pretty depressing.
Mr. Ibrahim. It is depressing.
Mr. Langevin. It would be great if in small groups we could
sit down with 1.5 billion people, the billions of people in the
world on both sides and try to work this out, but it ain't
gonna happen.
So what is the end game?
Mr. Ibrahim. It is depressing. It is almost--and I am not
at all trying to liken Islam to, you know, Nazism or anything
like that, but if I were to come and say Nazism, Hitler believe
X, Y and Z, so what is the hope? How do you deal with that?
Sometimes there really isn't.
But I do believe there is hope, which is not going to be
mass war or anything like that, and the hope lies in exposing
the truth and making the truth available for all parties to
address and to talk about without political correctness or any
other kind of intellectual restraints, but just objectively
address these issues and bring them out in the forefront. And
that has not happened; that is the whole thing.
So you have a group, the radicals, who believe this, who
are gaining recruits because they make very strong arguments
based again on doctrine. Then you have, on the other side, the
West, or the Americans, who are going out of their way to
ignore that and say, That is not part of it. So I am saying to
actually say, Okay, this is part of it.
This is your argument. Now we want to ask moderate Muslims
to actually explain to us all of this and have them go to a
moderate Muslim and say, Your religion unequivocally
demonstrates, according to all these sources and all these
scholars, that when you can, you should go on the offensive.
What are we going to do about that? How do you propose--and
when they say, Oh, no, it is a matter of interpretation.
It can't end there because, like I said, there are a lot of
different means and methods of jurisprudence which have already
addressed these things, and so it is not open to
interpretation; and then that has to be brought up.
And then, when the ball is in their court, I think a lot of
Muslims will, a, see, you know, these people have a point; we
need to actually start addressing this. And I think that would
actually result in a good thing, not necessarily some kind of
Armageddon war. But as long as no one is addressing the fact
and we are ignoring it, I think it just gets worse and it gets
bigger.
And I understand that is not exactly the most hopeful
response.
Mr. Smith. And I want to touch a little bit more on that in
a second, but I want to give Mr. Doran a chance to talk a
little bit more about who should be in charge of the strategy
and how we do the interagency piece and all the different
elements, put together all of our resources so that they are
coordinated.
Dr. Doran. With regard to the things that you left me to
stew about, the NSC is often a recipe for gridlock, and I think
that is important to see. When you elevate things up to that
level, they become intertwined with the high political debates.
I saw very well, when I was at the NSC, anything to do with
Iran, the most mundane things to do with Iran, would become
proxies for policy arguments. And I think that we have seen it
in the Pentagon, as well, when we grapple with the whole
question of strategic communication within the Pentagon.
There has been a very clear pattern in the Pentagon since
2003 to push the communications authorities down out into the
field because there was a recognition that these debates about
what we should be messaging, they interact with policy debates
in a way that is very unhealthy; and they also interact with
turf issues in Washington that is very unhealthy. You get down
to the country team level, and you--I was just out in
Afghanistan recently. And the interaction between Department of
Defense (DOD) Public Affairs, DOD Information Operations, and
the State Department Public Diplomacy people on the ground in
Afghanistan is absolutely exemplary. And you look at that and
you think, what kind of organization do we need back in
Washington that can support those kinds of efforts that are
going on out the field, learn from them, have two-way
communications (coms) with them, and expand them when they are
successful?
Up at the NSC, it is all about high policy, so it is kind
of counterintuitive. The minute you put something in the White
House, you think you are going to get a quick turn on it. Well,
often it sits there for six, eight months and goes absolutely
nowhere.
So we have got to find a way to push the authorities out
into the field, but have two-way coms with Washington. That is
why I go back to strategic operational.
Mr. Smith. Well, I would agree with that. And I think
ultimately the model--and from all the people that I have
talked to, you know, one of the centerpieces of all of this is
going to be the country team, and it is going to be the State
Department and it is going to be the ambassador in the various
different places where we are engaged in this. And I think that
is absolutely true.
We need to do a better job of empowering them though. You
are right, we have taken steps in that direction. But on the
sort of big picture meta-approach to what we are doing, all of
the players on the national level are going to feed into that--
what the Secretary of Defense says, what the Secretary of State
says, what the NSC says, the President, the Vice President.
There has got to be sort of a strategic top line, Okay,
here is what this country team is doing in Nigeria and here is
what they are doing in Pakistan and the Philippines; and we
want them to do this. Someone has got to sort of develop that
and send it out on that level and resource it.
Dr. Doran. Right. Those top-line messages, that is
absolutely the NSC's business, and they absolutely need to be
focused on that and engaged with the operational elements. But
putting the lead for the operational bid in the NSC, I think,
is where it starts to go wrong. You then get guys at the very
top level who----
Mr. Smith. I get what you are saying. I don't want to
interrupt you, but I think you are going to repeat what you
said earlier. And I understand that, if they get caught up in
those sorts of debates.
What I am most concerned about is the interagency approach,
to basically make sure that all of the people in this very
complicated flow chart are understood by somebody.
I mean, the way we are doing this is like we are playing a
football game and the coach has half the players out in the
field that aren't getting any message from him; and they are
doing stuff, they may be talented, they may be important, but
they are not part of the overall plan.
Now, obviously this is more complicated, even than
football, because you have more than 11 people on the field at
the time--it is in the dozens, if not the hundreds, when you
think about all the different agencies and all the different
resources. But somebody in this whole operation, somebody
really smart and with good experience, has to understand that
entire playing field, has to have in their mind, Okay, we have
got this problem, and you know what? Gosh, we need the national
geospatial folks involved on this piece--I am going obscure
there, but that is what I mean--because right now we are
missing pieces of that.
Or also, some of those pieces are off running their own
play, running their own program, and there is nobody really to
control them.
And if it can be the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy,
I guess that is okay. It is hard. And I have seen it work
before where somebody within one branch was able to do the
interagency piece with, you know, Presidential authority, and
pull folks together.
It has worked, so I guess it is conceivable. I could be
persuaded of that. But whoever it is, that division we have to
have; it can't just be country team by country team or State
Department piece or this piece. It is got to be someone who
says, Here is everything that we have at our disposal to win
this battle, and we all, to some degree, have got to keep them
on the same page. That is what we are trying to accomplish.
Dr. Doran. It is incredibly difficult.
You know, we also need to develop mechanisms for cross-
agency cooperation--beyond just the leadership, mechanisms that
are new. So we need leadership from the top to say, Hey, we are
entering into a whole new government era.
Mr. Smith. Goldwater-Nichols.
Dr. Doran. Yes. We need the equivalent of that. It doesn't
necessarily have to be new legislation, but there has to be a
really strong demand for getting this from the top.
Mr. Smith. Sure. I think it shouldn't be new legislation. I
think it should be exactly what you just said.
I have a couple more things for Mr. Ibrahim, but I want to
turn it over to Mr. Thornberry.
Mr. Thornberry. Following on that, have you looked, Mr.
Doran, at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) as a
possible example? You know, one of the commissions recommended
that the NCTC have operational planning authority. It didn't
end up with that, but is that maybe another model to at least
consider?
Dr. Doran. Yes. Well, we developed, under Glassman, a
hybrid where one of the things that he did--as I said, he
distinguished--his predecessors saw the job as a public
relations (PR) job, he saw it as a national security position.
And one of the things that he did is, he worked closely with
the NCTC.
The problem with the NCTC is that it is working on
counterterrorism. And the problem--which is fine as long as we
are on a hard terrorist messaging issue, but a lot of the
issues that we need to confront are where the policies of peer
competitors, strategic rivals--Iran.
Mr. Thornberry. The NCTC for strategic communication----
Dr. Doran. Yes. I think we are all in agreement of what is
missing.
There are lots of problems with the ``R'' model that I laid
out. The reason I went for the ``R'' model is for two basic
reasons: Number one, State Department has got to be a major
player; we have got to bring them on board. And number two, I
just don't see creating a new agency at this point.
Mr. Thornberry. Let me ask you one other thing--and we may
have talked about this before.
Do you see a role for private sector input into whatever is
created? And I harken back to a Defense Science Board study
several years ago that said there is lots of expertise out
there in the country that can be brought to bear and taken
advantage of, but there is no way for them to plug in at this
point.
Dr. Doran. That is another area where I am in 100 percent
agreement with you. The private sector has an enormous amount
to offer on many different levels. But at the risk of really
sounding like a broken record, without the strategic center to
plug in, we can't tap into it appropriately. So I don't think
it is an alternative. It is another arm that we need to be
using.
In my written statement I made reference to a book by
Kenneth Osgood about--Total Cold War about the Eisenhower era.
And it turns out that Eisenhower understood all of this, set up
the government to deliver it, including outreach to the private
sector.
I don't think we need to go back exactly to the Eisenhower
model for a lot of reasons, but it is great to hold up and say,
Hey, we did this once; we can do it again.
Mr. Thornberry. Finally, Mr. Ibrahim, how much of this is a
struggle within Islam that we have no influence over, no
influence to sway one way or another? And then how much room is
there for us to have some positive influence if we do
everything perfectly?
Mr. Ibrahim. Right. I think there is a legitimate struggle
within Islam over these interpretations. I have, of course,
indicated the difficulties that reformers will encounter.
Insofar as how we can help? Very little, or at least not
visibly, because the moment you have a non-Muslim, specifically
an American, trying to reinterpret Islam for Muslims or even
visibly supporting moderate Muslims, they are immediately just
completely discounted as just being puppets.
So there is, I think, a debate. If you want to do it in the
literal sense, the literalists kind of have an advantage
because it is a traditional thing, and they have the law on
their side. But if we can help, perhaps if it can be done
clandestinely or behind the scenes by supporting this sort of
thing, but once the U.S. or the West is visible, they lose
credibility.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Jim.
I have a couple more questions, but I want to give Mr.
Langevin another shot. I know you had some follow-up that I
think we ran out of time on.
Mr. Langevin. I did. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Joe Nye, the former Dean of the Kennedy School of
Government and former Assistant Secretary of Defense for
International Security, has written extensively about the need
to supplement our military might with soft-power assets, if you
will, efforts to win the world's hearts and minds with our
values and culture, successfully exercising the type of power
that requires that we pursue many fronts, including
international diplomacy, democracy building, culture exchanges,
economic development, education initiatives, communication
about our values and our ideals. And while we won't be able to
influence that hard-core center, like the bin Ladens of the
world, we may be able to reach out to those gray circles that
are outside of that.
So, Mr. Ibrahim, do you believe that it is possible to
reach out to those gray areas and, with soft-power assets, have
an influence in at least dissuading people from going toward
that hard-core center?
Mr. Ibrahim. I do believe that. I think one of the
conceptual differences that we have when we talk is that I am
often looking at the long term, and I think in the long term it
is always going to be a problem.
In the short term, what you say makes sense, and that can
be done by reaching out and strengthening and all that. But,
see, I always try to think as a Muslim. I have come from the
Middle East and I know the mindset. And when you think as a
Muslim, that means a different paradigm completely from what we
are accustomed to doing or thinking about the world view.
And so, when you are left with--and again, I stress, by
``Muslim,'' I don't mean one billion people; I mean the people
who literally, by the word ``Muslim,'' have submitted
themselves to this codified world view.
And so, to me, I just don't understand how, if you believe
God told you X, Y and Z--this is not open to interpretation,
this is how it has been done for 1,400 years--how a person can
get beyond that. Now, usually most people get beyond that by
actually deflecting out of Muslim and becoming moderates, which
is really secular Muslims, which--that obviously helps, too.
So in the long term, I don't know how strategic these are.
In the short term, they can help and they can make differences,
but as long as that codified world view exists, it is always
going to come back. And I think one of the problems is, people
overlook history, and they often just start looking at the
Islamic world and its interaction with the West, Europe and
America, from the last 200 years. And they just see it always
as the West on the offensive with colonialism and with all
these sorts of things, but they don't appreciate the earlier
history.
And the fact is that when Islam was strong, from the
beginning it did implement these doctrines, so it was always
there until, if you look at it from the seventh century until
the Ottoman Empire, which annexed a big chunk of Eastern Europe
by the jihads--and that is how it was explained; again, in
Ottoman documents, that is the way it was, that is the norm
until they got beaten.
So I think an intellectual or conceptual failure is
people--and they often tell me, if what you are saying is true,
how come in the last 200-300 years we haven't seen Muslims en
masse invading and waging jihad. And the fact is, in the last
200-300 years, there has been a great disparity between what
the Muslim world can do vis-a-vis the West. And so just because
they have not been implementing these doctrines does not mean
that they have annulled them and overlooked them; it can't be
done anyway.
But that is the problem. People think, Well, if anyone has
been the aggressor in the last 300 years, it is the West. And
so they are not taking the historical context and the
capability factor into play.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you.
Mr. Doran, in your testimony you conclude that interagency
coordination is really a necessary step in combating extremist
ideologies. One of the things that I have called for--and Mr.
Thornberry and I have cosponsored legislation calling for a
quadrennial national security, very similar to the Defense
Department's Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), but it would
require that cross-agency cooperation in developing the
strategy as we go forward to better inform the national
security strategy.
Do you think something like that would work, should work;
and how do we best implement it?
Dr. Doran. Demand signal coming from Congress to the
agencies to pull together and think about these problems in a
common fashion is always a good thing.
But in terms of the thing that is most important, I think
here in the discussion we are all in agreement that
institutionally there is something missing. It is all of the
connective tissue that can pull all of these different teams
together; and that is where I would put the emphasis, is
demanding from the various agencies that they set up the
different nodes that will pull it all together, and that the
leadership will demand of the people who are in charge of this
that they do so.
Mr. Smith. If I could pick up on the conversation, Mr.
Ibrahim, about how we deal with the doctrinal issues--and I
think you very correctly identified the problem, and I think
the problem does exist to some degree in other religions. In
the Jewish religion, while it is more specific, that is
certainly one of the problems they are having in Israel; you
know, the strict interpretation is, here is the land that we
are supposed to have. And there is some percentage of the
Jewish population that adheres to that. Most of them do not.
But that, too, creates a problem; it is in the Bible, it is
what we have to do.
Of course, where the Bible is concerned, there are a whole
lot of things to adhere to in there, the whole shellfish--on
down the line, a whole bunch of rules that don't seem to have
much modern applicability.
And then, of course, within the Catholic religion, well,
they have no end of rules. And adjustments have been made and
we have gone through those battles in the U.S., Well, you are
not a good Catholic if you don't follow all the rules. And
there are a lot of Catholics who have said, Yeah, but a lot of
those rules were kind of made by man. So there was a doctrinal
defense there.
And that is sort of, as you describe, and I think
accurately, where the Muslim world is at.
There has to be an interpretation of their religion that
gets around some of their doctrinal challenges. And I think you
are right in confronting that and having, you know, within the
Muslim world, a conversation that comes up with that.
I want to explore one piece of that, and then I have two
other areas. So let's walk down that road for a moment.
If you are a Muslim, it seems to me that there isn't any
other way to do that other than to sort of--I am a Christian,
and my own interpretation of the religion is that God wants us
to think in advance, that there was no one time at any point in
human history when it was all written down, and all we have to
do is memorize it like a calculus test and then we are good to
go. That is completely antithetical to human experience to me,
that what God wants us to do is think and reason and move
forward and understand the broader world and its context, not
go back to some math problem. And as you can tell from my tone,
I feel very strongly about that.
Whatever your religion, it is hard for me to imagine going
in the other direction. It just doesn't make sense based on
human experience.
But be that as it may, there is another way to go, and that
is, Look, it is black and white; you know, we have got big
problems in the world, and the only reason we have problems in
the world is because we didn't adhere to that black and white.
And that comes into problems certainly within the Jewish
religion. In the Christian religion, as well, you will find
many people who say that. And of course they have a fairly
wide-ranging difference of exactly what it is that we are
supposed to be doing exactly, what laws we are supposed to be
following.
But as you describe, within the Muslim religion the Koran
is relatively straightforward and relatively interpretive. So
if you go down that road, if you put yourself in the Muslim
shoes for a moment, just for the purpose of this room--
accepting your argument that we should never do that publicly--
what do you do?
How do you make an argument that, you know, well, this is
the moderate approach, and with the key cornerstone of that
being other people can have different faiths and we can live
with them and it is all good, we don't have to be focused on
everybody converting to our way of thought? How would they sort
of confront that doctrinal problem in the straightforward,
honest, up-front way that you have described?
Mr. Ibrahim. Well, I have seen moderate Muslims posit that
approach that you just mentioned; and the radical response is
always the same, which is----
Mr. Smith. I know what the radical response would be, you
have been clear on that.
What I am searching for is, how you then counter that
radical response and when?
Mr. Ibrahim. Well, that is the difficult part----
Mr. Smith. That is why I am asking.
Mr. Ibrahim [continuing]. Because ultimately we are talking
about a religion, we are talking about truths. This is how it
is understood; and we have to always remember, whatever we may
think Islam is, to Muslims this is the internal truth.
And so I am a Muslim, and I have, like you were saying, X,
Y and Z, black and white, codified, been practiced that way
always. And then I get someone who says, Well, we need to
reform this because it is the 21st century; we want to get
along with people. And then they go and just give you a big
list of how the Prophet Mohammed would not do that, how Prophet
Mohammed subjugated people out.
And so that is the problem, this is the fundamental
problem. I know you want to see how to get over that, and that
is why people haven't been able to get over that at this point.
And then again you have Sufis----
Mr. Smith. Well, that is the other thing. I mean, the other
thing about this that I think--if I may help answer my own
question--one of the ways to get around that is, it is not
really as doctrinally black as white as you described it.
For instance, at one point when you mentioned that, well,
from the 7th century to the 16th they adhered to these rules,
and it was all good. No, they didn't; they adhered to some of
them. They were drinking; they weren't doing for the poor what
they were supposed to be doing.
If you go back and read that history, there is simply no
way that from the 7th century to the 16th century they came
within a country mile of adhering to everything that was in the
Koran.
Mr. Ibrahim. But that was the rule. That is sort of like us
saying we have a Constitution, but we break it.
Mr. Smith. Understood.
But understand that there is a critical point that I am
making there, because a critical part of the argument that
carries the day for the radicals in the Muslim world is, when
we were doing it right, we were ruling the world.
Mr. Ibrahim. Exactly.
Mr. Smith. But we abandoned it. But that is crap.
Mr. Ibrahim. From your perspective.
Mr. Smith. No, no, no, no, no. We are off perspective now.
It is--I will use a different word as I describe this, but
it is factually, incontrovertibly untrue. In the same way that
your doctrinal argument about what the Koran says is
absolutely, factually true, it is untrue to say that from the
7th to the 16th century they adhered to the Koran. They did
not. And you don't have to be very smart to prove that. It is
just a matter of historical fact.
Mr. Ibrahim. I was specifically discussing the obligation
of jihad, and that is why Islam was able to spread from the
Arabian Peninsula to Spain and India in about a century.
Mr. Smith. Understood.
But you can't cherry-pick. That is the whole point. That is
what you are saying is the strongest argument that bin Laden
and those guys had is, you can't cherry-pick, and you just did.
Mr. Ibrahim. Cherry-pick in what sense?
Mr. Smith. Well, you said we followed jihad, but we didn't
follow all the other stuff in the Koran.
Mr. Ibrahim. Right.
Mr. Smith. It is a package deal, as bin Laden describes it.
So I think we can make that argument and say that, no, it was
not followed and it did not lead to the successes as they
describe.
Mr. Ibrahim. Fair enough.
But to them there is this Golden Age myth, which is
basically the era of Mohammed and how we lived, which--we have
a lot of documents; that is what we need to follow.
Mr. Smith. And all I am saying is we can factually
contradict that myth.
Mr. Ibrahim. And that would be a good strategy. If people
actually actively and in a scholarly way went to prove that
that was wrong, I believe that would be a good strategic point
to try to do that. But, then again, coming from Westerners----
Mr. Smith. Oh, I am not saying that should come from us.
Absolutely, it shouldn't come from us.
Mr. Ibrahim. Okay. Because if it does, it is just
conspiracy and----
Mr. Smith. Within the Muslim world, we have to be aware of
this. Per your own argument, we have to be aware of what the
best doctrinal argument is to go. Because the other thing that
is possible is that if the doctrine just sort of ties us up in
knots, then you might conceivably be better off not confronting
these hard truths, and relying on the argument that there are
things in the Koran that talk about peace and, therefore, that
is the direction we need to go in.
Mr. Ibrahim. But like I said, to them--see, this is the
problem. To non-Muslims, they sort of approach the Koran and
Islamic scriptures in general almost the way they do to the
Bible by saying, Well, hey, there are a lot of interpretations.
In Islam, it is not a metaphysical religion, it is very
much grounded in the here and now and how you live with each
other. And that was already explained and defined.
Mr. Smith. Ignorance can occasionally cut in your favor
from a broad policy standpoint, and I am suggesting that it is
possible that we can use--the analogy that occurs to me is the
situation with Taiwan. Is Taiwan part of mainland China or
isn't it? Okay, we just sort of keep it very fuzzy. It is all
good. As long as we don't sit down and have that very hard-
core, confrontational discussion--which seems to be where we
are going now--then it is all fine. As long as we can maintain
the myth, yeah, we are one China. At some point in the future
we will get there.
Mr. Ibrahim. We are maintaining the myth among ourselves,
but they are not. They already know better.
Mr. Smith. Sure. In my example, they are maintaining the
myth within Taiwan and China, and it is working for them.
And I am just asking--I could be totally wrong about this,
but if you are saying that most Muslims don't know these sort
of doctrinal specifics, then there is certainly a pretty big
myth out there as well.
They don't know, for instance, that the later
interpretations are more important than the earlier. Rather
than going up to them and saying, Hey, did you realize this?
You may be creating a bigger problem for yourself.
Mr. Ibrahim. But that is what the radicals are doing, and
that is what I am saying. They are doing that, and they are
showing it and they are getting recruits. And that is part of
the Wahhabi movement with the Saudis, who are just spreading
all their literature everywhere, which states all these things.
And so, to me, it might not be very productive to have them
mobilizing themselves with this, whereas we, kind of head in
the sand, say, No, that is not what it is. And we have been
doing that.
Mr. Smith. Right. But you understand the basic rock and a
hard place here.
Mr. Ibrahim. Right, I understand that.
Mr. Smith. That you can't rely on the ignorance argument
that I just described; or, you know, it is hard to rely on the
factual argument.
The one question I do have from all of this is--admitting
that we shouldn't talk about this; it is not something we can
resolve--we still have to have a big-picture message; we still
have to say what it is that we are fighting and how we are
confronting it.
Mr. Ibrahim. Right. I totally agree.
Mr. Smith. And in that regard, I think that the memo you
mentioned--that has been talked about much--is spot on because
if we get into it, I don't see a path in the maze that doesn't
simply create more trouble.
And I will draw one distinction. You are saying that the
memo said, Don't even talk about Sharia. I actually don't think
that is what it said. You can talk about Sharia, you can talk
about the stuff; don't link it to what we are fighting. Don't
use it to describe what we are fighting. Don't say that they
are Islamic terrorists or jihadists. Don't describe our enemy
in those Islamic terms; not don't ever say Sharia, just don't
use it as a way to describe what we are fighting.
And within that narrow ban, based on sort of the box you
have constructed for us, it seems to me that that is the best
of a series of difficult choices.
Mr. Ibrahim. Except in that it misleads Americans by not
understanding what it is. Until you find the body of knowledge
or the body of doctrine that is fueling your enemies, and you
just kind of dismiss it and say they are just bad guys, I don't
think you will be able to properly address it.
And that is what I was saying earlier about education.
Until we actually understand this body of knowledge and then
use that as a base to try to implement strategies or to come up
with it, I think that--and the strategy will not necessarily be
one of violence, I don't think. I just think you are
handicapped when you don't bring in what they say, what they
believe, what they circulate amongst each other.
Mr. Smith. One final argument on that--I may turn out to be
wrong about that, there may be another argument. But my
argument would be that you--first of all, I am not saying that
our policymakers shouldn't be aware of this. They absolutely
should. The question is whether or not they should use it as
part of their argument, as part of their approach. And as you
have described it, as a number of my colleagues have said in
their questions, if, in fact, we take this approach; if, in
fact, we send this mainly out to the broad, you know, American
public--accepting for the moment that this an open public
hearing--but if we send that message out, you wind up up
against a brick wall basically.
I think you, in a certain sense, have contradicted your
core argument in the rather brilliant way that you have
described it. If, in fact, we lay this out and if this is the
argument, then you come up with a religion that basically we
have no choice but to fight, because they will fight us because
we lose the doctrinal argument.
Mr. Ibrahim. No, no. What I am recommending is being blunt
and up front about it, but not saying this is what you teach in
a question; saying, look, We have a concern because theologians
and doctrinal people, both Christians and Jews and Muslims, are
seeing this thing in your text. Now, we are not saying that is
what it is, but we want a clear and straightforward answer. In
other words----
Mr. Smith. Forgive me, but you are saying that is what it
is.
Mr. Ibrahim. No. We are saying this is what your guys have
said, al Qa'ida.
Mr. Smith. Do you think they are wrong? Al Qa'ida. This is
what they are saying, this is how they----
Mr. Ibrahim. Do I think their interpretation is wrong?
Mr. Smith. Yes.
Mr. Ibrahim. In certain respects--I will give you an
example.
One of the things that everyone will tell you, killing
women and children is anti-Islamic. I have heard that from
growing up until now, and everyone will tell you that. Now,
again, this overlooks how Islamic jurisprudence articulates who
and who not to kill.
Mr. Smith. So you think they are right?
That is my point. I mean, if you think they are right, then
that is not something we should be broadcasting.
Mr. Ibrahim. No, no. I am not saying I think they are
right. I think they have a doctrinal base, that is all. And
that is what I am saying; it would be better to get other
Muslims or whoever to try to counter it. But, see, as long as
it is buried, no one is going to be able to address it.
I believe there may be a good way to address it, and--in a
doctrinal way, and actually combat it and maybe even supplant
it. But if we don't even acknowledge it, who is going to be
able to start taking it seriously to try to formulate a
counter-response? If it is just ignored, and amongst the Muslim
world it is getting recruits and we totally ignore it, how can
anyone start actually coming up with a counter-interpretation
which really may be valid and may end up----
Mr. Smith. Just to be clear, you don't have one at the
moment?
Mr. Ibrahim. I am not Muslim, and I don't consider myself a
theologian; I am a student of Islamic law. But I have talked to
some who have come up with very clever interpretations. But you
are always going to have a problem with the core, who are known
as the Salafis. And these are the people who just: All we want
to do is the way Mohammed lived his life in the first three
generations of Muslims, that is all there is to it.
Now, there is no way that you are going to get beyond those
people. And as I was saying, the problem is, even if 99 percent
of the Muslim world doesn't agree with these doctrines, the
nature of the war now is that a handful of people can do what
9/11 was, and so that is what is going to happen. So even if
the majority of the Muslim world doesn't agree, as long as you
have a few people who are radical and no one is able to really
study their body of doctrine to come up with a better
interpretation, a couple of people are enough to create havoc.
Mr. Smith. And just so I am clear, I am not suggesting in
the least bit that we not study it. And I actually, based on my
work with people at the NCTC, at NSC and State Department, I
think they are very much aware of what you just described.
Mr. Ibrahim. Good. That is reassuring.
Mr. Smith. They are figuring out what the best way to
counter it is.
Mr. Ibrahim. And I am not saying that this should be
broadcast to the American public. I may have misspoken. And I
am not saying we should tell the American public these people
want to kill us. I am saying in an internal kind of
environment, this needs to be made open and made available and
not expressed or censored or just ignored.
Mr. Smith. And in my experience, this is a discussion at
this committee that we have had. Difference in interpretation:
What do you do about it? And you have described how difficult
that is. Thank you for indulging me on that.
Thank you both very much certainly on both of these
subjects. I think this is very critical to what our
subcommittee is doing and what our national security strategy
is. One, we have got to figure out the best way to confront
this ideology; however we describe it, it is clearly an
ideology that threatens us. And then also in terms of how we
structure it, I think we need to continue to do better about
how we strategically implement a counter strategy.
So I thank you very much. It is been very helpful. And we
are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:30 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
=======================================================================
A P P E N D I X
February 12, 2009
=======================================================================
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
February 12, 2009
=======================================================================
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
=======================================================================
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
February 12, 2009
=======================================================================
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. SMITH
Mr. Smith. How should we deal with the issue of religious
terminology when we craft our messages for foreign Muslim audiences?
Mr. Ibrahim. Religious terminology should be treated as objectively
as possible when addressing Muslim audiences. Islamic law (Sharia)
assigns a clear definition to select Islamic terminology (e.g., jihad)
and it is these definitions that Muslims acknowledge. To rely on
equivocal or compromised Western definitions for the sake of being
politically correct at best leads Muslims to think that the U.S. is
naive. In short, whenever applicable--that is, whenever there is need
to evoke Muslim terminology--mainstream definitions that mainstream
Muslims subscribe to should be relied upon. That said, Muslim
terminology should not be spoken or disseminated lightly by non-Muslims
but rather only when appropriate. When appropriate, objective
definitions--those present in Islam's juridical texts--should be used.
Mr. Smith. You have pointed out significant issues with how the
academic community approaches Islamic doctrine as an ideology. Through
initiatives like the Minerva project, the DOD is proposing to reach out
to just that academic community to try to seek insight to inform
Department of Defense decision making. What recommendations would you
suggest for the DOD to push the academic community to engage in a more
open and intellectually honest discussion of these issues, particularly
through mechanisms like Minerva?
Mr. Ibrahim. The academic community should be encouraged to treat
their topic objectively, rather than projecting their own 21st century,
post-modern epistemology onto the Muslim world, as happens often. Jihad
as a doctrinal obligation should be presented without apology or
reticence. Euphemisms need to be dropped. Sharia law--what it is and
its prominence in Muslim life--should be elaborated. History needs to
be portrayed accurately, based on primary sources.
Mr. Smith. What capabilities do you believe are necessary to
improve U.S. government capabilities to conduct counter-ideology and
counter-propaganda efforts?
Mr. Ibrahim. 1) Freedom from fear of being censored, ostracized, or
retaliated against. In short, knowing that one can speak their mind
freely, without fear of reprisal. 2) Before being able to formulate
proper counter-ideology efforts, the ideologies themselves must first
be properly understood. Without being able to acknowledge the threat,
finding strategies is doomed to failure. As for propaganda, it is just
that--propaganda, and can only be fought with American ``propaganda''
(i.e., the battle to win ``hearts and minds''). In other words, the
ideologies must be seen as objective and treated with commensurate
strategies, while the propaganda must be seen as a way to incite
Muslims and demoralize Americans. Unfortunately, it seems that the
opposite--ignoring Islamist ideologies while seriously considering
Islamist propaganda--is more in effect.
Mr. Smith. What recommendations do you have for handling the
Internet as a means for medium for extremist propaganda and ideology?
Mr. Ibrahim. For Islamists as for others, the Internet has become
the primary means of disseminating both their ideology as well as their
propaganda. Accordingly, it should be closely monitored.
Mr. Smith. Given the cultural and religious context, who should
U.S. Government efforts target with any messages? What types of
messages should the U.S. be sending? By region (or country), who are
the actual centers of gravity to influence the vulnerable population,
i.e. to keep the extremist message from gaining converts. Can U.S.
efforts even add to the discussion or are any efforts doomed from the
start? What is the vulnerable population? Who should we be targeting
and what are the venue/media to communicate?
Mr. Ibrahim. In this context, the two primary targets that
ultimately matter are: 1) the religious authorities (the ulema--
scholars, sheikhs, imams, etc); and 2) the Muslim youth. As for the
latter, Osama bin Laden himself delimited the age group jihadi
organizations should target: 15- to 25-year-old males; these, then,
make up the vulnerable population. Two things influence the 15- to 25-
year age group of men: 1) The perceived belief that the U.S. is
``oppressing'' the Muslim world, and 2) the conviction that they are
religiously-obligated to battle the U.S., as both an oppressive and
infidel force.
Originally, the ideas and ideologies emanated from Wahhabi Saudi
Arabia, the original center of gravity whence ideas were actively
disseminated. Increasingly, however, these ideologies have taken hold
and now have indigenous representatives throughout the Muslim world
(i.e., ``Salafis''). More practically, the primary center of gravity is
the local mosque.
The U.S. can try to ameliorate its image as oppressor, etc.
However, the U.S. has little or no role in regards to ameliorating its
de facto infidel/enemy status, a status due to Islamic law. The U.S.
can and should support true moderate Muslims attempting to reform
Islam; but it should not be visible, as its visibility will only cause
other Muslim segments to accuse the American-supported moderates of
being U.S. ``stooges,'' ``agents,'' and ultimately apostates.
Mr. Smith. What cultural, personnel or other changes need to occur,
in both State and Defense, to create the ``thicker connective tissue''
you describe in your written testimony?
Dr. Doran. [The information referred to was not available at the
time of printing.]
Mr. Smith. The difficulties faced by the State Department go beyond
more resources or more people. For State to claim a leadership role in
strategic communication, there must be a broader cultural change in
what types of things State does and how it carries out its mission. How
can we positively effect that change? What role does (or should) DoD
play in the process?
Dr. Doran. [The information referred to was not available at the
time of printing.]
Mr. Smith. You've spoken of the position of the Under Secretary of
State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs as a weak under
secretary. How would you change the responsibilities and authorities of
that position to make it effective as the strategic-operational center
for the U.S. Government's strategic communication effort?
Dr. Doran. [The information referred to was not available at the
time of printing.]
Mr. Smith. Based on your time in government service, and as an
academic observer, could you give us your assessment of U.S. efforts at
counter-ideology and strategic communication? What can be improved and
how?
Dr. Doran. [The information referred to was not available at the
time of printing.]
Mr. Smith. Many people have advocated the recreation of the U.S.
Information Agency, or a new Center for Global Engagement--an
independent agency no longer under the Department of State chain of
command. Do you believe such a move is necessary? If so, what do you
believe are the important structures or authorities that such an
organization should possess? Are there other recommendations for how
the U.S. Government should organize to provide a cohesive and
comprehensive strategic communication and public diplomacy approach?
Dr. Doran. [The information referred to was not available at the
time of printing.]
Mr. Smith. In your comments, you mentioned that Under Secretary of
State Glassman began some programs to move the State Department beyond
just telling America's story and getting at real strategic
communication. Could you describe some of these programs? Have they
continued since Under Secretary of State Glassman's departure?
Dr. Doran. [The information referred to was not available at the
time of printing.]
Mr. Smith. What recommendations do you have for improving the
Defense Department's organization and structure for dealing with
strategic communication?
Dr. Doran. [The information referred to was not available at the
time of printing.]
Mr. Smith. What capabilities do you believe are necessary to
improve U.S. Government capabilities to conduct counter-ideology and
counter-propaganda efforts?
Dr. Doran. [The information referred to was not available at the
time of printing.]
Mr. Smith. What recommendations do you have for handling the
Internet as a means for medium for extremist propaganda and ideology?
Dr. Doran. [The information referred to was not available at the
time of printing.]
Mr. Smith. Given the cultural and religious context, who should
U.S. Government efforts target with any messages? What types of
messages should the U.S. be sending? By region (or country), who are
the actual centers of gravity to influence the vulnerable population,
i.e. to keep the extremist message from gaining converts. Can U.S.
efforts even add to the discussion or are any efforts doomed from the
start? What is the vulnerable population? Who should we be targeting
and what are the venue/media to communicate?
Dr. Doran. [The information referred to was not available at the
time of printing.]
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