Report Says Cold War Offers Lessons for Engaging With Muslim World

Just as it fought the spread of Communism during the Cold War, the United States must do more to develop and support networks of moderate Muslims who are too often silenced by violent radical Islamists, according to a RAND Corporation report.

“The struggle in much of the Muslim world today is a war of ideas,” says Angel Rabasa, a RAND senior policy analyst and the lead author of the report. “This is not a war of civilizations; it’s not Islam versus the West. It’s a struggle within Islam to define the character of Islam.”

“We cannot come in as outsiders, as a non-Muslim country, and discredit the radicals’ ideology,” Rabasa says. “Muslims have to do that themselves. What we can do is level the playing field by empowering the moderates.”

Rather than an afterthought, the building of moderate Muslim networks needs to become an explicit goal of U.S. government policy, with an international database of partners, a well-designed plan and “feedback loops” to keep it on track, according to the study.

The report by RAND, a nonprofit research organization, is intended to serve as a “road map” to build these networks and to serve as a practical guide for policymakers to implement.

Rabasa says the United States has a critical role to play in aiding moderate Muslims, and can learn much from the way it addressed the spread of Communism during the Cold War. The efforts of the United States and its allies to build free and democratic networks and institutions provided an organizational and ideological counter force to Communist groups seeking to come to power through political groups, labor unions, youth and student organizations and other groups.

Broad parallels stand out between the Cold War environment and the situation in the Muslim world today.

“At the beginning of the Cold War, the threat was a global Communist movement led by a nuclear-armed Soviet Union; today it is a global jihadist movement striking against the West with acts of mass-casualty terrorism,” the report notes. In both cases, policymakers recognized that the United States and its allies were engaged in an ideological conflict that had to be contested across diplomatic, economic, military and psychological dimensions.

But unlike the Cold War, this battle involves shadowy groups rather than a single entity. These radical Islamic groups control no territory, reject the norms of the international system and are not subject to normal means of deterrence. Many of these groups have been organizing for decades and have access to vast amounts of money, Rabasa says.

The radical groups are fighting to create religious states based on Shari’a, or Islamic law. They typically reject liberal Western values such as democracy, gender equality and the right of religious minorities to publicly practice their faith.

Many Muslim countries are ruled by authoritarian political structures and the mosque is one of the few places people can protest harsh political, economic and social conditions, the study says. Radical Islamists have seized the opportunity to promote their interpretation of Islam as a solution to those problems, aggressively spreading their views in the mass media and via the Internet.

“Moderates by definition are not aggressive,” Rabasa says. “These radicals are much more willing to go the extra mile and use violent means to enforce their views. Moderates are in the majority, but the radicals tend to intimidate the moderates by accusing them of being agents of the West or not true Muslims. Radicals have also threatened physical violence and have forced many people into silence, hiding or fleeing their countries.”

One of the challenges for the United States will be identifying genuine moderates from those who may appear to be moderate, but in fact advocate ideas that are inconsistent with democratic values, the report states.

Characterisics of moderate Muslims include: support for democracy, internationally recognized human rights including gender equality and freedom of worship; acceptance of nonsectarian sources of law; and opposition to terrorism.

Instead of focusing on the Middle East, where most of the radical Islamic thought originates and is firmly entrenched, the report recommends reaching out to activists, leaders and intellectuals in Turkey, Southeast Asia, Europe and other open societies. The goal of this outreach would be to reverse the flow of ideas and have more democratic ideas flow back to the less fertile ground for moderate network-building of the Middle East.

Partners in this network-building effort should be those who share key dimensions of democratic culture, the study says. The report recommends targeting five groups as potential building blocks for networks: liberal and secular Muslim academics and intellectuals; young moderate religious scholars; community activists; womens’groups engaged in gender equality campaigns; and moderate journalists and scholars.

As America learned during the Cold War, moderate groups can lose credibility – and therefore, effectiveness – if U.S. support is too obvious. Effective tactics that worked during the Cold War include having the groups led by credible individuals and having the United States maintain some distance from the organizations it supports.

“This was done by not micro-managing the groups, but by giving them enough autonomy,” Rabasa says. “As long as certain guidelines were met, they were free to pursue their own activities.”

To help start this initiative, the report recommends working toward an international conference modeled in the Cold War-era Congress of Cultural Freedom, and then developing a standing organization to combat radical Islamism.

Bookmark http://universeeverything.blogspot.com/ and drop back in sometime.

Islamic Charity and Five Individuals Indicted

The U.S. branch of an international Islamic charity and five of its officers, employees or associates have been indicted for illegally transferring funds to Iraq, laundering money, stealing federal funds, and obstructing tax laws by, among other things, falsely denying that a procurement agent of Osama bin Laden had been an employee of the charity, Assistant U.S. Attorney General for National Security Kenneth Wainstein, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri Bradley Schlozman, and Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division Joseph Billy announced.

The charity named in the 33-count indictment is the Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA), formerly known as the Islamic African Relief Agency-USA. IARA is an Islamic charitable organization headquartered in Columbia, Mo., that was officially formed in 1985 and closed in October 2004, when it was identified by the U.S. Treasury Department as a specially designated global terrorist organization, the Justice Department says.

Also charged in the indictment are Mubarak Hamed, 50, of Columbia, Mo., a naturalized U.S. citizen from Sudan who served as executive director of IARA; Ali Mohamed Bagegni, 53, formerly of Columbia, Mo. and currently of Iowa City, Iowa, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Libya and a former member of IARA's board of directors; Ahmad Mustafa, 54, of Columbia, Mo., a citizen of Iraq and a former fund-raiser for IARA; Khalid Al-Sudanee, 55, a citizen and resident of Jordan and the regional director of the Middle East office of the Islamic African Relief Agency (also known as the Islamic Relief Agency, or ISRA); and Abdel Azim El-Siddiq, 50, of Palos Heights, Ill., a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Sudan and formerly vice president for international operations for IARA, the Justice Department says.

"Today's indictment paints an alarming picture of theft, money laundering, and fraud by the U.S. branch of an international charitable organization. These charges demonstrate our resolve to thoroughly investigate and prosecute any charities that abuse their tax-exempt status to engage in wide-ranging criminal activity," says Wainstein.

"The FBI will continue to work closely with our law enforcement andintelligence community partners to ensure charitable donations are notmisused for criminal purposes," says Billy.

The indictment, which was returned under seal by a federal grand jury in Kansas City, Mo., on Tuesday, March 6, was unsealed and made public upon the arrest and initial court appearance of several co-defendants, the Justice Department says.

Bookmark http://universeeverything.blogspot.com/ and drop back in sometime.

Egyptian Blogger Gets 4 Year Prison Sentence

An Egyptian blogger has been sentenced to four years in prison by an Egyptian court due to the content of his writings.

Karim Amer is the first Egyptian blogger to be tried for writing blogs criticizing Egypt's al-Azhar religious authorities, President Hosni Mubarak and the religion of Islam. Charges against Amer included "spreading information disruptive of public order and damaging to the country's reputation," "incitement to hate Islam" and "defaming the President of the Republic."

"This sentence is yet another slap in the face of freedom of expression in Egypt," says Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Middle East and North Africa deputy program director of human rights group Amnesty International. "The Egyptian authorities must protect the peaceful exercise of freedom of expression, even if the views expressed might be perceived by some as offensive. Amnesty International considers Amer to be a prisoner of conscience who is being prosecuted on account of the peaceful expression of his views."

Egypt is a top receipient of U.S. foreign aid.

"The Egyptian authorities must repeal legislation that, in violation of international standards, stipulates prison sentences for acts which constitute nothing more than the peaceful exercise of the rights of freedom of expression, thought, conscience and religion," adds Hadj Sahraoui.

Bookmark http://universeeverything.blogspot.com/ and drop back in sometime.

Blogger In Egypt Faces 10 Years In Prison

A blogger in Egypt is jailed and faces up to 10 years in prison for his writings.

Karim Amer is the first Egyptian blogger to be tried for writing blogs criticizing Egypt's al-Azhar religious authorities, President Husni Mubarak and Islam.

Charges against him include "spreading information disruptive of public order and damaging to the country's reputation," "incitement to hate Islam"and "defaming the President of the Republic," according to human rights group Amnesty International, which is calling for Karim Amer's release.

"Karim Amer's trial appears intended as a warning by the authorities toother bloggers who dare criticize the government or use their blogs to spread information considered harmful to Egypt's reputation," says Malcolm Smart, director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Program. "This is particularly worrying as bloggers have increasingly been posting information about human rights abuses in Egypt, including torture and police violence against peaceful protesters."

Eqypt is a top recipient of U.S. aid.

Karim Amer was first detained by the Egyptian authorities for 12 days in October 2005 because of his writings on his blog about Islam and the sectarian riots which took place in the same month in Alexandria's Maharram Bek district. These riots followed reports that the video of a play believed to be anti-Islam was being screened in a Coptic church in the district, Amnesty International says.

After he was charged and released, disciplinary measures were taken against him and he was dismissed from al-Azhar University in March 2006. The university's disciplinary board found him guilty of blaspheming Islam, Amnesty International says.


Bookmark http://universeeverything.blogspot.com/ and drop back in sometime.

Enter your Email





Preview Powered by FeedBlitz