Urgent Need For Truth-In-Language In US Public Diplomacy
Author: Jim Guirard, TrueSpeak Institute
Source: FamilySecurityMatters.org -- Dec 15, 2006
Source: Marshall Center - Garmish, Germany PTSS Daily - December 19, 2006
Author's Note: Although this critique is focused on Under Secretary of State Karen Hughes as the President's point person on Public Diplomacy, many others in State, Defense, the White House, the Intelligence Community and elsewhere are equally at fault -- as is the Iraq Study Group's new Report to the President, as well -- for major deficiencies in the vital "war of words" and "hearts, minds and souls" aspects of the Global War on al Qaeda-style Terrorism.
Along with its many recommendations, some realistic and some dead-on-arrival, this week's Report of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group (ISG) features a major blind spot -- the same Public Diplomacy deficiency which currently emanates from the State and Defense Departments, the White House and the Intelligence Community.
In brief, the ISG study fails to exploit what may truly be the Achilles' Heel of al Qaeda-style Terrorism -- namely, that hate-filled and inherently violent cult's multiple violations of so-called "moderate" Islam: wanton killing of innocents, rampant use of youthful suicide for purposes of intimidation, fomenting of hatred and discord, desecration of bodies, torture-killing of fellow Muslims, arrogant and "playing God" (istihlal) perversions of the Qur'an, the Hadith and the Fiqh, etc.
What if these transgressions against "peaceful" Islam were judged to be so extreme, so willful and so unrepented as to constitute an apostasy (al-irtidad) against the "peaceful, compassionate, merciful and just" Allah who is repeatedly so described by the Qur'an?
Wouldn't the proofs of such an al Qaeda Apostasy completely delegitimize Osama bin Ladenism and condemn it as a deadly threat to Islam --- as great a threat to Allah as it is to America and the West?
The question now, however, is how do we present or encourage others to present such proofs if we will not even dare to discuss the Islamic religious premises upon which this anti-al Qaeda thesis can be sustained?
In understanding and addressing this deep-seated deficiency, it will be useful to examine the 18-month history of the "new and improved" Public Diplomacy programs which are now in place and to recommend major "war of words" and "war of ideas" changes which both they and the new ISG Report manage to ignore in the all-important battle for hearts, minds and souls.
Karen Hughes' Cautious Modus Operandi
Beginning in mid-2005 and for several months thereafter, Bush political confidante and former senior White House staffer Karen Hughes prudently took a "listening trip" approach to her new role as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.
In early September of last year, she traveled to Chicago for the annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) -- not to speak but, quite wisely, to ask questions and to listen.
Soon thereafter and in similar mode, she visited several countries in the Middle East and got an earful about "US policies" in the region, but with far more focus on cultural and women's rights issues than on the al Qaeda-style Terrorism which was then and still is threatening to tear the world to shreds.
One of her senior advisors, former Ambassador (and longtime Jim Baker associate and senior ISG Advisor) Edward Djerejian, stated in a defensive and mea culpa fashion at the tour's conclusion that Karen Hughes understood quite well now that the primary source of America's problems in the Middle East is "the policies, stupid!" -- with scarcely a word of condemnation from either him or her toward the al Qaeda haters, suicide mass murderers and evildoers (mufsiduun) who truly are the problem.
At this point, after fifteen months in office and with only marginal improvement in our Public Diplomacy posture, it is difficult to know to whom the Under-Secretary is listening in her quest for a more effective approach to winning -- rather than continuing to lose -- the vital hearts, minds and souls elements of the broader Global War on Terrorism.
To be fair to this very talented lady, this is no small order in a world at war in which the "hate America" syndrome is in full flower (even in this country) and in which much of the entrenched State Department bureaucracy, as well as the foreign policy elite in academia, are inherently hostile to the sharp-edged, condemnatory language which is required to call the evildoing, apostate and satanic al Qaeda-style terrorists by their real names.
Urgent Advice from the Cold War Era
In addition to whatever other advice she hears from either friend or foe, Ms. Hughes should pay close attention to a Cold War recommendation by the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy in 1984 and repeated in 1985 and 1986 -- calling for creation of a White House Task Force on truth-in-language in foreign policy affairs.
According to that earlier Commission, to which this writer was a paid consultant, "Perhaps the most serious type of 'disinformation' sown by the Communists over the years is that which Under-Secretary of Defense Fred C. Ikle and Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan have termed 'semantic infiltration' "-- a dangerous practice which the late Senator and former UN Ambassador defined and lamented as follows:
"Simply put, semantic infiltration is the process whereby we come to adopt the language of our adversaries in describing political reality. The most totalitarian regimes in the world call themselves 'liberation movements.' It is perfectly predictable that they should misuse words to conceal their real nature. But must we aid them in that effort by repeating those words? Worse, do we begin to influence our own perceptions by using them?"
For many decades, we did indeed parrot all manner of clever Soviet distortions (people's democracies, patriotic fronts, progressive movements, wars of national liberation, Liberation Theology, etc.) -- just as we are today parroting such false al Qaeda-concocted terms as so-called "Jihad" (Holy War) by supposed "mujahedeen" (holy warriors) and "martyrs" allegedly destined for a sex-orgy "Paradise" as a proper reward for killing all of us "infidels."
If she listens carefully, Karen Hughes will realize that these are Osama bin Laden's favorite five Islamic words -- all falsely purveyed, all mindlessly parroted by us and all very effectively used in recruiting young Muslims to suicide mass murder. In the Cold War such destructive practices were correctly called "disinformation" on the part of the enemy and "useful idiocy" on our part and should be again.
Clearly then, if Ms. Hughes and her Public Diplomacy counterparts throughout the Government are ever to defeat bin Laden's false language of "Jihadi martyrdom," they must begin by correctly re-labeling what is happening in the world today -- widely known as so-called "Jihad" (Holy War) but appearing to many others as most UNHOLY and genocidally criminal, instead.
While there will be much debate as to what these new words and labels should be, here are some of the basic questions whose answers will lead us all in the right directions -- both in Western secular terms and in Islamic religious context:
Question: What is al Qaeda doing in today's world? Is it the holy-war "Jihad" bin Laden claims, or is it actually "irhab" (terrorism) or "hirabah" (unholy war, forbidden war against society), instead?
Question: Are al Qaeda and Hizballah operatives the "Jihadis" and "mujahideen" (holy warriors) and "shahiddin" (martyrs) they claim to be? Or are they damnable "irhabis" (terrorists) and "mufsiduun" (evildoers and mortal sinners), instead?
Question: Depending on the answers to the questions above, are these people more likely to be destined for Allah's Paradise or for Shaitan's Jahannam (Eternal Hellfire), instead?
Question: Regarding the "99 Names of Allah" by which the Qur'an describes Allah (the Compassionate, the Merciful, the Beneficent, the Peaceful, the Just), do al Qaeda and similar "jihadi" movements seem to be abd' al-Allah (Servants of Allah) or abd' al-Shaitan (Servants of Satan), instead?
The question now is whether the several other ISG-type studies now under way -- in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the State Department, the National Security Council and the Intel Community -- will also ignore such "war of words" (and largely religious) questions as these.
If so, both they and we will remain dangerously ignorant of the basic good-versus-evil distinctions within them -- and within the answers which impact so directly on the vital "hearts, minds and souls" aspects of the broader War on al Qaeda-style Terrorism.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Jim Guirard was longtime Chief of Staff to former US Senators Allen Ellender and Russell Long. His new TrueSpeak Institute is devoted to truth-in-language and truth-in-history in public discourse.
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