"War of Words" Advisories -- Well Intended But Just a STUMBLING START

TrueSpeak Initiative

Jim Guirard, President

TrueSpeak.org 703-768-0957 Justcauses@aol.com

Author: JIM GUIRARD

Source: TrueSpeak.org -- May 23, 2008

In recent days, many "war of words" op-ed essays and editorials have been posted by both the print media and the Internet -- and appropriately so, for the complex issues of language and labeling they raise must surely be resolved far more adequately than is now the case.

Most of these postings have been written by well-intentioned but, I think, mistaken authors who are angrily objecting to recent advisories -- not mandates but preliminary advisories -- by the National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) -- see links 1 and 2 below -- that we begin avoiding the all too familiar "Jihad" (Holy War) and "mujahideen" (holy warriors) labels in the ongoing War on AQ-style Terrorism

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2903198/A-guide-for-counterterrorism-communicationState-Department

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2903194/Terminology-to-define-the-terroristsHomeland-Security

For my own part, when I first saw these two Documents long before they became public, I gave one of them a C- and the other a C+ -- but for reasons entirely different from those of the critics who are now attacking them in their entirety. At this point, I agree with only about half of their dozen or so recommendations of words to use and NOT to use.

Unfortunately, both of these Advisories are insufficient to the situation and are, therefore, vulnerable to charges that they let both the Terrorists and the despotic perversions of Islam which sponsor them "off the hook" -- and leave us with an unclear idea of exactly who and how very dangerous the "Jihadi" (but no longer to be called that) enemy really is

This essay will attempt to describe the truth-in-language path which the NCTC, DHS, State, Defense and NSC experts should now follow in correctly and adequately defining what I have long called "The al Qaeda Apostasy" -- and doing so in several of the Islamic religious words they say should be avoided. In other words, I am a critic, as well -- but in a largely constructive and supportive way rather than in an angry and condemnatory one.

Rather than trying to deal with each of these commentaries individually, I have selected a representative one -- a May 1, 2008 New York Post editorial, entitled "Jihad Newspeak" -- and will attempt to respond not only to its rationale and particulars but also to many of the individual columnists' worries, objections and understandable confusion.

PART # 1 ...... Who Is at War With Whom ?

As the acting NCTC Director Michael Leiter said recently to a distinguished audience at the DC-based Washington Institute on Near East Policy (WINEP), we must somehow "show that it is al Qaeda, not the West, that is at war with Islam."

This strategy and practice of attacking Terrorism but not Islam itself has been US Doctrine from the beginning, but it is good to see this clearly and publicly reaffirmed by a senior anti-Terrorism official at a time when others seem to consider Islam of the Qur'an to be the Real Enemy -- and view the AQ-style Terrorists as an accurate and faithful reflection of that religion, rather than as a radical deviancy from it.

To make a medical analogy, we seek to kill the AQ and similar cancers without attacking the host per se -- so as not to unite the two and so as to inspire so-called "Moderate" and civilized Muslims to become our allies in killing the cancer. But others are angrily blaming the host (Islam, in context of their insistence that there is only "One Islam") as being a willing and inherently complicit and guilty sponsor of the Terrorists rather than as a besieged and conflicted victim itself.

For his part, Osama bin Laden tries daily to paint the same "war of religions" picture as some of the hard-line critics do, albeit for very different reasons. He pontificates that this is "America's War Against Islam" and that it is, therefore, the "holy-war" and the "Will-of-Allah" obligation of every Muslim to fight back in every way imaginable.

In this vein, bin Laden's and his deputy Ayman al-Zawhiri's every appeal to their new recruits and their existing followers alike stresses the urgent need for a most holy and Godly "Jihad by faithful mujahideen and self-sacrificing young shahideen destined for Paradise -- as a proper reward for killing us infidels and destroying The Great Satan."

That's their story and they're sticking with it. The question now is whether we should accept and continue to parrot that self-serving Salafi-Wahhabi-Muslim Brotherhood-AQ mantra or "narrative" -- or should we challenge and defeat it

(a) by the sufficient condemnatory words which make it eternally evil and bound for Hellfire, rather than a matter of "holy war martyrs " bound for Paradise,

(b) by the proper religious, as opposed to politico-Islamist, frames of reference (see Part 4 below) which paint the same satanic picture of these suicide mass murderers, and

(c) by the tough counter-insurgency (COIN) strategies, operations and tactics which are founded (see Part 3 below) upon an optimum counter-narrative?

Author's Note: For a more detailed (10,000 words) discussion of what follows -- and more –- please check my August 2007 entry in the USMA/CTC Essay Contest on National Security Strategy at http://truespeak.org/content.php?id=pseudoreligiousscams

American Doctrine versus the Osaman Doctrine

One of the ways to differentiate the American Doctrine from the Osaman Doctrine is by carefully changing some of the incorrect words and labels we have been using in defining and discussing who is who and what is going on in in this most "irregular" of wars.

This is a language by which we have been classifying our deadly enemies as "holy warriors" and "martyrs" (because that is who they SAY they are, n'est-ce pas?) -- and which also seems to concede the Terrorists' patently false charges that we are all "infidels" and that America is "the Great Satan."

In the so-called War of Ideas, such branding of the genocidal and hyena-like terrorists by exactly the glorifying names they WANT to be called does not seem like a very bright idea. Truth be known, as long as two years ago but to deaf ears at the time, a distinguished former NCTC Director, John Brennan, appealed for much-needed change in an excellent Washington Post Sunday Outlook essay as follows:

"Bin Laden has also insidiously convinced us to use terminology that lends legitimacy to his activities. He has hijacked the term "jihad" to such an extent that US and other Western officials regularly use the terms "jihadist" and "terrorist" interchangeably. In doing so, they unwittingly transfer the religious legitimacy inherent in the concept of jihad to murderous acts that are anything but holy."

Despite this concern, there have been no significant changes in the last two years. And even the current recommendations which are so hotly disputed barely scratch the surface -- by recommending three or four words NOT be used but failing to recommend in adequate detail what other more appropriate terms (including several listed and defined below) should be used in their place. Conclusion: This is advice well intended but still far from sufficient.

An indication that it might be further refined and strengthened can be found in the fact that NSC senior anti-Terrorism staffer Juan Zarate has recently observed that the AQ leadership is quite "sensitive to the perceived legitimacy of both their actions and their ideology. They care about their image because it has real-world effects on recruitment, donations, and support in Muslim and religious communities."

In addition, a well-regarded analysis of these several USG advisories by scholars Matthew Levitt and Michael Jacobson in the Counterterrorism Blog concludes that

"Although the 'struggle of ideas in the Islamic world' section of the State Department report still focuses on the US Government's attempts to explain its policies and values, its message has undergone a serious overhaul. The initial U.S. approach in the wake of the September 11 attacks was to try and sell the United States to overseas audiences, an approach widely regarded as ineffective in stemming the tide of radicalization. Efforts will now concentrate on discrediting the terrorists."

HOORAY for that !! Better six years late than never! Such assertive discrediting -- and even such demonization -- of the AQ Terrorists and their like-minded radicals is an urgently needed tactic which is fully explained in two late-2006 TrueSpeak.org essays of mine on exactly this same insufficiency in US Public Diplomacy, under the following URLs

http://truespeak.org/content.php?id=urgentneedfortruthinlanguageinuspublicdiplomacy

http://truespeak.org/content.php?id=isitholyjihadorunholyirhabimurderdom

PART # 2 ...... George Orwell To the Rescue?

Turning to the New York Post's editorial, which sees no problem whatever in the current lexicon, both its eye-catching title and its message throughout argue that the legendary George Orwell -- author of "Newspeak" fame in his great works "1984" and "Animal Farm" -- would disapprove of these NCTC and DHS recommendations and would opt for retaining these two controversial "holy war by holy guys" labels forever more.

With all due respect, I emphatically disagree. As the 20th Century's supreme authority on the manipulation and cynical distortion of language and labels, Orwell would have wanted these two words (and others like them) of asserted "holiness" and "martyrdom" on the part of al Qaeda, Hizballah, Hamas and their hater-mongers and suicide mass murderers to be rejected outright as the worst sort of "Newspeak" disinformation.

He would have strongly favored such sharply negative and condemnatory Arabic and Islamic terms as "Irhab" (Terrorism), "Hirabah" (unholy war, war against society, crimes against humanity), "mufsiduun" (evildoers, sinners, corrupters) and "shaitani" (satanic) -- along with several more of these demeaning and demonizing labels recommended below.

Those commentators who allege that these new sharp-edged labels would somehow "soften the Lexicon" and "blind us to the real nature of the enemy" would do well to reconsider their (unintentionally) pro-al Qaeda conclusions in that regard. After all, the Terrorists WANT to be known by the halo-polishing language of "Jihadi Martyrdom" and never, ever by the harsh and condemnatory language of "Irhabi Murderdom" (Terroristic Genocide).

A good start for them might be to agree with "Moderate Muslim" leader Dr. Zuhdi Jasser of the Phoenix-based American Islamic Foundation for Democracy (AIFD), who says that what is needed is a "Jihad Against The Jihad." Undoubtedly, he means a truly holy spiritual, intellectual, humanitarian and Umma-wide war to be led primarily by good-guy Muslims themselves against the patently false, murderous, politico-economic and Caliphate-centered so-called "Jihad" concocted by al Qaeda and its kind.

Surely, the latter meaning should not be allowed by faithful Jasser-type Muslims -- or by concerned non-Muslims, either -- to become virtually the ONE AND ONLY (and almost entirely violent) definition of that major, multi-faceted Islamic word. An attempt to prevent such co-opting and word-warping by the self-sanctifying Terrorists is in great part what the recent NCTC and DHS advisories were all about -- and now needs to be completed.

Incidentally, to assert that there is only "One Islam" or "One Jihad" is akin to arguing that there is only "One Christianity" -- in face of Roman Catholicism, of Eastern Orthodoxy, of multiple denominations of Protestantism, of Coptic Christianity, of the Marxist pretenses of so-called "Liberation Theology," of the cultic perversions of the suicidal Reverend Jim Jones in Guyana and of David Koresh's Branch Davidians in Texas -- and endlessly on, all across the planet and all across the centuries.

Confusing Schizophrenic "Shari'a" With Qur'anic Islam Itself

Most of these critics quite correctly attack the many extremist, absolutist, cruel and anti-Qur'anic elements of "Shari'a" -- so-called Islamic Law -- but then fail to draw any distinction whatever between this hodge-podge of political, parochial, self-conflicting and schizophrenic "laws" on the one hand and the underlying religion of Qur'anic Islam on the other.

While Islam itself is supposed to be universal, consistent and eternal throughout, the so-called "Shari'a" differs widely (and even wildly) from tribe to tribe, nation to nation, cult to cult, mosque to mosque, hadith to hadith and among the multiple "Schools of Islamic Thought."

For an example of how totally different one cult's or nation's "Shari'a" (Afghanistan's Taliban Shari'a, in this case) can be from what the Qur'an itself says about a simple conversion from Islam to Christianity, please check my May 18, 2006 essay "Islam's Real Enemy -- The al Qaeda Apostasy" at http://truespeak.org/content.php?id=islamsrealenemy

The message here is that the critics should be focusing their attacks on the self-evident evils of Salafi, Wahhabi, Muslim Brotherhood, Hizballah, Hamas and Taliban-style Shari'a, and stop short of condemning in its entirety the enormous religion that is itself a victim of such terroristic, genocidal and patently "false religious" excesses as are fomented and inflicted by the rampaging Terrorists night and day.

PART # 3 ...... Defining and Defeating the Al Qaeda Narrative

As the NCTC/DHS experts have recommended, as George Orwell would surely have agreed and as USMC and JFCom Commanding General James Mattis seems to have meant a year ago when he sharply condemned al Qaeda Terrorism as "tyranny in false religious garb," we should at long last stop calling these bloodthirsty haters and assassins by the self-sanctifying "false religious" labels they have so carefully chosen for themselves via their all-too-familiar narrative of

1. Jihad (holy war) by supposed

2. mujahideen (holy warriors) and UBL-anointed

3. shahideen (martyrs) destined for a promised 72-virgin

4. Jennah (Paradise) as reward for killing us alleged

5. kuffr (infidels) and, in time, the alleged

6. Shaitan al-Akbar (the Great Satan, America), as well...

Those who not only accept these terms as proper but who insistantly parrot them, as well, are either ignorant of or are deliberately ignoring the Cold War warnings of yet another great man of words -- the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan -- about the mind-bending dangers of "semantic infiltration," which in the late 1970s he (and Ronald Reagan's UnderSecDef for Policy, Fred Charles Ikle) correctly defined 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 brutal 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?"

At that time, we were carelessly parroting (and still are to this day!) the perfidious Soviets' and "Fascist-Left" Fidel Castro's self-serving, self-justifying, mind-bending and clearly Orwellian "Newspeak" narrative of

1, Wars of National Liberation by alleged

2. Progressive Movements and supposed

3. Patriotic Fronts on their way to heaven-on-earth

4. People's Democracy as a reward for killing all of us

5. Fascists and for defeating the evils of

6. American Imperialism

Viewing these two narratives side-by-side, one should realize that trying to condemn UBL's war as a "Jihad" (a "Holy War" without any HOLINESS at all) makes about as much sense -- or nonsense -- as someone's trying in the Cold War days to condemn the Communists as damnable "liberationists" (waging wars of "Liberation" without any LIBERTY whatever), or continuing even now to call these Left-illiberals "progressives" and "populists" and "people's democrats."

Beginnings of a "New Lexicon"

So, should we continue now to make the same mistakes we did for 70 years in the Cold War -- by mindlessly repeating in "useful idiocy" style the halo-polishing language of the Salafi-Wahhabi-Muslim Brotherhood and AQ-style suicide mass murderers?

Or should we hope that the NCTC, DHS and NSC experts will take the logical next step and recommend some of the Quran-compatible condemnatory terms which follow -- and which can be found in a Sept. 8, 2007 SWJ.com essay of mine, entitled "David Kilcullen's Call For a New Lexicon." http://truespeak.org/content.php?id=petraeusaidescallforanewlexicon

Importantly, the ubiquitous (It’s everywhere! It's everywhere!!) controversial word Jihad is neither avoided nor forbidden in the recommended new glossary, as some of the critics angrily contend, but is entered no fewer than FOUR TIMES -- to more clearly define its several confusing and often conflicting meanings.

irhab (eer-HAB) -- Arabic for terrorism, thus enabling us to call the al Qaeda-style killers irhabis, irhabists and irhabiyoun rather than the so-called "jihadis" and "jihadists" and "mujahideen" and "shahids" (martyrs) they badly want to be called. (Author's lament: Here we are, almost six years into a life-and-death War on Terrorism, and most of us do not even know this basic Arabic for terrorism.)

Hirabah (hee-RAH-bah) -- Unholy War and forbidden "war against society" or what we would today call crimes against humanity. Among the many al Qaeda-style crimes and sins which constitute this most "unholy war" are such willful, and unrepented transgressions as those enumerated in the next section of this proposed glossary of terms.

Jihad al Akbar (gee-HAHD ahl AHK-bar) -- this "Greater Jihad" is a personal and spiritual struggle or striving to become closer and more faithful to Allah and his teachings as set forth in the Qur'an.

Jihad al Saghir (gee-HAHD ahl Sahg-HEER) -- "Lesser Jihad" can be a physical -- and even a military -- struggle to protect or to free Muslims and non-Muslims from oppression, but only in strict accordance with reasonable and non-terroristic standards set forth in the Qur'an, which provides that only the Caliph (or head-of-state?) can legally declare such a Jihad. Osama bin Laden is neither.

Jihad al Kabir (gee-HAHD ahl kha-BEER) -- the spiritual and intellectual quest to promote common knowledge of Divine Revelation through all of Allah's Prophets and to carry out ijtihad (consultative efforts throughout the Umma) in applying both Revelation and Natural Law -- and Reason -- to human affairs.

"Jihad" (gee-HAHD, so called) -- al Qaeda's false label for both Irhab and Hirabah, which is at heart an anti-Islamic, apostate and forbidden "war against society" and a largely satanic assortment of "crimes against humanity," such as the many ruthless and willful violations of Qur'anic standards listed below.

mufsiduun (moof-see-DOON) -- Islam's word for evildoers, sinners and corrupters whose criminality and sinfulness, unless ended and sincerely repented, will incur Allah’s ultimate condemnation on Judgment Day; Islam's optimum antonym for "mujahiddin."

munafiquun (moon-ah-fee-KOON) -- hypocrites to Islam who pretend to be faithful to the Qur'an but who willfully violate many of its basic rules, mandates and prohibitions. Once again, please refer to the ten AQ-style transgressions listed below.

hizb (hizb) - a political party, as in Hizballah (Party of God), or as the senior Saudi cleric Sheik Jafar Hawali recently called this radical and arguably apostate Shi’a organization Hizb al-Shaitan (Party of Satan, Party of the Devil).

fitna (FIT-nah) -- discord or conflict within the Umma (the Muslim Community), which all Muslims are admonished not to cause -- but which the Terrorists are causing deliberately and without hesitancy, apology or repentence

Jahannam (jyah-HAH-nahm) – Islam’s antonym for Paradise and meaning the Eternal Hellfire to which Allah on Judgment Day condemns unrepentant, unforgiven evildoers and hypocrites of the unholy war variety.

khawarij (kha-WAH-reej) -- outside-the-religion and outside-the-community individuals and activities; derived from the ancient al Qaeda-like militant Khawar or Kharajite sect, eventually suppressed and expelled as apostates and enemies of authentic, Qur'anic Islam.

istihlal (eesh-tee-LAHL) -- Islam's cardinal sin of "playing God," as Osama bin Laden is doing when he attempts to pervert Islam into his own suicide mass murderous image, and turning it into nothing but a perpetual killing machine -- of all Christians, all Jews and all Muslims who happen to disagree.

al-irtidad (ahl-EER-tee-dahd) or al-ridda (ahl-REE-dah) -- apostasy, a certifiably correct conviction for which is punishable by death in this life and by Allah's eternal damnation in the next, with al Qaeda's murderous excesses eventually to be labeled as "The al Qaeda Apostasy."

takfir (takh-FEER) -- the Wahhabi and al Qaeda-style practice of making wholesale (and largely false and baseless) accusations of apostasy and disbelief toward Allah and the Qur'an. Those radicals, absolutists and judgmental fanatics who engage in this divisive practice of false witness and excommunication are derisively called "takfiri."

Shaitan and shaitani (shy-TAHN and shy-TAHN-ee-yah) – Islam’s Arabic words for Satan and satanic [example: Osama Abd' al-Shaitan, Osama Slave or Servant of Satan]

While there are at least as many more Arabic and Islamic words which could and will be added to any such "New Lexicon" of anti-Terrorism, this is at least a decent beginning. It consists mainly of words and meanings that the al Qaeda, al-Sadr and al-Shaitan killers do not want us to know -- or to use in making them, rather than us, the real enemies of what remains of authentic, Qur'anic Islam.

And out of these words of the New Lexicon we might then construct the optimum counter-narrative to al Qaeda's "false religious" one -- not in Western secular words only (such as criminals, thugs, bring to justice, barbarians, killers, mass murderers, etc) but in highly condemnatory Islamic religious words, as well, perhaps along the following lines:

1. Hirabah (unholy war, "war against society'") and/or Irhab (Terrorism) by ruthless

2. mufsiduun (evildoers, mortal sinners, corrupters) destined for

3. Jahannam (Eternal Hellfire) as a proper punishment for their

4. khawarij (outside the religion) violations of the Qur'an which are so serious, so

5. shaitani (satanic) and so unrepented as to constitute

6. al-Irtidad (or al-Ridda) al Qaeda (the AQ Apostasy) against Qur'anic Islam

It is not at all surprising that DHS UnderSecretary Charles Allen would comment recently to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy that "no Western state has successfully countered the al Qaeda narrative." Truth be known, this can be done only -- or at least attempted primarily -- in Arabic and Islamic religious words, and that method has not yet even been TRIED.

At this point, these terms are known by all too few of us. But just as we have learned not only the deceitful "Jihadi" words of the AQ narrative but several other Arabic and Islamic terms, as well -- words such as fatwa (religious edict), intifada (insurrection), Allahu Akbar (Allah is Great), Shari'a (Islamic Law), Insha Allah (God Willing), Umma (the Muslim World), salaam aleykum (peace be with you) -- surely we can learn a few more, especially those which will at long last allow us to begin demonizing rather than continuing to canonize these genocidal evildoers.

A good and prudent way to begin such truth-in-labeling in Iraq and elsewhere is to condemn AQ-style atrocities -- i.e., the slaughter of innocents coming from a prayer meeting, or while shopping in the markets or while celebrating a soccer team victory -- not only in such secular terms as "criminal" and "horrendous" and "barbaric" but as being clearly Satanic (shaitani), as well.

After all, who delights in these bloody and often genocidal attacks by Muslims on fellow Muslims? Is it the peaceful, compassionate, merciful and just Allah of the Qur'an? Of course not. Or is it, instead, what any truly faithful Muslim knows to be the cruel, the hating, the murderous and the ever-deceitful Satan himself? But at this point, the Islamic religious word “shaitani” is not approved by either of the “war of words” Advisories.

And just as bad, many of the critics insist by their choice of words and labels that virtually all of what the Terrorists do and say is "Jihadi" and, therefore, Paradise-bound. This must be music to bin Laden’s ears.

PART # 4 ........ Proofs of The al Qaeda Apostasy

And as proof positive that the terrorists do truly deserve such harsh condemnations, here is a partial "Bill of Particulars" of their many transgressions and willful violations of Qur'anic prohibitions of which the AQ radicals are enormously guilty -- as is further explained in the following url http://truespeak.org/content.php?id=isitholyjihadorunholyirhabimurderdom

o Wanton killing of innocents and noncombatants, including many peaceful Muslims

o Decapitating the live and desecrating the dead bodies of perceived enemies

o Committing and enticing others to commit suicide for reasons of intimidation

o Fomenting hatred among communities, nations, religions and civilizations

o Ruthless warring against nations in which Islam is freely practiced

o Issuing and inspiring unauthorized and un-Islamic fatwas (religious edicts)

o Using some mosques as weapons depots and battle stations, while destroying others

o Forcing extremist and absolutist versions (and perversions) of Islam on Muslims, when the Qur'an clearly says that there shall be "no compulsion in religion"

o Distorting the word "infidels" to include all Christians, all Jews and many Muslims, as well - when the Qur'an calls them all "Children of the Book" (the Old Testament) and "Sons of Abraham," and calls Jesus one of Islam's five main Prophets

o Deliberate misreading, ignoring and perverting of passages of the Qur'an, the Hadith and the Islamic Jurisprudence (the Fiqh)

o Ruthless recruiting of very young and easy-to-brainwash children into lives of hatred, revenge and suicide mass murder, long before they have reached the age of reason

o Heartless use and abuse of mentally handicapped women, some of them carrying infant children for disguise, in acts of suicide bombing of fellow Muslims

Both the number and the gravity of these acts of disobedience and disrespect for the "peaceful, compassionate, merciful, beneficent and just" Allah who is so described by the Qur'an clearly identify the hyena-like perpetrators not as the Godly "mujahideen" and the "shahideen" (the holy warriors and the martyrs) they claim to be but as the "mufsiduun" and the "munafiquun" (the evildoers and hypocrites) they really are.

Still More Proofs : Antonyms of The "99 Names Of Allah"

In addition to the dozen proofs of the Terrorists' anti-Quran evildoing displayed above, there is another Qur'anic frame of reference which defines just how satanic these self-styled "holy guys" and supposed "martyrs" actually are.

This can be understood by simply rediscovering and using to advantage one of the most basic and most widely agreed upon tenets of Islam -- namely, the blessed "99 Names of Allah" which appear throughout the Qur'an and which amount to Allah's own self-description.

For a sampling of these self-descriptive (of Allah by Allah Himself in the Qur'an) words and phrases and of the ANTONYMS which, by contrast, identify the satanic nature and the sinful works of the pseudo-religious and even "Shaitani" terrorists, please check the following URL and the 12-word excerpt therefrom:

http://truespeak.org/content.php?id=the99namesforallah

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