Let's make this really clear. In response to my piece about the FBI's anti-Islam training, Neptunus Lex writes:
Mr. Ackerman clearly sees this as a civil rights issue rather than one of understanding the threat to the Republic – and you’d have to be willfully blind to think there is no threat, regardless of how dangerously you choose to characterize it. He sees the affirmative and bountiful evidence of Muslims in America who are good citizens and looks no further. Steeped in the culture of Western liberalism, he declines to even recognize this possibility: To the degree you are a good Muslim, as defined by rigorously following and promoting the entirety of the Koran (with Islam lacking as it does any centralized institution to contextualize those 7th Century scriptures in a 21st Century world, what other definition could there be?) it becomes increasingly difficult to be a good citizen.
This is wrong for many reasons, but it comes in the course of sincere, good-faith post by a smart person for whom I have respect. So I think it's worth going through this.
Let's say you're a counterterrorism agent. You want to find the terrorist before he strikes and stop him. You have a few options before you. You can examine the patterns of his fellows -- the hoarding of weapons, the purchasing of weapons precursor materials, the strength of connections to other known violent extremists, etc. -- that strongly indicate terrorist behavior. That's one option.
Or you can go a different route. You can examine his religious practices and conclude that those who share them also strongly indicate future terrorist activity. You can read his sacred texts and parse them for clues to nasty thinking. And then you can act accordingly.
The problem should confront you immediately: if you do that, you'll get a massive number of false positives, and target a ton of innocent people. And because of the opportunity costs from all the resources you expend in the process, you'll have fewer resources available to identify and interdict the actually-dangerous people* before they strike.
But it's worse than that. In order to do your job, you need information. And that information originates at the street level, from members of a given community, who know the deal better than any outsider. You get that information by convincing them that you're looking out for their interests. You will never get it if that cohort believes that you are a threat to their interests -- something you will most certainly be if you target someone simply because of the strength of his religious beliefs.
This is a lesson the military learned the hard way in Iraq and Afghanistan. Certain elements within the FBI and the shariah-panic crowd are discarding it out of, I submit, ignorance or shortsightedness or bigotry. But it should be clear that in this day and age, the more deeply you think about counterterrorism, the more you're compelled to believe you have no choice but to stand up for civil rights and human rights.
* Of course, you could redefine "actually-dangerous people" as "this religious group" and be internally consistent. You would also be in total violation of the Constitution you claim to defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
"To the degree you are a good Christian, as defined by rigorously following and promoting the entirety of the Bible (with Christianity lacking as it does any centralized institution to contextualize those 1900+ year-old scriptures in a 21st Century world, what other definition could there be?) it becomes increasingly difficult to be a good citizen."
Posted by: Skye Winspur | 09/15/2011 at 07:30 PM
Extremely well put. I'm still in awe of how many people just don't understand this issue.
Posted by: SulaymanF | 09/15/2011 at 11:33 PM
Personally, I have never met an entire category of people who were homogeneous and like minded, equally guilty of collective crimes, and justifiable and properly judged as a category. It is this kind of thinking that creates injustice and serves only to perpetuate the dillusion that one party is justified, more qualified and right to hold sway and authority over another and squash their right to opportunity.
Is the military homogeneous? Are Catholics homongeneous? Are Zionists homogeneous? Why did the Apiscopal Church factionalize? Why do we have both Hamas and Hezbu 'Allah?
This is lazy thinking, and I am startled and disappointed with the FBI and with the writer. "To the degree you are a good Muslim ... it becomes increasingly difficult to be a good citizen." This makes me think about a statement credited to Abraham Lincoln, “I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.”
I do not stand with this author, nor his fear.
A proposition must be true in all its assumption in order to be valid. If not, then it is flawed and may be not better than a statement of value.
Posted by: Jim Thompson | 09/16/2011 at 08:57 AM
"To the degree you are a good Muslim, as defined by rigorously following and promoting the entirety of the Koran (with Islam lacking as it does any centralized institution to contextualize those 7th Century scriptures in a 21st Century world, what other definition could there be?) it becomes increasingly difficult to be a good citizen."
O RLY? So uh, I seem to recall there's this other major monotheistic religion that also has a somewhat musty and bloodthirsty central text and that also lacks a central authority to interpret it. How'd they do with that whole democracy thing, anyway?
Posted by: Doctor Memory | 09/16/2011 at 09:51 AM