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Campaign for Understanding

It’s not a “war on terror.” We’re not fighting a “war,” and we’re not trying to destroy “terror.” Wars are fought between nations and not between a nation and “terror,” or even “terrorists.” Furthermore, by emphasizing “war” and “terror” we disguise our real intention, which is to produce a world where countries live in harmony with each other. Instead of a “war on terror,” let’s call it a “campaign for understanding.”

In "Knowing the Enemy," George Packer writes in the New Yorker of 12/18/06, that we have concentrated too much upon military means to fight Al Qaeda and other groups who are bent on destroying Western civilization. We should be working a lot more on the "hearts and minds" of Muslims throughout the world. Packer does not say we do not need military action, only that 3/4 of our effort should be devoted to using the big weapon of information, and only about 1/4 for military weapons.

To be able to use the weapon of information better, we must know the enemy. Packer divides Muslims according to a "ladder of extremism":

1. MAINSTREAM MUSLIMS - The vast majority of the 1.3 billion Muslims in the world are normal religious people, similar to the millions of Christians in the U.S., except their beliefs are slightly different. These Muslims most likely can be our allies if we do not insult their religion

2. ALIENATED MUSLIMS - A small number of Muslims are attracted to radical groups. They are alienated from their societies in a similar manner to the way youths in America become gang members. We should apply techniques similar to those used to save gang members

3. RADICALIZED MUSLIMS - A much smaller number of Muslims join insurgency cells. We must use a counterinsurgency approach consisting of a combination of persuasion and violence

4. TERRORISTS - A still smaller group belongs to Al Qaeda and similar organizations. We must destroy them in a way that does not produce more terrorists
   

We have been spending all our time attacking the tiny, tiny number of terrorists, and we have been doing it in a way that encourages the radicalized and alienated Muslims to become terrorists. We need to work more with the non-terrorist groups, the huge majority of Muslims. For these groups we need to work with information, not with bombs and missiles.

To mainstream Muslims, we must talk about tolerance and the many ideals we have in common. We must meet in interfaith groups, economic conventions and educational convocations. We should establish cooperative endeavors. For the alienated and radicalized Muslims, we must execute a propaganda campaign to show them that Osama bin Laden and the other Muslim heroes are not martyrs but murderers, that they have feet of clay, that they will probably land not in Heaven but in Hell.

Let's wage an election-type campaign across the Muslim world, a campaign for understanding. Let's accentuate the positive. We favor a peaceful world where all nations and religions are free to follow their aspirations without interference from any other nation or religion. All Muslim nations are invited to join us in this endeavor. If we run our campaign properly, Muslim nations will do most of the work in ridding the world of Al Qaeda and other organizations specializing in murder.

Posted by Paul Siegel at December 26, 2006 05:31 PM