Part Two: How To Fight Islamic Terrorism

Last night, we talked about the myths that our leaders believe which keep them from designing effective policies to combat Islamic terrorism. Now let’s talk about what they should be doing. To defeat Islamic terrorism, we need to stop ordinary Muslims from wanting to become terrorists. Otherwise, this struggle will continue generation after generation. To achieve this, we need to change the mindset that leads average Muslims to become terrorists. We also need to hunt down existing terrorists, but the real key will be in stopping the flow of volunteers.

Stopping The Flow of Volunteers

The only way to stop Islamic terrorism is to stop Muslims from wanting to become terrorists. Without volunteers, their leadership becomes powerless and their organizations fall apart. There are no quick fixes in this regard, but there are certain policies that will work over time.

Policy No. 1: Reforming Islam

The first thing we need to do is to reform Islam. Yeah, you read that right.

The primary motivational force turning Muslims into terrorists today is fundamentalist Islam. The Islamic world is dotted with thousands of schools where radical clerics teach young children that all of their problems are the result of evil westerners and that eternal glory awaits them if they die fighting us. But to call these “schools” is a bit misleading. They are brainwashing centers. They teach children a version of the Koran (by rote memorization) that disdains all other knowledge and breaks the world into believers and infidels, all in the hopes of creating the next generation of jihadists. There is nothing scholarly going on here, it is pure brainwashing akin to doomsday cults.

NOTE: Many Muslims will complain that this is an unfair characterization because the majority of these schools do not teach radical Islam. But if radical Islam were truly considered a blight on Islam -- rather being seen as useful ally, the rest of Islam would work to eradicate it. . . they are not. And, in any event, their contention is irrelevant. These schools exist, and they either go unchallenged or whatever the moderates are doing isn’t working. In either event, it’s time to act.

What we need to do is to take a page from the terrorists own book. As they have done, we too must establish thousands of these schools across the Muslim world. As they have turned their schools into community focal points, so must we. These schools must network with other like-minded institutions. They must use the money available to them to provide jobs and charity and to provide “government services” where local government basically does not exist. This is the same model that Hezbollah uses to great effect in the Palestinian territories. It is the same model used by successful insurgents the world over. This is the model that lets you change the hearts and minds of local people.

Now for the controversial part. First, this needs to be a covert program. As far as the world can know, these schools must appear to be set up by one or more Islamic foundations of scholars or wealthy benefactors. If there is the slightest hint that America is behind the creation of these schools, they will be as welcome as lepers.

Secondly, and this is the real key, we need to control the curriculum. And by that, I don’t just mean whether or not math is taught. I am talking about controlling how Islam itself is taught at these schools. Specifically, we need these schools to teach an interpretation of Islam that removes the ideas (1) that there is a distinction between actions taken against believers and those taken against infidels, (2) that education is bad, (3) that Allah encourages murder, and (4) that women are inferior and should not be educated.

This may sound horrible to American sensibilities, given our rich history of religious freedom, but this is hardly unique in the world. The French are already doing something similar by requiring that all Imams in France receive the approval of the government before they can preach -- the idea is to keep out radical Imams. Other countries have created panels to offer approved versions of Islam. Similarly, keep in mind that these radical schools are themselves using a form of reinterpreted Islam created by Wahhabism. We would simply be changing that back.

The goal behind this plan would be to draw ordinary Muslims away from the more radical schools, and to inject a more tolerant and peaceful form of Islam into their increasingly radicalized society. If done correctly, this could change the Muslim world from one focused on hatred and beset by discrimination to one that can live in peace with its neighbors.

Policy No. 2: Eliminate Grievances

We also need to change the things we do that outrage the Muslim world. Two come to mind immediately.

Policy No. 2a: Eliminating Grievances: Minimizing The American Presence In Muslim Lands

The first thing we need to do is to lower our profile throughout the Muslim world. Rightly or wrongly, Muslims see the United States as the new colonial master. They are upset that we have troops scattered throughout the region. They are particularly upset at our presence in Saudi Arabia, at the war in Iraq and our continuing presence there, and at our war in Afghanistan. To fix this, we need to do the following:

• We need to exit Iraq and Afghanistan, and we need to stop sending large contingents of ground forces into the region. When military action is called for, we need to use covert operations, air strikes, or local troops whenever possible, preferably without claiming responsibility.

• We need to move our military out of sensitive countries, like Saudi Arabia, i.e. places considered holy by Muslims, and relocate them to places where their presence will be less controversial. We should also locate our bases away from their population centers.

The disappearance of American troops will rob the terrorist of their claim that we are crusaders or occupiers. Along the same lines, our leaders need to stop talking about this being a war, and they need to stop making bellicose threats. This is a propaganda war, and we need to stop playing into the terrorists hands by sounding like we intend to dominate the region.

Policy No. 2b: Eliminating Grievances: Changing The Way We Deal With Regional Governments

We also need to change the way we deal with governments in the region. Most Arab countries are run by repressive, corrupt despots. We get the blame for that because we have supported them throughout the years. We need to make significant changes in this regard.

First, we need to aim for energy independence by allowing off-shore drilling and investing in the necessary resources to spark a massive conversion to natural gas, instead of petroleum. Why? Because right now our need for Middle East oil holds us hostage to some of these governments. If we can achieve energy independence, which we can, then we free ourselves to act more freely throughout the region (not to mention that I would rather send $500 billion a year to middle America than the Middle East).

Secondly, we need to create a list of principles that we will treat as a prerequisite for getting aid from the United States. These principles should be designed to significantly improve the every day lives of people in these countries: free and fair elections, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, transparent government and enforcement of strong anti-corruption laws, respect for due process and rule of law, and independent judiciaries. We need to very publicly announce these and we need to stick with them.

These steps will make it virtually impossible for anyone to convince “the Arab street” that we are responsible for the oppression or failures that beset Muslims.

Third, when we do provide aid, we need to use this as a public relations opportunity. In other words, we need to stop handing out money and then looking the other way. Instead, we need to target specific projects or causes for which the aid is intended, and then we need to administer those ourselves. We need to let the local people know that American money is providing them with their jobs, with their roads, and with their food aid -- all of which needs to be prominently labeled with American flags and distributed by American workers.

This will ensure that our money is not wasted or misused, and that we get credit on the ground for our charity, rather than having the credit taken by the local governments.

All told, this will go a long, long way to making us again the beacon of hope and freedom, and making it so much harder for terrorists to find grounds for inciting hatred against us.

Hunting Down Terrorists

In addition to stopping the flow of volunteers, we do need to continue hunting down existing terrorists. This calls for infiltration combined with military action, and policing.

Policy No. 1: Infiltration & Military Action

Our main focus in terms of stopping existing terrorists must be infiltrating their organizations. We need to send hundreds of agents to every corner of the world to join these groups. And we need to treat this as a military operation, not a law enforcement operation. Our goal should not be to gather enough evidence to bring these people to trial, but should be to determine who they are and where they are so that they can be wiped out by military force.

Yet, we must be smart about this. We should not send the military to fight large scale ground wars against Muslims because that only feeds their propaganda machine and plays into the motif of America as colonizer. Instead, these should involve the so-called surgical strikes -- air strikes, snipers, special ops -- against specific targets, like terrorist training facilities or identified terrorist leaders or cell. And in each instance, we need to go in with the understanding that the moment the strike is over, our forces withdraw, preferably without ever claiming responsibility.

Policy No. 2: Effective Policing

In addition to infiltration, we should continue out policing efforts. This involves trying to interdict their money and weapons, and trying to build ties with local communities so that they turn these terrorists in. Generally, this involves doing the same kind of police work it takes to bring down street gangs and drug cartels -- something at which the FBI has become quite adept.

Conclusion

The key to ending Islamic terrorism is to starve these terrorist organizations of the volunteers they need to wage their terror campaigns. That makes this a propaganda war, not a shooting war. When we turn this into a shooting war, we play into their hands and feed their propaganda machines. Instead, we need to deprive them of the grievances upon which they rely, we need to wage our own propaganda war to combat fundamentalist Islam, and, when we do need to use force, we need to do so quietly.

The alternative is that we spend the next 100 years fighting in one Muslim country after another, as a never-ending supply of terrorists continue to mount attacks all over the world.

Thoughts?