Naming Bin Laden David Steven

September 22, 2007 | More on Conflict and security, Influence and networks | No comments

In the past few days, a vicious spat has broken out in the US counter-insurgency community.

On one side, the architect of a new lexicon, inspired by Koranic teaching, that aims to “remove the self-sanctifying ‘holy guy’ legitimacy from AQ-style and al Sadr-style terrorism.”

On the other, those who detect the sinister hand of the Muslim Brotherhood behind the lexicon, alleging that it forms part of a “strategic disinformation and denial and deception campaign.”

To understand the origins of the row, it is worth starting with David Kilcullen’s 2004 paper, Countering Global Insurgency. Kilcullen argued that Al Qaeda’s strategy was one of aggregation. It aimed to “feed on local grievances, integrate them into broader ideologies, and link disparate conflicts through globalised communications, finances and technology.”

Our response – the so-called Global War on Terror – was inherently counter-productive. “Lumping together all terrorism, all rogue or failed states, and all strategic competitors… tends naturally to the logical outcome of a war against all terrorists or – far worse – all Muslims simultaneously.”

Instead, the US and its allies should adopt a strategy of disaggregation. Rather than fuelling the Bin Laden narrative (the West at war with Islam), we should ‘seek to dismantle, or break up, the links that allow the jihad to function as a global entity.” Islamists need to be isolated from popular support, rather than increasing numbers of Muslims being driven into their arms.

Kilcullen lays great emphasis on cultural awareness and understanding. He also recognises the role narrative plays in drawing together otherwise disparate groups. Disaggregation requires deliberate action to disrupt myths, beliefs and stories that sustain the insurgency and give it momentum.

Jim Guirard, head of the Orwellian-sounding TrueSpeak Institute, has taken these concerns to heart. Bin Laden and his ilk may use “holy, godly and Paradise-bound labels” to describe their mission, but we should not fall into the same trap. Instead, he suggests, we should begin to familiarise ourselves with a new vocabulary. Here’s a taste:

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. (An appropriate use of this word changes AQ’s “Jihadi Martyrdom” into “Irhabi (terroristic) Murderdom,” instead.)

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.

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; this is Islam’s optimum antonym for “mujahideen.”

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 — killing of innocents, fomenting suicide for purposes of intimidation, desecrating bodies, spreading hatred and envy, destroying other Muslims’ mosques, issuing unauthorized fatwas, etc.

The GWOT has its staunch defenders, as UK government minister, Hilary Benn found out when he rejected its use in a speech in New York earlier this year (the speech was laughably hailed by AC Grayling as a peerless example of “speaking truth to power”). Here’s Dick Cheney:

I’m left to wonder — which part of that phrase is the problem? Do they deny this is a war, in which one side will win and the other will lose? Do they deny that it’s terror that we’re fighting, with unlawful combatants who wear no uniform, who reject the rules of warfare, and who target the innocent for indiscriminate slaughter? That’s the nature of the fight we’re in. We can’t wish it away, or define it away.

Now Guirard has come under similar attack. An unclassified memo from Stephen Coughlin, a Joint Staff analyst, is doing the rounds. Coughlan takes great exception to the sources on which Guirard draws for his work:

It turns out that many of the individuals that provide TrueSpeak with the terms and definitions – that Guirard would have us use to conceptualize and orient to the enemy – are known to be associated with threat entities that believe “their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

There are sound reasons to question the uncritical adoption of TrueSpeak’s uncritically accepted war on terror lexicon.

Introducing and recommending Coughlan’s assessment, LTC Joseph Myers, of the Air Command and Staff College, goes further, identifying TrueSpeak as part of the ‘Muslim Brotherhood threat network’ and recommending that Guirard be shunned by the US military strategic communication community.

Strong stuff and Guirard has posted a furious response. “The truth of the matter,” he writes, “is that while I am trying to undermine bin Ladenism’s self-canonizing language of ‘Jihad by mujahideen and martyrs destined for Paradise as a glorious reward for killing all of us infidels and for destroying The Great Satan,’ it is Mr. Coughlin and others of his persuasion in the Government, the media, the universities and elsewhere who are busy parroting and promoting this perverse AQ and Muslim Brotherhood narrative as the true face of Islam — rather than as a satanic deviancy and an apostasy toward that religion.”

The ‘guilt by association’ charge is a harsh one and plays best with those who long for the ‘clash of civilizations’ to reach a cathartic and violent conclusion (one critic has a blog called A Defending Crusader)*. But many of Guirard’s critics are prepared to take on the substance of his ideas as well.

William McCants, a West Point academic, believes that TrueSpeak doesn’t really knows its Koran and the imprecision of its new lexicon “will elicit derision from devout Muslims.” He also argues that:

While we should not necessarily privilege the labels our enemy chooses, they are sometimes more accurate and more polemically useful than the various alternatives proposed… The more [terms such as Jihad] become contested by mainstream Muslims, the more religiously-sanctioned warfare becomes delegitimized.”

Patrick Poole makes a similar point:

Our enemies are no doubt amused at our attempts to appear informed on matters of Islamic law, but this erroneous exegesis is hardly the tool to strike the fear of eternal damnation into the hearts of Osama bin Laden and his followers, as Guirard has claimed for his “truespeak”…

This new “truespeak” lexicon is not a new tool to engage terrorists groups like Al-Qaeda, but rather… an obstacle “preventing the West from understanding jihad”. The “truespeak” movement would be much more appropriate for a Madison Avenue advertising campaign, not a Global War on Terror.

Expect this one to run and run…

Update and correction: Godfrey de Bouillon has been in touch. Well not the real one, who died in 1100 shortly after leading the crusaders into Jerusalem. This GdB runs a blog called A Defending Crusader:

Today I read your commentary “Naming Bin Laden”, and was surprised and disappointed by the context in which you mentioned my blog. You portrayed me as one who “long[s] for the ʽclash of civilizationsʼ to reach a cathartic and violent conclusion.” [...] I have never advocated any kind of violence against those professing the Muslim faith, or any other faith, nor do I encourage response in kind to any violence perpetrated by them.

A staunch Christian, GdB is firmly of the belief that a clash of civilizations is underway. “The global war on Christianity by Islam is so massive in size and scope that it is virtually impossible to describe it without trivializing it,” he writes on his blog. As I interpret it, he also thinks that Islam is essentially violent (“this ‘religion’ is rooted in violent jihad, and these perpetrators of crimes against humanity are only following the letter of their holy book”).

GdB is particularly concerned by attacks on Christian communities in Muslim countries, believing that “not a single Christian or Jew lives in peace in the Muslim world.” But he is equally worried that a decaying Western Society may be threatened, quoting approvingly this column by Barrett Kalellis (the emphasis is GdB’s):

The growth of Islam in the U.S. should be watched closely — immigration should be controlled and newcomers should be scrutinized for jihadist tendencies. If the number of Muslims here increases significantly in coming years, we will sooner or later lose whatever it is that makes us Americans.

However, GdB underlines to me a second email that he is not a segregationist:

I have no problem with Muslims in general, other than that I believe their religion is false…which is what they believe about mine. I work with several Muslims and consider some of them friends. As long as there is no inclination or action on their part to undermine the freedoms that we enjoy, they’re fine by me…

I feel like I’m a Christian attempting to hold back the tide of Islam that seeks to subjugate me. I am a Defending Crusader.

There you have it. I think my phrasing (longing… for a violent catharsis etc.) was sloppy. Hopefully, this will give everyone a better understanding of where GdB is coming from.