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| 5/24 |
| 2005/2/18 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq, Politics/Foreign/Europe] UID:36239 Activity:high 76%like:36243 |
2/18 Winning Their Hearts And Minds:
http://csua.org/u/b46
\_ That dude needs to get a talk radio show.
\_ Interesting article, thanks. (Note: link not BS from pundits)
\_ Dear kchang, it would be nice if your motd archive can translate
shortened url (csua.org or tinyurl) into actual url since the latter
tends to remain valid longer. Many ppl read links from the archive
when they have time rather tha following the motd live.
\_ dear anonymous person, if you move your mouse over the URL,
you'll see a summary and the actual url. And if you go to the
entry, you'll see the entire cache up to 8K. Try the following
url. This feature has been around since May of last year:
http://csua.com/?entry=36239 |
| 5/24 |
|
| csua.org/u/b46 -> www.csmonitor.com/2005/0204/p01s04-wome.html Middle East from the February 04, 2005 edition Koranic duels ease terror By James Brandon | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor SANAA, YEMEN When Judge Hamoud al-Hitar announced that he and four othe r Islamic scholars would challenge Yemen's Al Qaeda prisoners to a theol ogical contest, Western antiterrorism experts warned that this high-stak es gamble would end in disaster. Nervous as he faced five captured, yet defiant, Al Qaeda members in a San aa prison, Judge Hitar was inclined to agree. But banishing his doubts, the youthful cleric threw down the gauntlet, in the hope of bringing pea ce to his troubled homeland. Permission to reprint/republish "If you can convince us that your ideas are justified by the Koran, then we will join you in your struggle," Hitar told the militants. "But if we succeed in convincing you of our ideas, then you must agree to renounce violence." Now, two years later, not only have those prisoners been released, but a relative peace reigns in Yemen. And the same Western experts who doubted this experiment are courting Hitar, eager to hear how his "theological dialogues" with captured Islamic militants have helped pacify this wild and mountainous country, previously seen by the US as a failed state, li ke Iraq and Afghanistan. "Since December 2002, when the first round of the dialogues ended, there have been no terrorist attacks here, even though many people thought tha t Yemen would become terror's capital," says Hitar, eyes glinting shrewd ly from beneath his emerald-green turban. "Three hundred and sixty-four young men have been released after going through the dialogues and none of these have left Yemen to fight anywhere else." "Yemen's strategy has been unconventional certainly, but it has achieved results that we could never have hoped for," says one European diplomat, who did not want to be named. "Yemen has gone from being a potential en emy to becoming an indispensable ally in the war on terror." To be sure, the prisoner-release program is not solely responsible for th e absence of attacks in Yemen. The government has undertaken a range of measures to combat terrorism from closing down extreme madrassahs, the I slamic schools sometimes accused of breeding hate, to deporting foreign militants. Eager to spread the news of his success, Hitar welcomes foreigners into h is home, fussing over them and pouring endless cups of tea. But beyond t he otherwise nondescript house, a sense of menace lurks. Two military je eps are parked outside, and soldiers peer through the gathering dark at passing cars. The evening wind sweeps through the unpaved streets, lifti ng clouds of dust and whipping up men's jackets to expose belts hung wit h daggers, pistols, and mobile telephones. Seated amid stacks of Korans and religious texts, Hitar explains that his system is simple. He invites militants to use the Koran to justify atta cks on innocent civilians and when they cannot, he shows them numerous p assages commanding Muslims not to attack civilians, to respect other rel igions, and fight only in self-defense. For example, he quotes: "Whoever kills a soul, unless for a soul, or for corruption done in the land - it is as if he had slain all mankind entir ely. And, whoever saves one, it is as if he had saved mankind entirely." He uses the passage to bolster his argument against bombing Western tar gets in Yemen - attacks he says defy the Koran. And, he says, the Koran says under no circumstances should women and children be killed. If, after weeks of debate, the prisoners renounce violence they are relea sed and offered vocational training courses and help to find jobs. Hitar's belief that hardened militants trained by Osama bin Laden in Afgh anistan could change their stripes was initially dismissed by US diploma ts in Sanaa as dangerously naive, but the methods of the scholarly cleri c have little in common with the other methods of fighting extremism. In stead of lecturing or threatening the battle-hardened militants, he list ens to them. "An important part of the dialogue is mutual respect," says Hitar. "Along with acknowledging freedom of expression, intellect and opinion, you mu st listen and show interest in what the other party is saying." Only after winning the militants' trust does Hitar gradually begin to cor rect their beliefs. He says that most militants are ordinary people who have been led astray. Just as they were taught Al Qaeda's doctrines, he says, so too can they be taught more- moderate ideas. "If you study terr orism in the world, you will see that it has an intellectual theory behi nd it," says Hitar. "And any kind of intellectual idea can be defeated b y intellect." For years Yemen was synonymou s with violent Islamic extremism. The ancestral homeland of Mr bin Lade n, it provided two-thirds of recruits for his Afghan camps, and was noto rious for kidnappings of foreigners and the bombing of the American wars hip USS Cole in 2000 that killed 17 sailors. Resisting US pressure, Yeme n declined to meet violence with violence. "It's only logical to tackle these people through their brains and heart, " says Faris Sanabani, a former adviser to President Abdullah Saleh and editor-in-chief of the Yemen Observer, a weekly English-language newspap er. If you hit t hem, they will enjoy the pain and find something good in it - it is a pa rt of their ideology. Instead, what we must do is erase what they have b een taught and explain to them that terrorism will only harm Yemenis' jo bs and prospects. Once they understand this they become fighters for fre edom and democracy, and fighters for the true Islam," he says. Some freed militants were so transformed that they led the army to hidden weapons caches and offered the Yemeni security services advice on tackl ing Islamic militancy. A spectacular success came in 2002 when Abu Ali a l Harithi, Al Qaeda's top commander in Yemen, was assassinated by a US a ir-strike following a tip-off from one of Hitar's reformed militants. Yet despite the apparent success in Yemen, some US diplomats have critici zed it for apparently letting Islamic militants off the hook with little guarantee that they won't revert to their old ways once released from p rison. Yemen, however, argues that holding and punishing all militants would cre ate only further discontent, pointing out that the actual perpetrators o f attacks have all been prosecuted, with the bombers of the USS Cole and the French oil tanker, the SS Limburg. "Yemeni goals are long-term political aims whereas the American agenda fo cuses on short-term prosecution of military or law enforcement objective s," wrote Charles Schmitz, a specialist in Yemeni affairs, in 2004 repor t for the Jamestown Foundation, an influential US think tank. "These goals are not necessarily contradictory, with each government reco gnizing that compromises and accommodations must be made, but their ambi guities create tense moments." Some members of the Yemeni government also hanker for a more iron-fisted approach, and Yemen remains on high alert for further attacks. Fighter p lanes regularly swoop low over the ancient mud-brick city of Sanaa to se nd a clear message to any would-be militants. An additional cause of friction with the US is that while Yemen successfu lly discourages attacks within its borders on the grounds that tourism a nd trade will suffer, it has done little to tackle anti-Western sentimen t or the corruption, poverty, and lack of opportunity that fuels Islamic militancy. "Yemen still faces serious challenges, but despite the odd hiccup, we som etimes have to admit that Yemenis know Yemen best," says the European di plomat. As the relative success of Yemen's unusual approach becomes apparent, Hit ar has been invited to speak to antiterrorism specialists at London's Ne w Scotland Yard, as well as to French and German police, hoping to defus e growing militancy among Muslim immigrants. US diplomats have also approached the cleric to see if his methods can be applied in Iraq, says Hitar. "Before the dialogues began, there was only one way to fight terrorism, a nd that was through force," he says. |
| csua.com/?entry=36239 org or tinyurl) into actual url since the latter tends to remain valid longer. Many ppl read links from the archive when they have time rather tha following the motd live. And if you go to the entry, you'll see the entire cache up to 8K. html Middle East from the February 04, 2005 edition Koranic duels ease terror By James Brandon | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor SANAA, Y EMEN When Judge Hamoud al-Hitar announced that he and four othe r Islami c scholars would challenge Yemen's Al Qaeda prisoners to a theol ogical contest, Western antiterrorism experts warned that this high-stak es gam ble would end in disaster. Nervous as he faced five captured, yet defian t, Al Qaeda members in a San aa prison, Judge Hitar was inclined to agre e But banishing his doubts, the youthful cleric threw down the gauntlet , in the hope of bringing pea ce to his troubled homeland. Permission to reprint/republish "If you can convince us that your ideas are justified by the Koran, then we will join you in your struggle," Hitar told the m ilitants. "But if we succeed in convincing you of our ideas, then you mu st agree to renounce violence." Now, two years later, not only have thos e prisoners been released, but a relative peace reigns in Yemen. And the same Western experts who doubted this experiment are courting Hitar, ea ger to hear how his "theological dialogues" with captured Islamic milita nts have helped pacify this wild and mountainous country, previously see n by the US as a failed state, li ke Iraq and Afghanistan. "Since Decemb er 2002, when the first round of the dialogues ended, there have been no terrorist attacks here, even though many people thought tha t Yemen wou ld become terror's capital," says Hitar, eyes glinting shrewd ly from be neath his emerald-green turban. "Three hundred and sixty-four young men have been released after going through the dialogues and none of these h ave left Yemen to fight anywhere else." "Yemen's strategy has been uncon ventional certainly, but it has achieved results that we could never hav e hoped for," says one European diplomat, who did not want to be named. "Yemen has gone from being a potential en emy to becoming an indispensab le ally in the war on terror." To be sure, the prisoner-release program is not solely responsible for th e absence of attacks in Yemen. The gove rnment has undertaken a range of measures to combat terrorism from closi ng down extreme madrassahs, the I slamic schools sometimes accused of br eeding hate, to deporting foreign militants. Eager to spread the news of his success, Hitar welcomes foreigners into h is home, fussing over the m and pouring endless cups of tea. But beyond t he otherwise nondescript house, a sense of menace lurks. Two military je eps are parked outside, and soldiers peer through the gathering dark at passing cars. The eveni ng wind sweeps through the unpaved streets, lifti ng clouds of dust and whipping up men's jackets to expose belts hung wit h daggers, pistols, a nd mobile telephones. Seated amid stacks of Korans and religious texts, Hitar explains that his system is simple. He invites militants to use th e Koran to justify atta cks on innocent civilians and when they cannot, he shows them numerous p assages commanding Muslims not to attack civili ans, to respect other rel igions, and fight only in self-defense. For ex ample, he quotes: "Whoever kills a soul, unless for a soul, or for corru ption done in the land - it is as if he had slain all mankind entir ely. And, whoever saves one, it is as if he had saved mankind entirely." He uses the passage to bolster his argument against bombing Western tar get s in Yemen - attacks he says defy the Koran. And, he says, the Koran say s under no circumstances should women and children be killed. If, after weeks of debate, the prisoners renounce violence they are relea sed and offered vocational training courses and help to find jobs. Hitar's belie f that hardened militants trained by Osama bin Laden in Afgh anistan cou ld change their stripes was initially dismissed by US diploma ts in Sana a as dangerously naive, but the methods of the scholarly cleri c have li ttle in common with the other methods of fighting extremism. In stead of lecturing or threatening the battle-hardened militants, he list ens to them. "An important part of the dialogue is mutual respect," says Hitar. "Along with acknowledging freedom of expression, intellect and opinion, you mu st listen and show interest in what the other party is saying." Only after winning the militants' trust does Hitar gradually begin to co r rect their beliefs. He says that most militants are ordinary people wh o have been led astray. Just as they were taught Al Qaeda's doctrines, h e says, so too can they be taught more- moderate ideas. "If you study te rr orism in the world, you will see that it has an intellectual theory b ehi nd it," says Hitar. "And any kind of intellectual idea can be defeat ed b y intellect." For years Yemen was synonymou s with violent Islamic extremism. The ancestral homeland of Mr bin Lade n, it provided two-thir ds of recruits for his Afghan camps, and was noto rious for kidnappings of foreigners and the bombing of the American wars hip USS Cole in 2000 that killed 17 sailors. Resisting US pressure, Yeme n declined to meet v iolence with violence. "It's only logical to tackle these people through their brains and heart, " says Faris Sanabani, a former adviser to Pres ident Abdullah Saleh and editor-in-chief of the Yemen Observer, a weekly English-language newspap er. If you hit t hem, they will enjoy the pain and find something good in it - it is a pa rt of their ideology. Instea d, what we must do is erase what they have b een taught and explain to t hem that terrorism will only harm Yemenis' jo bs and prospects. Once the y understand this they become fighters for fre edom and democracy, and f ighters for the true Islam," he says. Some freed militants were so trans formed that they led the army to hidden weapons caches and offered the Y emeni security services advice on tackl ing Islamic militancy. A spectac ular success came in 2002 when Abu Ali a l Harithi, Al Qaeda's top comma nder in Yemen, was assassinated by a US a ir-strike following a tip-off from one of Hitar's reformed militants. Yet despite the apparent success in Yemen, some US diplomats have critici zed it for apparently letting Islamic militants off the hook with little guarantee that they won't rev ert to their old ways once released from p rison. Yemen, however, argues that holding and punishing all militants would cre ate only further dis content, pointing out that the actual perpetrators o f attacks have all been prosecuted, with the bombers of the USS Cole and the French oil tan ker, the SS Limburg. "Yemeni goals are long-term political aims whereas the American agenda fo cuses on short-term prosecution of military or la w enforcement objective s," wrote Charles Schmitz, a specialist in Yemen i affairs, in 2004 repor t for the Jamestown Foundation, an influential US think tank. "These goals are not necessarily contradictory, with each government reco gnizing that compromises and accommodations must be mad e, but their ambi guities create tense moments." Some members of the Yem eni government also hanker for a more iron-fisted approach, and Yemen re mains on high alert for further attacks. Fighter p lanes regularly swoop low over the ancient mud-brick city of Sanaa to se nd a clear message t o any would-be militants. An additional cause of friction with the US is that while Yemen successfu lly discourages attacks within its borders o n the grounds that tourism a nd trade will suffer, it has done little to tackle anti-Western sentimen t or the corruption, poverty, and lack of opportunity that fuels Islamic militancy. "Yemen still faces serious cha llenges, but despite the odd hiccup, we som etimes have to admit that Ye menis know Yemen best," says the European di plomat. As the relative suc cess of Yemen's unusual approach becomes apparent, Hit ar has been invit ed to speak to antiterrorism specialists at London's Ne w Scotland Yard, as well as to French and German... |
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