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Guiora, “Freedom from Religion”

Freedom from ReligionThis month, Oxford University Press published Freedom from Religion: Rights and National Security, Second Edition by Amos Guiora (Quinney College of Law, University of Utah).  The publisher’s description follows.

Although many books on terrorism and religious extremism have been published in the years since 9/11, none of them written by Western authors call for the curtailment of religious freedom and freedom of expression for the sake of greater security. Issues like torture, domestic surveillance, and unlawful detentions have dominated the literature in this area, but few, if any, major scholars have questioned the vast allowances made by Western nations for the freedoms of religion and speech.

Freedom from Religion challenges the almost sacrosanct inviolability of these two civil liberties. By drawing the connection between politically-correct tolerance of extremist speech and the rise of terrorist activity, this book sets the context for its unique proposal that governments should introduce new limits on religious practice within their borders. To demonstrate the wisdom of this course, the author presents the disparate policies and security circumstances of five countries: the U.S., the UK, the Netherlands, Turkey, and Israel. The book benefits not just from the author’s own counter-terrorism experience in Israel and the U.S. but also from an international advisory group of leading scholars from all five of the countries under review.
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Posted on by Mark Movsesian

District Court Dismisses Muslims’ Suit Against FBI Under State Secrets Doctrine

A federal district court in California ruled Tuesday that the state secrets doctrine precludes a religious-discrimination lawsuit local Muslims had filed against the FBI. Plaintiffs alleged that the FBI had violated their constitutional and civil rights by conducting “an indiscriminate ‘dragnet'” that “gathered information about them and other innocent Muslim Americans in Southern California” solely on the basis of their religion. Specifically, they alleged that the FBI had employed a covert operative to conduct surveillance of mosques and Muslims in southern California. The court ruled that litigation of plaintiffs’ claims would “require or unjustifiably risk disclosure of secret and classified information regarding the nature of the FBI’s counterterrorism investigations, the specific individuals under investigation and their associates, and the tactics and sources of information used in combating possible terrorist attacks on the United States and its allies.” The court made its decision, with obvious reluctance, on the  basis of Attorney General Eric Holder’s formal invocation of the state secrets privilege and the court’s own “skeptical” examination of the FBI’s public and classified, ex parte, submissions. Plaintiffs, represented by the ACLU, plan to appeal. The case is Fazaga v. FBI, 2012 WL 3327092 (C.D. Cal., Aug. 14, 2012).

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Aziz on Selective Enforcement of Material Support Laws Against Muslim Charities

Sahar F. Aziz (Tex. Wesleyan U. School of Law) has posted Countering Religion or Terrorism? Selective Enforcement of Material Support Laws Against Muslim Charities. The abstract follows.

The laws that prohibit providing material support to terrorism are the linchpin of the preventive counterterrorism paradigm. These laws are often the fall-back criminal provisions employed when the government cannot prove terrorism charges. But they are so broad and vaguely worded that they effectively criminalize a myriad of activities that would otherwise be constitutionally protected. Moreover, as the government is not statutorily required to prove that the defendant had a specific intent to support terrorism, it has carte blanche to prosecute a broad range of legitimate activities, such as charitable giving, peace building, and human rights advocacy. The Department of Justice, with the Supreme Court’s blessing, has consequently criminalized training and advocacy in support of nonviolence on the justification that such activities legitimize a designated group or individual. The government’s standards for what it deems as “legitimizing” are so broad that then- Solicitor General Elena Kagan went so far as to call for prosecuting lawyers for filing an amicus brief on behalf of a terrorist organization. Read more

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Crimm on Muslim Relief Organizations

Nina Crimm (St. John’s) has posted Reframing the Issue and Cultivating U.S.-Based Muslim Humanitarian Relief Organizations. The abstract follows.

Funded by Muslim-American donors, legitimate U.S.-based Muslim charities for decades provided crucial funds and services in geographic areas ravaged by natural disasters, many with Muslim populations. These charities’ humanitarian aid, offered directly or through local non-governmental organizations, benefited the affected people, winning their gratitude and allegiance during the rescue, relief, recovery, and reconstruction operations following tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, and other such catastrophes. Their assistance also conserved and expanded opportunities to provide development aid to these same regions and individuals, not only to improve their communities and lives but also to secure their hearts and minds.

The U.S. government’s “war on terror” dramatically impacted these constructive influences and relationships. The post-9/11 counterterrorism laws and their stern enforcement fomented fear and anger among Muslim-Americans, substantially diminishing their goodwill toward the government. The government’s actions also engendered an inhospitable philanthropic environment for Muslim-Americans. These resulted in a significant reduction in Muslim- Read more

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Nussbaum, “The New Religious Intolerance”

From Harvard University Press, a new book by Martha Nussbaum (University  of Chicago), The New Religious Intolerance: Overcoming the Politics of Fear in an Anxious Age (forthcoming 2012). The publisher’s description follows.

What impulse prompted some newspapers to attribute the murder of 77 Norwegians to Islamic extremists, until it became evident that a right-wing Norwegian terrorist was the perpetrator? Why did Switzerland, a country of four minarets, vote to ban those structures? How did a proposed Muslim cultural center in lower Manhattan ignite a fevered political debate across the United States? In The New Religious Intolerance, Martha C. Nussbaum surveys such developments and identifies the fear behind these reactions. Drawing inspiration from philosophy, history, and literature, she suggests a route past this limiting response and toward a more equitable, imaginative, and free society.

Fear, Nussbaum writes, is “more narcissistic than other emotions.” Legitimate anxieties become distorted and displaced, driving laws and policies biased against those different from us. Overcoming intolerance requires consistent application of universal principles of respect for conscience. Just as important, it requires greater understanding. Nussbaum challenges us to embrace freedom of religious observance for all, extending to others what we demand for ourselves. She encourages us to expand our capacity for empathetic imagination by cultivating our curiosity, seeking friendship across religious lines, and establishing a consistent ethic of decency and civility. With this greater understanding and respect, Nussbaum argues, we can rise above the politics of fear and toward a more open and inclusive future.

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Seeking Moral Guidance on the Iraq Withdrawal

On December 15, 2011, President Obama formally announced the end of the eight-and-a-half year Iraq war.  American troop presence in Iraq has dwindled to a fraction of its former strength:  In 2007, 170,000 Coalition troops occupied Iraq from 505 bases; in December, 2011, 4000 operated there from only two.  President Obama has also said he will not send any more troops to Iraq, even if the nation devolves into civil war; instead, America’s role will be limited to a political one, using diplomacy to resolve future conflicts.

Our war, then, is essentially over.  But whether war is over for Iraqis is a separate question, one with significant moral import for the United States.  Though American troops will be gone, Iraqis still face the specters of terrorism, government oppression, and civil war.  And because America started hostilities in 2003—whether justly or unjustly—it bears at least some responsibility to aid the nation it now leaves to its own devices.  Major religious bodies like the Catholic and Anglican Churches have yet to speak directly to this grave issue, one essential to America’s moral obligations to the Iraqi people.

What moral guidance, then, can we draw upon to evaluate this moment in contemporary history?  Shall we be overjoyed that a war is over, or shall we lament a moral failure?

For more on the situation in Iraq and a moral discussion of our withdrawal, please follow the jump. Read more

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Delahunty on Trade and Islamist Terrorism

In attempting to come to grips with Islamist terrorism, some observers, particularly in the West, have suggested that poverty provides the ultimate explanation. Islamist terrorism thrives, the argument goes, because Muslim societies are poor; if Muslim societies experienced economic growth – through trade with the outside world, for example – terrorism would be much less a problem. In an excellent new paper, Terrorism and Trade: A Reply to Professor Bhala, Robert Delahunty (St. Thomas – Minnesota) debunks this argument. He notes that studies repeatedly fail to show a significant empirical link between terrorism and poverty, particularly the poverty which results from a lack of trade with the outside world. In fact, Islamist terrorism in the twenty-first century, like communist terrorism in the nineteenth century, is principally a middle-class phenomenon. Both the leadership and ranks of jihadist movements are made up of educated, upwardly-mobile professionals with ties to the global economy. Like other economic explanations, Delahunty suggests at the end of his paper, the “counter-terrorism through trade” argument may be a way for secular-minded Westerners to avoid coming to terms with the ultimate explanation for religious and ideological terrorism, namely, that its motivations are primarily religious and ideological. There is much more in the paper which, as usual with Delahunty, is remarkably erudite and lucid.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Does Democracy Reduce Religious/Political Terrorism?

Here is a well-written and acute review by Samuel Helfant of Katerina Dalacoura’s (LSE) interesting book, Islamist Terrorism and Democracy in the Middle East (CUP 2011).  As Helfant notes, the book was written before the upheaval in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, etc., but its themes and thesis are more relevant now than ever.  Here’s a bit from the review.  — MOD

The link between repressive political systems and terrorism seems obvious. It is not difficult to imagine why some people without the means to express their political will peacefully would eventually turn to violence. Add to this the findings of the democratic peace theory, which highlight the fact that no democratic state has ever gone to war with another democratic state, and democracy would appear to be an apt remedy for the political violence, including terrorism, that has plagued the Islamic world in recent decades. Thus, countless studies since September 11 have argued that democracy in the Middle East could “drain the swamps” of Islamic terrorism. Indeed, this idea formed the theoretical foundation for the Bush administration’s adoption of its “freedom agenda” as a central tenet in its war on terrorism.

In practice, however, the link between political systems and political violence has never been as strong as some would suggest. The unfortunate truth is that authoritarian regimes are rather good at preventing terrorism. There were only a few reported incidents of political terrorism in the Soviet Union, and in 2003 the London-based World Terrorism Index classified North Korea as the state “least exposed to international terrorism.” In fact, there is some evidence to suggest that democracy, and especially the process of democratization, can actually encourage terrorism. It should not be surprising that the Middle East is no exception to these trends, and empirical studies on the links between political participation and moderation among Islamists, such as Jillian Schwedler’s important book Faith in Moderation, have come to similar conclusions about the questionable link between political systems and extremism.

Yet books such as Schwedler’s have been limited to studies focusing on one or two groups over a specific period of time. Dalacoura’s work, by contrast, offers an analytical tour of the major Islamist movements in the Middle East. Through a plethora of case studies, Dalacoura covers a wide geographical and political range, and with a social-scientific methodology that separates her work from that of pundits and journalists, she challenges hypotheses instead of simply searching for evidence to reinforce received wisdom. What she finds, across the board, is that the links between political freedom and political violence are unsubstantiated.