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Why advocates of Islamic law in US should be considered subversive

Advocates of instituting Islamic Sharia law in the United States are not protected by the Constitution's freedom of religion provisions.

Sharia law, in which a civil constitution is abolished and replaced by arbitrary interpretations of the Koran, is coercive political warfare. Advocacy of Sharia law by definition means advocacy of the overthrow of the Constitution - a political position, not a religious one. Due to Sharia's usually coercive nature, taking action to advocate the imposition of Sharia law in the US is therefore a crime in this country.

Such activity - even if expressed as verbally, with no direct political action - is a felony under the "treason" chapter of the US Criminal Code (Title 18, Part I, Chapter 115, Section 2385).

According to Section 2385, "Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or

"Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or

"Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof—

"Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

"If two or more persons conspire to commit any offense named in this section, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

"As used in this section, the terms 'organizes' and 'organize', with respect to any society, group, or assembly of persons, include the recruiting of new members, the forming of new units, and the regrouping or expansion of existing clubs, classes, and other units of such society, group, or assembly of persons."  [Emphasis added]

It's time to start enforcing the law.

Radio Farda reporter says US statements undermine cause in Iran

A reporter for Radio Farda, the US-funded Farsi infotainment station aimed at Iran, says that the Bush Administration's open statements about democracy in that country are counterproductive and undermine democratic forces.

The reporter, Parnaz Azima (pictured), was one of four Iranian-Americans imprisoned recently in Iran, and is the only one to have been freed. "The open announcements about funding democracy in Iran have angered the [Iranian] government, and now they have one goal - to crush those activities and to put pressure on the Iranian activists, especially those who are inside Iran," Azima tells WTOP radio in a report carried by AP.

After years of lacking an Iran policy, the administration came out strong to push for $66 million to $75 million for democratization programs in Iran. Democratic activists in Iran urged officials not to be so public, saying the statements would give the regime the pretext to clamp down - which is exactly what has happened.

The headline on the AP report appears to be the product of a careless copy editor. Today's Washington Post carries a headline that is flat-out wrong: "Iran Detainee Urges US to End Democracy Effort." In fact, Azima said she was urging the US not to be so public about its work in Iran.

Great new resource: Truespeak.org

Here's a great little website that ought to get a lot of attention from the information ops and strategic communication folks: TrueSpeak.org.

The work of word-warrior Jim Guirard, a Washington attorney and veteran senior Senate staffer, TrueSpeak.org is a work-in-progress collection of thoughts, ideas, arguments, glossaries and other resources going back nearly 30 years. Jim was active in the war of ideas against the communists and he's one of the most original thinkers in waging today's ideological campaigns as well. He made important contributions in my new book Fighting the War of Ideas like a Real War.

TrueSpeak.org is being built without a budget and in fits and starts. Jim has posted only a fraction of what he has, so keep the page bookmarked as a favorite, visit it often, and tell your friends and colleagues about it.

Smart counterinsurgency

It's more and more exciting to see the unfolding changes in our military strategy in Iraq. The military under Gen. David Petraeus is escaping the old-think and is fighting the insurgents in new ways - one of which is to help them to fight one another.

Just as we allied with the evil Joseph Stalin in World War II to fight the Nazis, so we will have to hold our nose and work with some of our enemies against other enemies. We can't take on everyone at once, and we can't come to a solution in Iraq without co-opting some elements that in a fairer world we would otherwise destroy.

After finishing off the Nazis, we dealt with the Soviets. And after years of dogged persistence punctuated by screw-ups and defeatism, ultimately we were victorious. Let's lay off the criticism of the new counterinsurgency innovations and give the enemy-of-my-enemy experiment a chance to work.

Exclusive: New State Department strategy on strategic communication and public diplomacy

The State Department has issued a new National Strategy on Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy, but it isn't officially available to the public yet. PoliticalWarfare readers, though, can get it here.

The unclassified, 34-page strategy outlines a pretty conventional approach, mainly through the politically correct eyes of Washington-bound FSOs and political appointees. It starts out with an inspiring quote from the president delivered at a White House summit on malaria.

The strategy says some nice things about AIDS and the need to "build networks of women scientists," and other good stuff about minorities. A "Middle East Breast Cancer Initiative" is mentioned on page 23. Real solid stuff that I'm sure our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan will appreciate.

Believe it or not, the strategic communication and public diplomacy strategy does address the war. So the document isn't a total loss. Thanks must go to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which has issued reports year after year that slammed the State Department for having no strategy, and recommendations from governmental and private commissions. Kudos also to the State Department's Inspector General, who forced some changes at the public diplomacy shop.

This professor has given the strategy a quick read, and would grade it a gentleman's "C." (In graduate school, anything below a B- is failure, so the strategy isn't really ready for prime time. I'm trying to be charitable.) After I re-read it more carefully, I might change the grade.

Click the link for a PDF copy of the report, which contains no official State Department markings. Download stratcommo_plan_070531.pdf

I invite readers to comment about the report on this blog.

Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes (pictured) says in an internal cover message, "This strategy is designed to provide a unified strategic framework for US government communications, yet be flexible and adaptable to meet the different needs and responsibilities of very diverse government agencies. 

"The plan was developed by the inter-agency PCC on strategic communications and is the result of extensive input from different agencies, as well as major recommendations from more than 30 reports on public diplomacy, GAO reports, IG recommendations and consultations with private sector communications professionals. 

"The plan is deliberately short so it will be read and used, rather than placed on a shelf. Attachments provide detailed examples of how to put the strategies into action, as called for by GAO and IG reports. We intend for the strategy to provide a comprehensive blueprint that brings all of our resources to bear on repreenting America as a whole, by highlighting the activities and programs all embassies and US Government agencies are undertaking. Toward that objective, we have asked each US government agency and embassy to develop specific action plans, as detailed on page 9, to help us implement the strategy."

Terrorists use our legal system as a weapon - and find plenty of collaborators

Terrorists have used our legal system as a weapon for quite a while, and have found no shortage of American lawyers willing to do their dirty work. Witness the ACLU this week, suing an American air transport company on behalf of three alleged Al Qaeda terrorists. (National Public Radio's spin is that the ACLU is suing a company that "profited from torture.")

The lawyers defend themselves to critics by saying that by standing by the most unpopular, they are protecting the rights of all of us. It's the American thing to do.

That's all a load of crap, of course, but the sick thing is that it's no longer an extremist view. Last week I addressed a group of first-year law students from the Franklin Pierce Law Center of New Hampshire, discussing how terrorists use our legal system as a weapon.

I was rather surprised to find the overwhelming majority of the law students were adamant that the alleged terrorists we capture abroad should be accorded full rights under the United States Constitution, even if they never set foot on American soil. Most disagreed with the notion that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to terrorists - even though none apparently had even read the conventions as some of us have.

With only a couple of exceptions, the students argued about the injustice of the detainee center at our Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Most thought it was no problem that a radical lawyer who sympathizes with terrorists litigated on their behalf to get the Supreme Court ruling that enemy combatants deserve our constitutional protections.

And most seemed sincerely puzzled that I had a problem with lawyers like Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights who devoted their careers to defending extremists, KGB agents and terrorists. Some did admit that Lynne Stewart (photo) did abuse the attorney-client relationship by illegally acting as a courier for the Egyptian Islamic Jihad.

This is an awful witness about the state of some of our law schools - and the legal profession - that considers aiding and abetting terrorists to be a virtue.