The Elephant in the Room

A recent conference on “Al Qaeda 2.0: Transnational Terrorism After 9/11,” sponsored by the New America Foundation and the New York University Center on Law & Security, was a gift to those wanting an update on informed opinion on the subject.  The event also proved to be as highly instructive for what was not addressed as for the issues that were.  The elephants known to be present remained largely unnoticed.

The cavernous Caucus Room of the Russell Senate Office Building was full to the gunnels.  Panel after panel of distinguished presenters from near and far, from right to left—including authors Peter Bergen, Michael Scheuer, Jessica Stern and Col. Pat Lang— exuded and freely shared their expertise.  But there was myopia as well.

The mosquitoes of terrorism were dissected and examined as carefully as biology students once did drosophila, but typing the generic DNA of terrorism proved more elusive.  Worse, no attention was given to the swamp in which terrorists breed.  Were it not for a few impertinent questions from the audience, the swamps might have avoided attention altogether.

The first panel featured two experts from RAND both of whom touched—very gingerly—on the need to drain the swamp.  The first closed his remarks with a 30-second observation that less attention might be given to kill/capture metrics than to addressing the causes of terrorism and breaking the cycle of terrorist recruitment. 

The second speaker from RAND, referring to that organization’s numerous studies on influencing public opinion, closed his remarks with this:  “When the message coheres with the context in which the message is transmitted, it works.”  Sending out the right message during the Cold War was easier, he said, because the context (the United States being the only alternative to the USSR) was very clear.  On terrorism, he added, we need to ponder “the mismatch between context and message.”

What About the Elephants?

Then came a rude question from the audience:  Is it not striking that even in an academic-type setting like this, elephants must remain invisible?  Is it not ironic, that the U.S. Defense Science Board, in an unclassified study on  “Strategic Communication,”  completed on September 23 but kept under wraps until after the Nov. 2 election, let the pachyderms out of the bag?  Directly contradicting the president, a panel of the Defense Science Board gave voice to what virtually all in that ornate Senate Caucus Room knew, but were afraid to say.  It named the elephants.

“Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom,' but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf States. 

"Thus, when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy...

"...Nor can the most carefully crafted messages, themes, and words persuade when the messenger lacks credibility.”

U.S. Support for Israel “Immutable”

Another questioner pressed the mismatch-context-message expert from RAND:  “What can we do to change the context?”  In answer he acknowledged that the United States has a bad reputation, but he insisted that this is “unavoidable” because our support for Israel, for example, is “immutable.”  The United States is also connected to what many Muslims consider “apostate” regimes, but it is difficult to escape what binds us, because we need their “tactical support.”  (Read: oil; military bases; intelligence.)