Beware of Rand Robots

For the last three years, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman hasbeen telling Muslims all over the world: “You either have to have a war withinor a war with us.” Acall for Muslim “civil war” has become the battle cryof the neo-cons. Using these “civil wars,” Muslims killing Muslims in largenumbers, the neo-cons expect to accomplish three goals: (1) the re-creationof Muslim societies in the western image, with or without democratic institutions,(2) long-term control over oil and policies toward Israel, and (3) thereconstruction of Islam on the Biblical model, reformation included.A while back, the Rand Corporation, a semi-autonomous think tank,issued a report titled Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources, andStrategies authored by Cheryl Benard (http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1716/MR1716.pdf). American Muslims must take note ofthis, because it is already being implemented in “letter and spirit” by variousagencies and even “private” groups.Though the author of this report claims: “The United States has threegoals in regard to politicized Islam. First, it wants to prevent the spread ofextremism and violence. Second, in doing so, it needs to avoid the impressionthat the United States is ‘opposed to Islam.’ And third, in the longerrun, it must find ways to help address the deeper economic, social, andpolitical causes feeding Islamic radicalism and to encourage a move towarddevelopment and democratization,” its actual aims are discernable from itspolicy recommendations, detailed below.Cheryl Bernard, the author of this report [and wife of Zalmay Khalizad,the American ambassador to Afghanistan], claims: “This approach seeks tostrengthen and foster the development of civil, democratic Islam and ofmodernization and development. It provides the necessary flexibility todeal with different settings appropriately, and it reduces the danger of unintendednegative effects. The following outline describes what such a strategymight look like

Ancient history · Battle · Democracy · Democratization · Islam · Muslim world · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · History · Islamic Finance and Banking Studies · Law · Religious studies · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence · Religious Studies