Beware of Rand Robots

Abstract

For the last three years, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has been telling Muslims all over the world: “You either have to have a war within or a war with us.” Acall for Muslim “civil war” has become the battle cry of the neo-cons. Using these “civil wars,” Muslims killing Muslims in large numbers, the neo-cons expect to accomplish three goals: (1) the re-creation of Muslim societies in the western image, with or without democratic institutions, (2) long-term control over oil and policies toward Israel, and (3) the reconstruction 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, and Strategies authored by Cheryl Benard (http://www.rand.org/publications/ MR/MR1716/MR1716.pdf). American Muslims must take note of this, because it is already being implemented in “letter and spirit” by various agencies and even “private” groups. Though the author of this report claims: “The United States has three goals in regard to politicized Islam. First, it wants to prevent the spread of extremism and violence. Second, in doing so, it needs to avoid the impression that the United States is ‘opposed to Islam.’ And third, in the longer run, it must find ways to help address the deeper economic, social, and political causes feeding Islamic radicalism and to encourage a move toward development and democratization,” its actual aims are discernable from its policy recommendations, detailed below. Cheryl Bernard, the author of this report [and wife of Zalmay Khalizad, the American ambassador to Afghanistan], claims: “This approach seeks to strengthen and foster the development of civil, democratic Islam and of modernization and development. It provides the necessary flexibility to deal with different settings appropriately, and it reduces the danger of unintended negative effects. The following outline describes what such a strategy might look like: ...