By Rudy
Barnes, Jr.
Religious
fundamentalism can lead to hate and violence and become a threat to national
security where there is no tolerance of religious differences. The violence of al Qaeda and ISIS is fueled
by sectarian differences that could be defused by the freedoms of religion and
speech. The U.S. should promote those
fundamental freedoms to help create a climate of religious tolerance in the
Middle East and Africa that could minimize the threat of Islamist terrorism.
President
Obama has vacillated on promoting the freedoms of religion and expression as a
priority for U.S. national security policy.
He has considered those fundamental freedoms as worthy ideals, but not given
them serious consideration as a means to counter Islamic violence and
terrorism. That reasoning should be
reconsidered.
The
best long-term defense against the violence of Islamist extremism is to promote
the tolerance of sectarian differences in Islamic cultures. That does not obviate the need for effective
short-term defenses to protect lives and property from sectarian violence, but
U.S. experience in Afghanistan and Iraq has proven that military force is not a
solution, and may well be an aggravating factor for the religious hate and
violence that plagues Islamic cultures.
Apostasy
and blasphemy laws encourage sectarian violence by preventing any real freedom
of religion or speech. Promoting those
fundamental freedoms in Islamic cultures should be a primary strategic objective
of U.S. national security policy; and the first step in promoting such a policy
should be to cease providing security assistance to nations that enforce
apostasy and blasphemy laws, like Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and
Pakistan.
Such
a policy change would likely create issues similar to those surrounding the
Leahy Amendment, which bars U.S. aid to train or equip foreign troops who
commit gross human rights violations. In
March, 2013, Admiral William H. McRaven told Congress that the Leahy law
complicated the ability of the U.S. to train and equip foreign security forces
fighting Al Qaeda and its affiliates. It
illustrates how conflicting standards of legitimacy can pit tactical and
operational objectives against strategic objectives. At the operational level U.S. trainers and
advisors must gain the trust and confidence of their indigenous counterparts to
accomplish their mission, but ignoring violations of fundamental human rights for
the sake of operational expediency is counterproductive to strategic
objectives.
Compliance
with fundamental human rights, including the freedoms of religion and
expression, should be a requirement for U.S. security assistance, but an
exception should be made for those governments fighting Islamist terrorism that
cannot provide the essentials of law and order, such as those in Libya, Kenya,
Mali and the Central African Republic. But
all assisted governments should be required to build their rule of law on a
foundation of fundamental human rights consistent with those in the
International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which includes
the freedoms of religion and expression.
The Cairo
Declaration subjects the human rights of ICCPR to Islamic Law, or Shari’a, giving
Shari’a precedence over international human rights law. Apostasy and blasphemy laws are part of
Shari’a and are analogous to treason in secular law, but since there is no
distinction between religion and politics in Islam, regimes like Egypt have
used blasphemy laws to stifle political as well as religious criticism. It should be expected that U.S. allies like
Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Pakistan will oppose any U.S. policies
that promote the freedoms of religion and speech in Islamic cultures.
It is a strategic dilemma with
daunting operational consequences, as illustrated by our experience with the
Leahy amendment. Promoting fundamental
human rights can conflict with local standards of legitimacy in Islamic
cultures, but the freedoms of religion and speech are necessary to defuse
sectarian violence and promote justice in the Middle East and Africa.
President Obama has been ambiguous
on the role of Islam in the terrorism of al Qaeda and ISIS, and on the priority
of human rights in national security policy.
That ambiguity must be dispelled to counter the religious hate and
violence that motivates radical Islamic terrorists; and the clarification of
U.S. national security policy should begin with terminating aid to any regime that
uses apostasy and blasphemy laws to stifle religious or political criticism.
Notes and References to Resources:
On related
blogs, see Faith and Freedom, posted
December 15, 2014; Religion, Violence and
Military Legitimacy, posted December 29, 2014; Religion and Human Rights, posted February 22, 2015; and A Fundamental Problem with Religion,
posted May 3, 2015.
On the
ambiguity of President Obama on human rights in U.S. foreign policy, see the
editorial in the Washington Post, Trouble
at the core of U.S. foreign policy, September 26, 2013 at http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trouble-at-the-core-of-us-foreign-policy/2013/09/26;
and on the
reluctance of the Obama administration to acknowledge the role of radical
religion in the terrorism of ISIS, see Shadi Hamid and Will McCants, John Kerry won’t call the Islamic State by
its name anymore. Why that’s not a good
idea. Washington Post, December 29, 2014 at
On how
conflicting concepts of human rights and legitimacy complicate contemporary
U.S. training and advisory missions and national security objectives, see
Barnes, Back to the Future: Human Rights and Legitimacy in the Training and Advisory Mission; on similar issues with the Leahy amendment, see Eric Schmitt, Military Says Law Barring U.S. Aid to Rights
Violators Hurts Training Mission, New York Times, June 20, 2013, at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/21/us/politics/military-says-law-barring-us-aid-to-rights-violators-hurts-training-mission.html?_r=0.
On
conflicting concepts of human rights and legitimacy in Western libertarian
democracies and Eastern Islamic cultures, see Barnes, Religion, Legitimacy and the Law: Shari’a, Democracy and Human Rights at pp 7-8 and end notes 17 and 18;
on differing views of Islamic scholars, see pp 10-17. Articles 18, 19 and 20 of the International
Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ratified by the U.S. in 1992 and by
Israel in 1991) protect the freedoms of religion and free expression, but the
Cairo Declaration of Human Rights of 1990 has no comparable provisions, and
Articles 24 and 25 of that treaty condition all human rights on Shari’ah “…as
the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification to any of the
articles of this Declaration.”
On
America’s effort to promote the freedom of religion under the Religious Freedom
Act (1998) in combating Islamic terrorism, see Erasmus, America, religion and anarchy, The Economist, at http://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2015/05/america-religion-and-anarchy.
The article notes that the Central African Republic should not be considered
a bad government that can be persuaded to be better, but one that is beholden
to paramilitary forces, not the other way around.
The 2013 International Religious
Freedom Report of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor of the U.S.
Department of State reported increased violations of religious freedom around
the world (see http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/religiousfreedom/index.htm#wrapper).
Of the nine countries identified as engaging in or tolerating
particularly severe violations of religious freedom, five are Islamic nations:
Iran, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, with Burma, Eritrea,
China and North Korea the exceptions.
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Bangladesh and Indonesia were also
mentioned in the report as having serious violations of religious freedom.
On the
problem of providing aid to Egypt’s military government while ignoring human
rights violations, see Jackson Diehl, Fulfilling
the Arab Spring, Washington Post, April 26, 2015 at http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/investing-in-the-legacy-of-the-arab-spring/2015/04/26/c44b1638-e9c7-11e4-9767-6276fc9b0ada_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1.
On the practical problems of enforcing human rights in
Kenya, where al-Shabab has evaded government forces and the government has
attacked those who have criticized their tactics, see Hussein Khalid, Prodding Kenya forward, Washington
Post, May 1, 2015, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/prodding-kenya-forward/2015/05/01/e1177c74-ef86-11e4-a55f-38924fca94f9_story.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions&wpmm=1.
On an
Islamic perspective of human rights based on the Qur’an and Shari’a rather than
the secular libertarian freedoms of natural law popularized by the
Enlightenment, see Muhtari Aminu-Kano, et al., Islamic and UN Bills of Rights: same difference, at https://www.opendemocracy.net/openglobalrights/muhtari-aminukano-ayaz-ali-atallah-fitzgibbon/islamic-and-un-bills-of-rights-same-d.
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