Counterterrorism Blog

Below is an excerpt of my luncheon address at the Friday, April 11, 2008 Symposium on Terrorist Financing, hosted by the Institute of Global Security and Law of Case Western Reserve University Law School in Cleveland, Ohio.

Rock and Roll was invented in Cleveland, in that the term was coined by a Cleveland disk jockey in 1952. So despite the fact that Cleveland has never had a Rock and Roll music scene like Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia and Detroit, it does have a good claim to being the logical location of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where we had dinner last night.

I was impressed by one of the exhibits at the museum, which contained a number of quotes from such people as Tipper Gore and Ernest Hollings describing how Rock and Roll was a grave threat to human civilization. Imagine that attitude, not too long ago. Part of me wished that we had to cross picket lines to get into the Hall of Fame last night. This is something I would have enjoyed doing, defiantly and without apologies.

Rock and Roll is an American art form. We proudly invented it. Believe it or not, it is related to what we are talking about at this conference - terrorist financing.

You doubt there’s a clash of cultures? Well, unfortunately, it’s now official. We are well beyond arguing over “root causes” of terrorism. That argument is over. It’s time to declare an impasse, assign sides, and let the games begin.

Do not mistake what I am saying for militancy. I am not talking about killing anyone. I am not talking about what my friends in the Pentagon euphemistically refer to as “kinetic” activities. After all, I am a lawyer. As such, I am going into my regular mode of giving advice to a client, based on recent developments. Here's my legal advice: it’s time to get ready for trial, during which we will use every tool at our disposal. Settlement discussion, alas, appear to be over. Our lot is cast. It’s time for a full-court press. There is really one big issue, and we need to convince the jury of our side. The issue is this: Who is more humanistic, us or them? How do we deal with the disparity? I do not think I need to stress the importance of our upcoming task. In sum, it is this: the winner of this trial gets to survive and to continue to live the way do today. The loser goes off into the sunset. You have adequate fees for this, don’t you? We need to dry up all sources of our enemy's funding.

On March 20, 2008, near the 20-year anniversary of the fatwa issued on British author Salman Rashdie, al Qaeda issued its latest communiqué from Usama bin Laden, which threatened terrorist attacks in Europe. Were his complaints aligned with any real offensive on the Arab world by the West? No. Instead, they involved hurt feelings over Danish cartoons which portrayed Islam in a derogatory light. This controversy has resulted in over 100 people dead. It served to remind us about the huge disparity in the world today.

Not convinced? Are you inclined to worry about the legitimacy of the complaints by Muslims about the West, and to struggle for answers to the question, “Why do they hate us"?

The answer is obvious: al Qaeda hates everyone they don’t know, everyone who is not like them. It’s not limited to us. After all, they have enemies in Saudi Arabia, and in Egypt. They hate us because we are not as prickly as them. They hate us because we love life. In our parlance, they hate us because they are neither multiculturists nor art lovers, whereas we are. Yes, they hate us in part because of Rock and Roll.

You see, in the West, we dance and sing. We laugh. We laugh at ourselves. We also laugh at our rivals. We laugh at our leaders. We definitely laugh at our enemies. Laughter is good. It makes us live longer. Nothing is sacred when it comes to civil discourse, and that includes newspaper cartoons or “Saturday Night Live.”

As a people, we make earnest attempts to appear pious. Of course, it rarely works. Life and laughter too often gets in the way. People picketing movies like “The Last Temptation of Christ” or “The Life of Brian?” On those rare nights, as married couples, we have a night out? Are they going to spoil it for us? We laugh at them. Why should we not? They are worthy of our ridicule. They themselves know it. In the end, they laugh, too. Inevitably, they sheepishly come into the café for a coffee with us after their picket shift is over, describing how tough it is make a living working for their fundamantalist paymasters. How funny! Grab a chair! We can all have laugh together. We don’t make them watch the movie they might find distasteful, just as they don’t force us to join their picket lines. We know life is too short for that.

This, apparently, is apparently too much for Usama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. It makes him absolutely outraged.

There are, of course, people who claim that terrorism is a product of Western transgressions, that if we did not oppress the Arab world by “occupying” Saudi Arabia, al Qaeda and bin Laden would have no complaint with us. Why do we have American troops in Saudi Arabia? It was because, in the summer of 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, in an attempt to monopolize the worldwide oil industry, including natural reserves controlled by our friends in Riyadh. OK. Boys will be boys. This is the Middle East, after all. Put that whole nasty business aside. We fought that battle. Let’s not re-visit it.

But then there is this other small thing: al Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11. The year was 2001 - a full 10 years after we installed troops in Saudi Arabia as a result of Saddam Hussein’s aggressions. Six years before that, Hizballah, a Shi’ite group, destroyed our embassy in Beirut.

Now, what did we do to deserve those attacks? Western imperialism? We never “invaded” the Arab world before 9/11. They invited us there. The US has never had imperial aspirations. Colonies? Think about it. The Philippines? Puerto Rico? Tonga? Samao? The Panama Canal Zone? St. Croix? We lack the patience for colonies. We have our hands full with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

So in now turns out al Qaida’s big complaint with us is that we accept people who try to make us laugh, rather than condemning them, as they think we should. Guess what? Al Qaeda is in good company. Bill Clinton and Kofi Annan have expressed disapproval for the decision by the Danish newspapers editors to run the cartoons.

Last Friday the UN's Human Rights Council took a direct swipe at freedom of expression. In a 32-0 vote, the Council instructed its "expert on freedom of expression" to report to the Council on all instances in which individuals "abuse" their freedom of speech by giving expression to racial or religious bias. The measure was proposed by paragons of enlightenment, Egypt and Pakistan. It was supported by all Arab, Muslim and African countries - hardly fonts of liberty. European states abstained. The U.S. is not on the Council, though we reportedly worked behind the scene to oppose it. However, one prominent US Muslim organization condemned Saudi Arabia for not embracing this resolution enthusiastically enough.

This is a problem for those of us who fancy ourselves champions of the soft-power tools to fight terrorism, like the combating of terrorist financing. Without these tools, military actions becomes more attractive, perhaps inevitable. Imagine how much harder it would have been for the opponents of the 2003 invasion of Iraq to argue against the action if they were deprived of the alternative of economic sanctions. If we are deprived of even the softest of all of the soft power tools - art - what is the alternative? The problem when commentators talk about “Muslim perceptions” as the basis to attack Western anti-terrorism measures: there is nothing we can do to avoid this problem. No soft power, it seems, is non-hard enough to avoid problems of Muslim perception. After all, what could be more soft than diplomacy ? How about something truly soft, like artistic expression? No one dies at the hands of art. Still, there are people today who think that art they find distasteful justifies killing people. Think about how twisted that is.

I have some bad news for Usama bin Laden. He’s not going to like it, but here is a little secret for him. We might laugh easily, but do not mistake that for a lack of will. For Americans, the gloves come off when the cause is right. We are very much like our British forefathers. We can be serious when we choose to be. We do not countenance bullies. Americans take the right to laugh - the right to enjoy such things as Rock and Roll - very seriously, so much that we are willing to die for them. It is not something with which another culture or tradition should eagerly trifle.

Hitler thought our laughter made us pushovers. Stalin and a cast of successors thought they could make the world so serious that laughter would not be tolerated. The Americans were, in their view, “decadent,” as if that was a comment on our character. They would bury us. Of course, that didn’t happen. Rock and Roll helped us bury the Soviets. The proud lovers of Rock and Roll in Prague were not going to be denied. In the end, the Soviet troops did not have a chance against Bohemians bearing flowers and peace signs. Frank Zappa was more powerful than Soviet rifles.

Don’t assume that, because we like to laugh, we do not have strong feelings over which we are willing to fight. When people tell us we should not laugh - that we should not permit such decadent things as Rock and Roll, which was invented in the place where we are today - it really is no laughing matter. It is time to get serious.

The views in these remarks do not reflect those of the Department of Justice