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: ...