"American Takfiris": The US Proponents of Torture (and Why It Matters)

Adam Serwer writes in The Atlantic:

The theological justification for al Qaeda's wholesale slaughter of civilians was provided by Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, also known as Dr. Fadl, one of the founding fathers of al Qaeda. Because the murder of innocents is forbidden in Islam and the murder of Muslims in particular, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden required some sort of theological framework for justifying terrorism. This was provided by al-Sharif, who essentially argued in his book, "The Compendium of the Pursuit of Divine Knowledge," that apostates could be murdered, and that approach, takfir (which has come to be known as takfirism) allowed al Qaeda to, for all intents and purposes, kill anyone they wanted without violating the laws of Islam by declaring them to be apostates. In other words, Dr. Fadl helped provided a theological justification for something that everyone involved knew was wrong.

War on Terror Flashback: Bush’s Lawyer Yoo “Civilians Can Be Massacred”

The legal memos justifying torture aren't very different in terms of reasoning--it's clear that John Yoo and his cohorts in the Office of Legal Counsel saw their job not as binding the president to the rule of law, but to declare legal any tactic that the executive branch believed necessary to fight terrorism. They worked backwards from this conclusion, and ethics officials at the Department of Justice, we now know, decided that they they had violated professional standards in doing so. Whereas al-Zawahiri and bin Laden turned to al-Sharif for a method to circumvent the plain language of the Koran, Bush and Cheney went to Yoo and Jay Bybee to circumvent the plain language of the law. Most Islamic scholars, just like most legal experts, reject their respective reasoning as unsound.



The torture memos--indeed, all of the pro-torture arguments rest on a similar intellectual themes to the takfiris. Suspected terrorists are "illegal enemy combatants", outside the framework of laws that would otherwise guide us. Just as the takfiris justify the killing of even self-identified Muslims by excommunicating them as "infidels", torture apologists argue that even American citizens like Jose Padilla who are accused of being terrorists become legal "apostates" without any rights the president is bound to respect. These are extraordinary circumstances, this is an extraordinary war--and so, the Bush administration turned to Yoo, a man who believes the president is bound by no laws during wartime: he can murder a village of innocent civilian non-combatants just as surely as he can crush the testicles of a child or deploy the military against residents of the United States. The architects of torture are the intellectual mirror image of their declared enemies, depending on the perceived inhumanity of their foes to justify monstrous actions. It's worth noting however, that the Bush administration did not take full advantage of the wrongs that the lawyers in their Office of Legal Counsel would have enabled. My point is not to equate the deeds of AQ with the deeds of the Bush administration--merely to point out justification for acts that are on their face unjustifiable take a similar intellectual path.

From his cell in an Egyptian prison, al-Sharif denounced his former colleagues in al Qaeda, declaring that the killing of innocents was wrong. He essentially renounced his earlier work providing the theological basis for politically motivated murder and destruction, declaring, "There is no such thing in Islam as ends justifying the means," now arguing that the murder of innocents, Muslim or otherwise, was sinful. Whatever theological cover al-Sharif's original arguments provided were meaningless against the body count of mostly Muslim innocents amassed by al-Qaeda in their war against the "West", which by the numbers has been a war against fellow Muslims. In combination with the furious efforts of moderate Muslims and even committed Islamists like al-Sharif, al Qaeda and its methods have been largely discredited, to the point where, as Fareed Zakaria writes, we don't fear "a broad political movement but a handful of fanatics scattered across the globe."

I confess to being bothered that we haven't seen a similarly backlash against the architects of torture here--part of the reason we haven't, is because even though innocents were tortured, we still see them as fundamentally alien. Few Americans directly suffered as a result of what Yoo and Bybee did--although I think we have yet to understand that damage that's been done to our society as a whole. Bolstered by ideological partisans and powerful figures looking to avoid accountability for their actions, men like John Yoo and Jay Bybee have yet to be held responsible for the crimes they enabled--and I'm not sure they ever will be--although I'm less concerned with their punishment than with the permanent American rejection of torture. The Justice Department's David Margolis overruled the original conclusions of the Department's ethics lawyers that Yoo and Bybee had, in ignoring legal precedents and sanctioning behavior that was likely illegal, had committed "professional misconduct". That would have triggered professional sanctions for Yoo, a tenured professor at Berkeley, and Bybee, a sitting federal judge, but Margolis' memo instead concludes that they had excercised "flawed legal reasoning" that could be forgiven in part because of the context in which the memos were written, months after the 9/11 attacks. Margolis though, does not endorse their reasoning, and as for Yoo, he writes that whether or not he deliberately gave bad legal advice is a "close question."  Al-Sharif will never be able to wash the blood from his hands, but while this founding father of al Qaeda has recoiled from the fruits of his labor, the American architects of torture continue to argue that their reasoning is legally sound.

The American conscience, when it decides to act, is mighty--but it is also sluggish and vain. Americans are crushed by the weight of not fulfilling their own high expectations--so the shameful acts of one generation are often rectified by a subsequent generation unencumbered by their own complicity in such acts. So the compromise the Founding Fathers reached on the issue of slavery, in defiance of the spirit of the documents they authored, was eventually righted by the Civil War. The slavery by another name of reconstruction was ignored by a nation weary of conflict after nearly being rent in two--but eventually gave birth to the civil rights movement. The suffragettes were forced to accept a compromise on the 14th Amendment that denied them the vote--but they would ultimately prevail. Roosevelt interned Japanese Americans, Reagan gave them reparations. The American conscience is often slow to action, but not because it cannot recognize evil--but because our view of ourselves as a people guided by justice is so important to who we are that when confronted with proof of our own shortcomings, we recoil in shame and precious vanity. Eventually, with the big stuff, we usually find our way--we see this with our slow, staggering, but inevitable march towards full personhood for gays and lesbians.  And while those who stained America's honor with war crimes have escaped accountability for now, these American takfiris will eventually be judged by history with a clarity we cannot muster today.

The arc of the universe is long...you know, all that stuff.

Comments

[Rational Idealist]

Great post! and powerful argument. Thank God for bloggers such as you and Andrew Sullivan, who would not let this thing be forgotten.
The way America, as the leader of the West, relates to torture is of crucial importance for much more than the misguided "war on terror" - it has an impact on who we fundamentally are. These people, whom you call American takfiris and I call the New Barbarians (http://rational-idealist.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20Barbarians) are ultimately a bigger threat to Western civilization than Al Qaeda.
I wish I could share your optimistic view about history eventually righting all the wrongs. The problem is, I am not sure that time is always helping, and my main interest anyway is with what happens in my lifetime.
The American takfiris and the anti-American terrorists reinforce each other and both erode the party of reason and peace in either camp. The more they are allowed to stand unchallenged and speak on behalf of Western civilization and Islam respectively, the smaller the space for the moderates. If Obama doesn't get more decisive on this, I'm afraid he will be squeezed out and his Cairo speech will remain in history as a great opportunity missed.

[parvati_roma]

The "west" is a fiction american "leadership" ditto, cold war ended in 1989! Other countries don't want to be "lead" by America, want joint decisionmaking and consultation/concertaton, but end up expending huge quantities of diplomatic energy trying to head off America from damaging and dangerous courses of action. Problem is that America believes its exorbitant military spending = "paying the piper" so somehow "entitles" it to impose its policies/interest on its allies, to their detriment.

Attitudes to admissibility of torture in various countries:

http://www.globescan.com/news_archives/bbctorture06/

"...The poll shows 59 percent of the world's citizens are unwilling to compromise on the protection of human rights, however 29 percent think governments should be allowed to use some degree of torture in order to combat terrorism.

Most Americans (58%) are against any use of torture. But opposition to torture in the US is less robust than in Europe and the percentage of Americans favouring the practice in certain cases (36%) is one of the highest among the 25 countries polled.
.....

The largest percentage endorsing torture was found in Israel. Forty-three percent say some degree of torture should be allowed, though slightly more, (48%) think the practice should be prohibited.

Italians (81%) are the most opposed to the use of torture in all circumstances and the British are among the highest with 72 percent opposed and 24 percent in favor. Other countries with high numbers favouring a total ban are in Australia and France (75% in both) as well as Canada (74%) and Germany (71%)."
...

Opposition to torture in all cases is far higher in Egypt and Turkey than in the US or Israel, btw.

[Dave]

Islam condones the murder of innocents (including children).

Bukhari :: Book 4 :: Volume 52 :: Hadith 256
Narrated As-Sab bin Jaththama:

The Prophet passed by me at a place called Al-Abwa or Waddan, and was asked whether it was permissible to attack the pagan warriors at night with the probability of exposing their women and children to danger. The Prophet replied, "They (i.e. women and children) are from them (i.e. pagans)." I also heard the Prophet saying, "The institution of Hima is invalid except for Allah and His Apostle."

http://www.quranexplorer.com/Hadith/English/Hadith/bukhari/004.052.256.html

[Dave]

"The architects of torture are the intellectual mirror image of their declared enemies, depending on the perceived inhumanity of their foes to justify monstrous actions."

******

This is simply not true. One side uses theological justifications for their actions. The other side does not.

[Old Outsider]

@ Dave
You may be an islam-expert but obviously you are not a hadith-expert.
The site where you gather the hadith you cite links to two introductions to the science of hadith, namely:
http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/index.html
“Methodologies for the study of hadith have been developed over centuries by Islamic scholars and jurists and are commonly referred to as the science of hadith study. Verification of hadith as reliable, and the use of hadith to verify or disavow Islamic practice, is left to Ulama, or Islamic scholars, with a deep understanding of Islamic jurisprudence and history. Articles on the science of hadith study, the history of the creation of the Compendium of Muslim texts, and other topics including approaches to the interpretation of difficult texts, viewing scripture as historical as well as religious documents, and other topics, are forthcoming.”

If you had followed the second link you might have learned something on isnad and authentication of hadiths:
http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/hadith/historyandhadeeth/azzamcomparison.html

The hadith that you cite is from Bukhari and it is given without isnad. (Unfortunately this missing of isnad is common enough in Bukhari, just read the part on Bukhari in “Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums”, vol. 1).

Back to the hadith you cite:
Meaning: Without isnad it is without authentication and may not be used in juristical reasoning.

[Dave]

Okay, but there is a duality that exists in Islam. There are things that apply to Muslims (the Ummah) and there are things that apply to non-Muslims. There are two houses -- House of Islam and House of War. This perpetual state of war is obligatory for all Muslims. It is not descriptive, but it is prescriptive and it transcends time. It cannot be compared to the battle stories found in the Bible (descriptive). The Muslims must continue the fight until all of the kafir are either converted or subjugated.

The two houses are not mentioned in the Koran, but they are a part of Islamic doctrine.

[Old Outsider]

@ Dave
It is not a duality, it is at least a “trinity”:

dar ul-islam – dar ul-ahd/dar ul-sulh – dar ul-harb

[rezvan]

Dave reminds me of the old English saying, a little knowledge can be more dangerous than total ignorance. To selectively and arbitrarily pick up quotes from the Hadith books or contested theological doctrines and present them as the whole truth puts him in the same camp as the neocons, the fundamentalist Christians, the ultra zionist jews and of course the taliban/wahabi/al qaeda alliance who have between them made this world an unsafe place for the moderate majority of all faiths. If he truly wishes to learn about Islam than he should make himself conversant with the writings of scholars like Shaykh Hamza and Sayyid Hossayn Nasr and others to at least get a broader view of Islam.

[Rev. Magdalen]

One day George Washington was presented with some prisoners of war, Hessian mercenaries, and his troops asked for permission to really lay into the prisoners. The Father of our Country said the mercenaries had to be treated humanely, the way we would want our captured soldiers treated, in order to show the world that America was going to be a better place than the Old World, where torture had been routine.

There can be no compromise on this matter, the ban on cruel and unusual punishment makes no mention on who the prisoners are. WE shall not do those things, no matter who THEY are. Many activists are working hard on this issue, it's just difficult to get anything done at the present moment because of all the crises going on. When America has a moment to breathe, the national dialog will turn again to Bush-era torture, and justice will be done.

Yoo should probably flee now while he still has time to build a nice hacienda in a non-extradition country, before his accounts are frozen. But then, bullies never do the smart thing, whether Western or "Takfiri"!

[iseuyb iseuyb]

let's join our hands together to stop this kind of wrong doings. It may risk lives in the future if we just let them continue. hpgzla hpgzla - radii supras.

[lgfddf lgfddf]

Those are super cute. I like you on Facebook. mqsimz mqsimz - red sole.