In recent times—in the wake of Furguson, Missouri, and the
many other places in which police brutality has reared its ugly head—it has
become almost axiomatic, industry standard, among liberal audiences to presume
the worst about all members of law enforcement, as well as most government
agencies. In my interfaith work, I have had
the opportunity to work with a good number of people in law enforcement and a
variety of government agencies who are truly good people. And I cherish these burgeoning friendships
and working relationships; they present a good face to law enforcement and
government, particularly those who are working with the interfaith community
and are helping to dispel fears about Muslims.
As a scholar, I am taught to see that there are always two sides to any
story and that there are good and bad people in every group or
organization. And while it is no secret
that I have been a lifelong critic of the CIA and other clandestine government
agencies which regularly engage in covert actions that push the envelope (and
sometimes tear it up completely) of legality, I am not so naïve or prejudiced
as to think that the CIA is composed entirely of psychopaths and sociopaths
whose utter amorality allows them to act with impunity against whomever stands
in the way of the current regime’s policies.
And I am willing to learn something from educated people, expert in
their fields, who have freely shared of their knowledge to help educate
students and private citizens.
On Saturday, November 21st, the Special
Operations Division, Community Outreach, of the LA Sheriff’s Department,
coordinated with me to present to my students and my campus a conversation with
representatives of the CIA. They brought
Randy B., a CIA case worker, to campus to talk about the CIA’s role in
international affairs, how it operates, and the good it does to protect the
international community. I have seen
Randy B. before at other such forums put on by the LASD Spc Ops, Community
Outreach, in coordination with one of their interfaith youth
organizations. Randy is always very
informative, his lectures are truly riveting, and his presentations are
enjoyable to listen to. Obviously, he
only addresses the positive things that the CIA does and has done, opting to avoid
the more controversial topics, but the benefits are quite numerous and quite
significant. Central to his lecture, as
a case study, was the role the CIA had in collecting verifiable intelligence
about the impending nuclear war between Pakistan and India in the 1990s, and
assisting then President Clinton in setting up lines of communication between
these two adversaries and helping to avoid what could have ended tens of
millions of lives.
During the second half of Randy’s presentation, by popular
request, he then began to address the issue of ISIS and Islamic fundamentalist
extremism and violence around the globe, drawing upon the authority of years of
expertise and study in this matter, as well as having been directly involved in
the Middle East throughout his career.
He had some very interesting things to say, that I wish everyone in
America could hear. Let me repeat, this
man is from the CIA and he has more information than your average politician or
pundit.
Here is what I learned:
·
ISIS is more of a
revolutionary insurgent organization than a terrorist organization, on account
of their attempts to gain land and form a state.
·
ISIS has nothing to do,
materially with Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda has
become, essentially, a franchise; and Al Qaeda in Iraq, the erstwhile roots of
ISIS, took its endorsement by Al Qaeda central merely as an attempt to gain
legitimacy and to attract funding.
·
The frequent power grabs
and the nature of the internecine struggle identify ISIS as having hardly
anything to do with religion, at its core, but they merely use religious and
apocalyptic trappings and rhetoric to unify their human drones, as do many
other nationalist movements.
·
While boots on the ground
in Iraq and Syria are certainly needed to oppose and limit ISIS’ military
advances, the best thing we can do is to discredit them and demonstrate to the
world and to potential joiners, that ISIS is a failed state and cannot provide
anything good to those who support it, thereby undermining their mission and
limiting their growth.
·
ISIS will not likely use
refugee streams to infiltrate a country with sleeper cells or terrorist
operatives. It’s too expensive and risky
trying to get such a person past the screening.
It’s much easier to use “home-grown” terrorists, as all the suspects and
alleged assailants in the Paris terrorist cases appear to be.
·
And the best thing that we
citizens, stateside, can do to help is to not let their attempts to frighten
and divide us succeed; to pull together in the interfaith organizations that we
represented at that event, and to avoid fear-mongering and divisive rhetoric.
Of course, Randy was only able to give his own educated
opinions as an academic and a professional, and is unable to speak directly on
behalf of the CIA. But I wish that every
Fox News viewer, and every Fox News newscaster/commentator could have heard his
lecture.
Thank you, Randy, for sharing your wisdom. Thank you, CIA, for collecting this
intelligence and allowing Randy to share it with us.
So, for all those who persist in thinking that ISIS
represents Islam, and that there is some kind of Axis of Evil that is run by
ISIS and Al Qaeda in concert with one another, think again. Your Muslim neighbor, oncologist, gas station
owner, Cal Tech engineer, Business Administration grad student, and whatnot,
are much more representative of Islam than the masked insurgents from thousands
of miles away who seek to gain power and glory for themselves, and use religion
(as have their counterparts in every other religion) as their excuse—their
rationale, their justification.
