Talking terrorism

The challenge now is to design a serious hearing that advances Congress' understanding of the threat, provides a basis for more effective counter-terrorism policy and establishes a narrative to counter Al Qaeda's propaganda. Unfortunately, early indications suggest that the hearing is instead shaping up to be a politicized circus. Conservative activists and civil libertarians have jumped to long-established fighting positions — respectively, that there is widespread support for jihadis among American Muslims and that hearings on domestic radicalization are necessarily a McCarthy-like witch hunt.

At this point, the most likely outcome of this hearing is that it will be a pointless political show. The worst-case scenario is that the hearing will actually play into the hands of Al Qaeda recruiters.

No one knows exactly why some people become radicalized and others do not. But charismatic leaders such as American-born Islamic cleric Anwar Awlaki — the most effective Al Qaeda recruiter of Americans — are a consistent theme. The uncomfortable reality is that jihadis use the fear and anger generated by a range of controversial current events to promote their virulent ideological concepts. One issue that Awlaki, based in Yemen, exploits is the specter of a government crackdown on Muslim Americans.

In a March 2010 statement titled "A Call to Jihad," Awlaki argued darkly that "yesterday America was a land of slavery, segregation, lynching and Ku Klux Klan, and tomorrow it will be a land of religious discrimination and concentration camps. Don't be deceived by the promises of preserving your rights from a government that is right now killing your own brothers and sisters.… The West will eventually turn against its Muslim citizens!"

The March congressional hearing should be carefully designed not to feed into Awlaki's cynical effort to terrify potential recruits into choosing violence. That means emphasizing the ways that the government can work with Muslim Americans to counter Al Qaeda, rather than labeling wide swaths of that community a threat.

The good news is that Awlaki's pitch fails far more often than it succeeds. The vast majority of Muslims in the United States and around the world have rejected Al Qaeda's violent ideology.

That helps explain why Al Qaeda is killing so many Muslims. According to a study by West Point's Combating Terrorism Center, 85% of Al Qaeda's victims around the world between 2004 and 2008 were Muslim. Many American policymakers seem to have accepted Al Qaeda's claim that it acts on behalf of Muslims in general, but the numbers indicate that the group is at war with Muslims as much as it is with the United States.

Such brutality is Al Qaeda's biggest weakness. U.S. counter-terrorism policy should exploit it by cooperating with Muslim Americans and religious groups abroad to publicize Al Qaeda's cruelty and discredit jihadis.