Necessary Roughness

Normally I don’t blog about blogs, but I saw something cool on The Corner blog on National Review Online.

On my FreeRepublic.com page I have had this for a long time:

When supposedly religious right-wing Christian fanatics bombed abortion clinics, pastors from churches all across the country (e.g. Southern Baptists) informed their congregations that this was a Bad Thing.

When it comes to supposedly religious Muslim fanatics, we’re not hearing Moslems correcting their fellow man. The only authority I’ve heard saying Islam is a religion of peace is Dubya. The imams contradict themselves as to what the Koran says.

John Hood from NRO writes:

From a Christian Science Monitor report comes word of a little-known weapon in the war against Islamofascist terrorism: theological debate. A judge and Islamic scholar in Yemen is visiting al Qaeda prisoners and challenging them to justify their behavior according to God’s word as revealed to the Prophet. If they can’t — make that when they can’t — many of them appear to give up terrorism.

The strategy isn’t just cool, but appears to have yielded some notable, tangible benefits:

Some freed militants were so transformed that they led the army to hidden weapons caches and offered the Yemeni security services advice on tackling Islamic militancy. A spectacular success came in 2002 when Abu Ali al Harithi, Al Qaeda’s top commander in Yemen, was assassinated by a US air-strike following a tip-off from one of Hitar’s reformed militants.

Theological dialogue is no substitute for intelligence, espionage, spreading freedom with missionary zeal, setting a good example at home, punishing killers, and taking vigorous military act when necessary. But it is a good complement.