For the second time in less than a week, the U.S. government had damage control
to do because of its religion-infused rhetoric.
The Pentagon on Thursday backed away from the code name for its anti-terrorist
offensive, ``Operation Infinite Justice,'' for fear of offending Muslims. On
Sunday, President Bush referred to the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism as a
``crusade,'' a word that conjures up bloody Christian military expeditions to
recapture the Holy Land from Muslims in the Middle Ages.
Defining the enemy
In his speech to the joint sessions of Congress on Thursday night, Bush avoided
such terminology and took pains to distinguish Muslim friends from enemies.
``The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends,'' he said. ``It is not
our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists and every
government that supports them.''
But the president did fall back on religious language to drive home his point,
saying the terrorists ``blaspheme the name of Allah.'' The new domestic
security Cabinet position he created was named with an unusually patriotic flair:
The Office of Homeland Security. And although the name of the operation will be
changed, the president repeatedly invoked the word ``justice'' in describing
the anti-terrorist campaign.
There is a ``religious tone that's never far from the surface in American
political life,'' said Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguistics professor at Stanford
University. ``That comes out in part in moments like this. . . . There's a
direct line from `The Battle Hymn of the Republic' to what's going on now.''
Objections to ``Infinite Justice'' came up at a Pentagon briefing on Thursday.
A reporter told Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that several Islamic scholars
took issue with the term, saying that infinite justice resides only with God,
or Allah.
``I understand. I understand,'' Rumsfeld replied. ``And obviously, the United
States does not want to do or say things that create an impression on the part
of the listener that would be a misunderstanding, and clearly that would be.''
Rumsfeld indicated the code name will probably be changed.
Goading bin Laden
At the same time, apocalyptic U.S. rhetoric designed to demonstrate its resolve
can unwittingly confirm the world view of the Muslim terrorists who attacked
New York and Washington last week.
Both the phrase ``Infinite Justice'' and the use of the word ``crusade'' only
enhance the notion of cosmic battle that is invoked by Osama bin Laden and
other religious terrorists, said Mark Juergensmeyer, a University of
California-Santa Barbara sociologist who published a book last year on
religious violence.
``Anything that gives the aura of global conflict plays into bin Laden's
hands,'' Juergensmeyer said.
He said terrorists ``feel a great cosmic war going on, and they've externalized
it and planted it in a social and political milieu. This attack was aimed at
secular Muslims as well as Americans, to provoke them into a view of a world at
war, and to the degree we buy into it, they win.''
The White House has said it regrets any offense over Bush's choice of words on
Sunday, which came just a day after Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein warned
Americans not to wage a ``new crusade'' against Muslims.
The problem is that what's meant to rouse a U.S. audience may play badly
overseas, Nunberg warned.
``Perhaps `crusade' is an unfortunate term to pick if you're trying to peel off
the modern Arab states to be on your side,'' he said.
Rick Francona, a retired Air Force intelligence officer who was General Norman
Schwarzkopf's Arabic interpreter during the Gulf War, seconded that view.
``During Desert Storm, that was one of the derogatory terms Saudi soldiers used
for us: `crusaders,' which means `men of the cross,' '' he said. When Bush
spoke of a ``crusade,'' Francona added, ``The connotation to a Muslim is, `Oh,
this is going to be a Christian-Muslim connotation.' ''
Bin Laden himself, in a chilling 1998 directive to kill Americans, referred to
the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia as ``the calamitous Crusader
occupation.''
Koran's 99 names
The term ``Infinite Justice'' is potentially offensive to Muslims because it
evokes attributes of Allah set out in the Koran, the holy book of Islam. But
some Muslims said they weren't offended.
```Infinite Justice''' doesn't really strike me as that offensive unless you
interpret it as ultimate justice, which is something that's up to God,'' said
Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic
Relations.
According to one expert on Islam, what touched a nerve was the use of the word
``infinite'' alongside a word that's related to one of the 99 names of Allah in
Islam. `` `The just,' or `one who is just,' is one of the names of God,'' said
David Pinault, a religious studies professor at Santa Clara University.
The American military, following German practice, began naming its military
operations during World War II. In 1942, the Joint Chiefs of Staff approved an
index of code words that are randomly assigned for each operation. The first
word refers to the operation's region -- e.g., ``desert'' for the Middle East
-- and the second often connotes some kind of resolve.
Winston Churchill was fascinated with code names and had his own thoughts on
the matter, according to a 1995 article on the history of naming operations in
Parameters, a U.S. Army War College quarterly.
Churchill instructed that operation names shouldn't be silly: They should not
``enable some widow or mother to say that her son was killed in an operation
called `Bunnyhug' or `Ballyhoo.' ''
But names for operations shouldn't be pompous either, he wrote in guidelines to
his subordinates: ``Operations in which large numbers of men may lose their
lives ought not to be described by code words which imply a boastful or
overconfident sentiment.''