Analysis: U.S. cuts critique of Islam film

WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 (UPI) -- The U.S. military in Afghanistan has removed from its Web site an article criticizing a Dutch lawmaker's controversial plan to make a film condemning the Koran, saying the piece was being misinterpreted as an attack on free speech.

The article, titled "Stirring the Hate," said Geert Wilders and his Party for Freedom were "blaming an entire religion for the actions of extremists." It accused them of having benefited politically from previous controversies, like that over the 2005 publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. It put the phrase "exercise in free speech" in derisive or distancing quotation marks.

"The headlines that resulted from the violence (that followed the cartoons' publication), the fear generated in communities around the world, an increase in 'suicide bomber recruiting,' all further the terrorist's goals," reads the article. "While the Party for Freedom preaches hate and fear to its followers, the terrorists preach hate and vengeance to their own."

Wilders' 10-minute film, which he now plans to release in March, will show how the Muslim holy book "is an inspiration for intolerance, murder and terror," he said recently.

Other reports have quoted him as comparing the book to Hitler's "Mein Kampf."

The U.S. military article was authored by a member of the public affairs team for Coalition Joint Task Force-82, which commands the U.S. troops in the country as part of NATO's International Security Assistance Force.

It was posted on Jan. 21 and taken down on Jan. 30, the author, Master Sgt. Allen Ness, told United Press International. A copy was kept by journalist and blogger Bill Roggio, who shared it with UPI.

"It was being viewed not as a criticism of his position on Islam, but as criticism of his right to free speech," Ness said. "I never had any disagreement with his right to free speech. … What I disagreed with was his blanket condemnation of Islam."

He said he was motivated to write it by his concerns about "what could happen when the fundamentalist supporters of terror get hold of his film" if it was deeply insulting to Islam like the Mohammed cartoons.

"Our most important allies here are the Afghans: the police, the military, the population as a whole -- they are all Muslims," said Ness, pointing out that the country was called the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

He said the riots in Afghanistan over the Mohammed cartoons -- which Wilders' party republished on its Web site -- had "caused great damage and loss of life," but just as importantly had "damaged the trust that we had built up with the Afghans."

The incident shows the difficulties that the U.S. military sometimes has in calibrating the weaponry it uses on the battlefield of ideas, said Roggio, a writer specializing in counter-insurgency who has spent time embedded with U.S. and Afghan forces.

"I understand where they were coming from" with the article, he told UPI. If rioting broke out, Afghan security forces would have to take to the streets to confront angry mobs who would often be attacking Western symbols.

"The military fights alongside these guys. The way they see it is they are fighting extremists … trying to hijack a religion," and provocations like Wilders' film were not helpful.

"It is damaging to the legitimacy" of Afghan security forces if they are "seen as protecting those who have insulted the religion."

Roggio said the article was "well-intentioned but not fully thought through" and was "open to misinterpretation."

John Brennan, the former head of the U.S. government's National Counter-Terrorism Center, said the issue was particularly difficult because the article had appeared on a U.S. military official Web site.

"People will see it as the position of the U.S. government if it is there," he said. "It is different from a private commentary."

"I am not one of those who comb the Web looking for politically correct outrages," said Roggio, "but it read to me like a criticism of his right to free speech."

"He does have the right to free speech," he continued, referring to Wilders, "and I have the right to think he is stupid and irresponsible."