A reappraisal of "Iron Veil"

                                   How to properly iron a veil at home.

 

In May of 2009, I penned on my old blog The Hesperado a posting titled "An Iron Veil" (followed by another posting in October of that year dealing with a reader's questions about it).  That posting proposed a radical way to manage the growing threat of Islamic Jihad in the West: round up all Muslims in the West and deport them to the Muslim world (where in the Muslim world -- as well as how would it be done pragmatically -- would be technical details not really relevant to the argument for the overall policy's exigency).

I think part of the motivation for my radical proposal was frustration that the Western Mainstream was remaining myopic to the problem, even going further by demonizing those who called attention to the problem, ironically demonizing those with far milder and more conservative measures than what I proposed and who would likely oppose my proposal as going too far.  This is not really ironic though because the Western Mainstream has had its political correctness attuned so sensitively for decades that the slightest variation from their narrative is lumped together with the worst most extreme positions on the other side of the spectrum. Of course we see that same habit they have with other issues as well.

And not only my frustration at the Western Mainstream, but also my frustration at what I called the “Counter-Jihad Mainstream”, which I analyzed in dozens of essays as being too soft on the problem of Islam.  All that said, frustration that people are not doing enough shouldn't be sufficient by itself to validate a radical proposal like Iron Veil.  The thing is, if the Western Mainstream had been taking far less radical measures than Iron Veil over the decades post-911 -- generalized surveillance of Muslims, particularly their mosques and related alphabet-soup organizations, along with tough immigration policies and deportation of those with questionable associations (e.g., Professor Al-Arian) -- and refrained from demonizing those who call attention to the dangers of mainstream Islam -- I probably wouldn't have felt the frustration that led me to such an extreme thought experiment. On the other hand, one could argue against my reappraisal here and say my frustration still stands since the Western Mainstream obviously didn’t take those measures. This is true on the face of it, however, there are two points here or two dimensions: there is the purely logical dimension, then there's the ethical dimension.

In terms of the logical dimension, if there’s a problem or threat, one does whatever it takes to manage it.  The logical level, purely pragmatic, doesn’t include other considerations.  So because of the delinquency of West going on for too long and becoming entrenched in a systemic political correctness, my logic was that Iron Veil is ostensibly needed, because the delinquency has made the problem that much worse -- sufficiently worse -- that only this Iron Veil could save us (though I also added that I was pessimistic about the prospect that the West would ever rally in time to do such a thing as Iron Veil). That's the logic.

But the ethical concern is a problem for the logic.  The ethical concern wouldn't exist if we knew that 100% of Muslims are guilty and will remain guilty into the indefinite future in plotting jihad. But of course we don't know that -- and that's a key part of the ethical problem.  One crucial argument of Iron Veil argument was that because we don't know which Muslims are and which ones aren't a threat, and because of the nature & quality of that threat (grounded in Islamic history, texts, culture, and current events) we have to treat them all as though they are. And that brings us to the crux of my reappraisal.

Perhaps all along I had a misgiving about this deep inside, but I just recently clarified that to put it simply, where the treatment is severe, it's not acceptable and not sufficient on the ethical level to treat ostensibly innocent people as though they were guilty.  What is “severe”?  Severe would be a judgment call but certainly capital punishment, torture, total incarceration, and/or total rounding up & deportation -- all would qualify in varying degrees. 

What begins to be arguably not severe and therefore ethically justifiable, is surveillance, moratoriums on further immigration, and selective deportation based on evidence (all arguable on further refinements of terms and casuist considerations).

I realized recently that the logical argument of Iron Veil is not wholly founded on actual present evidence but on inferential projection of what present evidence we have into the future, with forecasting speculation about a threat sufficiently dire to warrant Iron Veil.  On the ethical level, when there's an ethical concern that could put the brakes on an extreme (severe) remedy, the principle is that if that extreme remedy is based not on present evidence but on speculation about how present evidence could develop into the future without actual knowledge that it will, then that is insufficient to give license to that remedy, because one must weigh the ethical concern that much -- or to put it another way, that's one of the ways we weigh the ethical concern against the evidence we have.

So in a less long-winded way, I would say that rounding people up that you don't know but only speculate could be jihadists and deporting them on the basis of present evidence + projected speculation based upon that present evidence -- where the present evidence by itself is not sufficient but indicates a possibility or even a high probability -- is not warranted ethically.  Now my em-dashed statement just now mentioned high probability. Probability has degrees, and certainly there could be a degree of probability so high that I think it would be tantamount to justifying severe measures. But that's a casuistic judgment call, based on case by case information and should not be generally applied to swaths of people, let alone to a total subpopulation. Also, the ethical concern puts a weight on the barometer of probability, so to speak, whereby there is an extra burden to prove that something is actually high probability such that it gives license to the severe measure.

                                                                       * * * * *

I concede that my reappraisal gambles with the fate of the West. That's the nature of the argument, in that most of the Iron Veil is dealing with speculation about the future, not clear and present danger in the present grounded wholly in present evidence. It's a fine distinction, and the lynch mob mentality that doesn't understand evidence or is impatient with gathering evidence and forensically examining it, will want to blur the line between the two that are being distinguished -- the two being a clear present danger grounded wholly in present evidence, and a speculated future danger grounded partially in present evidence from which one is extrapolating into the future. When one is dealing with one individual, it's easier to extrapolate this way and may be warranted. But not with a total subpopulation where it’s nearly certain you will be affecting innocents.  

Why did it take me so long (some 14 years) to come to this conclusion?  The short answer is stubbornness indulging in the logic; but a longer explanation is probably called for -- at another time in the future (hopefully I won't wait another decade and a half!).