Meanwhile in Yemen...

...while we are making such great progress in our curing-terrorism-through-torture program, a Yemeni judge, Hamoud al-Hitar, seems to be making converts to non-violence through religious debate. Al-Hitar heads Yemen's Theological Dialogue Committee, which sends senior Muslim clerics into prisons to debate the merits (or lack thereof) of terrorism with prisoners. It's a sort of Ben Franklin meets The Christian Science Monitor reports:

Seated amid stacks of Korans and religious texts, Hitar explains that his system is simple. He invites militants to use the Koran to justify attacks on innocent civilians and when they cannot, he shows them numerous passages commanding Muslims not to attack civilians, to respect other religions, and fight only in self-defense.

For example, he quotes: "Whoever kills a soul, unless for a soul, or for corruption done in the land--it is as if he had slain all mankind entirely. And, whoever saves one, it is as if he had saved mankind entirely." He uses the passage to bolster his argument against bombing Western targets in Yemen--attacks he says defy the Koran. And, he says, the Koran says under no circumstances should women and children be killed.

If, after weeks of debate, the prisoners renounce violence they are released and offered vocational training courses and help to find jobs.

Though one wonders if this is just an iron fist in a velvet glove situation, where prisoners say whatever they need to in order to escape punishment, it actually seems to be working. Hitar claims that there have been no terrorist attacks in Yemen since the first set of dialogues, and he has been invited to France, Germany, and London to speak about his successes.

It's worth noting that while theological discussion is making inroads in reducing Yemen's struggle with terrorism, it doesn't appear to be effective in reducing animosity toward America, according to the IPS News Agency:

"U.S. mistakes in the region may inflame Muslim anger and create more extremism and hatred," political analyst Mohammad al-Sabri told IPS. "We cannot convince militants that America is not against Islam while we see the U.S. forces inhumanely abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, and unlimited U.S. support for Israelis against Palestinians."

Sheikh Haza'a al-Maswari, Islah party member of parliament declared at Friday prayers recently that "we cannot tell militants don't terrorise Americans, or don't attack their interests. Those who plant hatred will harvest hatred."

Perhaps needless to say, this is yet another news item that has been buried under the avalanche of reporting about Michael Jackson and Brad and Jennifer. As I said below in the post about the Stop Government Propaganda Act, I think this is one of the most fruitful functions of blogs: writing about neglected stories that belong above the fold. I am certainly given to hand-wringing harangues about the well reported news, and I'm not saying that's a bad thing. We are the culture's smoke alarm at this point. What I am saying is that I think sometimes we can get a bit caught up in the buzz--wanting to talk about what everyone is talking about. Let's not stop there. Let's keep our commitment to unearth and talk about the stuff no one is talking about. (Don't mistake this for a finger-shaking post--most blogs I read do this very thing--it's more of a "keep up the good work" idea I'm trying to express.)