To the Editor:
While Ben Taylor, in his op-ed "Mixed Message on Iraq" (The Dartmouth, March 30), was right in calling for greater efforts to engage the hearts and minds of ordinary Muslims in the Middle East, his main assertion that it was a "blunder" to close down a radical newspaper in Baghdad was ridiculous.
Let's review the reason why Al Hawza was ordered to halt its production for 60 days -- incitement of violence. When a paper falsely claims that a US missile killed 50 Iraqis (when in fact it was a terrorist car bombing) to lend credibility to its repeated calls for insurgency, that paper has abused and forfeited its right to freedom of the press. Taylor argued that freedom of information is the foundation of democracy, and that papers like Al Hawza must enjoy the same freedom of the press as The New York Times. But incitement of violence is not a permissible form of expression, both in the United States and in Iraq. Imagine if the Times had called for the blood of American soldiers, and a few days later, five Marines were viciously assaulted and killed, as was the case with Al Hawza. Shutting it down for 60 days would be the least that should be done.
What Taylor and the Iraqis who protested the closing of the paper do not understand is that freedom is not absolute, that in a democracy, all is not permitted. Shouting fire in a crowded theater isn't protected by the First Amendment, and neither is broadcasting messages that incite and cause bloodshed. If Taylor really wants to impose the same standards that we impose upon ourselves upon the Iraqis, then he would realize that the closing of Al Hawza was perfectly justified by protecting the United States servicemen and women currently in Iraq as well as the Iraqi media from poisonous rumors of a publication not worth the paper it was printed on.
