BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Differing nature of war (not essays against king or country but about creeds)

Warfare hasn’t changed because it is now a battle between creeds – that has often been the case in the past. The asymmetric warfare to which op refers is a direct result of the military hegemony of the US. To confuse criticism of taking a military approach – that bombs are not the answer in a battle of ideas – with material support for the other side hands them a victory. It’s worth remembering that the US won the battle of ideas with the Soviet Union by demonstrating its virtues, as the body count increases in the foray with Islam, attitudes are hardening on both sides as we see the worst of both. To take the one example given by Op, 39 ways to participate in Jihad – and this was at the heart of the prosecution. Google the term and you’ll come up with 590,000 returns, including full English translations and comment from respected scholars and journalists[i]. It is impossible to protect the principles of liberty and democracy by locking people up for expressing their opinions. As the UK’s former Lord Chief Justice Woolf, pointed out, it is inconceivable that terrorist acts could pose a danger to nation states comparable to WWII and yet the response of many governments has been to go further in the removal of basic rights than was the case during that conflict. [i] The New York Review of Books. David Cole. 39 ways to Limit Freedom of Speech. 19 April 2012.
‘Providing support’ must be considered to relate to implied moral support and justification

Tarek Mehanna was engaged in promoting a political viewpoint that may not be shared by many but is certainly shared by some. Among them other American citizens[i]. When did promoting a viewpoint in the land of free speech become a crime? While we may not like that a U.S. citizen sympathises with the objective of removing US soldiers from Afghanistan and believes this enough that he considers that military resistance may be necessary to get the Americans out it is not the case that this moral support provides physical support for such attacks, and it is unlikely that he would even have provided inspiration. Mehanna was lynched, he was a scapegoat created out of the paranoia created partly by events and partly by the actions of a US administration with a point to prove. [i] Guardian. Ibid.
Views of free speech in time of war (Japanese internment, American Communist party, etc.)

It is an interesting argument to suggest that the suppression of Mehanna’s rights is okay because it has not been as sweeping as the generalised internment of Japanese Americans or the insanity of the McCarthy trials. Op is basically arguing, “Look, it could have been far more brutal, so count yourselves lucky.” One cannot help but suspect that comes as very small consolation to Mehanna in his prison cell. We should remember that the United States is not at war as was the case in World War II, congress has not declared war since 1945, nor even is the United States in a struggle with a peer competitor as during World War II rather it is at most fighting a disparate band of terrorists, hardly a thread that justifies such large violations of rights.[i] [i] Bailey, Ronald, ‘How Scared of Terrorism Should You Be?’, reason.com, 6 September 2011, http://reason.com/archives/2011/09/06/how-scared-of-terrorism-should
One man’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist.

Nobody is suggesting that Mehanna planted a bomb – or even attempted to. His crime, if it deserves such a word is to hold an opinion and to have expressed it. That opinion was that current American military policy in the Muslim world is wrong and to suggest that those living there should be opposition to the major powers of the age attempting to impose their will, through force of arms, on a people in a different country. Such an opinion is not only shared by many – if not a majority – of commentators in the West but could easily have been voiced by Washington, Jefferson or Adams[i]. There are two fundamental differences between Mehanna and the Founding Fathers: firstly they went further and called for violent opposition, secondly they were wealthy and white. It may be tempting to argue, “But wait, they were also Americans” – no they weren’t they were subjects of the British Crown. One might be tempted to argue that they were born in North America, fine but Mehanna is a faithful son of Islam – like Washington, simply defending his birth right. Rather than recognising the similarities[ii] a court, sitting not that far from Concorde, site of the first battle of the American Revolutionary War, decided to tear up the Declaration of Independence, or at least its spirit and imprison a young man for the ideas in his head. Although the analogy with America’s fight for independence from Britain may seem far-fetched, it provided the core of Mehanna’s speech[iii] at his sentencing hearing although, apparently, too little affect. [i] To take one example, here’s a review of American Insurgents, American Patriots. Found here. [ii] Daily Mail (AP). Al Qaeda Terrorist from Wealthy Boston suburb given standing ovation by family as he starts 18-year prison sentence. 13 April 2012. [iii] Mehanna, Tarek, ‘Tarek’s powerful sentencing statement’, 12 April 2012, http://freetarek.wordpress.com/2012/04/12/tareks-powerful-sentencing-statement/
Innocent until proven Muslim

Judging people by their actions rather than what they may or may not have been thinking is a fairly fundamental tenet of liberty and seems to have been thrown aside with casual disregard in this case[i]. There needs to have been a goal in place for this to meaningfully be described as a conspiracy, there was not; and demonstrably not a goal of murdering Americans overseas, which he didn’t even mention. Instead the court has conflated expressing an opinion about national policy – an entirely legitimate activity according to both the first amendment (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”)[ii] and both statute and case law. As Carol Rose, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, declared: “It’s official. There is a Muslim exception to the First Amendment.”[iii] A huge amount of the commentary on this verdict, and the subsequent sentence, has focused on the belief that Mehanna was found guilty because of his religion[iv] [v] [vi]. Whatever the case serious concern has been expressed by jurors, Islamic groups and civil liberties organisations. Tarek Mehanna did not justify, take part in, orchestrate, fund, supply, encourage or plan an attack on US personnel. There is no case to answer. [i] This has not just been the case in the US. Attempts to mark online comment as seditious is a global phenomenon. Here’s an example from India. [ii] ‘Amendment I’, Cornell University Law School, http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment [iii] Vennochi, Joan, ‘Tarek Mehanna case puts First Amendment on trial’, The Boston Globe, 19 April 2012, http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/04/19/tarek-mehanna-case-puts-first-amendment-trial-fear-trumps-liberty-terror-trial/5UwcZHgnSAifLeuBIio9sM/story.html?camp=pm [iv] Truth Dig. Chris Hedges. First They Came For The Muslims. 16 April 2012. [v] Information Clearing House. Roqayah Chamseddin. And Then They Came For The Muslims. April 15 2012. [vi] The Huffington Post. Rachel Levinson-Waldman. The Narrowing of Tarek Mehanna’s Liberties has Consequences for Us All. 15 May 2012.
This is no different than political comment, etc.

Scholars, commentators and satirists[i] have pointed out the hypocrisy of current US strategy in the Islamic world. They have also pointed out that the only rational response to overwhelming American military superiority in terms of hardware is the kind of warfare being undertaken by insurgents from Bagdad to Kabul. None of them are in prison. Mainstream politicians have called for an immediate withdrawal of American troops and the claims emanating from the right of the Republican Party that doing so ‘gives succour to America’s enemies’ now sounds as shrill as they do bizarre. Yet none of them are in prison. Ministers of God, political activists and intellectuals have raised the issue of the loss of life among civilians in the Muslim world and the questionable justification of those losses on the grounds of national security. And yet they remain at liberty. America’s allies around the world have questioned the continued presence of US troops in the region and, in many cases, withdrawn their own - and–if removing troops from the fight is not aiding the enemy, it would be difficult to imagine what might be. Despite this, leaders of these nations are honoured guests when they visit the Whitehouse. There may well be those on the American Right who would happily imprison all of these groups but the reality is that they remain at large. For the sake of consistency, if nothing else, Tarek Mehanna should join them[ii]. [i] The Christian Science Monitor. Sahar Aziz. Punishing Muslims for free speech only helps Al Qaeda. 19 April 2012. [ii] The Guardian. Ross Caoputi. Tarek Mehanna: Punished for speaking truth to power. 16 April 2012.
Differing nature of war (not essays against king or country but about creeds)

In an unusual show of unity, most analysts are agreed that the wars of the 21st century will be markedly different from those that went before[i]. Clashes will be between civilisations and global perspectives fought with comparatively scant regard to national boundaries. Within this framework, the groups identified, broadly, as ‘Islam’ and ‘the West’[ii] seem to be lining up as the two main players – although this seems to be by default in the case of the West. In this regard, at least, Bush jr. was absolutely spot on with his ‘with us or against us’ assessment of the nature of modern conflict. Tarek Mehanna’s publications aren’t idle musings on political philosophy, they are practical suggestions about how his readers can involve themselves in a war against the US and its allies – advice given in his translation of 39 Ways to Participate in Jihad - a war between a sexist, reactionary, mediaeval theocratic mindset and those peoples who seek to defend the liberal and democratic principles of the Enlightenment. One of the reasons highlighted by the prosecution was that Mehanna and others like him don’t need to recruit a regiment or resource a battalion. The Terrorist atrocities that have shaken the world in recent years, 9.11, 7.7, Madrid and the rest, have involved in total a few dozen people. One inspirational individual, as the judge in this case noted, is quite capable of creating bloodshed and murder with a very small following. Mehanna was and remains in no doubt about what side he is on. Prop’s only argument seems to be that he wasn’t a very effective agent. In response to which; firstly, thank God and, secondly, it would be an odd way to fight a war to wait until a massacre was committed before doing anything about it. [i] Neumayer, Eric and Plümper, Thomas (2009) International terrorism and the clash of civilizations. British journal of political science, 39 (4). pp. 711-734. [ii] Although politicians have been at pains to stress that the battle with Islam per se many scholars have used the terms. This view was codified in Samuel P. Huntington’s book Clash of Civilisation in 1993. An article that preceded its publication (Foreign Affairs. Samuel Huntington. Clash of Civilizations? Summer 1993) can be found here.
‘Providing support’ must be considered to relate to implied moral support and justification

There is far more to aiding an enemy of the state than supplying them with armaments or funding. Propagandists and other saboteurs of the mind[i] have always been seen as a very real threat to national security, especially in times of war. To present the actions of Tarek Mehanna as anything other than endorsing and giving encouragement to those seeking to harm US personnel overseas takes an unusually determined form of niaivity. He may have stopped short of posting instructions for bomb making online but he expressly stated that Muslims should resist the invasion of their lands by non-Muslim invaders. Proposition has been strangely silent on how, exactly, that could be done without the use of an AK47 or an IED. Mehanna’s remarks are clearly a call to take up arms against US troops, presumably with the intention of killing them. That is, by definition, to be part of a conspiracy, along with his readers, to kill US citizens overseas – the crime with which he was charged and convicted. [i] Lawfare. Benjamin Wittes. Peter Margulies Responds to David Cole. 21 April 2012.
Views of free speech in time of war (Japanese internment, American Communist party, etc.)

Nations act to defend themselves in times of war. Frequently those actions do not represent the highest ideals against which that nation may wish to be judged but they are an unpleasant reality of survival. It is demonstrably true that there have been Jihadi cells in western nations and that Western troops are at risk from their allies and enemies in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Stopping them before they act seems vastly preferable to the deaths of dozens or hundreds of civilians and military personnel. America’s actions against Japanese civilians in WWII or Communist sympathizers during the Cold War may fall short of the ideals one might hope for but they ensured the survival of those ideals against the threats posed firstly by Nazism and then by Communism. In the face of Islamofascism, the response of governments in the West has been comparatively restrained when set alongside those earlier periods. However, where there is a demonstrable threat to a nations civilian or military personnel, it would be a dereliction of duty not to take action. Mehanna’s conviction and imprisonment was a relatively modest act considering the threat – and far more humane than what has been meted out in return by those he supported against US and other citizens overseas – without the niceties of due process or the outrage of the liberal press.
One man’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist.

Prop’s argument is an intellectual sleight of hand. Ignoring the fact that the Founding Fathers and Islamic extremists are fighting for diametrically opposed goals (a reactionary theocracy versus a revolutionary democracy) they are doing so in a different world. A world where information and perception are tools of war and where the structure of the nation-state has changed so dramatically that the expectations of citizens of a particular nation are wholly different from those of the late seventeen-hundreds[i]. The simple reality is that Mehanna sided with people who would, quite happily, murder his neighbors – regardless of their views on US foreign policy. [i] Fox News Website. Mark Dubowitz. The Real Terror War is on the Internet. 16 March 2010.
Innocent until proven Muslim

Mehanna clearly expressed sympathy with enemies of the US. His actions since his return from Yemen put the lie to the idea that he wished to pursue legal training and suggest a rather more explicitly jihadi purpose. He has published documentation that explicitly encourages Jihad in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen where, as he knew, the US and her troops would be the target of that holy war. As proposition has pointed out, we live in an age where the musings of an individual can be broadcast a great deal further than an eighteenth century pamphlet. His publications gave not only practical suggestions for the participation of others but also a moral justification and all from inside ‘the Great Satan’ – the actions of fifth columnists and traitors through the ages.
Remittances reduce poverty

There has been a lot of concern that aid, particularly from governments and international organisations, does not always help reduce poverty; it might simply create dependence, or it prevents local enterprise. Dambisa Moyo points out that “Between 1970 and 1998, when aid flows to Africa were at their peak, poverty in Africa rose from 11% to a staggering 66%”.[1] Remittances on the other hand can be very beneficial; they provide the money needed to start enterprises, and they are showing that the community is not dependent as its members have taken the initiative to go and find work. Remittances have a statistically significant impact on reducing poverty. In 2005 the World Bank suggested that a 10% increase in per capita international remittances will lead to a 3.5% decline in the share of people living in poverty.[2] Governments should therefore change from the method that is failing to one that is more successful at reducing poverty. [1] Edemariam, Aida, ‘Everybody knows it doesn’t work’, The Guardian, 19 February 2009 [2] Adams, Richard H., Pagem John, ‘Do International Migration and Remittances Reduce Poverty in Developing Countries?’, World Development, Vol.33 No.10, 2005, pp.1645-1669, p.1660
Money won’t go to where it is needed most.

Aid goes where it is needed, remittances don’t. Development aid is able to be focused on those who need it most, the poorest, those who are unable to grow their own crops etc. Sub-Saharan Africa gets $28bln in ODA or 20.9% of aid[1] whereas only $60bln or 11.5% of remittances goes to Africa.[2] Clearly therefore Africa would be proportionally losing out. It is notable that it is middle income countries that get most remittances, the per capital level of remittances received tends to increase until that country has an income of about $2200 before falling back.[3] There would be a similar problem with directing aid within nations. Remittances will go to the family of the person who is sending the money regardless of whether they really need this extra money. It is likely that many of the very poorest will be those who do not have family members who have been able to migrate for work and send back money, these people would be left in a much worse position without ODA. [1] ‘Development: Aid to developing countries falls because of global recession’, OECD [2] ‘African Migrants Could Save US$4 Billion Annually On Remittance Fees, Finds World Bank’, The World Bank, 28 January 2013 [3] Julca, Alex, ‘Can remittances support development finance in developing countries?’ un.org, 2012, p.11
Remittances won’t be focused on development work

Official development aid is spent on projects that will help encourage long term growth for poor countries, for example building schools and hospitals. These benefit the education and health of the recipient country. Remittances on the other hand are most likely to be spent on day to day needs such as food and clothing.[1] The money may also be spent on schooling and health but it would be on the individual level rather than infrastructure so does not increase the overall capacity of the country. [1] Julca, Alex, ‘Can remittances support development finance in developing countries?’ un.org, 2012, p.8
Encourages a brain drain

Any change from aid to remittances is going to create a brain drain because it will encourage working abroad. If developed countries governments are going to provide tax breaks or top up money for remittances then it becomes more attractive to work abroad and send back remittances because they can earn and send back more. The brain drain is the migration of skilled workers from developing countries to more developed countries. This happens because the more skilled the worker the more in demand their skills are and the more likely they are to know about and have the ability to move to work elsewhere. This is a concerns developing countries because it means their investment in the future; through education often benefits developed countries rather than themselves. Africa for example lost 60,000 professionals between 1985 and 1990.[1] In total Africa has lost a third of its human capital. This loss of human capital will mean that the countries affected do not have the capacity to take advantage of the increase in remittances by building new businesses. [1] Oyelere, Ruth Uwaifo, ‘Brain Drain, Waste or Gain? What We Know About The Kenyan Case’, Journal of Global Initiatives, Vol.2 No.2, 2007, pp.113-129, pp.113-114
Money won’t go to where it is needed most.

Of course not all aid is ending, it will simply fall to aid agencies and charities to provide for the very poorest rather than governments. These aid agencies will no longer need to help out those who are getting remittances so will have more to spend on the poorest. There may even be an increase in individual donations in rich countries to provide aid when individuals realise their tax dollars are no longer being spend on aid so they may feel the responsibility to do something themselves, something that giving through the government shields us from.
Remittances won’t be focused on development work

This is to ignore the influence of remittances on the market. Of course ODA may build a school, but it is just as likely to make something that the donor country believes the recipient needs when it does not in fact need that investment. Money being sent home and then invested in an individual’s information will help signal to the market that there is greater need for educational facilities and so someone will build a school when there is enough demand.
Encourages a brain drain

While developed countries may be making it more financially attractive to come to them to work and send back remittances in practice they are unlikely to actually allow more immigrants into their countries. Secondly the brain drain is not all negative for the countries concerned; migrants may return home with new skills, and considerably more money to invest and create new businesses. It is also likely that many of those who go abroad would not have found jobs at home, particularly if highly skilled as the developing country has few jobs available for people with their skills, so would have been a drain rather than a benefit to the economy no matter their skill level. It should also be remembered that the costs of educating these skilled workers will be paid all the faster due to increases in remittances – a study of Ghanaian migrants found that the cost of education of emigrants was paid 5.6 times over by remittances.[1] [1] Economics focus, ‘Drain or gain’, The Economist, 26 May 2011
Remittances creates freedom of choice for individuals

Changing from ODA to Remittances is good for freedom of choice in two ways. First tax breaks and other incentives will mean that migrants have more money. It will clearly be up to the migrant to decide if they want to or can afford to send their money home; they can decide how much they want to send, when they want to end it, how they want to send it etc.  At the other end it will be up to the individual recipient to decide how they want to spend the money received. Secondly it is good for the freedom of choice of the taxpayer. At the moment they are having their choice taken away from them as they have their own money being spent by the government on someone else; foreign countries. The individual taxpayer sees none of the benefit of this money and often they don’t like paying so much aid, 59% of Americans support cutting aid.[1] [1] Newport, Frank, and Saad, Lydia, ‘Americans Oppose Cuts in Education, Social Security, Defense’, Gallup Politics, 26 January 2011