The Moussaoui Paradox

 
“All Cretans are liars.”

Epimenides’ famous paradox, a version of which burnt out the circuits of an android in a Star Trek episode, creates a non-resolvable logical contradiction, since Epimenides was a Cretan.

Can something similar be said of Al Qaeda?

Reading through the accounts of Zacarias Moussaoui’s sentencing trial, I found this little snippet in the CNN report:

[Judge Leonie Brinkema] then told Moussaoui, “You must promise to the court that you will tell the truth.”

Moussaoui responded, “Yes, I can.”

Prosecutors have said Moussaoui, 37, a French citizen of Moroccan heritage, deserves to die, saying that if he had not lied after his arrest, investigators could have uncovered the September 11 conspiracy.

When Zerkin asked Moussaoui why he lied, Moussaoui replied, “Because I am al Qaeda.”

“The Prophet says, ‘war is deceit,’” Moussaoui later told prosecutor Robert Spencer. “You’re allowed to lie for jihad. You’re allowed any technique to defeat your enemy.”

At last we have the doctrine of taqiyya in the public record, in a federal trial transcript, and spread throughout the MSM.

Honestly, do we have to pay any more attention to the press spokesmen for Hamas? To the Iranian foreign minister? Or, say, to the Saudi ambassador?

Cretans, one and all.

Notice that when he was told that he must tell the truth, Moussaoui said, “Yes, I can.”

Is that simply a syntactic error of a non-native English speaker? Or a distinction like the meaning of “is”?

In any case, we have a very clear statement of Islamist doctrine. We ignore it at our peril.

You’re allowed to lie for jihad. You’re allowed any technique to defeat your enemy.

The only trouble is this: because a Cretan said it, it can’t be true!