Loose lips sink ships

In 1941 and 1942, the Allies were losing hundreds of ships and millions of tons of cargo to German U-boats in the North Atlantic. With England at risk of starvation, the United States faced the real prospect of losing the war in Europe before even having a chance to fight it. The massive Allied mobilization of resources to fight the Nazi submarine threat included the civilian population, which was urged to keep secrets about troop movements and departure times secret. "Keep mum" and "loose lips sink ships" became the order of the day.

Now as angry crowds swarm U.S. embassies throughout North Africa and the Middle East, it is a different kind of talk that is putting American lives at risk. The slandering of a great global religion, one with over a billion adherents worldwide including millions of our family members, friends and neighbors here at home, is helping to jeopardize the nascent democratic movements of the Arab Spring. Eleven years after the carnage of Sept. 11, rolling back the threat from Al Qaeda and its offshoots still requires limiting the appeal and ability of extremists to recruit new members and find sympathizers in Muslim nations worldwide. As we learned once again this week, the disrespect, mockery and outright hate talk towards Islam by some in the United States is making that task much, much harder.

As both President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton adamantly declared this week, there is no justification ever for the attacks and mob violence that claimed the lives of four Americans this week. But Americans don't just have free speech rights; they also have duties to their nation and each other. So when ideologues here produce and distribute a film clip denigrating Islam and its prophet, when they desecrate its holy book and holy places, and mock the practices and practitioners of the faith, they aren't just betraying the precious American value of religious freedom and tolerance. They are betraying their fellow Americans.

But you don't have to take Hillary Clinton's word for it that the video at the center of the recent unrest is "disgusting and reprehensible" with the "deeply cynical purpose to denigrate a great religion and provoke rage." You can instead, as conservatives are so fond of demanding, listen to the generals.

Take, for example, Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey. As USA Today reported, General Dempsey personally called Florida Pastor and provocateur Terry Jones to request that he withdraw his support of an anti-Islam online film that may have triggered riots in Egypt and Libya:

"The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, spoke by phone this morning with Pastor Terry Jones. In the brief call, Gen. Dempsey expressed his concerns over the nature of the film, the tensions it will inflame and the violence it will cause. He asked Mr. Jones to consider withdrawing his support for the film."

This isn't the first time the top brass has worried that incendiary rhetoric and inflammatory actions would literally get Americans killed. As the Wall Street Journal documented in an April 2011 story titled "Petraeus Says Quran Burning Endangers War Effort," the U.S. Commander in Afghanistan David Petraeus called Jones' plans to burn copies of the Koran "hateful, extremely disrespectful and enormously intolerant." Petraeus not only met with Afghan President Karzai in private to calm the situation, but declared in public:

"Every security force leader's worst nightmare is being confronted by essentially a mob, if you will, especially one that can be influenced by individuals that want to incite violence, who want to try to hijack passions, in this case, perhaps understandable passions. Obviously it's an additional serious security challenge in a country that faces considerable security challenges."

And when it came to the considerable security challenges faced by the United States in its struggle against Al Qaeda, there was one point where Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama were in absolute agreement. "The United States is not, and never will be," President Obama told the Turkish parliament in April 2009, "at war with Islam." If that sounds familiar, it should. After all, President Bush made the same proclamation repeatedly, beginning in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

(Continue reading below the fold.)