It is a pleasant surprise to see the State Department’s anti-ISIS social media campaign, “Think Again Turn Away” saluting Ayaan Hirsi Ali, one of the bravest voices against Islamic radicalism — going back to her 2004 film with Theo Van Gogh, “Submission” — and a friend of National Review.

Naturally, some on the Left, such as Kate Knibbs of Gizmodo, are objecting:

Ayaan Hirsi Ali espouses a worldview where Islam is different from other religions, in that it is an inherently violent “cult of death.” She supports the proposed ban of face veils in France, and of minarets in Switzerland. In 2007, she called for the West to defeat Islam using military force…
Celebrating Ali through the State Department’s official anti-ISIS Twitter account is a dense gesture. If the people running it believe in promoting a commenter who rejects Islam as essentially corrupt will do anything other than further alienate the people it seeks to reach, then the State Department’s propaganda apparatus is even more blinkered than it initially seemed.

We can argue how much the “Think Again, Turn Away” social media campaign can really accomplish. But if we’re going to make the effort to discourage young Muslim men from joining ISIS, we can’t rule a figure like Ali as too controversial to include in the discussion. The objection here is basically instructing the State Department to make the case against Islamic extremism, but don’t cite critics who are too harsh, or anyone who turned away from the faith because of it!

In fact, if spotlighting a woman who knows firsthand of the brutality committed in the name of the faith makes young men less likely to resist ISIS recruitment, then that’s a pretty vivid illustration of the problem, isn’t it?