Anytime you have the misfortune of hearing somebody start a sentence off with “I’m not racist, but…,” then you know some quasi-racist comment is probably on its way. The same thing could be said if “racist” were interchanged with “anti-Semitic” or “sexist” instead. Most people are familiar and unimpressed with these kinds of antics.
During an interview on The Glenn Beck Program in June 2009 author Jonah Goldberg was asked to describe what kind of “nightmare” is happening today – referring toliberal fascism, which happens to be the title of his book. Goldberg couldn’t help but start his answer off by saying, “I’m not calling Barack Obama a Hitler and I’m not calling him Nazis and all the rest. But, you know…”
I bring this up because portraying liberals as fascists or, more specifically Nazis is increasingly becoming a problem for Fox News. In fact it sparked a coalition of several hundred rabbis to issue a statement in last Thursday’s Wall Street Journal requesting that Glenn Beck “be sanctioned by Fox News for his completely unacceptable attacks on a survivor of the Holocaust.”
The ad was a reference to a three-day series that Glenn Beck devoted to attacking the notable liberal and philanthropist George Soros. During that pathetic broadcast, Beck said that Soros “used to go around with this anti-Semite and deliver papers to the Jews and confiscate their property and then ship them off… It was frightening. Here’s a Jewish boy helping send the Jews to the death camps.”
As it turns out George Soros, a Hungarian-born Jew, has spoken publicly about escaping the Nazi death camps when he was fourteen by posing as a member of a Christian family and that his protector’s job was to confiscate property from Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary. While it is not shocking to hear Glenn Beck exaggerate the facts to an absurd conclusion, even Beck would have to realize that accusing a Holocaust survivor of sending Jews to death camps is a bit more unconscionable than casually spinning the daily news.
After the tragic shootings that recently took the lives of six Americans in Arizona, President Obama’s moving speech received praise from both Democrats and Republicans for encouraging “that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not that wounds.” It’s hard to see how Beck thinks the country will be better off if those millions of Americans who watch his show associate Democrats and liberals with Nazis and fascists.
This strange affinity for portraying liberals as fascists is not just unique to Glenn Beck within the Fox News Network however. Last November Fox News chief executive Roger Ailes called NPR executives Nazis for firing Juan Williams, although Ailes eventually apologized to the Anti-Defamation League. Even Fox host Bill O’Reilly, who unlike Glenn Beck can boast of having graduated from college, falls victim to unnecessarily using the F-word. During a 2009 interview with distinguished author and intellectual Richard Dawkins, a man who I greatly admire, O’Reilly accuses Dawkins of fascism for advocating that religion be kept out of the science classroom.
The misuse, and indeed overuse, of fascism and Nazi labels on liberals is more than just annoying for those who know when and where to appropriately apply the word. Insinuating that the current administration operates similar to the Third Reich and falsely accusing people of sending Jews to death camps are what I consider to be non-starters for civil political discourse. With that being said I encourage Fox News, if it is serious about being a real news organization, to listen to the rabbis and sanction Glenn Beck.
When asked at his inaugural press conference to comment on the Congressional Budget Office’s prediction that repealing health care overhaul would expand the deficit by $230 billion, Speaker of the House John Boehner curtly replied, “[The] CBO is entitled to their opinion.” With this suggestion that the CBO’s guess is as good as any, Boehner went on to discuss the Republicans own predictions from their report entitled, “Obamacare: A Budget-Busting, Job-Killing Health Care Law.” It appears now that arguing the economic effects of Obamacare is just a matter of which think-tank political parties obtain their information from.
Among the sources cited in that report commissioned by Republicans to counter the CBO analysis is the National Federation of Independent Business, which projects that 1.6 million jobs could be lost between 2009 and 2014 as a result of health care overhaul. However this study was based on a hypothetical employer mandate that bears little resemblance to what was actually passed, as a recent article entitled “A Job-Killing Law?” on FactCheck.org points out. Furthermore the NFIB is not a neutral source. The federation cosponsored an ad with the Chamber of Commerce criticizing health care legislation in 2009 and is currently backing repeal of the new law.
Another independent study was done by The Lewin Group, which is a national health care and human services consulting firm. Their analysis shows 150,000 to 300,000 jobs lost, all minimum-wage or near minimum-wage positions. However this does not account for increases in jobs in other sectors. All in all, senior Vice President and health care expert John Sheils told FactCheck.org that he estimates a “small net job loss.” However this study is not mentioned in the Republicans report. In fact, FactCheck.org asked Sheils if he knew of any other nonpartisan figures on the law’s impact on jobs besides the CBO’s estimate, and he did not.
While Republicans are also entitled to their opinion, these “Budget-Busting, Job Killing” claims raise suspicion. What is striking about Boehner’s response noted at the beginning of this article is that he is dismissing the very institution that Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele cited favorably eight times in his speech arguing against health care last July. Now that the CBO’s reevaluation of health care contains unfavorable information for the Republicans, the CBO itself has apparently become an unfavorable source.
Given how serious Republicans say they are about cutting the deficit and fixing the economy, the misleading claims made in their report suggest that the health care debate has little to do with what effects it will have on the economy. This does not surprise me as many Republican politicians disagree with universal health care on principle alone. Many might also point out that misleading claims regarding health care are not unique to just one party, and rightly so. But this only strengthens the point.
(This article appeared in the TCU DailySkiff newspaper on January 14, 2011.)
Aside from confusion there was also a sigh of relief from many Catholic reformers and groups working to combat HIV when Pope Benedict XVI stated last week: “There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, like when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization.” This caught many by surprise, as it contradicts, or at least appears to contradict the hard-line anti-birth-control stance taken by the Catholic Church since Pope Paul VI – speaking about the lawfulness of birth control – stated in 1968 that “it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it.” Allowing a male prostitute to use a condom is definitely a step in the right direction to preventing the spread of HIV, but there’s no need to congratulate the Pope for modifying a stance that has long been grounded on neglect for reality.
The Pope might as well have been speaking exclusively about condoms for prostitutes in Africa, as most Western European and American countries have relatively low HIV and AIDS rates and enjoy the legal distribution of condoms. Some even enjoy the legal profession of prostitution such as in Germany, the Netherlands and areas of Nevada in the United States. Since the AIDS epidemic in Africa has become increasingly prevalent, it’s about time the Catholic Church reevaluate the effectiveness of its Condoms Are Evil – Abstinence Only approach. Caroline Nenguke, spokeswoman for South Africa’s largest grassroots organization fighting for the rights of people with HIV and AIDS, said, “This news is long overdue, and if the Pope, as a church leader and leader of opinion, had said this a long time ago it would have saved lives.”
There is still confusion as to what the Pope meant by his recent comments, and whether or not anything will actually change. It was only last year when Pope Benedict XVI received unprecedented criticism from European governments and international organizations for telling reporters on his way to Africa that condoms would not resolve the AIDs problem, but in fact make it worse. This of course directly contradicts all available evidence on the subject and further contradicts the statement the Pope made last week. If the Pope still believes condoms are supposedly exacerbating the HIV epidemic, how could there be instances when wearing a condom is the first step in the direction of a moralization?
There is no need to bother deciphering what exactly the Pope meant by his comments last week or whether or not the Catholic Church is changing its stance on birth control. Most people given the choice already ignore what the Pope has to say about birth control. Studies suggest that as many a 96 percent of Catholic American women between 15-44 years of age have used some form of birth control according to a 2002 survey by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. And who can blame them? Hopefully the Pope’s comments encourage more distribution of condoms in Africa; however, nobody needed to wait for the Pope to give the Green Light.
(This article appeared in the TCU DailySkiff newspaper on December 1 2010)
Noble though it may be, an oppressive dictator in and of itself does not necessitate invading another country. Such a feeble argument would never capture, or has ever captured, substantial public support without demonstrating that there is also a grave threat at stake. In making the case for warring with Iraq, the Bush Administration pleaded vigorously that weapons of mass destruction existed; that Iraq had ties to al-Qaeda; and that if America did not invade as soon as possible it might be too late. It was only after all these accusations had been conclusively disproven that war supporters bothered discussing Saddam Hussein’s “bad guy” image. The evidence regarding the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, however, was always controversial at best and dishonest at worst.
According to a Washington Post article entitled “Hussein’s Prewar Ties to al-Qaeda Discounted”, the Central Intelligence Agency had concluded as early as 2002 – the year before the war began – that the relationship between al-Qaeda and the Iraqi regime was more resemblant to “two organizations trying to feel out or exploit each other” rather than cooperate operationally. The report also describes Iraqi training on weapons of mass destruction as “episodic, sketchy, or not corroborated in other channels.”
None of this fazed the Bush Administration though. In the two years following September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush and seven top officials in the administration made at least 935 false statements about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein according to a report by the non-partisan Center for Public Integrity entitled “False Pretenses.” This proved to be more than enough to get the majority of Americans to support the war.
In the State of the Union Address from January 2002, President Bush, referring to Iraq, stated: “The United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the most destructive weapons.” When applied correctly, the Bush Doctrine is actually quite agreeable. Had the war actually served some strategic objective, it might have been forgotten, or at least forgiven, that it took quite a bit of disingenuous statements to achieve such an incidental outcome. The fact that the Bush Doctrine is no longer being applied where it is needed, however, suggests the contrary.
As anybody who watches the news should know, Iran is everything Iraq was not. The Islamic Republic is not only the largest state-sponsor of terrorism, but also one to three years away from producing a nuclear weapon as predicted recently by Secretary of State Robert Gates. Unlike the evidence regarding the “threat” posed by Saddam Hussein, virtually no public figure or nation denies the Iranian nuclear program, except for Iran itself. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad not only denies the Holocaust, but has suggested on multiple occasions that the future existence of Israel is not a sure thing. This all begs the question: Where have all the war-hawks gone? The most severe form of action I have seen argued is an airstrike against Iranian nuclear reactors, but this is rather coy compared to the insinuations by the Bush Administration that there would be mushroom clouds over American cities if a full-on war with Iraq was not started immediately.
Obviously very few people think America can afford to go to war with Iran. If the United States had not spent the previous seven years fighting in Iraq, which included a three trillion dollar price tag, an estimated 10$ increase in the price-per-barrel of oil and the lives of over 4000 American soldiers as a current Washington Post article entitled “The True Cost of the Iraq War” calculates, then things might be different. Instead the United States managed to remove an evil, but essentially harmless, dictator who beforehand placed a significant check on the power of a potentially greater threat in neighboring Iran.
When then presidential-candidate Barack Obama stated in 2008 a willingness to meet with hostile foreign leaders, many Republicans accused him of being naïve. Unless Republicans start beating the war drum again, this appears to be more practical than previously thought. Americans should keep in mind that President Obama never supported the Iraq War. This might make a difference at the midterm elections in eight weeks, when Republicans will assuredly continue to accuse him for all our nation’s problems.
(This article appeared in the TCU DailySkiff newspaper on September 23 2010)
A July investigative report from The Washington Post entitled “Top Secret America” detailed a problem with American intelligence. The investigation explains that in this post-9/11 world, the response to terrorist threats has been to expand the number of private intelligence agencies to the point that the intelligence community has become “so large, so unwieldy, and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.”
Perhaps it is a good problem to have too many intelligence agencies rather than too few, but why invest in so many intelligence agencies that do the same thing? For example, the 51 federal organizations and military commands that track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks.
Unfortunately, intelligence problems are not a new phenomenon in America. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book “The Looming Tower: al-Qaida and the Road to 9/11,” author Lawrence Wright detailed the many problems that hindered intelligence gathering prior to Sept. 11. Chief among these problems included mistrust between agencies like the FBI and CIA that led to “institutional warfare.” For example, in 1998 &- two years after Osama bin Laden declared war on the United States &- CIA operatives cloned a laptop computer that belonged to a member of al-Jihad which contained al-Qaida organizational charts and a roster of al-Jihad members in Europe. The CIA refused to turn over this document, also known by some as “the Rosetta Stone of al-Qaida,” to the FBI.
There was a fundamental institutional conflict between the two agencies: The FBI wanted to obtain evidence to capture and convict Osama bin Laden, whereas the CIA simply wanted to kill him. How nice it would have been for either of these two goals to be accomplished.
One of the benefits of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has been the lack of successful attacks by terrorists inside of the United States. Under the pressure of the American and international forces fighting in the Middle East, al-Qaida and other terrorist networks have had to rely on less-qualified and less-skilled individual jihadists to carry out attacks. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the infamous “Underpants Bomber,” failed to blow up an international airliner headed to Detroit on Dec. 25, 2009, not because intelligence officials prevented him from boarding the plane, but because of a failure of operation. Faisal Shahzad, also known as the “Times Square Bomber,” failed to blow up a self-made car bomb in Times Square.
In both these situations, more private intelligence companies and, consequently, more bureaucracy for important information to filter through do not seem reasonable solutions. In fact, the National Security Agency had intercepted communications between Abdulmutallab and Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Yemenite who had contacts with two of the 9/11 hijackers and a U.S. Army psychiatrist located in Fort Hood, well before Abdulmutallab boarded the plane heading towards Detroit.
So the question is this: Has the American intelligence community, large enough as it is already, proved that more private intelligence companies are a good thing and worth the billions of dollars being invested into them? Prior to 9/11, the FBI and CIA were reluctant to share information with one another for fear of compromising their different goals. Recent terrorist attempts suggest that the members of the intelligence community are still struggling to share relevant information with one another, or at least connect the dots on their own.
(This article appeared in the TCU DailySkiff newspaper on September 21, 2010)
It certainly does not take a person of extraordinary intellectual capability to notice that having an International Burn the Koran Day on the ninth anniversary since 9/11 is more than just a bad idea. To my knowledge, there is no institution, public figure, or church other than the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida that supports this event. Thus, I’ll trust the reader does not need an explanation of why burning Korans is a bad way to spend his or her Saturday evening. Unfortunately there have also been other, more violent forms of anti-Muslim crime across the country lately.
As reported in a recent article by Associated Press writer Mark Sherman, the following incidents, among others, took place between July and August: a Muslim cab driver in New York City had his face and throat slashed in a suspected hate crime; arson at the site of a future mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee; and a fire and graffiti at the Dar El-Emam Islamic Center in Arlington, Texas. This recent trend of anti-Muslim acts is a dangerous, and more importantly, an ineffective way to address concerns with Islam and will only aggravate Muslim – American tensions.
Not too long ago Colin Powell, a Republican and Secretary of State during the Bush Administration, made a beautiful point to the members of his party who liked to suggest that Barack Obama is a Muslim. The following is a quote by Powell from a 2008 interview on Meet the Press:
“The really right answer is, “What if he is?” Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion.”
Colin Powell was right to notice that the less-than-amicable rhetoric tends to come from a particular political party. An interesting difference between Republican reactions to the Ground Zero mosque and the International Burn a Koran Day – both overwhelmingly unpopular amongst Republicans – was the hysteria over the former compared to the nonchalant condemnation of the latter. Many outspoken Republicans treated the controversy over the Ground Zero mosque as if it were a national security crisis. The greatest example is Republican Newt Gingrich, who mistakenly compared mosque supporters to Nazis. Thus far, Gingrich has not commented on the Florida church’s decision to burn Korans, which – if it really needs to be said – is more in sync with Nazi fascism than a project designed to promote “multi-cultural and multi-faith understanding.” (Quote from www.cordobainitiative.org)
The status of Muslims in America should not be a matter of indifference. As I pointed out in my last article, the more America demonstrates a tolerance of Muslims, the harder it will be for terrorist organizations to attract sympathizers and recruit members. One should be glad to know that the approximately seven million Muslims living in America enjoy incomes and educational levels that are higher than the American average. Compare this to the status of Muslims in France. Pulitzer Prize winning author Laurence Wright points out in a lecture at Princeton University that Muslims in France comprise of less than 10 percent of the population, but represent 50 percent of the prisoners. Does anyone think incarcerating Muslims is a good way to reduce Islamic extremism?
General David Petraeus already warned Reverend Terry Jones that burning Korans could not only “endanger our troops,” but also “undermine the effort to accomplish the critical [war] mission.” It doesn’t seem that this warning will stop a small church in Florida from hosting an International Burn the Koran Day, but hopefully it will make rational people think about the consequences of the recent anti-Muslim trend in this country. Americans, and especially Republicans, should immediately stop flirting with the idea of being at war with Islam, or even Muslim-Americans. It’s not enough to just condemn a bigot like Reverend Terry Jones. It also requires an end to comparing mosque supporters to Nazis, insinuations that a Muslim President is inherently a bad thing, and so forth. Otherwise, such rhetoric will only add fuel to the fire.
Although it receives even less media attention than the two wars in the Middle East, the “War of Ideas” – the struggle over the ideology that gives rise to Islamist terrorism – is essential to winning the War on Terrorism. The United States is arguably losing this war. William Rosenau, a Doctor of Political Science and professor at Georgetown University, states in the McGraw-Hill Homeland Security Handbook that it is clear to most informed observers that the United States has so far failed to conduct anything approaching an effective counter ideological campaign against al-Qaeda. Rather than fighting a perpetual “War on Terrorism” overseas, it would be in America’s best interest to take advantage of peaceful conflicts within its own borders to fight its enemies.
America missed its last opportunity to strike a blow against Islamic extremists with almost unanimous opposition toward the Ground Zero mosque, but issues involving the clash of purported “American values” with Muslim beliefs will certainly continue to occur in the future. When that next debate takes place, America should broaden the discussion by not just focusing on what Muslims should or should not do, but what effect it will have on the War of Ideas.
The more conspicuous tolerance of Muslims in America is demonstrated, the harder it is for terrorist organizations to attract sympathizers and recruit members by labeling American forces as “crusaders” seeking the destruction of Islam. Contrary to the majority opinion of America, the Ground Zero mosque would not have been a statement of Islamist conquest because it represented the exact opposite version of Islam that Islamic extremists embrace.
During the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan the following items were forbidden:
Satellite dishes, cinematography, equipment that produces music,
Pool tables, chess, alcohol, computers, television, nail polish,
Statues and pictures
Aside from these items, employment and education were also prohibited for women. So the question arises: Does something like the Cordoba Initiative, the project behind the Ground Zero mosque, represent this kind of “Islamic conquest” that Newt Gingrich and many other Americans thought? Browsing the website www.park51.org one finds an organization dedicated to “pluralism, service, arts and culture, education and empowerment.” I assume then that only Islamist extremists would hate that project more than Americans, but only until opposition against the mosque results with the cancelation of the project. Then al-Qaeda will smile, point out that America is hypocritical by not following its own laws which legally allow for such a project, and the war will go on as planned.
Only a religious maniac would simultaneously call for the destruction of Israel while building a nuclear program, but this is the case with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The consequences of a nuclear Iran however would not only threaten the existence of our Jewish allies, but subjugate the rest of the Middle East to the volition of an atomic bully. Any effort to establish a stable, pro-American government in Iraq or Afghanistan would be confronted by a nuclear enemy, as would any Israeli retaliation against the terrorist organizations Hezbollah and Hamas. Not to mention that the idea of nonproliferation would no longer be taken seriously. While sanctions continue to be pushed by the Obama Administration, it is not likely that they will force Iran to stop its nuclear program.
The problem with sanctions against Iran is that it requires unanimity from the international community in order to be effective. Russia and China both have geopolitical and economic interests in Iran, and therefore will not support sanctions that do not accommodate their national interests. The most recent sanctions, which include a loophole that allows Iran to buy advanced Russian air-defense systems, were praised by the Obama Administration as the “toughest sanctions ever faced by the Iranian government,” while described by David Kay, former IAEA chief nuclear weapons inspector, as “a victory for the Iranians” that “by and large will cause them very little pain.” Though it is important for America to demonstrate to the world that it tried a diplomatic solution, it is almost certain that this will not work.
The Obama Administration’s euphemized response – “all options on the table” – is neither intimidating to Iranians nor comforting to Israelis. When Israel says it can and will attack Iran if America does not, nobody calls their bluff. Generous though the Israelis are to do this, anyone opposed to a nuclear-armed, theocratic regime in Iran should prefer an American attack lest the Israeli forces are not as capable conducting such a tactical mission. The United States would then take credit for the attack. Though it may surprise some, many Arab states including the United Arab Emirates fear a nuclear Iran and support a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The consequences of military action in Iran, whether Israeli or American, would be severe. As is the case with so many Middle Eastern governments, Iran controls strategically important locations like the Strait of Hormuz, which sees 17 million barrels of oil pass through daily.Most likely Iran’s first response if attacked would be shutting down this relatively small waterway. However, the most unsettling prospect of an attack is the fear that such an attack would only delay Iran from obtaining a nuclear device.
In 1981, when Israeli bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor in Osirak, President Menachem Begin was advised that an attack would only set back the Iraqis one year but authorized it anyway. Israel understood that a nuclear threat in the Middle East posed a greater challenge to their security in the long-run than any response made in retaliation to such an attack. President Obama does not want to start another war in the Middle East, but leaving a legacy as the president who allowed Iran to develop nuclear weapons would be much worse. Unlike the last time America launched an expedition in the Middle East, providing proof of weapons of mass destruction in Iran will not be difficult. Unfortunately this is the problem.
