Last October, Reuters published news about a secret U.S. government panel which “nominated” militants for murder or capture, including U.S. citizens like Anwar al-Awlaki. The story peered into the opaque process by which a government bureaucracy decides to take a human life. And it was disturbing:
…Targeting recommendations are drawn up by a committee of mid-level National Security Council and agency officials. Their recommendations are then sent to the panel of NSC “principals,” meaning Cabinet secretaries and intelligence unit chiefs, for approval. The panel of principals could have different memberships when considering different operational issues, they said.
The names suggested are then brought before the president, who may veto them.
What’s astonishing about all this is that the names of those on the panel are unknown, how they decide someone should die is unknown, and what evidence is used to determine on a death sentence is unknown. Everything about this process is deliberately opaque. And there is no written record of the panel’s deliberations in order to further insulate participants, especially the president himself. This fact alone reminds me of some of the more nefarious plots in recent history including Pol Pot’s genocide, Hitler’s Final Solution and Ben Gurion’s plans for the Nakba. All wisely left little or no written evidence of their plans that could be used later by authorities or history to judge them. Not that targeted killings rise to the level of genocide in terms of crimes against humanity, but they are grievious breaches of international law nonetheless.
The hypocrisy of Hillary Clinton swearing on a stack of Bibles that the U.S. had nothing to do with the last Iranian scientist assassination is laughable considering that our own behavior isn’t that dissimilar. In a conversation with a journalist a few days ago who’d had discussions with CIA officers who justified the U.S. killing of al-Awlaki, the agent asked the reporter whether it would be justified to kill someone during World War II who fought right at Hitler’s side.
He was attempting to liken the Yemeni-American cleric to such a figure, when the evidence offered so far doesn’t justify it. Is the CIA saying that Osama bin Laden was Hitler and al-Awlaki was his commander-in-chief? Since when, on both counts? I have no doubt that both were enemies of the U.S. who deserved to be tried and punished for their crimes. But as Mehdi Hassan argues so persuasively in this commentary on the subject, “targeted killing is just the death penalty without due process.”
Barack Obama doesn’t get to be judge, jury and executioner under the U.S. Constitution. In fact, he’s violating the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits taking a citizen’s life without due process. A secret National Council panel is NOT due process. It’s just death by bureaucratic fiat. It is no different from Israel’s targeted assassinations of Palestinian militants and Iranian scientists.
This is a talk I delivered at the Confronting Islamophobia: I am My Brother’s Keeper conference on Saturday at St. Mark’s Cathedral here in Seattle. I’m grateful to the organizing committee for inviting me to speak. I’m delighted to report that the event was very well attended. Last night, the St. Mark’s main sactuary was full with I estimate about 800 or more in attendance to hear Imam Faisal Rauf. There were TV crews there last night and today. The Seattle Times ran a front page story and both Steve Scher and Dave Ross interviewed Imam Rauf on radio. Congratulations to the steering committee which did yeoman work planning a massive enterprise very successfully.
* * *
In conceiving this conference, the organizers knew in theory they were going to be addressing an important issue in American life. But events since we first began organizing it have proven just how fortuitous our choice of topics has been. American Islamophobes like Rep. Peter King, and Pamela Geller and David Yerushalmi have turned up the heat and volume on this debate and placed into even starker relief the necessity of having a rational, tolerant discussion of the role of Islam and American Muslims in the life of this nation.
Here’s what we can’t do: we can’t score political points, we can’t try to win elections, we can’t single out our fellow citizens as terrorists merely because of their religious beliefs. We can’t demonize all American Muslims for the beliefs of a handful of hating extremists among them. Anyone who does this must be held up for the bigot he or she is. In the light of the American assassination of Osama bin Laden, this becomes an even more urgent task. No matter how many times a president says that he isn’t seeking to tar an entire religion with a broad brush merely because of the acts of one adherent or one Islamist terror group, it doesn’t mean the rest of us have gotten the message. In fact, yesterday a pilot on a Delta Airlines flight out of Memphis refused to take off until two imams were removed from the plane. Apparently, their dress so spooked him that he must’ve believed he had Osama’s cousins flying with him.
Whatever we may’ve thought of the Bin Laden killing, Barack Obama now has an opportunity to head off the bigots in the Republican Party and Tea Party movement who will try to make hay from this. Clearly, it’s going to be a tough election for Republicans. A major issue of national security has practically been foreclosed to them. When a Party becomes desperate it seeks the weakest link to attack. Unfortunately, some in this country see American Muslims as this weak link. They will tar and feather them.
Remember the smears against Obama during the presidential election, which still cause a majority of Republicans in this country to believe that he is Muslim? Look to the political right to exploit fear of Islam and make hay in the 2012 elections. It may be used in the presidential election and it may be used in other federal or state elections. We must be alert to fight back against such bigotry. That’s why it’s important for non-Muslims, specifically Jews because of our complicated, fraught relationship, to step up and say we will not stand for it.
I wanted to speak about a few specific events that have occurred here in Seattle and in other places that might instruct us about the problems we face as Jews and Muslims in overcoming our suspicions and conflict.
Naveed Haq
In 2006, a mentally-ill Pakistani-American named Naveed Haq forced his way into the Seattle Jewish federation building and proceeded to shoot at the staff killing one woman and seriously injuring five. In his twisted mind, he equated Jews in Seattle with the acts of Israel committed in Lebanon during the 2006 war. This was an act of hatred and violence unprecedented in Seattle’s Jewish community. It shook many people to the core. Thankfully, the strident ideologues in the community representing groups like Stand With Us, didn’t set the tone for the response.
But the best that can be said, is that the community’s response wasn’t worse than it might otherwise have been. The first jury to hear the case couldn’t agree on a sentence and there was a mistrial. The prosecution announced it was retrying the case. It insisted on trying Haq for first degree murder despite his documented history of mental illness going back ten years. The district attorney attempted to argue that this deranged individual knew right from wrong and rationally planned his acts of violence. All this, despite the fact that he was a deeply confused, disoriented, alienated and sick man.
One of the federation victims even said to the press that the most important aspect of this case was not religious hatred or anti-Semitism, but rather the fact that it was so incredibly easy for such a disturbed individual to procure a gun. The prosecution refused to consider a sentence to a mental asylum. All this in large part, because the Jewish communal leadership would not settle for anything less than prison and punishment. Sadly, the Jews of Seattle lacked the capacity to understand that–despite the fact that Haq, in his delusional state, blamed American Jews for Lebanon’s suffering–he was a sick man, and not an Islamist radical. For Seattle Jews, this was a hate crime, not a crime committed by someone who was mentally ill. And this, I think, is the tragedy that is beyond the actual tragedy of the shootings. American Jews had a chance to understand the difference between anti-Semitism and mental illness and they chose to see themselves as victims of a Muslim extremist, rather than a man who himself was a victim of his own demons.
Naveed Haq was not Osama bin Laden. If anything, he was Arthur Bremer. Men whose delusions and twisted imaginations combined all sorts of hatred and set them on a homicidal rampage. Naveed Haq needed treatment, not punishment. Besides, life in a mental asylum for violent felons wouldn’t have been a vacation.
Southern Poverty Law Center
When Brenda Bentz was considering which speakers to invite for this conference, she had no lack of Muslims with deep expertise on these subjects. But we wanted non-Muslim experts on racial hatred to speak as well. So Brenda invited Mark Potok, the chief researcher of the Southern Poverty Law Center to address us. Both Brenda and I were impressed that SPLC had recently added to its national list of prominent hate groups several Islamophobic organizations like Pam Geller’s Stop the Islamization of America and the Jewish Task Force, a successor to the Jewish Defense League. And Mark wanted to come.
It seemed that SPLC might be ready to branch out from its bread and butter reliance on white supremacist groups to include far-right anti-Muslim scapegoat groups as well. However, Brenda and a number of us were disappointed when Potok and SPLC’s president informed us that because CAIR was a co-sponsor of the conference, SPLC couldn’t participate. Though I don’t know a whole lot about SPLC’s internal structure and politics, you can be sure that there are many liberal Jews among its major donors. The group’s president, Richard Cohen, seems concerned among other things about preserving his six-figure paycheck by not rocking the boat in any substantial way. Even liberal Jews get spooked by spurious charges that CAIR supports Hamas and Islamist terror. It probably won’t even help much that CAIR publicly approved of the death of Osama bin Laden. Some people are just too frightened to give up those fears.
Apparently, the campaign of demonization by the likes of Peter King and Frank Gaffney prevented even a group like SPLC from associating itself, in even the most distant way, with a mainstream Muslim entity like CAIR. This is what hate, fear and ignorance does to us, folks. It twists our judgment, prevents us from trusting our instincts. It turns us away from alliances we should be making with like-minded individuals and groups to advance our respective goals. I don’t know whether my primary emotion should be anger or disappointment regarding SPLC. Mostly I just feel sorry for their caution and ultimately cowardice. Groups like this who refuse to address the most divisive issues of the day out of such fear, either are, or will shortly be irrelevant to the concerns of most Americans. If we want to make a difference as a religious community or as NGOs, we have to take a stand, even if we risk alienating those sitting on the fence.
Mosque-Synagogue Twinning
Now, I want to tell you about another small local tragedy with which I was intimately involved. The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding was founded by New York Rabbi Marc Schneier. It organizes a mosque-synagogue Twinning project each year that is devoted to education around the issues of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Several years ago, I spent months with my friend, Jeff Siddiqui, desperately searching for two such partners here in Seattle. We had a very hard time of it, frankly. This was just after the Haq shooting and memories may’ve been tender on both sides.
At my synagogue, Congregation Beth Sholom, our rabbi enthusiastically agreed to participate. She delegated me to search for a local Muslim partner. With Jeff’s help I identified MAPS as our Muslim partner. I had a wonderful meeting with several mosque members and we mapped out what I thought would be a warm, stimulating series of programs for both communities. We’d go to MAPS and they would come to us. We’d pray there and they would pray with us, much like Imam Rauf did so movingly here in Church yesterday night. Our rabbi would address them and their imam would address us, each from our respective religious altars.
Then I reported back to the rabbi. In the meantime, the Stand With Us members of the congregation had pressured her into backing off on her commitment. She apologetically told me the time wasn’t quite right to do this. She didn’t know how she could’ve possibly agreed to an imam speaking from the bima of the synagogue. It just couldn’t be done, she told me. She needed at most another month to bring the shul’s membership and leadership around. She promised the idea for the program would not die and that she was committed to making it happen.
It never did. And my relationship with this rabbi has never been the same nor will it likely ever be.
The issue of Muslim-Jewish relations is too important to allow our leaders to fumble their commitments to it. There are other communal leaders who try to mollify both sides. Two years ago, the rabbi at Temple De Hirsh Sinai sponsored a highly-partisan Jewish federation program at which representatives of Aipac and the Israeli consul general for the Pacific NW spoke about the dangers posed by Iran to the Middle East and the entire world. They claimed it was seeking to develop nuclear weapons and that it supported terrorism, among other things. The fact that Israel had nuclear weapons and engaged in wars against its neighbors was not considered relevant to the discussion. After the program ended I asked the rabbi how he could allow his temple to a venue for such partisan propaganda.
Unfortunately, this escalated into a heated discussion during which he affirmed that he was in favor of regime change in Iran. This same rabbi invited Prof. John Esposito, a colleague of Prof. Haddad’s, to speak a few days from now at his temple about the role and history of Islam in America. There is a major disconnect among some Jews regarding relations with Muslims and Islam. Like Rabbi Weiner, they seem to think they can compartmentalize Islam into good guys and bad. That they can demonize bad Muslims in Iran while embracing good ones here at home. I am not arguing that the Iranian regime is worthy of anyone’s support. But I am arguing that rhetoric which accuses the Iranian regime of being mass murderers and supports its violent overthrow, while ignoring the negative role that Israel often plays, is not conducive to constructive dialogue with any Muslim, whether Iranian or American.
Peter King Hearings
After 9/11, the Republican Party discovered there was gold in them thar’ hills of Islamophobia and Muslim-bashing. It was joined in this by a group I call Jewish neocons, whose hatred of Islam is bound up with a devotion to a far-right brand of Israeli nationalism which embraces the settler movement. That is how Peter King and Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy created a match made in heaven. With the new Republican majority in the House, King became chair of the Committee on Homeland Security. Looking for an issue to call his own, and hailing from a state with a substantial Jewish population, he made common cause with Gaffney over the alleged issue of Sharia law and the alleged plot by Muslims to take over the U.S. government and replace it with one governed by Sharia.
King’s hearings were originally conceived very much in the mold of Gaffney’s histrionics which warn of the Muslim menace to American life as we know it. But due to critical media coverage and criticism from fellow members of Congress, King presented a still offensive, but watered-down version in his hearings last month.
Anti-Sharia Movement
Gaffney is joined in his anti-sharia jihad by Jewish far-right figures like David Yerushalmi. The latter, who is a devout Orthodox Jewish attorney and supporter of the settler movement in Israel, is Gaffney’s chief legal counsel. Mother Jones has profiled the Yerushalmi-Gaffney national campaign to write anti-sharia sentiment into state law. Such provisions have either passed, or are being seriously discussed in 11 states. Yerushalmi is the author of such bills and paid handsome consulting fees no doubt for his “expertise,” and much sought after on the Tea Party circuit.
I’m pleased to tell you that the organized Jewish community is beginning to wake up to the perils of the anti-Sharia movement because it could hit Jews where they live. Just as Muslims conform their religious lives to Sharia so observant Jews conform theirs to halacha. Just as Sharia may be applied to normally civil functions like marriage, divorce and estate planning; so too Jews often use halacha in place of civil code in these important life milestones. If state laws criminalize the application of Sharia to civil matters then there is no reason this wouldn’t happen to halacha as well.
I want to tell you something that may be a bit cynical. In truth, I don’t think most observant Jews would normally care to make common cause with American Muslims on this issue. But it’s the beauty of the American system that you must create political coalitions if you wish for your own communal, religious or ethnic interests to be addressed. In our system, if you try to go it alone you won’t go far. That encourages groups to look beyond their own narrow interests and consider the interests of other groups when they overlap yours. It is this making of alliances, as opposed to confining oneself to a separatist ghetto, that makes this country great.
The Yerushalmis and Gaffneys favor an atomized America in which every individual or group is out for its own good and some mythical Judeo-Christian majority can impose its own will on the rest of us. That’s not my America and I know it’s not yours either. Yerushalmi’s views are so far to the right that Mother Jones, the Jewish Forward and I in my blog have called him different variations of the phrase “Jewish white supremacist.” Hard to believe that there can be such a person or thing, given Jewish history in the last century. But I’m sorry to say that there can be and is.
Yerushalmi didn’t take kindly to my critique of his political views. He threatened to sue me for libel in Arizona, where he resides, making himself right at home with the anti-immigrant movement that presides in that state. I, of course, had to scurry to find pro bono counsel to represent me in what I feared could be a long costly case.
But in a bit of providence, the Anti-Defamation League came out with a public statement denouncing Yerushalmi and likening his views to the white-supremacist New World Order. I’m guessing that the anti-Muslim attorney decided that now might not be the right time to sue someone for calling him a white supremacist. He withdrew his threat.
Yerushalmi also crusaded against the Khalil Gibran Academy in New York City and its Muslim principal, Debbie Almontaser, eventually getting her fired. He sued her for libel too and she won at both the lower court and appeals court level. She also won a substantial settlement from the City of New York for wrongful termination.
Ground Zero Mosque
Yerushalmi has also made common cause with Pamela Geller, author of the Atlas Shrugged blog, and the chief instigator of the campaign against what she branded the ‘Ground Zero mosque,’ an institution with which our keynote speaker, Imam Faisal Rauf, was intimately involved for some time. I watched the Jewish-led campaign against the mosque– conveniently timed during the 2010 Congressional election campaign–with horror. The arguments against it made no sense whatsoever. They were clearly fueled by fear and ignorance. They mixed up the tragedy perpetrated by Al Qaeda against this country on 9/11 with an entirely separate matter of building a Muslim house of worship. In the minds of the hysterics, there was no difference between the two. This is a profoundly un-American attitude.
One the hallmarks of America’s greatness is our tolerance toward religions. Our Founding Fathers wisely chose not to create a national religion and this in turn enabled America to become a powerful engine of democracy, which could incorporate hundreds of ethnic groups and their respective religions into a single whole. In diversity there is strength. Alternatively, you’ll remember that slogan on our dollar bills: e pluribus unum (“out of many, one”).
But contrary to Yerushalmi and Geller, I don’t believe we become one by denying our difference, by papering them over or by forcing those who are different to conform to some artificial notion of what is properly American. We gain the strength to be united by coming together over our shared interests and by respecting our differences. That’s the beauty of America.
The opponents of the Park51 mosque lost sight of an American trademark: religious freedom. In this country, you can worship your God and your religion as you please. You can build a house of worship where you want and how you want as long as you obey zoning codes. America doesn’t police religions as other countries do. We don’t tell people where they can build a church, synagogue or mosque. We don’t interfere in their religious teachings. We don’t demonize them because their religion is different from ours. The movement led by Pam Geller, David Yerushalmi and Frank Gaffney which seeks to criminalize being a Muslim is profoundly offensive to American values. I’m proud to say this as an American and as a Jew.
No, I haven’t become an Al Qaeda fan and I’m not drinking to the health of bin Laden’s successor. My point is that killing one man, no matter how symbolic his life or death might be to world terrorism and the fight against it, won’t change much in the long run. Undoubtedly, there is a new bin Laden pre-designated by his movement to take his place. There may even be a set of pre-planned terror attacks prepared for just this eventuality as vengeance for the death of their leader. While I’m no expert in Al Qaeda, bin Laden had to have been so isolated I don’t see how he could’ve been a key operational or even inspirational figure to Al Qaeda. His death will likely not slow down or change much the radical Islamist agenda.
The root causes of this movement must be addressed to end its potency for a small cadre of the world’s Muslims. The U.S. must leave Afghanistan and Iraq. We must lead–or if not lead–get out of the way of an international campaign to pressure Israel to settle its conflict with the Palestinians. We must get on the side of the Arab spring and stop supporting the potentates and Old Geezers of the autocracies.
I don’t think it’s that difficult ultimately for western nations like ours to get right with the Arab and Muslim world. Despite the Al Qaeda anti-western mantra, there is no innate Arab/Muslim hate for the west. But it is shedding the illusions that have led us to support the Shahs, Mubaraks, Salehs, and Abdullahs that seems to be difficult for our president at this time. If we embrace the movement toward freedom exemplified by the martyrs of Daraa and Misurata, ultimately the bin Ladens will be consigned to the dustbin of history.
To do this, we will also have to recalibrate our relationship with Israel and our former knee-jerk support for its far-right governments. There is little doubt that Barack Obama hates Bibi Netanyahu. But disliking a leader is not the same as compelling him to do something you know he must do in order to bring peace to a region desperately crying out for it. The truth is that while Obama may’ve achieved something that eluded two previous presidents, this is nothing compared to the heavy lifting he will have to do to truly undermine the attraction radical Islam holds for Al Qaeda and its admirers.
Recognize a Palestinian state come September in the UN General Assembly. This will go farther than killing 10 bin Ladens in bringing credibility to the U.S. role in the Middle East.
I didn’t realize how much of a disconnect there is between my thinking about this and the general jubilation described in this passage:
The news touched off an extraordinary outpouring of emotion as crowds gathered outside the White House, in Times Square and at the Ground Zero site, waving American flags, cheering, shouting, laughing and chanting, “U.S.A., U.S.A.!” In New York City, crowds sang “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
The author of the NY Times article I quoted above then continues with yet another vast overstatement:
Bin Laden’s demise is a defining moment in the American-led fight against terrorism…
It certainly is not a defining moment. It’s a moment that, in the long run, means very little. It’s the equivalent of a small victory that is part of a very long, complicated campaign. I can’t begin to say how wrong-hearded this attitude is. What will they say after the next terror attack? Of course they’ll say we have to kill more of ‘em. That’s the answer.
It was always going to be tough to defeat Barack Obama in the 2012 election. That just became that much harder. And the current Republican field can’t give much succor to the country’s Republicans. The names Tweedledee and Tweedledum were made for these bozos with the chief clown among them, Donald Trump (at whom Obama took some good whacks during the Correspondents Dinner yesterday night). Security is always a weak point for Democrats. Considering Obama got done what neither Clinton nor Bush could before him, his security cred is sky-high and he’ll be able to milk this during the campaign. Keep in mind that I don’t think Obama’s policies in that part of the world are effective and drone attacks and assassinations are no substitute for having a real substantive policy of addressing the Muslim world. But he has undoubtedly achieved a coup that eluded many before him.
Sheikh Nazem Abu Salim has allegedly used…web site and…sermons to back global jihad and declare solidarity with Al-Qaida
Israeli authorities have charged an imam from a controversial mosque in the northern city of Nazareth was charged Sunday with inciting violence against Pope Benedict…
Sheikh Nazem Abu Salim, who heads the Shihab A-Din Mosque, was arrested by police a month ago along with Mohammed Naarani, on suspicion of illegally unionizing [ed., this must be an error and probably should read "organizing"], conspiring to commit a crime and support for a terrorist organization…
The indictment said Abu Salim preached “an ideological world view identical to that of global jihad” and wrote “publications that supported and identified with the terror organization Al-Qaida”. It said Abu Salim’s teachings inspired attacks against Jews and Christians, including the murder of one Jew.
The Shabak seems unable to differentiate between an Israeli Palestinian who refuses to toe the Israeli party line and one who is truly a fomentor of terror. Abu Salim’s main threat as far as I can tell is that he is a fiery, cantankerous, even intolerant preacher who rouses his flock to resistance against both Israeli and U.S. policy in the region. He appears to be a zealous advocate for Islam, one who bears little fondness for any religion that, in his view, harms Islam. But a terrorist? Accomplice to murder? Hardly.
Here, for example is a quotation from the right-wing Maariv of statements he has allegedly made. I’m trying to do research to get the original Arabic and so do truer translations hewing to his original intent. But for now, this is what I have. In the first case, he spoke about the Pope’s visit to Nazareth:
It is true, we did not want the Pope to come here [to Nazareth]. The world-wide solution to every problem is Islam. This the imperialist Americans do not want. The Communists are gone and now they are at war with us. They seek an Islam that is weak and beholden to them as it is in America, and not true Islam…True Islam is content to live within its own faith, having mercy on the weak. But against us stands the evil global empire, America. Allah is the One who will solve our problems. There is murder against the Muslim ummah around the world–in Gaza, Afghanistan, Iraq, and more. They intentionally murder women and children. After the Gaza flotilla, Israel seeks to show the world that it is with the Christians and against the Muslims.
Maariv quotes another comment by Abu Salim on the Pope’s visit:
The prosecution claims that on his website, Muslim 48 (which Israeli authorities have taken down), he explicitly endorsed the views of Osama bin Laden. It further claims that he advocated acts of violence and that his followers committed such acts at his urging, including the murder of a taxi driver, kidnapping of a Domino’s Pizza delivery man, and cacheing of weapons for the purpose of acts of violence against “IDF soldiers, the Pope, and any target that harmed Islam.”
According to this Bar Ilan University professor publishing at News1, an Israeli right wing news portal-scandal sheet, Shabak arrested seven Israeli Palestinian youths accusing them of the crimes noted above. Several confessed to the killing and others allegedly attempted to travel to Somalia to join in global jihad. They supposedly got as far as Kenya, where authorities allegedly stopped them and returned them to Israel. All supposedly are devout followers of the Sheikh, if you believe what you read. But I think that remains to be seen and proven.
As is usual in these cases, I see lots of charges and no evidence. While I have not yet explored Abu Salim’s views in great depth, I haven’t seen any solid evidence that any of these charges are based in hard evidence. Where are the guns? Where is the proof that Abu Salim inspired anyone to kill a Jew? Where are the words of Bin Laden on the Muslim48 website (though it has been taken down I am exploring whether the site may be archived or cached somewhere online). What real violence against the Pope did he inspire?
It looks like the Shabak just got another Palestinian korban (victim) and created another martyr.
News reports from Pakistan claim a new audiotape from Osama bin Laden speaks favorably about a McCain presidency:
Inshallah, we’re looking forward to four more years of Bush policies with this McCain fellow. George Bush has been good for us and we think McCain could be even better. Imagine, he might even widen the war against us and persuade more shahids to join our cause. McCain, we wish you well in ’08.
Barack Obama immediately released a statement attacking the “endorsement:”
“If Senator McCain is favored by Al Qaeda, I think people can make judgements accordingly.”
John McCain complained that Senator Obama had “lost his bearings” and that he, McCain, reserved the right to jump into bed with any Christian evangelical and Islamist slimeballs crazy enough to endorse him.
On a separate tangent. I’ve thought of some new smear names for Barack Obama: Obamasama and Obamahama[s]. Cool, no? How long before you start seeing them in the right-wing blogosphere? Bets anyone?
As the British used to say: “The King is dead, long live the King.”
Yes, they’ve killed Saddam, a figure who faded curiously fast both from history and from any relevance to the maelstrom that currently is Iraq. And doubtless Tony Snow will sally forth with some chortling statement about how the U.S. has made one step for freedom, one small step for human kind. But it will be irrelevant, just as Saddam himself became irrelevant almost from the moment he was toppled. It is both curious and tragic that just as the former tyrant has faded from the stage of history, so the U.S. has faded as a decisive player in Iraq. We no longer matter there. If our troops are there insurgents would just as soon kill them. But when our troops are gone they will move on and kill some other perceived ethnic or religious enemy. They are now just thugs with a grievance and the means to express it through acts of torture and murder. We are mere foils or props for their rage.
And we should make no mistake. Saddam’s death by now is a mere irrelevancy. What is far more telling and important is the tyrants in waiting in their hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands whom we are creating with our hateful policies throughout the world, but especially in the Mideast.
Warming the cockles of Orwell’s heart
And while we’re talking about bad guys, thanks to Jason Truesdell for pointing me to this terrific find from TPMuckraker. CNN interviewed Homeland Security Advisor Frances Fragos Townsend. Its White House correspondent, Ed Henry, posed to her the eternal nagging Osama question:
HENRY: You know, going back to September 2001, the president said, dead or alive, we’re going to get him. Still don’t have him. I know you are saying there’s successes on the war on terror, and there have been. That’s a failure.
That matter has been raised a million times or more and always answered in the same dull, unresponsive way. But Townsend, to her questionable credit, put a whole new spin on it with her highly “creative” answer:
TOWNSEND: Well, I’m not sure — it’s a success that hasn’t occurred yet. I don’t know that I view that as a failure.
Yes indeed. We may not have gotten Osama yet. But that’s no failure. It’s merely a success waiting to happen. That’s deep, mighty deep. I think even old Kant would have trouble parsing that one. Or as Jason wrote me: “I thought Orwell was supposed to be a warning, not a source of inspiration.”
For some odd reason, it brought to mind an old Jewish joke about a Jew who reads in the paper about the huge lottery jackpot. He begins thinking about all the wonderful good deeds he can perform for his synagogue and the community with his winnings. But each week he looks for the winner’s name and it isn’t his. Finally, in frustration he cries out to God: “Lord, I only wanted this for You. Why have you denied me?” A startled and put-out God replies: “Itzik, buy a ticket.”
The problem with the Bushites is that they refuse to buy a ticket or even play by the rules. Rather, they make up the rules and expect reality will conform with them. To their chagrin, reality has stopped conforming to their expectations making for very messy times.
Just what Hamas needs–a friend like Osama bin Laden. As if they, and the Palestinians don’t have enough problems between imminent bankruptcy, malnutrition, economic stagnation and constant Israeli shelling. They need a friend like Osama like they need a hole in the head.
Nevertheless, there were some interesting aspects of bin Laden’s audio tape as reported in the NY Times. Apparently, he hardly mentioned Iraq at all. It’s almost as if bin Laden conceded that Iraq was a lost cause for America and that our departure was guaranteed. Almost as if bin Laden is saying he’s tired of toying with Bush as the latter has defeated himself in Iraq. Now, the former seems to feel the need to look to new domains for potential Al Qaeda “traction.” Those domains are, he now informs us, Palestine and Sudan. No doubt, he’s throwing some food against the wall to see what sticks.
Osama’s newfound support for Hamas (consider that he’s denounced the movement for participating in electoral politics) should be a lesson for the west in the price they pay if they continue their attempts to isolate and humiliate Hamas:
Mr. bin Laden sought to tap into the wide public support among Arabs for Hamas, which Israel, the United States and the European Union regard as a terrorist organization.
“The blockade which the West is imposing on the government of Hamas proves that there is a Zionist-crusaders war on Islam,” he said.
No doubt bin Laden is right. The bullying of Hamas and the Palestinians plays poorly (to say the least) in the Arab street. If we continue with such an open-ended policy of suffering, we WILL create a perfect opening for the jihadists, another Iraq in the making. However, if we see things more pragmatically and come to understand that there may be a way to test Hamas to determine its level of seriousness; and subsequently to bring Israel into dialogue and negotiation with Hamas, then we will have blunted the power of bin Laden’s message.
Thankfully, Hamas had the good sense (which they don’t always display in these situations) to reject bin Laden’s “good wishes” while sounding a note of warning to the west about their short-sided policies toward Palestine’s elected political leadership:
As in the past, Hamas sought to distance itself from Al Qaeda and its leadership. But Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for Hamas, said Western financial penalties against the Palestinian Authority government it now leads were a source of anger for Muslims around the region.
“We have warned many times that the siege upon Hamas and the policy of hunger will create a situation of hatred in Arab and Muslim nations,” Mr. Zuhri said. “It will create the impression there is a Western war against the Islamic world.”
The CIA’s former bin Laden expert presents the keenest analysis, warning us that bin Laden’s work is made infinitely easier by the mess that is U.S. Mideast policy:
Michael Scheuer, former chief of the Central Intelligence Agency’s bin Laden unit, said the segments of the tape he had read about suggested that Mr. bin Laden “is at the top of his game” largely because of America’s own foreign policy. “We cut off Hamas after we had a fair election,” he said. “It looks like we are going to intervene in another Muslim country with oil, in Sudan; we followed Israel’s lead with Hamas. His most important ally is American foreign policy.”
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Warming the cockles of Orwell’s heart
Goss: master of the obvious (source: CNN)
