Mistake for Romney to Follow JFK Lead

Many observers of the 2008 presidential campaign are convinced that Republican candidate Mitt Romney should deliver a speech similar to John F. Kennedy’s 1960 explanation of how his religion would influence his political actions. The fact that JFK’s speech on his Catholicism ultimately succeeded in blunting criticisms from Protestant activists, political analysts suggest, is reason enough for Romney to adopt a similar strategy to assuage evangelical concerns over Romney’s faith, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS or Mormon). The temptation for Romney to provide potential voters with a JFK-style declaration on his faith is very strong, and Romney’s comments on the subject indicate he is likely to follow JFK’s example. That would be a mistake.

Romney should be wary of evangelicals or others who insist that a speech clarifying the role of faith in his life would benefit his campaign. When weighing advice given, one must consider two simple questions: what is the motive of the adviser, and who benefits from following the advice? For Romney, the answers to these questions as they relate to the advice that he should give a JFK-style religious speech suggest that Romney stands to gain little or nothing, while those giving the advice will receive their intended reward: the derailment of Romney’s candidacy.

First, Romney should examine the motives of those advising him to give a speech on his faith. Who are they? Some, of course, are fellow members of Romney’s faith who naively believe that by candidly discussing his faith and its influence on his politics he will silence criticism of the LDS church. Some are misguided but not malicious political pundits who take the lone example of JFK and extrapolate from it predictions of similar campaign success for Romney. Most are evangelicals and others who are far more interested in keeping Romney’s religion front and center in voters’ minds than they are in actually reconciling their doctrinal differences with his faith. This third group poses the greatest risk to Romney’s campaign because it capitalizes on the religious ignorance, indifference, or blatant bigotry of potential voters. The third group is well aware that as long as Romney’s religion is talked about more than his political views or policy positions, he will never be taken seriously enough to win the GOP nomination regardless of his early poll strength and impressive fundraising prowess.

Who benefits if Romney decides to deliver a speech addressing concerns over his faith? The prime beneficiary of such an act would be the media, through an endless stream of stories on every conceivable aspect of the LDS church and its history. One need only observe the media frenzy that occurs whenever an obscure polygamist from Arizona or rural Utah is discovered to get a sense of what would be in store for Romney. Every religion has some doctrine or controversy in its history, but the media rarely point out that very few Mormons ever practiced polygamy and the church ordered those who did to terminate the practice in the 1890s.

Romney should expect unfair characterizations, misleading headlines, and biased articles by the thousands in response to whatever he chooses to state about his faith. It is important for Romney to remember that anyone who advises him to stand in front of television cameras and reporters and talk about his membership in a church that is frequently stigmatized by the media likely does not have the candidate’s best interest in mind. It is revealing that the same choruses shouting for Romney to defend his religion are unwilling to demand that other candidates state their level of religious activity or explain their failures to live the tenets of their own faiths.

By following JFK’s example, Romney also will forever lose the constitutional high ground he now enjoys when he and his supporters point to Article VI and remind Americans that no religious test should be applied to candidates for office. Currently the talk of Romney’s faith emanates mainly from religious critics or media figures seeking to stir controversy where none should exist. If Romney addresses his faith in the manner he is considering, he would give the issue ample fuel to compel him to spend the remainder of a short-lived campaign answering endless questions about religion rather than why he would be a good choice for president. That aspect of his life is what makes him uniquely different from the other candidates, but what he should seek instead is to stand out from them through knowledge of the issues and charismatic leadership. Being different from the other candidates is a positive, but Romney must be mindful of what differences he chooses to emphasize.

This does not mean that Romney should evade all questions of religion or be secretive. On the contrary, Romney should allow the media to discover firsthand, as Reverend Al Sharpton did recently, that the LDS church routinely makes spokespersons or leaders available to address public and media inquiries about the doctrines and history of the church. Rather than stand as an unofficial representative of his church, Romney should refer his critics and the media to those who are officially qualified to answer questions such as what influence church leaders would have over an LDS president or to address controversial portions of LDS history. If Mike Wallace’s “60 Minutes” interview of LDS church President Gordon B. Hinckley several years ago or President Hinckley’s interviews with Larry King and the National Press Club in Washington DC were any indication, Romney’s church appears quite capable of engaging the media. The LDS church reportedly does not endorse any candidates and declares political neutrality. That fact is evidenced by the antics of Harry Reid on the left and polar opposite views and votes by Romney, Orrin Hatch, and others on the right.

Critics of Romney’s faith and his GOP rivals for the nomination are counting on religion to be the anchor that will hold Romney’s campaign securely in port rather than steaming confidently toward the presidency. By casting that anchor at the feet of his church’s highest leaders for handling, Romney’s campaign ship could sail far more smoothly and with fewer detours or course corrections than if he tackles the issue of faith on his own. The media and evangelical sharks are circling Romney’s boat, eager for a taste of religious debate. Romney would be well advised not to swim in those waters. Anyone in his camp who suggests otherwise should be made to walk the plank.


Technorati Tags:
Mitt Romney, JFK, Article VI, LDS, Mormon, Presidential Candidates, Campaign Strategy, Evangelicals, Gordon B. Hinckley, Religion in Politics

Conservative Defends Hillary from Obama

Conservatives should rise to defend Hillary Clinton from Barack Obama’s assault on her Iraq War authorization vote. Why, my readers will ask, should conservatives support Hillary in any way? The answer is quite simple: our nation’s survival may depend on such action. By that I do not mean that supporting Hillary in and of itself will save the nation, but rather finding common ground for agreement on that one issue, the rightfulness of a war authorization vote, will help liberals and conservatives alike to recognize that some situations require military intervention, and WMD development or concealment is one such situation.

Yes, Hillary has flip-flopped on her support for the Iraq War as her 2008 presidential campaign has advanced, and yes, her criticisms of President Bush’s handling of the war have been shrill at times. She merits the conservative disdain she has reaped through such behavior and calculated political maneuvering. However, conservatives and fair-minded liberals should consider the consequences of not defending Hillary’s vote to authorize the use of military force to enforce UN Resolution 1441 against Saddam Hussein’s reported WMD stockpiles, especially in light of the rapidly approaching showdown with Iran over its uranium enrichment efforts.

Yesterday Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated the Iran will “never abandon” its nuclear ambitions regardless of how many UN resolutions or sanctions are employed to thwart the Iranian nuclear program. In the face of such recalcitrance, strong and decisive leadership will be needed, and undoubtedly there will be future votes in the House and Senate to approve or disapprove of the use of military force against Iran. I am certainly not implying that Hillary would provide such leadership if elected president. My views on her politics and personality are known to Capital Cloak readers. Her disdain for the military is well known. However, if Barack Obama succeeds in convincing a majority of the Democratic Party, or worse, a majority of all American voters, that Hillary’s war authorization vote was “irresponsible and naïve,” as he has characterized it, it will signal that even when presented with overwhelming intelligence from every allied nation worldwide, America might likewise consider military action against future foes like Iran as “irresponsible and naïve.” That form of national paralysis could prove fatal in confrontations with determined enemies.

Specifically, Obama chastised Hillary for voting to authorize a war “without asking how we were going to get out.” That is an opportunistic argument coming as it does from one who has never been in position to make such difficult decisions. Obama, of course, was not a senator yet when the Iraq War vote took place, and was not privy to the intelligence documents that the colleagues he now derides as naïve were briefed on prior to committing troops to Iraq. For any nation embarking upon a war effort, the way out is obvious: win, and win decisively. The eventual outcome of war is not perfectly predictable, and history proves that war strategies often change mid-course, usually after initial campaigns meet with unexpected or underestimated resistance. Perhaps Obama should study the initial battles of our own Civil War, paying particular attention to the overconfidence and short-sighted planning of the Union’s early generals. That war, which eventually ended slavery in America, was entered into by the Union army with virtually no prior planning for “how we were going to get out.” Does Obama consider Abraham Lincoln to have been “irresponsible and naïve” to enter a war with poor prior planning?

I suspect that Obama is glad today that Lincoln ignored his critics at the time and pressed forward in a just cause. Obama, despite being a senator from Illinois, is certainly no Lincoln when it comes to perseverance in wars for freedom. Or perhaps he does not consider the Iraqi right to freedom to be as inalienable as his own.

In the case of Iraq, winning the war involved more than removing Saddam Hussein, a task that was even simpler than our military planners projected. Removing Saddam and accounting for his WMD were merely the great opening battles of the war for Iraqi freedom (hence the name Operation Iraqi Freedom). The way out of Iraq, which Obama and unfortunately now Hillary as well fail to see is an Iraqi parliament capable of sustaining and defending itself from domestic and foreign efforts to topple it. In that sense, Obama and others should limit their criticism to the fact that our goals in Iraq have not been reached rather than condemn the initial decision to act against Saddam’s defiance toward the UN over his well-documented WMD programs.

It is no coincidence that former Secretary of State and retired General Colin Powell, who recently claimed in dramatic Monday morning quarterback fashion to have urged President Bush no to invade Iraq despite the overwhelming intelligence detailing Saddam’s WMD facilities and ambitions, has been advising Obama on military and foreign policy issues. Whereas criticisms of the decision to invade Iraq from Obama are truly “irresponsible and naïve,” they merely reflect the influence of General Powell.

There is clearly little common ground between conservatives and Hillary Clinton. After all, she burned whatever rickety bridges may have once existed when she blamed the “vast right wing conspiracy” for damaging her husband’s self-destructive presidency. Yet when a political opportunist like Obama criticizes Hillary for voting to remove an oppressive dictator and secure the WMD the world was convinced he possessed, we should defend her for making that decision. Despite her current efforts to cast herself as a candidate who would work to end the war, she was right to vote as she did. At least in Hillary’s case America knows that in a sobering moment with long-term consequences, she once voted to eliminate a rogue nation’s WMD programs. Obama, on the other hand, never has faced such a decision but we can conclude from his criticisms and General Powell’s influence that were Obama to be president, he would be loathe to act when facing the threat of WMD acquisition by rogue nations.

For conservatives, neither of these candidates is politically appealing, but Obama’s contagious depiction of Hillary or anyone else who voted to authorize the Iraq War as “irresponsible and naïve” must be prevented from infecting our future decisions when faced with similar or more dangerous threats, such as Iran. Liberals and conservatives can disagree on a host of social, moral, and economic issues, but on the issue of preventing radical Islamic regimes from enriching uranium and proliferating nuclear weapons or technology, there must be unity and shared determination. Regardless of her current views of the Iraq War, Hillary was right to authorize it, as was President Bush to request it, based on the intelligence available at that time. President Bush or his successor, Democrat or Republican, will face the decision to act against Iran since Iran has made it clear it will never halt its uranium enrichment. Obama’s attacks on Hillary’s war vote are irresponsibly making it more difficult for a president to make a convincing case for future military action of any kind to Americans.

Having never faced a difficult decision like a war vote, Obama can conveniently profit from hindsight and impugn the responsibility and motives of those who voted for the Iraq War. Of Obama I would ask the same question I posed to General Powell in a previous post: what further evidence would you have needed to convince you that action against Saddam was necessary given the intelligence already in hand? There is no more clear evidence of Obama’s disingenuous criticism of Hillary on this issue than the words of Obama’s consultant on foreign policy and military issues, General Powell. Powell himself made the case for war to the UN, including the following dramatic statement:

…We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction; he's determined to make more. Given Saddam Hussein's history of aggression, given what we know of his grandiose plans, given what we know of his terrorist associations and given his determination to exact revenge on those who oppose him, should we take the risk that he will not some day use these weapons at a time and the place and in the manner of his choosing at a time when the world is in a much weaker position to respond?

The United States will not and cannot run that risk to the American people. Leaving Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option, not in a post-September 11th world.

I’m still waiting to see a news headline that reads, “Obama Calls Own Adviser Powell ‘Irresponsible and Naïve’ for Launching Iraq War.” After all, the entire House and Senate voted to authorize war based on what leaders such as Powell recommended at the time. If Hillary was “irresponsible and naïve” for following Powell’s advice, Obama must by default be equally irresponsible and naïve for taking current advice from the same source.

For conservatives and liberals alike, it is important to separate the rightfulness of the decision to invade Iraq from the subsequent execution of the war or its current status. There is always room for improvement in the handling of wars, and the one constant of conflict is that human error is inescapable. However, the drive to impugn the motives of those who voted to disarm and depose Saddam Hussein will only serve to cripple our national resolve to take similar actions in the future when necessary. Taking Ahmadinejad’s words at face value, such actions will be necessary again soon.

Hillary gets a lot of things wrong, but deserves positive reinforcement when she does something that is in the best interest of America and global security. Her Iraq War vote was the right thing to do at the right time. If conservatives do not defend such action by a liberal when it is hypocritically and opportunistically attacked, then we will have only ourselves to blame if fewer liberals choose to make sound national security decisions in the future.


Technorati Tags:
Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Iraq War Vote, Colin Powell, 2008 Campaign, Presidential Candidates, Conservatives, Liberals

Beware Iran's Left Hand if Shaking Right

No government engages in more doublespeak than the current Iranian regime. While shaking America’s right hand and agreeing to participate in a Regional Security Subcommittee with the U.S. and Iraq, Ahmadinejad’s administration holds a lethal weapon in its other hand. It is impossible to assign any credibility to Iran’s stated desire to help stabilize the security situation in Iraq while it simultaneously floods Iraq with weapons, IEDs, and terrorists using them to kill American troops and Iraqis. It is likewise impossible to place trust for cooperation in Iraq in a regime that flatly refuses to comply with UN resolutions and sanctions designed to halt its uranium enrichment efforts.

Iran’s offer to help broker security in Iraq is nothing more than a clever political feint clearly designed to soften international perceptions of Iran’s intentions in the region. If Iran can convince world leaders through its participation on a security subcommittee that it seeks peace and stability in the region, then its claims to a peaceful nuclear program developed only for power generation will appear less transparent. Our European allies are easily pacified by small gestures of cooperation, no matter how insincere those gestures may be, from Middle Eastern leaders. Saddam Hussein proved that conclusively by co-opting high ranking government officials in Germany, France, and Britain through cash and oil bribes. In exchange, these leaders softened their countries’ stances on enforcement of UN resolutions against Iraq’s pursuit of WMD.

Consider whether these words from a senior Iranian official, reported by the Guardian (UK) indicate any commitment to a peaceful and lawful end to Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons:

Tehran has made clear that it will not suspend enrichment as the UN security council has demanded, despite two earlier rounds of financial, travel and arms sanctions. A decision on a third round has been put off until September. "If there is another resolution, we will react with whatever we have," the senior official told western journalists. "So far we have answered legally, limiting [UN] inspections, and reducing cooperation with the IAEA within the legal framework.

"But if there is no legal option left, it is obvious we will be tempted to do illegal things. What is very important to us is our dignity, and we are prepared to act."

There will never be a stable Iraq as long as there is a radical, nuclear weapons-seeking regime on its border, pouring arms and terrorist expertise into the country. The danger from Iran is increased by the fact, as stated by this senior official, that Iran's dignity is at stake. To a regime that thrives on projecting an image of strength, defending dignity will likely require irrational actions. The major difference between the mullahs’ quest for nuclear weapons and Saddam Hussein’s similar effort to acquire WMD is religion. Saddam was a secular leader who sought ultimate weapons for the sheer exercise of power politics. The mullahs seek them for self-proclaimed apocalyptic use on Israel and the United States.

In our determination to stabilize Iraq and assure that its government is capable of providing defending itself, we must not lose sight of the greater danger posed by Iran. Though it would be an unpleasant situation, technically the U.S. could fight al Qaeda indefinitely in Iraq on a small scale, but if Iran’s uranium enrichment is not halted and its production facilities are not rendered inoperable, we will be fighting the same war for years to come but under the danger of nuclear attack from Iraq’s neighbor. Thus our war to provide Iraq with freedom and self-determination will have been for naught.

The Bush administration is right to argue that a stable Iraq is important to our national security, particularly in the long run, because it would establish a Muslim democracy and maintain America's image of strength in an area of the world that preys on perceived weakness. However, stabilizing Iraq should be a secondary priority to eliminating Iran’s supply stream of IEDs and arms into Iraq as well as its uranium enrichment recalcitrance. Since Iraq’s stability is codependent on Iran’s, our focus should be on stabilizing the one that is months away from possessing sufficient enriched uranium to produce its first nuclear weapon. Once that genie is out of the bottle, there will be no further opportunity to recapture it. Israeli intelligence clearly shares this assessment and may be forced to act unilaterally by the end of this year. It should not be forced to act alone. The UN Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty should be enforced aggressively by all who signed it.

Before the U.S. places any trust in Iran, Iran must be required to demonstrate responsibility on the world stage by immediately halting its uranium reduction efforts. Ahmadinejad is no fool. His new willingness to engage the U.S. in diplomacy over Iraq’s security is a calculated tactical move that provides him with the two most valuable things he needs to move his uranium enrichment to the point of no return: an international image of cooperation; and time.

As long as Iran appears cooperative on the issue of Iraq, it will be difficult for President Bush to make the case to the world that decisive action must be taken to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program. The world will always call for new talks, further negotiations, and diplomatic solutions. At some point in coming months, while holding talks and negotiations, Iran will pass the point of no return in its uranium enrichment and the opportunity for action will have passed. Iran is counting on its Iraq cooperation smokescreen to obscure from view its true intentions, both in Iraq and in its nuclear facilities.

An Iranian gesture of “goodwill” in Iraq on the one hand must not be allowed to conceal or excuse the nuclear dagger it holds in the other. America should make no mistake as to where that dagger points.

Technorati Tags:
Iraq War, Iran, Regional Security Subcommittee, Ahmadinejad, Bush Administration, Uranium Enrichment, Diplomacy

31 Victims Wish Gitmo Had Kept Mehsud

The moral of the story is that releasing terrorist enemy combatants from Guantanamo kills people. What is the story that leads to that moral? The tale of Abdullah Mehsud, a one-legged terrorist leader once housed at Guantanamo.

Liberal critics of the Bush administration’s detainment of terrorist enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay are full of sympathy and understanding for these so-called “freedom fighters” or “insurgents.” Those same critics have taken the administration to court in order to extend rights and legal representation to these terrorists caught in battle, arguing that they deserve criminal trials and should be released rather than held indefinitely. In the liberal mind these captured enemy combatants were never as dangerous or involved in high level terrorist activity as the military or the Bush administration claimed. As usual, however, liberal criticism of such military detentions has been proved unwarranted. As it turns out, even the detainees who are eventually released for various reasons immediately resume their jihad as soon as they return to Afghanistan, Iraq, or in one case symptomatic of the problem, Pakistan.

The story of Taliban leader Abdullah Mehsud illustrates quite clearly why it is not a good idea to release these enemy combatants while we are fighting a global war against Islamic terrorists. From today’s Washington Post:

A top Taliban commander who had became one of Pakistan's most wanted men since being released from U.S. custody in 2004 died Tuesday as security forces raided his hide-out, officials here said.

Abdullah Mehsud had earned a fearsome reputation by orchestrating brazen attacks and kidnappings, and was regarded as one of the masterminds of an insurgency that has spread from Afghanistan into Pakistan and grown more intense in recent weeks.

Pakistani officials said Mehsud blew himself up with a grenade early Tuesday morning rather than surrender as security forces closed in on his hideout....

...Mehsud, who was believed to be 31, was captured by U.S. troops in Afghanistan in late 2001, after the United States launched an invasion to topple the Taliban regime. The prisoner spent 25 months in the American detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But he apparently concealed his identity from his captors, and was released in March 2004. Mehsud later bragged that he had convinced Americans at Guantanamo that he was Afghan, not Pakistani.

Almost as soon as he was freed, the one-legged fighter -- he lost his other leg to a landmine -- resumed waging war, Pakistani officials say. The government of Pakistan placed an $84,000 bounty on his head after his followers kidnapped two Chinese engineers in October 2004. One of the engineers survived, while the other died during the rescue operation.

Mehsud, who operated both in Afghanistan and in the tribal areas of Pakistan, was believed to have ties to al Qaeda. It was not known if he had a role in the recent spate of attacks, though he was suspected in connection with a car bombing last week that targeted a convoy of Chinese engineers in Baluchistan. The engineers survived, but 30 Pakistanis were killed.

In this case, the government released Mehsud because he reportedly convinced Guantanamo officials that he was not a Taliban terrorist in Pakistan. The veracity of Mehsud’s bragging is questionable, but his release and subsequent behavior validate the Bush administration’s policy of indefinite detainment at facilities like Guantanamo. Even if the two attacks described above were the only ones orchestrated by Mehsud since his release from Guantanamo, which is highly unlikely, his release alone directly led to the deaths of 31 victims.

He returned to Pakistan and immediately resumed his role as an inspirational terrorist leader, yet the president’s critics incessantly pine for legal protections and releases for more than three hundred of Mehsud’s fellow terrorists. I am sure the families of Mehsud’s 31 most recent victims could offer convincing testimony regarding the wisdom of indefinite detentions for enemy combatants at Guantanamo. Unfortunately, liberals seeking to condemn President Bush listen more closely to the ACLU’s defense of “rights” for detainees than they do to reports of what happens when murderous terrorists are set free.

Mehsud further demonstrated that he preferred an explosive suicidal death to being captured and facing any form of legal prosecution or Pakistani military detainment. By continuing his policy of taking the fight to the enemy in its own lands, President Bush is allowing all who share Mehsud’s desire for ultimate justice their opportunity for self-execution. In the end, Mehsud did not want a lawyer, he wanted a grenade. He did not want a trial, he wanted martyrdom.

Ironically, he was never safer from his own suicidal ideology than he was while detained at Guantanamo. Setting such men free is potentially lethal, to innocents and to the terrorists themselves. We can increase global security for everyone by keeping these captured terrorists in pocket as long as we are at war with them.

Technorati Tags:
Abdullah Mehsud, Guantanamo, Enemy Combatants, al Qaeda, Bush Administration, Suicide, Islamic Terrorists

For WaPo, 25% is "Balanced" Coverage

The Washington Post has a math problem. The term “balanced” usually implies equal representation, with both sides of an issue presented and the reader given the opportunity to choose between them. However, as today’s Washington Post illustrates, the Post believes that “fair and balanced” is achieved when one side of an issue is given 75 percent representation and the other is afforded only 25 percent. This imbalance did not surprise me given the Post’s well-documents liberal slant, but because the unequal representation of views involved the critical topic of why Islamists hate America, I felt it deserved critical analysis.

In today’s Post, the editors tackled the important issue of America as seen through the eyes of Islam by including articles written by four “Muslim Scholars.” The theme of the Post collection of articles, “One Islam, Many Circles” was clearly designed to create the impression that the articles by these four scholars would represent distinct differences in ideology and help answer the question every American ponders: “Why do they hate us?” One of the articles actually bore that title, and while that particular piece began in an engaging pro-American manner, it quickly degenerated into another blame America first argument, albeit couched in what to some may seem reasonable logic. After reading each of the four articles by these “scholars,” it was obvious that by the Post’s mathematics, three articles blaming America for Islamic terrorism and one article identifying Islam itself as the problem constitutes fair and balanced coverage of an issue.

The first article I examined was “Why Do They Hate Us?” by the author of the novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid. Hamid’s piece started out with ample pro-American “feel good” sentimentality, wistfully recounting his early childhood in America and his patriotic American roots. Hamid then returns with his family to his native Pakistan as a nine year old boy, and describes his hometown of Lahore as a fun, peaceful, liberal city, with nightclubs, and other western forms of entertainment. In this nearly-idyllic setting, Hamid’s beloved Lahore quickly degenerated into a city filled with Islamic radicals carrying AK-47s who enforced strict codes of dress and morality and terrorized the city with crime waves and brutality. Who was responsible for this terrible transformation of Pakistan? After listing his pro-American credentials in the article, Hamid answered this question with the inevitable liberal response: America was to blame for Lahore’s demise and Pakistan’s radicalization.

Hamid’s description of how America’s role in training and equipping Mujaheddin fighters to battle with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan painted the portrait of a careless America that never should have interfered with that effort to drive out the Soviets. In Hamid’s version of history, America was only concerned about Afghanistan because of its proximity to Persian Gulf oil, and the flow of guns and heroin from the Mujaheddin training camps forever destroyed the liberal peace and fun of Lahore. This analysis begs the question that Hamid ignored rather conveniently in his description of events as he remembered them: what would have happened to Lahore and for that matter all of Pakistan had Afghanistan fallen permanently to the Soviets? How long does Hamid think that Pakistan would have remained untouched or unconsumed by Soviet expansion had the Mujaheddin, with some U.S. support, not convinced the Soviets to withdraw from Afghanistan? Perhaps Hamid should have directed his blame for the loss of Lahore’s peaceful condition on those who aggressively invaded Afghanistan and created the need for a Mujaheddin uprising in the first place: the Soviets. Was the U.S. supposed to do nothing when its Cold War communist enemy invaded a neighboring and strategically located nation? Apparently Hamid thinks so.

A warning to readers: if you start reading an article by a Muslim “scholar” and the piece opens with a lengthy attempt to establish the author’s pro-American credentials, you can be assured that immediately following that literary ruse you will find that the author’s premise is anything but pro-American. Hamid opens with talk of Star Trek, MASH, and barbeque chicken, but he concludes with warnings that America must educate itself about the foreign policy blunders of its past and that America must stop trying to be a superpower, all while admitting that he no longer lives in America but hopes America will correct its problems. That is what passes as Muslim “scholarship” at the Washington Post. A hint to Post editors: a “Muslim scholar” is not someone who is Muslim, has a PhD or writes novels, and will write opinions that fit your paper’s political bias. A “Muslim scholar” is someone who dedicates his/her educational and professional career to the study of Islam and is willing to challenge its accepted practices.

In fairness, Hamid wrote one very good paragraph during his “pro-America” smokescreen which unintentionally captured what is surely one of the primary reasons why America is hated in many corners of the world:

Part of the reason people abroad resent the United States is something Americans can do very little about: envy. The richest, most powerful country in the world attracts the jealousy of others in much the same way that the richest, most powerful man in a small town attracts the jealousy of others. It will come his way no matter how kind, generous or humble he may be.

The following paragraph, however, contained the first hint that a transition to “blame America first” was coming:

But there is another major reason for anti-Americanism: the accreted residue of many years of U.S. foreign policies. These policies are unknown to most Americans. They form only minor footnotes in U.S. history. But they are the chapter titles of the histories of other countries, where they have had enormous consequences. America's strength has made it a sort of Gulliver in world affairs: By wiggling its toes it can, often inadvertently, break the arm of a Lilliputian.

Hamid then takes the article’s readers to his “sleepy” and peaceful Lahore, Pakistan before, in his opinion, America ruined the region. The troubling truth is that Hamid’s article, of the three “blame America first” Post pieces, was the best presented and most reasoned argument.

The two other Post articles by purported “Muslim scholars” were “As American as You Are,” and “What Went Wrong? Bush Still Doesn’t Get It.” The first of these was an in-your-face “like it or not we’re here to stay and you better get used to it” approach penned by another Muslim novelist (again, novelist and scholar are synonymous only at the Post), and the second is, as its title suggests, a further “blame America first” contribution. These two articles are related to each other in that they both contain misrepresentations of religion. In “As American as You Are,” author Mohja Kahf defends radical Islam (in which she was raised) by trying to put its excesses on an equivalent moral plane with what she considered the extremes of Christianity:

This Muslim squirms whenever secular friends -- tolerant toward believers in Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam and Native American spirituality -- dismiss Christians with snorts of contempt. "It's because the Christian right wants to take over this country," they protest.

That may be, but it doesn't justify trashing the religion and its spectrum of believers. Christianity has inspired Americans to the politics of abolition and civil rights, as well as to heinous acts. Christian values have motivated the Ku Klux Klan to burn houses, and Jimmy Carter to build them.

This is not a new argument, but it ignores a profound truth that invalidates this type of moral equivalency defense: when believers of any faith murder under the guise of religion, regardless of self-declared righteous motives, they have moved beyond the tenets of faith and are engaging in pure evil not compatible with belief in any form of higher power. Thus it is error to ascribe even warped Christian values to the KKK or to associate extreme Muslim values with al Qaeda. Both groups are engaged in evil, not in religious fervor.

Kahf also put forth a disingenuous argument that America is too demanding of Muslims in its expectations for assimilation. In her words:

Assimilation is overrated. And it's not what minority religions do in the United States. Did Irish Catholics stop being Catholic when they arrived generations ago? People once believed that devout Catholics and Orthodox Jews could never be "true Americans." Today, I receive e-mails with solemn lists of why Muslims, "according to their own faith," can't possibly be "loyal Americans." The work of nut jobs. Yet purportedly sane people in Washington seem to think it's a valid question.

Rational Americans don’t expect Muslim immigrants to stop being Muslim during their naturalization process, and Kahf was misleading in her analogies with the assimilation of Catholic or Jewish immigrants. What Americans do expect, however, is that Muslims cooperate with law enforcement and purge the extremists among them who are engaged in treasonous activity. That is what Americans consider assimilation: loyalty to and preservation of America and its governmental system.

The related article, “What Went Wrong,” by Akbar Ahmed, the only actual Muslim scholar of the three authors, contained the typical anti-Bush talking points: U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq “poured gallons of fuel on a worldwide fire”; anti-Muslim rhetoric from the administration convince Muslims that they are under attack; the American media attacks on Islam. I guess Ahmed missed Hollywood’s intentional rewrite of Tom Clancy’s The Sum of All Fears, which replaced the terrorists who detonated a nuclear device at the Super Bowl, originally written by Clancy as Islamists, with white South African nationals in order to avoid casting Muslims in a bad light. Despite these less than scholarly liberal talking points, Ahmed did provide an interesting research conclusion about Islam. According to Ahmed, the Bush administration has erroneously stereotyped Islam as violent. Ahmed’s own studies actually indicated that Islam consists of more than just moderates or extremists:

...In fact, we discovered three broad categories of Muslim responses to the modern world: the mystics, the modernists and the literalists.

The mystics are the most tolerant and the least political, defined by a universalist worldview that embraces difference rather than resisting it. Muslims in this group look to sages such as the great Sufi poet Rumi for inspiration. "I go to a synagogue, church and a mosque, and I see the same spirit and the same altar," Rumi once said. You'll find today's mystics in such places as Iran, Morocco and Turkey.

That paragraph is a fascinating statement of Islamic scholarship. Ahmed wrote that “mystics” are the “most tolerant and the least political” division of Islam, yet when he listed the nations in which “mystics” are predominant, Iran is front and center. If Iran’s mullahs and President Ahmadinejad represent the most tolerant division of worldwide Islam, then a war against terrorism will see horrific escalations in the future. The government that has vowed to annihilate Israel in an atomic fireball, is the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorist groups, and is ignoring UN sanctions to develop nuclear weapon capabilities is the “most tolerant.” I wonder if Ahmed has considered what Iran would be like if it were not so “tolerant.” Ahmed surely did not intend to do so, but his own research merely served to validate the Bush administration’s stance: Islamic extremism is the single greatest danger to America and its allies.

Ahmed showed his liberal political stripes throughout his article, but beyond political ideology, he also revealed a profoundly pro-radical agenda in his caricature of Pakistani President Musharraf. Musharraf, as I have previously reported, last week declared war on Islamic extremists within Pakistan, openly pitting moderate and radical Islam against each other in what could be a battle royal for Islam’s future as a world faith. Musharraf declared himself with the moderates, yet Ahmed claimed Musharraf does not represent Pakistanis and the U.S. should work for his ouster from power. Either Ahmed wants to see radical Islam put in its place by more moderate elements or he does not, and if he does not, one must question his reasoning.

The fourth article, “Losing My Jihadism,” the only one of the four that offered any actual Muslim introspection, was authored by Mansour al-Nogaidan, a writer for a Bahraini newspaper. This author had the audacity to suggest that the problem of Islamists twisting doctrines to justify suicide bombings and attacks on innocent civilians was actually an internal problem solvable only within Islam. He called for an Islamic version of Marin Luther to lead Islam into a period of reform in which its extremes could be purged. Nowhere in this article was there any hint of the “blame America for terrorism” arguments so prominently featured in the other three, and in that light it was refreshing reading.

It would have been all the more refreshing had it been accompanied by a companion article by a Muslim scholar self-critical of Islam’s reluctance to rise up and quench its internal fires of extremism. Unfortunately in the mathematics of the Washington Post, one out of four constitutes journalistic balance.

Technorati Tags:
Islam, Mujaheddin, Terrorism, Pakistan, Musharraf, Lahore, Afghanistan, Mohsin Hamid, Mohja Kahf, Akbar Ahmed, Mansour al-Nogaidan, Islamic Reform