Weak Constitution

By Jon Stewart

Following the Boston bombing, the freedom lovers at Fox jettison Constitutional amendments like Han Solo dumping his cargo at the first sign of an Imperial cruiser. 

The Consequences Of US Islamophobia

Boykinism: Joe McCarthy Would Understand

By Andrew Bacevich
Courtesy Of "The Huffington Post"

First came the hullaballoo over the “Mosque at Ground Zero.”  Then there was Pastor Terry Jones of Gainesville, Florida, grabbing headlines as hepromoted “International Burn-a-Koran Day.”  Most recently, we have an American posting a slanderous anti-Muslim video on the Internet with all theensuing turmoil.

Throughout, the official U.S. position has remained fixed: the United States government condemns Islamophobia.  Americans respect Islam as a religion of peace.  Incidents suggesting otherwise are the work of a tiny minority -- whackos, hatemongers, and publicity-seekers.  Among Muslims from Benghazi to Islamabad, the argument has proven to be a tough sell.

And not without reason: although it might be comforting to dismiss anti-Islamic outbursts in the U.S. as the work of a few fanatics, the picture is actually far more complicated.  Those complications in turn help explain why religion, once considered a foreign policy asset, has in recent years become a net liability.

Let’s begin with a brief history lesson.  From the late 1940s to the late 1980s, when Communism provided the overarching ideological rationale for American globalism, religion figured prominently as a theme of U.S. foreign policy.  Communist antipathy toward religion helped invest the Cold War foreign policy consensus with its remarkable durability.  That Communists were godless sufficed to place them beyond the pale.  For many Americans, the Cold War derived its moral clarity from the conviction that here was a contest pitting the God-fearing against the God-denying.  Since we were on God’s side, it appeared axiomatic that God should repay the compliment.

From time to time during the decades when anti-Communism provided so much of the animating spirit of U.S. policy, Judeo-Christian strategists in Washington (not necessarily believers themselves), drawing on the theologically correct proposition that Christians, Jews, and Muslims all worship the same God, sought to enlist Muslims, sometimes of fundamentalist persuasions, in the cause of opposing the godless.  One especially notable example was the Soviet-Afghan War of 1979-1989.  To inflict pain on the Soviet occupiers, the United States threw its weight behind the Afghan resistance, styled in Washington as “freedom fighters,” and funneled aid (via the Saudis and the Pakistanis) to the most religiously extreme among them.  When this effort resulted in a massive Soviet defeat, the United States celebrated its support for the Afghan Mujahedeen as evidence of strategic genius.  It was almost as if God had rendered a verdict.

Yet not so many years after the Soviets withdrew in defeat, the freedom fighters morphed into the fiercely anti-Western Taliban, providing sanctuary to al-Qaeda as it plotted -- successfully -- to attack the United States.  Clearly, this was a monkey wrench thrown into God’s plan.

With the launching of the Global War on Terrorism, Islamism succeeded Communism as the body of beliefs that, if left unchecked, threatened to sweep across the globe with dire consequences for freedom.  Those who Washington had armed as “freedom fighters” now became America’s most dangerous enemies.  So at least members of the national security establishment believed or purported to believe, thereby curtailing any further discussion of whether militarized globalism actually represented the best approach to promoting liberal values globally or even served U.S. interests.

Yet as a rallying cry, a war against Islamism presented difficulties right from the outset.  As much as policymakers struggled to prevent Islamism from merging in the popular mind with Islam itself, significant numbers of Americans -- whether genuinely fearful or mischief-minded -- saw this as a distinction without a difference.  Efforts by the Bush administration to work around this problem by framing the post-9/11 threat under the rubric of “terrorism” ultimately failed because that generic term offered no explanation for motive. However the administration twisted and turned, motive in this instance seemed bound up with matters of religion.

Where exactly to situate God in post-9/11 U.S. policy posed a genuine challenge for policymakers, not least of all for George W. Bush, who believed, no doubt sincerely, that God had chosen him to defend America in its time of maximum danger.  Unlike the communists, far from denying God’s existence, Islamists embrace God with startling ferocity.  Indeed, in their vitriolic denunciations of the United States and in perpetrating acts of anti-American violence, they audaciously present themselves as nothing less than God’s avenging agents.  In confronting the Great Satan, they claim to be doing God’s will.

Waging War in Jesus’s Name

This debate over who actually represents God’s will is one that the successive administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama have studiously sought to avoid.  The United States is not at war with Islam per se, U.S. officials insist.  Still, among Muslims abroad, Washington’s repeated denials notwithstanding, suspicion persists and not without reason.

Consider the case of Lieutenant General William G. (“Jerry”) Boykin.  While still on active duty in 2002, this highly decorated Army officer spoke in uniform at a series of some 30 church gatherings during which he offered his own response to President Bush’s famous question: “Why do they hate us?”  The general’s perspective differed markedly from his commander-in-chief’s:  “The answer to that is because we're a Christian nation.  We are hated because we are a nation of believers.”

On another such occasion, the general recalled his encounter with a Somali warlord who claimed to enjoy Allah’s protection.  The warlord was deluding himself, Boykin declared, and was sure to get his comeuppance: “I knew that my God was bigger than his.  I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.”  As a Christian nation, Boykin insisted, the United States would succeed in overcoming its adversaries only if “we come against them in the name of Jesus.”

When Boykin’s remarks caught the attention of the mainstream press, denunciations rained down from on high, as the White House, the State Department, and thePentagon hastened to disassociate the government from the general’s views.  Yet subsequent indicators suggest that, however crudely, Boykin was indeed expressing perspectives shared by more than a few of his fellow citizens.

One such indicator came immediately: despite the furor, the general kept his important Pentagon job as deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, suggesting that the Bush administration considered his transgression minor.  Perhaps Boykin had spoken out of turn, but his was not a fireable offense.  (One can only speculate regarding the fate likely to befall a U.S. high-ranking officer daring to say of Israeli Prime Benjamin Netanyahu, “My God is a real God and his is an idol.”)

A second indicator came in the wake of Boykin’s retirement from active duty.  In 2012, the influential Family Research Council (FRC) in Washington hired the general to serve as the organization’s executive vice-president.  Devoted to “advancing faith, family, and freedom,” the council presents itself as emphatically Christian in its outlook.  FRC events routinely attract Republican Party heavyweights.  The organization forms part of the conservative mainstream, much as, say, the American Civil Liberties Union forms part of the left-liberal mainstream.

So for the FRC to hire as its chief operating officer someone espousing Boykin’s pronounced views regarding Islam qualifies as noteworthy.  At a minimum, those who recruited the former general apparently found nothing especially objectionable in his worldview.  They saw nothing politically risky about associating with Jerry Boykin.  He's their kind of guy. More likely, by hiring Boykin, the FRC intended to send a signal: on matters where their new COO claimed expertise -- above all, war -- thumb-in-your eye political incorrectness was becoming a virtue.  Imagine the NAACP electing Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan as its national president, thereby endorsing his views on race, and you get the idea.

What the FRC’s embrace of General Boykin makes clear is this: to dismiss manifestations of Islamophobia simply as the work of an insignificant American fringe is mistaken.  As with the supporters of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who during the early days of the Cold War saw communists under every State Department desk, those engaging in these actions are daring to express openly attitudes that others in far greater numbers also quietly nurture.  To put it another way, what Americans in the 1950s knew as McCarthyism has reappeared in the form of Boykinism.

Historians differ passionately over whether McCarthyism represented a perversion of anti-Communism or its truest expression.  So, too, present-day observers will disagree as to whether Boykinism represents a merely fervent or utterly demented response to the Islamist threat.  Yet this much is inarguable: just as the junior senator from Wisconsin in his heyday embodied a non-trivial strain of American politics, so, too, does the former special-ops-warrior-turned-“ordained minister with a passion for spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Notably, as Boykinism’s leading exponent, the former general’s views bear a striking resemblance to those favored by the late senator.  Like McCarthy, Boykin believes that, while enemies beyond America’s gates pose great dangers, the enemy within poses a still greater threat.  “I’ve studied Marxist insurgency,” he declared in a 2010 video.  “It was part of my training.  And the things I know that have been done in every Marxist insurgency are being done in America today.”  Explicitly comparing the United States as governed by Barack Obama to Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mao Zedong’s China, and Fidel Castro’s Cuba, Boykin charges that, under the guise of health reform, the Obama administration is secretly organizing a “constabulary force that will control the population in America.”  This new force is, he claims, designed to be larger than the United States military, and will function just as Hitler’s Brownshirts once did in Germany. All of this is unfolding before our innocent and unsuspecting eyes.

Boykinism: The New McCarthyism

How many Americans endorsed McCarthy’s conspiratorial view of national and world politics?  It’s difficult to know for sure, but enough in Wisconsin to win him reelection in 1952, by a comfortable 54% to 46% majority.  Enough to strike fear into the hearts of politicians who quaked at the thought of McCarthy fingering them for being “soft on Communism.”

How many Americans endorse Boykin’s comparably incendiary views?  Again, it’s difficult to tell.  Enough to persuade FRC’s funders and supporters to hire him, confident that doing so would burnish, not tarnish, the organization’s brand.  Certainly, Boykin has in no way damaged its ability to attract powerhouses of the domestic right.  FRC’s recent “Values Voter Summit”  featured luminaries such as Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan, former Republican Senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and Representative Michele Bachmann -- along with Jerry Boykin himself, who lectured attendees on “Israel, Iran, and the Future of Western Civilization.” (In early August, Mitt Romney met privately with a group of “prominent social conservatives,” including Boykin.)

Does their appearance at the FRC podium signify that Ryan, Santorum, Cantor, and Bachmann all subscribe to Boykinism’s essential tenets?  Not any more than those who exploited the McCarthyite moment to their own political advantage  -- Richard Nixon, for example -- necessarily agreed with all of McCarthy’s reckless accusations.  Yet the presence of leading Republicans on an FRC program featuring Boykin certainly suggests that they find nothing especially objectionable or politically damaging to them in his worldview.

Still, comparisons between McCarthyism and Boykinism only go so far.  Senator McCarthy wreaked havoc mostly on the home front, instigating witch-hunts, destroying careers, and trampling on civil rights, while imparting to American politics even more of a circus atmosphere than usual.  In terms of foreign policy, the effect of McCarthyism, if anything, was to reinforce an already existing anti-communist consensus.  McCarthy’s antics didn’t create enemies abroad.  McCarthyism merely reaffirmed that communists were indeed the enemy, while making the political price of thinking otherwise too high to contemplate.

Boykinism, in contrast, makes its impact felt abroad.  Unlike McCarthyism, it doesn’t strike fear into the hearts of incumbents on the campaign trail here.  Attracting General Boykin’s endorsement or provoking his ire probably won’t determine the outcome of any election.  Yet in its various manifestations Boykinism provides the kindling that helps sustain anti-American sentiment in the Islamic world.  It reinforces the belief among Muslims that the Global War on Terror really is a war against them.

Boykinism confirms what many Muslims are already primed to believe: that American values and Islamic values are irreconcilable.  American presidents and secretaries of state stick to their talking points, praising Islam as a great religious tradition and touting past U.S. military actions (ostensibly) undertaken on behalf of Muslims.  Yet with their credibility among Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis, and others in the Greater Middle East about nil, they are pissing in the wind.

As long as substantial numbers of vocal Americans do not buy the ideological argument constructed to justify U.S. intervention in the Islamic world -- that their conception of freedom (including religious freedom) is ultimately compatible with ours -- then neither will Muslims.  In that sense, the supporters of Boykinism who reject that proposition encourage Muslims to follow suit.  This ensures, by extension, that further reliance on armed force as the preferred instrument of U. S. policy in the Islamic world will compound the errors that produced and have defined the post-9/11 era. 

A Sociopathic Defense Of Drone Killings Of Children

Reflecting The Obama Legacy and US Culture, The Time Columnist Says: "The Bottom Line Is: 'Whose 4-Year-Olds Get Killed?'"

By Glenn Greenwald,

Here are the relevant portions of the exchange, which was triggered when regular guest Mike Barnicle announced how amazing he found it that so little public attention and debate is paid to the fact that Obama simply kills whomever he wants "without any kind of due process":

SCARBOROUGH: "What we're doing with drones is remarkable: the fact that over the past eight years during the Bush years - when a lot of people brought up some legitimate questions about international law - my God, those lines have been completely eradicated by a drone policy that says: if you're between 17 and 30, and within a half-mile of a suspect, we can blow you up, and that's exactly what's happening . . . . They are focused on killing the bad guys, but it is indiscriminate as to other people who are around them at the same time . . . . it is something that will cause us problems in the coming years" . . . .

KLEIN: "I completely disagree with you. . . . It has been remarkably successful" --

SCARBOROUGH: "at killing people" --

KLEIN: "At decimating bad people, taking out a lot of bad people - and saving Americans lives as well, because our troops don't have to do this . . . You don't need pilots any more because you do it with a joystick in California."

SCARBOROUGH: "This is offensive to me, though. Because you do it with a joystick in California - and it seems so antiseptic - it seems so clean - and yet you have 4-year-old girls being blown to bits because we have a policy that now says: 'you know what? Instead of trying to go in and take the risk and get the terrorists out of hiding in a Karachi suburb, we're just going to blow up everyone around them.'

"This is what bothers me. . . . We don't detain people any more: we kill them, and we kill everyone around them. . . . I hate to sound like a Code Pink guy here. I'm telling you this quote 'collateral damage' - it seems so clean with a joystick from California - this is going to cause the US problems in the future."

KLEIN: "If it is misused, and there is a really major possibility of abuse if you have the wrong people running the government. But: the bottom line in the end is - whose 4-year-old get killed? What we're doing is limiting the possibility that 4-year-olds here will get killed by indiscriminate acts of terror."

There are several points worth noting about this exchange:

(1) Klein's justification - we have to kill their children in order to protect our children - is the exact mentality of every person deemed in US discourse to be a "terrorist". Almost every single person arrested and prosecuted over the last decade on terrorism charges, when asked why they were willing to kill innocent Americans including children, offered some version of Joe Klein's mindset.

Here, for instance, is what the Pakistani-American Faisal Shazad said after he pled guilty to attempting to detonate a bomb in Times Square, in response to an angry question from the presiding US federal judge as to how he could possibly be willing to kill innocent children:

"Well, the drone hits in Afghanistan and Iraq, they don't see children, they don't see anybody. They kill women, children, they kill everybody. It's a war, and in war, they kill people. They're killing all Muslims. . . .

"I am part of the answer to the U.S. terrorizing the Muslim nations and the Muslim people. And, on behalf of that, I'm avenging the attack. Living in the United States, Americans only care about their own people, but they don't care about the people elsewhere in the world when they die."

The mentality of Faisal Shazad and Joe Klein are completely identical and indistinguishable: it is justified for us indiscriminately to kill even your innocent children because doing so will help stop you from killing ours.

And here's what Osama bin Laden had to say on the same topic:

"The call to wage war against America was made because America has spear-headed the crusade against the Islamic nation, sending tens of thousands of its troops to the land of the two Holy Mosques over and above its meddling in its affairs and its politics, and its support of the oppressive, corrupt and tyrannical regime that is in control. These are the reasons behind the singling out of America as a target. . . .

"Besides, terrorism can be commendable and it can be reprehensible. Terrifying an innocent person and terrorizing him is objectionable and unjust, also unjustly terrorizing people is not right. Whereas, terrorizing oppressors and criminals and thieves and robbers is necessary for the safety of people and for the protection of their property. . . .

"The terrorism we practice is of the commendable kind for it is directed at the tyrants and the aggressors and the enemies of Allah, the tyrants, the traitors who commit acts of treason against their own countries and their own faith and their own prophet and their own nation. Terrorizing those and punishing them are necessary measures to straighten things and to make them right. . . .

"It is not enough for their people to show pain when they see our children being killed in Israeli raids launched by American planes, nor does this serve the purpose. What they ought to do is change their governments which attack our countries. The hostility that America continues to express against the Muslim people has given rise to feelings of animosity on the part of Muslims against America and against the West in general. Those feelings of animosity have produced a change in the behavior of some crushed and subdued groups who, instead of fighting the Americans inside the Muslim countries, went on to fight them inside the United States of America itself."

When it comes to justifying the killing of civilians, the only difference between the Joe Kleins of the world and Osama bin Laden is that they're on different sides. To the extent one wanted to distinguish them, one could say that the violence and aggression brought by the US to the Muslim world vastly exceeds - vastly - the violence and aggression brought by the Muslim world to the US. That's just a fact.

(2) Leaving aside the sociopathic, morally grotesque defense of killing 4-year-olds with a "joystick from California", Klein's claims are completely false on pragmatic grounds. Slaughtering Muslim children does not protect American children from terrorism. The opposite is true. That is precisely what causes the anti-American hatred that fuels and sustains terrorism aimed at Americans in the first place, as even a study commissioned by the Rumsfeld-era Pentagon recognized almost a decade ago.

The reason American 4-year-olds are in danger from terrorism - to the very limited extent they are - is precisely because those empowered in US government and media circles think like Joe Klein does. Soulless cheerleaders for indiscriminate killing like Joe Klein - who once went on national television and advocated that the US should preserve the right to launch a first-strike nuclear attack on Iran in order to stop their nuclear program, prompting host George Stephanopoulos to label that statement "insane" - are the reason there is a terrorism risk to Americans, not the solution for that risk.

If you want to understand why there is such a widespread desire to engage in violence against the US, look at Joe Klein's face and listen to his words. Every Muslim who has ever engaged in violence against the US will make that as clear as can be.

(3) This exchange is a perfectly vivid expression of the Obama legacy. Here we have a standard Democratic/progressive pundit who is one of the media's most stalwart Obama fanatics defending indiscriminate slaughter of Muslim children. Meanwhile, it's left to a former right-wing, Gingrich-era congressman to raise objections, call for more public scrutiny, and cite the moral and strategic dangers, one of the very few commentators on MSNBC - the progressive network - who has ever voiced such passionate criticism of Obama's ongoing killings.

Obama has led all sorts of progressives and other Democrats to be the most vocal supporters of unrestrained aggression, secret assassinations, and "crippling" the Iranian people with sanctions. It is completely unsurprising that the most sociopathic defense of drones comes from one of the most committed Obama supporters, and that it's now left to a former GOP Congressman to raise objections. As much as anything, that is the Obama legacy.

(4) One of the primary reasons war - especially protracted war - is so destructive is not merely that it kills the populations at whom it is aimed, but it also radically degrades the character of the citizenry that wages it. That's what enables one of America's most celebrated pundits to go on the most mainstream of TV programs and coldly justify the killing of 4-year-olds, without so much as batting an eyelash or even paying lip service to the heinous tragedy of that, and have it be barely noticed. Joe Klein is the face not only of the Obama legacy, but also mainstream US political culture.

Afghanistan

Speaking of killing children, the Afghanistan government said this morning that a NATO operation on Saturday killed three more Afghan children, ones who were tending to livestock.

UPDATE

There's one other vital point to be made here. Klein says that "there is a really major possibility of abuse [of drone power] if you have the wrong people running the government" - in other words, we can trust Obama with it, but not the big bad Republicans. This was precisely what Bush followers used to say about his claimed powers of due-process-free eavesdropping and detention: maybe this would be scary if Hillary Clinton could do this, but I trust Bush to use it only against the Bad Guys.

Leaving aside the authoritarian willingness to trust certain leaders with unchecked power, this is not how the US government works. Once a power is legitimized and institutionalized, then it is vested in all presidents, current and future, Democratic and Republican. That is whyThomas Jefferson warned: "In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." Those who cheer for the unchecked power to assassinate in secret because it's Obama who currently wields that power will be the ones fully responsible when some leader they don't trust exercises it - abuses it - in the future.

Via: "The Guardian"

“Violence Is Not The Norm” In Christianity?

People In Glass Houses Should Not Throw Words

By Sheila Musaji,

Here are a few statements from important figures in the U.S. government and military:

“Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for Him. Christianity is a faith in which God sends his son to die for you.” said John Ashcroft, former Attorney General of the U.S.

Maj. Gen. William Boykin declared that he was “God’s Warrior” and that “America is a Christian nation.” He demeaned the entire Muslim world by stating that his God was bigger than a Muslim warlord’s god and that the Muslim’s god “was an idol.”  And, he said all of this in uniform.

Dr. Don Boys a former member of the Indiana House of Representatives said that in case of any attack on Americans we should “bomb Islam’s holy cities into the stone age”!  Rep. Tom Tancredo agrees. 

Mike Huckabee’s Iowa campaign manager Bob Vander Plaats appearing on Tucker on MSNBC, stated that “we’re fighting a radical religion in Islam” and that “the war on terror is a theological war.”  For a “theological” war a lot of people are dying. 

Col. Tom Snodgrass said:  “My analysis of the factors bearing on the adequacy and applicability of Christian Just War to the present conflict presented in this essay leads me to conclude that there is no question that jus ad bellum criteria are fully satisfied from the US standpoint.  And just as was the case in the World War II Pacific Theater, the Islamic enemy’s disregard for any human or Judeo-Christian standard of morality makes the application of normally acceptable jus in bello criteria absolutely impossible and therefore inapplicable. Furthermore, as World War II-era Americans accepted this reality and went on with the war approving whatever was necessary because “no prisoners” and “fire/nuclear bombing” were essential to quickly end an unjust Japanese-initiated war, so too Americans must now accept that all weapons and targets are justly within the “engagement” for US war fighters in this existential war against Islamic Jihad.  In this war, the stakes are even higher than they were in 1941.” - he is saying that all Muslims are the enemy and that the principles of a just war don’t apply to this enemy.  Pretty much the argument of al Qaeda.

Let’s look at the premise that “violence is not the norm” in Christianity.  How to measure something like this is tricky, but this was certainly not true throughout large portions of history. Whether it is true today is arguable.  One look at our our cities, our schools, or even our homes, and violence by Christians, and every other group, is apparent.  Since 9/11, there has been a rise in hate crimes against minority groups, and the aggressors often identify themselves and their motives as being Christian.  Looking at the bigger picture, what country is the primary supplier of weapons to the rest of the world? Hint: it is not a Muslim country. What country has the highest military expenditures per capita of any country on earth? See previous hint. Which country has proposed bombing other countries into the stone age? The answer to all three is the US, which no one would identify as a Muslim country.  Those who developed and dropped the atom bomb were a multicultural group—but none were Muslim. Looking outside the US, where have arguable violent and repressive systems like fascism, communism, and Naziism been produced? Not in Muslim countries.  Was it Muslims who carried out the Rwandan and Bosnian genocides?  Are the Italian and Russian mafias Muslim?  Are the South American drug cartels Muslims?  Who talks about sanctions, pre-emptive strikes, invasions? Who allows the torture of Muslims in various secret and not-so-secret prisons. What religion was Timothy McVeigh? The IRA?

So, the idea that ALL violence or terrorism is Muslim is laughable. All these examples show, as would a simple glance at any collection of court-documents, that there is an unfortunately common occurence of violence today, and it does not all involve Muslims (not even close). By population, violence is an aberration found in EVERY group.

“In the first half of this decade, from 1990 to 1995, 70 international states were involved in 93 wars which killed five and a half million people.(5) Most of the casualties were civilians, noncombatants. At the beginning of this century, most of the war casualties were military (85-90%). In World War II more than half of all war deaths were noncombatants. Today, at the end of the twentieth century, more than three-fourths of all war deaths are civilians.(6)”  (Source)  Were any Christians involved in these wars? Of course.

Jesus may have asked his followers to lay down their lives for others and to concern themselves with the heavenly kingdom and not to fight with the sword — but the reality of the last 2,000 years has not been typified by such actual behavior except in the case of small groups like the Amish and the Quakers.  More typical have been clergy like Charles Stanley, “pastor of the First Baptist Church of Atlanta, whose weekly sermons are seen by millions of television viewers, led the charge with particular fervor. “We should offer to serve the war effort in any way possible,” said Mr. Stanley, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. “God battles with people who oppose him, who fight against him and his followers.” In an article carried by the convention’s Baptist Press news service, a missionary wrote that “American foreign policy and military might have opened an opportunity for the Gospel in the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”   

Stanley was not alone as a number of other clergymen and their flocks supported the war in Iraq.  “As if working from a slate of evangelical talking points, both Franklin Graham, the evangelist and son of Billy Graham, and Marvin Olasky, the editor of the conservative World magazine and a former advisor to President Bush on faith-based policy, echoed these sentiments, claiming that the American invasion of Iraq would create exciting new prospects for proselytizing Muslims. Tim LaHaye, the co-author of the hugely popular “Left Behind” series, spoke of Iraq as “a focal point of end-time events,” whose special role in the earth’s final days will become clear after invasion, conquest and reconstruction. For his part, Jerry Falwell boasted that “God is pro-war” in the title of an essay he wrote in 2004.    The war sermons rallied the evangelical congregations behind the invasion of Iraq. An astonishing 87 percent of all white evangelical Christians in the United States supported the president’s decision in April 2003. Recent polls indicate that 68 percent of white evangelicals continue to support the war. But what surprised me, looking at these sermons nearly three years later, was how little attention they paid to actual Christian moral doctrine. Some tried to square the American invasion with Christian “just war” theory, but such efforts could never quite reckon with the criterion that force must only be used as a last resort. As a result, many ministers dismissed the theory as no longer relevant.”

As Chris Stephen pointed out in an article entitled ‘Praise Bush and the Iraq war’  “Cornerstone Church, a vast squat white temple in San Antonio, is rapidly becoming the movement’s epicentre, thanks to the charismatic founder, Pastor John Hagee, the rising star of America’s TV evangelists. For these evangelists, the war in Iraq is not a disaster, but the beginning of the fulfilment of biblical prophecies that culminate, possibly very soon, in a mighty struggle between good and evil at Armageddon.  ...  “Listen up, president of Iran,” booms the pastor. “We are going to be your worst nightmare, Mr Ahmadinejad. The pharaoh threatened Israel, he ended up fish-food in the sea. When you say Israel is going to disappear in a sudden storm you may be predicting the way you disappear.” 

Don Swarthout, President, Christians Reviving America’s Values said:  “I truly hate the idea of an all out war, but if we don’t kill them, they will kill us.  Nuclear war maybe our only option if we are going to stop radical Islam’s attempt to take over the world.”

Other articles have pointed to the same sentiments being common among certain segments of the Christian population of the U.S.  Jim Lobe wrote an entire article on the subject: Conservative Christians Biggest Backers of Iraq War.

Sounds a tad bit violent to me.  And, even those who declaim the violence are not adverse to benefitting from it.  Max Blumenthal in Onward Christian Soldiers comes to the conclusion that: “Conservative fundamentalists with close ties to President Bush are planning a new missionary push in Iraq—and they might already be converting U.S. troops to their cause.” 

Is basing a missionary campaign in the ashes of violent endeavors a form of “subjugation” or a “carnal weapon of coercion” like that which the second article ascribed to Islam?

This “positive” missionary aspect has been widely discussed.  For example:  Christian Missionaries Battle For Hearts and Minds in Iraq; Bible Belt missionaries set out on a ‘war for souls’ in Iraq; Why Iraq Beckons Missionaries; God and Country; War in Babylon has evangelicals seeing Earth’s final days 

This response is to the concept that violence is somehow unique—or even more common to—Islam than to other religious groups. It is currently common to EVERYONE. Addressing the moral and ethical arguments that revolve around the concept of “justified violence” is a separate matter all together. If your response to this article is that some violence is justified, you have missed the point. However, in this author’s opinion, the message of Jesus Christ was correct. Violence is not the answer. Indeed, if people of faith (every faith I can think of) were to follow the actual teachings of their scriptures (not some crazed pastors’ or imams’ distorted agenda), then the current violence would end.  No legitimate representatives of any faith can both follow the teachings of their faith and preach violence.

This is one of the difficult issues to dialogue about, but it is an issue that needs to be dealt with - What was the religious affiliation of:  - Those who enslaved and murdered the Native Americans; - Those who colonized most of what is now the “Third World”; - Those who dropped the atomic bomb; - Those who developed and participated in the political systems of Naziism and Fascism; - Those who carried out the Rwandan genocide?; - Those who participated in torture at Abu Ghraib; - Those who carried out ethnic cleansing against the Bosnian Muslims; - Those who were responsible for the death of millions in Germany’s death camps?  If the answer to any of these questions had been Islam then the criminals would have been identified as “Islamic” .......  This demonizing of the “other” and oversimplification of genuine issues that need to be resolved does a disservice to all of us, and in the current political climate also isolates traditional mainstream Muslims who otherwise might be able to serve as a bridge between cultures.

“The leap from deviant Muslims perpetrating atrocities to a religion being impugned for the sins of its supposed adherents is breath-taking in its audacity. This distinction has become critical ever since the ‘’showdown with Saddam” transmuted into the ‘’war on terror.” With the daily mind-numbing imagery of maniacal Muslim ‘’insurgents” savaging troops and civilians alike, a transformation rapidly took place: The problem was just not Muslim terrorists but an ‘’evil” Islam itself. This is a theme broadcast with malevolent glee by talk shows on a daily basis thereby intensifying suspicion, fear, contempt, and hatred of Islam. Demonizing Islam makes it the enemy in the ‘’war on terror.” ... Ironically, it is us Muslims who have the greatest vested interest in eradicating terrorism. We need to do this to salvage our religion and our self-respect. As long as we are marginalized by the West and taunted by the extremists, we are made to feel as if we were part of the problem rather than of the solution, and our commitment becomes ambivalent. If the so-called war on terrorism has any chance of being won, there needs to be an immediate redefinition of the enemy.” Foe isn’t Islam, it’s Binladenism, Abdul Cader Asmal

Via: "The American Muslim"

Fanatical Right's Diatribe Could Unleash A Wave Of Domestic Terrorism

Anders Behring Breivik's 'Sieg Heil' Salute

By Joshua Holland
Courtesy Of "Alter-Net"

In a somewhat desperate attempt to maintain morale among a Republican base that disdains its standard-bearer, a number of conservative media outlets are pushing an alternate reality in which Mitt Romney is leading in the polls by wide margins and American voters have a decidedly negative view not of the challenger, but of Barack Obama.

It's an exceptionally dangerous game that the right-wing media are playing. If Obama wins – and according to polling guru Nate Silver, he'd have a 95 percent chance of doing so if the vote were held today – there's a very real danger that this spin -- combined with other campaign narratives that are popular among the far-right -- could create a post-election environment so toxic that it yields an outburst of politically motivated violence.

A strategy that began with a series of rather silly columns comparing 2012 with 1980, and assuring jittery conservatives that a huge mass of independents was sure to break for Romney late and deliver Obama the crushing defeat he so richly deserves, entered new territory with the bizarre belief that all the polls are wrong. And not only wrong, butintentionally rigged by “biased pollsters” – including those at Fox News – in the tank for Obama. (See Alex Pareene's piece for more on the right's new theory that the polls are being systematically “skewed.”)

Consider how a loosely-hinged member of the right-wing fringe – an unstable individual among the third of conservative Republicans who believe Obama's a Muslim or the almost two-thirds who think he was born in another country – expecting a landslide victory for the Republican might process an Obama victory. This is a group that has also been told, again and again, that Democrats engage in widespread voter fraud – that there are legions of undocumented immigrants, dead people and ineligible felons voting in this election (with the help of zombie ACORN). They've been told that Democrats are buying the election with promises of “free stuff” offered to the slothful and unproductive half of the population that pays no federal income taxes and refuses to “take responsibility for their lives” – Romney's 47 percent.

They've also been told – by everyone from NRA president Wayne LaPierre to Mitt Romney himself – that Obama plans to ban gun ownership in his second term. (Two elaborate conspiracy theories have blossomed around this point. One holds that Fast and Furious – which, in reality, is much ado about very little – was designed to elevate gun violence to a point where seizing Americans' firearms would become politically popular. The second holds that a United Nations treaty on small arms transfers (from which the United States has withdrawn) is in fact a stealthy workaround for the Second Amendment.)

And they've been warned in grim, often apocalyptic terms of what's to come in a second term. The film, “2016: Obama's America,” offers a dystopian vision of a third-world America gutted by Obama's supposed obsession with global wealth redistribution. His re-election would bring something far worse than mere socialism – it would be marked by Kenyan anti-colonialism, in which America's wealth is bled off as a form of reparations for centuries of inequities between the global North and South.

These kinds of fringe views aren't relegated to the fever swamps of the right-wing blogosphere – they're often reinforced by elected Republicans. Reps Steve King, R-Iowa, Michele Bachmann, R-Minnesota, Louie Gohmert, R-Texas and others warn that the Obama administration has been infiltrated by Islamic Extremists. An elected judge in Texas advocated a tax increase – yes, a tax increase! – in order to better arm local sheriff's deputies whom he claimed would serve on the front-lines of the civil war likely to come should Obama be re-elected. “I’m talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms, get rid of the dictator,” he said.

They've been hammered with the idea that while these facts are obvious for those whose eyes are open, the media is covering it all up. Rather than a Democrat with whom people tend to connect running a good campaign against a flawed Republican candidate, many on the far-right will see an illegitimate president colluding with an array of perfidious forces, both foreign and domestic, to deny them the right to finally 'take their country back.'

Obviously, there's no need to fear a massive rebellion from millions of engraged Glenn Beck fans in their Hoverounds; rather, the danger is that in the aftermath of such an election, a small number of dangerously unstable anti-government extremists will take matters into their own hands -- and even a small number can do significant damage.

After the 2008 election, there was a run on weapons and ammunition, and gun sellers are expecting another bonanza if Obama wins a second term. We've seena dramatic wave of right-wing domestic terrorism since Barack Obama's election. Recently, four active-duty soldiers – and five others – based at Fort Stewart, Georgia, were arrested after murdering two compatriots they suspected of betraying their plot to assassinate Obama. The group had been “stockpiling weapons and bomb parts to overthrow the U.S. government.” With $87,000 in weapons and explosives -- and combat training courtesy of Uncle Sam -- this was a potentially devastating plot. Just think about the havoc that a few heavily-armed men with military discipline were able to wreak in Mumbai in 2008.

It's a real threat, but political correctness keeps it in the shadows. At a senate hearing last week, a former Department of Homeland Security official named Daryl Johnson testified that “the threat of domestic terrorism motivated by extremist ideologies is often dismissed and overlooked in the national media and within the U.S. government.” He continued:

Yet we are currently seeing an upsurge in domestic non-Islamic extremist activity, specifically from violent right-wing extremists. While violent left-wing attacks were more prevalent in the 1970s, today the bulk of violent domestic activity emanates from the right wing.... Since the 2008 presidential election, domestic non-Islamic extremists have shot 27 law enforcement officers, killing 16 of them.

That the “unskewed” polls show Romney heading towards a blow-out win is likely to lead more disturbed people to see themselves as victims of a dark plot to undermine America's “traditional values.” It's not the only iteration of the alternate universe that the right has conjured up in recent years – just ponder, for a moment, that the creator of “Conservapedia” – a hilariously inaccurate right-wing version of Wikipedia – has undertaken to write a distinctly conservative version of the Bible (one in which Jesus presumably inveighs against taxes and regulation dragging down job creators, and doesn't constantly blather about the poor).

But while those efforts are often laughable, the unintended consequences of offering the hard-right a Bizarro World analysis of the 2012 election may prove deadly serious if Obama pulls out a win.

Islamophobia: The West’s Crusade Against Muslims

Kourosh Ziabari writes in "Global Research",

Despite constituting a significant minority in western countries, Muslims around the world are subject to disproportionate, unjustifiable bias. Such attitudes distance them from their most fundamental social rights by portraying them as extremists and fanatics. The group is represented as able to endanger the interests of Europe and America.

As reported by the German Central Institute Islam Archive, there are 53 million Muslims living in Europe (excluding Turkey) who represent some 7.2% of the continent’s population. According to a Pew Research Center 2011 demographic study, globally Islam has 1.6 billion adherents, making up 23% of the world’s population.

Muslims coexist with other groups in peace and tranquility. Nobody can claim that Muslims have been dangerous or harmful to the security of the western countries, because there’s no evidence to confirm this claim.

The mass media of European countries regularly and recklessly insult Islamic religious symbols, especially the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). The most prominent example of these insults was the publication of 12 blasphemous editorial cartoons by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September, 2005 which prompted international anger. Many understood that such actions result in continued antagonism and bitterness, serving only to add fuel to the fire of anti-Islamic sentiments.

The term Islamophobia, which is described as an irrational fear of Islam and Muslims and prejudice against and hatred of them, came into common use following the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. In actuality, the term was spread by the US government which launched two military expeditions in the Middle East for the alleged purpose of combating what they termed “Islamic fundamentalism” and terrorism.

As a result of media propaganda, Muslims in some countries are demonized and ostracized, unable to attend or perform prayers in public, assume government positions, pursue their social rights on equal terms with other citizens or adhere to their preferred dress codes.

It was recently revealed that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) has been engaged in widespread religious and ethnic profiling and the monitoring of Muslim communities and houses of worship in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. A coalition of social activists in the US is calling on the Senate, the Department of Justice and the US Marshals Service to take action in response to the illegal police monitoring of the Muslims in greater New York.

The revelations are contained in documents obtained by the Associated Press (AP) showing that undercover NYPD officers in a “Demographics Unit” targeted the Muslim communities with the assistance of individuals linked to the CIA. NYPD officials are denying the Demographics Unit ever existed, despite the publication of an NYPD presentation that described the mission and makeup of the unit.

Independent sources, including Islamophobia Watch have reported that the monitoring of mosques and the daily affairs of Muslims in the United States has intensified since the 9/11 attacks; the CIA has been carrying out underground intelligence operations to scrutinize the daily life of Muslims within the country.

According to Islamophobia Watch, the CIA has dispatched undercover officers to public places such as bookstores, shops and cafes to keep an eye on the daily affairs of Muslims. It has also used informants known as “mosque crawlers” to monitor sermons delivered by Muslim Imams and take action when necessary.

While in western detention, Muslims are treated inequitably and unfairly. Several reports have been published which detail how Muslim prisoners of the United States and Europe have been subject to torture, mistreatment and abuse. Babar Ahmad, a citizen of south west London, is one of several Muslim detainees who are being held in European and American jails without being charged in a court hearing.

Ahmad was arrested on August 5, 2004 on charges of providing materials to a website which supports Chechen and Taliban insurgents. Since then, he has spent seven years in prison without trial.

Since his detainment, Ahmad has been subjected to torture and humiliation by the UK police. Scotland Yard officers have beaten him, stomped on his bare feet with boots, sexually abused him, mocked his Islamic faith by placing him into a Muslim prayer position and taunting, “Where is your God now?!” and applied life-threatening neck holds to him.

Muslims in the West are deterred from wearing clothing expressive of their faith, another representation of Islamophobic and xenophobic sentiments. A law in Belgium can fine and imprison for up to seven days a woman wearing burqa or niqab, a fabric covering for the lower face. In France, since April anyone wearing niqab or burqa in public is subject to fines of 150 euros and “citizenship training.” Moreover, an Italian parliamentary committee has drafted a law which bans women from wearing items that cover their faces in public.

Overall, what is clear is that Muslims in the West are treated as second-rate citizens; their social rights and freedom seem to be confiscated. Western mainstream media regularly associates terrorism with Islam and attributes terrorist activities to Muslims. The European governments overtly express their disdain for Islam and the Muslims, allowing the enactment of laws which limit and restrain social liberties of Muslims.

Islamophobia is a modern crusade against Muslims by societies which boast of being liberal and democratic, but in practice are xenophobic and intolerant. How can a truer image of Islam and Muslims be demonstrated to the West?

America and The Muslims

The Reality Behind The “Free Speech” Argument

Muslim public officials, religious leaders, and opinion makers need to understand the nature and limitations of Western secular societies and their democratic traditions. But the lack of any meaningful dialogue between American policy and opinion makers on the one hand, and Muslim scholars and activists on the other, as well as the historical baggage of anti-Muslim American policy in the past decade and the mistrust that followed, make it extremely difficult to explain to the Muslims around the world that the U.S government not only has nothing to do with the production and promotion of this movie, but such incidents also run contrary to its principles and interests.

There are basically two main reasons for the lack of trust and understanding between the two sides. First, the U.S. does not seriously engage the American Muslim community or Islamic movements worldwide on political or cultural levels. Rather it deals with them, especially domestically, from the narrow prism of security concerns. Thus, in many instances the American Muslim community has been treated as a liability to politicians or civil society institutions.

Secondly, many Islamophobes and Muslim haters have taken over the public space and the media so much so that appointments or inclusion of any Muslim figure in government or other public institutions have become a struggle, sometimes with costly consequences. The Republican Party has basically become the party associated with Muslim bashers and haters, while the Democratic Party has only given lip service to inclusion while it is still afraid of being attacked by the right as being sympathetic to “terrorists.” Meanwhile, the American Muslim community is alienated and the crude stereotype of America being the enemy of Islam is cemented in the hearts and minds of Muslims worldwide.

American Muslims are thus a wasted asset. Probably more than most they understand and appreciate the value of free speech and the first amendment and could play a crucial role in acting like a bridge between America and the rest of the Islamic world provided that they feel genuinely included in the political discourse and be treated with respect.

In every incident many American public officials and pundits argue that the “irrational” reaction by thousands of Muslims around the globe “exposes” their religion’s intolerance to freedom of speech and expression. Their central argument has always been that Islam is incompatible with democratic values, with freedom of belief, speech, and expression being at the center of such values. Their objective, of course, is to give credence to the “clash of civilizations” thesis and to keep Islam and Muslims on a continuous collision course with the West.

Since the end of the Cold War, this campaign to replace communism with Islam, and the Soviets with Muslims has been relentless although initially not very successful. Regrettably the 9/11 attacks provided justification, context, and impetus for the proponents of the clash theory, who have since been exerting considerable influence over many governmental agencies and senior officials as they adopted policies, strategies and tactics that promulgated this world view. One consequence of this policy was to target all Muslim organizations and activists (even in many cases just ordinary individuals), in the U.S. and abroad, and treat them as potential threats, suspects, and enemies of the state until proven otherwise.

Undoubtedly, Muslims around the globe are extremely sensitive to deliberate depictions of highly offensive insults directed toward the prophet and holy book of Islam. Yet, for centuries hundreds of books, articles, speeches, and other materials have been produced that harshly criticized and attacked the religion, its founder, and holy texts without evoking anger, fear, or violence. On their face, these offensive expressions are not what Muslims find so objectionable. Most Muslim scholars welcome the opportunity to engage in a civilized dialogue or debate the validity of major Islamic beliefs, tenets, interpretations, or historical facts.

But what made the incidents in the last two decades different is the nature of the attacks. They were deliberate attempts to fabricate the life and history of its major figure by mocking his life and depicting him in the most offensive manner: irrational, liar, crazy, filthy, coward, killer, thief, slave-trader, philanderer, pedophile, sexually deviant, while his wives were portrayed as ignorant, prostitutes or sexually enslaved. One could hardly point to any redeeming value in such productions. But make no mistake about it; these incidents were not intended to have any. Their sole purpose was to goad and incite a Muslim response knowing that a substantial number of them will be enraged and react vehemently, some even violently.

But why does it seem that most Muslims become easily infuriated with such disgraceful attacks against their religious symbols?

Western secular societies assert that the highest value in their culture is the preservation and security of human life. They argue that this doctrine takes precedence over all other aspects in life. While within the Islamic culture, the preservation of human life is indeed sacred, it is however, preceded by the safeguarding of its belief system, chiefly among them the honor of its prophet and holy text. In other words, most Muslims believe that deliberate abuse and slander of their prophet or holy book is the highest form of violating their human rights. Nevertheless, most authentic Islamic religious authorities do not condone or justify any form of violence in expressing such legitimate anger or outrage. Clearly, in a multicultural world, maintaining peace and harmony among communities and cultures dictate that people understand and respect, but not necessarily accept, the value system of other cultures so long as they do not directly contradict with their most basic values and principles.

So when someone is keenly aware of another’s value system and what hot button issues are likely to generate widespread outrage, such deliberate acts should be called for what they actually are: the highest form of fomenting incitement and hatred.

But how could the U.S. deal with free speech and art that incite and tear apart human relations without violating its most cherished principle?

One of the limitations in the United States constitutional law to freedom of speech as protected by the First Amendment is the “fighting words” doctrine. In a 1942 famous Supreme Court case, the unanimous ruling held that “insulting or fighting words, are those that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.” Applying such a principle can easily lead to the balance needed between the inviolability of the principle of freedom of speech and the narrow exception where such speech results in a serious massive injury that would rupture harmony and peace within communities, cultures, and countries.

Yet what about the practice of freedom of speech in the West?

Western governments and civil society institutions assert that freedom of speech, expression, and association is the bedrock of maintaining their democratic character. Whenever someone deliberately sets out to inflame the sensitivities of Muslims toward their prophet or holy book, freedom of speech is invoked in order to defend the cause of the uproar and dismiss its effects as an irrational response. Granted though that under no circumstance should violence be an acceptable answer to any attack no mater how wicked or appalling.

But on a more basic level, does the West really believe in free speech or does it apply a double standard when it comes to Muslim sensibilities? Let’s check the record.

In the private sector, when Google was asked to remove the highly inflammatory YouTube video, it immediately and correctly cited its long established policy of supporting freedom of speech, including all despised speech (though it reluctantly agreed to suspend it in Egypt and Libya.) But as the Jewish Press reported on August 1, Google had no problem removing 1,710 videos and closing their affiliated accounts because “A substantial number of those videos concerned Holocaust denial and defense of Holocaust deniers.” According to the newspaper report, Google “closed the user’s account within 24 hours” of receiving the complaint by a group that monitors anti-Semitism in Australia.

In July 2011, Facebook was pressured by Israeli authorities to close the accounts of many Palestinian activists. Israel complained that the activists were coordinating their plans to travel to Israel and cause disruptions. In reality, the activists were trying to make a strong political statement online. Needless to say, the Israeli government could have easily rescinded any visas it might have issued to these activists or prevented any person from entering the country had they actually traveled. There was no call for incitement or violence by the activists to justify closing their accounts.

People in the U.S. may not be aware of these incidents where hate or disfavored speech was taken down. But many people in the Muslim world are aware of such interventions that run contrary to stated principles. Plausibly, they wonder, if foreigners such as the Attorney General of Israel or an Australian monitoring group can get Google or Facebook to shut down videos or close accounts, how can one argue that the President or the Secretary of State cannot make similar requests? They also recall that in 2009 Secretary Clinton intervened and prevailed over the executives of Facebook and Twitter on behalf of the activists of the so-called Green movement in Iran. This is not an argument to advocate closing down accounts or removing videos but simply to illustrate the hypocrisy and double standard practiced by public officials and business conglomerates when dealing with Muslim concerns.

Furthermore, many European countries enacted laws in the past three decades that criminalize any speech or writings that question the official accounts of the Holocaust. In 1996 French philosopher Roger Garaudy published his book, The Founding Myths of Modern Israel. Critics charged that his book contained Holocaust denial and consequently the French government indicted him, and shortly thereafter, the courts banned any further publication of the book. In 1998 Garaudy was convicted, sentenced to a suspended jail sentence of several years, and fined forty thousand dollars.

In 2005, English writer David Irving was apprehended in Austria on a 1989 arrest warrant of being a Holocaust denier. He was subsequently convicted of “trivializing, grossly playing down, and denying the Holocaust,” and sentenced to three years imprisonment.

Moreover, British Muslim Ahmed Faraz was sentenced in Dec. 2011 to three years in prison in London after being convicted of “disseminating a number of books deemed to be terrorist publications.” The publication Faraz was convicted of distributing in his bookstore was the 1964 book, Milestones, written by the late Egyptian author Sayyed Qutb.

But the U.S. government’s recent record is far more alarming. In fact, since 9/11 draconian sentences have been handed down on the account of what traditionally was considered pure first amendment activities.

In 2004, two TV satellite operators, Javed Iqbal (a New York resident of over 25 years), and Saleh Elahwal, were charged by federal prosecutors with “providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization” by broadcasting to U.S. customers Hizbollah’s satellite channel, Al-Manar. The FBI also searched Iqbal’s business and home “on suspicion of maintaining satellite dishes.” In 2008, Iqbal was convicted and sentenced to 69 months.

In many criminal prosecutions since 9/11 Muslims have been convicted and sentenced to as much as life in prison for expressing their political opinions, giving fatwas (religious opinions), feeding children, providing educational materials, translating documents, uploading videos on websites, or singing in a band.

In one case involving American-born Tarek Mehanna, Yale Professor Andrew F. March wrote in the New York Times, “As a political scientist specializing in Islamic law and war, I frequently read, store, share and translate texts and videos by jihadi groups. As a political philosopher, I debate the ethics of killing. As a citizen, I express views, thoughts and emotions about killing to other citizens. As a human being, I sometimes feel joy (I am ashamed to admit) at the suffering of some humans and anger at the suffering of others.” He further wrote, “At Mr. Mehanna’s trial, I saw how those same actions can constitute federal crimes, because Mr. Mehanna’s conviction was based largely on things he said, wrote and translated.”

What these examples and many others illustrate is that the protection of the constitutional freedoms of speech, expression, and association are used selectively in the U.S. on the basis of political judgments. American officials, public intellectuals, and opinion makers revel in invoking the first amendment as an inviolable principle when Islam or its sacred symbols are attacked, and then find rationalizations and loopholes when American Muslims engage in objectionable free speech activities. However, this double standard is not lost on the majority of people in the Muslim world and across the globe.

The criteria to judge whether a society values and respects free speech is when the most vulnerable members of society, those who might be the targets of the majority, can feel safe and free to say what they think when they want on any subject without fear, intimidation or negative repercussions. In other words, to know whether America today honors free speech one must ask one hundred random American Muslim activists that question to get the real answer.

In a nutshell, America shall only have credibility as a champion and guardian of freedom of speech and expression when the thoughts, speeches, writings, fatwas, translations, poetry, and web browsing of Mehanna and his colleagues are not criminalized. Only when they are set free can America reclaim back the mantle.

Via: "CounterPunch"