Shortly after taking office, President Obama announced he'd close CIA prisons and end abusive interrogations of terrorism suspects by U.S. officials. But the Obama administration has notably preserved the right to continue "renditions" - the abduction and transfer of suspects to U.S. allies in its "war on terror," including allies notorious for the use of torture.
Although the Obama Administration in 2009 promised to monitor more closely the treatment of suspects it turned over to foreign prisons, the disturbing case of Gulet Mohamed, an American teenager interrogated under torture in Kuwait, casts doubt on the effectiveness of those so-called "diplomatic assurances." It's also raised questions about whether the "extraordinary rendition" program conducted by the Bush administration has now been transformed into an equally abusive proxy detention program run by its successor.
In testimony Tuesday afternoon that literally had my jaw dropping, a forensic psychiatrist called by the U.S. government testified that Omar Khadr, the Canadian who Monday pled guilty to a slew of terrorist acts including murder, is too dangerous to be released because he is sincerely religious and became even more devout at the Guantanamo Bay prison.
Opposition is mounting to the "Burn a Koran Day" scheduled for September 11th in Florida. President Obama today condemned the event, urging Pastor Terry Jones to cancel. General David Petraeus said it could harm our troops, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called it unrepresentative of Americans. Attorney General Eric Holder called it "idiotic and dangerous," and the Vatican has called the planned demonstration "outrageous and grave."
Condemning this event is a start, but it's critical that we don't lose sight of the big picture. There have been too many incidents of vandalism and anti-Muslim activity in recent days all over the country.
We need our leaders to speak out against ALL of the anti-Muslim rhetoric that is pervading our political discourse. Former President George W. Bush and members of his administration spoke out for tolerance and freedom of religion during his presidency.
They could make a difference by speaking out now. Will they?
Human Rights First launched an open letter to former President Bush last week. Here's what we-and over 9,000 of our supporters-have to ask of the former president:
Dear President Bush,
During your presidency, you stood up repeatedly against bigotry and hate and urged all Americans to do the same.
In 2002, you said, "America rejects bigotry. We reject every act of hatred against people of Arab background or Muslim faith. America values and welcomes peaceful people of all faiths-Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, and many others. Every faith is practiced and protected here, because we are one country."
Thank you for your leadership and your principled opposition to bigotry.
Right now, there's a dangerous wave of intolerance sweeping the country. It began with the debate over the "Ground Zero Mosque," but it is no longer only about an Islamic center in Manhattan. There are anti-mosque rallies taking place around the country, reports of arson and gun shots at a mosque in Tennessee, the Internet is filled with bigoted speech, and a church in Florida is planning a Koran burning on September 11th.
To stem this tide, people must speak out in favor of the American values of tolerance, diversity, and religious freedom. Your words will have added weight.
Please lend your voice to the defense of American values.
"America treasures the relationship we have with our many Muslim friends, and we respect the vibrant faith of Islam which inspires countless individuals to lead lives of honesty, integrity, and morality. This year, may Eid also be a time in which we recognize the values of progress, pluralism, and acceptance that bind us together as a Nation and a global community. By working together to advance mutual understanding, we point the way to a brighter future for all."
When President George W. Bush said those words to mark 2002's Eid al-Fitr, I agreed with him. I still do. But as the controversy surrounding the plan to build a mosque in Lower Manhattan continues to intensify along political and religious lines, our national discussion increasingly points the way to a much dimmer future.
I have spent my career fighting for religious freedom and combating discrimination at home and abroad, first at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and now at Human Rights First. Over the years, I've sat in the same room with countless foreign government officials and religious leaders and asked them to condemn violence and other human rights abuses fueled by discrimination and hatred. And no matter where I was-in Saudi Arabia or Russia or Pakistan or France-the American example of religious freedom, tolerance and inclusion-while not perfect-strengthened my belief that those values are universal and promoting them benefits all of us.
I have found that the vast majority of Americans cherish these values. On many occasions, leaders from all denominations have worked hand in hand to strengthen religious freedom at home and advance it abroad. Today's challenges present yet another opportunity for these leaders to come together and demonstrate that the values that unite us are far more powerful than the fears that divide us.
It won't be easy. Just this week, a cab driver in New York City was stabbed after the perpetrator asked if he was a Muslim. A Florida church is sponsoring a national "Burn a Koran Day" on September 11. Mosques planned for construction in Tennessee, Wisconsin, California and Florida have been challenged by Americans claiming that Islam is not a religion or that Muslims are inherently violent and at odds with U.S. values. Sponsors of the Park51 project are being asked to forego their constitutional rights because many believe an Islamic center has no place in the same neighborhood as the site of the 9/11 tragedy.
Genuine discourse about the propriety of the mosque is not unexpected. After all, open discussion and honest disagreement are part of the American fabric. But at this critical moment in time, all of us need to speak up and speak out to reject stereotypes and prejudices that lead to exclusion and even violence if we are serious about securing religious freedom and confronting hatred at home and abroad. We must defend that principle because it is what makes us different than our enemies.
This week at Gracie Mansion, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said it eloquently. He noted, "(I)f we say that a mosque and community center should not be built near the perimeter of the World Trade Center site, we would compromise our commitment to fighting terror with freedom. We would undercut the values and principles that so many heroes died protecting. We would feed the false impressions that some Americans have about Muslims. We would send a signal around the world that Muslim Americans may be equal in the eyes of the law, but separate in the eyes of their countrymen. And we would hand a valuable propaganda tool to terrorist recruiters, who spread the fallacy that America is at war with Islam. Islam did not attack the World Trade Center - Al-Qaeda did. To implicate all of Islam for the actions of a few who twisted a great religion is unfair and un-American."
Mayor Bloomberg's predictions are not rhetoric. They are reality. National Public Radio reported earlier this week that extremists are using the mosque debate and other events targeting Muslims as evidence of America's "war on Islam"-evidence they are hoping will help them recruit young Muslims who visit jihadi chat rooms or frequent radical Islamic Web sites.
Vilification of Islam and Muslims harms our security efforts. Local and national law enforcement need to work together with all communities-including American Muslims-to protect the homeland. Our men and women in uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan need to work with local authorities and Muslim populations to form a more peaceful path forward, one in which conflict is addressed through a rule of law grounded in equality and protection of fundamental freedoms.
To date, the decision makers with power to influence the construction of the mosque in Lower Manhattan have done their best to uphold these ideas. They have stood up for religious freedom, inclusion and tolerance. They have upheld the Constitutional rights that make our nation great.
Now it's our turn.
It's time to put this debate back on course and recognize that hate-filled rhetoric, violence and intolerance hurt nobody but us. It does not keep us safe. It does not reflect our values. It does nothing but weaken our resilience as a nation and our position as an international example in the fight to defend the rights of all people - regardless of their race, religion, nationality, sexuality or political opinion.
Earlier this month as he appeared on WNYC's The Brian Lehrer Show, former Bush and Reagan Administration advisor Ken Adelman noted that "the United States should stick with its values of tolerance and understanding ...." He then added that the he was "a little disappointed" that former President George W. Bush - whose remarks I quoted at the beginning of this piece - has not come out to give voice to the same ideals he so eloquently outlined in 2002. I agree. More of that kind of leadership from those who haven't spoken out already is what the nation needs now to put us back on the right track.
Matthew 7:4: How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' and behold, the log is in your own eye?
President Obama has traveled to the middle east this week to try to start a new relationship between the United States and "the Muslims." I think that's an excellent idea. But we should keep in mind that "the Muslims" did not attack the United States, did not threaten to attack us, have no apparent ability to attack us nor any apparent intent to do so. A gang of rich white men from Saudi Arabia apparently attacked us. But to assume that "the Muslims" attacked us shows the underlying problem in the U.S. assumptions towards the middle east.
President Obama warns Muslims everywhere that they should not resort to violence, should not blow up people, or kill them. I agree. I think that's a terrific idea. And that means that the biggest attacker, bomber, killer in the entire middle east -- the United States -- should stop doing that. Oh yeah: it's not our country, region, territory, or anything else, and we have absolutely no right and no business traveling so far around and the world and lecturing other people about how they should live their lives.
If President Obama wants to give morality lectures about how people should be decent, I suggest he return immediately to the United States and arrest all the war criminals from the Bush administration and enforce the law, as set forth in the U.N. Convention Against Torture, by investigating, prosecuting, and imprisoning those who are liable.
If President Obama wants to give morality lectures about how people should be decent, I suggest he return immediately to the United States and arrest all the members of the criminal enterprise loosely named "Wall Street," many of the leaders of which are now sitting inside the Obama Administration within the White House, with complete control over our entire treasury and our economy, and they are ripping money out of the citizens' hands so fast that they've got fleets of trucks lined up outside the White House to haul away the loot. An insider job. These criminals need to be arrested, their assets seized, public hearings and investigations, prosecutions, and they need to be sent to prison.
Did somebody from Egypt attack the U.S.? Threaten us? No. So why would President Obama go to Egypt to give a lecture?
It's the old log in the eye syndrome.
SUMMARY OF OBAMA'S SPEECH
Lots of religion. You'd think this was a speech from the Bigoted Pastor Warren, so heavily overlain with references to holy books and major religions. I would prefer our political leaders speak English - in fact maybe we need a new "English Only" movement to stop our politicians from speaking "Religiousese" and instead speak English. I would prefer they quote the Constitution as support for their ideas instead of the Bible. I would prefer they spend their time studying the United Nations Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions instead of studying the Koran or the Torah.
After all, the reason people developed governments subject to civil laws, made by men, is because the religious governments proved themselves to be solely war-mongering perverted murdering thieving manipulative fanatics trying to destroy the entire world to get more gold and jewels for themselves. Not to mention all the particularly bizarre sexual exploits of the men in cloth. Is it really a good idea to tout Christianity and the Bible to a Muslim country in the middle east when that moron and religious fanatic-Christian George W. Bush started wars against many of their neighbors based on his claim that his Christian God told him to go kill all the Muslims? And given Israel's ongoing slaughter of the Palestinians, is it really likely that an audience of Egyptian Muslims want to be lectured about the morality of the Torah? Doubtful. Obama should stick with the reality-based world and leave the God-stuff to the fanatics, of which there are already way too many.
Beyond the preaching, Obama made seven points:
Issue #1: Violent Extremism
He's against it. But he seems to define "violent extremism" as meaning non-state groups. Gangs, small groups of people who have hand-held rocket launchers and grenades to fight whatever their battles are. He does not seem to include in the category nations with full militaries. Under this discussion, it seems that a penniless and homeless Palestinian child whose land was stolen by some guy from Brooklyn, and who is roped into becoming a suicide bomber, is bad, but when Israel's air force bombs the Gaza Ghetto, Israel's re-creation of the Warsaw Ghetto, sends tanks in, knocks down homes, knocks down everything that grows in a field, denies people medical help, targets U.N. buildings, murders without limitations, that apparently is Okay. But I guess he can't really condemn violence and murder when the U.S. is responsible for most of it in the middle east. How about speaking out against all violence, against war, and committing to end war being waged by nations against the people of third world countries.
He claims that the only reason the U.S. is in Afghanistan is because of 9/11 and al Queda. He says we have to stay there because people in Afghanistan and Pakistan want to kill Americans. President Obama, listen carefully: there is no Congressional declaration of war against Pakistan. If you are conducting a war against that country, you are already violating the constitution as well as committing international war crimes. Pakistan has not attacked the United States. There is no legitimate grounds to start a war against that country.
He also says that, unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a "war of choice." Nice wording there. Otherwise known as a war of aggression and an international war crime. Unprovoked. And now that he has admitted that, he needs to get us out of there.
Issue #2: Israel And The Palestinians: Need Two States
His discussion on this subject is silly and weak in parts. If he wants two states, tell Israel we're cutting them off instead of sending them billions of my taxpayer dollars every year. Kind of a mixed-message, sending them all that money then trying to "get tough." He talks about the Europeans who set up the colony called Israel as being a persecuted group of refugees in search of a home. But then he says the same thing is true of the Palestinians. That's just silly. As well as false.
The Palestinians had a home - but the Europeans took it. The Europeans should have stayed in Europe, or maybe they could have come to the U.S. But they had no business stealing the Palestinian's land. And they have no business staying there. Obama says the Palestinians must recognize Israel's right to exist. This is also one of those silly mantras. Why must they? What if the Palestinians disagree completely with that bizarre claim by the Europeans? Does that mean they should be killed? People are allowed to think and believe what they want. To condition somebody's right to live in peace on their willingness to believe something sounds like the inquisition, the crusades.
Issue #3: Nuclear Weapons - Iran
He says he's against nuclear weapons, but then he says well, only against Iran having them. He admits the U.S. overthrew the democratically-elected leader of Iran but fails to mention we installed and propped up the Shah, a brutal and murderous dictator.
Issue #4: Democracy
He says we want it everywhere.
Issue #5: Religious Freedom
This is ridiculous. Our government is required by our constitution to stay out of religion. For him to go overseas and include as a major point in a speech that our government is committed to going around the world and enforce religious freedom makes him sound as batty as Bush was.
Issue #6: Women's Rights
Excellent. I wonder if we have Hillary Clinton to thank for this.
Issue #7: Economic Development And Opportunity Through Globalism
Economic development and opportunity are good ideas. If we stopped stealing the resources, stopping bombing and occupying and murdering people, then maybe they would have a chance. As far as the pitch for globalism, I disagree. Globalism is likely to destroy the world, and is certainly responsible for much of the current suffering. With Monsanto, for example, chemically modifying the foodstuff of the world so they can demand a royalty for every grain of rice eaten, starvation will likely rise along with the oceans due to global warming. Globalism is bad. We need to emphasize local agriculture and business. Too bad Obama is in the pocket of the U.S. corporate world which does not care if everyone dies, as long as they get all the money.
In the most basic variant of the hawala system, money is transferred via a network of hawala brokers, or hawaladars. A customer approaches a hawala broker in one city and gives a sum of money to be transferred to a recipient in another, usually foreign, city. The hawala broker calls another hawala broker in the recipient's city, gives disposition instructions of the funds (usually minus a small commission), and promises to settle the debt at a later date.
The unique feature of the system is that no promissory instruments are exchanged between the hawala brokers; the transaction takes place entirely on the honor system. As the system does not depend on the legal enforceability of claims, it can operate even in the absence of a legal and juridical environment. No records are produced of individual transactions; only a running tally of the amount owed by one broker to another is kept. Wikipedia reference here.
There is no evidence that Hawala brokers are being used to reimburse the donors mentioned in the Washington Post story below. Some may ask whether I am undermining Arab-American political power by questioning these donations...No, I'm not.
Money equals political power only if it is followed by access, and if the donors have a voice and receive representation. The Arab-American families mentioned in the story below are described to be nearly completely apolitical and uninvolved. Some aren't even registered to vote. These people are being used and are not obtaining any representation or personal influence in the political system for their donations--all to the advantage of a political orthodoxy (well-represented by Clinton and McCain) that persecutes Arab Americans and Muslims.
The bundle of $2,300 and $4,600 checks that poured into Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign on March 12 came from an unlikely group of California donors: a mechanic from D&D Auto Repair in Whittier, the manager of Taco Bell stores in Riverside, the owners of a liquor store in Colton.
But the man who gathered checks from them is no stranger to McCain -- he shuttled the Republican on his private plane and held a fundraising event for the candidate at his house in Delray Beach, Fla.
Harry Sargeant III, a former naval officer and the owner of an oil-trading company that recently inked defense contracts potentially worth more than $1 billion, is the archetype of a modern presidential money man. The law forbids high-level supporters from writing huge checks, but with help from friends in the Middle East and the former chief of the CIA's bin Laden unit -- who now serves as a consultant to his company -- Sargeant has raised more than $100,000 for three presidential candidates from a collection of ordinary people, several of whom professed little interest in the outcome of the election.
After initially helping to raise money for former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Republican, and Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sargeant, 50, has emerged as a major player in Florida fundraising for McCain. He has also become a conduit between McCain and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R), who was Sargeant's college fraternity brother and remains a close friend.
Crist, a beneficiary of Sargeant's fundraising network, said he saw nothing unusual in its breadth. "I was not surprised, but I certainly was grateful for his and his family's efforts," he said, adding that he anticipates Sargeant assisting McCain not only with fundraising but also with advice on military affairs and the economy. "He's been enormously helpful . . . already," Crist said.
....
Some of the most prolific givers in Sargeant's network live in modest homes in Southern California's Inland Empire. Most had never given a political contribution before being contacted by Sargeant or his associates. Most said they have never voiced much interest in politics. And in several instances, they had never registered to vote. And yet, records show, some families have ponied up as much as $18,400 for various candidates between December and March.
Both Sargeant and the donors were vague when asked to explain how Sargeant persuaded them to give away so much money.
"I have a lot of Arab business partners. I do a lot of business in the Middle East. I've got a lot of friends," Sargeant said in a telephone interview yesterday. "I ask my friends to support candidates that I think are worthy of supporting. They usually come through for me."
....
Nader, 39, and Sahar Alhawash, 28, of Colton, Calif, who at one point ran the Avon Village Liquor store, donated a total of $18,400 to Giuliani, Clinton and McCain between December and March. About 80 people in the country made such large contributions to all three, and most were wealthy business executives, such as Donald Trump. The Alhawashes declined to comment about the donations. Abdullah Abdullah, a supervisor at several Taco Bell restaurants in the Riverside area, and his wife have donated $9,200 to McCain.
(WASHINGTON, D.C., 8/6/2008) - A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group said today that the resignation of a recently-appointed Muslim community liaison for Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign is symptomatic of a nationwide effort by Islamophobes who seek to deny Muslims access to the political process.
The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said it is "ironic" that Chicago attorney Mazen Asbahi resigned following Internet attacks on his ties to the mainstream Muslim community, an attribute that would seem to be a requirement for his position.
"Muslim-bashers play a 'six degrees of separation' game of guilt by association with any Muslim who dares to engage in positive social or political activism," said Ahmed Rehab, executive director of CAIR's Chicago chapter. "As Americans, we should not allow intolerant and agenda-driven extremists to succeed in their tactics of exclusion based on smears and mischaracterizations of leaders or institutions at the forefront of civic engagement."
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