Will the Dems adopt my slogan?

GET BIN LADIN! was my first post here. I was still trying to recover from the Bush baby's re-election.

Today Dick Cheney said the Democrat plan was to "get bin Laden". Al Sharpton, not my favorite Democrat, points out that Bush said he was going to get bin Laden. Just a few weeks ago Bush himself said he was going to "get bin Laden." Even in South Carolina people are finally beginning to see that Bush can't come through on that promise. People everywhere are finally beginning to see that the invasion of Iraq was at best a diversion from the war, at worst a boon to bin Ladin.

So what are the Democrats offering as an alternative?

The Democrat plan offers to "Eliminate Osama Bin Laden, destroy terrorist networks like al Qaeda, finish the job in Afghanistan, and end the threat posed by the Taliban.

"Double the size of our Special Forces, increase our human intelligence capabilities, and ensure our intelligence is free from political pressure."

YES! We need more money for human intelligence, not just buying information from others overseas, but training more Americans who can understand what's happening around the world in other societies. And the Special Forces? They seem to be the only people who can get things right. They were Kennedy's idea, just like the Peace Corps.

Boy, do I miss Jack Kennedy! There was a president.

Everyone's entitled to a day in court.

Or so we were taught in America when I was young. The Constitution doesn't limit this right to citizens, as some would have us believe. It doesn't even limit the right to a jury trial. Here's what it says, even before the Bill of Rights was added (Article III, section 2):

"The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment; shall be by Jury;"

Everyone's entitled to a day in court, with a jury. Not a jury of their peers (that's the Magna Carta you're thinking of, which applied only to nobles, or "peers") but a jury nonetheless.

Americans as diverse as Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and General Billy Mitchell have deliberately violated the law in order to get a day in court and use it as a forum for changing policies and laws.

Is this era coming to an end? The administration seems to think so. They might even reject the Supreme Court's jurisdiction, arguably placing the President above the law. If the US is fighting a war, then the Guantanamo detainees are POWs and entitled to Geneva Convention rights. If the US is suppressing criminal activities, then the Guantanamo detainees are criminal suspects and entitled to criminal law protections. Either way they are human beings, and entitled to the rights that human beings are naturally entitled to, according to American belief.

But not according to Justice Scalia.

Why don't the media call Bush on these lies?

I listened to Bush's press conference on NPR. Now I'm listening to it again on C-Span.org. I can believe the guy lies constantly. I'm used to that by now. But why does no one call him on the lies? Helen Thomas tried to but she could barely get any words in. Then the discussion on NPR never mentioned that he kept lying and lying and lying. Is the man a pathological liar? Does he think Americans are stupid?

Let me count the lies (or at least some of the biggest):

I didn't plan the Iraq war until 9/11 . . .
Iraq had something to do with al-Qa'ida . . .
The UN Security Council resolutions authorized the invasion . . .
Saddam Hussein wouldn't obey the Security Council resolutions . . .
Saddam wouldn't allow the inspectors to finish their work . . .

and that's just to one question by Helen Thomas. He wouldn't even answer her question about what was the real reason we went to war.

What else:

The enemy wants us out of Iraq. (Ultimately yes, but for the time being they want us in, alone, because not only is it easier to kill us there, but it inflames the Muslim world and gives them more and more recruits and imitators. Their plan is to bankrupt us through this war, which will make us withdraw not just from Iraq but from the entire Islamic World, by making us collapse (as they think they made the Soviet Union collapse), which is also the Grover Norquist plan to destroy the Federal government. Isn't that usually considered treason?)

Let's not even talk about what he says about Social Security, "democracies don't war" (Is he admitting that, thanks to Diebold, the US is no longer a democracy? Is that the real reason we went to war?), the decision about troop strength will be made by commanders on the ground or all the other lies.

And then there's the stuff he won't even talk about anymore, like yellowcake uranium from Niger and outing a CIA agent.

The biggest question to me is why the press is not performing its watchdog role by calling this man on his lies. They know the facts. Anyone who has been paying attention knows the facts. What is going on that our "free, independent" fourth estate cannot call the president on his lying?

My two cents about censure

Senator Russ Feingold has introduced a bill to censure President Bush. Democrats are rushing to support that bill. I am opposed. Let me explain why.

Censure is not in the Constitution. It does nothing in a practical sense. It's just a means of getting steam off your chest about something. Henry Clay created it for political reasons. He didn't like what Andy Jackson was doing as president (specifically about the Bank of the United States) but he knew, even if he had the support of the Congress, that he couldn't legally impeach Jackson without the Constitutionally required "high crimes and misdemeanors" to charge him with.

Now, I think censure would have been perfect in Clinton's case, although impeachment would have been inappropriate. What Clinton did was clearly wrong. But it wasn't illegal. It certainly wasn't worth removing him from office. The whole thing was a political move. If they had the votes to impeach Clinton for zippergate, they would have had the votes to remove Gore for the Buddhist Temple thing. Then guess who gets to be President. That's right, Newt Gingrich, the Speaker of the House, would have become our next Commander in Chief. Of course he'd have had to call out troops to quell the public outcry, but dictatorship would be a small price to pay for (what? what possible advantage could Gingrich have offered over Clinton?)

The point is that impeachment was in no way justified by Clinton's actions, it is every way justified by Bush's actions, which are not just wrong, not just incompetent, but criminal. Censure may make people feel better about what's happening, but it won't fix the problems.

Anonymity: let me count the wherefores

1. Who am I? Why should it matter? Shouldn't the ideas, the facts, and the interpretation of them be important? What does it matter to you whether I am male or female, black, white or other, tall or short, skinny or fat, smoker or drinker or sex addict? Aren't these all just ad hominem arguments? Who cares? As the Diamond Sutra teaches us, material characteristics are not, in fact, characteristics. Don't ask me what that means. I don't claim to have had a satori, in Paris or elsewhere. I would just rather my ideas were judged on their own merits than on the basis of who they were espoused by. I've had good and bad experiences with academic "blind peer review" of my writings, and some bad ones. The bad ones were always caused by people trying (and sometimes failing) to figure out who I was, what my ethnic and/or national identity was, and judging the value of my ideas by who they thought I was (sometimes mistakenly), instead of judging the ideas on their own.

2. Maybe I'm just paranoid. I probably say much more dangerous things under my own name than I do here. Maybe the idea that I might lose out on some future job, or be dismissed from one of the ones I hold now, for what I say here is just crazy. But I think it was Nixon's Attorney General John Mitchell who said that even paranoids have real enemies. He saw the enemies list, and he should know. I'm not under any illusion that I'm important enough to have a spot on Bush II's enemies list. However, I do feel a little more secure not putting my name out there for what's on this blog, and the crossposts at DailyKos and Wesley Clark's blog. I started my blog after Bush was re-inaugurated. John Dean (who should know) said that the Bush II administration was "worse than Watergate" and I remember Watergate. In fact I remember handing out flyers for McGovern in '72, when someone took me aside and said that I shouldn't be doing this because Nixon was going to be much harder on the opposition after he was re-elected with a landslide. I said I was too deep in it anyway. I probably am again. I can only hope Bush is impeached. After that, when I feel safer, maybe I'll tell everyone who I am. If anyone's actually reading this stuff enough to be interested.

3. OK, I admit, it just feels kind of neat to let off some steam anonymously. Think of it like cybergraffiti, only I'm not defacing anything except my own site. There's an old Latin satire that claims "The names of fools are inscribed on the walls of public buildings." (Yes, Rome had a graffiti problem, too.) I can write something wittier than my own name in Roman letters. In fact I could write my name in a few other scripts, too. I guess I don't have an ego that insists I must get credit (if not get paid) for everything I do. It's the deed that matters more than the doer. And the deed here is just a long, anguished scream.

4. I figure if I keep this up long enough I'll probably get outed sooner or later. I'd just as soon let it be later rather than sooner. I've been slowly dropping a lot of hints about who I might be. A good detective could probably figure it out now. How many people know Francis Fukuyama's SAT scores, what "fitnah" means in Arabic, and regularly submit articles for blind peer review? Maybe Alberto Gonzales, or his underlings, already know who I am and are preparing to render me to Gitmo. Maybe they could care less. Myself, I've become curious to see who figures out my identity first. Should I give them something my state is famous for producing?

5. When people ask me questions privately I can answer them here. For example, someone from the Clark blog asked me about my Arabic. I studied classical Arabic, a dead language, for a few years. I even studied Islamic studies, and Middle Eastern Studies (they're not the same), at one of the best universities in the US. I try to contribute whatever I can to the desperate need of the American public, if not the current American administration, for more and better information, as I'm trying to continue educating myself. After 9/11 half the US wanted to learn more about what was happening in the Islamic world, the other half were going "NUKE THE CAMEL JOCKEYS!" I'd rather address the first group. I don't think they need to know who I am, especially if what I say can be independently confirmed.

6. That really brings up another point. I don't really have anything to say that depends on my identity. Unlike RiverBend, whose veracity depends on her identity as an Iraqi woman living in Baghdad (but who nevertheless, or perhaps therefore, remains anonymous), nothing I say here depends on who I am. It's all verifiable independently of me. You have no need to know who I am. All I know is what I read on the Internet (to update Will Rogers). Or at least all I post here is what I read on the Internet.

7. I suppose Google could find out who I am if they wanted to. I have to take the risk that they would turn me in to the Chinese government, or the US government as soon as the Bush administration gets around to bumping off its domestic opponents, but I just think that risk is small enough that I'll take a chance on it for the opportunity to mouth off like this. I guess Kos could find out who I am, too, but I'll take my chances on him. If he's going to turn me in I might as well give up.

8. General Clark can find out who I am anytime he wants just for asking, although he could probably ask the guys who run the blog for him, if he cares. I still have a lot of faith in General Clark, but not idealistic faith. (I still remember the guy working on the Carter campaign who said he would resign if we saw a Cy Vance as Secretary of State or Zbigniew Brzezinski as National Security Advisor. He didn't when we did.) I expect General Clark to administer from the center if he ever becomes president, like the Democratic Eisenhower many see him as. I'd even support him if he appointed a Republican (John McCain?) as Secretary of Defense. Lincoln, FDR and JFK had Secretaries of War or Defense from the other party and got a lot of support for their policies for it. Wilson and Nixon didn't. Wilson couldn't get the Republicans to support his League of Nations idea, with disastrous consequences for the US, not to mention the world. We all know what happened to Nixon. Not that I'm blaming the Democrats for going after him. In retrospect we can all be happy he didn't have a Democrat Secretary of Defense.

9. Well, that's about it. It's about all the reasons I can think of offhand. Maybe I'm crazy, maybe I'm a fox, maybe it doesn't matter at all. You can ask me questions privately if you want. I'll just answer them here. Or you can ask them as comments on my blog, and I can answer them as other comments there. When I get around to it. I really don't have time to get online everyday.

Ali's America

Anyone know what happened to a podcast called "Ali's America"? This was done by a rather conservative American from the heartland who happened to be Muslim, happened to be a Bush supporter in fact, and had an interesting, quirky sense of humor.

I've long been interested in the interaction of Islam and the United States, the way each poses challenges to the ohter, and just the general way they interact. America is a challenge to the Islamic tradition of religious states. Muslims who want to be Muslim in America will have to be Muslim on their own. The state neither enforces Islam nor persecutes it. They also have no normative Islam to reference. All the various immigrant and convert groups have different conceptions of Islam and none of them dominates. Pan-Islam can't be romantic anymore.

Islam challenges the US not only by having a stronger tradition of ties to the state than any other major religion, but in other ways as well. I'm not just talking about the al-Qa'ida challenge here, but the communitarian nature of Islam, it's close family values, and the potential it has (as Malcolm X pointed out) for being anti-racist.

Not that Muslims are necessarily more racist than other immigrants. The largest group of converts is African Americans, yet most immigrants are whites, not always anxious to associate with blacks. That's another challenge the US poses for Muslims. Can they really live up to their ideals on their own? America might be better if they did.

Michael Jackson, Daniel Pipes and Islam

Daniel Pipes had the following to say about Michael Jackson's possible conversion to Islam:

"Given Mr. Jackson's famous eccentricities, it is unclear what his Bahraini venture amounts to, but if he does convert to Islam, he will be following a path in place since the late 1940s, of African-Americans under stress turning to some form of Islam. . . .

"These and other examples establish Islam – in both its normative and Nation variants – as a leading solace for African-Americans in need. That helps explain why the United States has by far the largest Muslim convert population in the Western world (about 750,000 adherents). Each black public figure who converts to Islam or accepts Nation of Islam support creates an added impetus for other blacks to change religions, a pattern that has also emerged in other Western countries."

It is unfortunate that Professor Pipes only sees Michael as black. Americans (myself included) are so racist. What's the saying? "Americans can't see class because they're blinded by race. Brazilians can't see race because they're blinded by class." Can't Michael Jackson, like every other black, just be an individual human being without everyone making him represent the black community? Isn't it unfair?

But this isn't about race or even about class (how many Americans can afford to fly to Bahrain on a whim?) Not even class in the American sense in which Michael doesn't have any. (Not that he has much race, either.)

This conversion, if it happens at all, may have less to do with Jackson's (confused) racial identity than with his sexual proclivities. Like the use of slave soldiers, which Daniel Pipes is an acknowledged expert on, homosexual child-molesting is found in Islamic civilization but is against Islamic law, in fact it's even more obviously and clearly against Islamic law than are slave soldiers and officials although it may also be less coincident with Islamic civilization. I don't know off hand anyone who's written about it. I do know that Islamic states have more and more outlawed polygyny because it makes many men, especially those who can't afford to buy a bride, put off marriage, exacerbating their sexual frustration. They haven't been able to stamp it out. Maybe it has more to do with purdah than with polygyny as such, though.

Like the use of slave soldiers, it's an example of how Islam as a religion and Islam as a civilization can be in conflict. But most people don't want to talk about it. It would be completely unfair to characterize Islam as a faith as promoting homosexual child-molesting, of course, because it is a heinous crime meriting the death penalty. It is an example of contradictions within Islamic civilization, as well as an example of ancient Greek influence on Islam that neither Greeks nor Muslims wants to draw attention to.