| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| The Parent Company Trap | ||||
|
||||
Hard to put it better than The Daily Show. Stupid or evil- we are running out of options.
According to a recent Pew Poll, 18% of Americans (and 34% of Republicans) believe President Obama is a Muslim. This number is surprising, not just because there is no evidence to support the belief, but also because it represents an increase from 2008 levels, when 13% of respondents said they thought Obama was a Muslim. Given that Obama has been president for 1.5 years, you would suspect people would know more about him today than in 2008 when he was only a presidential candidate. Clearly that’s not the case- at least with respect to his religious beliefs.
I’m not going to bother debunking the myth as to whether President Obama is a Muslim. That has been done repeatedly and more than sufficiently, and those who hold the belief do so without regard to fact and won’t be persuaded anyways. Instead, I ask a simple question: why does it matter?
The answer, I fear, is that many people view Islam as a dangerous and even evil religion, and those adjectives describing Islam better fit how many would describe President Obama as opposed to adjectives traditionally used to describe Christianity (of which Obama is actually an adherent). Pew’s poll supports this theory. Among those who believe Obama is a Muslim, 67% disapprove of his job performance. Among those who believe Obama is a Christian, 62% approve of his job performance. Those poll numbers suggest two competing possibilities: 1) people dislike Obama because they believe he is a Muslim; or 2) people associate Obama with Islam at least in part because they dislike him. Put another way, is the relationship between believing Obama is Muslim and disliking Obama causative or merely correlative?
Frankly, either alternative is discomforting, but both suggest a deeply held resentment of Islam by many Americans. That resentment undoubtedly arises in large part from an association of Islam and terrorism, as I have argued before. Once the association of “Muslim=terrorist” is made, it’s easy to see how 28% of Americans could ever believe that Muslims should not be eligible to sit on the US Supreme Court, or how one-third could believe Muslims should be ineligible for the US presidency.
There is no rational reason why someone’s belief in Islam should disqualify them for the US presidency or, for that matter, even be a factor in determining the person’s suitability for office. Just as there are radical Muslims, there are radical Christians, radical Jews, radical atheists, and radical everything else. I have no problem with opposition to a religious extremist candidate, but that opposition should be based on the actual extremist views of the candidate and not on the basis of membership in the religion itself (particularly the world’s second largest religion, after Christianity). And if opposition shouldn’t be based on membership in a highly populated religion, it certainly shouldn’t be based on a false attribution of membership in that religion.
Islam is not a weapon to be wielded against a political opponent. It is a religion peacefully followed by the overwhelming majority of its 1.6 billion adherents. The American tradition of religious pluralism is offended by the treatment of Muslims in the media and political discourse. So too are Muslims, and so ought to be the rest of us.
“Ground Zero Mosque.” That’s the name (coined by Fox News) now popularly used to refer to an Islamic center which is neither a mosque nor located at Ground Zero. Of course, such labeling isn’t a linguistic accident (although Fox News’ first use of the phrase didn’t appear malicious), it is part of a concerted effort to attack the Muslim community.
As far as political labels go, “Ground Zero Mosque” is pretty effective. It immediately conjures up images of the awful 9/11 attacks, and then it sticks a mosque directly atop the hallowed burial ground. As if the imagery of the label isn’t sufficient, politicians like Newt Gingrich irresponsibly build on that label by claiming that the “mosque’s” construction is tantamount to Islam marking its victory over Americans with a monument.
Continue reading »
I get the sense that political commentary on Joseph Stack, a white American who crashed a plane into an IRS building in Texas killing one (and himself), is significantly different than political commentary on Umar Abdulmutallab (the Christmas Day bomber), a Nigerian national, or Faisal Shahzad (the Times Square bomber), a nationalized American born in Pakistan. For both the Christmas Day bomber and the Times Square bomber, for example, the word “terrorist” is freely used to describe the men, whereas Joseph Stack was labeled a “terrorist” with far less consistency (and was even described as a quasi-hero by some). This is true even though of the three, Stack was the only individual whose attack was successful.
Politicians aren’t the only ones who seem to draw a distinction between Stack’s case and the other two. Take the Sunday news talk shows, for example. While both the attempted Christmas Day and Times Square bombings were the subject of extensive discussion and commentary on all of the Sunday talk shows (This Week, Face the Nation, Fox News Sunday, State of the Union, and Meet the Press) on the Sunday following the respective attempted attacks, literally none of the Sunday talk shows mentioned even a word about Joseph Stack on the Sunday following Stack’s attack.
Transcripts of each of the Sunday shows for the Sunday immediately following each of the attacks are available in the table below:
| Sunday News Program | December 27, 2009 (following Christmas Day bombing attempt) | February 21, 2010 (following Joseph Stack’s successful attack) | May 2, 2010 (following attempted attack in Times Square) |
| State of the Union | coverage | no coverage | coverage |
| Fox News Sunday | coverage | no coverage | coverage |
| This Week | coverage | no coverage | coverage |
| Face the Nation | coverage | no coverage | coverage |
| Meet the Press | coverage | no coverage | coverage |
So why the discrepancy in political and media commentary and interest? It is certainly understandable why Abdulmutallab’s and Shahzad’s actions would generate media interest. One involved arguably the most recognizable block in the United States in the nation’s largest city, and the other involved another attempt to bring down a passenger airline, reminiscent of the Richard Reid failed bombing attack and even of September 11 itself. Of course, both attacks were failures (in the sense that the ultimate object of detonating an explosive device failed). The Christmas Day bomber seems to have been affiliated with al Qaeda, and early reports suggest the same may be true of the Times Square bomber. Both would-be bombers were Muslim, and both were born overseas (although the Times Square bomber was a US nationalized citizen).
Joseph Stack, on the other hand, was not affiliated with al Qaeda. While he was associated with radical right wing organizations, his attack does not appear to have been assisted by any other individual. He was driven by hatred for the IRS and frustration with the US government in general (according to his manifesto). Nevertheless, he climbed into a small airplane and intentionally crashed into a government building, killing one innocent victim.
While the difference in treatment may, then, be explained by Stack’s lack of association with al Qaeda, it’s troubling to contemplate that the difference in treatment of Stack’s political and media narrative may be due, in part, to the sympathetic nature (or lack thereof) of the targeted victims. Tourists on an airplane or in Times Square could be any of us. Workers in an IRS building won’t be most of us. Some, such as those of Rep. Steven King (R-IA), even suggested sympathy for Stack’s motives, whereas no US politician or media personality is likely to hold or express any sympathy for the motives of Abdulmutallab or Shahzad. If this is indeed the reason for the difference in the narratives, it is disturbing. There is no justification for a random killing of a government employee (or anyone else) no matter how upset you are with the policies of that person’s employer. Of course, the difference in treatment could also be racial in nature: Stack was white where as Abdulmutallab was black and Shahzad was olive skinned.
All of the foregoing reasons are distinctly possible, but I propose yet another: the public’s concept of who is or is not a “terrorist” lies at the heart of government policies designed to deal with terrorists, and blurring of the definition of a “terrorist” can result in eliminating or reducing constitutional rights not just for minority fringe groups, but for majority groups as well. Recognizing that fact, even if only subconsciously, many in the media and politics become very uncomfortable in defining as “terrorists” persons who are not easily assigned into minority fringe groups, even where their conduct is largely indistinguishable from terrorist conduct.
Take, for example, Sen. Lieberman’s woefully misguided proposal to strip all American terrorists of their US citizenship. That policy may make sense to Sen. Lieberman so long as the concept of “terrorist” remains somewhat statically defined as a Muslim Middle Eastern extremist with ties to al Qaeda. Of course, that narrow view of “terrorist” must change over time, and with it application of Sen. Lieberman’s (and other’s) proposals to deal with terrorists. Would Senator Lieberman support stripping Joseph Stack of his citizenship, for example, if Stack had been caught just prior to boarding his aircraft? I doubt it (to my knowledge he still hasn’t labeled Stack a terrorist), and that represents not only Lieberman’s incorrectness, but also his shortsightedness. Of course, Lieberman’s proposal to strip citizenship isn’t the only one proposed or already on the books. It is just the latest and one of the most egregious.
Unfortunately, the media is often playing the role of willful participant in furthering the dangerous narratives that support unconstitutional conclusions like Lieberman’s. Both politicians and the media alike ought to understand why it is right and good that basic constitutional protections be extended to even the worst among us. If they are incapable of reaching that fundamental understanding, at a minimum they ought to appreciate that opening the door to abuse of one group, even if a heinous group, opens the door to more than just that one group.
I wrote a while back about the increasing conservative distaste for granting constitutional rights to terrorists. If you imagine a spectrum defining the scope of constitutional protections for different groups of terrorists, it would look something like this (from least protective to most):
* Non-citizen, detained on foreign soil
* Non-citizen, detained in territory controlled by the US but not part of the US
* US citizen, detained by US authorities on foreign soil
* Non-citizen, detained in the US
* US-citizen, detained in the US
Initially, most conservative arguments against extending constitutional protections to terrorists focused on the first level of the spectrum (non-citizen, detained on foreign soil). Gradually, conservative arguments have moved down the spectrum to exclude more groups from constitutional protections.
The Christmas Day bomber, for example, was a non-citizen captured on US soil (in Detroit)- the fourth level of the spectrum above. We all remember the conservative “outrage” over Mirandizing that suspected terrorist.
It seems with the failed attack on Times Square many conservatives have now fully moved into the final level of the spectrum: depriving US citizens, detained on US soil, of constitutional protections.
Here, for example, is what Rep. Peter King (R- NY) had to say of the suspected Times Square terrorist:
Did they Mirandize him? I know he’s an American citizen but still…. I hope that if they did read him his rights and if they are going for an indictment as opposed to a tribunal that he did discuss it with the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, all the component parts of the intelligence community.
Senator John McCain echoed Rep. King, saying, “Don’t give this guy his Miranda rights until we find out what it’s all about.”
Senator Lieberman, perhaps feeling a pang of guilt about limiting an American’s constitutional protections, came up with a clever solution- take away the American citizenship of anyone accused of terrorism. Good idea, Joe. Maybe waterboarding a terrorist can be the legal mechanism that actually removes someone’s citizenship. I can almost hear Joe now: “It’s not waterboarding, it’s just washing their American citizenship away!”
Oddly enough, however, such extreme arguments only appear to apply when the suspected terrorist is a Middle Easterner.
After Joseph Stack, a white American, crashed his plane into a building for reasons stated in his manifesto, politicians were far slower to even apply the label of “terrorist.” Rep. Peter King, for example, when asked if Stack was a terrorist, said, “I am reserving judgment to see whether he had any link whatever to any questionable group or organization.” His Republican counterpart from Iowa, Rep. Steven King, went even further, saying:
TP: Do you think this attack, this terrorist attack, was motivated at all by a lot of the anti-tax rhetoric that’s popular in America right now?
KING: I think if we’d abolished the IRS back when I first advocated it, he wouldn’t have a target for his airplane. And I’m still for abolishing the IRS, I’ve been for it for thirty years and I’m for a national sales tax. [...] It’s sad the incident in Texas happened, but by the same token, it’s an agency that is unnecessary and when the day comes when that is over and we abolish the IRS, it’s going to be a happy day for America.
TP: So some of his grievances were legitimate?
KING: I don’t know if his grievances were legitimate, I’ve read part of the material. I can tell you I’ve been audited by the IRS and I’ve had the sense of ‘why is the IRS in my kitchen.’ Why do they have their thumb in the middle of my back. … It is intrusive and we can do a better job without them entirely.
After 20 minutes of searching Google, I couldn’t find any quotes from Lieberman or McCain on Joseph Stack (their outrage at that attack seems to have been tempered by some factor…).
And what of Glenn Beck, one of the most vocal advocates of moving the constitution out of the way when terrorism is involved?
Well, believe it or not, Mr. Beck apparently believes US citizens captured on US soil DO have constitutional protections (!). When asked about the suspected Times Square bomber, Beck said:
He is a citizen of the United States, so I say we uphold the laws and the Constitution on citizens… If you are a citizen, you obey the law and follow the Constitution. He has all the rights under the Constitution… We don’t shred the Constitution when it is popular. We do the right thing
Yes: John McCain and Joseph Lieberman now hold beliefs putting them to the right of Glenn Beck (King has always been far right).
Maybe McCain’s maverick label is back- minus all positive connotations.
Early reports from New York indicate that the individual suspected of attempting to detonate a car bomb in the middle of Times Square is a white male in his 40′s. The investigation is in its very early stages, and it isn’t certain that the individual being sought is actually the culprit. Nor is it clear that the individual has no ties to any terrorist network, including al Qaeda.
Even so, the early reports serve as yet another reminder that terrorists do not all fit the same profile (i.e., Middle Eastern Muslim men). That is a critical fact for those who would severely limit, or even eliminate, certain civil rights for those suspected of terrorism on the premise that the government’s application of expanded police powers wouldn’t ever harm anyone but Middle Eastern Muslims, even if those powers were abused. While I can’t understand accepting infringements on civil rights based on race or ethnicity, I also can’t understand the belief that infringements on one group’s civil rights would have no spillover effect for other groups.
We are right to combat terrorism and terrorists, but we mustn’t throw out legal and moral principals that lie at the foundation of our Republic in the process. A more full discussion on these issues can be found here and here.
1. Ron Paul, the arguable founder of the Tea Party movement, now finds himself as a Tea Party target.
2. Frank Rich notes the dangers of extremist elements within the Tea Party movement.
3. Ongoing revelations on Catholic priest sexual abuse are causing many Irish to walk away from their traditional faith.
4. In a continent often low on hope and high on conflict, the Democratic Republic of Congo offers quite a bit of the former and much less of the latter. Standing in the way of progress is… perhaps you.
5. A 14-year-old Malawi boy named William Kamkwamba saw a windmill and thought it would be of enormous benefit to his village. So he built one from spare parts and scrap with no training or experience. His story is here:
Imagine, if you will, someone who wants to hurt America. A violent and angry individual- someone who believes America is corrupt and fallen. This man believes the American government is “stripping his carcass” and proclaims that “violence is the only answer.” Imagine this man plots to attack America. Strike fear into the government’s heart and make people realize as the bodies are counted that his cause is just. Imagine he hates Western religion, viewing it as “vulgur” and “corrupt,” and he despises the American government all the more for assisting Western religion. This man has spent over 30 years of his life working to convince others of the corruptness of America and its evil capitalistic ways. This man is a terrorist.
Now imagine we can find this man before his attack is launched. Discover his plot and expose it before it’s too late.
What should we do with this man once he is apprehended? Should we waterboard him for information? He could have co-conspirators who must be found. Should he be detained in a prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba? Should he be tried by a military court? Should this man, this terrorist, be permitted rights afforded under OUR Constitution? What has he done to deserve them?
Picture that man. Once you have his picture in your mind, think about where he is from, what language he speaks, his religious preferences, and why he might be so angry.
Do you have him in mind?
Does the man you picture look like this in your imagination?
That image is of Joseph Stack, the man who flew his airplane into IRS offices in Austin, Texas last week. He speaks English, is American born, and hates taxes. Everything written in the first paragraph above comes from his manifesto which he posted online immediately prior to killing himself and one other man in his crash. Of course, this man was not apprehended. His attack, sadly, was not stopped.
So why do I bring this up?
A great debate is raging in America right now, punctuated by jabs between Dick Cheney and Joe Biden, about whether terrorists have any rights at all. You may recall Sarah Palin’s comments from a few weeks back:
For example, there are questions we would have liked this foreign terrorist to answer because he lawyered up and invoked our U.S. Constitutional right to remain silent…Our U.S. Constitutional rights….The protections provided—thanks to you sir [PALIN ADDRESSES MALE VETERAN IN AUDIENCE]—we’re going to bestow them on a terrorist who hates our Constitution and wants to destroy our Constitution and our country? This makes no sense because we have a choice in how we’re going to deal with the terrorists. We don’t have to go down that road.
Lest you get the impression Palin is alone in her comments, think again. In a recent poll, 58% (!) of Americans think the underwear bomber should have been waterboarded (i.e., receive no Constitutional protections). 71% (!) think military authorities should have handled the investigation and trial as opposed to civilian authorities. Congressional Republicans threatened to drag Attorney General Holder before a House Committee to demand answers as to why the underwear bomber received constitutional protections.
Americans do not want to give terrorists constitutional rights- even when they are captured on American soil for a crime committed on American soil. Americans want suspected terrorists waterboarded. They want suspected terrorists whisked off to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where we won’t have to be afraid of them anymore. They want suspected terrorists to be tried by the military, and many couldn’t care less if the trial never occurs.
How do we know if someone is actually a terrorist, though? Especially if we never give them a trial? Who makes the decision that someone is a “terrorist”? For many Americans, the answer is “let the government decide.” That’s crazy. I would like to appeal to lofty principles of natural rights to make my argument (and I have before), but for those who reject that argument out of hand, let me appeal to a more base instinct: self-preservation.
Many Americans are busy fighting to tear down protective walls that our nation’s founders carefully erected, all because those Americans are afraid. They are afraid, and they do not believe that their government could ever label someone who looks like them as a “terrorist.” But what if it did? What if the conservative position carried the day in the courts as well as the polls? Would Joseph Stack have been whisked away? Would he have been waterboarded? Would his wife and daughter have been seized as co-conspirators? Would his colleagues have been detained with no constitutional rights? Would all of them have been denied access to a lawyer? How many years would his wife, daughter and colleagues been held without even being told what the charges were against them (as was the case for over 7 years for multiple Guantanamo Bay detainees)? When pressed on the whereabouts of Stack family and friends, how many times would the government respond, “We can’t tell you- it is classified”?
Of course, we don’t live in that world just yet. That said, it is frightening just how far down the path of shattered constitutional protections we traveled under the Bush administration before an election intervened (and even now much of what the Bush administration did remains intact). America has made many egregious mistakes when reacting to fear. One would think by now we could all recognize the signs and respond more cooly and rationally.
In a sense, the conservative argument is quite ironic. A party often skeptical of our government’s power is fighting to give the government unchecked power to eliminate a person’s constitutional protections. Perhaps Joseph Stack can serve as a bit of a wake-up call (even if not the one he intended). “Terrorists” can be just as American as you are. Are we sure it is good policy to remove constitutional protections based on a label that could define Americans? The Golden Rule is golden indeed: do unto others…
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.
–Pastor Martin Niemöller
The claim that the “Constitution doesn’t apply to foreigners” didn’t begin with the Bush administration, but it gained a lot of momentum under it. So much so that I would guess everybody reading this article (thanks to both of you) has heard that claim multiple times and may even believe it to be legally sound. It isn’t.
The Constitution covers a lot of ground, so I am not going to pretend to offer a treatise on each provision that may or may not apply to foreigners. Instead, let’s keep this to the context in which the claim currently is being made in the news- that foreign terrorists have no constitutional rights under any circumstance.
First, let’s begin where any constitutional analysis should begin- its text.
Continue reading »
A few weeks back, we posted an article on the suspicious deaths of three inmates at the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Much of the reporting on the issue has been conducted by law students at Seton Hall, led by Professor Mark Denbeaux.
In an email to The Fourth Branch, Prof. Denbeaux thanked us for drawing attention to the situation and noted that Seton Hall today added additional information to its already extensive analysis of the Department of Defense’s records and claims. Their updated analysis can be found here.
While we can’t conclusively say that the inmates were murdered, we can conclusively say that the Department of Defense has been wildly inconsistent on several key points related to the circumstances surrounding the deaths. The DOD’s actions are highly suspicious and suggestive of a cover up.
Regardless of whether murder was committed, Seton Hall’s work and diligence on this case has been extraordinary. Because of their efforts, we are far more likely to discover what actually happened to the three inmates than would otherwise be the case. It is inspiring, in a sense. How often do we see or hear things that trouble us just to then go about our lives wondering why nobody does anything about it? Seton Hall reminds us that complacency and surrender are not our only options- and certainly not our best option.
Take a few minutes and read what they have found. This issue isn’t getting the attention it merits.
Recent Comments