Journalist Betrayed, Soldiers Betrayed

But first a lighter fare: Schlock-talker Michael Savage lays into Islam, in a seriously scary way, and doesn't get the Imus routine as a result. Why? Because he laid into Islam, and America right now is afraid of Islam, even if most Muslim-Americans are law-abiding moderates (as are most [insert major group]-Americans).

I hope other minorities are helping Muslim-Americans fight back. Michael Savage was already a grade-A jerk, but his bizarrely fever-pitched screed against Muslim-Americans set a new standard for quasi-mainstream Islamophobia.

Just ask yourself, seriously: Would any on-air personality be allowed to say the same things (that we should deport all of them, that they should shove their religion up their behinds) of Jews, Christians, Buddhists, or atheists? He wasn't talking about jihadis - he was talking about all Muslims, a pretty big group.

Anyway, Culture Project's upcoming play Betrayed by New Yorker writer George Packer looks at how the U.S. military and the Bush people essentially betrayed many of the Iraqi interpreters and other aides they hired.

The play's fantastic (we've had a few readings) and Packer's nonfiction accounts of his time in Iraq - ranging from The Assassin's Gate to the article that inspired the play - is definitely worth reading.

But it saddens me to read, in today's New York Times, just how venerable our history of abandoning our allies really is. Short version: To fight communism in Laos and Vietnam, the CIA hired thousands of Hmong warriors (from Laos), then abandoned them when the communists won. The U.S. troops came home, in various states of disrepair. The Hmong were already home, and their socialist government couldn't have been more pissed at them.

Cut to thirty years later. The former fighters are aging; their families now guilty by relation. They move around every few weeks, hiding, and endure irregular skirmishes with the Laotian army. The government of Laos denies that ex-CIA Hmong exist in the jungles, blaming such rumors on "bandits." The Times's pictures prove otherwise.

Also not fun: Iraqi Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein was held by U.S. forces for twenty months without being charged with a crime, then released into the care of an Iraqi magistrate. The magistrate will determine whether or not Hussein is an insurgent. He has still not been charged.

Hussein's lawyers "were not given a copy of the materials that were presented and which they need to prepare a defense." The AP has fought vigorously for Hussein, with little luck. The military says Hussein helped insurgents. But Hussein hasn't been charged with that crime or with any other.

Fear and Interpretation

Thinking back on the reading tonight, it strikes me how much of the detainees' poetry seems to stem from confusion as often as outrage. Again and again, Allah is invoked not bitterly, but almost wistfully: The poet doesn't need to ask Allah to destroy the unjust; the poet wants God to explain to his family that the disorder created by those who fight "a war for peace" will be made ordered again.

This leads me to an article by Akbar Ganji on women's rights in Iran, published in the most recent Boston Review.

Ganji's argument is against the unequal treatment of women in modern Iran, which is worth several posts of its own. But he touches upon a bigger, more overarching point about Islam and rationality: Various important Muslim thinkers, from the Ayatollah Khomeini way back to al-Ghazali - thinkers both conservative and radical - have pointed out that the most important aspect of Islam isn't the following of any specific rule whatsoever, it's just belief in the merciful God.

Said another way, generalized even further out from Islam, the most important aspect of a religion - of any ideal - is the spirit behind it, not the specific methods by which that spirit is manifested in the world.

Take America's war on terror. Like George Bush and the wardens of Guantánamo, I am against Jihadi suicide bombers, against Osama Bin-Laden, against kidnappers. The spirit - protect life - is the same. But the methods differ. Progressives refer to the law, to rational arguments against torture, while Bush and his cronies maintain a strict, Jihadi-like focus on a ghostly version of efficiency. If they think torture is efficient, torture is in, even if it violates the spirit itself. The methods get ahead of the reason behind them, the reason for using them - the methods eat their own collective tail.

Thinking about the dichotomy between spirit (compassion, mercy, reason) and method (torture, kidnapping, secrecy, willful ignoring of law, lack of respect for others' traditions), the methodological links between the Jihadis and the anti-Jihadis blur the two categories. An Orwellian, frightening state of mind.

Faith and Discourse

Ayaan Hirsi Ali writes today on the lack of moderate Muslim voices following tragedies caused by strict interpretations of Muslim law. She opens with this brain-blendingly vile quote from the Qur'an: "The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication, flog each of them with 100 stripes: Let no compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by Allah, if you believe in Allah and the Last Day. (24:2)"

On the same day, we can read a hundred articles, both pro-but-really-con and just con, about Mitt Romney's faith and how deeply it informs his identity as an American and a politician. (Oh, and we find updates, lots of updates).

David Brooks says "[Romney] argued that the religious have a common enemy: the counter-religion of secularism," then goes on to lambaste Romney for uniting religions that are just separate, if you really think about it; Brooks even calls this unity New Age-y.

In a way, that makes Romney's faith more appealing: If a dedicated Mormon can respect other faiths, then why can't Brooks and other "centrist social conservatives" (or whatever he/they call himself/themselves)?

The sheer dumbfoundedness of Brooks on secularism or Hitchens on faith lumps those very different writers into a sort of category, opposite to Ali and (in the most generous sense, as per Brooks's article) Romney. The question (for everyone, esp. pres. cand.s) isn't, "do you have faith or not?" The question is, "can you talk with those who do - and don't?"

That said, of course Romney's admitting that his faith influences his politics so greatly is both unsurprising and hugely annoying. (BTW, found a shrill, also annoying, but very well-designed site challenging Mormonism and Romney - challenging in general.)

That's why I think a Pastafarian should run for president in 08. Just sayin.

Bush and 9/11

9/11 - Bush called it "The Pearl Harbor of the 20th Century," a mandate for broader war. They (B/C) considered radical Islam the principal enemy to American hegemony and control of oil in the Mid-East.

"Drain the swamp" - is what they wanted to do; go in, steal the oil; remove the cancer of extreme Islam.

But, again, we return to what they said out loud to the American people: "Not only did they not talk about [oil, empire], they vehemently denied" that war would have anything to do with anything other than democracy and justice.

The live-feed, by the by, is about eight feet wide by five tall, projected on a high part of the white wall jutting up and out from above the CP box office. A dozen or fewer patrons watch, enjoying themselves (seems like). The audio could be louder, but it's definitely intelligible.

Larry Everest was being interviewed. He was very astute. I'll have to read his books. He comes out and greets (his wife?). A dapper-looking man. The producers are also around, watching.

Now here comes Ray McGovern. He studied Russian and worked in the CIA. Let me start a new post for him...

Staceyann Chin, Round 1: "Pity the Nation"

(Okay, back to the live-blogging... The internet kept cutting out in the theater, or this would have been up last night. As there was no intermission, I couldn't run down to the production office and post from there.)

Staceyann Chin reads "Pity the Nation" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, after Ghibran (see below).

The short, caustic poem is dead-on as a second incantation against the Bush regime. (That is, until it stumbles on the penultimate line, "My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty." How the eighty year-old master poet left such a cheesy line in an otherwise austere, snappy work, I don't know.) Chin's reading is, as ever, powerful and effective. People are really feeling this.

***

Pity the Nation

Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and emty of religion.
Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows not from its own wine-press.
Pity the nation that acclaims the bull as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.
Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.
Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose strong men are yet in the cradle.

- Khalil Gibran, The Garden of the Prophet (1934).

C. Hitchens, when not rabid, says some smart things

Though he also makes a lot of strange, awkward comparisons. Regarding his Quaker/Bin Laden remark, let me just point out that a Quaker is more like a Sufi, not a radical jihadi like Bin Laden. All religions have peaceful mystics as well as angry radicals. (Except the Church of the Subgenius, which has only angry mystics.)

Anyway, read a fascinating Hitchens interview with TruthDig.

Three Snippets Of Life On May 4, 2007

1. Ms. Rice gets a cookie for doing her fucking job, wtf. (Thanks, Nancy P.; you still my boo.)

From "U.S. and Syria Discuss Iraq in Rare Meeting," By HELENE COOPER and MICHAEL SLACKMAN, NYTimes:

The White House in April sharply criticized the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, for visiting Syria’s capital, Damascus, and meeting with President Bashar al-Assad, even going so far as calling the trip “bad behavior,” in the words of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Less than a month later, Ms. Rice walked through the cavernous hallways of a conference center in this desert resort town and into the “Sun” room to sit down with Mr. Moallem.

2. For those of you who imagined that America had miraculously transcended racism, there are better examples of its persistent existence than Don Imus's use of the word "ho." Case in point is the treatment of yesterday's rioters by police in California. Welcome to the new slave-empire: We pay you silly "Illegals" (sort of), so how can you blame us?

From "Action by Police at Rally Troubles Los Angeles Chief," By JENNIFER STEINHAUER and JULIA PRESTON, NYTimes:

LOS ANGELES, May 3 — Chief William J. Bratton of the Los Angeles Police Department said Thursday that the episode here in which police officers clashed with demonstrators and journalists on Tuesday at an immigration rally was the “worst incident of this type I have ever encountered in 37 years” in law enforcement.

3. Khalil Gibran--like Hafiz, Rumi, Augustine of Hippo, Basho, and many, many other poets who address spirituality in their works--is much worthier of a school's name than, say, the slave-owning George Washington et al.

And of all the none-American (i.e., non-English, non-Spanish) languages we should be teaching our youth, I can think of none better than Chinese, and, after Chinese, Arabic. These are major world tongues, and Arabs constitute a significant and growing minority in New York City and America at large.

What then is the problem with opening a new middle school in order to facilitate a better understanding of Arabic culture and language in New York? Well, let the New York Post explain! Of course the Post has a solid grasp on the logic behind its Frankenstein-inspired flame-adulation...

From "Plan for Arabic School in Brooklyn Spurs Protests," By JULIE BOSMAN, NYTimes:

Alicia Colon, a columnist for The New York Sun, wrote that Osama bin Laden must have been “delighted” to hear the news of the school. “New York City, the site of the worst terrorist attack in our history, is bowing down in homage to accommodate and perhaps groom future radicals,” she said. “I say break out the torches and surround City Hall to stop this monstrosity.”

Yick, how disturbing...

LAWRENCE WRIGHT WINS PULITZER

Our primary homeslice Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower just won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.

We congratulate him with all our hearts.

The man is a double paragon of journalistic thoroughness and good prose style. He is also one of the easiest-to-work-with people you could ever meet. And a snappy dresser.

(For those of you who missed Wright's My Trip To Al-Qaeda, stay tuned for a very short remounting of the show some time in June.)

US Priorities = Fucked

1. Africa

...should be a huge priority. Easy-to-slow down or stop human rights crises abound. See: Yesterday's post about Central African Republic. Or check out today's NYTimes, "Showing Mugabe the Door," by PETER GODWIN:

Zimbabwe lacks the two exports necessary to interest the United States in direct intervention: oil and terrorism. International sanctions on Zimbabwe are now minuscule. We could ramp up “smart sanctions” against Mr. Mugabe and his coterie, for example by freezing their ill-gotten external assets, but any wider sanctions would probably only hurt those at the bottom of the food chain, not the elite kleptocracy. Megaphone diplomacy tends to feed Mr. Mugabe’s portrayal of Western powers as shrill, hectoring, imperialist bullies.

Long story short: Zimbabwe is the poorest, most messed-up country on the planet. And Democrats and Republicans aren't going to do anything to help the people there.

(Check out Alex Cockburn's perfectly motley, perfectly reasoned discussion of latter-day Radicalism, and why he's not a card-carryin' Dem. Then go out and vote Freak Power Party, when I run for NY Senate...)

2. Iraq

Read George Packard's excellent, excellent discussion of how we treat our own allies--or, rather, how we grossly mistreat our own allies in Iraq.

From the article:

From the hotel window, Othman could see the palace domes of the Green Zone directly across the Tigris River. “It’s sad,” he told me. “With all the hopes that we had, and all the dreams, I was totally against the word ‘invasion.’ Wherever I go, I was defending the Americans and strongly saying, ‘America was here to make a change.’ Now I have my doubts.”

Laith was more blunt: “Sometimes, I feel like we’re standing in line for a ticket, waiting to die.”

3. America

From the NYTimes' "Relatives of Interned Japanese-Americans Side With Muslims," By NINA BERNSTEIN:

In recent years, many scholars have drawn parallels and contrasts between the internment of Japanese-Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the treatment of hundreds of Muslim noncitizens who were swept up in the weeks after the 2001 terror attacks, then held for months before they were cleared of links to terrorism and deported.

But the brief being filed today is a rare case of members of a third generation stepping up to defend legal protections that were lost to their grandparents, and that their parents devoted their lives to reclaiming.

“I feel that racial profiling is absolutely wrong and unjustifiable,” Ms. Yasui, 53, wrote in an e-mail message from San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where she works as a writer and graphic designer. “That my grandmother was treated by the U.S. government as a ‘dangerous enemy alien’ was a travesty. And it killed my grandfather.”

Meaning history repeats, because we turn our eyes from it.

4.

We must at least consider--as a nation, from the highest benches of government on down--that the starving, oppressed peoples of Africa might just be worthy of our help, even if such help does not result in any financial or political gain for us. We must consider that we might really have to help them, just because it is the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do in the MLK II/Faulkner/Mos Def sense--the sense that does not take explaining or theorizing or justifying--just doing.

We must consider the fact that, by treating our Iraqi allies in Baghdad badly and replacing them with Jordanians and Uzbeks, we might be harming both the Iraqi people and the American people. We might be placing ourselves at a continually greater risk of terrorist attack by neglecting to follow the advice of the Iraqis who want to help us fix Iraq.

And finally we must treat each and every American citizen as a citizen; in fact, we must treat as citizens even those proto-citizens who are prevented from joining this Union by right wing xenophobics. We must not treat Muslims like terrorists simply because they are Muslims.

Sure, the Quran and Bible and Torah and other religious/doctrinal texts advocate or don't advocate violence against various groups and for various reasons and via various metaphors and with various room for diplomatic out-bowing... But more important than all that hogwashing is the fact that most US Muslims--must Muslims everywhere--aren't "violent" and shouldn't be treated as dangerous outsiders. They pay taxes, watch the Super Bowl and eat at frickin Chucky Cheese, just like everyone else (except Tax Skippin Jimmy) in New Jersey.

Which all leads me to one more short mosaic-piece of information for you to ponder over. O ye who saw Guantánamo: Honorbound to Defend Freedom here at CP, weep! Then stop weeping. Then write your senator, your rep, your local judges, your PTA people, and your President. Just copy the paragraph below and X it out with chicken's blood. (That's called "Bad Bird" houdou.) Anyway, here it is:

5. Sad, Sad Tidings

From the NYTimes' "Supreme Court Denies Guantánamo Appeal," By LINDA GREENHOUSE:

WASHINGTON, April 2 — The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear urgent appeals from two groups of detainees at Guantánamo Bay. The 45 men sought to challenge the constitutionality of a new law stripping federal judges of the authority to hear challenges to the open-ended confinement of foreign citizens held at the American naval base in Cuba and designated as enemy combatants.

Strange Mayonnaise

I was reading about the Mandeans (members of a monotheistic, pacifistic religion that holds John the Baptist as the Most Important Spiritual Home-Slice You'd Ever Want To Know) on their official website and stumbled across this gem of an article by a Christian reverend on how Islamists in Baghdad are returning the grand city into an early Islamic Caliphate-era dump.

Outlawed "post-Muhammad" anachronisms include: mayonnaise, ice coolers, goatees ("Jew beards," according to the extremists), and falafels.

And you know I love me some falafels...

(I'm not hating on Islam, of course, just extremism/falafel-haterism. I mean, I'm against violence. But if you take away a man's delicious chickpeas... Well, it's enough to make me want to fire some attorney generals and start a war with somebody...)

Good News/Bad News

So, Robbie Gates is no Donald Rummie, that's good...

New to Job, Gates Argued for Closing Guantánamo
By THOM SHANKER and DAVID E. SANGER, NYTimes

WASHINGTON, March 22 — In his first weeks as defense secretary, Robert M. Gates repeatedly argued that the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had become so tainted abroad that legal proceedings at Guantánamo would be viewed as illegitimate, according to senior administration officials. He told President Bush and others that it should be shut down as quickly as possible.

Mr. Gates’s appeal was an effort to turn Mr. Bush’s publicly stated desire to close Guantánamo into a specific plan for action, the officials said. In particular, Mr. Gates urged that trials of terrorism suspects be moved to the United States, both to make them more credible and because Guantánamo’s continued existence hampered the broader war effort, administration officials said.

Mr. Gates’s arguments were rejected after Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and some other government lawyers expressed strong objections to moving detainees to the United States, a stance that was backed by the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, administration officials said.

...but Zee Germans are now arbiting Islamic law, wtf...?

German Judge Cites Koran, Stirring Up Cultural Storm
By MARK LANDLER, NYTimes

FRANKFURT, March 22 — A German judge has stirred a storm of protest by citing the Koran in turning down a German Muslim woman’s request for a speedy divorce on the ground that her husband beat her.

In a ruling that underlines the tension between Muslim customs and European laws, the judge, Christa Datz-Winter, noted that the couple came from a Moroccan cultural milieu, in which it is common for husbands to beat their wives. The Koran, she wrote in her decision, sanctions such physical abuse.

News of the ruling brought swift and sharp condemnation from politicians, legal experts and Muslim leaders in Germany, many of whom said they were confounded that a German judge would put seventh-century Islamic religious teaching ahead of German law in deciding a case of domestic violence.

Forgetting even the very concept of the separation of faith and government for a moment, let us examine the basic, common sense-grounded options presented to a judge by such a case: 1) Tell a wife, repeatedly beaten by her husband, to go fuck herself. 2) Help the poor woman (or man, what if it were a man?).

Clearly, this is a fucking no-brainer. How absurd to read news of this judge's hurtful and indefensible decision on the same day we read that Robert Gates--some old-school Commie-stoppin bad-ass general-type--has decided that illegally detaining Muslims in a foreign country for indefinite periods of time is not only not cool, but, more to his point, is doing America more harm than good.