By Marjorie Cohn
In one of the most severe blows the Bush administration has dealt to our constitutional democracy, the Pentagon attacked the lawyers who have volunteered to represent the Guantánamo detainees. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Charles Stimson threatened corporate lawyers who agree to defend the men and boys imprisoned there. Flashing a list of corporations that use law firms doing this pro bono work, Stimson declared, "Corporate C.E.O.'s seeing this should ask firms to choose between lucrative retainers and representing terrorists."
In 1770, John Adams defended nine British soldiers including a captain who stood accused of killing five Americans. No other lawyer would defend them. Adams thought no one in a free country should be denied the right to a fair trial and the right to counsel. He was subjected to scorn and ridicule and claimed to have lost half his law practice as a result of his efforts. Adams later said his representation of those British soldiers was "one of the most gallant, generous, manly and disinterested actions of my whole life, and one of the best pieces of service I ever rendered my country."
Federal Judge Green, who has handled the many habeas corpus petitions filed by the Guantánamo detainees, expressed appreciation for the lawyers: "I do want to say we are very grateful for those attorneys who have accepted pro bono appointments. That is a service to the country, a service to the parties. No matter what position you take on this, it is a grand service."
More than 750 men and boys have been held like animals in cages during the last five years at Guantánamo. Many were picked up by warlords and sold to the US military for bounty. None has been tried for any crime. Very few even have any criminal charges against them.
Ironically, there were no alleged terrorists connected with 9/11 there until Bush recently transferred 14 men from his secret CIA prisons to Guantánamo. Meanwhile, hundreds of detainees languish in custody, aided by 500 courageous lawyers from 120 firms who have volunteered countless hours to represent them.
Under the Military Commissions Act Bush just rammed through Congress, the Guantánamo prisoners could be held for the rest of their lives without ever seeing a judge. Those who decide that death could not be worse than life at Gitmo have participated in a hunger strike. Rather than subject the Bush administration to embarrassment when prisoners die in US custody, military guards force feed them. Thick plastic tubes are forced down their throats with no anesthesia. Tubes are not sterilized before being reused on other prisoners. The UN Human Rights Commission called the force-feeding "torture." Many prisoners also report being tortured during interrogations.
Guantánamo has become the symbol of US hypocrisy. While fighting the "war on terror" and attacking other countries for their human rights abuses, the officials in the Bush administration have become war criminals. Torture and cruel or inhuman treatment are punishable as war crimes under the US War Crimes Act.
The Supreme Court held in Rasul v. Bush that the Guantánamo prison is under US jurisdiction, so prisoners there are entitled to the protections of the Constitution. The Sixth Amendment mandates that every person charged with a crime has the right to be defended by an attorney. The government is forbidden by the Fifth Amendment from denying any "person" - US citizen or not - due process of law. The presumption of innocence is enshrined in our legal system.
Bush's attack on lawyers is the latest assault on our civil liberties, which now includes warrantless surveillance of our phone calls and email, and most recently, our US Mail. Although Bush says he's spying on the terrorists, those who criticize his policies, including his illegal and immoral war on Iraq, are also invariably in his cross hairs.
All Americans should heed the words of Martin Niemoller: "First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I said nothing. Then they came for the Social Democrats, but I was not a Social Democrat, so I did nothing. Then came the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist. And then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did little. Then when they came for me, there was no one left who could stand up for me."
George W. Bush must immediately renounce Stimson's threats and relieve him of his duties. A country that would sacrifice its own values under the guise of protecting them has no moral authority in this world.
Marjorie Cohn, a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, is president of the National Lawyers Guild and the US representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists. Her book, "Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law," will be published in June.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Saturday, January 13, 2007
MOHAMED AL- HATFIELD VS. AHMED AL-McCOY
By William Fisher
It’s now a few days since President Bush spoke to the American people about his new “strategy” for “victory” in Iraq. Reading the newspapers, listening to radio and watching television, one would think all the words that could possibly be written or spoken on this speech have finally been exhausted.
But when the punditocracy gets hold of this kind of issue, the last word is never written or spoken. And I am under no delusions that my words will be anything near the last.
But I will write them anyway, because there were a couple of things that struck me.
One of them was the way of most of both the print and broadcast media bought into the President’ s characterization of his plan as both “new” or a “strategy.” It is not new; we’ve had several unsuccessful “surges” in the past. And what Mr. Bush terms a “strategy” is little more than a tactical adjustment. It is “stay the course” 101.1.
The second thing that struck me was the almost total America-centricity of the media coverage. This seemed especially true on cable television. On MSNBC, for example, analysis of Bush’s speech was left in the hands of such well-known Middle East scholars as Chris Matthews, Pat Buchanan, and assorted retired US military officers. The result of choices like that took all the complexity and nuance out of the discussion. But I suppose that, since John Kerry’s 2004 campaign, nuance has become a dirty word.
Granted, America has a huge stake in how this misadventure unfolds. It is the blood of our surging troops that will be spilled and our tax dollars that will get spent. Still, with all its bulging rolladexes, wouldn’t you think the cable news folks might have come up with a commentator or two who actually knows something about the war zone, its history, its customs, and its idiosyncrasies?
The fact is that without this kind of information, the American public has little chance of really understanding the roots or the dynamics of what’s happening in Iraq today.
As I listened to Pat Buchanan spouting on about the US political party maneuvering going on behind the scenes, I recalled an experience that said a lot that wasn’t being explained.
When I lived in Egypt, I had a driver named Said. I once went with Said to his little village about 30 miles outside Cairo, where we were greeted by and spoke with many of his brothers, sisters, cousins, neighbors, etc. These were people Said knew all his life; he watched some of them being born. This was his part of his tribe.
But I noticed that Said passed one guy by several times and never even said hello. Later, I asked him why. He said his family had a "vendetta" (that's the English equivalent of the Arabic word he used) against this man's family. It was a feud that started some 300 years earlier, but no one in either family has forgotten it, although Said told me he had long since forgotten what it was all about. The vendetta resulted over the years in continuing hatred and periodic murders between these two families. And both families happen to be Sunni, as are most Egyptians. This was the Middle East version of The Hatfields and The McCoys!
So, with Chris Matthews chattering on in the background, I thought: If these two families, from the same branch of Islam, haven’t been able to reconcile their differences in 300 years, how can we expect Iraqis from different Muslim sects to reconcile theirs?
They won’t. And understanding the importance of this tribalism is a very important part of MidEast history and of the Iraq war, and one before and now largely ignored by the president.
The suffering inflicted on Shia Muslims – to say nothing of the Kurdish minority -- by Sunni Saddam Hussein’s apparatchiks is of much more recent vintage. It is burned into the consciousness even of those unborn when the Ba’ath Party took power. Little wonder then that the Shias now seek their revenge. It’s their vendetta. That’s what we see in the piles of tortured and executed bodied that grace our TV screens every morning. That’s what we saw when we watched an official lynch mob hanging Saddam. And the Shias ain’t giving it up just because America says they should.
That’s how we got to the 60 percent solution. Iraq’s Shias represent some 60 percent of the country’s population. Sunnis and Kurds make up the remaining 20 percent each. The president of the country may be a Kurd, but the real power is with the Prime Minister, a Shia, and his supporters, including some of the most bloodthirsty murderers in the country.
These murderers have their own armies – Muqtada Al-Sadr alone has some 60,000 fighters -- and have seriously infiltrated both the official Iraqi army and the police. It is overwhelmingly from these Shia gangs and police that the death squads and sectarian cleaners have risen. They act out their vendettas every day, and of course the Sunnis fight back. Neither side needs Al-Qaida, despite what George W. Bush says.
Does our President really believe that Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki has asked for a surge in US troops so they can go into the Sadr City slums of Baghdad and kill off his fellow Shias? When pigs fly! That’s exactly why Mr. Al-Maliki has resisted this surge – despite what the President says -- and why most of the Iraqi army troops promised in the past somehow never showed up.
I have serious doubts they will show up this time. That will leave thousands more of our troops knocking down doors in a country where we can’t even understand what anybody’s trying to say to us.
So, in a best-case scenario, Iraq will end up with a 60 percent solution – a Shia government determined to get even with their Sunni countrymen. And it will have been American military force – and American incompetence, ignorance, and hubris – that opened this Pandora’s box.
That vendetta could go on, like Said’s, for another 300 years.
But now for the good news. America and Iran are finally on the same page: accepting, if not exactly sharing, the same vision of the Iraq of the future. A Shia future.
It’s now a few days since President Bush spoke to the American people about his new “strategy” for “victory” in Iraq. Reading the newspapers, listening to radio and watching television, one would think all the words that could possibly be written or spoken on this speech have finally been exhausted.
But when the punditocracy gets hold of this kind of issue, the last word is never written or spoken. And I am under no delusions that my words will be anything near the last.
But I will write them anyway, because there were a couple of things that struck me.
One of them was the way of most of both the print and broadcast media bought into the President’ s characterization of his plan as both “new” or a “strategy.” It is not new; we’ve had several unsuccessful “surges” in the past. And what Mr. Bush terms a “strategy” is little more than a tactical adjustment. It is “stay the course” 101.1.
The second thing that struck me was the almost total America-centricity of the media coverage. This seemed especially true on cable television. On MSNBC, for example, analysis of Bush’s speech was left in the hands of such well-known Middle East scholars as Chris Matthews, Pat Buchanan, and assorted retired US military officers. The result of choices like that took all the complexity and nuance out of the discussion. But I suppose that, since John Kerry’s 2004 campaign, nuance has become a dirty word.
Granted, America has a huge stake in how this misadventure unfolds. It is the blood of our surging troops that will be spilled and our tax dollars that will get spent. Still, with all its bulging rolladexes, wouldn’t you think the cable news folks might have come up with a commentator or two who actually knows something about the war zone, its history, its customs, and its idiosyncrasies?
The fact is that without this kind of information, the American public has little chance of really understanding the roots or the dynamics of what’s happening in Iraq today.
As I listened to Pat Buchanan spouting on about the US political party maneuvering going on behind the scenes, I recalled an experience that said a lot that wasn’t being explained.
When I lived in Egypt, I had a driver named Said. I once went with Said to his little village about 30 miles outside Cairo, where we were greeted by and spoke with many of his brothers, sisters, cousins, neighbors, etc. These were people Said knew all his life; he watched some of them being born. This was his part of his tribe.
But I noticed that Said passed one guy by several times and never even said hello. Later, I asked him why. He said his family had a "vendetta" (that's the English equivalent of the Arabic word he used) against this man's family. It was a feud that started some 300 years earlier, but no one in either family has forgotten it, although Said told me he had long since forgotten what it was all about. The vendetta resulted over the years in continuing hatred and periodic murders between these two families. And both families happen to be Sunni, as are most Egyptians. This was the Middle East version of The Hatfields and The McCoys!
So, with Chris Matthews chattering on in the background, I thought: If these two families, from the same branch of Islam, haven’t been able to reconcile their differences in 300 years, how can we expect Iraqis from different Muslim sects to reconcile theirs?
They won’t. And understanding the importance of this tribalism is a very important part of MidEast history and of the Iraq war, and one before and now largely ignored by the president.
The suffering inflicted on Shia Muslims – to say nothing of the Kurdish minority -- by Sunni Saddam Hussein’s apparatchiks is of much more recent vintage. It is burned into the consciousness even of those unborn when the Ba’ath Party took power. Little wonder then that the Shias now seek their revenge. It’s their vendetta. That’s what we see in the piles of tortured and executed bodied that grace our TV screens every morning. That’s what we saw when we watched an official lynch mob hanging Saddam. And the Shias ain’t giving it up just because America says they should.
That’s how we got to the 60 percent solution. Iraq’s Shias represent some 60 percent of the country’s population. Sunnis and Kurds make up the remaining 20 percent each. The president of the country may be a Kurd, but the real power is with the Prime Minister, a Shia, and his supporters, including some of the most bloodthirsty murderers in the country.
These murderers have their own armies – Muqtada Al-Sadr alone has some 60,000 fighters -- and have seriously infiltrated both the official Iraqi army and the police. It is overwhelmingly from these Shia gangs and police that the death squads and sectarian cleaners have risen. They act out their vendettas every day, and of course the Sunnis fight back. Neither side needs Al-Qaida, despite what George W. Bush says.
Does our President really believe that Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki has asked for a surge in US troops so they can go into the Sadr City slums of Baghdad and kill off his fellow Shias? When pigs fly! That’s exactly why Mr. Al-Maliki has resisted this surge – despite what the President says -- and why most of the Iraqi army troops promised in the past somehow never showed up.
I have serious doubts they will show up this time. That will leave thousands more of our troops knocking down doors in a country where we can’t even understand what anybody’s trying to say to us.
So, in a best-case scenario, Iraq will end up with a 60 percent solution – a Shia government determined to get even with their Sunni countrymen. And it will have been American military force – and American incompetence, ignorance, and hubris – that opened this Pandora’s box.
That vendetta could go on, like Said’s, for another 300 years.
But now for the good news. America and Iran are finally on the same page: accepting, if not exactly sharing, the same vision of the Iraq of the future. A Shia future.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
FOREVER GITMO?
By William Fisher
Will we always have GITMO? Will it always be the 800-pound gorilla in the room?
This week, the world marks the fifth anniversary of the arrival of the first detainees at the U.S. naval facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And still a growing number of people and organizations – from military officers to religious leaders to legal scholars to human rights groups – continue to label the prison a black hole of injustice and demand that it be closed.
The facility, established following the war in Afghanistan in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York City and the Pentagon, has been controversial throughout the world as the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) imprisoned hundreds of alleged terrorists. It has been widely condemned for prisoner abuse and for the absence of any meaningful process to separate genuine wrongdoers from people detained because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Recently departed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly declared all the detainees “the worst of the worst.” But from its peak inmate population of 773, several hundred detainees have been released – mostly because the DOD concluded that they no longer represented a threat to U.S. national security -- the camp continues to house more than 400 prisoners.
While the US military claimed Guantanamo inmates were captured “on the battlefield” in Afghanistan, and designated by the Bush Administration as enemy combatants, there has been mounting evidence that a number were victims of what is known as “extraordinary rendition” – capturing a person and sending him to a site recognized for practicing torture.
President George W. Bush has implicitly admitted that others, including 14 so-called “high value” prisoners said to have played significant roles in the 9/11 attacks and other terrorist act, were sent to Guantanamo after long detentions in the CIA’s “black hole” secret prisons in Afghanistan, Eastern Europe, and other locations.
None of these prisoners have been tried nor have any charges been brought against them.
Mary Shaw of Amnesty International USA, a human rights group that has labeled Guantanamo as the “American Gulag,” told us, “The U.S. administration chose Guantanamo as the location for this detention facility in an attempt to hold detainees beyond the reach of U.S. and international law. For five years, the vast majority of these men have been held in indefinite detention, without charge or trial. For five years, we have heard stories of torture and ill-treatment. And for five years, we have been assured that these detainees were captured ‘on the battlefield’ and represent the ‘worst of the worst’. Yet the U.S. government's own tribunals have determined that over half of those detained never committed any hostile acts against the United States. And most of those held at Guantanamo were not captured on any battlefield, but were handed over to the U.S. by others in exchange for cash rewards. Undoubtedly, this practice of paying bounties for prisoners has led to mistakes; yet for five years the U.S. government has denied that these men have the basic right to challenge their detentions.”
Or, as well put to us by Elizabeth de la Vega, author of the recent book, “U.S. v. Bush,” “Even before the drafting of the United States Constitution, since John Adams's famous decision to represent the British soldiers who were accused of the Boston Massacre, the right to counsel for all defendants -- regardless of the crime with which they are charged--has been a bedrock of the American criminal justice system. The vast majority of prisoners at Guantanamo, however, have not been charged with anything at all. By abolishing habeas corpus and now, with the casual change of a regulation, the Bush Administration has effectively prevented an entire group of people, many of whom may well be innocent, from having any means of redress whatsoever. Every American should be appalled by these actions."
Over the past five years, there has also been increasing disclosure of prisoner abuse, violating the Geneva Conventions. This evidence has flowed the testimony of released prisoners and from documents provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. This evidence centers on written communications from FBI agents who witnessed ”cruel, inhuman and degrading” prisoner treatment and interrogation, and reported it to their FBI superiors.
There have been three suicides among prisoners and hundreds have been force-fed to keep them alive during intermittent hunger strikes. The Department of Defense has acknowledged 41 suicide attempts among 29 prisoners.
The New York Times has reported that, while the June 10, 2006, suicides were the first inmate deaths at Guantanamo, “some prisoners tried suicide almost immediately after their arrival in 2001. By mid-2002, there had been numerous suicide attempts, and DOD renamed these acts as ‘self-injuries’."
In January 2005, the Times reported that there had been 350 incidents of "self-harm" in 2003. Of those, 120 were attempts by prisoners to hang themselves. Twenty-three prisoners participated in a simultaneous mass-suicide attempt.
President Bush has said he would like to close the facility, but the U.S. military has recently completed construction of new buildings to house cellblocks.
Among the most widespread criticisms of Guantanamo is the system set up by the Bush Administration for adjudicating individual cases.
That process began with the establishment of CSRTs – Combatant Status Review Tribunals -- in July 2004, more than two years after most detainees were imprisoned there. The CSRTs, while deeply flawed according to many military and civilian legal authorities, have been responsible for the release of some prisoners. In some cases, they concluded that the detainees had been captured by Afghan militias, Pakistani border guards and other surrogates, and some had been turned in for bounties, intelligence officials have said.
But the CSRT process itself proved to be ineffective. The New York Times reported that “Information about detainees’ identities and actions was often vague and secondhand. Physical evidence, if any existed, was sometimes lost before reaching Cuba.” Information obtained by coercion was allowed to be admitted as evidence.
The CSRTs required three military officers to decide cases by majority vote, based on a “preponderance of the evidence.” Midlevel officers – not military lawyers -- were ordered to help detainees prepare for their hearings.
Lawyers for detainees contended that the military placed insurmountable obstacles to their defense. For example, more than a week after a hearing for a Pakistani businessman accused of ties to Al Qaeda, a civilian lawyer who had been trying to help him said he had not been advised of the hearing.
Amidst growing international criticism, the Bush administration in May 2004 set up an annual parole system, called Administrative Review Boards, to assess whether a detainee represented a continuing threat or had intelligence value.
But before those hearings ever began, the Supreme Court ruled that the Bush Administration must conduct a one-time review of all Guantánamo detainees using the sort of panels called for by Army regulations — and by the Geneva Conventions. This year’s round of parole-type review hearings ended last month. Most of the detainees eligible to appear at these hearings have reportedly stopped trying because of the perceived bias in the procedure and the haste with which hearings are carried out.
Meanwhile, in an effort to restrain President Bush from claiming inherent powers to determine what kinds of treatment constituted cruel or inhumane treatment of prisoners, Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act. The President signed the bill into law, but at the same time issued a “signing statement” that essentially claimed that the commander-in-chief could disregard the law when he deemed it not in the national interest to do so.
Last year, the Supreme Court also played a pivotal role in rejecting President Bush’s assertion that his commander-in-chief authority gave him inherent power to establish Military Commissions to try Guantanamo detainees.
In a landmark decision in a 2006 case known as Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the court ruled that the military commissions set up by the Bush administration "violate both the military’s Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and the four Geneva Conventions." The suit was brought by Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Guantanamo detainee.
The case considered whether the United States Congress may pass legislation preventing the Supreme Court from hearing the case of an accused combatant before his military commission takes place, whether the special military commissions that had been set up violated federal law, and whether courts can enforce the articles of the 1949 Geneva Convention.
On June 29, 2006, the Court ruled 5-3 that it had jurisdiction and that the federal government did not have authority to set up these particular military commissions.
Congress then quickly passed the United States Military Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006, which was signed by President George W. Bush in October 2006. The Act's stated purpose was to "facilitate bringing to justice terrorists and other unlawful enemy combatants through full and fair trials by military commissions, and for other purposes."
Under the MCA, the Bush administration and the US Congress retroactively shielded from prosecution for illegal criminal activities those who have been involved in illegal detention, torture, and rendition.
But Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.), John Warner (R-Va.) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), strong backers of the MCA, agreed to the administration's "alternative" definitions of torture, which essentially meant that torture techniques could continue to be used by the U.S. military, the CIA, and contract employees. Attempts by the Senate Judiciary Committee to preserve the rights of habeas corpus hearings for detainees also failed.
Headlined by these and other lawmakers as a “compromise” with the president, the MCA essentially gave the administration all the powers it had claimed previously, as well as a few others. Congress allowed the president to prevent prisoners from appealing to the U.S. courts, and immunized government personnel from prosecution for all but the most serious abuses.
The new Democratic Party-controlled Congress is reportedly considering whether to challenge the suspension of habeas corpus hearings for detainees.
The Bush administration claims it plans to charge up to 70 Guantanamo detainees in the military commissions authorized by the MCA. But legal experts point out that this still leaves more than 300 men held in Guantanamo without charge and without any clear explanation of what they are accused of doing.
Amidst the continuing uncertainty about this and other issues at Guantanamo, pressure for its closure is likely only to increase over time.
But what then? Where do we put the prisoners? And what do we do with them? And will anyone know?
At a bare minimum, and no thanks to the Bush Administration, we know where GITMO is and we know a lot of what has gone on there. GITMO’s “justice system” is a travesty, but arguably it is better than no system at all – and that might be the consequence of sending all the detainees to other facilities. With world attention focused on this Caribbean Devil’s Island over such a long period of time, it might just be that the Bush Administration finally understands that it has no place to hide – it has to run a model prison. Or be subjected to still more scorn from friends and adversaries alike.
Along with Abu Ghraib, GITMO has become emblematic of the colossal blunders our government has made in conducting the so-called War on Terrorism and in following the president’s messianic vision of a world chockablock with liberal Western-style democracies.
If the president still believes in this vision – mandated, as he said, by “a higher father” – he is truly delusional. If he is not, what he needs to do now is ensure that prisoners left at GITMO receive justice with due process and the right of appeal. Congress can now play a role by amending the MCA. Then the remaining cases should be swiftly and transparently adjudicated. Justice not only must be done; it must be seen to be done.
How Mr. Bush handles this issue will be a significant part of his legacy, about which every president must be concerned. Doing the right thing at GITMO – now -- could help remove a bit of the tarnish that promises to characterize his legacy. And begin to rebuild a little of the respect the world once had for our country.
Will we always have GITMO? Will it always be the 800-pound gorilla in the room?
This week, the world marks the fifth anniversary of the arrival of the first detainees at the U.S. naval facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And still a growing number of people and organizations – from military officers to religious leaders to legal scholars to human rights groups – continue to label the prison a black hole of injustice and demand that it be closed.
The facility, established following the war in Afghanistan in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York City and the Pentagon, has been controversial throughout the world as the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) imprisoned hundreds of alleged terrorists. It has been widely condemned for prisoner abuse and for the absence of any meaningful process to separate genuine wrongdoers from people detained because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Recently departed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly declared all the detainees “the worst of the worst.” But from its peak inmate population of 773, several hundred detainees have been released – mostly because the DOD concluded that they no longer represented a threat to U.S. national security -- the camp continues to house more than 400 prisoners.
While the US military claimed Guantanamo inmates were captured “on the battlefield” in Afghanistan, and designated by the Bush Administration as enemy combatants, there has been mounting evidence that a number were victims of what is known as “extraordinary rendition” – capturing a person and sending him to a site recognized for practicing torture.
President George W. Bush has implicitly admitted that others, including 14 so-called “high value” prisoners said to have played significant roles in the 9/11 attacks and other terrorist act, were sent to Guantanamo after long detentions in the CIA’s “black hole” secret prisons in Afghanistan, Eastern Europe, and other locations.
None of these prisoners have been tried nor have any charges been brought against them.
Mary Shaw of Amnesty International USA, a human rights group that has labeled Guantanamo as the “American Gulag,” told us, “The U.S. administration chose Guantanamo as the location for this detention facility in an attempt to hold detainees beyond the reach of U.S. and international law. For five years, the vast majority of these men have been held in indefinite detention, without charge or trial. For five years, we have heard stories of torture and ill-treatment. And for five years, we have been assured that these detainees were captured ‘on the battlefield’ and represent the ‘worst of the worst’. Yet the U.S. government's own tribunals have determined that over half of those detained never committed any hostile acts against the United States. And most of those held at Guantanamo were not captured on any battlefield, but were handed over to the U.S. by others in exchange for cash rewards. Undoubtedly, this practice of paying bounties for prisoners has led to mistakes; yet for five years the U.S. government has denied that these men have the basic right to challenge their detentions.”
Or, as well put to us by Elizabeth de la Vega, author of the recent book, “U.S. v. Bush,” “Even before the drafting of the United States Constitution, since John Adams's famous decision to represent the British soldiers who were accused of the Boston Massacre, the right to counsel for all defendants -- regardless of the crime with which they are charged--has been a bedrock of the American criminal justice system. The vast majority of prisoners at Guantanamo, however, have not been charged with anything at all. By abolishing habeas corpus and now, with the casual change of a regulation, the Bush Administration has effectively prevented an entire group of people, many of whom may well be innocent, from having any means of redress whatsoever. Every American should be appalled by these actions."
Over the past five years, there has also been increasing disclosure of prisoner abuse, violating the Geneva Conventions. This evidence has flowed the testimony of released prisoners and from documents provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. This evidence centers on written communications from FBI agents who witnessed ”cruel, inhuman and degrading” prisoner treatment and interrogation, and reported it to their FBI superiors.
There have been three suicides among prisoners and hundreds have been force-fed to keep them alive during intermittent hunger strikes. The Department of Defense has acknowledged 41 suicide attempts among 29 prisoners.
The New York Times has reported that, while the June 10, 2006, suicides were the first inmate deaths at Guantanamo, “some prisoners tried suicide almost immediately after their arrival in 2001. By mid-2002, there had been numerous suicide attempts, and DOD renamed these acts as ‘self-injuries’."
In January 2005, the Times reported that there had been 350 incidents of "self-harm" in 2003. Of those, 120 were attempts by prisoners to hang themselves. Twenty-three prisoners participated in a simultaneous mass-suicide attempt.
President Bush has said he would like to close the facility, but the U.S. military has recently completed construction of new buildings to house cellblocks.
Among the most widespread criticisms of Guantanamo is the system set up by the Bush Administration for adjudicating individual cases.
That process began with the establishment of CSRTs – Combatant Status Review Tribunals -- in July 2004, more than two years after most detainees were imprisoned there. The CSRTs, while deeply flawed according to many military and civilian legal authorities, have been responsible for the release of some prisoners. In some cases, they concluded that the detainees had been captured by Afghan militias, Pakistani border guards and other surrogates, and some had been turned in for bounties, intelligence officials have said.
But the CSRT process itself proved to be ineffective. The New York Times reported that “Information about detainees’ identities and actions was often vague and secondhand. Physical evidence, if any existed, was sometimes lost before reaching Cuba.” Information obtained by coercion was allowed to be admitted as evidence.
The CSRTs required three military officers to decide cases by majority vote, based on a “preponderance of the evidence.” Midlevel officers – not military lawyers -- were ordered to help detainees prepare for their hearings.
Lawyers for detainees contended that the military placed insurmountable obstacles to their defense. For example, more than a week after a hearing for a Pakistani businessman accused of ties to Al Qaeda, a civilian lawyer who had been trying to help him said he had not been advised of the hearing.
Amidst growing international criticism, the Bush administration in May 2004 set up an annual parole system, called Administrative Review Boards, to assess whether a detainee represented a continuing threat or had intelligence value.
But before those hearings ever began, the Supreme Court ruled that the Bush Administration must conduct a one-time review of all Guantánamo detainees using the sort of panels called for by Army regulations — and by the Geneva Conventions. This year’s round of parole-type review hearings ended last month. Most of the detainees eligible to appear at these hearings have reportedly stopped trying because of the perceived bias in the procedure and the haste with which hearings are carried out.
Meanwhile, in an effort to restrain President Bush from claiming inherent powers to determine what kinds of treatment constituted cruel or inhumane treatment of prisoners, Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act. The President signed the bill into law, but at the same time issued a “signing statement” that essentially claimed that the commander-in-chief could disregard the law when he deemed it not in the national interest to do so.
Last year, the Supreme Court also played a pivotal role in rejecting President Bush’s assertion that his commander-in-chief authority gave him inherent power to establish Military Commissions to try Guantanamo detainees.
In a landmark decision in a 2006 case known as Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the court ruled that the military commissions set up by the Bush administration "violate both the military’s Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and the four Geneva Conventions." The suit was brought by Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Guantanamo detainee.
The case considered whether the United States Congress may pass legislation preventing the Supreme Court from hearing the case of an accused combatant before his military commission takes place, whether the special military commissions that had been set up violated federal law, and whether courts can enforce the articles of the 1949 Geneva Convention.
On June 29, 2006, the Court ruled 5-3 that it had jurisdiction and that the federal government did not have authority to set up these particular military commissions.
Congress then quickly passed the United States Military Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006, which was signed by President George W. Bush in October 2006. The Act's stated purpose was to "facilitate bringing to justice terrorists and other unlawful enemy combatants through full and fair trials by military commissions, and for other purposes."
Under the MCA, the Bush administration and the US Congress retroactively shielded from prosecution for illegal criminal activities those who have been involved in illegal detention, torture, and rendition.
But Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.), John Warner (R-Va.) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), strong backers of the MCA, agreed to the administration's "alternative" definitions of torture, which essentially meant that torture techniques could continue to be used by the U.S. military, the CIA, and contract employees. Attempts by the Senate Judiciary Committee to preserve the rights of habeas corpus hearings for detainees also failed.
Headlined by these and other lawmakers as a “compromise” with the president, the MCA essentially gave the administration all the powers it had claimed previously, as well as a few others. Congress allowed the president to prevent prisoners from appealing to the U.S. courts, and immunized government personnel from prosecution for all but the most serious abuses.
The new Democratic Party-controlled Congress is reportedly considering whether to challenge the suspension of habeas corpus hearings for detainees.
The Bush administration claims it plans to charge up to 70 Guantanamo detainees in the military commissions authorized by the MCA. But legal experts point out that this still leaves more than 300 men held in Guantanamo without charge and without any clear explanation of what they are accused of doing.
Amidst the continuing uncertainty about this and other issues at Guantanamo, pressure for its closure is likely only to increase over time.
But what then? Where do we put the prisoners? And what do we do with them? And will anyone know?
At a bare minimum, and no thanks to the Bush Administration, we know where GITMO is and we know a lot of what has gone on there. GITMO’s “justice system” is a travesty, but arguably it is better than no system at all – and that might be the consequence of sending all the detainees to other facilities. With world attention focused on this Caribbean Devil’s Island over such a long period of time, it might just be that the Bush Administration finally understands that it has no place to hide – it has to run a model prison. Or be subjected to still more scorn from friends and adversaries alike.
Along with Abu Ghraib, GITMO has become emblematic of the colossal blunders our government has made in conducting the so-called War on Terrorism and in following the president’s messianic vision of a world chockablock with liberal Western-style democracies.
If the president still believes in this vision – mandated, as he said, by “a higher father” – he is truly delusional. If he is not, what he needs to do now is ensure that prisoners left at GITMO receive justice with due process and the right of appeal. Congress can now play a role by amending the MCA. Then the remaining cases should be swiftly and transparently adjudicated. Justice not only must be done; it must be seen to be done.
How Mr. Bush handles this issue will be a significant part of his legacy, about which every president must be concerned. Doing the right thing at GITMO – now -- could help remove a bit of the tarnish that promises to characterize his legacy. And begin to rebuild a little of the respect the world once had for our country.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
RELIGIOUS LEADERS PUSH BACK AGAINST REP. GOODE
By William Fisher
More than 20 prominent religious leaders have launched an online petition demanding that Rep. Vigil Goode (R-Va) reexamine his opposition to newly-elected Rep. Keith Ellison, a Muslim from Minnesota, taking his unofficial oath of office using the Qur'an, and to apologize for his statement that, without punitive immigration reform, "there will be many more Muslims elected to office demanding the use of the Qur’an."
The petition warns, “An attack against one religion is an attack against them all. Next week, it could be Jews. Next month, it could be Christian fundamentalists or evangelicals. Right now, it is Muslims. It is they who feel targeted by repression and abuse, and they who live among us in a growing climate of fear. … We hold it to be self-evident that all Americans have the right to practice their faith, whatever it may be, and that any Americans - regardless of race, color or creed - may be elected and sworn into office holding whatever book they consider sacred…We would point out that there are some five million Muslims in the US. Many have been here for generations. They are every bit as American as Rep. Goode. Some Americans have also converted to Islam, including Rep. Ellison. We call for a renewed unity among people of conscience and of faith.”
The petition adds, “In a spirit of reconciliation and peace, we invite Rep. Goode to join with us in an inter-religious delegation to visit a mosque in his district, in order that the healing may begin.”
The Goode-Ellison firestorm was triggered by remarks by right-wing talk-show host and writer Dennis Prager, who got the ball rolling about a month ago, arguing that Ellison, Congress’ first Muslim, will literally “undermine American civilization” and “embolden Islamic extremists” if he takes the oath of office on a Koran instead of a Christian Bible. Rep. Goode was part of a wide assortment of right-wing critics who came forward with similar denunciations. Goode argued that Ellison is proof that we need immigration reform to prevent Muslims from entering the United States.
On swearing-in day last week, Rep. Ellison did in fact place his hand on the Muslim holy book in a private ceremony for family, friends, and staffers at the Capitol. The Qur’an he used had belonged to Thomas Jefferson, who was a native of Goode’s Congressional District.
Earlier, following the en masse swearing in of the 110th Congress – at which no holy book is used – Rep. Goode was seen making his way to Rep. Ellison on the floor of the House. The two shook hands, but Goode has refused to retract his statements.
Appearing on Fox's "Your World" program with guest-host David Asman, Goode insisted he does not want to forbid Keith Ellison from using the Qu’ran outright. "But," he said, "I am for restricting immigration so that we don't have a majority of Muslims elected to the United States House of Representatives."
To block the invading hordes, Goode wants to curtail legal immigration for Middle Easterners, and end Diversity Visa programs that were created to increase the immigrants from non-European countries.
Religious leaders and organizations backing the petition include Dr. George Hunsinger of the Princeton Theological Seminary, Rev. Robert Edgar of the
National Council of Churches, Rabbi Steven B. Jacobs of the Rabbi Steven B. Jacobs Progressive Faith Foundation, Rev. Dr. Larry L. Greenfield of the American Baptist Churches of Metro Chicago, Rev. Cedric A. Harmon of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Joseph C. Hough, Jr. of the Union Theological Seminary, Vincent Isner of Faithful America, a program of the National Council of the Churches of Christ USA, and Rev. Timothy F. Simpson of the Christian Alliance for Progress.
Readers wishing to read the full petition and original signatories can do so at http://ga3.org/campaign/reconcile.
In a statement, Rep. Ellison said, “We seem to have lost the political vision of our founding document -- a vision of inclusion, tolerance and generosity. I do not blame my critics for subscribing to a politics of scarcity and intolerance. However, I believe we all must project a new politics of generosity and inclusion. This is the vision of the diverse coalition in my Congressional district. My constituents in Minnesota elected me to fight for a new politics in which a loving nation guarantees health care for all of its people; a new politics in which executive pay may not skyrocket while workers do not have enough to care for their families.”
He added, “I was elected to articulate a new politics in which no one is cut out of the American dream, not immigrants, not gays, not poor people, not even a Muslim committed to serve his nation.”
Right-wing religious groups and the Republican Party have remained largely silent on the Goode-Ellison controversy. Only one prominent Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, has publicly defended Ellison’s Qur’an decision and criticized Rep. Goode. Conservative religious groups have deviated little from promoting their more customary issues, such as opposition to “activist judges” and gay marriage. But there is mounting evidence that the more inclusive religious communities in the U.S. are determined to make their voices heard.
Princeton’s Dr. George Hunsinger, one of the original petition signatories, told us, "We were outmaneuvered by the Religious Right. We have a 20-year deficit to make up for. But remember that it wasn't so long ago that the likes of Martin Luther King and Rev. William Sloane Coffin were on the scene…From a Christian point of view, faithfulness is a higher virtue than effectiveness. Which doesn't mean that we can afford to be slackers when it comes to making a difference."
Goode was elected to Congress in 1996 as a Democrat, representing the historically conservative 5th Congressional District of Virginia, located in the southwest part of the state, where the largest city is Charlottesville. Like many Southern Democrats, Goode strongly opposed abortion and gun control and vigorously supported the tobacco industry. He is also a long-time opponent of same-sex marriage and gay civil unions. He officially became a Republican in August 2002 before the primary election, making him the first Republican to represent this district since Reconstruction.
In 2005, Goode faced questions when a major corporate campaign donor, defense contractor MZM, Inc., was implicated in a bribery scandal that resulted in the criminal conviction and resignation of California congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Although Goode insisted that his relations with MZM were motivated solely by his interest in bringing high-paying skilled jobs to his district, in December of that year he donated the $88,000 received in MZM contributions to regional charities.
In July 2006 Richard Berglund, a former supervisor of the Martinsville, Va. office of MZM Inc., pleaded guilty to making illegal donations to Goode's campaign. Court papers indicated that Berglund and MZM owner Mitchell Wade, who previously pleaded guilty, engaged in a scheme to reimburse MZM employees for campaign donations.There was no allegation of wrong-doing on the part of Goode's campaign.
More than 20 prominent religious leaders have launched an online petition demanding that Rep. Vigil Goode (R-Va) reexamine his opposition to newly-elected Rep. Keith Ellison, a Muslim from Minnesota, taking his unofficial oath of office using the Qur'an, and to apologize for his statement that, without punitive immigration reform, "there will be many more Muslims elected to office demanding the use of the Qur’an."
The petition warns, “An attack against one religion is an attack against them all. Next week, it could be Jews. Next month, it could be Christian fundamentalists or evangelicals. Right now, it is Muslims. It is they who feel targeted by repression and abuse, and they who live among us in a growing climate of fear. … We hold it to be self-evident that all Americans have the right to practice their faith, whatever it may be, and that any Americans - regardless of race, color or creed - may be elected and sworn into office holding whatever book they consider sacred…We would point out that there are some five million Muslims in the US. Many have been here for generations. They are every bit as American as Rep. Goode. Some Americans have also converted to Islam, including Rep. Ellison. We call for a renewed unity among people of conscience and of faith.”
The petition adds, “In a spirit of reconciliation and peace, we invite Rep. Goode to join with us in an inter-religious delegation to visit a mosque in his district, in order that the healing may begin.”
The Goode-Ellison firestorm was triggered by remarks by right-wing talk-show host and writer Dennis Prager, who got the ball rolling about a month ago, arguing that Ellison, Congress’ first Muslim, will literally “undermine American civilization” and “embolden Islamic extremists” if he takes the oath of office on a Koran instead of a Christian Bible. Rep. Goode was part of a wide assortment of right-wing critics who came forward with similar denunciations. Goode argued that Ellison is proof that we need immigration reform to prevent Muslims from entering the United States.
On swearing-in day last week, Rep. Ellison did in fact place his hand on the Muslim holy book in a private ceremony for family, friends, and staffers at the Capitol. The Qur’an he used had belonged to Thomas Jefferson, who was a native of Goode’s Congressional District.
Earlier, following the en masse swearing in of the 110th Congress – at which no holy book is used – Rep. Goode was seen making his way to Rep. Ellison on the floor of the House. The two shook hands, but Goode has refused to retract his statements.
Appearing on Fox's "Your World" program with guest-host David Asman, Goode insisted he does not want to forbid Keith Ellison from using the Qu’ran outright. "But," he said, "I am for restricting immigration so that we don't have a majority of Muslims elected to the United States House of Representatives."
To block the invading hordes, Goode wants to curtail legal immigration for Middle Easterners, and end Diversity Visa programs that were created to increase the immigrants from non-European countries.
Religious leaders and organizations backing the petition include Dr. George Hunsinger of the Princeton Theological Seminary, Rev. Robert Edgar of the
National Council of Churches, Rabbi Steven B. Jacobs of the Rabbi Steven B. Jacobs Progressive Faith Foundation, Rev. Dr. Larry L. Greenfield of the American Baptist Churches of Metro Chicago, Rev. Cedric A. Harmon of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Joseph C. Hough, Jr. of the Union Theological Seminary, Vincent Isner of Faithful America, a program of the National Council of the Churches of Christ USA, and Rev. Timothy F. Simpson of the Christian Alliance for Progress.
Readers wishing to read the full petition and original signatories can do so at http://ga3.org/campaign/reconcile.
In a statement, Rep. Ellison said, “We seem to have lost the political vision of our founding document -- a vision of inclusion, tolerance and generosity. I do not blame my critics for subscribing to a politics of scarcity and intolerance. However, I believe we all must project a new politics of generosity and inclusion. This is the vision of the diverse coalition in my Congressional district. My constituents in Minnesota elected me to fight for a new politics in which a loving nation guarantees health care for all of its people; a new politics in which executive pay may not skyrocket while workers do not have enough to care for their families.”
He added, “I was elected to articulate a new politics in which no one is cut out of the American dream, not immigrants, not gays, not poor people, not even a Muslim committed to serve his nation.”
Right-wing religious groups and the Republican Party have remained largely silent on the Goode-Ellison controversy. Only one prominent Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, has publicly defended Ellison’s Qur’an decision and criticized Rep. Goode. Conservative religious groups have deviated little from promoting their more customary issues, such as opposition to “activist judges” and gay marriage. But there is mounting evidence that the more inclusive religious communities in the U.S. are determined to make their voices heard.
Princeton’s Dr. George Hunsinger, one of the original petition signatories, told us, "We were outmaneuvered by the Religious Right. We have a 20-year deficit to make up for. But remember that it wasn't so long ago that the likes of Martin Luther King and Rev. William Sloane Coffin were on the scene…From a Christian point of view, faithfulness is a higher virtue than effectiveness. Which doesn't mean that we can afford to be slackers when it comes to making a difference."
Goode was elected to Congress in 1996 as a Democrat, representing the historically conservative 5th Congressional District of Virginia, located in the southwest part of the state, where the largest city is Charlottesville. Like many Southern Democrats, Goode strongly opposed abortion and gun control and vigorously supported the tobacco industry. He is also a long-time opponent of same-sex marriage and gay civil unions. He officially became a Republican in August 2002 before the primary election, making him the first Republican to represent this district since Reconstruction.
In 2005, Goode faced questions when a major corporate campaign donor, defense contractor MZM, Inc., was implicated in a bribery scandal that resulted in the criminal conviction and resignation of California congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Although Goode insisted that his relations with MZM were motivated solely by his interest in bringing high-paying skilled jobs to his district, in December of that year he donated the $88,000 received in MZM contributions to regional charities.
In July 2006 Richard Berglund, a former supervisor of the Martinsville, Va. office of MZM Inc., pleaded guilty to making illegal donations to Goode's campaign. Court papers indicated that Berglund and MZM owner Mitchell Wade, who previously pleaded guilty, engaged in a scheme to reimburse MZM employees for campaign donations.There was no allegation of wrong-doing on the part of Goode's campaign.
Friday, January 05, 2007
GOODBYE TO A YEAR OF IRONIES
By William Fisher
One needs a well-honed sense of irony to truly appreciate 2006. Some of these ironies were funny. Some were embarrassing. A lot were downright tragic. Before we finally consign the old year to the historians, let us recount some of some of them.
Arguably the most depressing irony of 2006 was that the country to which we claim to be bringing the rule of law turned the execution of a true miscreant into a lynch mob. We didn’t do it – that was the handiwork of Iraq’s so-called unity government. But we’re getting blamed anyway. This piece of Kafkaesque theater is going to do wonders for our Public Diplomacy programs! Karen Hughes, where are you when we need you?
But there was a lot more.
While we fretted about North Korea’s A-bombs and Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the Pentagon and the Energy Department chose the first new, nuclear-weapon design for development since the end of the Cold War. But not to worry -- the new warhead will be safer, cheaper, more secure, easier to manufacture, and never need explosive testing. This latest toy would be the first step toward an entirely new U.S. nuclear arsenal. But it’s far from the first step in the perception that America might just have a tad of a double-standard problem in the proliferation business.
Then, there was the irony of Iraqi refugees. Members of Muslim and Christian minorities, as well as doctors, university professors, scientists, people who worked for the U.S. authorities, and just average citizens, fled this “liberated” country in the tens of thousands. But the Bush administration had planned to resettle just 500 of these refugees in the U.S. As the year drew to a close, the New York Times reported that State Department officials were “open to admitting larger numbers, but are limited by a cumbersome and poorly financed United Nations referral system.” The Times cited some critics of the Bush administration as claiming the U.S. “has been reluctant to create a significant refugee program because to do so would be tantamount to conceding failure in Iraq.” Someone needs to remind President Bush of Colin Powell’s Pottery Barn analogy: “You break it, you own it.” Equating refugees with “collateral damage” just doesn’t cut it.
Then there were the grotesquely mixed messages being sent to American citizens who happen to be Muslims. The Pentagon and the armed forces, for example, started a big push to recruit more Muslims into the military because of the dearth of Arabic-speakers who understand the culture of places like Iraq and Afghanistan. To win “hearts and minds” of American Muslims, West Point, the other service academies, and military installations, opened Muslim prayer rooms, appointed Imams to serve as chaplains, and got non-Muslim officers and Pentagon officials to celebrate religious events with Muslims. The FBI, CIA, and DHS also continued their campaigns to recruit Arab-Americans as analysts and linguists – and turned down most of the many applicants because they had families and friends in the Middle East. Surprise, surprise!
At the same time, however, Muslims were being harassed, intimidated and attacked not only by wing-nut talk show hosts and many of their fellow citizens, but by people who should know better – like Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode. This distinguished gent said Muslims were not welcome in the United States. He told us he believes Muslims “should not be allowed to enter this country and that they should seek their political or economic aspirations in other countries.” This redneck no-nothing attacked a newly-elected member of congress – Keith Ellis, the House’s first Muslim – for using the Koran instead of the Bible for his informal swearing in. That Koran, by the way, belonged to Thomas Jefferson. Goode then administered the coup de grace by tying American Muslims to the urgency of building a very tall fence to seal off our borders and prevent a tsunami of illegal Muslim immigration.
The xenophobia didn’t apply only to people like Goode. Our government, too, was more than complicit. “Terrorist” Maher Arar, who was “rendered” from Kennedy Airport to ten months in a torture chamber in a Syrian jail, then acquitted after a two-year Canadian investigation, remained on America’s famous no-fly list, along with Senator Ted Kennedy, aging grandmothers and numerous infants. He is barred from traveling in the U.S. or even flying over U.S. airspace -- but the State Department won’t tell him why. Then, the Department of Homeland Security had to apologize to a Muslim traveler who was unnecessarily strip-searched at the Pinellas County Jail, and held in a maximum-security cell for two days after being detained at Tampa International Airport. And six Muslim-American Imams were removed from a US Airways flight in handcuffs after a passenger complained to a flight attendant that they were acting “suspiciously.” They had prayed in the airline’s waiting room before boarding their flight.
Another mixed message came from Christian military officers who continued their proselytizing at the Air Force Academy, despite the findings of a special investigative panel that promised to clean up the Academy’s act. Mikey Weinstein, an Academy graduate, called for an investigation into several officers who appeared in a promotional video for a Christian organization while in uniform. Weinstein said evangelistic efforts by Christian officers directed toward their colleagues or subordinates amounted to "coercion" and "fanatical unconstitutional religious persecution."
But my favorite irony has to be the fence caper. It’s about the Golden State Fence company, which helped build San Diego's border wall in the 1990s. That fence served as a model for the recently legislated 700-mile border fence because it successfully stopped immigrants from crossing at points along its 14-mile stretch. (However, the fence simply pushed would-be immigrants to more dangerous terrain in Arizona.)
In 2006, company executives pled guilty to hiring illegal immigrants. The executives may serve jail time in addition to paying nearly $5 million in fees. Their attorney told NPR that the case proves construction companies need guest workers.
There were many more ironies in 2006, too numerous to recount here. But don’t despair; we’re likely to have an even bigger crop at the end of 2007.
One needs a well-honed sense of irony to truly appreciate 2006. Some of these ironies were funny. Some were embarrassing. A lot were downright tragic. Before we finally consign the old year to the historians, let us recount some of some of them.
Arguably the most depressing irony of 2006 was that the country to which we claim to be bringing the rule of law turned the execution of a true miscreant into a lynch mob. We didn’t do it – that was the handiwork of Iraq’s so-called unity government. But we’re getting blamed anyway. This piece of Kafkaesque theater is going to do wonders for our Public Diplomacy programs! Karen Hughes, where are you when we need you?
But there was a lot more.
While we fretted about North Korea’s A-bombs and Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the Pentagon and the Energy Department chose the first new, nuclear-weapon design for development since the end of the Cold War. But not to worry -- the new warhead will be safer, cheaper, more secure, easier to manufacture, and never need explosive testing. This latest toy would be the first step toward an entirely new U.S. nuclear arsenal. But it’s far from the first step in the perception that America might just have a tad of a double-standard problem in the proliferation business.
Then, there was the irony of Iraqi refugees. Members of Muslim and Christian minorities, as well as doctors, university professors, scientists, people who worked for the U.S. authorities, and just average citizens, fled this “liberated” country in the tens of thousands. But the Bush administration had planned to resettle just 500 of these refugees in the U.S. As the year drew to a close, the New York Times reported that State Department officials were “open to admitting larger numbers, but are limited by a cumbersome and poorly financed United Nations referral system.” The Times cited some critics of the Bush administration as claiming the U.S. “has been reluctant to create a significant refugee program because to do so would be tantamount to conceding failure in Iraq.” Someone needs to remind President Bush of Colin Powell’s Pottery Barn analogy: “You break it, you own it.” Equating refugees with “collateral damage” just doesn’t cut it.
Then there were the grotesquely mixed messages being sent to American citizens who happen to be Muslims. The Pentagon and the armed forces, for example, started a big push to recruit more Muslims into the military because of the dearth of Arabic-speakers who understand the culture of places like Iraq and Afghanistan. To win “hearts and minds” of American Muslims, West Point, the other service academies, and military installations, opened Muslim prayer rooms, appointed Imams to serve as chaplains, and got non-Muslim officers and Pentagon officials to celebrate religious events with Muslims. The FBI, CIA, and DHS also continued their campaigns to recruit Arab-Americans as analysts and linguists – and turned down most of the many applicants because they had families and friends in the Middle East. Surprise, surprise!
At the same time, however, Muslims were being harassed, intimidated and attacked not only by wing-nut talk show hosts and many of their fellow citizens, but by people who should know better – like Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode. This distinguished gent said Muslims were not welcome in the United States. He told us he believes Muslims “should not be allowed to enter this country and that they should seek their political or economic aspirations in other countries.” This redneck no-nothing attacked a newly-elected member of congress – Keith Ellis, the House’s first Muslim – for using the Koran instead of the Bible for his informal swearing in. That Koran, by the way, belonged to Thomas Jefferson. Goode then administered the coup de grace by tying American Muslims to the urgency of building a very tall fence to seal off our borders and prevent a tsunami of illegal Muslim immigration.
The xenophobia didn’t apply only to people like Goode. Our government, too, was more than complicit. “Terrorist” Maher Arar, who was “rendered” from Kennedy Airport to ten months in a torture chamber in a Syrian jail, then acquitted after a two-year Canadian investigation, remained on America’s famous no-fly list, along with Senator Ted Kennedy, aging grandmothers and numerous infants. He is barred from traveling in the U.S. or even flying over U.S. airspace -- but the State Department won’t tell him why. Then, the Department of Homeland Security had to apologize to a Muslim traveler who was unnecessarily strip-searched at the Pinellas County Jail, and held in a maximum-security cell for two days after being detained at Tampa International Airport. And six Muslim-American Imams were removed from a US Airways flight in handcuffs after a passenger complained to a flight attendant that they were acting “suspiciously.” They had prayed in the airline’s waiting room before boarding their flight.
Another mixed message came from Christian military officers who continued their proselytizing at the Air Force Academy, despite the findings of a special investigative panel that promised to clean up the Academy’s act. Mikey Weinstein, an Academy graduate, called for an investigation into several officers who appeared in a promotional video for a Christian organization while in uniform. Weinstein said evangelistic efforts by Christian officers directed toward their colleagues or subordinates amounted to "coercion" and "fanatical unconstitutional religious persecution."
But my favorite irony has to be the fence caper. It’s about the Golden State Fence company, which helped build San Diego's border wall in the 1990s. That fence served as a model for the recently legislated 700-mile border fence because it successfully stopped immigrants from crossing at points along its 14-mile stretch. (However, the fence simply pushed would-be immigrants to more dangerous terrain in Arizona.)
In 2006, company executives pled guilty to hiring illegal immigrants. The executives may serve jail time in addition to paying nearly $5 million in fees. Their attorney told NPR that the case proves construction companies need guest workers.
There were many more ironies in 2006, too numerous to recount here. But don’t despair; we’re likely to have an even bigger crop at the end of 2007.
Monday, January 01, 2007
THIS STRATEGY IS NEW?
By William Fisher
It’s encouraging to know that President Bush is taking a hard look at economic initiatives as he prepares to let the nation in on his new strategy for Iraq.
But he faces two huge problems. The first is that he’s been here before – and his Coalition Provisional Authority, under the aegis of Viceroy Jerry Bremer botched this job as he did most others back 2003 and 2004.
The second is that, whatever economic development projects Bush may try to put in place, it may just be too late for any of them to be effective.
The Washington Post reports that the initiatives Bush is considering include a short-term work program, a micro-lending project, and a reappraisal of potentially viable state-owned industries that could be re-started.
Officials told the Post that these kinds of programs are part of a “classic counter-insurgency strategy” that also includes military and political components.
The military piece would presumably include the much-discussed “surge” in U.S. boots on the ground. The political part would be largely out of U.S. control; it would turn on the ability and the will of Iraq’s so-called “Unity Government” to take on the armed militias and death squads now wreaking so much death and destruction.
Some administration officials consider the economic package the most important of the three components. But, even if it’s not too late, it seems clear that projects of this type will be largely useless absent security and political reconciliation. And the Malaki government seems paralyzed to confront these realities.
As to the nature of the economic initiatives themselves, there is certainly nothing new or innovative here. These kinds of projects have been used by the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, virtually since the agency was founded more than 40 years ago.
Short-term work programs that would follow up a military sweep by immediately hiring people in the neighborhood to clear up trash or do other small civil-affairs jobs, is a sometimes useful band-aid that USAID has applied dozens of times, in many parts of the world, and in areas not necessarily beset by insurgencies. Short-term, it might prevent some Iraqis from joining armed gangs, but it is unlikely to change the allegiances of the thousands who have already made that bloody decision. And it is doubtful that, given the nature of both military and civilian bureaucracy in Iraq, such programs could be implemented quickly enough to have any significant impact on unemployment, which is far higher today than during the rule of Saddam Hussein, Iraq's late leader.
Micro-lending programs are also an old USAID chestnut, recently brought to public attention by the Bangladeshi efforts for which Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. Micro lending involves making modest loans to help individuals get businesses going and create new economic activity in poor neighborhoods. USAID and other countries’ aid agencies have used the technique to help poor but entrepreneurial men and women in villages in every part of the developing world. In many of these, a loan of $10 or $100 dollars has started to help lift thousands of communities out of poverty. The loan repayment rate would be to die for by any commercial banker. In some iterations of this program, there is a rule that no one in a community can get a new loan if any borrower in that community misses a payment on his or her current loan. That gets the whole village involved. Where these programs have not worked, it is more often than not because of red tape and corruption by their national governments.
But will micro-lending work in war zones where vendors are afraid to take their handicrafts and other wares to the markets that are prime targets for suicide bombers and IEDs? Will it work in towns where there is no electricity to, say, power the sewing machines needed to turn out the inexpensive T-shirts and other garments that are traditional products made with micro-loans?
Most international development experts would find this proposition extremely problematic.
Then there’s the review of dormant state-owned industries to try to determine which ones are economically viable and worth reopening. This, too, is an old USAID approach, especially since the Reagan Administration, when such reviews almost always recommended not resuscitation but privatization. And in many cases, they were right. State-run industries in developing countries are almost always inefficient, over-manned, and often corrupt. In countries where unemployment is high, the governmental industrial sector is little more than a dumping ground for young men and women who can scrape together a bribe for the factory manager. In many situations, private investors could probably do better. But the problem has been that there were few bidders for these dinosaur industries.
If the Bush Administration elects to resurrect these losers, it may keep some Iraqis off the streets and collecting a paycheck. That may well be useful, but we should be under no illusions that Iraq can build an economy on losers.
If all this has a deja vue feel to it, it’s because most of these initiatives – any many others -- have been tried before, only to go down in flames under the supervision of the inexperienced, ideologically-driven political appointees sent to Iraq to supervise the “reconstruction” of the country – at a cost well in excess of $20 billion.
During 2003 and 2004, the CPA hired some of the most respected and successful international development consulting firms as contractors. When their projects failed to achieve their objectives, the contractors were blamed. No doubt some under-performed. But spotty performance was overwhelmingly the fault of the CPA folks charged with supervising these contractors. Few had any experience with international development. They knew nothing of the country, its culture, its languages. They showed a disgraceful indifference to the CPA red tape that prevented critical supplies, and salaries for contractors’ Iraqi employees, from reaching contractors on a timely basis. They pushed for a Baghdad stock exchange to rival New York’s. They recommended privatizing virtually everything that didn’t move. They constantly changed the missions and workplans of their contractors, who often worked under life-threatening conditions. They rarely ventured outside the Green Zone to review progress or lack thereof. They were heavily populated by Bush political appointees full of grandiose ideas that served only to expose their ignorance of the country they were sent to help.
Doubtless, some of the same contractors will win bids to execute Mr. Bush’s “new” economic strategy – if there is one. That’s to be expected, since they are among the best in the world. But these kinds of contractors cannot operate as free-lancers in a vacuum. I draw on years of personal experience when I say that they depend on – and welcome – informed eyes-on supervision and oversight. We’re not talking about Halliburton here.
The CPA, thankfully, is gone – its leader now the proud recipient of the Medal of Freedom. But there is no evidence that it has been replaced by international development specialists who actually know what they’re doing. Remember that these are the same folks who still can’t deliver electricity or clean water.
Even if I’m wrong about that – and I hope I am – the devil will still be in the details. The U.S. Government is not famous for its rapid response skills.
So it will likely be months between President Bush’s unveiling of his new plan and the signing of contracts and the arrival of new contractors on the ground.
The big problem is that the U.S. has run out of months.
It’s encouraging to know that President Bush is taking a hard look at economic initiatives as he prepares to let the nation in on his new strategy for Iraq.
But he faces two huge problems. The first is that he’s been here before – and his Coalition Provisional Authority, under the aegis of Viceroy Jerry Bremer botched this job as he did most others back 2003 and 2004.
The second is that, whatever economic development projects Bush may try to put in place, it may just be too late for any of them to be effective.
The Washington Post reports that the initiatives Bush is considering include a short-term work program, a micro-lending project, and a reappraisal of potentially viable state-owned industries that could be re-started.
Officials told the Post that these kinds of programs are part of a “classic counter-insurgency strategy” that also includes military and political components.
The military piece would presumably include the much-discussed “surge” in U.S. boots on the ground. The political part would be largely out of U.S. control; it would turn on the ability and the will of Iraq’s so-called “Unity Government” to take on the armed militias and death squads now wreaking so much death and destruction.
Some administration officials consider the economic package the most important of the three components. But, even if it’s not too late, it seems clear that projects of this type will be largely useless absent security and political reconciliation. And the Malaki government seems paralyzed to confront these realities.
As to the nature of the economic initiatives themselves, there is certainly nothing new or innovative here. These kinds of projects have been used by the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, virtually since the agency was founded more than 40 years ago.
Short-term work programs that would follow up a military sweep by immediately hiring people in the neighborhood to clear up trash or do other small civil-affairs jobs, is a sometimes useful band-aid that USAID has applied dozens of times, in many parts of the world, and in areas not necessarily beset by insurgencies. Short-term, it might prevent some Iraqis from joining armed gangs, but it is unlikely to change the allegiances of the thousands who have already made that bloody decision. And it is doubtful that, given the nature of both military and civilian bureaucracy in Iraq, such programs could be implemented quickly enough to have any significant impact on unemployment, which is far higher today than during the rule of Saddam Hussein, Iraq's late leader.
Micro-lending programs are also an old USAID chestnut, recently brought to public attention by the Bangladeshi efforts for which Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. Micro lending involves making modest loans to help individuals get businesses going and create new economic activity in poor neighborhoods. USAID and other countries’ aid agencies have used the technique to help poor but entrepreneurial men and women in villages in every part of the developing world. In many of these, a loan of $10 or $100 dollars has started to help lift thousands of communities out of poverty. The loan repayment rate would be to die for by any commercial banker. In some iterations of this program, there is a rule that no one in a community can get a new loan if any borrower in that community misses a payment on his or her current loan. That gets the whole village involved. Where these programs have not worked, it is more often than not because of red tape and corruption by their national governments.
But will micro-lending work in war zones where vendors are afraid to take their handicrafts and other wares to the markets that are prime targets for suicide bombers and IEDs? Will it work in towns where there is no electricity to, say, power the sewing machines needed to turn out the inexpensive T-shirts and other garments that are traditional products made with micro-loans?
Most international development experts would find this proposition extremely problematic.
Then there’s the review of dormant state-owned industries to try to determine which ones are economically viable and worth reopening. This, too, is an old USAID approach, especially since the Reagan Administration, when such reviews almost always recommended not resuscitation but privatization. And in many cases, they were right. State-run industries in developing countries are almost always inefficient, over-manned, and often corrupt. In countries where unemployment is high, the governmental industrial sector is little more than a dumping ground for young men and women who can scrape together a bribe for the factory manager. In many situations, private investors could probably do better. But the problem has been that there were few bidders for these dinosaur industries.
If the Bush Administration elects to resurrect these losers, it may keep some Iraqis off the streets and collecting a paycheck. That may well be useful, but we should be under no illusions that Iraq can build an economy on losers.
If all this has a deja vue feel to it, it’s because most of these initiatives – any many others -- have been tried before, only to go down in flames under the supervision of the inexperienced, ideologically-driven political appointees sent to Iraq to supervise the “reconstruction” of the country – at a cost well in excess of $20 billion.
During 2003 and 2004, the CPA hired some of the most respected and successful international development consulting firms as contractors. When their projects failed to achieve their objectives, the contractors were blamed. No doubt some under-performed. But spotty performance was overwhelmingly the fault of the CPA folks charged with supervising these contractors. Few had any experience with international development. They knew nothing of the country, its culture, its languages. They showed a disgraceful indifference to the CPA red tape that prevented critical supplies, and salaries for contractors’ Iraqi employees, from reaching contractors on a timely basis. They pushed for a Baghdad stock exchange to rival New York’s. They recommended privatizing virtually everything that didn’t move. They constantly changed the missions and workplans of their contractors, who often worked under life-threatening conditions. They rarely ventured outside the Green Zone to review progress or lack thereof. They were heavily populated by Bush political appointees full of grandiose ideas that served only to expose their ignorance of the country they were sent to help.
Doubtless, some of the same contractors will win bids to execute Mr. Bush’s “new” economic strategy – if there is one. That’s to be expected, since they are among the best in the world. But these kinds of contractors cannot operate as free-lancers in a vacuum. I draw on years of personal experience when I say that they depend on – and welcome – informed eyes-on supervision and oversight. We’re not talking about Halliburton here.
The CPA, thankfully, is gone – its leader now the proud recipient of the Medal of Freedom. But there is no evidence that it has been replaced by international development specialists who actually know what they’re doing. Remember that these are the same folks who still can’t deliver electricity or clean water.
Even if I’m wrong about that – and I hope I am – the devil will still be in the details. The U.S. Government is not famous for its rapid response skills.
So it will likely be months between President Bush’s unveiling of his new plan and the signing of contracts and the arrival of new contractors on the ground.
The big problem is that the U.S. has run out of months.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
HERE ARE THE CHRISTIANS!
By William Fisher
My recent column, “Where Are The Christians?” drew a bundle of answers in emails from Truthout readers. That piece was about the bigoted remarks of Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va) attacking newly–elected Congressman Keith Ellis, a Muslim, from taking his unofficial oath of office with his hand on the Quoran – and mindlessly predicting that this would somehow lead to a vast increase in illegal Muslim immigration (unless, of course, we close our borders).
It might be instructive to quote a couple of the emails I received.
Reverend Joy A. Bergfalk, of the Life Listening Resources at Labyrinth House Rochester, NY, wrote, “We progressives…do not have the finances of the Religious Right. We do not have Big Business and Sun Jung Moon to back us and the oil industry is certainly not with us. That kind of money goes to those who will let the corporate world take over America. Plus, we tend to try to use our finances to change the world by helping it.”
In answer to my “Where Are The Christians?” question, Rev. Bergfalk wrote, “We are almost all of the places where peacemaking is going on. We are at marches and rallies. We are at our computers writing responses, letters to Congress and whomever we can. I have written a response to Goode's statements. There was no way to e-mail it to him from outside of Virginia, so I have prepared a letter to be sent to each of his five offices.”
She added, “And we are speaking out in churches and from the pulpits. I think my parishioners now realize that Muslims and Christians worship the same God
by different names.”
And she closed with, “We may not be as obnoxious and flamboyant as the Religious Right, but we are here and active. Maybe if people would quit leaving the church in reaction to right wingers, the church would be a stronger force for change in our world.”
Another reader, Rev Jim Altman, Pastor of Cadott, Stanley, and Thorp United Methodist Churches in Stanley, WI, called my article “a cheap shot.” He explained, “There are credible progressive Christian voices out there who are rarely reported by even the progressive media. My response to Mr. Fisher's question is that nobody's asking us. I, for one, would love to give a Christian's response to Rep. Virgil Goode's outrageous rant against his fellow Congressman, Keith Ellison, but media outlets seem only interested in conflating Christianity with the religion of Falwell and Robertson. The majority of Christians in this country do not subscribe to ‘The Old-Time Gospel Hour’’ or ‘The 700 Club’, and do not worship in ‘mega-churches’, yet when journalists look for the American ‘Christian’ response we get Jerry, Pat, or some blow-dried dandy from the Church of What's Trendy. Most of the Christians I know would support Rep. Ellison's freedom of religion and more than a few would argue that the world still has much good to learn from Islam, but in the theater of journalism inflammation trumps reason and cartoon trumps reality.”
Well, that is exactly the point I was trying to make. I wrote, “You might not be aware of it, but there is a robust community of progressive Christians in America, struggling to get its voice heard. That’s a tough task when you don’t have the deep pockets and the cynical White House connections to effectively drown out dissent. Or change the subject. It’s a lot easier for this wedge constituency to get people worried that if same-sex unions become legal, they’ll all be forced to marry a gay or a lesbian than it is to speak out for the homeless, the poor, those who have no health care, and for religious tolerance to find common ground.”
There are dozens of progressive Christian websites and blogs and many of them have spoken out against Rep. Goode. For example, the simple advice from Rev. Tim Simpson’s Christian Alliance for Progress was, “Stand up for religious freedom, tell Rep. Virgil Goode that America is still ‘one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all’."
Or Cross Left’s admonition to its readers to “Stand Up for Religious Freedom, Tell Rep. Virgil Goode to Stop Attacking US Muslims.”
The Christian Alliance’s reader response was plentiful and passionate.
One reader wrote, “The attempt to conflate Islamophobia with immigration reform is laughable, except I can only imagine that we'll only see more of it from the Right. Once they come up with an intellectually unfounded conflation of issues, they tend to use it relentlessly until it takes hold in the minds of enough people for it to enter the cultural discourse (see their attempts to claim that all gays are pedophiles).”
Another wrote, “No matter what nonsense Congressman Virgil Goode spouts, he'll continue to be reelected by his constituency of good-ole-boys from Franklin County, Virginia. I live in a Congressional district adjacent to Goode's so I know whereof I speak. Please, please let's all allow good ole Virge to keep on writing and speaking as he pleases. The more Rep. Goode writes and says to expose his own narrow-minded ignorance, the more progressives will feel emboldened to vote against his willful stupidity.”
And yet another said, “It is truly sad that the people of Goode's district and believe me, their are many, many good people in that district aren't standing up and demanding either a retraction of his remarks or his removal from office… The former bastion of the Confederacy lingers with those like Goode who have no respect or tolerance for anyone different from them.”
Well, I’m afraid these are voices in the wilderness. The websites and broadcasts run by “values” groups like Focus on the Family, the 700 Club, and the Family Research Council, attract many more people and, as one of my readers rightly points out, are routinely turned to by journalists in need of a “religious source.”
It is worth noting that Tony Perkins’s Family Research Council website claims it has “led the way in defending religious freedom in the public square,” yet has been silent on the Goode affair. The websites of the other major right-wing “values” groups have either ignored the issue, or presented it as “straight news”, but using code-words such as references to Goode’s opposition from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) or the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). The Foundation for Moral Law, led by dismissed Alabama Supreme Court Judge Roy Moore, inveighed that Ellis should not be allowed to take his congressional seat at all.
True, there are some counter-balances with national reputations, like Jim Wallis of Sojourners, the Interfaith Council, and the National Council of Churches, but they attract nothing like the media coverage given to the religious right.
All of which suggests that if religious extremism doesn’t really represent the views of most Christians, the more progressive forces within Christianity – and Judaism and Islam – need to become as unified and aggressive and determined as those who have sadly become the public faces of these great faiths by hijacking. They need to do more to organize nationally, to raise substantial funds, and to be much more proactively media savvy.
That’s not an easy task and it won’t happen quickly. But it’s the only way to at least level the playing field of religious discourse.
My recent column, “Where Are The Christians?” drew a bundle of answers in emails from Truthout readers. That piece was about the bigoted remarks of Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va) attacking newly–elected Congressman Keith Ellis, a Muslim, from taking his unofficial oath of office with his hand on the Quoran – and mindlessly predicting that this would somehow lead to a vast increase in illegal Muslim immigration (unless, of course, we close our borders).
It might be instructive to quote a couple of the emails I received.
Reverend Joy A. Bergfalk, of the Life Listening Resources at Labyrinth House Rochester, NY, wrote, “We progressives…do not have the finances of the Religious Right. We do not have Big Business and Sun Jung Moon to back us and the oil industry is certainly not with us. That kind of money goes to those who will let the corporate world take over America. Plus, we tend to try to use our finances to change the world by helping it.”
In answer to my “Where Are The Christians?” question, Rev. Bergfalk wrote, “We are almost all of the places where peacemaking is going on. We are at marches and rallies. We are at our computers writing responses, letters to Congress and whomever we can. I have written a response to Goode's statements. There was no way to e-mail it to him from outside of Virginia, so I have prepared a letter to be sent to each of his five offices.”
She added, “And we are speaking out in churches and from the pulpits. I think my parishioners now realize that Muslims and Christians worship the same God
by different names.”
And she closed with, “We may not be as obnoxious and flamboyant as the Religious Right, but we are here and active. Maybe if people would quit leaving the church in reaction to right wingers, the church would be a stronger force for change in our world.”
Another reader, Rev Jim Altman, Pastor of Cadott, Stanley, and Thorp United Methodist Churches in Stanley, WI, called my article “a cheap shot.” He explained, “There are credible progressive Christian voices out there who are rarely reported by even the progressive media. My response to Mr. Fisher's question is that nobody's asking us. I, for one, would love to give a Christian's response to Rep. Virgil Goode's outrageous rant against his fellow Congressman, Keith Ellison, but media outlets seem only interested in conflating Christianity with the religion of Falwell and Robertson. The majority of Christians in this country do not subscribe to ‘The Old-Time Gospel Hour’’ or ‘The 700 Club’, and do not worship in ‘mega-churches’, yet when journalists look for the American ‘Christian’ response we get Jerry, Pat, or some blow-dried dandy from the Church of What's Trendy. Most of the Christians I know would support Rep. Ellison's freedom of religion and more than a few would argue that the world still has much good to learn from Islam, but in the theater of journalism inflammation trumps reason and cartoon trumps reality.”
Well, that is exactly the point I was trying to make. I wrote, “You might not be aware of it, but there is a robust community of progressive Christians in America, struggling to get its voice heard. That’s a tough task when you don’t have the deep pockets and the cynical White House connections to effectively drown out dissent. Or change the subject. It’s a lot easier for this wedge constituency to get people worried that if same-sex unions become legal, they’ll all be forced to marry a gay or a lesbian than it is to speak out for the homeless, the poor, those who have no health care, and for religious tolerance to find common ground.”
There are dozens of progressive Christian websites and blogs and many of them have spoken out against Rep. Goode. For example, the simple advice from Rev. Tim Simpson’s Christian Alliance for Progress was, “Stand up for religious freedom, tell Rep. Virgil Goode that America is still ‘one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all’."
Or Cross Left’s admonition to its readers to “Stand Up for Religious Freedom, Tell Rep. Virgil Goode to Stop Attacking US Muslims.”
The Christian Alliance’s reader response was plentiful and passionate.
One reader wrote, “The attempt to conflate Islamophobia with immigration reform is laughable, except I can only imagine that we'll only see more of it from the Right. Once they come up with an intellectually unfounded conflation of issues, they tend to use it relentlessly until it takes hold in the minds of enough people for it to enter the cultural discourse (see their attempts to claim that all gays are pedophiles).”
Another wrote, “No matter what nonsense Congressman Virgil Goode spouts, he'll continue to be reelected by his constituency of good-ole-boys from Franklin County, Virginia. I live in a Congressional district adjacent to Goode's so I know whereof I speak. Please, please let's all allow good ole Virge to keep on writing and speaking as he pleases. The more Rep. Goode writes and says to expose his own narrow-minded ignorance, the more progressives will feel emboldened to vote against his willful stupidity.”
And yet another said, “It is truly sad that the people of Goode's district and believe me, their are many, many good people in that district aren't standing up and demanding either a retraction of his remarks or his removal from office… The former bastion of the Confederacy lingers with those like Goode who have no respect or tolerance for anyone different from them.”
Well, I’m afraid these are voices in the wilderness. The websites and broadcasts run by “values” groups like Focus on the Family, the 700 Club, and the Family Research Council, attract many more people and, as one of my readers rightly points out, are routinely turned to by journalists in need of a “religious source.”
It is worth noting that Tony Perkins’s Family Research Council website claims it has “led the way in defending religious freedom in the public square,” yet has been silent on the Goode affair. The websites of the other major right-wing “values” groups have either ignored the issue, or presented it as “straight news”, but using code-words such as references to Goode’s opposition from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) or the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). The Foundation for Moral Law, led by dismissed Alabama Supreme Court Judge Roy Moore, inveighed that Ellis should not be allowed to take his congressional seat at all.
True, there are some counter-balances with national reputations, like Jim Wallis of Sojourners, the Interfaith Council, and the National Council of Churches, but they attract nothing like the media coverage given to the religious right.
All of which suggests that if religious extremism doesn’t really represent the views of most Christians, the more progressive forces within Christianity – and Judaism and Islam – need to become as unified and aggressive and determined as those who have sadly become the public faces of these great faiths by hijacking. They need to do more to organize nationally, to raise substantial funds, and to be much more proactively media savvy.
That’s not an easy task and it won’t happen quickly. But it’s the only way to at least level the playing field of religious discourse.
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