The news this morning after Christmas is more bad news, especially for the Horn of Africa. As if the Darfur debacle in Sudan is not bad enough, the civil war in Somalia has escalated beyond the borders. Yesterday Ethiopia dispatched a fighter plane to briefly strafe the international airport in Mogadishu. This was not exactly shock-and-awe, but then Mogadishu is not Baghdad and the self-styled “Islamists†in more-or-less control of the capital are not a trained and disciplined army.
Category Archives: Terrorism Issue
Homeland Security in Wolf’s Clothing
The PBS documentary series Frontline broadcast a special report yesterday on “The Enemy Within: A Case Study of America’s Response to Homegrown Terrorism.†This is available for viewing online, along with a website with interviews, readings and links. The focus of the report is on several high-profile cases intitially reported as al-Qaida terror cells on American soil. Now that the judicial process has taken its course, not always in the interest of justice as the report shows, it turns out that there is no evidence anywhere of al-Qaida terror cells here in America. This administration has made protecting Americans from terror such a mantra that security agencies have sent out agents cock-sure radical Muslim extremists are swarming out of suburban mosques. We have heard the cry “Wolf†so many times now, that it should come as little surprise that most of the time all we are seeing are sheep fleeced into wearing wolves’ clothing. Continue reading Homeland Security in Wolf’s Clothing
How Pundits Fuel Nonsense
There are multiple ways of looking at polygamy, but in an op-ed piece this summer William Tucker did so with blinders on. His July 26 op-ed piece, called “How polygamy fuels terrorism†foolishly fuels nonsense instead.
I suppose enterprising American pundits like William Tucker need to find things to say for weekly (or shall I say weakly?) columns. Continue reading How Pundits Fuel Nonsense
Where Are We Beheading?
The search engine Google can easily become a kind of ouija board for those of us engaged in connected scholarship. There is much useful information just a click away, but also much out there of which to be wary. It is worthwhile to take time out every once in awhile to see what Goggle will offer up for an innocent query. Out of curiosity on October 4, 2005, I decided to type “beheading†into Google and see what came up.
The first 10 sites (of 1,890,000) are instructive (you can see for yourself) of the problem facing the representation of Islam on the internet. Continue reading Where Are We Beheading?
Mob Rule on a Featherbed
In a speech yesterday before the annual convention of the American Legion, President Bush launched yet another premptive strike against anyone who dares to question the strategic logic and moral worth of his failed policies in the Middle East. Near the end of his self-congratulatory talk, patriotic fervor was appealed to with a reference to Thomas Jefferson: “In the early years of our republic, Thomas Jefferson said that we cannot expect to move ‘from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.’ That’s been true in every time and place.†Jefferson was a prolific author, and there are a number of other quotes that Bush’s speech writer chose judiciously not to cite. For example, “Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.†The problem with the President’s speech is that it confuses the tyranny of his self-righteous refusal to admit mistakes with the diversity of opinions liberty necessitates. Continue reading Mob Rule on a Featherbed
Unwanted: Dead, Alive or on Tape
Osama Bin Laden is alive and well … well, he is still reduced to just a faceless voice without access to a video camera. The mass-media elected leader of Al-Qaeda sent another audiotape to al-Jazeera on Sunday. According to al-Jazeera, the tape is “believed by Washington to be authentic.†It was his first public relations event since January and it seems to be more of a “I am still here and hearing the news†message than anything else. And so the distant-learning op-ed propaganda war goes on, but who is listening? Continue reading Unwanted: Dead, Alive or on Tape
GQ not for Osama’s HQ
Osama Bin Laden as an arch-villain seems to have become so unimportant that even imposters are not sending tapes with his voice to al-Jazeera anymore. It has been over a year since his last tape was posted. His number-two, al-Zawahari, makes the news more often. But some of his extended family members have picked up the slack. Imagine a novel in which Osama has a sexy niece who is trying to make it into the hip-pop culture scene and, better yet, that she poses in seductive poses for a men’s magazine like GQ? Sound too far fetched? Well it happened this month. Continue reading GQ not for Osama’s HQ
Daily Death
People die everyday. It is hard to imagine a greater “life and death†issue than death, not only on the one who dies but for those who mourn. Today’s news, so new it did not make today’s edition of the New York Times, is full of death. The front page of the New York Times titles a headline “12 Miners Are Found Alive, Family Members Say,†but the hazard of deadlines prevented the newer news this morning that in fact 12 were found dead and only one found barely alive. On today’s Al-Jazeera it is announced that the ruler of Dubai died. On NPR this morning there was a report of a suicide bomber blowing himself up during an outdoor funeral in Muqdadiya, north of Baghdad, taking more than 30 mourners with him. And imagine all those people, thousands to be sure, who died in the last 24 hours but did not make the news.
The deaths in Dubai and Muqdadiya, Iraq could hardly be different to those left alive to think about them. Continue reading Daily Death