In an age of PSAs and the Vagina Monologues, many of us consider ourselves informed and educated about institutionalized female violence.  “It happens over there,” we tell ourselves, pointing to remote locations on a map, barely envisioning what “it” might entail.  But some forms of violence against women are disguised as customs, some of those customs have crossed oceans to arrive here, and the American Academy of Pediatrics has created a loophole that will keep those customs alive.  Read the rest of this entry &raquo

On May 4, 1970, several thousand students gathered at midday at Kent State University in Ohio to protest the invasion of Cambodia and the presence of National Guard troops on campus. The demonstration followed several days of tension and violence on campus and in downtown Kent following President Nixon’s April 30th announcement of a major incursion into Cambodia by American and South Vietnamese troops. In the days leading up to May 4, riot police used tear gas to disperse demonstrating students, the ROTC building was burned down, and the governor of Ohio ordered Kent State to be occupied by Ohio National Guard troops.

By noon the National Guard commander had issued an order for the demonstration to disperse, and guardsmen began to use tear gas to break up the demonstrators (some of whom had been throwing stones or throwing the tear gas canisters back). Oddly, by the time the actual killings took place, many of the students thought that the main action of the afternoon was over and had started to walk to class. But about a dozen members of Troop G of the National Guard suddenly turned and fired into the crowd of student demonstrators. Many bullets met their mark; four students lost their lives, and nine more were wounded. The guardsmen later asserted that they felt threatened by a mass of protesters, and no one was ever punished or held accountable for the killing of the four unarmed students, all of whom were several hundred feet away from the guardsmen who fired.

The killings at Kent State galvanized a national student protest movement, with demonstrations and student strikes on hundreds of college campuses across the nation in the following days. And over time the public support for the war in Vietnam and Cambodia crumbled.

Today Kent State University is commemorating the 40th anniversary of the attacks. A New York Times reporter spoke to freshmen on campus, and found that many of them don’t feel a strong historical connection with what happened at their university forty years ago.

Fourteen of 15 freshmen interviewed on the campus said they did not feel any connection with the lives of the students who were protesting the United States’ invasion of Cambodia at the time.

The university requires first-year students to watch a historical video of what happened that day and the events leading to it: the violent confrontation between protesters and local police and the burning of the R.O.T.C. building near the Commons.

Freshmen attribute their lack of interest to the time span.

“Our generation doesn’t necessarily really care because it happened so long ago none of us were alive,” said Ethan Moore, a freshman majoring in nursing. “Though it definitely shouldn’t be forgotten because they were people, too.”

Of course, the opinion he expressed was not universal; another student that the reporter spoke to said that had she been there forty years ago, she would have been out there with the Kent State demonstrators. Nevertheless, I wonder if freshmen at Kent State (or at any university) can truly conceive of what it must have felt like to students and antiwar demonstrators all over the United States to know that soldiers had used live ammunition on their fellow Americans, leaving four unarmed people dead. The division between state and civil society must have felt complete and irreconcilable—at least, that’s what I always thought Neil Young meant when he sang “We’re finally on our own” in the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song “Ohio.”

Forty years have passed since the day the National Guard gunned down the students at Kent State. And yet, eerie parallels exist between 2010 and 1970. Today the United States is engaged in two intractable and long-asting wars on the Asian continent. But where is the anti-war movement? While there was a mass uprising in 2003 against the war, it climaxed during the February 15, 2003, pre-war demonstrations. Ever since then, the anti-war movement has gradually but surely diminished.

Why has this happened? Journalist Chris Hedges, who recently participated in an anti-war teach-in in Washington, DC, at the Rayburn Building on Capitol Hill (an event that was co-sponsored by the Humanist magazine), believes that not enough anti-war liberals in the United States are actually affected by the wars. He writes:

The roots of mass apathy are found in the profound divide between liberals, who are mostly white and well educated, and our disenfranchised working class, whose sons and daughters, because they cannot get decent jobs with benefits, have few options besides the military.

In contrast to 1970, when young men were being drafted to serve in the front lines of Southeast Asia, today a very small number of Americans are being called upon to actually bear the burden of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And, as Hedges points out, many of those who do serve in the military come from the economic class that has less access to power, less visibility in the media, and less access to the institutions that can be used as a springboard into wider action against the war, such as universities. The result is a diminished anti-war movement.

I would suggest, too, that fatigue and confusion have both taken their toll. By fatigue, I mean that the war in Afghanistan has lasted nearly a decade, and the war in Iraq has lasted more than twice as long as American involvement in World War II. It is difficult to keep up the energy and momentum that the anti-war movement built up in its initial days for all of those years. And by confusion, I mean that the election of President Barack Obama has engendered a lot of bewilderment on the part of those who took strong stands against the wars over the last decade. After all, President Obama spoke out forcefully against the war in Iraq when he was a state senator in Illinois and the war was just on the horizon. He received the vast majority of the anti-war vote, and he promised to bring a more peaceful presidency. Yet even as we’re told that the war in Iraq is winding down, President Obama sent more troops to Afghanistan (an action that was also, contradictorily, part of his platform as a candidate). So the anti-war movement is left with a president who does not galvanize them like President Bush did, even as he takes actions that many still consider to be belligerent.

The anti-war movement today may be smaller, but that doesn’t mean that all hope is lost. For just one example of what we could be doing, right now, to make a difference, Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), an outspoken anti-war member of Congress, made the call at the Capitol Hill event for a new series of teach-ins across the country to educate people about the wars and the need for peace.

Will we heed Rep. Kucinich’s call to challenge “the deficient orthodoxy that war is inevitable”? Let us rededicate ourselves to the idea that those four students gave their lives forty years ago today for a worthy cause, the cause of peace in this world, and honor their legacy by living our lives for peace.

A French lawmaker is stirring up controversy with a new proposal to ban women in France from appearing in public with veils or other coverings over their faces:

PARIS (AP) — A top lawmaker from President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative party filed legislation on Tuesday to bar Muslim women in France from appearing in public wearing veils that hide their faces.

The bill by lawmaker Jean-Francois Cope, who heads the UMP party in the National Assembly, or lower house, has sparked criticism from some of his political allies. The speaker of the lower house, Bernard Accoyer, called Cope’s move “premature.”

Cope’s proposed law follows in the footsteps of a 2004 law that bans headscarves and nearly all other religious clothing and accessories from French public schools.

Why would such a ban be warranted? The Associated Press tells us:

Only a tiny minority of Muslim women in France wear the more extreme covering — which is not required by Islam. However, Islam is the No. 2 religion in France after Roman Catholicism, and authorities worry that such dress may be a gateway to extremism. They also say it amounts to an insult to women and to France’s secular foundations.

Even as I am a strong believer in promoting secularism in civil society and a strong wall between church and state, as a matter of principle I am opposed to laws restricting individual religious expression, especially one so wide-ranging as to ban a type of religious clothing from any public display whatsoever. This is an affront to religious freedom, which must be guaranteed in any democratic society.

But let’s consider a little more what the consequences of a ban such as this would be. French law enforcement officers would be empowered (and indeed required) to enforce certain standards of dress on the streets of French cities, towns, and villages. And who would be singled out? Muslim women. Picture for a moment the image of French police stopping a Muslim woman and giving her a citation for wearing a veil, which is an item of clothing that she either is being pressured to wear by her culture, religion, and family, or wants to wear under her own volition. And for this religious and cultural expression, whether or not it reflects her own desires, she receives a fine that the Associated Press reports could amount up to €750 (US$1,070).

How do you think that would make her feel? How do you think that would make other members of the French Muslim community feel? Would they feel welcome in France? Would they feel like that had a greater role to play in French society? Or would they feel singled out due to their religion?

I’m sympathetic to the argument that face coverings are a sign of the oppression of women within Islam. I think that this is frequently the case, and anyway, face coverings are fundamentally unequal because Muslim men do not have to alter their appearance in such a way to appear in public. But banning face coverings is not a helpful response, because it does nothing to empower women. It removes a visible sign of France’s growing Muslim population from the streets (which, in my opinion, may be one of the author’s chief goals), but what about directly improving the lives of women?

You cannot empower women by instituting a law telling them what they can and cannot wear in public. To be truly empowered, Muslim women in France need access to the educational, cultural, and economic resources that give them the opportunity to flourish as women of their own respective cultures, their own religion, and as members of the greater society and culture of France.

The Washington Post, on its On Faith website, recently asked panelists representing different religious points of view to address the question, “Is torture ever justified?” The responses are by no means representative of all religious viewpoints on torture (the humanist viewpoint of which I have addressed previously), but nevertheless it was enlightening for me to read some of the different viewpoints and how these commentators feel torture and religion relate to each other.

Christian theologian and philosopher John Mark Reynolds is initially direct on the question, writing, “Torture of any human being is incompatible with the Christian faith.” I hope he’s telling that far and wide, because it appears that not everyone has received the message. However, he goes on to spend most of his short essay wondering whether or not what the United States did actually was, in fact, torture:

A general condemnation of torture does not mean that we already know that what the Bush administration did was torture. Reasonable people can disagree about exactly what torture is and some believe that what the Bush administration ordered in prosecuting the War on Terror was not torture. They should be heard and not ignored, but so far the arguments advanced have not been persuasive.

He does believe, though, that John McCain’s condemnation of the techniques that were employed by the United States during the Bush years indicates that they were probably unacceptable. I have to admit that I have a hard time understanding how anyone can equivocate at all on whether or not pouring water into someone’s lungs, slamming a person into a wall, or any of the other methods that were approved constitute torture or not.

Another Christian theologian, Gabriel Salguero of the Princeton Theological Seminary, also condemns torture and says it is incompatible with Christianity. He points out that great people in history have chosen not to meet the violence of their adversaries with equal violence:

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr never used violence although violence was constantly used against him, his home, and the many people in the Civil Rights movement. Did the millions of people who partook in the non-violent marches not understand terror? Nonsense. They chose a different way…Did Jesus not understand the way of terror when he was being crucified on an imperial cross? Nonsense. He chose a different way.

I find it very compelling that, in history, great figures and brave groups of people have stood up to injustice and tyranny without resorting to the techniques of their oppressors. They have held the moral high ground without conceding the battle. I wish that the USA had taken this approach in the face of terrorism rather than quickly employing torture and secret prisons, disregarding the rule of law as if it were an impediment to safeguarding our nation in the face of danger, rather than central to the task.

Rabbi Brad Hirschfield wants everyone, on all sides of the issue, to examine it a little more closely:

It’s easy to say that torture is wrong and that whatever tradition we hold dear forbids it. I wish it were that simple. Imagine for a moment that you knew the life of someone you loved; your child for example, would be saved by information extracted by torture. Are you really certain that you might not suddenly find some justification which allowed it “just this once”? Anyone answering “no” too quickly is either kidding themselves or doesn’t know the meaning of loving someone close to themselves.

Although this sounds like he is defending torture, he quickly states that he isn’t; rather, he says:

I am more concerned about the endless moralizing around tough issues which makes them seem too easy too fast. In fact, that’s the style of argument which typifies those who defend the use of torture.

Their arguments pose the question about saving a life as if we could know with certainty beforehand that the torture for which they advocate would save a life in immediate danger. I wish it were that simple, but it rarely, if ever, is.

It’s true that the circumstances under which the Bush administration committed torture were ambiguous, something which the pro-torture side seems loathe to admit. No matter how many times the torture advocates talk about it, we have yet to encounter a so-called “ticking time bomb” scenario where the deactivation code to the bomb needs to be tortured out of some single suspect in custody before an entire city explodes (or something along those lines). Television shows like 24 aside, under the Bush administration torture was committed with much more dubious and certainly less noble goals than extracting the location of a bomb located under the city.

Rabbi Hirschfield’s point about these over-simplistic arguments being used to justify torture is well taken. Nevertheless, I feel that he is trying a little too hard to be balanced here with his consideration for why someone might support torture. Surely, if the life of my child was at stake, I would probably justify any number of horrible things to be done if it might save my child’s life; this hypothetical situation, however, doesn’t add very much to a discussion on human rights. It may provide some perspective on how we react to the idea of torture, but the actual laws that codify the preservation of human rights must be written under more level-headed circumstances than how you would feel if your child’s life was immediately at risk.

The preponderance of opinion from the different religious commentators on On Faith is that torture is wrong. But beyond that point is less agreement over what actually constitutes torture and how the United States should move forward from this point. This level of disagreement is indicative of why we need to rely on secular documents to guide how we move forward on torture. For all the room for discussion in the arena of religion, US and international law is not at all ambiguous on this subject.

Humanists are often accused of practicing cultural relativism because our morality isn’t grounded in either an ancient sacred text or an omnipotent and watchful god. This is untrue. Humanists recognize that ethical values originate in our experiences as human beings. And these values are, as the third version of the Humanist Manifesto states, tested against experience.

It feels a little ridiculous to me that many religious people are so insistent that an ambiguous and contradictory ancient text such as the Bible is necessary to live a good life. I don’t doubt that there may be some insight in there on the subject. But there is plenty of insight in Plato’s writings on Socrates too.

The truth is, this planet of 6.5 billion people has been patching together its ethics from a variety of sources over the centuries, and whether people recognize it or not, a lot of this comes directly from human need and experience. That most humanistic of ethical aphorisms, the Golden Rule (also known as the Ethic of Reciprocity), appears in ancient Greek philosophy and can be found in nearly every major religion. Its universality suggests that over the centuries, humans have tested it against experience and found it to be both useful and desirable.

Humanism historically has relied on the dictate that every individual human being must be treated as having “inherent worth and dignity” (a phrase also taken from the third version of the Manifesto). I read this phrase as having, on the one hand, some roots in the Golden Rule, because we would all like to be treated as having inherent worth and dignity; we would like our humane treatment of others to be reciprocated to ourselves. But treating people this way has a value in and of itself that needs no further justification. It is the recognition of the solidarity of the human species and a rejection of the very relativism humanists are often accused of. It’s like this: human beings deserve humane treatment by virtue of being human; we have no godlike powers to determine who is worthy of humane treatment and who is worthy of being treated as being less than human.

Unfortunately, the recent revelations about the depth of the Bush administration’s torture regime have been distorted through a lens of debate over whether or not the torture was actually effective at producing useful intelligence. The implication (often stated) is that if torture was effective–if any useful intelligence came out of it–then the program would be defensible, that the torture would have been worthwhile.

And people accuse humanists of practicing relativism!

International law is clear on the subject: torture is illegal. It comes down to humanist ethics–there is a way that all humans must be treated simply by virtue of being human. This is the foundation of liberal democracy. It is why the Bill of Rights and international human rights law both spend a great deal of time outlining how those accused of crimes must be treated. There is no provision that criminals (and terrorists) suddenly forfeit all of their rights as human beings because they are accused of a crime.

So debating over whether or not torture “works” is missing the point. The necessary information should have been obtained using lawful techniques of interrogation. The terrorists may behave in a brutal fashion, but isn’t that precisely why we oppose them? Is a world in which brutality is countered with brutality what we desire?

I take comfort in President Obama’s assurances that torture will not be practiced by his administration. But we can’t “move forward” (to use the president’s words) without ensuring that justice is delivered to those responsible for torture.

(Crossposted at Friendly Atheist)

When Andrew Sullivan posted this disturbing video on his blog last Tuesday with no real description, I thought it was a recent campaign. After some digging, it turns out to be a 2006 video from Answers in Genesis which is now resurfacing, perhaps in light of the 10-year anniversary of the Columbine Shooting coming up on April 20th.

Now that it’s getting attention again, it’s causing quite a stir among the nonreligious blogging community, quickly racking up over 50 comments when Hemant at Friendly Atheist posted it and 80 on Daniel Florien’s post on Unreasonable Faith. Daniel titled his post “AIG Points a Gun at Atheists”. I wasn’t sure how to take it; see what you think:

It turns out that AiG still has a page explaining it:

Every day we are inundated with evolution-based messages intended to remove the Creator from the fabric of our society, our lives, our thoughts. But if we evolved from lower life forms, then the Bible can’t be trusted and life’s supposed billion-year history is one of continual death and struggle. If the Bible isn’t true, then why should we be fair and kind and love our fellow human beings, as the Bible teaches? After all, evolution relies on survival of the fittest—no matter who gets in the way.

It bears pointing out that while the history of life involves death and struggle, there’s so much more to it than that. There’s love and happiness and waffles!

So here’s where I get confused: Even if God told us how he wanted us to act, we still get to decide whether to obey. It’s often noted that if a person is choosing to act morally in an effort to stay out of hell, that’s not exactly altruistic. What I’ve heard more often is that people decide to obey because they feel gratitude and respect for God. Because of that gratitude and respect, they consider His will when deciding how to act.

Well, I feel gratitude to my friends, neighbors, and family. I respect the inherent worth of conscious, sentient life. Because of that gratitude and respect, I act in ways that take their feelings and their wellbeing into account. I don’t need an ancient book to “teach me” to be fair and kind.

The AiG page also says: “Those who feel that neither they nor their actions matter to God lose their motivation to care for the lives of others or for their own life.”

I can vouch from personal experience that they’re wrong. I suspect that most of you can, too.

Why do we care about the lives of others? There are different answers we can give: we have an evolved drive to care, we were raised to care in a social context, we get something out it. But the bottom line is that we do care. We don’t believe that our actions matter to God but we believe our actions matter to each other.

The Pope’s visit to Africa has already produced some interesting quotes for discussion, but in reading the Boston Globe today, I found other disturbing passages:

In his homily, Benedict expressed compassion for African children being kidnapped and forced to fight by rebel groups trying to carve up parts of Africa.

“God loves you, he has not forgotten you,” he said in a message to these children.

Child soldiers have been used by rebels in eastern Congo and by Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army. An estimated 3,500 children are still with armed groups in Congo alone.

Of course he hasn’t ‘forgotten’ them; the Catholic god isn’t anthropomorphized with human flaws like Zeus.  So what can we take away from the Pope’s message?  God is aware of the suffering children, loves them, and yet they are still suffering.  The more I think about it, the more I understand why the Problem of Suffering has caused theologians so much trouble over the years.

Many people act as if they believe that God intervenes in the natural world.  They credit God with countless wonderful occurrences like a medical recovery, an overwhelming emotional experience, or a hurricane sent to punish the sinful.  But anyone who believes God has ever taken action in the world must therefore believe that God chose to act in those situations.  He must choose not to act in the situations of suffering children.

The Pope seems to be telling the children: “You’re suffering intensely here in this world, but cheer up!  An entity in another world loves you!”  I suppose it’s better than when the Catholic Church did the reverse earlier this month.  A nine year-old girl was raped by her step-father and became pregnant with twins.  Carrying the pregnancy to term would have put her life in danger, so she had an abortion.  The church’s reaction to the whole thing?  Excommunicate the girl’s mother and the doctor.  It’s as if they were saying: “Your family is suffering intensely here in this world, but God is displeased with your decision.”

The church is ignoring suffering in this world – sometimes even exacerbating it, as with AIDS in Africa – because they have beliefs about another world.  I would love it if we all spent our energy focusing on this world, our opinions, and our suffering.  Thoughts about God’s opinion are distracting us.  He isn’t saving the poor and the hungry.  In his new book Losing my Religion, William Lobdell describes the reaction of a friend who came to the realization:

“It nearly drove him insane that no loving God was protecting his children.  I had the advantage of seeing too much on the religion beat.  I knew of many times when faithful Christian parents lost their children.  I hadn’t seen any evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, that children were safer with God watching over them.  It reminds me of a bumper sticker peddled by atheists that makes the point rather bluntly: ’20,000 children died of hunger today.  Why should God answer YOUR prayers?’”

He doesn’t.  If we stop holding mistaken beliefs about the supernatural, we can do a better job caring for this world.

“Out of sight, out of mind” goes the saying.

So many may think that because the 2009 presidential inauguration is history, a lawsuit brought by Michael Newdow, 30 other individuals, and 11 organizations to prevent the infusion of religion into the ceremony is over. Not so.

Newdow and I are now working on a brief – due February 23rd – to explain to Judge Walton why he shouldn’t dismiss the suit. There are so many reasons, including (1) the plaintiffs were in fact harmed and seek a declaration from the court that their Establishment Clause, Free Exercise Clause, and Religious Freedom Restoration Act rights were violated and (2) the unconstitutional practices (the Chief Justice adding “so help me God” to the presidential oath and the sectarian prayers in the invocation and benediction) are likely to repeated in 2013, 2017, and so forth if they aren’t enjoined by the court.

While there are a number of hurdles in this case, the inability of the judge and most Americans to recognize the “harm” caused by the religious practices at the presidential inaugural ceremony is most troubling.

In truth, this is a common human shortcoming. When things are going our way, we often fail to recognize that others may be suffering. (I’m trying to be nice by not calling it tyranny of the majority.)

The following is a description by Professor Christopher C. Lund of the harm caused by legislative prayers:

A government whose legislative prayers are acceptable to one religious group but not another makes the latter group feel unwelcome, and it ends up exerting pressure on the disfavored group to change their religious ways.

See Lund, Legislative Prayer and the Secret Costs of Religious Endorsements, page 25. This description applies equally to executive prayers (like the religious activities complained of in Newdow v. Roberts) and public school prayer cases. I encourage all Rant & Reason readers to read Professor Lund’s 56 page article for an excellent discussion of the issues.

Rather than rant on, I invite readers to express in your own words whether (and how) you felt harmed by the infusion of religion into the 2009 presidential inauguration ceremony, or not.

It looks to me as if Israel should pull back to earlier borders and stop oppressing non-Jewish people. Their actions are understandable but not excused when we reflect on the fact that countries (and people) react badly when they’re attacked and feel scared.

It looks to me as if Palestinians should stop targeting Israeli civilians and hiding in hospitals and schools, which leads to the death of their own people. Their actions are understandable but not excused when we reflect on the fact that countries (and people) react badly when they’re desperate and feel oppressed.

I don’t mean to imply absolute equivalence – one side might be more immoral than the other – but I hope to point out that each attack brings about an escalation and retaliation. If that were the only factor, it would be extremely difficult to bring about an end to the cycle of violence. But, of course, there are other factors reinforcing the cycle.

Many people believe that God promised the land to them.

Many people (especially in America) will not support a compromise because of things they believe about end times.

Many people in the conflict commit terrible acts because they believe that God permits – even encourages – them to harm others, regardless of protests from human rights organizations and the international community.

We could work within a religion, trying to persuade adherents that their texts should be interpreted differently. “If you look at your texts this way, the land isn’t promised to you!” “If you look at your texts this way, women should have equal rights!” “If you look at your texts this way, you shouldn’t deny your child medicine!” But that approach only highlights the fact that religious morality is an anchor holding back society’s progress.

For centuries, people believed that the bible condoned slavery. Somewhere along the line, opinion shifted and we began seeing slavery as an immoral act. The Bible was the same; it was only our society’s interpretation and moral values that had changed. Many resisted because they thought they had a greater authority – God’s word – that slavery was moral. And such authority overrules the mere thoughts and opinions of society. As society made valuable progress towards equality, we couldn’t just press onwards. We had to go back and convince people that their religion should be interpreted differently.

Does anyone really believe that God decided to wait until 1978 before “revealing” to the Mormon Church to stop discriminating against African Americans? Or did they finally accept that discrimination was wrong, and had to ‘revise’ their teaching? I’d rather not wait for some future Pope to finally proclaim that we were interpreting things wrong, and that of course condoms can be used to stop the spread of AIDS in Africa!

So yes, we could try to persuade people to interpret their religion in a different way. But that’s just tugging the anchor along with us. It helps… but I would prefer to let go of the anchor.

Six in ten Americans believe that God has uniquely blessed America and that the United States should set the example as a Christian nation to the rest of the world, according to a new poll conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research Inc., for the PBS news program Religion & Ethics Newsweekly and the United Nations Foundation. (Interestingly enough, the poll found that a third of non-religious Americans agree that America should set the example as a Christian nation and slightly fewer believe that America is uniquely blessed by God. Go figure.)

Is this kind of thinking positive or problematic? On the one hand, it does appear that because Americans believe in their own exceptionalism they are more likely to support an interventionist role on the global stage. And encouragingly that belief doesn’t just extend to an imperative to protect our national security interests: Most Americans believe that preventing global disease, stopping genocide, and international relief for humanitarian disasters should be some of our top priorities–and there’s little difference there between the religious and non-religious. In addition, the belief in our status as a shining city upon a hill thankfully does not make the United States infallible or undeserving of criticism in Americans’ eyes–the poll revealed an ambivalence about whether or not we have a positive influence around the world and most agreed that sometimes our involvement does more harm than good.

On the other hand, there’s evidence that Muslim countries view our military with suspicion because they see it as a distinctly Christian entity. And it certainly doesn’t help that many within our military also see it that way, nor that President Bush has framed our military involvement in the Middle East as a crusade. It can’t bode well for our global endeavors and our nation-building inclinations to be seen as a force for Christian proselytizing and conversion.

So, then, we’re caught in a global catch-22: we think we’re exceptional and are thus motivated to do good in the world, but those we want to help don’t trust us because we’re motivated by our belief that we’re exceptional. How do we extract ourselves from this tangled web? First off, we must keep our institutions strictly secular–especially the military. No more special privileges for Christian soldiers. And lets start investigating claims that military commanding officers have violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Also, we must be more sensitive to other cultures when we’re engaged abroad–particularly Muslim cultures. As I mentioned in a previous post, the Center for American Progress’s William Schulz argues that we need to be more flexible in promoting the separation of church and state if we want to stay on good terms with Muslim moderates.

In and of itself, the belief in God-bestowed American exceptionalism isn’t a bad thing if it motivates us to do a lot of good in the world. But we must be wary of letting that belief get in the way of implementing sound, executable, and ultimately secular military policies. No matter how well-intentioned or exceptional, we’re not immune from mucking things up–a fact that’s painfully exemplified by our disastrous endeavors in Iraq.

On the 10th of October I attended Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs symposium titled “The Future of U.S. International Religious Freedom Policy: Recommendations for the Next Administration.” The morning’s session on religious extremism contained some interesting advice for fighting Islamist terrorism from the Center for American Progress’s William Schulz.

Schulz argued that though there is an undeniable religious element to the Islamist movement, to say that Islam is somehow uniquely conductive to terrorism is misguided. In fact, out of the estimated 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, the five countries with the largest Muslim populations are Indonesia (170.3 billion), Pakistan (136 million), Bangladesh (106 million), India (103 million), Turkey (62.4 million); all democracies. In addition, even in Saudi Arabia, with its authoritarian Sharia regime, less than 10 percent of the population had a favorable view of Al-Qaeda and 15 percent had a favorable view of Osama bin Laden.

So, then, how do we fight terrorism within this context? Says Schultz, it’s ineffective to try to coax Islamists to a more moderate religious stance. Rather, we must convince the sympathizers of terrorism–those aforementioned 10 and 15 percent–of the ineffectiveness of terrorism and persuade them to ultimately abandon support (mostly monetary) of terrorists. He enumerated a few DO’s and DON’Ts of this strategy:

DON’T: Conflate uses of terror by some Muslims as terror by all Muslims. Recognize that most Muslims are moderate, peaceful people.

DON’T: Use inflammatory language and tactics against Islam.

DON’T: Play into the terrorists’ hands by spreading democracy at the point of a gun, allying with authoritarian regimes such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and using torture.

DO: Show terrorism as a dead end.

DO: Embrace moderate Muslims.

DO: Denounce corruption in government.

DO: Renew access to Muslim students who want to study in the United States.

DO: Be flexible on separation of church and state in the Middle East.

DO: Honor results of free elections even when we don’t like them.

Though I do think these are good, practical suggestions and comprehensively constitute a constructive plan for combating terrorism, I’m less convinced that terrorist tactics can be so easily separated from a radical interpretation of Islam that, I’m assuming, supporters of terrorists espouse. For example, if the U.S. were to denounce the Saudi regime, we may convince Islamist terrorists and their supporters that jihad is no longer necessary, but I’m doubtful that we’ll convince them of the illegitimacy of employing terrorism in the first place.

If Islamists and their supporters believe and act upon the notion that suicide bombers are entitled to 70 virgins in the afterlife, I’m not sure that rationalizing terrorism as an ineffective means to an end is possible.

On this day, 63 years ago, warfare on planet Earth changed forever.

EyeWitness to History provides us with a firsthand account of the devastation of Hiroshima from a doctor living a mile from the epicenter of the explosion:

Suddenly, a strong flash of light startled me – and then another. So well does one recall little things that I remember vividly how a stone lantern in the garden became brilliantly lit and I debated whether this light was caused by a magnesium flare or sparks from a passing trolley.

Later in the account he describes a scene of horror:

There were the shadowy forms of people, some of whom looked like walking ghosts. Others moved as though in pain, like scarecrows, their arms held out from their bodies with forearms and hands dangling. These people puzzled me until I suddenly realized that they had been burned and were holding their arms out to prevent the painful friction of raw surfaces rubbing together. A naked woman carrying a naked baby came into view. I averted my gaze. Perhaps they had been in the bath. But then I saw a naked man, and it occurred to me that, like myself, some strange thing had deprived them of their clothes. An old woman lay near me with an expression of suffering on her face; but she made no sound. Indeed, one thing was common to everyone I saw – complete silence.

Today the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki will be commemorated all over the world. As the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons reminds us, 26,000 nuclear weapons still exist in the world today, and the potential for another Hiroshima or Nagasaki is never removed until every last one is dismantled.

In Sunday’s New York Times, Paul Berman writes about “Why Radical Islam Just Won’t Die” and offers up his theories as to why it is that extremism survives in Iraq, as well as why it flourishes in the West, too. Berman states that,

Even in the Western countries, quite a few Muslim liberals, the outspoken ones, live today under a threat of assassination, not to mention a reality of character assassination. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-Dutch legislator and writer, is merely an exceptionally valiant example. But instead of enjoying the unstinting support of their non-Muslim colleagues, the Muslim liberals find themselves routinely berated in the highbrow magazines and the universities as deracinated nonentities, alienated from the Muslim world. Or they find themselves pilloried as stooges of the neoconservative conspiracy — quite as if any writer from a Muslim background who fails to adhere to at least a few anti-imperialist or anti-Zionist tenets of the Islamist doctrine must be incapable of thinking his or her own thoughts.

A dismaying development. One more sign of the power of the extremist ideologies — one more surprising turn of events, on top of all the other dreadful and gut-wrenching surprises.

This critique by Berman can also be extended, to some degree, to the humanist movement. For example, in the January/February 2008 issue of the Humanist, in a piece about Ayaan Hirsi Ali, authors David Schafer and Michelle Koth conclude, in part, by saying,

Her approach is poorly informed about the past and present of Islam, ineffectual at best, mainly counter-productive, and at worst potentially catastrophic in its consequences. It is here, too, that the influences of her principal intellectual environments since 2003—the VVD Party in the Netherlands and the American Enterprise Institute in the United States—taken as a whole, have clearly discouraged her development as a well-balanced defender of human rights and security.

Schafer and Koth are perhaps correct in stating that,

Hirsi Ali’s prior experience of Islam was confined to her youthful and often painful life in Africa: the tribal variety in Somalia, the strict Wahhabi version in Saudi Arabia, and in Kenya the Islamist political formulations of the Muslim Brothers and even more radical Sayyid Qutb—all followed by her intense contact with mainly African (e.g., Somali and Moroccan) immigrant women who had suffered abuse in the Netherlands. She knew little about the complex history of Islam in other times and other places.

While her views on Islam aren’t based on years of study, her intense, personal understanding of the religion also cannot be dismissed. Though what she dealt with is not the form of Islam practiced by every Muslim, it is also difficult to argue that she is taking her stand purely because of the ideology of the VVD Party, and the American Enterprise Institute.

Indeed, as the West continues to encounter Islam, not only on grand geopolitical scales, but everyday at the corner store or in a school hallway, it is imperative to recognize the vast and heterogeneous nature of Islam. What is perhaps forgotten, then, is that this also extends to the varying types of critiques of Islam. For Schafer and Koth to deride Hirsi Ali’s analysis of Islam simply because her view doesn’t conform to their understanding of the religion leads them down the same narrow path that they’re alleging Hirsi Ali has taken. It’s unfortunate that Schafer and Koth have fallen into the trap that so many others on the Left have fallen into.

It’s always troubling for me to see the emptiness of the rhetoric and the lack of coherent arguments that has emerged from our movement regarding the liberation of Iraq. T.F. Kelley’s recent online column for the Humanist is unfortunately no different in this regard (for a more nuanced view of Iraq at this five-year anniversary, check out a Week in Review article from the New York Times). I am continually astounded that when the topic of conversation turns to Iraq, we, who claim the mantle of critical thinking and humane values, suddenly cannot help but point out the conspiratorial hand of Big Oil, and the supposedly secular utopia that was built by Saddam. Only two of Kelley’s points appear to require any serious rebuttal.

Kelley writes, “I don’t believe it’s a ‘tragedy of the Left’ to be unwilling to apply the idea of justice for all by supporting an illegal war, not one declared by Congress and in contradiction to [the] will of the United Nations.” If Kelley wishes to be told by politicians and bureaucrats what is ethical and what is not, he is free to do so. However, considering the social and legal struggles humanists, atheists and all freethinkers have fought for, we know that the institutions that we as a society have created are not always fully just, and that what is right and wrong is not always the same as what is legal and illegal.

The implied claim by Kelley that liberal hawks did not apply any rigorous or critical thought to the question of Iraq in the lead up to March of 2003 is laughably ridiculous, at best. By simply typing “liberal hawks” into Google, readers will find a plethora of articles by liberal hawks discussing amongst themselves the difficulties in rendering a decision on this matter, as well as articles about the choices – and reasoning behind those choices – that were made. Liberal hawks were not drawn into the right-wing culture of fear created by the White House, but they also refused to stand alongside a Left which is becoming increasingly isolationist in it’s outlook. Our first and foremost concern was, and continues to be, the people of Iraq. Kelley may not wish to acknowledge that, but the weight of evidence easily available on the Internet belies his claims.

At the end of his essay, Kelley speaks of the Iraqi boys in the photo that accompanied the print version of my article. It’s encouraging to see him show some concern for their wellbeing. I wonder, though, if Saddam were still in power, would Kelley still have been concerned about their fate? Or would they simply have been someone else’s problem?

Do Muslim doctors have the right to refuse treatment to an alcoholic or an individual with an STD?

Well, some Muslim medical students in Britain, due to their religious beliefs, are refusing to attend lectures or answer exam questions on alcohol-related or sexually transmitted diseases. Some are even going so far as to refuse treatment to a member of the opposite sex.

The article, posted on Times Online, reports:

The [General Medical Council] said it had received requests for guidance over whether students could “omit parts of the medical curriculum and yet still be allowed to graduate.” Professor Peter Rubin, chairman of the GMC’s education committee, said: “Examples have included a refusal to see patients who are affected by diseases caused by alcohol or sexual activity, or a refusal to examine patients of a particular gender.”

He added that “prejudicing treatment on the grounds of patients’ gender or their responsibility for their condition would run counter to the most basic principles of ethical medical practice.”

When did we give doctors the ability to pick-and-choose their patients? If a doctor treats an alcoholic, is he condoning alcoholism? Of course not.

If Muslim doctors refuse to provide the same services to both men and women—and treat ALL diseases—then they should not become doctors. It disgusts me when doctors and pharmacists anywhere in the world deny men and women basic access to medical care due to their religious beliefs. We see it everywhere in the United States when pharmacists refuse to fill a woman’s birth control prescription. What will stop Muslim doctors from refusing patients who do not share a belief in Allah? When will it end?

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an outspoken critic of Islam who moved to the United States to escape death threats, returned to the Netherlands on Monday because the Dutch government said it would no longer pay for her security needs while she lived in the United States.

Hirsi Ali’s return raises the question of how the Netherlands or any country can protect its citizens from extremists while securing the rights of free speech and critical debate. Some politicians have called for an urgent session of Parliament. Many in the United States want to know why our government hasn’t stepped in to guarantee her protection in some way.

Dutch novelist Leon de Winter, a supporter of Hirsi Ali, offered the following commentary, reprinted in the New York Times and Courrier International:

Dutch society has no choice in this case. Canceling Ayaan’s protection would be the equivalent of a death sentence. Because she is so well known in the Netherlands and practically lives the life of a prisoner, not even able to go out on the street, the most humane solution is to continue to provide her with protection in America.

Society should cover the cost of this protection, for freedom of expression, one of the pillars of our culture, is being questioned. … The cost of this protection is nothing compared to its goal, which is to guarantee the continuity of our values.

So how do we as citizens of free countries reach out to protect those who have the courage to speak out? Radio Netherlands Worldwide reports that, according to her lawyer, Britta Böhler, Hirsi Alli is willing to pay for her own protection but that it will take some time to find the necessary resources. What is the cost of courage for the individual and for the nations? Both in monetary and in less substantial but still important terms. Can we let someone who is brave enough to speak out stand by themselves or shouldn’t we stand with them?

In the last few weeks, the Burmese people and monks have been protesting against their dictatorial military government in an attempt to bring freedom and democracy to their nation. This has been an ongoing struggle for 40+ years, and the Burmese people need our global solidarity to increase pressure on their government and the Asian governments that support the brutal regime.

The military junta has created a gulag atmosphere in the major cities to counter the peaceful demonstrations, rounding up people in the dead of night, beating people randomly, and detaining and torturing Buddhist monks. At least 200 monks have been killed, with over 2,500 arrested. We know that countless citizens have also been killed, with upwards of 3,000 arrested. They have stopped most external communication, cutting internet and phone lines in and out of Burma, in an attempt to keep their brutality out of the world press. But the world is watching what they’re doing to their defenseless citizens, and we will not be silent!

The time for action is NOW to show the Burmese people that we support them in their struggle for freedom and justice!

Saturday, October 6th, is the Global Day of Action on Burma. Many locals from all over the country have arranged vigils, marches, and speakers. The idea is that in every major and minor city in the world, events will start at noon local time to show a wave of international support for the Burmese people. Everyone, nationwide, is encouraged to wear red to show solidarity with the saffron-robed monks risking their lives for democracy and human rights.

The AHA is supporting a major rally and march in Washington, D.C. this Saturday. We expect over 1,000 people to attend! I am an organizer for this event and a number of the staff members from the AHA will be in attendance.

You can see if local events have been scheduled in your area by clicking here. You can also register your own local event, if you chose to plan one, by clicking here. Make sure to contact local media if you decide to plan an event, which will raise the profile of the Burma issue in your town.

If you need more information on current events in Burma, visit the US Campaign for Burma, Mizzima News or the Irrawaddy News Magazine.

On August 15^th, 2007, the Burmese military dictators raised gasoline and natural gas prices by as much as 500 percent, citing global rises in fuel prices and a constricted supply. Serving as the straw that broke the camel’s back in this socially repressive, economically depressed, and technologically deprived South East Asian nation of about 50 million, small protests erupted in many cities around the country. Growing in fervor and size every day during August, despite threats of action by the generals, these first protests in almost 10 years in Burma brought international attention once again to the despotic regime and their suffering people.

As the protests gained momentum, the junta physically assaulted protesters and attempted to incite rioting using plain-clothed security forces. The junta used these same tactics rather effectively during the failed 1988 uprisings, but things would be different this time. This time, the monks are taking the lead.

Buddhism has in it a special place reserved for reverence of enlightened rulers who make laws using and upholding Buddha’s teachings. For centuries, Burmese leaders have claimed legitimacy through the practice, protection, and promotion of Buddhism, in a similar tradition to the kings of Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. The military junta, in the shadow of the kings, claims to be upholding the teachings of the Buddha and his followers. It is the monks, as the clergy in Buddhism, who, in performing sacrament and accepting alms, signal to the people that the government is upholding these teachings, including tolerance, understanding, compassion, and purposeful social actions. But any glance at the various annual reports on the disastrous human rights situation in the country makes it clear that the junta is not walking in the shadow of Buddha or the ancient Burmese kings, but more marching with the likes of Pol Pot and Mao. And so, after 20 years of deadly silence, the monks are engaging in a boycott of the government. The junta can no longer claim to be working in the name of Buddha.

It appears that the lack of separation of church and state in Burma has actually helped the chances of this Saffron Revolution’s success. Because the monks are boycotting the junta, and since the junta claims legitimacy based on Buddhism, it is precisely the lack of separation between the church and state that may bring down the government.

No one can say for sure where this Saffron Revolution will lead. Just today in Burma up to 7 monks and nuns were killed, tens more injured, and hundreds more arrested. But the people didn’t retreat; 100,000 took to the streets despite the mounting violence. The thoughts of the world are with the Burmese people and their monks in their time of need.

As the popular Burmese freedom chant goes, “Do Ye, Do Ye, Democracy Yashi Ye!”—”Our Cause, Our Cause, Democracy Now!”

[UPDATE: As of September 28th, the military has cut internet communications off, occupied key monasteries (sieged in the night), arrested hundreds of monks, and killed at least 200 unarmed protesters and monks. But the people continue to march, with near to 100,000 taking to the streets of Rangoon for an 11th day.]

During the course of a recent online journey through the wonderful world of conservative blogs, I was distracted by an strange advertisement for “The Nazareth Cross: the World’s Largest Cross.” Based on the picture used in the ad I didn’t think it could be real. I was mistaken.

Yes, the Nazareth Cross Project aims to build a 60 meter (180 foot) tall cross in the northern Israeli city of Nazareth, which is widely considered to be the birth place of Jesus.The website for the project is mostly an effort to get people to donate the funds needed to build the cross. Donors will be able to include their personal engraving on one of the 7.2 million tiles that will adorn the cross. These tiles will be made of local stone, gold, silver, or platinum, depending on the generosity of the donor. Since the website exists primarily to bring in donations, I am somewhat comforted by the possibility that this is all a scam.

Of Nazareth’s 64,800 inhabitants, approximately 70% are Muslim. I wonder how they feel about this? Is it really helpful to have a 180-foot cross obstructing the skyline of this predominantly Muslim city? Sadly, the crusades of the high Middle Ages continue to serve as a powerful symbol and starting point in a long history of perceived Western meddling in the Middle East. Well, here we have a newer, more tangible 180-foot, gold/silver/platinum plated symbol of Western meddling.

That oughta win a few hearts and minds, not that we’re doing a very good job anyways.

On August 29, 2007 Buzz Flash awarded its Wings of Justice Award to Mary Pipher. Mary Pipher is best known for her book, Reviving Ophelia which was a New York Times bestseller for 150 weeks. She received the Buzz Flash award for returning the prestigious Presidential Citation award from the America Psychological Association in protest over the group’s policy on military and CIA interrogations.

At its annual convention in August the APA’s policymaking council voted 85% to 15% to reject a measure to ban its members from participating in interrogations at Guantanamo Bay and other US detention centers. Instead, a resolution was approved that prohibited psychologists from direct or indirect participation in 19 “unethical” interrogation techniques and called upon the U.S. government to ban their use.

The vote upset Pipher, who has worked with victims of torture and has seen the lifelong harm it can inflict. Pipher also criticized loopholes in the resolution on such techniques as sensory and sleep deprivation, which cause people to fall apart very quickly.

I think Pipher’s actions are in the best spirit of Humanist action even if she isn’t a Humanist. Here is someone taking a stand, even against the community she works in, because the actions of that community are not right. Here is a champion. And if you read her letter or listen to her interview on Democracy Now you will see she is both brave and compassionate even in struggle with an advisary.

In an attempt to put the American people at ease with the concept of remaining in Iraq, the president gave a bumbling, historically inaccurate speech at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention in Kansas City yesterday. In his attempt to draw parallels between Vietnam and Iraq, Bush said:

One unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America’s withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like ‘boat people’, ‘re-education camps’, and ‘killing fields’.

What about the 4 million Vietnamese civilians indiscriminately killed in a conflict perpetuated by US involvement? South Vietnam was a dictatorship supported in the vain fight against Communism, and more blood was shed during our long involvement in Vietnam than in the years after the war. That’s the real legacy.

Bush also believes that Iraq is currently a democracy. Ok, yes, they have elections, but there are multiple car bombs a day and hundreds of civilians die a week. I would personally rather lived repressed than in constant fear of dying at the market. And you?

Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) sums it up nicely in saying, “instead of providing the country with a history lesson…[Bush] should be reevaluating his flawed strategies.”

On a final note, the Los Angeles Times provides a thoughtful take on yesterday’s speech, saying it contained

rhetoric that would stir any patriot but logic that should persuade few. . . . The real lesson of Vietnam is that its civil war was a nationalist struggle that toppled no communist “dominoes” across Asia. Bush’s rhetoric implying an Al Qaeda “domino effect” in the Middle East has the same false ring.

Sorry Georgie, but maybe you should consult a college student who has taken a modern history class, as I think they may be more help than your current aides.

Recently, observers of the international scene have noted the declining state of Russian democracy. While it has been over 15 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of democracy behind from behind the “Iron Curtain,” it seems increasingly likely that the democratic Renaissance has come to an end.

Vladimir Putin has made no secret of his desire to return to the command-and-control years of the Soviet era. For example, he has interfered with the legitimate right of the Russian people to protest. Furthermore, he has clamped down on business owners, such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was the founder and CEO of the Yukos oil company, and taken control of these major sectors of the Russian ecomony–under the pretext that these companies owed back taxes to the Russian government.

One of the most widely recognized anti-democratic signals from the Russian administration is of course the mystery surrounding the untimely death of Alexander Litvinenko–the former KGB agent who died from radioactive poisoning in London last year. While there has been no clear evidence to suggest that the Russian government was behind his death, there have been strange signals from the Russian government that suggest they have become wary of the West–namely, their refusal to extradite Andrei Lugovoi, the man that Scotland Yard considers as the prime suspect.

The larger significance? Political trends in one of the world’s top economies affect U.S. foreign policy. So while this country may now be focused on fighting “The Global War on Terror,” it is wise to consider that at some point we may be fighting a Cold War II, if we don’t do something to encourage reforms.

As Westerns from a developed country, there is often the feeling that passion about a cause places the passionate individual above all others. While I cannot fault the Save Darfur campaign for raising awareness about the crisis in Sudan, it cannot be forgotten that much of the work to “save Darfur” is being done by Africans. The African Union has sent troops and aid, and it is mostly Africans on the ground helping the people of Darfur. And while raising awareness is very important, if the campaign will not push the U.S. government to get involved in the crisis (which I doubt will happen), then it is only Africans providing material assistance on the ground. In a Washington Post column today, Uzodinma Iweala writes:

News reports constantly focus on the continent’s corrupt leaders, warlords, “tribal” conflicts, child laborers, and women disfigured by abuse and genital mutilation. These descriptions run under headlines like “Can Bono Save Africa?” or “Will Brangelina Save Africa?” The relationship between the West and Africa is no longer based on openly racist beliefs, but such articles are reminiscent of reports from the heyday of European colonialism, when missionaries were sent to Africa to introduce us to education, Jesus Christ and “civilization.”…There is no African, myself included, who does not appreciate the help of the wider world, but we do question whether aid is genuine or given in the spirit of affirming one’s cultural superiority. My mood is dampened every time I attend a benefit whose host runs through a litany of African disasters before presenting a (usually) wealthy, white person, who often proceeds to list the things he or she has done for the poor, starving Africans… Every time a Hollywood director shoots a film about Africa that features a Western protagonist, I shake my head — because Africans, real people though we may be, are used as props in the West’s fantasy of itself. And not only do such depictions tend to ignore the West’s prominent role in creating many of the unfortunate situations on the continent, they also ignore the incredible work Africans have done and continue to do to fix those problems… How is it that a former mid-level U.S. diplomat receives more attention for his cowboy antics in Sudan than do the numerous African Union countries that have sent food and troops and spent countless hours trying to negotiate a settlement among all parties in that crisis?

I could not agree more with the author’s sentiments. We not only need to better understand the dynamics of conflict evolution/de-evolution and humanitarian assistance in Africa, but we need to give credit where credit is due; not to the Bonos and Angelinas of the world, but to the Wangari Maathais and Dr. Cynthia Muangs. As activists, we must remember what we are doing and why we are doing it. It is to enrich your own ego? Or is it to enrich the lives of others? We need to start looking toward the creation of a new kind of issue-based campaigning — with goals of enabling people who live in and with conflict daily to continue to help themselves. As the old adage goes, “Give a man a fish, and he can eat for a day…”

Car bombers linked to al-Qaeda (almost…) detonated three separate car bombs this weekend in the U.K., two in London and one at the Glasgow Airport. This led me to question our own level of safety from terror attacks, especially pertinent to us living in the nation’s capital, a seemingly prime target for such activities.

Why have there been no attacks in America since 9/11? I am of course thankful that nothing has happened domestically, but why has nothing happened? Are federal government anti-terror practices working, averting bombings of the likes the U.K. has seen in the past two years? Or, as The Onion satirized, are terrorists becoming complacent with/in America? Is there another answer?

Given the lack of trust I have in the current administration, and given their failed policies all across the board, including toward anti-terrorism efforts, a few examples on proven anti-terror failures come to mind. First, there is the largely unguarded East Coast port system. Second, don’t forget about the constant ability for TSA undercover agents to sneak weapons and bomb material past airport security. And finally, the weigh station/security system on our nations highways is rarely even in working order (I drove from GA to DC and not a SINGLE weigh station was open. Could I not have had a dirty bomb in my U-Haul??)

So, again, I’ll pose the question that has been nagging me…What has prevented more 9/11s??

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As reported today in the Independent, officials of a group called The Organization to Commemorate the Martyrs of the Muslim World said a £80,000 reward should be paid to anyone “able to execute the apostate Salman Rushdie.”

Well, as we can see, rationality has returned to the Middle East!!!

In today’s news, novelist Salman Rushdie has a price on his head, and it is a pretty penny. Inflamed by the British crown’s knighting of Rushdie, Iranian jihadists are offering nearly $160,000 for his murder.

In other disturbing Mid-East developments concerning Rushdie, Pakistani youth (yes, YOUTH) are burning effigies of Rushdie and the Queen, in protest that one of the greatest writers of our time, an avowed humanist, spoke ill of Islam in his 1998 book The Satanic Verses.

“If someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so, unless the British government apologizes and withdraws the ‘sir’ title,” said Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq.

Those, my friends, are the words of the Pakistani Religious Affairs Minister. That’s right, members of the Pakistani cabinet (allies of Bush Co.) are calling for suicide bombings against a fellow humanist!!!

And when asked at the New Humanism conference at Harvard in April what ever had become of that fatwa against him for writing The Satanic Verses, Rushdie commented that it was all thankfully behind him. How wrong he was.

Rushdie, an active humanist, is featured in the July/August edition of The Humanist magazine, on newsstands now.