Does the United States have a âMuslim problemâ? Bret Stephens and Joseph Rago of the Wall Street Journal say no; on the contrary, they say, âAmericaâs Muslims tend to be role models both as Americans and as Muslims.â Stephens and Rago grant that âit takes no more than a few men (or women) to carry out a terrorist atrocity, and there can be no guarantee the U.S. is immune from homegrown Islamist terror.â However, evidently Hillary Clinton has the measure of Islamic terrorism as well as child-rearing: âBut if it can be said,â Stephens and Rago continue, âthat âit takes a villageâ to make a terrorist, the U.S. enjoys a measure of safety that our European allies do not. It is a blessing we will continue to enjoy as long as we remain an upwardly mobile, assimilating â and watchful â society.â
This is an apt expression of the prevailing conventional wisdom that a lack of upward mobility and assimilation causes jihad terrorism. For Stephens and Rago base their sanguine view of American Muslims on purely economic and social factors: â59% of American Muslims have at least an undergraduate education, making them the most highly educated group in America. Muslim Americans are also the richest Muslim community in the world, with four in five earning more than $25,000 a year and one in three more than $75,000. They tend to be employed in professional fields, and most own stock, either personally or through 401(k) or pension plans. In terms of civic participation, 82% are registered to vote, half of them as Democrats. Interestingly, however, the survey found that 65% of Muslim Americans favor lowering the income tax.â Stephens and Rago report that âaccording to Ishan [sic] Bagby, a professor at the University of Kentucky who recently made a study of mosque attendance in Detroit, the average mosque-goer is 34 years old, married with children, has at least a bachelorâs degree, and earns about $74,000 a year. If this is representative of Muslim Americans as a whole, it suggests that the religiously committed among them hardly fit the profile of the alienated, angry young Muslim men so common today in Europe.â
On top of this affluence and civic mindedness, âthe overwhelming majority of Muslims arrived here legallyâ; â21% of Muslim Americans intermarryâ; and âMuslim Americans benefit from leaders who, despite some notable exceptions, are generally more responsible than Muslim leaders in Britain and Europe.â
Unfortunately, however, none of this data amounts to what Stephens and Rago wish it did. It is noteworthy in the first place that they invoke Ihsan Bagbyâs study as evidence of the comfortable assimilation of American Muslims, since Bagby himself has rejected the notion of assimilation: âUltimately,â he has remarked, âwe [Muslims] can never be full citizens of this country. . . because there is no way we can be fully committed to the institutions and ideologies of this country.â He said this in the early 1990s and may have changed his views since he said this, but note that his quarrel was with American âinstitutions and ideologies,â not with economic injustices real or perceived.
While American Muslims may indeed be role models in their wealth and high voter registration rate, it is not at all true that only ill-educated poor people actually commit terrorist atrocities. This has been disproved again and again. A forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Marc Sageman, recently conducted a study that led him to conclude that, in the words of the Times of London, âthe typical recruit to Al-QaedaâŠis upper middle class, has been educated in the West and is from a professional background.â Likewise, Princeton economist Claude Berrebi studied over twenty years of data on suicide bombers from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, only to conclude, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, that âonly 13 per centâ of the jihadists âwere from a poor background, compared with 32 per cent of the Palestinian population in general,â and that âsuicide bombers were also three times more likely to have gone on to higher education than the general population.â
We have witnessed the same phenomenon in the United States. Maher Hawash worked at Intel. He made $360,000 a year. He was in the U.S. legally â in fact, he was a naturalized citizen. I would be surprised if he had not been registered to vote. He married an American. Stephens and Rago would have confidently held him up as a role model and considered inconceivable the idea that he could turn out to be a jihad terrorist. And yet that is exactly what he turned out to be.
The WSJ article is yet another manifestation of a fundamental misunderstanding that blankets the public discourse about Islamic terrorism. Even at the Wall Street Journal they donât understand that the primary motivation of the jihadists is a religious ideology, not resentment born of economic injustice or marginalization. Economic injustice and marginalization are things they understand; a religious ideology that can move men to give up good lives and devote themselves to murder and destruction is so far out of their purview that they cannot even imagine it, and take all the evidence of it that is in front of their faces as indications of something else.
There very likely are model citizens among American Muslims. But none of the statistics marshaled by Stephens and Rago does one thing to establish whether or not there among all these affluent and law-abiding Muslims there are people who, like Mike Hawash, are nursing jihadist sentiments.
Stephens and Rago do include a caveat: âneither a first-rate Western education nor economic affluence offers any inoculation against extremism: Just look at the careers of 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta, educated at the Technical University of Hamburg, or Daniel Pearl killer Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who did undergraduate work at the London School of Economics.â One may hope that these Wall Street Journal reporters will one day undertake to find out why Atta and Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh turned to jihad terrorism â if they arenât too afraid of what they might find. That fear, and the general unwillingness to face the real causes of Islamic terrorism, is what constitutes Americaâs real âMuslim problem.â
Posted by: ed ||
09/09/2005 08:54 ||
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#1
Islam can only function over time in the US if it can maintain cohesion. That is, if it can keep their families in close knit circles (think ghettos), educate their children in madrassas instead of public schools, and maintain cultural and religious discipline (literally), minimizing exposure to our (traditional) liberal society.
First generation, they most likely will be able to do much of this. Second generation will be neither fish-nor-fowl, losing much of their cultural identity and being neither part of the old ways or their new country. Third generation will be mostly integrated with the US, only mildly interested in religion (holidays only) or not at all.
What will make it more difficult for them to assimilate will be government efforts to help them keep their religion and culture (keeping them down), by letting them practice Sharia, for example, and giving them wide latitude to educate their children for religion instead of gainful employment. This will make the transition far more painful.
Hat tip Slugger O'Toole
As the full horror of Hurricane Katrina sinks in, thousands of desperate columnists are asking if this is the end of George Bush's presidency. The answer is almost certainly yes, provided that every copy of the US Constitution was destroyed in the storm. Otherwise President Bush will remain in office until noon on January 20th, 2009, as required by the 20th Amendment, after which he is barred from seeking a third term anyway under the 22nd Amendment.
As the full horror of this sinks in, thousands of desperate columnists are asking if the entire political agenda of George Bush's second term will not still be damaged in some terribly satisfying way.
The answer is almost certainly yes, provided that the entire political agenda of George Bush's second term consists of repealing the 22nd Amendment. Otherwise, with a clear Republican majority in both Houses of Congress, he can carry on doing pretty much whatever he likes.
As the full horror of this sinks in, thousands of desperate columnists are asking if the Republican Party itself will now suffer a setback at the congressional mid-term elections next November.
The answer is almost certainly yes, provided that people outside the disaster zone punish their local representatives for events elsewhere a year previously, both beyond their control and outside their remit, while people inside the disaster zone reward their local representatives for an ongoing calamity they were supposed to prevent. Otherwise, the Democratic Party will suffer a setback at the next congressional election.
As the full horror of this sinks in, thousands of desperate columnists are asking if an official inquiry will shift the blame for poor planning and inadequate flood defences on to the White House. The answer is almost certainly yes, provided nobody admits that emergency planning is largely the responsibility of city and state agencies, and nobody notices that the main levee which broke was the only levee recently modernised with federal funds. Otherwise, an official inquiry will pin most of the blame on the notoriously corrupt and incompetent local governments of New Orleans and Louisiana.
As the full horror of this sinks in, thousands of desperate columnists are asking if George Bush contributed to the death toll by sending so many national guard units to Iraq.
The answer is almost certainly yes, provided nobody recalls that those same columnists have spent the past two years blaming George Bush for another death toll by not sending enough national guard units to Iraq. Otherwise, people might wonder why they have never previously read a single article advocating large-scale military redeployment during the Caribbean hurricane season.
As the full horror of this sinks in, thousands of desperate columnist are asking how a civilised city can descend into anarchy.
The answer is that only a civilised city can descend into anarchy.
As the full horror of this sinks in, thousands of desperate columnists are asking if George Bush should be held responsible for the terrible poverty in the southern states revealed by the flooding.
The answer is almost certainly yes, provided nobody holds Bill Clinton responsible for making Mississippi the poorest state in the union throughout his entire term as president, or for making Arkansas the second-poorest state in the union throughout his entire term as governor. Otherwise, people might suspect that it is a bit more complicated than that.
As the full horror of this sinks in, thousands of desperate columnists are asking if George Bush should not be concerned by accusations of racism against the federal government.
The answer is almost certainly yes, provided nobody remembers that Jesse Jackson once called New York "Hymietown" and everybody thinks Condoleezza Rice went shopping for shoes when the hurricane struck because she cannot stand black people.
Otherwise sensible Americans of all races will be more concerned by trite, cynical and dangerous political opportunism.
As the full horror of that sinks in, this columnist is simply glad that everybody cares.
The hurricane is now the latest "This" in a series of "Could This be the thing that marks the downfall of the Bush Administration? [with an unspoken: oh please, please, please!]" from Big Media.
NEGATIVE OUTCOMES AFTER SECTARIAN CLASHES
IN GILGIT NORTHERN PAKISTAN
BY FAZAL AMIN BEG
M. PHIL, SOCIAL/CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
This article is an attempt to get a sketch of the past sectarian conflicts and clashes of January 2005 in the Northern Areas, and ultimately the direct effects upon the communities and their development.
Todayâs Northern Areas of Pakistan had different political entities in different parts and valleys of the region that included princely and acephalous states. Even though, the Northern Areas had a united governance for around three weeks, by pushing the forces of Dogras and Maharajas out of this region, after partition of the Indian sub-continent into India and Pakistan in August 1947, but the inhabitants of this region voluntarily annexed with Pakistan keeping in view the Islamic notion and spirit. Now, it is another question that to what extent this voluntarism was honoured and the peoples were facilitated in the process of and towards their political rights and autonomy? Or conversely, what sort of other strategies and tactics, positive or negative, have been playing in this regard by different governments and agencies due to the regionâs significances.
The significances of the Northern Areas, which comprises on six districts, are varying. On the one hand are the natural features and resources, such as the worldâs giant mountain ranges and glaciers, great steppes and plateaus, beautiful fountains and lakes, gorgeous streams and long rivers, diverse wildlife and plant kingdom, very significant internationally geo-strategic location, and nationally geo-economic contributions. On the other are the human settings such as the diverse ethno-linguistic and religio-cultural settings, which may rightly be termed as a naturally cultural lab and museum in anthropological perspective. These cultures have been living here side by side in somehow pluralistic manner for centuries rather for millennia.
The question of different faiths, practices and interpretation is not a new phenomenon in the Northern Areas rather from the beginning of its cultural histories since time immemorial. Islam itself is also not a novice faith rather for centuries it has been in practice among all population of this region having the Islamic faith in its root and the four different tariqas (interpretations) or schools of thought in its shoots that includes the Shia Ithaâatharia, Shia Ismailia, Sunni and Noorbakhshi, Such diversity in faiths, valleys, histories, cultures, languages, and ethnicity make the Northern Areas as a garden of colourful and fragrant flowers rather than a place of riots and insecurity. Till the first half of 1970s, as is being narrated by different respondents, there was no sectarian conflicts or clashes after annexation with Pakistan. During the the month of Muharram, especially the Sunnis used to arrange sabeel, water/juice to the peoples of the mourning processions, particularly in Gilgit. This is the proof of religious pluralism that how other communities showed their tolarance and generosity. The religious clashes and conflicts are, unfortunately, a recent phenomenon, and particularly an external diffusion to exploit the communities by breed sectarianism through the agents and divert their minds from their political rights, demands, unity and other human rights.
The malignant missions and goals of different agencies however involved different native individuals and groups. As a result, the worst and state-sponsored tragic event of sectarian clashes in 1988 between the Shia and Sunni Muslims, which caused thousands dead, nurtured and left its wider and negative impacts on both communities of the Northern Areas in terms of psycho-phobia, insecurity, hatred, intolerant and vengeance attitudes.
The recent sectarian clashes of January 2005 further led to enormous negative effects and broader impacts on the lives of the entire communities of the Northern Areas. These effects and impacts vary from social to economic sectors and from the kinship to communal relationships. Some of the effects are being outlined as under:
In social sector, the common life paralysed and all community members felt, and still feel, insecurity while travelling or walking in the bazaars and the suburbs, having their duties, businesses, and travelling down countries or en route to China. The academic institutions and studentsâ community suffered to the whole extent, which is equal to genocide of the coming generations. The following points are worthy to note:
1. Since June 2004, when Shia-Sunni clashes erupted on the syllabus of Islamiat, five schools in Gilgit city were closed due to these sectarian clashes. According to a report, in one of the high schools, presently there remained less than 100 students out of 500 due to closure and greater number of drop out of students.
2. The Karakoram International University (KIU) and the colleges closed for more than three months, and students deprived of their education.
3. The board of examination, which has round the year real task to do, suffered and ultimately the direct looser were the students at different levels in different regions and valleys. .
Of equal importance is the worst negative effect on the health and lives of a number of innocent patients, whose ailment multiplied and intensified because of curfew. According to different relevant individual and organisational sources, due to curfew about forty patients lost their lives en route to but inaccessibility to the hospitals in Gilgit and down countries and absence of medicines in the hospitals. Furthermore, some patients lost their lives having heart attacks due to the fear of clashes and tension.
A melancholic and pitiable situation was experienced by the general masses in terms of unavailability of food stuffs, who became locked into their houses due to curfew.
Other bad experiences were seen in kinship relationships, considered as the foundation of a family and society, which plays it vital roles in such circumstances. Due to the clash and curfew, all relationships, whether blood, marriage or fictive, severely blocked and suspended among the clashed communities as well as others. Many individuals entrapped in different places and couldnât move to their homes for couple of days.
Taking advantages of such clashes and conflicts, some individuals in both communities, who had their personal enmities and rivalries, whether within their own community or another, got chance to take the revenges because they know that they will escape and will be generalised as sectarian killings.
Further worst effects (visible and invisible) were on the economy of the peoples (individuals, groups, organisations and societies), which are even though uncountable at this moment, but can be measured in trillions of euros rather pounds. Some of the losses can be highlighted for rational analyses to the rational peoples.
Investment on students by their parents and organisations went in vain as precarious effects of drop outs took place, loss of their most crucial times and detraction from their careersâ establishment emerged. The daily wagers and labourers affected miserably for more than four months. Huge losses to the employers, whether public sector or NGO or private, who had to pay to their permanent employees imprisoned and remained in their houses. On the other, cancellation of funding and donations happened at national and international levels. Cut in the budgets of development programmes and projects and spending of money on the security and security measures to different forces. Heavy losses happened to the tourism industry and all its stakeholders.
Further, the government had to compensate for the losses of properties and lives of the peoples.; a lot of businesspersons, who were doing their businesses in Gilgit, fled the area leaving aside their businesses. On the other hand, many business employers winded up their businesses and left the place.
In conclusion, it must be described that if adequate and honest steps were not taken, by the government and the communities, for the permanent resolution of the conflicts and clashes, and if the genuine demands were not met by the government and bureaucracy on the one hand; and if cautious, visionary and moderate ways were not followed by the political leaders and civil society organisations and members on the other, the situations in the near future may deteriorate rather intensify further, and explode like the lava that will then not remain within any externally tight cage.
Second, the youths do not require ill-cultivation. In contrast, the youth, who are well-aware of their rights and responsibilities, and the future generation need peace, security, prosperity and quality education and educational institutions based on meritocracy multiplied by all their civic and human rights, and developments, which the United Nations has granted and guaranteed to the peoples of its member states.
Third, an unexpected phenomenon can come up that the coming generations, becoming fed up of such sectarian abhorrence, may divert their attention from Islam to other universal religions if different agencies (whether internal or external) and leaders further cultivate such religious conflicts and communicate such negative perceptions and impressions regarding the long embraced faith. So, it is imperative to foresee such sensitivities and be in sense, and come out from ignorance to light and step ahead in this global village with best of education, knowledge along with action and wisdom, and honouring the dignity of humans, which is the in the core of Islam.
At the end, the following recommendations are being made after consultation with some intellectuals of the region so that it should be made part of the overall development policies and strategies.
1. Enough is enough. The rule of different agencies must be stopped, and all community members should be given awareness to monitor such evil practices by devils of different agencies.
2. De-weaponisation campaign is a good and practical step. It should be continued with more depth and seriousness and must not be limited to the Gilgit city only rather should be extended to other places, districts and sub-divisions as well. It is strongly recommended that more and serious attention should be focused upon the manufacturers/producers and suppliers of weapons in the tribal agencies as compared to users of weapons. These manufacturers must be sealed by the government; and serious legal actions should be taken against those weapon manufacturers.
3. Research studies on the sectarian clashes/tensions and their effects as well as long impacts (in different fields) need to be carried out by different groups of researchers.
4. Justice must be provided to the sufferers by really punishing the culpritsâcreators, sponsors and masterminds of the tensions and tragic events.
5. Political institutions (from the grassroots to levels of the so-called Northern Areas Legislative Council) ought to be strengthened; and checks and balances require regarding their smooth and steady performances.
6. Sooner political autonomy (the constitutional rights) and human rights need to be brought in realistic manner rather than in idealistic and utopian style. Rather than under the tight control of the federal government, promptly declare the Northern Areas either as a province or a region of an autonomous governance at least like Azad Kashmir.
7. Sooner establish âan institution (within Karkoram International University or autonomous) for the promotion and development of Pluralismâ in the Northern Areas.
8. Time to time dialogues, workshops, seminars, conferences and conventions should be held for different segments of the society with regard to peace and security.
9. The pluralistic values of Islam should be taught and emphasized also in the educational institutions at secondary and higher secondary levels.
10. In order to bring peace, harmony and security, and promoting pluralistic values among different social and communal groups, religious interpretations (tariqas), region, cultures and languages, it is essential thatâbesides or along with political institutionsâeffectively voluntary committees, boards and councils should be formed from tehsil level to Northern Areasâ level, which should be represented by the politico-religious leaders, intellectuals, community leaders in line with social development, representatives of studentsâ and business communities and the like.
11. Cultural and sports programmes need to be promoted genuinely in order to improve interfaith and inter-region harmony.
12. Writers and poets need to intensify their creativities with regard to pluralism of faiths, cultures, languages, regions, politics and the like.
13. More and more employment opportunities should be created in order to employ the minds of the youths towards peace, security and economic prosperity.
Whatâs the difference between a disaster and an election in New Orleans?
The buses run during an election.
Why isnât New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin worried about all the dead people being found in Katrinaâs aftermath?
Because theyâll keep right on voting anyway.
Tasteless? Hereâs what really tasteless: Cleaning up New Orleans physically without cleaning it up politically. Not draining New Orleansâ political cesspool of organized crime and corruption. Not evacuating Mayor Ray Nagin and every city official and police officer on the take before they get their greasy hands on all those billions of taxpayer dollars to rebuild the place.
The appropriate description of New Orleans as a âparty town in a welfare swampâ only begins to hint at the hideous truth behind jazz and booze in the French Quarter. That truth is that Mayor Nagin is a crook. New Orleans has probably never had a mayor that wasnât a crook. New Orleans is the most corrupt crime-infested city in America.
Denny Hastert was more right than he knew when he questioned the wisdom of rebuilding at incredible taxpayer expense a city in a flood plain below sea level thatâs bound to be flooded again. Because before it gets flooded again with water, it will be flooded with the same crooks that run the place now.
The New Orleans police force is the most corrupt police force in the country. Is it any wonder that they were videotaped looting along with other looters, and that theyâve been given a vacation in Las Vegas while New York City police officers are doing their job?
The New Orleans Levee Board oversaw repairs on the 17th Street Canal levee last year â at the exact place where it gave way flooding the city. Thatâs because so much of the money went into Board memberâs pockets and substandard concrete.
The left-wing media has focused their attention on the plight of New Orleans and their wrath on George Bush to deflect attention away not just from Mayor Naginâs incompetence ( youâre all familiar with the hundreds of now-flooded buses he never used for an evacuation), but his criminality.
Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are not just engaging in race-hustling when they preposterously claim Bush didnât get aid to New Orleans blacks because heâs anti-black. The purpose is to ward off any exposure of New Orleans corruption, which at present in run mostly by blacks.
They are now pre-positioned to scream âRacism!â the moment a Congressman screws up the courage to demand hearings on the connection between Mayor Nagin and the Mafia or an inquiry into Mayor Naginâs Swiss bank accounts.
We could look upon Katrina as an opportunity to rid New Orleans of its political filth. But the odds are not good due to the racial incorrectness of doing so. If Mayor Nagin was white he could be Edwin Edwards' cell mate at the Oakdale, Louisiana Federal Prison. Thatâs where he and so many of the other folks who run New Orleans belong, rather than raking in all the taxpayer loot supposedly for rebuilding the Big Easy.
--Dr. Jack Wheeler
Nuff said.
Posted by: Abu al-MacSuirtain ||
09/09/2005 13:45 ||
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As Lake Ponchatrain's waters began to drown his city, New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin had the colossal nerve to shout indignantly "Get off your asses, and let's do something" -- and then continued doing nothing himself, but add to the deluge by bursting into tears.
Having been prodded on Saturday into ordering an evacuation by President Bush and the head of the Hurricane Center and then delaying it for seventeen crucial hours until well into Sunday, Mayor Nagin is directly responsible for the AP picture of over 200 unused New Orleans buses marooned in four feet of water that might have evacuated more than 15,000 in one trip alone. Those were the buses that in the Mayor's own plan were to be used to evacuate 100,000 poor the city has long understood had no other means of transportation.
Nagin is also responsible for failing to pre-position generators, food and water, a medical presence and portable toilets for the two sites at the Superdome and Convention Center that he had proclaimed "emergency centers" for tens of thousands of the more than 30% of New Orleanians that lived below the poverty line. And then the Mayor failed to police them.
The rapes, murders, and needless deaths that took place in those "black holes" of New Orleans are his responsibility as well. Eighty armed policemen were too cowardly to enter the Convention Center after reports of the savagery inside as late as Sunday. Troops finally searching the Convention Center on Monday found an elderly man and a young girl, battered to death, among the corpses. New Orleans's would-be reformers thought they had elected a responsible leader in former cable executive Nagin and instead they got a classic "cable guy" with a million excuses and the same lousy service.
Of course behind all this is a dirty little secret well-known in New Orleans which is also the reason almost 30% of New Orleans police precinct members deserted during the Hurricane Katrina emergency. The police were afraid to try to enforce any kind of evacuations in the violent ghettos of a city that remains one of the most lawless in America. Anyone driving a school bus down a street in one of New Orleans's "projects" trying to enforce the mayor's evacuation order would be risking his life. Had the Mayor ordered police escorts, the desertion rate of the police would have been far higher than 30%. And that is the reason for the current argument between the Mayor and his own Police Commissioner, who still refuses to enforce his "mandatory evacuation" order.
Governor Blanco's ineptitude and indecisiveness was appalling. Her direct orders blocked the Red Cross's heroic effort to pre-position desperately needed supplies at the Superdome before it was cut off by the rising flood waters as well. Attempts by the Mayor, the Governor, and The New Orleans Times-Picayune -- which had extensively reported on the state's and city's similar failures on previous occasions -- to blame the Federal FEMA efforts for failing in its role in the immediate aftermath of Katrina are patently ridiculous.
Under white and black governments alike, New Orleans has always been one of the most corrupt cities in one of the most corrupt states in the United States. Three Louisiana officials were indicted for stealing emergency relief funds prior to Katrina. It should surprise no one that the Sicilian Mafia opened operations in New Orleans before it had a presence in New York. Even the "Louisiana Lottery" put in place by a genuine reformer to raise public funds quickly devolved into scandal.
The great black New Orleans-born blues composer Spencer Williams knew his city well. In his lyrics to "Basin Street Blues" Williams calls it "New Orleans, Land of Dreams." And a "Land of Dreams" it is and has always been. The French dreamt of it as the key to reversing the British conquest of Canada; Jefferson dreamt of it as the key to opening a continent; Aaron Burr was tried for treason for dreaming of using it as the base for his "Empire of the West" that could secede from the fledgling United States; "filibusters" like Samuel Walker dreamt of turning Haiti or Nicaragua into mini-empires for their own enrichment. And most of these dreams were doomed at the outset.
Basin Street itself was an excavation site where water settled after the removal of additional landfill to build up the high land around the French Quarter where the original colonists were smart enough to locate their settlement. And that began the dream that ended with Hurricane Katrina that believed with minimal expense New Orleans could continue to ignore reality and expand below sea level construction indefinitely. And the dream is wider than New Orleans. "Flood insurance" is now being offered that encourages development of the most endangered flood-prone littoral land in the country.
And that is the real problem. E. M. Forster's THE MACHINE STOPS, published almost a century ago, posits a world in the future in which the human race gives up any individual responsibility to an immense computerized system that meets every need -- until it fails.
Those who dream of the perfectibility of human institutions through increasingly, compulsorily collective government will always attack the highest levels of government when it does fail. Republicans and Democrats alike have created huge institutions like the Departments of Education, Housing and Urban Development, and now Homeland Security, built on dreams that can never meet the excessive demands placed upon them.
If we are to learn anything from the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina, we will have to review the more practical expectations of the Framers of our Federal system. Local and state government are the primary responders. To keep their powers and responsibility intact the Federal Government is a resource they must administer wisely and decisively. Focusing on the habitual incoherence of Bush Administration communications is beside the point. There is no excuse for ignoring the key failures of local and state government in facing the challenge of Hurricane Katrina. Doing so will only ensure the next disaster.
Thomas Lipscomb is a Senior Fellow at the Annenberg Center for the Digital Future(USC). His family has lived in New Orleans for over 150 years.
#1
To paraphrase - Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The Great Chicago machine vs. the snow 1979 -
"In three short months, much had changed. Bilandic was responsible for his own fall as Mayor of Chicago and leader of the powerful Chicago Democratic Machine. But a record-setting snowfall that pounded the city with more than 78 inches of snow from its first big fall on New Year's Eve all the way up until the sun shined bright on Primary Election Day, on February 27, made the implausible Bilandic defeat a certainty.
Shaken by the first snowfall of 22 inches on New Year's Eve, Bilandic moved to "take charge," announcing plans to clear streets and warning residents to relocate their cars to nearby school parking lots he said had been cleared of snow.
When Bilandic said he had cleared the school lots, everyone in the media believed him and only a vigilant night editor at the Chicago Tribune had decided to send reporters to check the plan. The Tribune discovered that the lots, three days later, were still buried deep in snow mounds.
Bilandic's aides believed the problem was with the media coverage, not growing voter anger at the sudden burst of incompetence. A series of columns by Mike Royko that touted Byrne, had later been credited with giving Byrne a 35,000 vote edge to her campaign. Chief of Staff Tom Donovan arranged for Bilandic to tour the snow-smothered city by helicopter. He extended a private invitation to the fulltime City Hall reporters to meet with Bilandic "informally" in his office without all the TV cameras and non-beat press.
As we walked into the mayor's private inner office on the 5th floor, we had to restrain our laughter. Sitting under a portrait of the Boss, Bilandic wore a dark blue knit cap on his head, not fully pulled over his cranium, but bunched up and tilting to one side, like he was one of Spanky's Gang. He also wore a long sleeved undershirt pulled over his heavily starched white shirt and blue patterned tie. The beige, bubbled cotton winter shirt appeared too tight, forcing his gold-cuffed linked shirt sleeves to hang out the ends.
"You know," Bilandic began, "we tried but it's not our faults. It's the way they are making car locks. You can't get in there with a wire and unlock the locks so we couldn't move the cars. They don't make cars the way they used too."
He looked right at Golden and began, "You know, Harry ââ¬Â¦ "
Golden nodded as if to get every word down. But I looked at Golden's narrow yellow notepad and saw he was simply sliding his pen back and forth creating dark lines. This went on for an hour. And as we rushed back to our desks, Golden blurted out loud, "I think that Janie Byrnes has driven him nuts. Aaaargh! Aaaargh! Aaaargh!"
For seven weeks, controversy followed controversy.
News that Bilandic had given his former pal and deputy Mayor Ken Sain a $90,000 contract to write a snow removal report that no one could find, rocked his administration. Trying to appease the city's white voters, Bilandic ordered CTA trains and buses to by-pass inner-city stops for outlying city neighborhoods and the suburbs. Blacks, Hispanics and other residents left standing on the CTA platforms watched helplessly as the trains rushed past.
As the snow brought the world's busiest airport to its knees, Bilandic had his socialite wife Heather filming campaign commercials that touted O'Hare Airport's national awards. Meanwhile, passengers remained stranded and their luggage piled up in the airport lobbies like mounds of unplowed snow.
Bilandic refused to believe polling that showed his popularity dropping and Byrne's popularity rising.
At a luncheon for his top precinct captains, Bilandic explained his troubles by comparing himself to Jesus Christ and the Shah of Iran in a rambling speech that left his supporters dumbfounded."
#2
The LA politicians are about to learn what both Mayors Daley knew and Bilandic forgot - Americans will tolerate corruption, but inefficient corruption gets tossed out on its ear fast.
The authors, Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky, were attending a paramedicsâ conference in New Orleans, staying in the French Quarter, when the hurricane hit. Afterward, they were in the same situation as other survivors in the city: no food, no water, no transportation, and no help from the outside world: In a nutshell, the feds wanted them out of the city ASAP, and the local police and sheriffs wouldn't let them leave or form camps.
Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky are emergency medical services (EMS) workers from San Francisco and contributors to Socialist Worker.
Posted by: Abu MacSuirtain ||
09/09/2005 12:38 Comments ||
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#5
After reading the original post, I did somewhat feel for them. But, then I realize they're contributing to Socialst Worker, and were EMS workers themselves from San Fran. Caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, it sounds like even they realized they wouldn't be safe at the Superdome or Convention Center. So, instead of pitching in somewhere and use their skills (remember, EMS), they huddled with other well-to-doer's (their group was from the EMS Conference attendees and out-of-country visitors in the French Quarter), and I imagine somehow all of those people were of the European persuasion themselves. Yet, it's the OFFICIAL (read: Gov't) responders who are racist? BLAH! Just one more reason I'll never go to San Fran. I hear it's beautiful, but now I know they have EMS teams who are socialists and only group to themselves. Of course, I imagine if I'd been given the same info, I wouldn't have gone to the Superdome or the Conv. Center. Yet, it sounded like they lived quite comfortably the first 2-3 days in the French Quarter. Remember the military moved in on Friday, and within 24 hours, the 2 centers were pretty much empty. So, these goons only really spent 1 night out on the street? Not roughing it too much in my mind (and they had cell phone service there too). This one I just chalk up to wrong place/wrong time and to idiocy on the part of these authors. ALWAYS know the City you're going to in case something happens like this. And, it's strange, it doesn't state when they arrived in New Orleans....I assume Fri/Sat before, because I can't imagine many planes flying there on Sunday, knowing full well they'd be nailed the next morning. But, turn on the weather channel or even local news for 2 seconds to watch this storm come in? Nah, I'm too busy partying in the French Quarter.
Posted by: BA ||
09/09/2005 12:59 Comments ||
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#6
Yeah, the airport shut down early, even outgoing flights, 'cuz they didn't want to get caught with planes on the ground.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/09/2005 14:00 Comments ||
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Review: The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims, edited by Dr. Andrew G. Bostom, Prometheus, 759 pp.
It is only fitting that Andrew G. Bostom's massive collection, The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims, appears in time for the fourth anniversary September 11, 2001, for no other collection since then has so well explained the theology and philosophy behind those Islamic attacks on America.
The leaders of the free world have taken pains since late 2001 to explain that Islam is a religion of peace. But in this far-ranging, 759-page collection of Muslim and non-Muslim eyewitness accounts, scholarly Muslim theological treatises and superb historical surveys, it appears that Islam has actually practiced a grisly jihad campaign against non-Muslims from its earliest days, in the hope of satisfying the Prophet Mohammed's end goal: forcing the âone true faithâ upon the entire world.
The somber tone of this monumental work -- graced in its midsection by a chronological summary of the first 500 years of Muslim conquests, including color-coded maps and Islamic art -- is set by the cover, a 19th century-Islamic painting entitled âThe Prophet, Ali and the Companions at the massacre of the prisoners of the Jewish tribe of Beni Kuraizah.â As its name suggests, the art depicts the slaughter of 600 to 900 Jewish men, who were led on Mohammed's orders to the market of Medina, where they were beheaded and their corpses buried in trenches dug for that purpose. Their wives and children were then enslaved.
After viewing these accounts, histories and art works, it is hard to continue to believe that radical Islamists are in fact all that radical. Rather, in the most logical way, this collection shows that September 11 was not an aberration, but that Islam at its core seems a faith bent upon the conquest and subjugation of non-Muslims.
Indeed, as many commentators here suggest, when one group of Muslims assumes responsibility for jihad warfare -- the only righteous kind of war, in the Islamic view -- the rest of the umma (Muslim community) is relieved of this fard, or religious duty. Thus, if radical Muslims believe they act on behalf of all Islamdom, Islamic traditions also confirm that they do. Rest at link.
Posted by: ed ||
09/09/2005 08:58 ||
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Thanks to U.S. generosity, the Palestinian Authority will now have $50 million with which to ensure that terrorism against Israel continues. According to Palestinian Minister for Prisoner Affairs, Sufayan Abu Zayda, his office receives $4 million a month from the PA to support Palestinian terrorists held in Israeli prisons.
On September 3, Abu Zayda told the Palestinian newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida that his office deposits salaries of $400 to $500 a month for each prisoner, in addition to a $50 monthly payment each for expenses in the prison canteen. The Palestinian Prison Affairs office also funds the prisonersâ legal expenses, medical treatment, etc.
An additional $100,000 is dedicated to tuition for every terrorist prisoner who seeks higher education--without any consideration to his organizational affiliation or crimes. The prisoners include those who murdered Israelis, suicide bomber dispatchers, and suicide bombers caught en route.
According to Abu Zayda, once released from Israeli prisons, each Palestinian terrorist continues to receive a salary for six months, after which they receive an official position with the Palestinian Authority. Those who spend more than five years in prison continue to receive the salary as long as necessaryâuntil they get a job.
On September 7, in a follow-up interview with Al Quds, another Palestinian daily, Abu Zayda reported that a new decision was taken by the Palestinian Authority to increase the salaries of all Palestinian Security Forces. Since the Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons are considered part of the Security Forces, their income will also rise. According to this new decision, those who served the longest terms in Israeli prisons, i.e., those who committed the most heinous crimes, will receive the highest compensation. Thus, a prisoner who spent 25 years in Israeli prison will receive about $900 a month (4,000 Shekels). Prisoners who are residents of Jerusalem will receive an extra $50 monthly.
This news, according to reports from Gaza, was greeted by a gathering of 2,000 well-armed members of Fatah, demonstrating their support of Abu Mazen. Thus, the Palestinian President is buying support from the terrorists by paying them in hopes of deflecting the popularity of Hamas.
Generous funding of Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons and their unending support by the Palestinian Authority, even after they are released, sends a very clear messageâit pays to fight Israel. This is particularly true, since most Palestinians live on $30 to $90 per month.
On August 24, the U.S. Consul General Jacob Willis and USAID Representative David Harden signed an agreement with PA Finance Minister Salam Fayad, granting $50 million to the PA. The grant is dedicated to housing and infrastructure projects. The U.S. prides itself on closely monitoring how the money is spent; however, money is fungible. Even if the money is spent on the designated projects, funding the Palestinian Authority at a time when it continues to pay terrorists only strengthens terrorism.
Why should U.S. taxpayers pay for Palestinian infrastructure while the PA itself spends the very same amount annually to support their terrorist infrastructure against Israel? Not only does the Palestinian Authority fund the ongoing terrorism against Israel, it also funds incitement against the U.S. and propaganda campaigns calling for attacks against American soldiers in Iraq.
âWe say to the dear, heroic Iraqi nation, turn this incident [the accidental death of 1,000 Iraqis] into an opportunity for resisting the [American] occupationâŠ,â said Yusuf Humâa Salamah in his official Friday sermon on PA television on September 2, 2005, according to Palestinian Media Watch.
At this timeâwhen the U.S. government is struggling against growing terrorism in Iraqâit seems counter productive to fund those who incite violence against the U.S. Moreover, these $50 million could be better spent in the U.S. to help more than 1.5 million homeless Americans in the Louisiana Delta, Mississippi and Alabama.
Posted by: ed ||
09/09/2005 08:50 ||
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No link, Stratfor freebie. Seems to be the closing article in the "Katrina serie".
By George Friedman
In Hurricane Katrina, the United States has suffered a catastrophic geopolitical event -- though at least for the near term, in some respects, it does not appear to have been quite as catastrophic as initially feared.
For the past week, we have been discussing precisely why Katrina should be considered a "geopolitical event." This is an unusual way to view a natural disaster, but we consider Katrina to be the ultimate geopolitical event because it had, first, broad geographical significance, and second, substantial regional consequences. The hurricane certainly wreaked humanitarian and economic devastation upon the U.S. Gulf Coast, but it also impacted three much broader aspects of the geopolitical system: Oil, food and politics.
We could as easily classify these effects in terms of time: immediate fears, near-term worries and long-term concerns for the Bush administration. They would still appear in the same order.
With Americans already concerned about high oil prices, attention immediately fixed on oil. The Gulf of Mexico is a major source of U.S. energy supplies, and the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) is one of the largest U.S. facilities handling supertankers, which cannot enter most ports. There is Port Fourchon, which handles oil pumped from the LOOP and is a center for companies that service the offshore oil platforms. Major refineries are scattered throughout Louisiana and Mississippi, and pipelines running through the region deliver critical supplies to other parts of the country.
However, of the three major geopolitical effects of the hurricane, the impact on the oil markets was possibly the least serious or long-lasting. As has already become obvious, no major system was damaged more than moderately by Katrina. The offshore platforms did not survive completely intact, but most survived. The LOOP and Port Fourchon survived, as did the refineries and the pipelines.
Now, attention is turning to world food supplies. Whereas the Gulf is a significant source of oil for the United States, it is a critical source of food commodities for much of the world. The fall harvest is beginning in the upper Midwest. More than half of the grain and soybean harvest comes down the Mississippi River in barges to the ports at New Orleans, from whence it is redistributed around the United States or is shipped to Europe, Asia and Latin America. Certainly, the world markets have other sources of grain and foodstuffs, but the American harvest is the major source.
In considering this issue, the navigability of the Mississippi becomes crucial.
The initial fear after Katrina struck was that the levees on the Mississippi (as opposed to the levees on the canals surrounding New Orleans) would break, causing the river to shift its course. This was a regular occurrence in the past: As rivers age, their meanderings shift -- with all that that means for populations living nearby, and with concomitant effects on their channels. In modern times, the Mississippi has been controlled by levees, which keep it on a firm course, with clear channels and easy navigation.
The fear was that if the river were blocked, the harvest wouldn't be able to get out. However, we can see now that this danger did not come to pass: New Orleans is flooded, but the Mississippi is not blocked. It did not change its course, it was not silted over, and no ship sank in the hurricane to stop up its channels.
That is not the end of the food supply issue, however -- one must also consider the ports. As we have previously pointed out, New Orleans has been the place where barges offloaded their cargoes of produce, and where the foodstuffs have been stored and reloaded onto oceangoing vessels. Likewise, those ocean-going vessels have delivered precious cargoes of industrial goods -- rubber, steel, petrochemicals -- needed by the Midwestern farmers and others. The port facilities at New Orleans are vital to the nation's economic well-being. There are workarounds, at least for a short time, but none that can as cost-effectively handle the tonnages that regularly pass through the ports of South Louisiana and New Orleans.
Katrina's devastation of New Orleans presents a serious medium- and long-term problem for the U.S. economy. Though the port complex survived relatively intact, the larger issue is one of population displacement. In order for the ports to be useful at all, the area must be able to house and sustain the labor force that operates them -- and the city clearly is in no condition to do that, and will not be for quite a long time.
However, about 50,000 U.S. troops -- including National Guard and regular Army units -- have moved into the area and begun the work of repairs. The Army Corps of Engineers and military logisticians are trained in the maintenance and operation of ports, so we logically could expect that, first, the ports will be functioning when the harvest comes pouring down the Mississippi at the end of September, and, second, that if civilian laborers are not available, U.S. troops will be filling in for them.
In short, the near-term problems are being handled.
That brings us to Katrina's third impact -- politics -- and a much larger unknown.
The human suffering resulting from the hurricane and perceptions of a slow government response have generated a cacophony of political finger-pointing and second-guessing, and President George W. Bush is taking an incredible drubbing. He is not the only politician being singled out for blame, of course -- but as the United States' commander-in-chief and leader of the free world, it is the verbal bullets being fired at him that are geopolitically significant.
There are many conceivable reasons why events transpired as they did -- including the possibility (if not probability) that the president and his advisers, who have been fighting a war since Sept. 11, 2001, were simply too exhausted to grasp the full scope of the Katrina situation before or in the first days after the hurricane struck. Other explanations have been and likely will continue to be put forth -- some with merit, others without -- but at the end of the day, the political controversy is merely semantic noise surrounding the core geopolitical issue.
And that issue is simply this: The power of any particular president, at any particular time, personifies American power. In the long run, U.S. power is, in our view, unassailable; but in the short run, it is possible that a president can be so beset by political controversies that his power is hollowed out. And if that happens, foreign powers not only might, but probably would, attempt to exploit the situation to their own advantage. If the perception is that the Bush administration has been substantially weakened or that the president is losing control of his domestic situation, new challenges within the international system are likely to arise and existing ones -- Iraq, Israel, Russia, China -- will be strengthened.
Send questions or comments on this article to analysis@stratfor.com.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
