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Im-Politic: Hyper-Partisans Across the Spectrum are Wrong; the Terrorist Threat is “All of the Above”

11 Sunday Aug 2019

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Im-Politic

≈ 1 Comment

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gun violence, Im-Politic, Islamic terrorism, jihadism, left-wing terrorism, mass shootings, September 11, terrorism, Trump, white supremacist terrorism, white supremacists

As if we needed another one, the latest upsurge in the intertwined national debates about gun violence, mass shootings, and terrorism provides another example of how hyper-partisan, encrusted thinking is obscuring the road to dramatically improved policies – and greater public safety. Specifically, way too many Americans are still mired in a dangerously distracting debate over where the biggest terrorist threats come from, rather than admitting that the nation faces numerous types of violent groups that fit any sensible definition of terrorism.

And as a result, way too many (including most prominent political leaders) are ignoring a crucial lesson of America’s post-September 11 experience – that concerted, innovative, well-funded national campaigns against terrorist movements actually work.

After the attacks of 2001, the focus understandably was Islamic terrorism. And if you doubt the impact, ask yourself why else no hijacked jetliners have crashed into U.S. skyscrapers and similarly big targets for nearly 20 years. And why in 2018, the last full data year, exactly one homicide in America was connected with Islamism.

Dumb luck? But as golf immortal Ben Hogan once said to an exasperated less successful rival who accused him of getting the lion’s share of the breaks, “[T]he more I practice, the luckier I get.” In that vein, surely massive American anti-terrorism efforts abroad and at home have played an important role. If you’ve forgotten what they’ve been, here’s a quick summary (from the Los Angeles Times article linked above):

“Despite horrifying abuses and mistakes, from torture to secret prisons, [the George W. Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations] have largely destroyed Al Qaeda and its most dangerous offspring. The U.S.-led war against Islamic State has killed thousands of militants and broken the group’s hold on territory in Iraq and Syria.

“Domestic law enforcement has monitored extremists at home and interrupted dozens of plots (including some that turned out to be insubstantial). And common-sense security measures have made us less vulnerable; no U.S. plane has been hijacked since 9/11.”

I’d add that, despite numerous calls for sharp increases from Democrats and others on the Left, U.S. admissions of asylum-seekers from Middle Eastern countries and elsewhere around the world remained exceedingly modest under former President Barack Obama, and have dropped sharply under President Trump.

The clear meaning? Yes, as President Trump’s critics have claimed, Islamic-inspired terrorism has been on the wane. But it looks glaringly obvious that deserving much of the credit have been measures many of them strongly opposed – and still oppose, mainly because they’ve been so determined to smear Mr. Trump and others backing such hard-line policies as simple Islamo-phobes who have long been chasing a mirage.

But don’t think this lets the President and many of his supporters off the hook. For until recently, they’ve acted as if they’ve been so bent on defending the anti-jihadist campaign and on justifying its continuation that they’ve soft-pedaled its clear success, and have been slow to acknowledge the more recent emergence of an unmistakably serious violent white supremacist threat.

Chiefly, there’s compelling evidence that since his inauguration, the President has reduced funding for government efforts to fight domestic terrorism springing from racist and other extreme right-wing roots, and increased the resources devoted to fight violent jihadists. That shift might have been justified early during the Trump presidency – shortly after two major Islamist-inspired shootings in San Bernardino, California in December, 2015, and in Orlando, Florida in June, 2016. But since then, the domestic racists etc have been much more dangerously active, and it’s not enough for the President to condemn them explicitly and emphatically. His money needs to move where his mouth is.

Not that anti-jihadism budgets need to be cannibalized to achieve this aim. Vigilance on that front remains essential as well, lest America be caught by surprise again a la September 11. Washington also needs to move much more decisively against violent leftists – like the Dayton, Ohio shooter seems to have been, along with antifa. 

In other words, U.S. anti-terrorism policy needs to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time – and be as agile and continually evolving as the sources of terrorism themselves.

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Im-Politic: Why White Supremacist Terrorism has Become a Top Priority Threat

18 Monday Mar 2019

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Im-Politic

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anti-semitism, Christchurch, Great Replacement, Im-Politic, Islamic terrorism, Islamophobia, jihadism, mosques, Muslims, New Zealand attack, social media, terrorism, Trump, white nationalists, white supremacist terrorism, white supremacists

The great 20th century economist John Maynard Keynes is widely thought to have said in response to a challenge to his consistency, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?…” I’ve always thought that’s great advice in life generally, and in particular for anyone who spends much time commenting on public policy. As a result, I have no problem reporting that my views on the seriousness of the white nationalist/supremacist violence threat nationwide and globally are different now than when I last wrote on the issue a little over three years ago. Moreover, it’s clear that President Trump needs to get off the dime on this front as well.

Specifically, it’s now clear to me that these movements have developed into dangers to public safety that are comparable, or nearly so, to Islam-inspired terrorist movements, and that other national governments need to intensify their focus accordingly.

The proximate cause of course is Friday’s terrible massacre of Muslims at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. But the past year has also witnessed a mass shooting at a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania synagogue, the letter bombs sent by a Florida man to Democratic Party politicians and officials as well as liberal mainstream media figures, and the arrest of a Coast Guard officer who was apparently stockpiling weapons with the intent of killing lots of liberal political figures and journalists.

My previous views on the differences between white nationalist (I know it’s a logically tortuous term, but it’s in widespread use, so….) violence and Islamic terrorism were based mainly on two observations: First, that, unlike the latter, the former had no general program (however loony in real-world terms) that it tried to push; and second, that unlike Islamic terrorists, the white nationalists didn’t seem to have an international network from which they could draw strength, inspiration, and even resources.

It’s now clear, however, that the Islamophobic, anti-immigrant hatred behind much white nationalist violence is motivated by a determination to stop what these extremists view as an effort by globalist-dominated national governments to replace their countries’ historically white populations of European descent with Muslims and other foreign non-whites. Some of this “Great Replacement” thinking (I hesitate to dignify it as anything as systematic as an “ideology”) of course also justifies anti-semitic violence by evoking the long-held belief that Jews are crucial members, and indeed masterminds, of a transnational (usually called “cosmopolitan” conspiracy to control all of humanity by dissolving all existing bonds among individuals, ethnic groups, and national populations and imposing a form of tyrannical world government).

Moreover, like jihadists, white nationalists undoubtedly the world over increasingly are using social media to talk to one another, share their poisonous bigotry, and whip themselves into a frenzy. As a result, it’s just as pointless to try distinguishing the two by contending that jihadists appear much more organized globally than white nationalists. It’s true, for example, that white nationalists haven’t demonstrated the ability to turn large chunks of physical territory into bases capable of promoting large-scale terrorist operations like September 11. But it’s also true – as noted by many alarmed by jihadism – that such capabilities aren’t needed for Islamic radicalism to deserve blame for inspiring “lone wolves” to go on terrorist rampages.

It’s also true, as far as we know, that, unlike the jihadists, white nationalists haven’t yet been able to foster the creation of and maintenance of cells that can carry out large-scale terror attacks like those Europe has suffered in Paris and Brussels. But why sit back and wait for this capacity to develop?

So President Trump obviously needs to stop denying that white nationalism is a burgeoning security threat. White nationalists may indeed be “a small group of people that have very, very serious problems,” but there’s now no doubt that however sparse their numbers, white nationalists can do tremendous harm. He also needs to stop committing the entirely unforced error of reacting to anti-Muslim terrorism in the blandest possible ways (when he reacts at all) while greeting violence by Islamic radicals with instant outrage.

But let’s also be clear about what burgeoning white nationalist violence doesn’t mean. Principally, it doesn’t mean that Mr. Trump and his rhetoric are responsible (unless you want to hold Never Trump-ers and their extreme rhetoric responsible for antifa-type violence). And it doesn’t mean that Islam-inspired terrorism can or should be downplayed – including with all that implies for policies toward immigrants and refugees from countries where reliable vetting information simply doesn’t exist. 

Instead, it means that we live in a depressingly and dangerously complicated world in which perils can come simultaneously in many different forms; in which governments need to target them all; and in which people of genuinely good will urgently need to realize that what they have in common, and what separates them from the violent fringes, is far more important than what divides them. Mr. Trump could help greatly by recognizing that his entirely correct claim that “to solve a problem, you have to be able to state what the problem is or at least say the name” applies to white supremacist terrorism as well as the Islam-inspired kind.

Following Up: Hate Crimes, Trump, and New FBI Data

15 Thursday Nov 2018

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Following Up

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African Americans, anti-semitism, FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Following Up, hate crimes, Hispanics, illegal aliens, Islamic terrorism, Jews, Latinos, Muslims, neo-Nazis, Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, racism, Trump, white nationalists, xenophobia

Right after last month’s Pittsburgh synagogue murders, I wrote a post that used FBI hate crimes data to cast doubt on President Trump’s direct or indirect culpability – but closed by noting that the Bureau would soon be issuing numbers that bring the story up to 2017.

“Soon” arrived this week, and the new statistics do provide evidence for a “Trump effect” on hate crimes overall, and on the incidence of anti-semitic hate crimes in particular. At the same time (and I know Never Trump-ers won’t want to see this), much of the evidence is considerably mixed, especially when it comes to the charge that, as presidential candidate and chief executive, Mr. Trump has “activated” violent anti-Semites and other bigots – i.e., he’s emboldened all of them to turn their hatred into attacks on their target groups.

To base my analysis on more data than used in that previous post, I’ve gone back to each of the 2000-2005 years, and continued examining the numbers for each year through 2017. I’ve also looked at two different categories of data that logically shed the most light on these issues – the number of total known incidents for each of these years, and the number of total known offenders. (I also counted up the numbers of victims, but believe that, even though they track well with the other two data sets, they tell us a good deal less about the activation charge. So for brevity’s sake, I’ve left them out.)

The annual figures on total hate crimes incidents typify most of the patterns. The strongest evidence for the Trump effect consists of the changes in the number of incidents and offenders for 2015-2016, and 2016-2017. Recall the Mr. Trump declared his candidacy for president in June, 2015.

Between 2015 and 2016, the incidents figure rose by 4.63 percent, and then jumped by 17.22 percent the following year. The 2016-17 increase was the biggest in percentage terms since that between 2000 and 2001 (a 20.67 percent surge that partly consisted of reactions to the September 11 terror attacks in 2001).

Here, however, is where the activation narrative starts to lose some force. Principally, the 2015-2016 increase was much smaller than that recorded between 2005 and 2006 (7.80 percent). Was then-President George W. Bush unwittingly or not encouraging extremists? Were they becoming activated in opposition to some of his policies, like the Iraq War? The overall hate crimes numbers don’t yield any obvious answers, but clearly among some groups, national tempers were flaring back then.

Another complication: The absolute 2017 number of hate crimes – like the 2016 number – was the biggest in several years. Indeed, 2017’s 7,175 total hate crimes was the highest figure since 2008’s 7,783. But think about that for a moment. It means that the 2008 number was (significantly) higher. So were its counterparts for each year since 2000. Were those years of greater Presidential activation?

It’s tempting to blame a “September 11” effect during those years. Yet the figure for 2000 – the year before the terror strikes – was much higher (8,063) than 2017’s as well.

The offender numbers are even more puzzling from the activation standpoint – since presumably they’re the individuals being activated. They did rise by 14.46 percent between 2014 and 2015 – which covers the first six months of the Trump presidential campaign. But between 2015 and 2016 – when he was running all year and clearly was much more prominent in the national consciousness – the number of offenders actually declined by 2.91 percent.

The following year, Mr. Trump’s first in the Oval Office, offender numbers shot up again – by 10.40 percent. That increase, however, wasn’t that much larger in percentage terms than the rise during the Barack Obama year 2012-2013 (9.06 percent).

Further, looking at the makeup of these numbers (in terms of the target groups) produces even bigger mysteries. Specifically, that big 17.22 percent increase in the total number of hate crimes between 2016 and 2017 was keyed largely by a 37.13 percent jump in incidents targeting Jews. Consequently, the 2017 total reached 938 – the highest figure since, again, 2008 (another George W. Bush year). But as with overall incidents, this means that the 2008 figure (1,013) topped that for 2017 by an impressive margin. In addition, the 2017 total was exceeded no less than six times in all between 2000 and 2008.

More puzzles emerge from the offenders figures. The number targeting Jews increased 8.79 percent between 2015 and 2016, and by 24.23 percent between 2016 and 2017. The absolute numbers for those years (421 and 523, respectively) are also the two highest during the 2000-2017 period. So these figures also seem to bear out the accusation that President Trump has coddled neo-Nazi/”white nationalist” types in various ways and bears some responsibility for their crimes.

But leave aside the objections that Mr. Trump has welcomed Jews into his family, has worked with them in numerous ways during his business career, and has been a staunch supporter of Israel (all of which has enraged some of those neo-Nazis). Why did the numbers of anti-semitic perps skyrocket by 69.40 percent between 2012 and 2013?

Something else that doesn’t dovetail with the activation charges: Although candidate and President Trump have been accused of stoking racism and xenophobia along with anti-Semitism, the data indicate that any Trump effect in regard to African-Americans and Muslims has been much more muted.

The number of incidents figures show that reported hate crimes targeting Muslims nearly doubled between 2014 and 2015 (from 154 to 294), and then climbed by another 21.77 percent the following year. Maybe candidate Trump’s calls for a ban on Muslim immigration into the United States and for registering Muslims in a national data base deserve lots of blame? Possibly. But then why would anti-Muslim hate crimes have dropped by 7.54 percent in the President’s first year in office – when the Muslim ban effort was a top priority, and front-page news, for months.

Moreover, despite the belief that Mr. Trump’s support of “birther” claims against former President Obama, and a 7.65 percent increase in hate crimes against blacks between 2014 and 2015, these numbers have stayed virtually flat over the course of the President’s main campaigning year and his first year in office.

Evidence for Trump-ian activation that’s more compelling comes from the data on anti-Hispanic hate crimes. The numbers of incidents and offenders both rose strongly – by a record 42.73 percent for the former and by 29.21 percent for the latter between 2016 and 2017, when the President kept immigration issues front and center. As with so many of the other statistics, however, the latest absolute Trump Era numbers for both categories remains way below many pre-Trump annual levels.

That’s why it seems reasonably clear to me that the main driver of the hate crimes data isn’t presidential activation, and that it may not be a major influence at all. What are some possible alternative causes? In many cases, real world events. Two examples: First, the numbers of anti-Muslim hate crimes and violent haters arguably rose so robustly from 2014 on because that period has been marked by a shocking number of fatal terrorism strikes launched by Islamic extremists in both the United States and in Europe.

Second, the anti-Hispanic counterparts of these figures were so much higher during the previous decade than they are today because those years featured mounting efforts by the Open Borders lobby – including an unprecedented wage of protest and other forms of activism by illegal immigrants themselves – to demand more rights and government benefits for this illicit population.

This explanation doesn’t seem to apply to the levels and growth rates of anti-semitic hate crimes. But then again, this form of bigotry isn’t often called “the oldest hatred” for nothing. (Racism of course has been an historical constant as well in America and elsewhere.) 

It should go without saying (but maybe not in these highly charged and polarized times) that none of the events and developments cited immediately above can ever justify hate crimes or similar bigoted actions and beliefs. Nor does it signal a belief that the President has handled these incidents on his watch acceptably. As I’ve written repeatedly, he hasn’t. But what should be clear is that anyone seeking to understand anti-semitic and other hate crimes needs to look far beyond the White House.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Still on Globalist Auto-Pilot

31 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Our So-Called Foreign Policy

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Bloomberg.com, China, foreign policy establishment, globalism, internationalism, Iran, Islamic terrorism, Israel, Middle East, Noah Feldman, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Rex Tillerson, Russia, Trump, Trump administration, Ukraine

Clearly, the holiday week between Christmas and New Year’s has brought Americans no respite from transparently witless foreign policy-related Trump-bashing by the Mainstream Media. Hot on the heels of The New York Times‘ classic of fake history spotlighted yesterday in RealityChek came this Bloomberg.com piece accusing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (and by extension the entire Trump administration) with two of the worst diplomatic sins imaginable – not recognizing instances where the United States lacks the leverage to achieve its goals, and lacking a strategy to solve this problem.

But Noah Feldman’s December 28 column at least boasted one (unintended) virtue: If the president and his top aides read it intelligently, they’ll realize that in many cases, they’re making an even more fundamental, but eminently correctable, mistake. Just like Feldman – and the internationalist/globalist (choose your adjective) foreign policy establishment he’s part of – they keep failing to ask first-order and even second-order questions about America’s role in the world. And strangely, these are exactly the kinds of questions that President Trump often asked when he was candidate Trump.

Feldman, an international law professor at Harvard, correctly observes that the Trump administration has taken on the tasks of ending the North Korean nuclear weapons program, pressuring China to help out in a significant way, persuading Russia to back off in some unspecified way from its campaign to control neighboring Ukraine, weakening Iran’s ability to boost its influence throughout the Middle East, and pushing Pakistan to stop supporting Islamic radicals in the region.

The author also mentions that “Neither [Tillerson] nor Trump is responsible for limits to U.S. leverage” – though maybe he could have made this crucial point before the next-to-last sentence in his article?.

But like the Trump administration, Feldman never bothers to ask exactly why the United States needs to seek these objectives (the first-order question) or whether, if they are essential or desirable, the standard forms of international engagement chosen by the Trump administration (and all of its predecessors as long as they were faced with these issues) are the best responses.

Ukraine policy is the most glaring example of neglecting first-order questions. Whatever you think of Russian revanchism or Putin, it’s inexcusable to overlook that American leaders have never considered Ukraine’s independence to be anything close to a vital or even important interest for two very good reasons. First, it was actually part of the old Soviet Union from 1924 until the end of the Cold War, with absolutely no impact on U.S. security, independence, or welfare. Second, it is located so close to Russia, and so far from the United States, that there is absolutely no prospect that American or NATO military actions could defend or liberate it without resorting to the (possibly suicidal) use of nuclear weapons.

So however tragic that country’s fate has been, the only sane conclusion possible from the standpoint of U.S. interests is that the best Ukraine policy is no Ukraine policy at all. And given this structural American inability to do Ukraine much good, steps like the recent Trump administration decision to supply defensive weapons to the Ukrainians sound like suspiciously like an American decision to fight to the last Ukrainian.

The other three foreign policy challenges obviously can’t be ignored. But the common assumption – especially in the ranks of the country’s bipartisan foreign policy establishment – that the answer involves some mixture of more military pressure or smarter diplomacy (more foreign aid is usually included as well, though it hasn’t figured very prominently in the North Korea, Iran, or Pakistan debates) urgently needs reexamination.

For as I’ve often written, in many cases, Americans could well find it much less dangerous, much cheaper, and much more effective to capitalize on the country’s matchless combination of military strength and geographic isolation to neutralize these particular threats.

To summarize briefly, if Washington pulls U.S. troops out of South Korea, it would eliminate any rational need for North Korea to strike U.S. territory with nuclear weapons (which is all too likely to result from a new Korean war that engulfs those units), and with its own massive nuclear forces, the United States could credibly threaten to obliterate the North if it sent its missiles against America for any other reason. North Korea’s nuclear weapons would still be a problem for its immediate neighbors. But all those countries (including South Korea) are more than powerful and wealthy enough to deal successfully with the North on their own and even singly.

Re Middle Eastern threats, the United States should focus much more on securing its own borders to keep terrorists and much less on defeating them on foreign battlefields – let alone on “fighting their ideology” by encouraging economic development and democracy. The region’s massive dysfunction on every conceivable level (including the cultural) will keep practically guaranteeing that new jihadist or other extremist forces will replace any that are crushed militarily, and that reform efforts will go exactly nowhere.

Further, by now it should be clear to any fair-minded person that the United States has more than enough energy to marginalize the power of Middle East oil producers over its economy and the world economy. And if you don’t like fossil fuels, let’s work harder to boost the use of alternatives. Finally, as with North Korea, America’s own deterrent is the best counter to any Iranian nuclear threat to the U.S. territory.  (And for those concerned with Israel’s security, the Jewish state of course has its own nuclear capabilities.)

The point here is not that any of these more domestic focused substitute strategies will be easy to put into effect or accelerate. The point is that they will be far easier to put into effect or accelerate than their more traditional counterparts, principally because America’s government, society, business community etc will have much more control over these measures than over events abroad.

During this first year of the Trump administration, no one should be the slightest bit surprised that establishmentarians like Feldman (and The New York Times‘ Landler) can’t even conceive that America’s foreign policy is stuck in a box, much less that it’s increasingly and dangerously obsolete. But President Trump ran in large measure as a foreign policy disrupter, and on many critical issues displayed impressive iconoclastic instincts. Why he hasn’t acted on more of them is one of the biggest mysteries of his presidencies so far. It could also be one of his biggest regrets.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Case for a “Made in America” Approach

08 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Our So-Called Foreign Policy

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Africa, AIDS, border security, climate change, corruption, diseases, foreign policy, foreign policy establishment, globalism, HIV, human rights, internationalism, Iran, Iran deal, Islamic terrorism, Israel, Jeffrey Goldberg, Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Middle East, missile defense, nuclear proliferation, oil, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, population control, Project-Syndicate.org, shale, terrorism, The New York Times, Thomas Friedman

I’m picking on New York Times uber-pundit Thomas Friedman again today – not because of any personal animus, but because, as noted yesterday, he’s such an effective, influential creator of and propagandist for the conventional wisdom on so many public policy fronts. And just to underscore that it’s nothing personal, I’ll also put in my cross-hairs another, though lower profile, thought leader: Harvard political scientist Joseph S. Nye, Jr. The reason? Both recently have provided us with quintessential illustrations of how lazy – and indeed juvenile – the justifications for American international activism served up by the bipartisan foreign policy establishment have grown.

The analyses I’m talking about aren’t quite as childishly simplistic as the establishment theme I wrote about last month – the assumption that American involvement in alliances and international organizations and regimes is automatically good, and that withdrawal or avoidance is automatically bad. But because it’s a little more sophisticated, it can be even more harmful. It’s the insistence that whenever the United States faces a problem with an international dimension, the remedy is some form of international engagement.

A recent Friedman column revealed one big weakness with this assumption: It often logically leads to the conclusion that a problem is utterly hopeless, at least for the foreseeable future. Just think about the only sensible implications of this October 31 article, which insists that the apparently metastasizing threat of Islamic terrorism in Africa can’t be adequately dealt with through the military tools on which the Trump administration is relying.

Why not? “Because what is destabilizing all of these countries in the Sahel region of Africa and spawning terrorist groups is a cocktail of climate change, desertification — as the Sahara steadily creeps south — population explosions and misgovernance.

“Desertification is the trigger, and climate change and population explosions are the amplifiers. The result is a widening collapse of small-scale farming, the foundation of societies all over Africa.”

I have no doubt that Friedman is right here. And as a result, he has a point to slam the Trump administration “for sending soldiers to fight a problem that is clearly being exacerbated by climate and population trends….” (That’s of course a prime form of American international activism.)

But he veers wildly off course in suggesting that other forms of such activism – “global contraception programs,” “U.S. government climate research” and the like are going to do much good, especially in the foreseeable future. Unless he supposes that, even if American policies turned on a dime five or even ten years ago, Africa would be much less of a mess? The only adult conclusion possible is that nothing any government can do is going to turn the continent into something other than a major spawning ground for extremism and refugees.

And this conclusion looks especially convincing considering the African problem to which Friedman – and so many other supporters of such approaches – gives short shrift: dreadfully corrupt governments. For this is a problem that has afflicted Africa since the countries south of the Sahara began gaining their independence from European colonialists in the late-1950s. (And the colonialists themselves weren’t paragons of good government, either.)

So I’m happy to agree that we shouldn’t pretend that sending American special forces running around Africa helping local dictators will actually keep the terrorists under control (although as I’ve argued in the case of the Middle East, such deployments could helpfully keep them off balance). But let’s not pretend that anything Friedman supports will help, either – at least in the lifetime of anyone reading this.

Nye has held senior government foreign policy posts in Democratic administrations and, in the interests of full disclosure, we have crossed swords in print – mainly about the proper definition of internationalism and about a review of an anthology he edited that he didn’t like (which doesn’t seem to be on-line). But I hope you agree that there’s still a big problem with his November 1 essay for Project-Syndicate.org about the implications of America’s domestic energy production revolution for the nation’s approach to the Middle East.

In Nye’s words: “Skeptics have argued that lower dependence on energy imports will cause the US to disengage from the Middle East. But this misreads the economics of energy. A major disruption such as a war or terrorist attack that stopped the flow of oil and gas through the Strait of Hormuz would drive prices to very high levels in America and among our allies in Europe and Japan. Besides, the US has many interests other than oil in the region, including nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, protection of Israel, human rights, and counterterrorism.”

Two related aspects of this list of reasons for continued American engagement in the region stand out. First, it’s completely indiscriminate. And second, for this reason, it completely overlooks how some of these unmistakably crucial U.S. interests can be much more effectively promoted or defended not through yet more American intervention in this increasingly dysfunctional region, but through changes in American domestic policies.

For instance, we’re (rightly) worried about nuclear proliferation, especially in Iran? How can today’s engagement policy help? Even if the the current Iran nuclear deal works exactly as intended, what happens when it runs out? Should we simply assume that Tehran will be happy to keep its nuclear genie in a bottle for another fifteen years? Will Iran be persuaded to give up the nuclear option permanently if Washington cultivates even closer ties with its age-old Sunni Muslim enemies, like Saudi Arabia?

Although I’m a missile defense skeptic – especially when it comes to the near-term threat from North Korea – isn’t figuring out a more effective way to repel an Iranian strike more likely to protect the American homeland? It’s certainly a response over which the United States will have much more control – and indeed, any control. In addition, if the United States withdraws militarily from the Persian Gulf region, Iran’s reason for launching such an attack in the first place fades away and, as I’ve argued in the case of North Korea, America’s own vastly superior nuclear forces become a supremely credible deterrent for any other contingencies.

Of course the United States faces a big Middle East-related terrorism problem. But as I’ve argued previously, the keys to America’s defense are serious border security measures. They, too, pass the “control test” with flying colors, and consequently seem much more promising than the status quo approach of trying to shape the region’s future in more constructive ways. But as I’ve also written, it would also make sense to keep in the Middle East small-scale American forces whose mission is continually harassing ISIS and Al Qaeda and whatever other groups of vicious nutballs are certain to appear going forward.

Nye’s point about the integration of global energy markets is a valid one. But in the same article, he acknowledges how the U.S. domestic energy revolution’s “combination of entrepreneurship, property rights, and capital markets” has changed the game for America. Why does he suppose that its effects won’t spread significantly beyond our borders?

As for Nye’s other two reasons for continued U.S. Middle East engagement, the notion that Washington can do anything meaningful to promote the cause of human rights simply isn’t serious, and Israel has amply demonstrated that, with enough American military aid, it can take care of itself.

Moreover, as you may recognize, the arguments for mainly focusing on border security to handle the Middle East terrorist threat applies to the African menace that’s preoccupying Friedman.

The main takeaway here isn’t that U.S. international engagement will never be needed to protect national security, safeguard the nation’s independence, or enhance its prosperity. It’s that Made in America approaches will turn out to be vastly superior in many cases – and certainly in many more cases than the bipartisan globalist foreign policy establishment recognizes. How long will it take for President Trump to get fully on board?

By the way, I first began exploring the idea of Made in America solutions to foreign policy problems and international threats when I read this article by current Atlantic Monthly Editor Jeffrey Goldberg. He argued in 1999 that the nation was making a big mistake ignoring Africa in its diplomacy because the continent was likely to become a source of deadly diseases sure to cross oceans and eventually afflict Americans and others; that “H.I.V., of course, is a particularly vicious warning shot”; and that it was high time for Washington to deal with “poverty, poor sanitation and political instability” as well as put “a global system of public health and disease surveillance in place.”

Not that Goldberg presented a stark either-or choice, but my reaction was “If we do need to figure out whether to place more AIDS-fighting emphasis on promoting African economic development, or on finding a cure through medical research, isn’t the latter much likelier to deliver major results much sooner?”

As is clear from the Friedman article, Africa’s array of problems continues unabated. And according to no less than the (devoutly globalist) Obama administration, as of last year, the United States was “on the right track to reach most of its “National HIV/AIDS Strategy” goals for 2020 – which seek an America that’s “a place where new HIV infections are rare” and where “high quality, life-extending care” is available.

Im-Politic: Fake Hate Group Facts from the Washington Post

24 Sunday Sep 2017

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Im-Politic

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Abha Bhattarai, ACT for America, Center for Immigration Studies, CIS, hate groups, Im-Politic, Islamic terrorism, Mainstream Media, Mark Krikorian, Muslims, Southern Poverty Law Center, SPLC, terrorism, The Los Angeles Times, Washington Post

What on earth gives with journalists at the Washington Post? Both editors and reporters alike? I ask this because of the outrageous headline in today’s edition, accompanying an equally outrageous article, sliming an organization that’s concerned about the spread of Muslim extremism and terrorism into the United States as a “hate group.”

Not that there’s anything new about mainstream news media and their staffs being dismissive about these dangers. And not that there’s anything new about these newspapers, magazines, broadcast networks, and websites using as their guide to hate groups the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) – even though this organization’s definition of an anti-Muslim extremist can be wildly offbase.

What’s new, and upsetting, about this incident is that the Post itself recently published an article – by the head of the restrictivist immigration organization, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) – that its appearance alone (let alone the evidence it marshaled) revealed that the paper itself took most seriously the case that SPLC hate group ratings are simply biased garbage.

As noted by its Executive Director Mark Krikorian in a Post article just last March, SPLC has labeled CIS a hate group since February.  But as Krikorian also pointed out:

“CIS has testified before Congress more than 100 times over the past 20 years. We’ve also testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and our work has been cited by the Supreme Court and the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General. We’ve done contract work for the Census Bureau and the Justice Department. Our director of research was selected by the National Academies of Sciences as an outside reviewer for last year’s magisterial study of the fiscal and economic impacts of immigration. Our authors include scholars at Harvard,Cornell University, Colorado State University, the University of Maryland and elsewhere. We are one of the most frequently cited sources on immigration in the media (including in The Post).”

And he sensibly concluded:

“Equating a group that has such a track record of engagement in the public policy debate with, for instance, the Holy Nation of Odin has nothing to do with warning the public of ‘hate.’ The SPLC’s true purpose can only be to deprive the American people of points of view they need to hear to make informed and intelligent collective decisions.”

Yet this morning, just six months later, a Post headline declared that “Marriott says it will not cancel conference hosted by anti-Muslim hate group.” In other words, this development was portrayed as a fact. But in the third paragraph, reporter Abha Bhattarai (and clearly her editors) show that the paramount basis for this description was that same Southern Policy Law Center.

Now the group so labeled – ACT for America – is completely separate from Krikorian’s CIS. Here’s how it describes it purpose:

“ACT for America educates citizens and elected officials to impact public policy and protect America from terrorism. As a result, ACT’s grassroots network has driven the education process toward the successful passage of 84 bills in 32 states. ACT for America is continuing to expand its nationwide volunteer network that trains citizens to recognize and help prevent criminal activity and terrorism in the United States while preserving civil liberties protected by the United States Constitution.”

Bhattarai attempted to buttress the SPLC’s finding by reporting that ACT was

“behind anti-Muslim demonstrations across the country this summer that attracted white supremacist groups.

“‘I don’t believe in having Muslims in the United States,’ Francisco Rivera, of the white supremacist group Vanguard America, said at one of the demonstrations.

“‘Their culture is incompatible with ours.’”

Sounds like guilt by association to me. Moreover, there are reasons to view Bhattarai’s verbal brush as excessively broad in a more fundamental sense. Here’s how another big national news organization, The Los Angeles Times, depicted these activities. ACT, it stated, “has supported President Trump’s restrictions on refugees and travel from Muslim-majority countries. It organized protests throughout the country this summer against sharia law, which the group says is incompatible with Western culture.”

That appears to be much more precise — and less damning — phrasing. And I’m inclined to trust in it because the Times handled the headline for its version of this story properly, too:

“Marriott won’t cancel convention of what critics call anti-Muslim hate group.”

So the Times, unlike the Post, seems to understand the difference between a fact and an opinion. But the Post‘s failure in this regard is even less excusable because it had recently run material casting major doubt on the SPLC’s bona fides. In other words, it seems that its own reporters and editors don’t read a lot of what the Post produces. Maybe the rest of us should take this as a hint?

Im-Politic: First Thoughts on Orlando

12 Sunday Jun 2016

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Im-Politic

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

2016 election, Donald Trump, gun control, Hillary Clinton, homeland security, homophobia, Im-Politic, Islamic terrorism, LGBT, Muslims, Obama, Orlando, Orlando attacks, radical Islam, terrorism

We’re still learning about many of the specifics surrounding the horrific Orlando shootings early this morning, but some facts are now clear, and warrant some preliminary thoughts and observations.

First, we now have confirmation from the FBI of a link between killer Omar Mateen and Islamic terrorism. Until a press conference held in Orlando by Florida state and local officials and Bureau agents, the media had been filled with reports – some claiming to be from eyewitnesses – that Mateen had shouted “Allahu Akbar,” a phrase often heard during attacks and on other occasions from ISIS and other Islamic terrorists and extremists.  Other connections were mentioned in the press as well.

But these accounts were simply reports – and especially in the immediate aftermath of an event, reports can be completely inaccurate or misleading. Even ISIS’ claim of responsibility for this atrocity isn’t necessarily definitive proof of a radical Islam angle. Such announcements can be made simply for propaganda purposes.

At the press conference, though, at a little after 3:15 in the afternoon local time, FBI agent Ron Hopper stated that during his call to 9-11 before the attack, Mateen made comments that were “general to the Islamic State.”

Second, it’s now a little after 4 PM, EST, and there’s been nothing from President Obama or the White House on this now unmistakable Islamic terrorist connection. Yet just before 2 in the afternoon, Mr. Obama felt comfortable blaming inadequate gun control in part for the shooting. Based on what was known at the time, I don’t blame him for not rushing to judgment on ISIS et al. But in my view, he does deserve blame for seizing on the opportunity to advance a political view that is anything but obviously central to this incident.

He also deserves blame for waiting so long to go back before the nation and discussing the Islam issue – specially Orlando’s implications for his policy of open-arms welcomes for Middle East refugees, and for his determination (expressed most recently last week) to vilify Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s insistence that Islam and its adherents pose special problems for homeland security that require special approaches.

Third, ever since Trump became the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, it’s been clear to me that his rise to the presidency could be little more than one major domestic or Europe terrorist attack away. Now we have the attack. It will be fascinating to see what the polls tell us about its effect on his candidacy. (Keeping in mind of course how flawed they remain as measures of public opinion.)

Similarly, his likely Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, has enthusiastically heaped Obama-like scorn on Trump’s emphasis on the extremist Muslim threat to homeland security. Today, she’s already beaten the president to the punch in linking the Orlando attack to “international terror groups.” But her failure to refer to Islam signals her continuing unwillingness to acknowledge its prominence in global terrorism and therefore a homeland security issue – now more than ever at least partly for fear of seeming to vindicate Trump.

Fourth, it’s a tragic fact of history that shocking violence against persecuted groups has often been needed to turn public opinion significantly towards greater tolerance. The Holocaust, for example, greatly weakened (but did not end) anti-Semitism around the world. Violence against black Americans in the Deep South during the 1960s powerfully advanced the cause of civil rights. We can only hope that the Orlando shootings help rid the United States, and the rest of the world, of homophobia. For denying or even downplaying this attack’s nature as an assault on gays and the broader LGBT community is as unacceptable as denying or downplaying the attack as an act of Islamic terrorism.  And that goes for Donald Trump, too.

Im-Politic: Should Hillary Clinton Give Bill the (Campaigning) Heave-Ho?

02 Thursday Jun 2016

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Im-Politic

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

2016 elections, Bill Clinton, border security, bridge to the 21st century, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Im-Politic, Immigration, Islam, Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic terrorism, Jobs, reeducation, retraining, San Bernardino, Saudi Arabia, Tashfeen Malik, terrorism, Trade, white working class

If I were Hillary Clinton, I’d be having big second thoughts about how extensively I’d want to use husband Bill Clinton as a surrogate in her presidential campaign. For the former president keeps – I assume unwittingly – laying all sorts of traps for the still likely Democratic nominee on the super-sensitive and explosive issues of the economy and immigration-related threats of terrorism. This report of a an appearance Bill Clinton made yesterday in New Jersey shows why his stumping is so problematic for Ms. Clinton.

Take the economy. Although at the 2012 Democratic convention, Bill Clinton made a politically brilliant case for the Obama administration’s economic record, he sure sounded more downbeat at Union College: “All over the world there is stagnant economic growth, stagnant incomes, rising inequality and deep arguments over what to do about our increasing diversity,” he contended. Since the United States remains part of that world, this indictment sounds an awful lot like it includes President Obama’s second term – which former Obama Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in no position to condemn.

Bill Clinton also claimed to recognize a major component of America’s economic failings – the worsening plight of the white, working class that has helped foster the rise of presumptive Republican candidate Donald Trump. In Mr. Clinton’s words, “We all need to recognize that white, non-college-educated Americans have seen great drops in their income, have seen great increases in their unemployment rate, have seen drops in their life expectancy….”

Trouble is, his credibility on these issues lies in tatters. In part, he’s a fatally flawed messenger on this score because the job- and wage-killing trade deals he spearheaded as president starting with NAFTA deserve such blame for white plight (along with undercutting minorities’ progress). Similarly the former president’s vague call that Trump supporters and the like “be brought along to the future” echoes his utopian presidential promise to help Americans harmed by trade liberalization by building a “bridge to the twenty-first century” constructed of retraining and reeducation programs.

Nor did Bill Clinton help his wife’s cause by insisting (in the reporter’s words) “that fortified borders and immigration bans can’t prevent terrorism.”

According to the former president, “The last serious terrorist incident in the United States occurred in San Bernardino, Calif. Those people were converted over the internet.” But although that seems clear for Syed Rizwan Farook, it’s anything but for his wife, Tashfeen Malik. While still living in her native Pakistan, Malik reportedly “attended the Al-Huda Institute in Multan, part of a chain of women-only religious schools in Pakistan.” Al-Huda says it aims to promote a peaceful message, but it’s “known for its puritanical interpretation of Islam” – an interpretation that’s played a decisive role in fostering terrorism both theologically (by promoting intolerance) and institutionally (through activities sponsored by the Saudi theocracy that champions such reactionary values).

Indeed, Malik also reportedly changed dramatically following a trip to Saudi Arabia several years before immigrating to the United States. And speaking of her entry into America, Republican Members of Congress have charged that Malik’s visa application was never properly vetted by U.S. immigration authorities.

Mr. Bill Clinton’s other comments on immigration and terrorism issues ranged from the ignorant to the inane. Apparently the former president thought he could definitively establish Trump as a kook by noting, “You can build all the walls you want. You can build them all across Canada; they got a bunch of foreigners in Canada.” But even under President Obama – no immigration hard-liner – “The US-Canadian border [has] increasingly [become] a national security hotspot watched over by drones, surveillance towers, and agents of the Department of Homeland Security.”

And kooky is the only apt description for President Clinton’s suggestion that such border security measures are pathetically irrelevant because “You could not keep out the social media.” In other words, because all dangers can’t be prevented, all prevention efforts are pointless.

President Clinton could well find his campaign mojo again before the November elections. No politician who has won the presidency twice should ever be underestimated, much less counted out. But time keeps getting shorter, and unless Mr. Clinton ups his game soon, his new boss might soon have to send him the Trump-ian message, “You’re fired.”

Im-Politic: Can You Pass This “Islamic Terrorism” Quiz?

22 Tuesday Dec 2015

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Im-Politic

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Al Qaeda, American Muslims, Bernie Sanders, Caliphate, Hillary Clinton, Im-Politic, ISIS, Islam, Islamic terrorism, Middle East, Muslims, Obama, radical Islam, Sharia, terrorism

Since using the terms “Islamic terrorism” and even “radical Islam” to describe the operations and ideologies of groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda remains such a hot topic, here’s a quiz on the subject that has some surprising and revealing answers. But first, a little background.

President Obama and supporters of his general Middle East approach – including all three major Democratic presidential candidates – have refused to use these characterizations, and voice two main, related objections. First, they explain, the phrase falsely implies that anything in Islamic theology endorses the kind of violence these organizations have perpetrated, and that their actions are supported by anything more than the tiniest fraction of the world’s Muslims. Second, as a result, they insist that using phrases like Islamic terrorism foolishly and needlessly antagonizes that huge majority of Muslims at home and abroad whose cooperation anti-terrorism success will require.

As I see it, these positions hold little water. Other than Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump (who has proposed banning all non-citizen Muslims from entering the United States) , no significant American political figure has even suggested that all or most Muslims pose a threat to U.S. security. Nor has any such figure spoken of Islam as a fundamentally barbaric, dangerous religion.

What many major American leaders have said is that active and passive support for ISIS-style terrorism and abusive and violence-breeding intolerance and misogyny is entirely too common in the ranks of the world’s Muslims. In fact, among these leaders has been one Barack Obama, who has publicly bemoaned the lack of adequate push-back against these views and practices by Muslims theocrats, clerics, and their followers worldwide.

But let’s leave this particular debate aside for the moment, and get to that quiz.

Question 1: Who said, “The struggle against Islamic-based terrorism will be not simply a military campaign but a battle for public opinion in the Islamic world”?

Answer: Then-Senator Barack Obama. The quote is taken from his 2006 book, the Audacity of Hope. Nor was this a one-time mention. At the beginning of the volume, he blamed “Islamic militants” for the 2008 attack in Mumbai, India that claimed 195 lives.

Just as important, why else would the United States and its allies need to wage “a battle for public opinion in the Islamic world” unless a sizable portion of that world was not at least highly sympathetic to terrorism committed in that religion’s name?

Question 2: Who said, “We should pursue a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy, one that embeds our mission against ISIS within a broader struggle against radical jihadism that is bigger than any one group, whether it’s al-Qaida or ISIS or some other network.” Hint: It was the same American who said, “[O]nce and for all, the Saudis, the Qataris, and others need to stop their citizens from directly funding extremist organizations, as well as the schools and mosques around the world that have set too many young people on a path to radicalization.”

Answer: Former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton. The same Hillary Clinton who said (in the same speech!), “Islam is not our adversary. Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism. The obsession in some quarters with a clash of civilization or repeating the specific words radical Islamic terrorism isn’t just a distraction. It gives these criminals, these murderers, more standing than they deserve. It actually plays into their hands by alienating partners we need by our side.”

Yet if Muslims “have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism,” who are all those Saudis, and Qataris? Unitarians? Who are the “radical jihadists”? Hindus? And what’s with the mention of “schools and mosques”? Unless there are enough of them…to mention?

The “distraction” and related “alienation” points are puzzling, too. How can one on the one hand implicate mosques and Muslim schools in the “radicalization” process and on the other hand avoid naming and condemning them for preaching and teaching what can only be a form of Islam? Conversely, does Clinton believe that simply omitting the word “Islam” from the adversary’s label will fool Muslims everywhere into thinking that at least a branch of their faith isn’t being singled out? From another vantage point, what kind of Muslim would be fatally offended by American officials explicitly pointing out the obvious? One who’s genuinely recruit-able to anti-ISIS efforts? Or one looking for an excuse to sign up with or finance or otherwise support the terrorists?

Question 3: Who said, “This is a war for the soul of Islam”? Hint: It’s also the presidential candidate whose website says “ISIS is a major terrorist group currently attempting to establish an Islamic Caliphate—a group of countries under strict sharia, or Islamic, law….” Answer: Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Sanders of course has never been seen as a Muslim hate-monger. But as with President Obama’s “battle for public opinion” point, if a war is needed to win the soul of Islam for moderation, doesn’t that mean that lots of the soul is deeply – indeed, violently – opposed? And referring to the Caliphate and sharia law can easily be seen as the kind of legitimation that Clinton is warning against.

Using the term “radical Islam” by no means slanders the large numbers of Muslims inside the United States and out who lead peaceful, law-abiding lives, let alone those who have served this nation and others with honor and distinction in public life, law enforcement and first responder positions, and the armed forces. Yet if the threat posed by ISIS, Al Qaeda, and similar terrorists can indeed be neutralized by fighting a war of ideas and ideologies (and because of the Middle East’s deep dysfunctionality, I have major doubts), victory will require allies who can take straight, and perhaps even brutally honest talk. Otherwise, how can precious resources be targeted precisely – and therefore effectively?

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