History, Realpolitik Lessons from Khashoggi Killing

Here’s what history teaches us: When an absolute monarch or would-be-monarch-with-absolute-powers expresses displeasure with someone within their access there are bound to be sycophants who will eliminate the source of that displeasure. 

Did Henry II of England command the death of Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, or did he merely express frustration of his one-time friend and current antagonist when he is said to have said, “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?”

Who knows? All we do know is that four of Henry’s loyal subjects rode to Canterbury and did away with Becket in the cathedral. 

That was in the year 1170. Yet, even in medieval times kings accepted responsibility for actions taken on their behalf, at least when the murdered is well known and admired by the populace. So Henry accepted blame and took some, light, punishment. 

In 21st century Saudi Arabia—among the remaining principalities that could pass for having Middle Ages morals and values—the monarchy is not prone to accept human frailty or responsibility, no matter how damning the evidence of its complicity appears to be in the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, an outspoken critic of the Saudi regime living in the United States. Khashoggi was killed October 2 inside the Saudi Arabian embassy in Istanbul by a Saudi hit squad linked to the crown prince after he was lured there on the pretense he could obtain proof he had divorced his wife so he could legally marry his Turkish fiancee (Though Turkey is an Islamic country, it does not accept polygamy.) 

Targeted assassinations of a country’s dissidents are not exclusively a Saudi province. Kim Jong-un has dispatched operatives to permanently silence voices, even those of relatives, he doesn’t want talking about his treatment of North Korea. Vladimir Putin has seen fit to rid the world of Russian truth-sayers about his autocratic rule of Russia.  A common thread among these tyrants is that with impunity they care not that these rubouts may occur on foreign soil. 

(These assassinations are distinctly different from those perpetrated by Israel. Israel has killed terrorists involved in the murder of its citizens and those who incite other to seek its destruction. Similarly, the United States approved the assassinations of al-Qaeda and ISIS leadership.)

The brazenness of the Khashoggi killing, with lurid as yet unconfirmed details of torture, dismemberment with a bone saw, and the pathetic, infantile attempt to explain away his disappearance and subsequent admission of the cause of death, has challenged the sensibilities of many in the Western world and those in the Middle East who are not in the Saudi sphere of influence.

But let’s keep in perspective the fact that Khashoggi was a journalist, a contributor to The Washington Post. Had he worked in another profession, or for a less renowned publication, the American furor over his murder might have been no greater than the outcry over the deaths of the 45 other journalists killed around the world in 2018. 

As he hardly has met an autocrat he doesn’t feel akin to, Donald Trump is loathe to criticize the Saudi monarchy. He is mindful, some say too mindful, of the extensive investment Saudi Arabia intends to make in American arms and aircraft (Trump inflates the price tag, but it is substantial in dollars amounts and the number of jobs it will support). As with other presidents before him, Trump’s response to Saudi indiscretion is tethered by realpolitik. 

The bottom line is America will hyperventilate for a while over Khashoggi’s assassination, Saudi Arabia will remain ruled by reactionaries, and despots will continue to confront, assault and kill their adversaries wherever they choose. Recall that for all his bluster about Saudi Arabia’s complicity in killing Khashoggi on Turkish soil, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey, had no regrets about having his thugs attack protesters during his visit to Washington last year. 

Time to Party Up, Support Obamacare and Feed the Hungry

Today marks the end of the latest cycle of robo calls and, at least in my case, coming home to a porch littered with multiple copies of campaign literature beseeching me to vote for Noam Bramson for county executive of Westchester. Interestingly, nowhere on the flyers does it indicate Bramson’s party affiliation. Am I supposed to know the absence of any red color on the flyer means Bramson is a Democrat through and through? 

Why is it that almost all election literature, particularly those annoying road signs, and all radio and television ads fail to identify a candidate’s political party? It’s a real bugaboo of mine. Candidates should be proud of their party endorsement. It should be mandatory to include on all campaign material.

Simply Put, We Can't Start Over Again: No self-respecting Democrat can be happy with the launch of the Affordable Care Act. The Obamacare rollout is making it difficult to watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report. The humor in the foul-up of the launch is painful to watch. At least no one is dying because of the screw-up. No country is being bombed back to the Stone Age or into the arms of al-Qaeda.

The only reason I’m not in favor of scrapping the program and beginning anew is that Republicans would never cooperate in drafting a more workable and still comprehensive bill that would care for tens of millions of Americans who need medical coverage. That’s a given, given the reluctance of numerous GOP-controlled state governments to enter into the federal program. They have refused to expand Medicaid eligibility. They have placed stumbling blocks before the navigators who are supposed to help citizens sign up for Obamacare. They have continually tried to defund enactment of the law. 

So we’re stuck with what we have. It’s not perfect. But it’s better than the “you’re-on-your-own” Republican plan for medical coverage.

How’s He Doing? Based on a Saturday Night Live skit three days ago, it turns out I have much in common with Afro-Americans. In a skit entitled “How’s He Doing,” black performers repeatedly affirmed their allegiance to President Obama despite missteps with Obamacare and the National Security Agency wiretapping scandal, as well as hypothetical questions about his possible conversion to another religion and his choice of an all white all-star basketball team to play with him against a Russian team assembled by Vladimir Putin. 

The tone of the skit was set when the host of the faux talk show asked, was there any time in the last month when you wished you would have voted for Mitt Romney? Uncontrollable laughter was the response. See for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI0ib11evdU

Did you eat well today? Yesterday? The day before? Millions of your fellow citizens did not. On top of their hunger they had to swallow a sizable cut in the food stamp assistance program with Republicans threatening even deeper more emaciating reductions.

Waiting to oust GOP congressmen is impractical. We need to act individually to reap a collective response to hunger in America. Do at least what I do every month. Donate food to your local food bank. Don't just send a check, though money is always welcome. Don't just drop off groceries at your church or synagogue once a year. Go to Costco or some other low-cost provider and buy food for the hungry. $50 a month, or more if you can afford it. Take the food yourself to the food bank. Talk with the volunteers. Educate yourself to the needs of your neighbors. It will wind up being among your most worthy activities of the month.

What We Want, What We Need

What we need and what we want in a president sometimes doesn’t mesh. We need someone reflective, not rash, who sets a strong policy course but who is willing to adapt to changing circumstances. What we want is someone bold, righteously aggressive, presidential in demeanor, a good talker.

What we don’t want is someone perceived as weak, someone we visualize waiting for the tumblers to fall into place in their brain before they spew out the answer they think we want to hear. We want sharp, quick command of facts (even if, in reality, we are given falsities or half-facts—it’s the appearance, unfortunately, that matters most to most of us). We don’t want a lot of ums, ahs, and aaaands. 

Which is to say, during tonight’s second presidential debate, actually less of a debate than a conversation with the American public, Barack Obama must show HE is THE president, that his command of the facts and themes of this election are at his fingertips and upon his tongue, that he will vigorously defend his administration, blasting away at misrepresentations and driving home the inconsistencies and warts of his challenger, Mitt Romney, a self-declared “extreme conservative” who has been campaigning of late as a moderate. 

Romney’s given ample ammunition for exposure—Obama must ignite those charges with the same conviction and steely resolve he demonstrated in ordering the assassinations of Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda operatives. Al-Qaeda wants to destroy Western civilization. It is not too extreme for a progressive to say conservatives want to destroy America as it is today and return it to a time when government did not provide a safety net for its citizens, a time when the quality and quantity of health care depended on the quantity of dollars in your pocketbook, when equality of opportunity rarely extended beyond rich white menfolk. 

Some might say I am being too extreme, that Republicans simply want to transfer government back down to the levels closest to the people, from federal to state to local municipalities. One need only look to the meningitis epidemic coursing through the country to see the danger inherent in placing trust in such a transfer. The compounding pharmacy that distributed the lethal doses of tainted serum was under state, not federal, supervision. Do we really want to shift environmental oversight of our air, land and waterways to the states? Immigration rights? Health care? Do we want a system where one’s protection is based on the wheel of fortune of which state one was born in? 

During last week’s vice presidential debate the candidates were asked how their Roman Catholic faith affected their public life, particularly as it pertained to the right to have an abortion. They both gave from-the-heart responses, but I was more touched by Joe Biden’s answer as it first voiced the Church’s central mission to help the less fortunate. Biden then expressed the theme enunciated by John F. Kennedy back in 1960 as he sought to be the nation’s first Catholic elected to national office, namely, that he would not impose his religious beliefs on those who did not share his faith.

I have no doubt Mitt Romney will try to project an image of moderation tonight. He’ll try to be an endearing, thoughtful, compassionate candidate whose only mission is to save America from a decline he sees as inevitable if Obama is re-elected. He’ll be smooth talking. He is, after all, versed in being a salesman, be it for his religion or for his former company, Bain Capital. Salesmen are smooth talkers. They’ll tell you what you want to hear (which isn’t always the truth). They’ll work hard to close the deal. 

We’ll see just how much Obama wants to keep his job by how well he does tonight. He doesn’t have to cop an in-your-face attitude toward Romney. He has to look engaged. He has to prime specifics about his accomplishments—saving the auto industry, getting a middle class tax cut as part of the economic stimulus bill, passing Obamacare, killing Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders, restoring American prestige across the world, lowering unemployment, creating a positive environment for private sector jobs, protecting consumers, passing financial oversight regulations even as the stock market has doubled since he took office—while strongly contrasting Romney’s prior statements to the comforting, warm uncle positions Mitt will espouse tonight. Use Romney’s own words to, quoting Shakespeare, “hoist him with his own petard.”

Back to the Stone Age

In the wake of the killings of four American diplomats Tuesday night in the consulate in Benghazi, Libya, now thought to be perpetrated by adherents to or sympathizers with al-Qaeda, and angry mobs in several Moslem countries protesting against the United States and other Western countries over a less than flattering depiction of the prophet Mohammed in a movie produced by right wing Christian conservatives, it’s time to ask a fundamental question—would we all be better off reconsidering monotheism in favor of good old-fashioned polytheism? 

Seems to me the ancients fought wars just for the sake of conquest, not in the name of religion. It was a whole lot easier back then to know your enemy and to defend yourself. Nowadays, at least from the time Jehovah told the Israelites to rid Canaan of the seven nations who lived there, or maybe even before that when He smote the Egyptians with 10 plagues so the Hebrews slaves could be freed to worship Him in the desert, societies have been killing each other over which one has the one true god. 

Back in those idolatrous times, gods didn’t move around. They had territorial boundaries. Only when monotheism expressed a universal presence did the concept of a singular god residing everywhere take hold, with the inference that He could be conjured up to save the souls of Indians, Black Africans, Asians and other indigenous peoples not privileged to have been touched by the grace of Jesus or Mohammed. 

Of course, even those so graced have not been immune to religious warfare. Catholics have fought among themselves. Catholics have fought Protestants. Russian Orthodox have fought among themselves. Christians have fought Muslims. Muslims have fought Muslims. All of the above have fought Jews. Religions that espouse peace and love for all are guilty not just of denying peace and love to outsiders but also to sects within their own religion. In the name of god, how could we allow such a defamation of religion to occur?

Muslim extremists have usurped their religion’s embodiment to the world. The West is appalled by Sharia law practices. In Northern Mali, thieves had hands and feet cut off in public demonstrations of justice. Accused of adultery, men and women have been stoned to death in Afghanistan. Honor killings are still common in backwater villages. Western nations are powerless to stop these practices. Indeed, many Muslim extremists welcome a return to the era of the Caliphates, back to the 7th to 12th centuries. 

Perhaps we should let them go back in time. It is futile and foolish to believe we will ever be able to soothe the savage breast of a people who reject Western culture and codes of behavior. As insulting and provocative as the film “Innocence of Muslims” may be, it fell within the bounds of freedom of speech cherished by Western societies. This wasn’t the first time the Muslim world has reacted violently to the alleged slander of Mohammed. Nor can we expect it to be the last, given our tilt away from censorship except in extreme cases of national security. Perhaps the answer is disengagement.

Let’s put aside for a moment the West’s collective need for oil buried under the sands of Arabia. Let’s consider how we might disengage and assist the Muslim world in its quest for yesteryear. Let’s start by not supplying them with any modern convenience—no TVs, no cars, no cell phones, no computers, no radios, no modern medicines, no irrigation projects, no aircraft, no trains, no Internet, no indoor plumbing, nothing but handwritten books, no modern military equipment. You get the picture. 

Naturally, this idea has more than its share of problems and hyperbole. We’d never get the industrialized world to embargo its goods to Muslim countries. And we still need its oil. But we really must figure out a way to stimulate a culture war within Islam, forcing its citizens to choose if they’d like to live in the 21st or 10th century.  

During the Vietnam War, General Curtis LeMay suggested we bomb North Vietnam “back into the Stone Age.” I’m not comfortable with that game plan. I think we’d have a better shot at world peace if we voluntarily return to idolatry. 

What I'd Like to Hear, Part II

Having been disappointed by Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech, I thought it only fair to delineate what I expect from Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats this week during their national convention. Yes, Obama inherited a blown up economy, two quagmire wars and mounting deficits. It won’t be enough to recount his successes in bringing home the troops from Iraq and setting a timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan. It won’t be enough to say he ordered the mission that killed Osama bin Laden and many other drone strikes that have decimated the leadership of al-Qaeda. It won’t be enough to say he saved the auto industry. It won’t be enough to say unemployment would be a lot worse without the stimulus package he pushed through. It won’t be enough to say Obamacare was passed. 

It won’t be enough because Americans always choose to look forward with nary a glance in the rear view mirror. So, Barack, what will you do for us in the next four years? How will you work with Congress? Will you vigorously stump for a Democratic majority in the House and Senate, or will you fight just for the Oval Office chair Clint Eastwood parodied last week? How will you convince us you would not squander a majority in both branches of the legislature if you’re lucky enough to get them? How will you show us you wouldn’t be an emasculated president if Republicans win control of the Senate? Or even if they just retain their House majority? 

Let’s be brutally honest. The last two years amply demonstrated that being chief executive vouchsafed your war powers and your foreign policy visions. But Republicans in the House and Senate effectively stymied your domestic initiatives once Democrats lost working majorities in both chambers. So as they say in Texas Hold ‘Em poker, are you going to go “all in?” Will you appeal directly to the American public and make the case for Democratic congressional and Senate candidates? Congress’ approval rating is at an all-time low because nothing, nothing is being done under the present configuration. 

You need to sell the total Democratic package. You need to set forth a vision and a program, a specific program, to get more people back to work. To create more jobs. To reduce the deficit. To prosecute white collar criminals in the financial industry with the same vigor that ordinary people face when they violate the law. To rebuild the infrastructure of our country, not with lofty words but with real projects that put people on the payroll. Will you fight for an increase in the minimum wage so working families can gain some additional purchasing power? How will you protect the solvency of Medicare and Social Security? How will you project American strength versus China and Russia? Romney has chosen belligerency. You must show strength, not appeasement. 

Romney tried to sell disappointment in Obama offset by trust in a largely unknown challenger. Obama must emerge from his convention as a battler, a leader who will fight not just to retain his job but as someone who will champion the middle and working classes with specific programs. Programs to create jobs. Jobs. Jobs.

If Someone Comes to Kill You ...

Most Tuesday mornings from October through early June I participate in a Bible study class at our temple. We’re making our way through Exodus this year. Part of today’s lesson from chapter 22 of Exodus dealt with the concept of self-defense. If a home invasion happens when it is light, it is not permissible to kill the intruder as it is presumed he would flee or surrender if discovered. However, if a thief enters a home at night, a resident may kill the intruder with impunity as it may be presumed the criminal would have had murderous intent if confronted. 

This reasoning led to a long-accepted rabbinic maxim, “He who comes to kill you, kill him first.” 

Today, June 5, was a most appropriate time to consider this precept. It is the 45th anniversary of the Six Day War, Israel’s pre-emptive strike on Egypt and Syria. (Interestingly and coincidentally, today the United States confirmed Al-Qaeda’s second in command had been killed Monday, presumably in a drone attack inside Pakistan.)

The 1967 crisis in the Middle East had been building for months. Egypt expelled United Nations peacekeepers who guarded the Sinai border with Israel. It closed the Straits of Tiran to ships bound for Eilat. A blockade is considered an act of war. Arab countries vowed to drive Israelis into the sea, to dismember the Jewish state. 

Jews the world over feared another Holocaust. Anyone with relatives or friends in Israel were doubly worried. My sister, Lee, was in Israel, studying at Hebrew University. For the last few weeks she had been packing crackers for army rations. 

Monday morning, June 5, 1967, I drove from our parents’ home to Brooklyn College, taking up my usual position at the Knight House “fraternity” table in the Boylan Hall cafeteria. Around 10, word started to trickle in that war had broken out. This was not the era of instant worldwide communications, of CNN or cell phones, of 24-hour news cycles. Israel controlled the dissemination of news from its territory. In those first, terrifying, stomach-churning hours, the only reports we heard were those coming from Egypt, communiqués about Arab troops advancing on Tel Aviv, of Zionists falling in a jihad of epic proportions.

It was not until well into the afternoon or early evening that the true picture of the day’s events became known. The startling revelation of Israel’s air power superiority, coupled with its armored division successes, exceeded even the most optimistic expectations of the 19-year-old country’s supporters. 

Sometimes it is hard for contemporary observers to fully comprehend the fragility of Israel’s existence. From being considered a David facing the Arab Goliath in 1967, the roles have been reversed in the ensuing 45 years. Yet even today a visitor to Israel cannot be anything but wary when hostile borders surround the state, which is but a speck of green in an otherwise sandy expanse. Artillery fire could easily reach Israel’s population centers back in 1967. As it can today. It’s too much to expect friendly neighbors. Secure, peaceful borders, however, are legitimate demands. But if one side is still determined to annihilate you, rising up early to kill them is not just a biblical injunction, it’s a present day imperative. 

Reflections on September 11

Inside my cranium all sorts of thoughts, emotions and memories swirl about, battling for supremacy.

I get it. I understand media fixation on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. But I’m struggling with my own acceptance of the commemoration, as if paying respect to the dead in some way can assuage the tragedy that has befallen our nation by the subsequent acts of our elected leaders who chose to plunge us into two intractable, interminable wars and into a political no-fly zone where government by negotiation and compromise is as foreign as an al-Qaeda peace offering.

I can’t bring myself to read but a handful of the articles spewed out by the omnipresent media. I can’t bring myself to watch special after special depicting the loss of our seeming innocence 10 years ago. September 11 without a doubt was a national catastrophe, but it was not the first time our country suffered physical and emotional scars, some deeper and more conflicted than the sudden though perhaps expected assault by an enemy committed to our destruction as a beacon of civilization.

We lost 2,983 mostly civilian souls 10 years ago. An almost incomprehensible tally. But not unprecedented, not in sheer numbers the largest of any one day toll, nor the biggest in percentage to total population. On the killing fields of Antietam, near Sharpsburg, MD, on September 17, 1862, the armies of the North and South inflicted the highest single day carnage in our nation’s history: 3,654 died, almost 20,000 more were injured. The dead represented .00011% of the U.S. population of 31,443,000. Put into perspective, the equivalent loss of life against 2001 census figures would have been 31,361. Antietam. Aside from Civil War buffs, hardly anyone takes note of September 17, I’d venture to say.

We do remember and commemorate Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 1941, when 2,459 perished, .000018% of our then population. Film of the sneak attack was as visible in its day as the tumbling of the Twin Towers.

Other seminal moments have been seared into our national conscience: 274 sailors killed in the the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana harbor February 15, 1898, that precipitated the Spanish-American War; the sinking of the Lusitania May 7, 1915, with the loss of 1,198 passengers and crew, including 128 Americans. Though a British ship, the torpedoing of the Lusitania fueled U.S. entry into World War I two years later after Germany began a new campaign of indiscriminate U-boat attacks on Atlantic shipping; the now refuted attacks by North Vietnamese gunboats on the USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin August 2-4, 1964. No one died in that incident; from 1965 until U.S. involvement in Vietnam ended in 1975, nearly 58,000 Americans perished.

Perhaps part of my antipathy to September 11 is I knew no one who died that day, though one of our friends surely escaped death by having the good fortune to reschedule a morning meeting to his midtown office rather than in the headquarters of AON in 2 World Trade Center.

Perhaps another part of me is disturbed by the failure of our government to seek shared sacrifice in the war on terror. I’m not an advocate of a draft, but paying for the wars with a more equitable tax schedule, especially for the wealthy, would have been appropriate. Moreover, equipping our troops with the right materiel should have been a no-brainer, along with providing top notch veterans medical care and employment help once their tours of duty ended. Of course, launching an undermanned, trumped up war in Iraq instead of pursuing al-Qaeda in Afghanistan cannot be ignored, either.

Perhaps I’m distant from the commemorations because on September 11, 2001, I was in Phoenix, attending a technology conference. I turned over in bed at 6 am and decided to alter my usual business travel routine. Instead of turning on the TV to watch the news, I picked up the USA Today at my front door and returned to bed to read. A half hour later, 9:30 in New York, I called my office to listen to voice mail. My brother Bernie in Maryland had left a cryptic message asking if I was all right. I transferred to Mary Beth, our managing editor. Perhaps she could explain why he might have asked a question so strange 10 years ago, so commonplace today. She stunned me saying two planes had flown into the Twin Towers, one of which had already imploded. For the next several hours I lay transfixed in bed watching hell transform lower Manhattan.

I called Gilda. Along with the rest of the Beth Israel Medical Center staff, she was assigned to prepare and wait for survivors who never materialized. At 8 pm, she was sent home.

I was marooned in Phoenix until Saturday. Sunday morning, after an overnight stop over in Chicago, I flew back to LaGuardia Airport, a trip I had made some 25 times a year for the prior 25 years. More than 500 approaches to the city, in daytime and evening, never tiring of the spectacle under wing. At first, if not at a window seat, I would crane my neck to snag a view of the stalagmites of steel and glass rising from the bedrock of Manhattan.

Now, on September 17, 2001, as the flight from Chicago descended in the sky above New Jersey, from 50 miles out plumes of smoke could be seen still rising from the spot where the World Trade Center stood less than a week earlier. As the plane glided up the East River, even without the Twin Towers the Manhattan skyline was still spectacular, as majestic as the Rockies or the Grand Canyon.

I had visited the World Trade Center many times for business meetings. I had eaten in Windows on the World, taking in the food and the view. I was a dazzled tourist on the observation floor, sitting in the scooped out seats flush against windows that let you peer almost straight down from more than 1,000 feet in the air. I miss the towers.

But perhaps because I’m from an ethnic culture that has known more than its fair share of trauma, unspeakable, often unimaginable, offenses, and yet extraordinary resilience and rebirth, I can’t stop for a day dedicated to one event. I can pause and hope we will be vigilant enough to prevent a similarly invasive assault on our way of life. I hope those who lost loved ones always remember them. I hope their fellow countrymen never forget them. But I also hope we keep our collective grief in context while rededicating our nation to values that made America the most remarkable and envied in the world.