Existential Threats: Jihadists or Neo-Nazis?

Which form of intolerance is a greater threat to Western civilization—extremist Muslims or neo-Nazis?

I posed that question to a buddy who had sent me an article by Giulio Meotti, cultural editor for Il Foglio, posted by Gatestone Institute, an international policy council chaired by John Bolton, former U.N. ambassador, the gist of which argued that Western civilization is endangered by jihadists, much as Eastern Christianity (in Arab lands) has been “extinguished” by them.  

My friend, a former elementary and high school classmate who is a retired U.S. foreign service officer, replied, “Intolerance is not the issue; the issue is how many innocent civilians have died world-wide traced to Salafist ideology.

“I served for 8 years at the U.S. Special Operations Command on Macdill Air Force Base, under Bush 43 and Obama. The Command categorized U.S. homegrown political extremes, from both the right and left, as the responsibility of Homeland Security and the FBI.  We never viewed Occupy Wall Street or the Alex Jones/Roger Spencer acolytes as an existential threat to the homeland.

“The 24/7 focus of our ops cell was draining the ideological swamp of global Jihadism.  Open Source reference tools outline the global reach of both AQ ( al-Queda) and ISIS and their death toll.

“Yes. I am more concerned with Salafism. ADL (Anti—Defamation League) and The AJC (American Jewish Committee) have the toolbox to handle these American losers on the right. 

“Europe replaced the Jews with Muslims.... that is their problem.”

Never one to shy away from a debate, my response followed:

“I respectfully but strongly disagree. I more fear a destruction of Western democratic values than a takeover of Western governments by a segment of a religion whose vast majority have shown a desire to be part of Western society with its openness and inclusiveness. 

“Sure, you can point to the wanton killings of non Muslims, and even Muslims from the wrong sect, as proof that Islamic extremists are evil. But their killings in Europe and the United States and Canada are insignificant (except, of course, to their victims and their respective families) compared to the “sanctioned” deaths we tolerate from permissive gun laws and violations of environmental and food/drug safety laws. In one year alone the U.S. has more deaths by guns than the total Americans killed by al-Queda, ISIS and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And that includes 9/11. 

“We are witnessing a resurgence of fascism and totalitarianism in Western countries. While it might be said to be ignited by the presence of Muslim immigrants, both legal and illegal, it is not the sole reason. Income inequality and the replacement of meaningful jobs by technology or outsourcing have destabilized economies. 

“Western values are being challenged by a return to tribalism. Parts of Italy and Spain seek independence. Britain has Brexit. Poland is becoming anti-Semitic again not just to Jews but first to Muslims. Then to Jews. 

“Under the guise of trying to control the spread of Islamic terrorism the West is relaxing its commitment to shared values of democracy. We are letting fear dominate our thinking. 

“I am not advocating any abandonment of the battle against Islamic extremism. Hunt them down. Do not let them acquire WMDs (weapons of mass destruction). But do not let the battle destroy our principles. No torture. To the extent possible no civilian collateral casualties. No support for despots who deny their countrymen civil liberties. 

“Radical Islam was born from the oppression Arab rulers practiced on their people with the willing consent of America and other Western powers. That fact cannot be denied. Sadly, even if the extremists were to secure their own country, as ISIS has shown, they would be equally if not more repressive and evil than the rulers they would have ousted. What is clear is that the vast majority of ordinary Muslims reject extremism. 

“To prevent radical thought from spreading in the West we need to provide a stable economic platform plus education and civil rights to all. Regrettably, some will still not accept Western civilization. They will terrorize us. But they will be no more effective than the Las Vegas shooter. Yes, they will kill an untold number of Americans but unless we capitulate they will not be able to kill off our ideals.” 

I await his reply.

Brussels and the True Threat to our Values

Gilda and I have flown into the Brussels airport several times. We’ve walked around Brussels. For that matter, we’ve walked Paris and London and Copenhagen, as well as Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Rome, Florence, Venice, Tokyo, Moscow and St. Petersburg. We’ve walked all over Israel. At least three times a week we are in Manhattan. In short, we’ve been to many places terrorists— Islamic jihadists or run-of-the-mill types—would go to sabotage normal life.

I don’t know how to combat fanaticism. But I am certain it is not through repression. Even in totalitarian states individuals willing to forfeit their lives can blow up complacency. Not deliberate complacency. Just everyday vigilance gone soft because no society can maintain 24/7/365 red alert status against the deranged or misguided. 

So we’re left with trepidation mixed with ernest resolve. Fear of flying balanced by an unwillingness to let the terrorists win in their random assault on our liberties to travel as we please, to dine out, to attend concerts or commute to work.

Fear of new attacks is driving more people to consider Donald Trump a rational choice for president. No doubt fear is a powerful motivator. One can only hope that fear doesn’t trump (pun intended) more rational emotions like decency, tolerance, integrity and compassion. Otherwise, the terrorists surely would have succeeded in toppling Western values.

Are you afraid ISIS is an existential threat to America? Don’t be silly. We are in no danger of losing a battle, much less a war, with ISIS or any other extremist organization or country. Our military is the strongest in the world, in the history of the world.

But America could be lost if we allow our values and system of government to be eroded. Look no further than the Republican scheme to undermine the constitutional process of nominating and confirming an appointment to the Supreme Court because, the GOP says, the next justice would have a long term impact on the future of the country and therefore should be chosen by the next president elected by the people, ignoring the reality that the people chose Barack Obama, not once but twice, to serve for full four-year terms. 

There is nothing in the Constitution that requires the Senate to vote on a presidential nomination within a specified number of days. But by suggesting that in the last year of office a president should not nominate a justice Senate Republicans are emasculating the powers of the chief executive. By extension, they might also argue that a president in his last year in office should not conduct foreign policy, should not advocate legislation, should not command our armed forces. All these tasks would affect the future of our country, as would a successful nomination to the Supreme Court. The Senate has a right to reject a nomination but it is constitutional malfeasance to not even meet with, interview or schedule a vote on the president’s choice. 

Would-be presidents Trump and Ted Cruz would like to abrogate our values in other ways pertaining to the ISIS threat. Trump wants to legalize torture and kill families of terrorists. Apparently indifferent to causing civilian casualties, Cruz wants to carpet bomb ISIS strongholds. He also wants to “empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods (in the U.S.) before they become radicalized.” 

Cruz seems to be advocating a medieval “ghetto” solution. Perhaps he could ask Muslims to make it easier for police to keep track of them by “voluntarily” wearing yellow crescent armbands. After all, such a private citizen solution to our country’s problems have a long Republican history dating back at least to George H.W. Bush’s “thousand points of light” initiative to bolster the safety net rather than have government provide for the needy, George W. Bush’s call for consumer spending as a response to the September 11 attacks, and Mitt Romney’s belief that illegal aliens would voluntarily repatriate to Mexico.

Confronted with their draconian pronouncements, Trump and Cruz have waffled between doubling down or retracting or modifying their statements, oblivious to the impact such original comments would have throughout the civilized and uncivilized world. Diplomatic-speak is not a language that falls trippingly off their tongues.  

My Tom Hanks Moment and Other Odds and Ends

Did you see the article or hear about Tom Hanks finding in Central Park the lost student ID card of a Fordham University undergraduate and then tweeting his discovery, “Lauren! I found your Student ID in the park. If you still need it my office will get to you. Hanx.”? 

The tweet included a picture of Hanks holding the photo ID card (http://strib.mn/1Lh7Mhv) (http://www.today.com/popculture/tom-hanks-finds-fordham-students-lost-id-wants-give-it-t48601)

Though we live during a social network age largely populated by the young, believe it or not Lauren did not have a Twitter account. She was thus oblivious to her star-savior until one of her professors sent her a link to Twitter. Now she’s into her 15-minutes of fame and has appeared on television.

I bring this to your attention because of my own quest to return a picture of a comely looking college student I found as I walked across the quadrangle of Brooklyn College one day in the fall of 1969. She appeared attractive enough to ask out (this transpired just weeks before my Gilda Days began, so please don’t think I was two-timing my future wife). 

Back then not everyone could marshall the resources required to find the pictured coed, whose name was either Judy or Linda—both monikers were written on the back of the photo. I, however, was editor-in-chief of Calling Card, the newspaper of the House Plan Association. I had the means and the moxie to print the head shot on the front page of our next issue under the headline “Lost & Found.” 

Sure enough, my scheme produced the intended result. Judy-Linda showed up a few days later at the Calling Card office. Alas, I didn’t ask her out. Her picture did her more than justice. 

No word on what she thought of how I looked.

Time to catch up on some recent newsworthy events:

Our long (two years, a looooong time for Yankee fans!) national nightmare is over. We are back in the baseball playoffs. Well, by the time I got around to actually posting this brief, our time in the playoffs was mercilessly brief. We succumbed 3-zip to the Houston Astros. 

Our beloved Bronx Bombers were flawed in more ways than I care to recount. But we still won more games than 11 other teams in the American League and 10 in the National League and that is good enough for me. Twenty of those other teams failed to make the playoffs.

Did anyone else see a similarity between the head of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards, when she testified before Congress recently and Claire Underwood, the wife of the fictitious Frank Underwood of House of Cards? Tall, with short blonde hair and a self assurance that refuses to fade when confronted by men of intolerance and ignorance.

As the saying goes, it is hard to put the cat back into the bag once it is out.

It doesn’t matter who arranged the meeting between Pope Francis and Kim Davis, the rogue Kentucky county clerk who has denied marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Plenty of ill-informed people will believe the pontiff endorsed Davis. Like corrections buried deep inside a newspaper, the story line too many people will remember is the pope greeting Davis and giving her a crucifix, not that he was duped into meeting her by his representative in Washington. 

The lesson we can all take away from this affair is that even the Vatican is not off limits to political machinations (of course we knew that already but this was a very public display of a subjective agenda meant to undermine and embarrass a popular pope while advancing rigid church dogma not sufficiently supported in public by the leader of the Catholic faith).  

Let ’em Go: Government officials have admitted it is hard to stop American zealots from traveling to ISIS-controlled regions to join the Islamic terrorists. I say, “Let ’em Go.”

But with a caveat—revoke their American citizenship so they can’t return easily to the United States, or, at the very least, incarcerate them if they show up on our shores. 

Let them go to get killed in the desert. If they find living in this country so terrible, let them discover what life in the caliphate will truly mean. Let them go inflict mayhem on other Muslims if they can, not as some sleeper terrorist on unsuspecting Americans inside the U.S. I am not anti-Muslim. It’s just that it is time for the vast majority of Muslims to stand up for their religion and exterminate the cancer from within. Outsiders cannot do it without fomenting anti-Western civilization hatred.  

For Shame Scott Pelley, For Shame Erik Kirschbaum, For Shame New York Times

We have a warped sensibility when it comes to news reporting and commentary and I am not talking about some right wing or leftist news organization. I am referring to CBS News with Scott Pelley and the Op-Ed page of The New York Times as exemplified by an article submitted by Erik Kirschbaum.

On Thursday Pelley went ga-ga over Pope Francis. He devoted nearly half his broadcast to the pontiff's day in Washington, DC, and arrival in New York City. Now, I, too, am captivated by the prelate's visit. You don't have to be Catholic to appreciate the extraordinary humanity exuded by Francis and the courage he displayed in standing before many congressmen and senators who, even if they are Catholic, clearly do not agree with his positions on climate change, aid to the indigent, the need for diplomacy rather than confrontation, the end to the death penalty and acceptance of immigrants.

Pelley was obviously enthused by the papal visit, seemingly recognizing his newscast was tilted toward the bishop of Rome. He noted there were some other major stories to report and cut away from the pageantry to update viewers on two vehicle accidents that killed four people in Seattle and two in Houston. But the deaths of more than 700 Muslims in a human stampede outside Mecca in Saudi Arabia? Not a single word! Not a single word on a tragedy that also injured more than 700! Are the lives of six dead in America more important than 700 who died in minutes as they innocently tried to fulfill one of the sacred rituals of their faith?


I kept waiting for Pelley to mention the tragedy. Nothing. Not a word. For shame. For shame.

Earlier in the day I got around to reading an Op-Ed piece from Wednesday's Times. Erik  Kirschbaum noted that Americans of German descent comprise the largest national ethnic group in the country yet they rarely pronounce their heritage. He explained that reticence in historical terms, spending nine paragraphs describing how the fear of being challenged for dual loyalty during the first world war led many German-Americans to change their names or otherwise deny or subsume their teutonic background.

As for the impact of Nazi Germany and the Bund movement that was sympathetic to Hitler as possible causes of German-American antipathy to their fatherland Kirschbaum provided a mere six lines of mention. Are you kidding?

Okay, I can excuse Kirschbaum as he was trying to advance an argument. But I wonder how The Times could ignore the obvious downplay of one of the most traumatic periods in recorded civilization when a heretofore culture considered to be educated and civilized turned barbaric and inhumane. How could The Times run such an obviously incomplete commentary? For shame. For shame.

Government Oversight, A Defense of Government and No End to Religious Strife

Does anyone seriously believe Takata Corp. executives were ignorant of the truth that far from saving lives their airbags posed a mortal risk to drivers and passengers? When was the last time a company voluntarily admitted its output could injure or kill people? Or steal their money? That’s why we need the alphabet soup of government organizations: OSHA, FTC, FDA, EPA, NLRB, ATF, EEOC and so on.

Takata, as with General Motors and its malfunctioning ignition key switch, is the poster-company reason we need government oversight of business. Otherwise, companies would merely follow actuarial tables and determine it is cheaper to pay a few death or injury claims than fix a dangerous flaw in their product. Just look at Honda, long considered one of the gold-standard companies in the auto industry. As revealed Monday, for more than a decade Honda underreported deaths linked to possible defects in its vehicles (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/business/honda-failed-to-report-defects-full-human-toll.html?smid=nytcore-iphone-share&smprod=nytcore-iphone&_r=0). 

To those who opine that President Obama’s unilateral action on immigration has poisoned his relationship with Congress, I ask, “Were you awake or comatose during the last six years? Did you not observe how obstructionist Republicans have been to all of his initiatives? Did you not witness their unrestrained enthusiasm to repeal Obamacare? When they talk of a mandate from the 2014 elections don’t you stop to wonder why they did not accept the mandates of 2008 and 2012?”

No, Obama was not acting as an emperor. He was merely, after six years, acting as a realist. 

The real tragedy in this political pas de deux is that it has painfully revealed how pitiful Democrats are compared to Republicans in framing national debates. Instead of hammering away at positive results in such areas as health care, minimum wage, income inequality, immigration, alternative energy, gun control, unemployment, economic recovery, inflation control and lowering of the national debt, Dems have had to defend (poorly, I might add) GOP lies and distortions that have poisoned political dialogue.

Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi might be good politicos and legislators but they lack dynamic speaking personas. Democrats need more combative, yes combative, spokespeople to carry the good fight to the public. Democrats must learn to control the debate, not react to it. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but they need more outspoken leaders like Sen. Charles Schumer. In a speech to the National Press Club Tuesday, New York’s senior senator argued Democrats need to more vigorously defend the role of government (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/us/politics/charles-e-schumer-to-urge-democrats-to-embrace-government.html?ref=politics). 

The horrific murders inside a synagogue in Jerusalem last week are all the more repugnant because they reinforced stereotypical behavior that Muslims do not respect other religions, not even that practiced by different Islamic sects. It is no more or less abhorrent that repeated attacks on mosques and funerals by competing Islamic sects.

Truth is, Western religions (Judaism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Eastern Orthodoxy) went through their own sectarian purges as they evolved into their present formats. So it’s not unique to the Muslim world that Shia kill Sunni, and Sunni kill Shia. Nor is it unique that they kill them during times of congregation inside religious buildings. 

Twenty-first century sensibilities are affronted by the Dark Ages values of Islamic militants, be they ISIS, Boko Haram or any other group that claims it is acting in the name of Allah or his prophet. I hate to be a Debbie-Downer, but we are destined to live with these extreme militants for the foreseeable future, and beyond, as it is impossible to totally eradicate individual or collective irrational behavior. Fanatics do not listen to reason. They are crazy with their own perceptions and ideas. We can only hope that saner minds within the Muslim community help us limit the evil the extremists hope to wreak on the rest of humanity.

Slapping Down a Jester, a King, a Crowley

I’m a big fan of Jon Stewart, as anyone who reads this blog regularly knows. But someone needs to tell him that hosting The Daily Show on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, was unseemly. Though he’s not religiously observant, Stewart often refers to his Jewish heritage. Indeed, on his Thursday night show he bantered with Amar’e Stoudemire of the NY Knicks about fasting on Yom Kippur (Stoudemire has traced some Jewish roots). But to the casual viewer, seeing Stewart appear on his Tuesday and Wednesday night shows, both taped during the Day of Atonement observance period, was a discordant signal. Stewart should have emulated Sandy Koufax, and other professional athletes, who chose not to perform on Yom Kippur, even when it meant missing a World Series game. 

Perhaps Stewart’s guest list was limited Tuesday night because of the start of Yom Kippur, but I found it serendipitous to see King Abdullah II of Jordan sitting across his interview desk. Given Jordan’s strategic, or unfortunate, global position situated as it is on the borders of Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the West Bank and Israel, and just a missile’s lob from Iran, the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, King Abdullah could be expected to provide an insider’s perspective on the various conflicts in the region. He is considered a moderate among the Arab and Muslim community.

Yet, I was more than alarmed to hear him describe the root cause of Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear program as a response to the Israeli-Palestinian problem. “The reason why they have a nuclear program is what Israel is doing to the Palestinians and the future of Jerusalem,” he said. He asserted if the Israelis and the Arabs solve their problems “then there’s no raison d'être for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.” 

One problem with this reasoning is Iran is not an Arab state. Persians live there, Persians who have fought Arabs for some 3,000 years, including the recent 10-year war with Iraq. The Iranians have no love for Arabs. Now, the king might have couched Iran’s support for the Palestinians as one Muslim supporting another. But here again there is historical reason to question that argument: Iran is Shia; most Palestinians are Sunni. Those two sects don’t like each other. They keep blowing up each other, in their respective mosques, at funerals, in marketplaces. Anywhere. 

Furthermore, by King Abdullah’s reasoning, we would expect not just Iran but also other Muslim countries to want to nuke up their armaments to leverage a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem. Are we prepared for a nuclear Indonesia? Or Bangladesh? Or Albania? Or any of the other 45 majority Muslim countries of the world? 

Sorry, King Abdullah, but Iran’s nuclear ambitions have little if anything to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By implying they do, King Abdullah is following the example of dictators throughout the Middle East who have used the conflict as a pretext to keep their own people suppressed, economically and politically. King Abdullah might be considered a moderate, his British-educated accent pleasant to the ear, but his type of reasoning is what has kept tensions in the Middle East at the simmering point ever since Jews started reclaiming the land of their heritage.

There’s a lot of hand-wringing these days about the state of education in the United States. Apparently our educational standards have a long history of laxity. To wit, here’s what one of our Ph.D.s, with a degree earned from Columbia University, no less, recently wrote the day after our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked and four American foreign service officers, including our ambassador, were killed: 

“The Middle East is aflame, much of which is a result of Obama’s policies of helping to dislodge allies like Hosni Mubarak and Moammar Qaddafi and replace them with the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists. He may use the orchestrated violence as a pretext to act in order to get Americans’ attention off the economy.  I don’t know.  But in any case, Obama must be defeated on November 6 if we’re to have any hope of surviving as a serious world power. Maybe surviving, period.”

Could be I was sleeping through these last 30 years or so, but when did Qaddafi become an ally of ours, much less a “key ally,” as Monica Crowley further elaborated on her written comments during a sit-down with Sean Hannity of Fox News September 12. During the Bush II years America championed the idea of democracy in the Middle East. Now that a democratically elected leader (not to her liking) is seated in Mubarak’s old chair, Crowley is all agog, yearning for those good old days of tyranny and torture, all for the good of the U.S. of A, mind you. Let’s not pretend to care what the Egyptians get out of this change of circumstance.

I also didn’t know America was in jeopardy of losing its status as a serious world power. Can you think of any other country people around the world are clamoring to enter, legally or not? Can you think of any other country even remotely as powerful as we are? Yes, our economy is still in the doldrums, but so is almost every other country’s. Even China is in flux. 

Every time a Democrat is president or running for the office conservatives raise the specter of our own annihilation. Yet they remained silent when the Neocons dragged us into two wars (and ran up the deficit by not funding them on the books). I am despondent to think the viewers of Fox News don’t recognize the absurdities they hear from that channel. Here’s another example: recently Fox News polled its audience to ascertain their election choices. Guess what? 90% favored Romney, 10% Obama. Duh!