reflectivepundit

Thoughts on the Failed Times Square Car-Bomb

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Color-Coded Terror Alerts: Since 9/11, the terrorism threat level of New York City has been orange for high. Obviously, there is no correlation between the alert status and the prevention of or preparedness for terrorist strikes. Yet, for whatever reason, the Department of Homeland Security has not gotten around to either drop or revamp the nonsensical, color-coded terrorism alert system that was put in place and exploited by the Bush administration to hype strategically timed threat alerts and thereby strengthen the president’s public approval . If it were strictly used to inform police departments and other agencies involved in terrorism prevention and preparedness, the system could have some value. But issuing such alerts for public consumption does not serve any purpose. After all, regular citizens do not have any idea what to do and what not to do when the threat assessment stands at one of five colors--green for low, blue for guarded, yellow for elevated, orange for high, and red for severe threat.

Fortunately, New York City’s Police Department has exemplary counterterrorism capabilities and, as the failed bombing demonstrated, post-incident investigative skills as well. Most important, this time around, the great degree of cooperation between often competing law enforcement agencies caught the would-be bomber in record time. Yes, the no-fly list needs changes assuring that new entries find their way immediately to airlines and all airport security stops--but nothing should overshadow the superb work of New York City police and FBI.

Former Governor Pataki’s wisdom: preventing terrorism is success. When asked during an appearance on Fox whether the failed bombing attempt could be seen as a victory, the former governor of New York, George Pataki, said, “I don’t think you call it victory. I think victory would be being able to prevent these before they get to that point where you have a loaded van in Times Square. I think it’s more a question of lucky.” Ah, well. Perhaps George Pataki, who is rumored to prepare for a presidential bid in 2012, forgot that he was the governor of New York—and his good friend Rudy Giuliani the mayor of New York City, when terrorists flew two airlines into the World Trade Center. I assume that success, according to his measuring stick, should have been their roles in prevention of the 9/11 attacks.  

However unsatisfied with what transpired at Times Square Pataki and other Republican critics may be, they surely know that not even the best laid counterterrorism plans will prevent all attempts to commit this sort of violence. Even Israel’s excellent terrorism prevention measures are not fool proof.

Virtual Recruitment and the Myth of the Lone Wolf Terrorist: Someone like Faisal Shahzad who tried to explode a home-made car-bomb at Times Square was more likely subject of virtual recruitment rather than old-fashioned personal enlistment. Reports that he listened to and read the extremist sermons of American-born cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi as he underwent a process of radicalization, are hardly surprising. After all, the shooting at Fort Hood last November was the work of  Nidal Hassan, an Army doctor, who was familiar with al-Aulaqui’s sermons and corresponded with the now resident of Yemen. In short, while Shahzad may have planned and carried out the bombing attempt all by himself, he was no lone wolf but rather inspired by others in the virtual community of hate and violence. This is not only true for extremist jihadis but literally all other religious and secular terrorists as well—here in the United States and around the world.

Media as Propaganda Vehicle for so-called Tea Party and Its Champions

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Tax Day was a big day for the so-called tea party and its creators and champions. With the exception of Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota) and other hard-core right-wingers the tea partiers displayed a much gentler face than during the angry confrontations they sought in town hall meetings at the height of the health care reform debates. This is how Jessica Jellin reported on CNN’s Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer from the Washington tea party event: 

“Right now, Wolf, we're listening to the hip-hop sounds of the Tea Party rapper Hi-Caliber. And, as you can tell, this is a very calm crowd, a happy crowd. There's a lot made of some of the anger and upset during the protests during the health care bill's passage, very different kind of mood here, polite folks who are just here protesting the fact that there are, in their words, just too many taxes.”

Obviously, Congresswoman Bachmann did not stay on message to display a gentler face of the movement she promotes and, in some observers views, leads. As reported in the same CNN program, Bachmann unleashed another of her frequent outrageous outbursts.“We're on to this gangster government, and we are not going to let them have their way. They don't get to take over any more of our economy. We're done with that game. We're done,” she said. “And I say it's time for these little piggies to go home.”

It seems Representative Bachmann is unaware that the “gangster government” includes the Congress in which she serves and that therefore she is one of the “little piggies” that she says need to go home. Blitzer did not set her straight on this and merely mustered a benign comment: “That is pretty colorful language, I should say….”  His guest Alex Castallanos, a Republican strategist, justified Bachmann’s remark and threw in a government-mafia connection. “She's referring to a government that right now -- on all levels -- takes over 40 percent, nearly 50 percent of a country's wealth, of the money we all work for… Not even John Gotti took that much money from people. So that's what she's talking about the gangster government.”

Never mind that Fox News and the network’s stars Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck were involved in the creation of tea party protests and strive on what continues to be a symbiotic relationship, most of the rest of the news media were from the beginning and continue to be compliant propaganda vehicles for what is in reality the tea party wing of the Republican Party.

The Growth of Militia-Type Hate Groups and the Threat of Terrorism

By Brigitte L. Nacos

I can only hope that it was a ploy when the FBI—as reported by the Associated Press-- claimed the other day that the recent arrest of nine members of a self-proclaimed “Hutaree” Christian militia does not indicate a threat of violence by other extremists in the right-wing milieu. If you take a look at the Hutaree web site, you know that nothing is “Christian” about this group and those who leave their gross messages on the discussion board. But more disturbing is the notion that the Hutaree gang is unique in planning violence—in this particular case a plot to kill police officers to commence a war against the hated government and its agents.

One reason for the alarming increase in militant groups of this kind was and is the high and persistent unemployment, especially in the Midwest. But the election of the first African-American president in U.S. history was even more instrumental in the revival of these types of groups that had dwindled away during the presidency of George W. Bush after a high during the Clinton years. With Barack Obama in the White House, the right-extreme conspiracy theorists found an opportunity to add another twist to their long-standing anti-Semitic prejudices.  

As absurd as it is, the fanatic appeal to construe the U.S. Constitution along the lines of its original intent transcends these usual hate group settings and found its way into part of the conservative and Republican mainstream. This shift in particular, whether expressed by obscure tea party figures, populists like Sarah Palin, or members of Congress, provides the extremist fringe with a dangerous mantle of legitimacy.    

In the 1990s, the Internet was not as widely used as it is today. At that time, militia types met personally in their particular circles or at gun shows. That was the milieu that nourished Timothy McVeigh’s hate to a point where he planned and executed the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995.

Moscow Suicide Bombings: Different than London, Madrid or 9/11?

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Seeing the horrific pictures of the Moscow underground bombings is remembering similar images of suicide terrorism against commuter systems in Madrid, London, New York/Washington, and elsewhere. If this week’s subway bombings had a particular shocking angle for Russians and people elsewhere, it was the fact that two women killed themselves at the heights of the morning rush hour in order to kill as many commuters as possible. Although female terrorists are far from being exceptions among terrorist groups of all stripes, they are still viewed differently than their male counterparts—as the exception to the rule. And that is precisely the reason why the leaders of terror groups recruit women for tactical reasons: Even the best security forces tend to be less suspicious of females than of males. That makes for a higher success rate of female terrorists.   

Given the greater shock associated with female terrorists, they and their deeds tend to receive extra media attention that the masterminds of terrorist spectacular crave. No wonder, then, that the lethal attacks in Moscow resulted also in mass-mediated speculations about these female bombers’ motives and, more generally, in explicit or implicit condemnation of the Russian government and perhaps even justification of terrorist violence in this context. 

In an op-ed article in the New York Times, Robert Pape of the University of Chicago and two of his students wrote the other day about the perpetrators of the incident:

“The bombers’ motives spring directly from their experiences with Russian troops, according to Abu al-Walid, a rebel leader who was killed in 2004. “These women, particularly the wives of the mujahedeen who were martyred, are being threatened in their homes, their honor [is] being threatened,” he explained in a video that appeared on Al Jazeera. “They do not accept being humiliated and living under occupation.”

In other words, using the justification of a late terrorist leader, these deadly terrorist attacks are the result of wrongheaded policies and actions of the Russian government and military. And this explanation is seen to transcend the particular case of Chechen women to cover Chechen terrorists—called rebels or separatists in most news accounts and opinion articles—and nationalists or separatists elsewhere who resort to terrorist means. According to the op-ed piece,

“As we have discovered in our research on Lebanon, the West Bank, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and elsewhere, suicide terrorist campaigns are almost always a last resort against foreign military occupation. Chechnya is a powerful demonstration of this phenomenon at work.”

In almost all of these cases, terrorist violence has been carried out in the name of religious martyrdom, mostly of the jihadist variety or--in the case of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka--a pseudo-religion in the sect-like organization. When more secular oriented groups commit copy-cat suicide terrorism, this comes down to competition or out-bidding in a society with various terrorist groups as Mia Bloom explains well in her book “Dying to Kill.”

Demagoguery at its worst: Republicans versus Health Care for the Less Fortunate

By Brigitte L. Nacos

The best cartoons, more than best laid words, get to the truth in politics und elsewhere. That’s certainly the case with a cartoon by Mike Peters in the Dayton Daily News that imagined the threefold gospel in case Jesus returned as Glenn Beck: “Don’t Heal the Sick, That’s Socialism; Don’t Shelter the Homeless, That’s Communism; Don’t Feed the Hungry, That’s Nazism.” Problem is that the cartoon is not overdrawn to drive political reality home--the despicable clown of Fox News is not a laughing matter. His and the demagoguery of like-minded fanatics has not only incited the so-called tea party movement but, by now, the mainstream of the Republican Party as the endgame in the long struggle for a very modest health care reform demonstrated.

On Sunday, before the House voted by a small margin for the Senate version of the health care bill without a single Republican vote, a Republican screamed “baby killer” as pro-life Democratic Representative Bart Stupak asked fellow Democrats to vote against a Republican amendment on abortion services. No protest came from the Republican side of the aisle. Obviously, Republicans are now okay with the rhetoric of the most extremist pro-life wing that glorifies anti-abortion terrorism—the killing of providers of legal abortion.

A day earlier, Republican member of the House incited openly an already out of hand crowd of fanatic protesters against the health care reform. As Politico reported,

“Republican Reps. Tom Latham of Iowa, Jo Ann Emerson of Missouri, Brett Guthrie of Kentucky and Gregg Harper of Mississippi stood on south balcony off the House floor — an area known informally as "the beach" — holding pieces of paper that read "kill the bill" to a group of cheering protesters. Some Republican lawmakers waved a "Don't Tread on Me" flag from the balcony, causing the crowd to go wild. Later in the day, Reps. Steve King, Paul Ryan and others gave the crowd an Evita’s welcome, before gathering together to spell out a “Kill the bill” with individual letter signs.”

The tea party crowd hurled the “n” word towards black representatives and the “f” word, a gay epithet, towards Barney Frank who characterized the atmosphere as “mass hysteria.” Indeed, mobilized by front organizations for the insurance industry, the rank and file members of the tea party movement and the Republican Party have been duped into rowdy protests or less visible opposition for the benefit of greedy insurers with discriminatory policies against sick people. They should remember that these insurers do not ask your party affiliation or your ideological preference when they discriminate against you in case of serious illness. 

Unfortunately, too many Independents and even Democrats have been deceived by the demagogues as well—a perfect situation for Republicans to further exploit polarization during the upcoming campaigns before this fall’s mid-term elections. Rarely, in modern history, has the country experienced a similar partisan polarization. It is entirely possible that the Democratic Party pays a heavy price in the congressional election this year and the presidential election of 2012.

News as Commodity and the Problem with Corporate Profit Imperatives

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Recently, news organizations have made plenty of news themselves. Not only newspapers that either closed shop, offered another round of buyouts, or fired newsroom and other staffers. The broadcast networks, too, have shrunk their news divisions and continue to swing the ax heavier these days. Following the lead of CBS News, ABC News will cut one fourth of its staff. Declining audiences and thus lower advertising rates plus loss of advertising to cable channels are reportedly pushing ABC’s and CBS’s news divisions to the brink—although an article in today’s New York Times notes that “Executives from CBS News and ABC News said the top corporate executives for both networks remained outspoken supporters of the news divisions.” Don’t trust such assurances. It’s the bottom line that counts. That’s why the situation is for the time being different at NBC where the news division--thanks to MSNBC and other cable outlets—continues to bring home bacon for its corporate parent General Electric.

All of this reminds us that the “[n]ews is a commodity” and “a product shaped by forces of supply and demand…” as James T. Hamilton writes in his excellent book “All the News That’s Fit to Sell.” If the news is understood as commodity, one would expect that the content of the product--what is reported and how—depends on business judgments. Here, the contemporary crisis of the press refers to news providers’ problems and failures in the economic marketplace.

But news media organizations differ from other enterprises because, as Walter Lippmann recognized nearly 90 years ago, the “community applies one ethical measure to the press and another to trade or manufacture.” This double standard is justified and comes along with the responsibilities of a free press. If the news is understood as a public good, one would expect that in return for utilizing public air waves as carrier of news and entertainment, broadcasters would be committed to providing public affairs information and monitoring government on behalf of citizens.

Republicans and Their Threat to National Security

By Brigitte L. Nacos

On December 28, 2001, 6 days after the would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid tried to blow up a U.S.-bound American Airlines flight, President Bush mentioned the incident for the first time in passing during a press conference at his Texas ranch. This is all he said,

“The shoe bomber was a case in point, where the country has been on alert. A stewardess on an American Airlines flight—where the country has been on alert. A stewardess on an American Airlines flight—or a flight attendant on an American Airlines flight was vigilant, saw something amiss, and responded. It’s an indication that the culture of America has shifted to one of alertness. And I’m grateful for the flight attendant’s response, as I’m sure the passengers on that airplane. But we’ve got to be aware that there are still enemies to the country. And our Government is responding accordingly.”

There was no criticism whatsoever by Democrats as far as the delayed timing and lack of  substance in this short remark was concerned. Contrary to Republicans during the Clinton [and Carter] administration, leading Democrats renewed their unconditional support for President Bush that they had expressed immediately after the 9/11 attacks. The following exchange between host Tim Russert, Republican Senator Don Nickles, and Democratic Senator Tom Daschle during the Meet the Press program of December 30, 2001 attests to this:

MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe Republicans would have supported President Clinton as much as Democrats have supported President Bush on a war against terrorism?

SEN. NICKLES: You bet. All of us. You know, I remember the rhetoric--of course, I was in Oklahoma City when the president made a great speech. "We're not going to allow terrorism in the United States." And he was strongly supported in that. And you bet. After the World Trade Center, after the bombings on two U.S. embassies, killed 220-some people, you bet. There'd be very strong--but it takes leadership, and now we have strong leadership. I think it's a little overdue, but I think it's been a fantastic effort to date. We just need to accelerate and keep it up. It's going to be a long haul in this fight against terrorism.

SEN. DASCHLE: Tim, I would just say, look at some of the evidence after the attacks [in response to U.S. embassies in East Africa] that President Clinton instituted in the late 1990s. He was attacked. He was criticized for those. He was accused of doing things that had nothing to do with foreign policy as he was trying to respond. So there really wasn't the kind of Republican support for the president that I wish there would have been. But, again, it's not the issue. What the issue has to be is to look forward, to try to find ways with which to work together to build the coalition that is going to be required to be successful in the future.

Compare this to the reaction to President Obama’s first, lengthy, detailed response on December 28, 2009, 3 days after the would-be underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab that is worth reading for comparative purposes :

“Good morning, everybody.  I just want to take a few minutes to update the American people on the attempted terrorist attack that occurred on Christmas Day and the steps we're taking to ensure the safety and security of the country.

The investigation is ongoing and I spoke again this morning with Attorney General Eric Holder, the Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, and my Counterterrorism and Homeland Security Advisor John Brennan.  I asked them to keep -- continue monitoring the situation, to keep the American people and members of Congress informed.

President Obama One Year Later: No, We Can’t…

By Brigitte L. Nacos

What a difference a year makes! Twelve months ago, the overwhelming majority of Americans and people around the globe cheered as the first African-American in the history of the country became the 44^th President of the United States. Many believed in candidate and newly sworn in president Barack Obama’s message that change for the better would come under his stewardship; many believed in his assuring slogan, “Yes, We Can!” Whatever Obama promised in much detail during his amazing campaign, people were mostly uplifted by the hope, even conviction, that here was a new type of politician and leader with an agenda that was fundamentally different from George W. Bush and his disastrous policies.

Much changed during the last twelve months—but it was not the change that Obama promised and his supporters expected. Yesterday’s stunning victory of a Republican in Massachusetts’ race to fill Edward M. Kennedy’s seat in the U.S. Senate may have been in part the result of Democrat Martha Coakley’s flawed campaign and Republican Scott Brown’s clever pretension that he is an Independent. But the result was also a reflection of the popular perception that things are not going well in the country, especially with respect to the economy, and that nothing has changed in Washington’s politics as usual during the first year of Obama’s presidency. Just like the Republican victories in last fall’s gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, Brown’s win in Massachusetts was decided by the growing middle of Independents, the very group that had contributed significantly to Obama’s victory in November 2008, and by disillusioned Democrats who either expressed their dissatisfaction by voting for Brown or did not bother to go to vote.

To a certain degree, Obama set himself up to fail. The expectations he fueled with his promise of change linked to a most ambitious agenda were impossible to satisfy nor was his somewhat naïve assurance of ending the era of partisan polarization.

Senator Reid has nothing to apologize for

By Brigitte L. Nacos

It is amazing how the most bigotted right-wing pack has the nerve to attack Senator Reid and how he has been pressured into apologizing for a remark he made early in the 2008 campaign, namely, that then Senator Barack Obama could become the country’s first black president because he was “light-skinned” and had “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

While strangely using the language of the past, in content this was a reasonable assessment by someone who has no problems with racial and ethnic differences but is fully aware of the realities of prejudice and bigotry and,yes, racism in society. 

Reid has a strong pro-civil rights record and was among the earliest supporters of Obama. What he expressed was simply the concern that America is far from post-racial. Look at elected and appointed African-American public officials and corporate successes and you will see that lighter-skinned minorities have the edge. Just think of trailblazers like Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell. This all is rooted deeply in the past.

Not Reid but the conservative elite and the populist dividers should be blamed. Instead, a media--including the allegedly liberal media--that crave controversy echo the right-wing’s accusations of Reid’s “controversial” statement and run with comparisons to Trent Lott’s past embarrassments. When Lott boasted his support for one-time presidential candidate Strom Thurmond, a segregationist, he seemed to indicated that a Thurmond presidency would have meant a different course of history—presumably a derailment of the civil rights movement and Dr. Martin Luther King's role.

Harvard law professor Lani Guinier is the only one who got it right, when she said according to the New York Times that Mr. Lott “seemed to be expressing nostalgia for the segregationist platform of Mr. Thurmond’s 1948 presidential campaign, while Mr. Reid comments seemed to be addressing ‘an unfortunate truth about the present.’” Too bad that we do not see and hear Lani Guinier more in a media that give readily access to the practitioners of attack politics.

It is now clear that we do not have to wait for Sarah Palin to settle in at Fox News for a media removed from the fair and balanced label.

Rudy Giuliani’s Memory Lapses with 9/11, Shoe-Bomber and Anthrax Attack on City Hall

By Brigitte L. Nacos

“What he [President Obama] should be doing is following the right things that Bush did. One of the right things he did was treat this as a war on terror. We had no domestic attacks under Bush.”

                                          Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani

 

After Rudy Giuliani got away with the incredible statement that no domestic terrorism occurred on President Bush’s watch when he was interviewed on Good Morning America by GeorgeStephanopoulos of ABC News Friday morning, his problem with reality and truth was thankfully exposed right away by several on-line watchdogs. How in heaven could a man whose claim to fame beyond New York City is tied to the 9/11 attacks “forget” the date of the worst terrorist nightmare on American soil? 

But this was not the only “memory lapse” in the service of political and partisan expediency. The night before he told Larry King that the  case of the would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid took place before 9/11 as an explanation why then President Bush did not mention the incident until six days after the failed attack. The fact is that the shoe bomber incident occurred on December 22, 2001—more than three months after 9/11.

One would expect that a man who built a lucrative business on the assumption that he is an expert on terrorism and its consequences would have the most basic facts and dates right. Instead, he actually spins stories of fact and fiction.

During his conversation with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Friday afternoon Giuliani claimed to have misspoken in his appearance on Good Morning America. But when Blitzer mentioned the post-9/11 anthrax attacks, Giuliani added another piece of fiction, when he said:

“Gee, Wolf, it not only happened, there was -- there was anthrax found in the office right next to mine. There was attack {sic] on city hall [emphasis added] as well as on the major networks and Governor Pataki's office. I mean, I as directly involved in that.”

But there was no anthrax attack on New York’s city hall at the time. Instead, a letter that was sent by NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw to Giuliani’s chief-of-staff Anthony V. Carbonetti contained some anthrax spores—seemingly coming from an anthrax letter addressed to Brokaw weeks earlier.