OBAMA: THE OTHER WHITE MEAT

By Ted Rall (Thu May 8, 11:10 AM ET)

NEW YORK--I argue with my friends. Some of them thought invading Iraq was a good idea. Almost all believed that Afghanistan was "the good war," the one from which Iraq distracted us. (They're starting to come around.) A few are even bigots. We disagree about these issues, often vehemently. But we're still friends. I would never diss a friend in public (or, in politicalese, "distance myself"). Even a former friend deserves respect.

Crisis reveals character. In politics, it reveals judgment.

Barack "Uniter Not Divider, This Time We Really Mean It" Obama was praised for dumping ("distancing himself from") Reverend Jeremiah Wright. ("What Barack Obama did was a profile in courage," said the Reverend Al Sharpton.) But the McCain campaign's silence indicates that it is quietly editing its fall attack ads. Obama's apology, they'll say, came too little, too late. Obama has fallen for one of the hoariest old tricks in the political playbook: guilt by association.

Republicans are smart. They close ranks behind a senator caught trolling for gay sex in an airport restroom, ignoring the homophobic platform of their own party. Mr. Wide Stance keeps his job; they keep his vote. In contrast, when New York's governor hooks up with a prostitute, the Dems--whose politics, after all, are sex-positive--sell one of their brightest lights down the river.

You'd think Democrats would have learned a big lesson in 1972. It seems quaint in this age of Zoloft, but when it came out that vice presidential nominee Thomas Eagleton had been treated for depression (with electroshock treatment, standard care at the time), the media went nuts. If George McGovern had stood by his running mate, the issue would soon have died. There were, after all, plenty of other stories to talk about--say, Vietnam and Watergate. But McGovern got spooked. He dumped Eagleton. Voters asked themselves: If a guy throws his own running mate under the bus, how will he defend the United States? McGovern lost by a landslide.

Rule One of political survival: Never, ever apologize. Even when you're wrong. Especially when you're wrong. Rule Two: Don't comment. Defending yourself keeps the story going. Corollary One to Rule One: Stand up for your friends. Especially when they're wrong.

But what if they're right?

"You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on you," Reverend Wright said in his appearance at the National Press Club.

Pronouncing himself "offended" by such "ridiculous propositions" as "when [Wright] equates the United States' wartime efforts with terrorism--there are no excuses," Obama said the next day.

What is truly ridiculous is that, six and a half years after 9/11, many Americans still think the attacks were motivated by crazy freedom-haters out to forcibly convert them to Islam. The rise of radical Islam resulted from what Chalmers Johnson termed "Blowback"--CIA jargon for the unintended consequences, in this case of arming and funding Islamist fighters against the Soviet Union. But Wright was right. "America's chickens are coming home to roost," the Reverend said after 9/11.

It wasn't an original thought. Ward Churchill said the same thing. So have countless analysts in other countries. Only in the U.S. is it prohibited to say something so obvious--particularly in a public forum.

Osama bin Laden and the 19 hijackers didn't think flying planes into buildings would make Americans join the local mosque. They were motivated by a desire to bring America's wars home to its people, to ensure that it would suffer the consequences for having "supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans," as Wright said. Like Wright, bin Laden has referenced these issues.

The Al Qaeda founder has also talked about the atomic bombs dropped on Japan, one of the greatest war crimes in history.

"Bin Laden has said several times that he is seeking to acquire and use nuclear weapons not only because it is God's will, but because he wants to do to American foreign policy what the United States did to Japanese imperial surrender policy," the Washington Post noted in 2005.

One of Wright's most bizarre statements concerns his "suggestion that the United States might have invented H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS," in the words of The New York Times. There is no evidence to support this accusation. Yet paranoia can reveal truth.

"Based on this Tuskegee experiment and based on what has happened to Africans in this country, I believe our government is capable of doing anything," Wright told the NAACP last week. (In Tuskegee from 1932 to 1972, illiterate sharecroppers with syphilis were left untreated so that white doctors could observe the progress of the disease.) "In fact, one of the responses to what Saddam Hussein had in terms of biological warfare was a non-question, because all we had to do was check the sales records. We sold him those biological weapons that he was using against his own people. So any time a government can put together biological warfare to kill people, and then get angry when those people use what we sold them, yes, I believe we are capable."

It shouldn't come as any surprise, given what the U.S. government has done and continues to do to African-Americans--a recent study shows, for example, that blacks are 12 times more likely than whites to be sent to prison for the same drug offenses as whites--that many of them consider it "capable of doing anything." What is surprising is that African-Americans--or anyone else--still believes the government.

The Wright controversy offered us an opportunity to talk about the need to create a government that tells the truth, that doesn't torture or kidnap or wage unjustifiable wars--a government worthy of its people and its trust. What we got instead, courtesy of Mr. Change We Can Believe In, was the usual pablum. "They offend me," Obama said of Wright's comments. "They rightly offend all Americans."

Let us all hold hands and be offended. Whatever it takes to stop us from thinking.

(Ted Rall is the author of the book "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?," an in-depth prose and graphic novel analysis of America's next big foreign policy challenge.)

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ARREST BUSH

By Ted Rall (Tue Apr 29, 7:57 PM ET)

Bush Confesses to Waterboarding. Call D.C. Cops!

NEW YORK--"Why are we talking about this in the White House?" John Ashcroft nervously asked his fellow members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee. (The Principals were Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General Ashcroft.)

"History will not judge this kindly," Ashcroft predicted.

"This" is torture. Against innocent people. Conducted by CIA agents and American soldiers and marines. Sanctioned by legal opinions issued by Ashcroft's Justice Department. Directly ordered by George W. Bush.

An April 11th report by ABC News describes how CIA agents, asked by previous presidents to carry out illegal "black ops" actions (torture and killings), had become tired of getting hung out to dry whenever their dirty deeds were revealed by the press. When the Bush Administration asked the CIA to work over prisoners captured in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere, Director George Tenet demanded legal cover. The Justice Department complied by issuing a classified 2002 memo, the so-called "Golden Shield," authored by Office of Legal Counsel Jay Bybee. "Enhanced interrogation techniques"--i.e., torture--were legal, Bybee assured the CIA.

Tenet was a good boss, a CYA type. He wanted to protect his agents. So he got the Principals to personally sign off on each act of torture.

"According to a former CIA official involved in the process," ABC reported, "CIA headquarters would receive cables from operatives in the field asking for authorization for specific techniques." Can we beat up this guy? Can we waterboard him?

The Bushies weren't otherwise known for dwelling on details. Osama was in Pakistan; they invaded Afghanistan instead. Two years later, he was still in Pakistan. They invaded Iraq. Bush and his top officials still found time to walk through every step of torment a detainee would suffer in some CIA dungeon halfway around the world.

"The high-level discussions about these 'enhanced interrogation techniques' were so detailed, [Bush Administration] sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed--down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic. These top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top Al Qaeda suspects--whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding, sources told ABC news."

Bush knew.

Not only did he know, he personally approved it. He likes torture.

"Yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue," he confirmed. "And I approved."

When the U.S. signs a treaty, its provisions carry the full force of U.S. law. One such treaty is the U.N. Convention Against Torture, of which the U.S. is a core signatory. As Philippe Sands writes in his new book "Torture Team:" Parties to the... Convention are required to investigate any person who is alleged to have committed torture. If appropriate, they must then prosecute--or extradite the person to a place where he will be prosecuted. The Torture Convention... criminalizes any act that constitutes complicity or participation in torture. Complicity or participation could certainly be extended not only to the politicians and but also the lawyers involved..."

George W. Bush has publicly confessed that he ordered torture, thus violating the Convention Against Torture. He, Cheney, Rumseld, Rice and the other Principals must therefore be arrested and, unlike the thousands of detainees kidnapped by the U.S. since 9/11, arraigned and placed on trial.

Because the torture ordered by Bush and his cabinet directly resulted in death, they must additionally be charged with several counts of murder. Fifteen U.S. soldiers have been charged with the murders of two detainees at the U.S. airbase at Bagram, Afghanistan in 2002. They were following orders issued by their Commander-in-Chief and his Principals.

One of the Bagram victims was Dilawar, a 22-year-old Afghan taxi driver. "On the day of his death," reported The New York Times on May 22, 2005, "Dilawar had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days. A guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend... Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen. It would be many months before Army investigators learned a final horrific detail: Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time."

At least four detainees have committed suicide at the torture camp created by George W. Bush after 9/11 at Guantánamo Bay. Twenty-five more made 41 unsuccessful attempts to kill themselves. The conditions of their confinement--ordered by Bush and his Principals--constitutes torture. It no doubt prompted their deaths.

If George W. Bush were an ordinary citizen, there can be little doubt that he would face a long prison sentence for the scores of acts of torture he authorized both specifically and generally. Four of the seven white hillbillies charged with the kidnap-torture of a black woman in Logan County, West Virginia are now in jail for at least the next ten years.

If Bush weren't president, he would face murder charges. The maximum sentence in a federal murder case is death.

If Bush and his co-conspirators are not above the law, if the United States remains a nation where all citizens are equal, they must be arrested and indicted. But by whom?

The Supreme Court has never resolved the question of whether a sitting president can be arrested by civilian authorities. Even if he were charged and convicted, many legal experts say he could issue himself a pardon.

However, leaving the presidency in the hands of an self-admitted torture killer is unacceptable. Congress could ask a U.S. Marshal to arrest Bush as part of impeachment charges. But the ultimate outcome--removing him from office a few months before the end of his term--seems woefully inadequate given the nature of the charges. In any case, Democrats have already said that impeachment is "off the table."

Bush could be extradited to one of the countries where the torture and murders were committed--such as Afghanistan or Cuba. But he could claim immunity as a head of state.

There is, however, a person who could begin holding Bush and the others accountable for their crimes.

She is Cathy L. Lanier, the 39-year-old chief of D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department. Chief Lanier, take note: you have probable cause to arrest a self-confessed serial torturer and mass murderer within the borders of the District of Columbia. He resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Go get him.

History is calling, Chief Lanier. Your city, and your country, needs you.

(Ted Rall is the author of the book "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?," an in-depth prose and graphic novel analysis of America's next big foreign policy challenge.)

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Hillary Clinton Supporters -- The Global Warming Deniers of Democratic Politics?

Cenk Uygur (Fri Apr 25, 2:12 PM ET)

Hillary Clinton supporters seem to have become the equivalent of global warming deniers in Democratic politics. If facts don't suit your argument, insist on the opposite. And even more importantly, insist that your non-facts get at least 50% of the coverage.

The Clinton team is now trying to make the specious argument that she is winning in the popular vote. The first problem with that argument is that it's not true. Obama still leads by over 500,000 votes. The second problem is that they try to include states like Michigan and Florida where all sides agreed not to campaign or have their delegates counted. Hillary Clinton's flip-flop on these states is even more absurd given that Obama wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan.

But the more fundamental problem with this popular vote argument is that it is the wrong metric. Nobody ever said they were running a campaign for more popular votes. If those were the ground rules, no one would have spent any time in Iowa or New Hampshire. Obama and the others would have been campaigning in California for six months to a year instead of those first primary and caucus states.

This is like saying we're counting only touchdowns in the middle of a basketball game. Well if I knew that was the game we were playing I would have put on a helmet and tackled you a long time ago. Why did I bother scoring all these baskets?

Look, this is absurd. Why is anyone humoring these arguments? Why do we have to cover Hillary Clinton's side as if it has as much validity as Obama's? This isn't about who is the better candidate; this is about facts and reality. She can claim to be better on healthcare, but she can't claim to have a lead in this race. One is subjective, the other is objective.

None of her arguments make any sense: She wins the big states - congratulations, go run for president in a country where there are only big states. The popular vote is now the relevant metric in this election - then you're disenfranchising all of the caucus states and changing the rules in the middle of the game. Obama is not electable - really, then why is he kicking your ass in this election?

I love the audacity of someone who is losing to another candidate claiming that candidate is not electable. So, what does that make you?

You might love Hillary Clinton, you might think she would make a great president and you might even have concerns about her opponent. You have a right to think all these things, but you don't have a right to your own math. Two plus two still equals four and Hillary's team shouldn't get equal time for claiming it equals five for her but only three for Barack.

We have got to stop treating these math deniers as if they have any legitimacy or credibility. They are spinning for their side and the tales they are spinning are comically wrong. And as always, the media is falling prey to the idea that every side of an argument must be presented equally rather than what the facts merit.

Young Turks on You Tube

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Another in the Long Volley of Shots Heard 'Round the World

By Neely Tucker

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 28, 2007; Page C01

Benazir Bhutto's father was prime minister of Pakistan in the 1970s and, before he was hanged, he would tell her to study the lives of great women as inspiration. She sometimes told reporters that story, including the names of Joan of Arc and Indira Gandhi as study subjects suggested by her dad. The French revolutionary was burned at the stake; the Indian prime minister was assassinated by her bodyguards.

Their violent ends did not deter Bhutto, nor did the murders of her father and brother. A Harvard graduate with a sharp knowledge of history, she would have known that The Assassination has been around a lot longer than the ballot and is often more influential.

The Assassination is almost universally denigrated as a "cowardly act" (as President Bush described Bhutto's killing yesterday). But the historical record shows it to be a dramatic, low-cost, highly symbolic means of communication -- and murder -- that disaffected people use to try to dramatically sway national or even international affairs.

It can work or backfire or just disappear, like a bloody drop in a bucket. Pakistan will be unstable in the coming days, as it has been in the past and will be again. Who can say if Bhutto's slaying is the pinball that leads to destruction, the painful agent of positive change, or just a killing, like most, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing more than murderous nihilism?

The descent into regional conflagration could have been triggered "by 'shock and awe' in Iraq, or the assassination of [prime minister Rafik] Hariri in Lebanon in 2005, or Israel's battles with Hezbollah," says Mustafa Aksakal, assistant professor of history at American University, who is writing a book about the Ottoman Empire's descent into World War I. "But the region has so far been able to absorb these shocks. It's just impossible to say what will be the straw that breaks the camel's back."

"Anyone who thinks they can predict the consequences of a political assassination is a damn fool," says Eric Rauchway, author of "Murdering McKinley: The Making of Teddy Roosevelt's America" and a history professor at the University of California, Davis. "All it provides is an opportunity. However, the opportunity it provides is often not one the assassin intended."

This has been true from the Ides of March forward.

Did Marcus Junius Brutus, when he pulled out his blade to join in the murder of his one-time friend Julius Caesar, understand that his actions would produce (a) perhaps the most famous and influential political assassinations in western history; (b) one of the immortal lines of betrayal -- "Et tu, Brute?" -- that echoes in the cultural id more than 2,000 years later; (c) his own ignominy and suicide?

On the evening of Jan. 30, 1948, a radical Hindu newspaper editor named Nathuram Godse pulled out a pistol and approached a little old man on his way to prayer service. In the instant before he pulled the trigger, he certainly intended to kill Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, at whom he was enraged for his role in the partition of India and Pakistan. But did he know that by so doing he would turn the diminutive weaver of cotton into the "Father of India" and a global icon of nonviolent resistance?

But these killings were nothing close to the most murderously effective. The dubious title goes to Gavrilo Princip, the Serbian nationalist.

Standing at a stone bridge in Sarajevo in late June 1914, Princip shot Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand (and his wife) to demonstrate that he and his compatriots wanted to be freed of the constraints of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and to join neighboring Serbia. What did he know? He was scarcely 20 years old.

But his act of assassination worked; it led to Austria pulling out of Bosnia. The collateral damage was that it ignited World War I.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Countess Sophie, moments before they were shot dead in a single act that set in motion the events of World War I.

Photo Credit: Associated Press

In the next four years, some 16 nations lost more than 10 million lives, twice that many were wounded, the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed, Germany was humiliated in defeat (laying the groundwork for the rise of Hitler, World War II and the Holocaust) and America was launched into world prominence.

Princip's pistol also led to the creation of Yugoslavia, which led to the destruction of Yugoslavia, which led to another war involving ethnic Serbs in Bosnia, which led to mass murder of Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, which led to U.S. troops landing in a place called Tuzla, which led to war crimes tribunals and the imprisonment and subsequent death of the Serbian president who had started the war on ethnic nationalism.

Moving south, if one wants the short course on why peace in the Middle East is so elusive, just look up "Nobel Peace Prize," followed by "assassination."

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat won that award in 1978, along with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, for their peace agreement, the Camp David Accords. That lasted for three years, until Muslim fundamentalists stormed a parade route and shot Sadat to death.

Thirteen years later, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (and colleague Shimon Peres) shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Rabin's mortal enemy, Palestinian Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat. The two men had, mostly in secret, brokered a peace agreement (the Oslo Accords) that promised to have a transformative effect on the Middle East. But it was largely an agreement between two men, not two nations. One Israeli law student thought that Rabin, a soldier who had defended Israel almost his entire adult life, was "giving our country to the Arabs." He took it upon himself to shoot and kill Rabin.

The Oslo Accords withered and died.

And, of course, there is the United States, where roughly one out of every 11 presidents have been assassinated, where Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Martin Luther King followed the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi and was, of course, shot in the head at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.

American assassination has been of titanic import. Lincoln's changed the course of the country. His assassination spot at Ford's Theater is a national landmark, and there is the Lincoln Monument on the Mall, not to mention his likeness on the penny and the $5 bill. John F. Kennedy's assassination . . . oh. You've heard.

It's also been almost inconsequential. Just 16 years after Lincoln was killed, James Garfield was assassinated at a train station a few hundred yards from Ford's Theatre. That building, never designated anything, was torn down 99 years ago. The site eventually became the National Gallery of Art and today, not even a plaque marks the spot. The sole reminder of the event is Garfield's unobtrusive statue at the base of Capitol Hill.

In 1998, the U.S. Justice Department published something called the "Exceptional Case Study Project," as part of a threat assessment guide for law enforcement officials. The study reviewed the historical record back to 1835 and surveyed "the thinking and behavior of all 83 persons known to have attacked or approached to attack a prominent public official or figure in the United States from 1949 to 1996."

They fit no one profile, authors Robert A. Fein and Bryan Vossekuil found. Some had political beliefs, some were just nuts. The serious ones kept their mouths shut: "None of the 43 assassins and attackers communicated a direct threat to the target before their attack."

And some, perhaps like the person or people who killed Bhutto yesterday, wanted to "save the country or the world; to fix a world problem."

How seldom it works out that way.

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A Muslim belongs in the Cabinet

By Mansoor Ijaz (Tue Nov 27, 3:00 AM ET)

Mitt Romney tells good jokes. I had the chance to hear a few of them this month at a political fundraiser in Las Vegas, where the Republican presidential contender gave his audience a few good chuckles before going into his domestic and foreign policy agenda.

His platform seemed sound enough analytically – until he demonstrated an aggravating hypocrisy in his reply to my query on one of his key foreign policy positions. It's a stance that should give pause to all Americans who are considering voting for him.

I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that "jihadism" is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today. He answered, "…based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration."

Romney, whose Mormon faith has become the subject of heated debate in Republican caucuses, wants America to be blind to his religious beliefs and judge him on merit instead. Yet he seems to accept excluding Muslims because of their religion, claiming they're too much of a minority for a post in high-level policymaking. More ironic, that Islamic heritage is what qualifies them to best engage America's Arab and Muslim communities and to help deter Islamist threats.

I am an American-born citizen of the Islamic faith. I stand as a living symbol of all that America offers in its system of liberty, justice, and, most of all, opportunity. I am also proud of my Muslim heritage and beliefs, and, true to the American work ethic, I have worked tirelessly to raise up the voices of disaffected Muslims everywhere and help them, too, share in America's promise.

As a private American citizen, I negotiated Sudan's offer of counterterrorism assistance to the Clinton administration in 1997 when the US government had no relations with that country's leaders. I felt there was still an opportunity at that time to unravel the metastasizing terror network being organized by Osama bin Laden and his followers.

I later initiated dialogue with an Arab counterintelligence official in the summer of 2000 that could have resulted in the extradition of Mr. bin Laden to a friendly Muslim country and neutralized Al Qaeda's pre-9/11 planning. That summer, I also helped negotiate a cease fire in Kashmir, which brought peace to a region that has known constant conflict since partition between India and Pakistan.

In early 2001, I notified national security adviser Stephen Hadley that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency and militant Islamists, some of whom I had worked with during the cease-fire campaign, were actively engaged in the sale and distribution of Pakistan's nuclear technology. Mr. Hadley asked me to make recommendations on how these proliferation activities could be stopped. I did so, mindful that, as an American Muslim whose father was a pioneer in Pakistan's nuclear program, I risked harming the name of my family. But for the sake of my duty as a citizen, I helped the US government expose the illicit transfers. A.Q. Khan, who headed Pakistan's nuclear program, was arrested a few years later.

The point I make in enumerating these efforts to contribute to US national interests is that Americans of the Islamic faith – even when they have no formal role in government – are committed to helping our nation defend its interests. And we have done so. Why, then, should we be excluded from holding positions that carry the highest levels of responsibility?

Imagine how a qualified American Muslim FBI director, sensitized to the genuine concerns among Arab and Muslim communities about civil rights violations, would be able to ensure that FBI actions and policies target the real bad guys, not communities as a whole. Imagine how an American Muslim CIA director or defense secretary whose understanding of cultural differences in places that breed Islamist violence would ensure that intelligence was not biased by bigotry or lack of understanding and that defense strategies were constructed on data acquired from authentic sources.

If Romney wins the White House, he will probably rely on those who know Mormonism best to help him explain it to those who distrust it most. It is time for him to reconsider his views on who should help America craft the right policies that attack the scourge on civilization that Islamic extremism has become.

He, and other candidates for the presidency from both political parties, should actively begin searching for American Muslims and Arab Americans who can serve in primary decisionmaking cabinet level posts. To do otherwise is to risk promulgating policies that once again put the US straight in the sights of the terrorists who seek to bring America down.

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The U.S. blacklisted me. Let's talk.

By Tariq Ramadan (Wed Oct 31, 4:00 AM ET)

Living in a democratic society that grants an individual's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is the cherished privilege and pride of Western citizenry and the dream longed for by the rest of the world.

Countless have fought and died to secure these rights in the West, and millions the world over are dying for them today – dying to be free to worship, free to associate, free to speak, free to participate in the governance of their own countries.

But the struggle for the protection of rights and civil liberties in the West is not a finished chapter in our history. The constitutions of Western democracies and the rights they enshrine do not protect themselves. The preservation of these liberties requires a vigilant, critical, and courageous citizenry that can be neither complacent in times of security nor compromising in times of fear and insecurity – citizens who understand that the violation of the basic rights of one is a violation of the rights of all. Loyalty to country and constitution demands that we speak up against injustice, uphold our ideals, and hold our leaders accountable.

For years, I worked tirelessly in academic and public circles to dismantle the barriers erected by those who see Islam and the West as mutually exclusive, to build bridges of mutual understanding and respect. Since 2001, I have also intensified my work to remind my fellow Western citizens of the fragility of our societies and the precariousness of our civil liberties as we are thrust into this so-called war on terrorism. Since the end of 2004, I have done this primarily in Europe through my academic work, debates, and public lectures and by working closely with European politicians, governmental agencies, and civic institutions. But I have been prevented from doing this work on American soil.

In the summer of 2004, I was poised to start a dual professorship at Notre Dame University and eager for a more concentrated academic and public engagement than was previously allowed by my numerous but brief visits to the United States.

But that was not to happen. My visa was canceled at the last minute at the behest of the Department of Homeland Security, supposedly under a provision of the Patriot Act. This revocation not only cost me my academic post, it deprived me and Americans of a much needed mutually enriching dialogue and debate. It also fueled fantastical allegations of terrorism support and of shadowy associations that tarnished my reputation and cast a cloud of suspicion over my character and work.

After American organizations sued, the government abandoned its initial reason for excluding me but came up with a new one – that, between 1998 and 2002, I had contributed small amounts of money to a Swiss charity supporting humanitarian work in the Palestinian territories. The government is relying on a "material support" law that didn't exist until 2005 – long after I made the donations – and it is holding me accountable for donating to a charity that still operates lawfully in Europe today. And while the US government has blacklisted the charity, it didn't do so until 2003 – a year after I made my last donation. Many US organizations believe that I am being barred from the country not because of my actions but because of my ideas. The conclusion seems inescapable.

The US government's shifting arguments in my case might be absurd – even comical – if the stakes were not so high. But, in the name of defending the country against terrorism, the government seems to be trampling over the rights that make democracies worth defending. In a time when we are inundated with the daily rhetoric of ideologues, exclusivists, and merchants of fear, we are in dire need of engaged academics and public intellectuals who can write and speak authoritatively on the topics of the day and who also provide visible public models for ethics of citizenship. Yet, publicized as my case might be, it is not the only example of this administration's exclusion of academics critical of its domestic and foreign policies.

Bleak as this picture might seem at times, I remain hopeful. I am encouraged by the unwavering support I have received from ordinary Americans, civic groups, and particularly from scholars, academic organizations, and the American Civil Liberties Union, which argued my case in federal court last week. I am heartened by the emerging debate in the US about what has been happening to our countries and ideals in the past six years.

I am hopeful that justice will prevail and I will be allowed to enter this country so that I may contribute to the debate and be enriched by dialogue. It is much more important than a personal vindication for me; it is a matter of protecting of collective ideals and academic freedom, a cornerstone of democracy.

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Iran Chosen As Official Poster of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week

by Azadeh Ensha (Fri Oct 12, 4:56 PM ET)

The far right is taking its favorite catchphrase on tour. Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is coming to a campus near you.

According to FrontPage magazine's David Horowitz, the event was designed to "confront the two Big Lies of the political left: that George Bush created the 'war on terror' and that global warming is a greater danger to Americans than global jihad and Islamic supremacism." The week's events will include "awareness" speeches by Michael Ledeen, Rick Santorum, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter as well as Horowitz himself. With such a fair and balanced list, Islamo-Fascism Week will be the perfect environment to proselytize anti-Islamic propaganda to the under 30 crowd.

The official poster of Islamo-Fascism week shows a photo of a teenage girl being stoned to death in Iran (disclosure: my country of birth) and will also feature speeches from Iranians who were victims of persecution. As an Iranian-American, I appreciate that they're spreading the word about human rights abuses in my native country. Unfortunately, I think their goal has less to do with spreading awareness than it does with fostering fear, suspicion and bigotry.

Islamo-Fascism Awareness week is about telling you that Islam is evil and that Muslims are out to get you. When in fact, some crazy and violent people have hijacked the religion of billions of peaceful people.

As part of the festivities, the event will feature a series of one-sided films including Islam: What the West Needs to Know, which extols the worldview of good (Christianity) versus evil (Islam). According to FrontPage, the movie is designed to reveal the "violent, expansionary ideology of the so called 'religion of peace' that seeks the destruction or subjugation of other faiths, cultures, and systems of government."

The event will also include a petition drive designed to force "students and faculty to declare their allegiances: either to fighting our terrorist adversaries or failing to take action to stop our enemies." Students will be instructed to urge their classmates to sign and to call attention to those who don't -- reminiscent of the same public pressure to side with "us" or "them" that defined the McCarthy era. The program notably encourages confronting groups "who might be least likely to sign" the petition. Examples include school administrators and the Muslim Students Association.

So much for higher education.

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