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Dear America,
The Sunday talk shows demonstrated that the Islamic center planned for a site two blocks from the old World Trade Center buildings that were brought down in the 9/11 attacks is neither rational nor transitory. The debate continues, but now it is focused on the most identifiable person involved, the imam Feisal Abdul Rauf who is the prime mover of the Islamic community center in question. I understand the popular sentiment and the provenance of those feelings, and to some extent I agree. I might not have chosen to put the community center a mere two blocks from the place where such egregious acts of terror played out less than a decade ago. And even as I write to you now, I do not know how the choice of this site was arrived at, so the prudence of the choice continues to be at best questionable to me. However, as the furor continues it becomes ever more apparent that ulterior motives among the politicians who are keeping the tumult alive are responsible. That became eminently clear on On Meet the Press.
Senate Minority Leader McConnell led off with an unveiled criticism of The President in which he questioned The President's decision to address the matter even though all Mr. Obama did was to remind the public that construction anywhere on private property is a matter of right as long as operative law was observed. And when asked in the context of the same set of questions why 31% of Republicans still believe that President Obama is a Muslim, McConnell answered that Mr. Obama says he is a Christian and that he, McConnell, "takes the President at his word"-- a sly way of saying that he takes no position himself on that point and that he really doesn't want to discourage those who harbor that erroneous belief. And then in the next segment of the program, New York gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio, the Republican who is behind in the race more than two votes to one, insinuated that Mr. Rauf is a Muslim extremist because he said when 9/11 occurred that the United States was complicit in the attacks, though Lazio left out the reasons why Imam Rauf took that position. A remark like Lazio's is inflammatory in light of all that wasn't said to put it all in context, and for that reason, I feel compelled to add some perspective to it for all those who are tempted by Lazio's kind of ad hominem approach to politics.
By conincidence, the New York Times provided its readers with a profile of Mr. Rauf yesterday, and the comment made by the imam was actually shown on ABC's Sunday program, This Week, where the imam's wife was appearing. She was asked to clarify the remark as even ABC did not show it in context, and she said that her husband was saying something that I myself have said before. The U.S. armed Osama Bin Laden and the Mujahadeen in the short sighted belief that the enemy of our enemy was our friend, a doctrine that has been disproved over and over again. And I don't expect you to take my word for that, nor the imam's, nor even his wife's. There is no need. All you have to do is watch a movie.
A year or two ago, a movie was made about a Texas congressman, Charlie Wilson: an infamous womanizer, partygoer, narcissist, self-promoter and probably worse, who took it upon himself to go around the CIA's appraisal of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and implement foreign policy on his own by supporting bin Laden in his insurgency. In the movie Charlie Wilson's War, the CIA was shown to have resigned itself to the benefit of the mutually destructive conflict between the Soviet army and the radical Afghan rebels in the belief that the attrition that was being suffered by both sides weakened two enemies of the United States at the same time. There was collateral damage from that war of course, and Wilson was moved to give aid to the refugees, certainly a noble cause. But he also decided to go outside of official channels and fabricate and implement a network of sources from which he could marshal the resources to arm and train the rebels as well. They became Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and now, at least in part thanks to Charlie Wilson, here we are. That was Mr. Rauf's point, and it is indisputable. But not to Mr. Lazio.
The desperate gubernatorial candidate, most likely attempting to cultivate support through demagoguery in light of the fact that his political positions have been rejected by New York's electorate, impugned imam Rauf by elliptically citing that remark, the validity of which should be an object lesson to Americans rather than the provocation that Lazio wants to make it. And that is why we are still discussing the Islamic community center today. There are people in our political arena who view themselves as players in a game in which winning is all that counts; public service gets only lip service from them. They will say anything, no matter how self-serving, dubious, prevaricative or just plain untrue in order to win office for themselves. McConnell's sly disclaimer regarding President Obama's religious affiliation and his evasions regarding the issues of the deficit vis-à-vis the Bush era tax cuts for the richest 5% of Americans are another example of that kind of political pseudo-polemics, but the kind of thing to which Lazio has stooped is not just devious, it is catalytic of hatred and division among loyal Americans, millions of whom are Muslims. It is the kind of cynicism that has despoiled American politics and undermined true democracy just as the facile patter of McBoehnell (McConnell and Boehner) has done, but it is so much more sinister. McBoehnell's obstructionism and casuistry in the name of pure political purpose are one thing, but precipitating hatred for one's own personal political gain is another. For that, there is no excuse. Shame on Mr. Lazio. Fortunately, it appears that the voters of New York saw him coming.
Your friend,
Mike
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