A Global War That Knows No Bounds

The Bush administration’s global war on terror consumes our lives. We have waged wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq; wars whose legitimacy is debatable, yet whose consequences are facts that stand still. Since 2001, over 4,500 Americans have lost their lives as a result of military combat in the Middle East, and over 150,000 Iraqis, and thousands of innocent Afghani civilians’ have been killed. Hundreds of Iraqis and Afghanis have been subjected to torture techniques at detention centers like Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, in direct violation of the U.N. Convention Against Torture.

The war on terror has not only been the primary task on the U.S. foreign policy agenda, crushing the lives of innocent individuals living thousands of miles away, but it has taken its toll on our own soil as well. The lives of ordinary Muslim and Arab Americans have been permanently disrupted as the word terrorist has come to be synonymous with the word Muslim. A wave of racial profiling has been unleashed for the past 7 years, reminiscent of the Red Scare of the 1940s. Racial profiling became government policy with the passage of The Patriot Act of 2001 that gave the U.S. government the “authority to intercept wire, oral, and electronic communications.”<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[1]<!–[endif]–> Although this is a violation of the Constitutional right of all Americans to privacy, it primarily impacts Muslim and Arab Americans. They have been subject to governmental scrutiny, racial profiling, house intrusions, arrests, illegal detentions, and blatant discrimination.

The U.S. actively pursues the policy of extraordinary rendition, where foreign nationals suspected of involvement in terrorism are transferred to foreign countries or US-run detention facilities to be interrogated by U.S. personnel or by foreign agents, respectively. Illegal interrogation methods and torture are used on these suspects. This crime against humanity is prohibited under the United Nations Convention Against Torture, to which the United States is a signatory, and is a violation of the U.S. Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998, which prohibits the expulsion and extradition of any person to a country where there is a substantial risk of that person being subjected to torture.<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[2]<!–[endif]–>

One of the most known cases of extraordinary rendition is that of Maher Arar, a 34-year old Syrian-Canadian who was arrested in 2002 at JFK International Airport by U.S. officials, then transferred to Syria for a little over ten months where he was “beaten, tortured, and forced to make a false confession.” <!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[3]<!–[endif]–> Due to campaigning initiated by his wife, he was returned to Canada in October 2003, and the Canadian government later cleared him of all terrorism allegations. The U.S., who is primarily responsible for his detention and transfer, did not take responsibility for subjecting this innocent man to such inhumane conditions. When Maher Arar sued John Ashcroft and other U.S. officials involved in the process of extraordinary rendition, his case was immediately dismissed and the perpetrators of this crime were never held accountable.<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[4]<!–[endif]–> The practice of extraordinary rendition continues, and the U.S. continues to get away with it by defending itself and its illegal actions as being vital to national security.

Islamophobia-the fear of anything and everything Muslim- is the direct result of the war on terror and a culture of extreme paranoia. According to Zbigniew Brzenzski, the U.S. National Security Adviser during the Carter administration, as Americans, we have been “terrorized by the war on terror.” The new culture has “bred intolerance, suspicion of foreigners and the adoption of legal procedures that undermine fundamental notions of justice.” <!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[5]<!–[endif]–> Muslim and Arab Americans no longer have only governmental policy to fear, but they are now weary of making comments that might result in them being verbally slandered and falsely accused of terrorism, by organizations who have taken it upon themselves to save the United States from the ‘threat of Islam’.

One of the most famous proponents of the global war on terror is David Horowitz, a previous leftist and communist now turned neoconservative. In 2007, he launched a project called Islamo-Fascism Week, dedicated to confronting 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.”<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[6]<!–[endif]–> Almost 147 college campuses hosted Islamo-Fascim Week at their respective universities. Known neoconservatives such as Daniel Pipes, Ann Coulter, and Robert Spencer lectured about the threat radical Islam poses to the U.S. Sit-ins were even held at some universities at Women’s Studies Centers by students who were upset that their universities did not offer classes on the oppression of women under Islam. In accordance with the week, students at George Washington University put up posters that read “Hate Muslims? So do we!” David Horowitz denied that these posters had anything to do with him or his Freedom Center, but rather that the students who put up these posters were really leftists aiming to discredit him.<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[7]<!–[endif]–>

Regardless of what the true motivation behind these posters was, a week that results in students promoting hatred of entire group of individuals is wrong. We stand for freedom of speech not freedom of hate speech. True academic freedom is when issues and programs stimulate open discussion, not when they are aimed at promoting a political agenda and at garnering more support and justification for a global war that knows no bounds.

The latest threat to Islamophobes seems to be Islamic and Arabic schools in the United States. In the past two years, the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA) in Alexandria, Virginia and the Khalil Gibran International Academy in New York City have both been accused of promoting and teaching terrorism. While the accusation against the Khalil Gibran Academy is nothing short of preposterous, since the school does not even teach classes on Islam, the campaign against ISA has stirred much controversy.

ISA, a preK-12 grade private school that has been in existence since 1984, was recently accused by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[8]<!–[endif]–> of promoting hatred of nonbelievers and using books that contain passages that “exhort the reader to commit acts of violence.”<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[9]<!–[endif]–> The Commission believes that the teachings in Saudi Arabia do not conform to “international human rights norms,”<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[10]<!–[endif]–> and that ISA, which has an Arabic and Islamic studies program based on the Saudi curriculum, is guilty of the same.

Andrea Lafferty, the executive director of Traditional Values Coalition (TVC), a right-wing church lobby <!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[11]<!–[endif]–> publicly accused ISA of “raising homegrown terrorists.” Mrs. Lafferty’s stated problem with ISA is not that it is a Saudi school, but that it is an Islamic institution. She writes that “every town in America which has one of these ‘academies’ should be on the alert,” and that Americans should protest the schools. The TVC website even provides a link to all the Islamic schools in North America.

The TVC’s hatred of Islamic schools cannot be termed anything but racist and evident of the organization’s blatant religious discrimination. But nothing decent can be expected of a group whose stated purpose is to build a society based on the values of the Bible, completely excluding the millions of Americans that do not adhere to Christianity.

Regardless of the offensive way these claims were presented, ISA did take the claims seriously. The school sent the Islamic books to the State Department in October 2007, the only U.S. institution its Education department believes has legal jurisdiction over the school and has the right to view its textbooks. To some, ISA’s refusal to make the books available to the USCIRF is taken as an indication of the school having something to hide, but the Education department has stated that it did not want to release the books to a group that just wants to find fault with them.

Following a year-long revision of the books by the State Department, the Fairfax County’s Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to renew ISA’s lease for the next school year. Supervisor Hyland from the Fairfax Board of Supervisors, along with an Arabic translator, had independently investigated the books and found no major cause for concern. However, because of the continued controversy the Board did send a letter to the State Department on June 23, 2008 for guidance in determining the future of the school. Just last week the State Department responded saying that it would be up to Fairfax County to decide if it should keep leasing property to ISA. The State Department said that they do not have any objections to the lease, and that that “no authorization from the Department to renew the lease is required.”<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[12]<!–[endif]–> Neither the TVC nor the USCIRF have commented on this recent development; perhaps they have been silenced on this matter for good.

The refusal of the TVC and USCIRF to enter ISA, to view its curriculum firsthand and allay their fears (after several invitations), indicates something about Islamophobia. Islamophobia does not stem from logic or proven fact; its perpetrators do not really care to know what Islam truly teaches, nor what Muslims actually believe. Perhaps if they entered ISA, the TVC and USCIRF would have seen the 8^th grade class that was conducting a comparison of the Diary of Anne Frank and the story of Helen Keller, or they would have walked in on the third grade class that was conducting a mock election, and see that the teachers were teaching their students to be good citizens and to be involved in the American political process. Perhaps they would have seen the many Christian and Jewish teachers who have made ISA their home for the past few years, or the video of the junior class girls going to New Orleans to help rebuild homes, or the pictures of ISA students debating at Model United Nations competitions at other nearby public schools, all proof of the open-mindedness of ISA students and their willingness to hear and learn from different perspectives.

Islamophobia may have originated from fear, but the purpose of Islamophobia is to attack and to find fault with Islam. Instead of protecting the United States of America from radical extremists opposed to religious freedom, Islamophobes have become what they seek to eliminate—extremists; they seek to delegitimize Islam, and in essence, are only advocating a policy of religious discrimination and hatred.

 

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<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[1]<!–[endif]–> http://epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html

<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[2]<!–[endif]–> http://www.aclu.org/safefree/extraordinaryrendition/22203res20051206.html

<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[3]<!–[endif]–> http://www.maherarar.ca/

<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[4]<!–[endif]–> http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0217-01.htm

<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[5]<!–[endif]–> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/23/AR2007032301613.html

<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[6]<!–[endif]–> http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=5EC88545-3022-47F9-8213-38314CCA6F09

<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[7]<!–[endif]–> http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=A5F5C60A-C63A-4142-B4F5-1B8E5A3F3E94

<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[8]<!–[endif]–> “A bipartisan federal commission whose members are appointed by the Bush administration”, USCIRF.org

<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[9]<!–[endif]–> “Saudi Arabia: USCIRF Confirms Material Inciting Violence, Intolerance Remains in Textbooks Used at Saudi Government’s Islamic Saudi Academy.” June 11, 2008.

<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[10]<!–[endif]–> Uscirf.gov

<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[11]<!–[endif]–>“ Traditional Values Coalition. Empowering People of Faith Through Knowledge.” http://www.traditionalvalues.org/about.php

<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[12]<!–[endif]–> http://saudiwatch.wordpress.com/2008/07/24/state-dept-stands-aside-on-fairfax-county-lease-to-isa/

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~ by nollla on August 1, 2008.