By: Prof. Mahfuz Chowdhury
America has often fought the wrong war, at the wrong time, and against the wrong people. The wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and now Afghanistan would seem to fall into such categories. Although, apart from the human tragedy, the enormous economic fallout of the Vietnam War might be imagined, the full outcome of the Iraq war must be awaited as it is not over yet. However, the debate on the launch of the Afghan war has only begun and it would take many more years to assess the damage, assuming the war is not going to end anytime soon. This war is also affecting neighboring Pakistan and creating a great controversy in terms of its economic cost and more importantly about whether it is winnable. Opinions vary, but those who doubt that the war could be won seem to be gaining ground.

Here are some of their arguments. Afghanistan was such a sectarian and unmanageable country that super powers like the Soviets and earlier the British failed to control it. This country has not changed much since those days. The enemy that America is fighting in Afghanistan is elusive and the situation on the battleground itself is very erratic and unpredictable. The daily news of horrors such as the recent killings of the chief CIA operative including 6 other colleagues in Afghanistan, and the unprecedented and ever increasing human carnage in neighboring Pakistan should provide some important clues. In fact, the escalating conflict and mayhem in Pakistan, a nuclear country, is now adding to the genuine fear that its nuclear weapons are not safe in the hands of its government.

Is America’s goal to contain terrorism or to oppose organized Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan? If the fight is to contain fundamentalism, winning this war in Afghanistan alone is not likely to achieve it. The skeptics should only look at the unrelenting and vicious terrorist activities as well as the outright defiance that is spreading not only in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but also in Yemen, Somalia, Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and many other countries, including America itself. (Note the recent shooting rampage by an American army psychiatrist in Fort Hood, Texas, that claimed 13 lives plus many more injuries). Clearly, there are innumerable signs that the conflict is spreading. Indeed, after the failed 2009 Christmas Day bombing plot on a flight from Amsterdam, the U.S. government imposed intense screening of passengers at airports worldwide from 14 terror suspect nations. America had thought that it had found a willing partner in the Yemeni government that would support the deployment of American troops to fight the rising Islamic militants there. But it has been reported that the government of Yemen has rebuffed the idea for fear of losing popular support.

Religious fundamentalism is nothing new as it has been in existence since the birth of religion itself. The main theme of every religion was supposed to guide people to lead a noble life. Yet human society has experienced enormous oppression, suppression, violence, crime, brutality, fatality, and war in the name of religion. No religion is immune from the appeal of fundamentalism, and fundamentalist practices are still very much in existence, though subtly in some cases and violently in others. Without a doubt, Muslims have had their share of religious violence, and the present situation is no different. But to blame only Muslims for what is happening now would be morally wrong. How could one justify what Jews are doing to Muslims in the Middle East? Does not anyone see how Israel is provoking the Muslims?

Every heinous act of terrorism is a serious crime, and it must never be condoned under any circumstance, be it individual or collective. But, instead of looking or treating every terrorist act equally, if society condones or overlooks one and tries to punish the other, it only intensifies violence. This is precisely what seems to be the case with Islamic fundamentalist terrorism.

Islam is a world religion with a great following, and it certainly deserves respect. Yet the Muslim community always felt that they were being treated unjustly by the affluent west. The Arab-Israeli conflict has kept that feeling alive and very intense. The Muslims believe that the creation of Israel and the continued atrocities that are being perpetrated by Israel is nothing but a big conspiracy by the west to suppress them. They also believe that the Iraq and Afghan wars initiated by the United States are all part of the same conspiracy. And the religious fundamentalists are taking full advantage of public sentiment to create havoc and spread terrorism everywhere.

America claims itself to be the promoter of human rights and preaches self determination of all people. But it utterly fails to help the Palestinian cause. Why? The most difficult and painful situation for Muslims and other rational people, is to see and accept the sufferings of their fellow brethren in Palestine. The Muslims squarely blame America for the present tragedy because of its unequivocal support of Israel. After many years of armed struggle, the Palestinians have agreed to live peacefully with Israel in the internationally recognized pre 1967 border of Palestine. But Israel steadfastly refuses to compromise and continues to thumb its nose against world opinion by brutally suppressing the Palestinians, using American weaponry.

The best case for the Palestinians has probably been made by none other than the former U.S. President and a Nobel laureate Jimmy Carter, who argues in his book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” that Israel’s continued control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Middle East. The Israeli blockade of Gaza’s 1.5 million residents for the past year?as a collective punishment, which has drawn many international condemnations including allegations of war crimes?is a glaring example of actions that openly provoke Muslims to resent America, which refuses to intervene and stop such Israeli atrocities.

There are other issues of contention for Muslims. America supports Saudi Arabia, an autocratic country with no democratic rights, while it refuses to recognize the democratically elected Palestinian representatives of Hamas in Gaza. By the way, America along with Israel once supported the Hamas in Gaza as a counter to the Fatah movement. On the other hand, many believe that Saudi Arabia is sponsoring fundamentalism by providing financial help to religious schools in Pakistan and other Muslim countries.

Additionally, America went to war in Iraq under false pretexts and different agendas, though it now claims that the purpose was to save the Iraqis from the brutality of Saddam Hussein. Muslims believe that the main purpose for invading Iraq was to protect America’s oil supply. And they have plenty of facts to justify their claim that America is driven by its economic greed. They look at the situation in Darfur, Congo, Myanmar and other countries where America failed to prevent atrocities or promote democratic rights.

Muslims even question the American policy of allowing Israel to hide its nuclear weapons and maintaining its own nuclear stockpile, while it rallies its western allies to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Ironically, America’s success against Iran would depend entirely on the co-operation of China and Russia, which might not be forthcoming as they too have their own world agendas to pursue.

The above exemplifies the ways that America has alienated Muslims over the years. Now the new generation of educated Muslims is getting impatient with American prejudices, and is effectively using the internet to communicate with and receive feedback from each other. The fundamentalists are successfully indoctrinating these young people to resort to violent tactics in the name of “Jihad“, a religious word for martyrdom. America and the rest of the world have already witnessed some of their brutal suicidal acts during and since 9/11. If the core issues are not addressed, even if America wins the war in Afghanistan, it might not dampen the spirit of young Muslims around the world to pursue their resistance. American suppression is likely to embolden the fundamentalists to embrace new or more dangerous tactics of terrorism. Violence begets violence, and it would be impossible for America to monitor, invade, occupy or control every Muslim militant country in the world.

Although it is the sole remaining super power, America seems to be losing its grip on its economic power. The country has yet to recover from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The unemployment rate is hovering around 10 per cent, the federal debt has already surpassed $7.5 trillion, and the federal budget deficit was $1.4 trillion in fiscal year 2009. There are other emerging economic powers now, who are preparing to compete and check American hegemony in the world. In fact, America can no longer continue to impose its will on the world community. Nor can it suppress Islamic fundamentalism or its spread by its military power alone. It clearly needs to reassess its overall foreign policies if it wishes to rein in the fundamentalists and remain an important international player.

The rise of Islamic fundamentalism with its current ferocity is a problem for the Muslim populace as well. But they will be reluctant to join the fight with true conviction unless America is willing to change its attitude towards Muslims and correct its past mistakes. A speedy and just settlement of the Palestinian crisis would be a good start. It should then be followed by a quick withdrawal of American troops from Iraq and a winding down of the Afghan war as fast as possible. Unless America plays its cards right, the consequence of its military exercise in Afghanistan will be just as futile as the war in Vietnam.

About The Author: Professor Mahfuz R. Chowdhury teaches Economics at C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, New York, USA. He has published articles on various issues of Bangladesh and other economic issues, which are posted on numerous web sites. He has wide ranging experience in international business and commerce, and has written on failure of communism & problem with developing countries. His book, “Economic Exploitation of Bangladesh“, addresses the economics of developing countries, using Bangladesh as a case study. | More Articles By Mahfuz R. Chowdhury |

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   Columnist – John Sammon
Three of the major, tubby, fat-faced-jowly, chubby white boys who serve as right-wing racist talk show hosts on Fox News, and the Fox News blonde she-male, if asked to rank their least favorite people, with the most despised starting at the top, would rank them as follows.

The names used here are the same slang names the tubby, fat-faced-jowly, chubby white boys who serve as right-wing racist talk show hosts on Fox News, and the Fox News blonde she-male, would themselves use once the mike is turned off.

Fox stands for Fear Others Xenophobically.

Here’s the list. No surprise to some of the rankings.

  1.   Niggers, coons, jungle bunnies (African Americans). All three Fox newscasters, and the Fox News blond she-male, secretly wish black people were back in fields picking cotton like in the good old days. Also, as a general rule, the greater the number of racist epithets (slurs) assigned to a people, the more they are hated, and the more they can be justifiably proud for being hated by the goons at Fox.

  2.   The Fox racists also despise those whom they think of as:

  3.   Spicks (Mexicans, also known as beaners, wet-backs or greasers).

  4.   Gooks.

  5.   Chinks.

  6.   Zips (Koreans).

  7.   Hajis (Iraqis).

  8.   Muzzies (Muslims).

  9.   A-Rabs (also known as rag-heads, sand niggers, or camel jockeys).

10.   Editors’ Note: Remember, none of the chubby Fox News broadcasters thought enough of their country to serve in the military, not one. They let other young men their age serve while they learned their vile craft safe from harm at the college campus radio station.

11.   Wops (Italians, also known as I-ties, garlic eaters or Dagos).

12.   Kikes, Hebes (Jews). Jews advanced down a notch from #9 to #12, in other words being slightly less hated in the opinion of Fox News, because they kicked ass on the A-Rabs.

13.   Frog Connucks (French Canadians).

14.   Frogs (French).

15.   Bohunks (Eastern Europeans).

16.   Polacks (Polish. Another racist epithet is to go up to a Polack and ask, “How’s the bowling team?“).

17.   Limeys (British). The presence of the Brits so high up the list is due to the Fox News blonde she-male and her opinion that Prince Charles and the Beatles were five English faggots.

18.   Japs or Nips (Japanese).

19.   Faggots (all persuasions, also called queers or limp-wrists).

20.   Socialists (liberals).

21.   Papists or mackerel snappers (Catholics).

22.   Micks (Irish. Hannity and O’Reilly disagreed with this one).

23.   Towel-heads, wogs or Sabu, for Sabu the Elephant Boy (East Indians).

24.   Injuns or Redskins (Native Americans).

25.   Congo Lisa (the name they secretly assigned Condoleezza Rice even though she is a conservative).

26.   Uncle Tom (Michael Steele).

27.   Tree huggers (conservationists).

28.   Krauts (Germans. Beck and Coulter disagreed with this ranking).

29.   Editor’s Note: All three major, tubby, fat-faced-jowly, chubby white boys who serve as right-wing racist talk show hosts on Fox News, and the Fox News blonde she-male, strongly and angrily disagreed that they are cracker honkies (white men).

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   Columnist – John Sammon
You watch the Republican Party impotently thrash around in its death throes, searching for a thread, a purpose, a cause other than hate, with its dysfunctional tea-baggers, health care reactionaries, town hall hecklers, storm trooper talk radio hosts, assorted hillbilly would-be serial assassins, gun nuts, Klan racists and you’re-going-to-hell religious xenophobes.

It almost makes you feel sorry.

If not for them, the nuts, then at least certainly for the poor people who remain in that party, who for some reason have left some shred of intelligence, some dignity, and who for some reason, still remain in the Republican Party. Those who want to cling to the notion that it somehow is still a party of decent people.

It makes you think of the dinosaurs, the giant lizards who once commanded the awe of the earth, but who were done in either by the blinding flash of an asteroid they never saw coming, or by the climate change to which they couldn’t adapt, and which they themselves partly enacted with gigantic methane blasts of hot air farting. Or perhaps, simply fate, which decreed that things would get cold, life-giving rain forests dry up, mountains rise, and little furry creatures the great beasts couldn’t fathom, scurrying unseen, un-felt between their giant toes—the meek—would inherit the earth.

There is an inevitability to it. For the GOP, like the dinosaurs, things changed, but they couldn’t change along with it. They had to continue plodding on into the extinction of irrelevancy. They could still scream however and make a lot of noise and desperately struggle about.

Here are 10 similarities between Republicans and the Jurassic Age.

  1.   The most cherished Republican myth is that Republicans are for small government. During the eight Bush years government set astronomical record debts partly due to pursuing two un-ending nation-building wars. This is like a giant brontosaurus that is so big that if it looks back, it can’t see its own tail.

  2.   The giant lizard grew so huge through evolution that it could only support its tremendous weight by standing for hours in water for buoyancy, in this case, in the filthy muck of a swamp. The Republicans stand in the filthy muck of crass behavior, heckling people (including the president) with whom they disagree, calling everyone other than themselves disloyal traitors and bad Americans. It stinks, just like the swamp they took refuge in.

  3.   Both Republicans and dinosaurs are adverse to worrying about climate change.

  4.   The biggest dinosaurs had tiny brains and bloated bodies. So do many right wing talk show hosts.

  5.   The top of the food chain, the scariest dinosaurs, were the huge snarling screeching meat eaters. The leaders of the Republican Party are also the scariest, and make the most noise, Limbaugh, Beck and Sarah Palin.

  6.   Many dinosaurs laid eggs. So did Republicans in strategic planning both Iraq and Afghanistan. For example, they initially sent troops to Iraq without flak vests.

  7.   Dinosaurs had no concept of time. For them, time stood still. Likewise, Republicans want time to freeze. Or even reverse. For them ideally, it will always be 1948, when blacks knew their proper place, when women knew their place, when immigrants knew their place, when white men (no Jews or Catholics) were the only ones who mattered.

  8.   To the very end dinosaurs, the big ones, remained creatures of mass consumption. A fatal flaw. It took a ton of plant matter every day to feed one of the great green eaters, munching away, and whom the flesh eaters in their turn depended on for their food. The chain was fragile. Likewise, the Republican Party has remained the party of mass consumption. Live big like there’s no tomorrow. A Republican wants to be a big man (like his hero John Wayne), even though physically he is usually a small angry white guy. He wants to live in a big energy consuming house, and drive a big powerful gas guzzling car or truck, sometimes with a Confederate flag adorning it. To ride a bike is to be a liberal traitor. Environmentalism is seen as an anti business plot against business-as-usual. Likewise, the dinosaur, if it could think, would probably have disdain for the unseen tiny, more environmentally efficient creatures at its feet.

  9.   Some dinosaurs had extremely odd-shaped (duck-bill) heads. Look at some of the town hall hecklers.

10.   Republicans have proven time and again they are incapable of rational compromise, or at least trying to meet others half way so some kind of forward progress can be made, the most basic requirement of a two-party state. They exist in the status quo, and the past. Like the dinosaurs, they have to predominate, or nothing. They left behind their bones.

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“The White House is planning a muted observance of Thursday’s National Day of Prayer, a response that has disappointed both Christian conservatives and an atheist group that wants to end the tradition.

Congress established the day in 1952 and in 1988 set the first Thursday in May as the day for presidents to issue proclamations asking Americans to pray.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama would issue such a proclamation Thursday but not hold any public events with religious leaders as President George W. Bush did.” — RYAN J. FOLEY/The Associated Press.

The National Day of Prayer makes a mockery of the establishment clause of the First Amendment. Christians, Muslims, Jews, and everyone who treasures the Constitution should join atheists and agnostics in demanding that Obama boycott this insidious observance.

Obama must feel awkward acknowledging the National Day of Prayer, or he wouldn’t have scaled back the involvement of the White House. The President needs to stop pussyfooting around, and declare that henceforth his administration will not participate in a religious event that promotes monotheism (particularly Christianity) above the thousands of other religions.

At this critical juncture in our history, with the recession in danger of becoming a depression, Obama should call upon Americans to think clearly and act decisively, and not to bet everything on the efficacy of prayer.

President Obama, America needs change that we can believe in, please set an example by declaring that on the National Day of Prayer you will be hard at work researching solutions to the nation’s seemingly intractable problems, instead of praying.

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American politics is tribal.

Not in the sense of Kikuyu and Luo and Kalenjin and Kamba and all our competing ethnic groups, but racial and ethnic components do account for the differences in this richly diverse country.

At the most basic level in the nation of 305.3 million people, it is Black and White. Obama Versus McCain.

Then there are the Hispanics, a sizebable group with about 14 per cent of the population compared to about 13.3 per cent that is black.

There are the Asians, who are a distinct minority at five per cent, and the largely forgotten and ignored Native Americans, who make up about 1.5 per cent of the population.

Among the whites, things get very complicated, depending on how people chose to classify themselves in the census.

There are the majority White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. There are Catholics. There are Hispanic whites.

There are religious or ethnic groups like the Jews; and there are the various white ethnicities — Italian, Greek, German, Dutch, Irish and many more that went into the original melting pot.

Within the white community, for instance, political pollsters look not just at the above distinctions but also at sub-genres like education, sexual orientation, region, occupation, rural or urban, farming or industrial, new industry (IT) or old industry (mining, motorplants) and so on.

These are the Tribes of America for whose votes Barack Obama and John McCain are competing to win one of the most compelling presidential campaigns in US history.

Democratic candidate Barack Obama was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, the latest stop on a whirlwind tour between last Tuesday’s second presidential debate in Nashville, Tennessee and the final debate set for New York on Wednesday.

Before Philadelphia, Mr Obama made several stops in Ohio while his running mate Senator Joe Biden campaigned in Florida, another key state whose electoral vote could determine the outcome of the election.

Republican candidate John McCain and running mate Sarah Palin have been equally busy in the week or so between the two debates, covering, sometimes together and sometimes separately, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio and Winsconsin.

National opinion polls show Mr Obama increasing his lead over Mr McCain, reaching double-digit 11 percentage points — 52 percent to 41 per cent — according to the latest Gallup daily tracking poll at the end of the week.

The margin was mirrored in the latest Newsweek poll. But outside the major national events like the presidential debates, the campaign is being fought at the grassroots level, block by block, town by town and state by state.

   A pro-Obama campaign march in Nashville, Tennessee earlier this month

What matters in the American political system is not the national popular vote, but the state-by-state popular vote which determines the number of electoral votes through which the electoral college elects the president.

The outcome in some states can already be predicted — New York generally votes Democratic — so the candidates are concentrating their efforts on the so-called battleground states where the outcome is still uncertain.

There is no need, for instance, for Mr Obama to spend too much in California where he already commands nearly 54 per cent of the popular vote to Mr McCain’s 39 per cent.

The Republican candidate would not bother too much about the state’s 55 electoral votes because he has little chance of overturning Mr Obama’s majority.

The reverse holds true in another large state like Texas with its 34 electoral votes where Mr McCain holds an unassailable 51 per cent advantage over Mr Obama’s 38 per cent.

So the campaigns are almost over in California and Texas and in a large number of other states where solid red indicates support for the Republican candidate while solid blue shows support for the Democrat.

But then there are the states where the outcome is still too close to call; they are coloured light blue or pink depending which way they lean.

And there are some states where the candidates are virtually tied; they are marked with blue and red checks.

Almost all the polls now indicate that if the certain states for either candidate are counted, Mr Obama has a clear lead.

If he also captures the states leaning strongly towards him — those where he has more than a five per cent margin — then all the key pollsters including Reuters, Newsweek, Zogby, Gallup, give him an unassailable victory over Mr McCain in electoral votes.

Some estimates already give Mr Obama just over the 270 electoral votes needed to secure victory; most give him a clear margin of between 330 and 350 electoral votes compared to Mr McCain’s 190 to 210.

Mr Obama’s tremendous surge is being attributed to the way in which he has steadily eaten into the regional and demographic groups that have been supportive of McCain or of the Republican party in general.

States like Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Virginia, North Carolina, Missouri and quite a few others were just weeks ago solidly for McCain. Now they are seen as leaning towards Mr Obama or are too close to call.

According to the conventional wisdom of electoral demographics, Mr Obama’s key support comes from non-white groups including blacks and Hispanics; the youthful 18-29 age group; those with postgraduate educations; women; the urban poor, mostly black; and groups that are ambivalent towards religion.

Mr McCain’s strengths have been among whites, other than Hispanic; senior citizens over 65 years; the traditional white Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPS) and whites who attend church frequently or for whom religion is important.

On the demographic map, therefore, Mr McCain’s support base has been in the traditional Republican strongholds, the middle and central United States that are largely agricultural bastions of conservatism; while Mr Obama’s support has been in the big cities on the densely populated East and West coasts.

His support among whites has been limited, as described above, to young, modern, well-educated urbanites.

That is what has changed. I was at an Obama campaign march in Nashville, Tennessee, last Tuesday on the same day the two presidential candidates had their second debate.

Nashville is the home of country music.

Tennessee as a whole is a very white and conservative state; guns, church and ranching are the defining characteristics. It is a solid red state where the 11 electoral votes are all but assured for Mr McCain.

But observing the Obama march around Belmont University, one could hardly have believed it.

The participants were mostly white, as would be expected of Nashville. But they were not just the young, educated and modern white generation generally seen to side with Mr Obama.

The chanting crowd included middle-aged to elderly white men and women of the type that instinctively would be fearful of and hostile to the prospects of an Obama presidency.

That is the demographic that Obama is stealing from McCain in states around the country and the one that might secure him victory.

Article — Originally posted in The Daily Nation on 10/11/08