مدونة د. منصور عمر الكيخيا * Dr. Mansour Omar El-Kikhia Blog

A political debate in France reminded me of what a great place America is. I get a few e-mails and letters from angry readers calling me awful names and accusing me of hating America, but they can’t be further from the truth.

There is no place in the world I would prefer to be than in the United States. I am truly fascinated by the simplicity and tolerance of the many Americans I have met compared to many others who have passed through my life.

I am constantly hammering at the Bush administration for policies that abridge individual freedoms. I feel I am justified, because I certainly don’t want to see the United States go down the path of intolerance that France is adopting.

The debate in France is over religious symbols. It seems that some French citizens find it offensive that Muslim girls attending schools wear head scarves, but the government could not ban women from wearing them without creating an uproar. Hence, it decided to establish a commission to look at religious symbols and their impact on French culture and secularism.

The commission recently recommended prohibiting French students from displaying religious symbols in schools. If the ban is approved, Christians would not be permitted to display large crosses, Jews couldn’t wear yarmulkes (skullcaps) and Muslim females couldn’t wear head scarves. The commission also recommended that no special allowance be made for Muslim women to see female gynecologists in the national health system.

What does all this mean?

First, while wearing a cross might be a symbol in the Christian faith, turbans are not just symbols to Sikhs, head scarves are not just symbols to Muslims and, while I am not a scholar of Judaism, I don’t think yarmulkes are simply symbols to Jews. Turbans, skullcaps and women’s scarves are integral p

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Sometimes, when it comes to the Bush administration, I feel like a character in the movie "The Godfather."

Michael Corleone said every time he wanted to get out of the family business, he would be pulled back in.

Every time I want to move away from criticizing the president, he pulls me right back in.

I had a chance to see President Bush’s interview with Diane Sawyer this week and, to be quite honest, he scared me.

I am less impressed by him and his intellectual and political prowess than any time in the past. Two particular points scared me.

First, he defined the 21st century in terms of the war on terrorism. Surely, the whole century will not be bogged down in this war. We should look to better things.

Second was his stubbornness, his total unwillingness to listen to other points of view.

I don’t doubt he is a decent man, but it is safe to say the money he spent at Yale University was not money well spent. He would have gotten a better education in the political science department of UTSA (full disclosure: where I teach).

It is not difficult to see our president has no conception of global politics, America’s position in the world or, for that matter, policy making. He merely continues to parrot the "war on terror" phrase, little realizing how much terror he is spawning on a global scale.

I take no pleasure in writing this, but America is in trouble, and four more years of this nonsense will be detrimental.

Let us look at the implications of the open-ended war advocated by this administration.

Open-ended means no beginning, no end and no time limit. Because it is couched in security terms, it takes precedent over all other issues, domestic and international.

Internationally, this administration began its war by justifiably launching an attack on Afghanistan

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It is difficult for many Westerners living a life of privilege and freedom to appreciate the emotions that engulfed me on hearing the news of Saddam’s capture.

As a political refugee, I have nothing but disdain and contempt for all forms of dictatorships. What a great day for Iraq and the Arab world that he was captured alive. He is the first Arab dictator who will be held accountable for his atrocities.

My first instinct was to want to see him thrown to the Iraqis so they could cut him into small pieces after dragging him through the streets of Baghdad, as they did former dictator Abdel-Karim Kassem. However, drawing and quartering Saddam is not the right solution, in spite of the pleasure such raw revenge might provide.

What implication does his capture have on the United States, Iraq and the Arab world?

Most Arabs were anticipating his death, not his capture, and based on satellite broadcasts from the region, some are content that he did not die. Others wanted him to go out in a blaze of glory, as he has been urging Iraqis to do.

Oddly enough, there appears to be an underlying feeling of pity for him among those interviewed. His miserable appearance and the environment he was living in left many Arabs sad.

Yet there was an undeniable elation over the fact that he could serve as an example to the rest of the thugs who have imposed their dictatorial will on the region. It is not surprising that some countries, such as Libya, did not cover his capture on television.

In Iraq, there were some street demonstrations that signaled the people’s pleasure with the dictator’s capture, but most Iraqis are still not convinced that security will get any better.

Indeed, the pictures showing Saddam looking shabby, impotent and defenseless reinforced the popular belief that he could hardly help himself, let alone the Iraqi resistance.

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Why do Middle East peace attempts fail? This is a pivotal question that some Israeli and Palestinian peacemakers are trying to answer.

It seems brave Israelis such as former Justice Minister Yossi Beilin are more in tune with reality than the Sharon and Bush administrations.

For the past 21/2 years, Beilin and his delegation have been holding secret talks in Geneva with a Palestinian delegation headed by former Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo.

These peacemakers are swimming against the tide and in the face of powerful forces of reaction and religious fanaticism on both sides. Oddly enough, polls show that 58 percent of Israelis support them.

Three years of Palestinian uprisings, declining economic productivity, violence and international condemnation have further eroded Israel’s position in the world. Worse yet, Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians has given rise to a new wave of global anti-Semitism and a call for isolation of the Jewish state.

In Europe, as in the rest of the world, there is a huge backlash against Israeli policies. Only two nations in the world — Costa Rica and El Salvador — recognize Israel’s settlements and the annexation of the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem. They have embassies in Jerusalem.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his government are unwilling to accommodate reality. They still live in a bubble of illusions that relies on occupation and repression. And, as expected, they opposed the peace talks and condemned Beilin’s attempts.

Since 1948, there has been no lasting, mutually acceptable peace in the Middle East, and peacemakers understand that there will never be until the two peoples recognize each other’s right to exist. Until both do, violence, suicide bombing, stone throwing, demonstrations and oppression will continue.

Israel can begin by showing good faith and changing some of its policies. Killing or deporting Palestinians and swallowing up their homes and farms by force will not succeed. Israel is already a garrison state and survives by virtue of support fr

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"And is there anything more akin to wisdom than truth?"

This is one of the questions the ancient Greek philosopher Plato asked in his seminal work, "The Republic." Truth, according to him, is one of nine necessary ingredients that make up the philosopher-king who, when tempered with age and knowledge, can be entrusted with the state.

The philosopher-king is a far cry from the parade of characters plaguing the world with self-centered policies, cowardice, sloth and mendacity. Dictators all share an insatiable urge to stay in power indefinitely at all costs. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Middle East and Africa, where illegitimate leaders are more likely to expire in office than to be legally voted out of power.

However, Western leaders are certainly no philosopher-kings. Their regimes are in many cases more hypocritical than regimes of the Third World. They differ from dictators only by virtue of the systems that elected them. Hence, while dictators are domestically accountable to none, Western leaders are accountable to their populations. In foreign policy however, there appears to be no difference between the two.

A case in point is President Bush’s call for democracy in the Middle East, as though the Middle East is the only place short on democracy. The administration is fully aware of what it needs to do in all policy situations, yet it finds justification to avoid doing what is right.

Bush knows the Palestinians are the victims and the settlements not only are illegal but also the major obstacle to any peace process. Yet he lacks the will to deal with the issue from the roots. He decides to show his displeasure with the Israeli government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon by withholding $294 million out of $9 billion in loan guarantees.

What should he have done?

He should have put a hold on the whole amount until the Sharon government dismantles all West Bank settlements that have been ruled illegal by the United Nations and the world. In addition, the president needs to let Sharon know in no simple terms that the new wall must be

المزيد

Realists always have dominated modern politics.

Instinctively, they take guidance from political thinkers such as 16th-century Niccolo Machiavelli. In "The Prince," Machiavelli advised his prince in 1505 "it is better to be feared than to be loved" and "the ends justify the means."

Hence, according to him, lying, extortion, blackmail, murder, aggression and war are all policy-making tools.

Extremely few policy-makers do not lie. Most, at the very least, distort information to meet their interest, create success or blame others for their policy failures.

But in the final analysis, political mendacity is a highly developed art that requires a great deal of practice.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair was a very convincing web spinner until the British learned his government plagiarized a Berkeley student’s report on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. According to the BBC, that lie cost him a 30 percent drop in public support to the current 33 percent.

Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl lost his job for lying about his party’s financial backers.

Analyzing America’s presidents poses a challenge, because the political system is flexible enough to permit a certain amount of dishonesty and disinformation. It shouldn’t, but it does.

Lyndon Johnson’s half-truths about the Gulf of Tonkin, supported by subservient media, embroiled the United States in a nasty war that took the lives of millions of souls. Ultimately, the Vietnam War’s distortions and canards prevented him from running for a second term.

Richard Nixon is best known for his "two step," Watergate and the War Powers Act. These resulted from his prevarication and overshadowed his successes. His lies got him impeached, and he resigned rather than be fired.

Ronald Reagan relied on "plausible deniability" for fudging the truth, hence the term "the Teflon president." The Iran-Contra affair is only the tip of the iceberg future historians will uncover.

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On the eve of President Bush’s visit to Britain, a poll of Britons indicated that more than one in three, 37 percent to be exact, believe the American president is "stupid."

Sixty percent think he is a danger to world peace.

Those figures came from a Reuters news service article by Paul Majendie on Nov. 15.

The British government was mustering a small army to provide for Bush’s security in the face of anticipated huge demonstrations.

So why are the British so angry, and why do so many people worldwide share their sentiments?

Fear is the simple answer, fear that the hegemon is adopting fascism as a mode of government.

The number of American men and women who saved the world from fascism is rapidly declining. Soon the only sources of information about World War II will be history books.

America will miss the stabilizing influence of this group because, more than any other, they have kept fascism at bay in America. Their numbers have dwindled so low that it is not surprising to see the current administration flirting with corporatism and, by extension, fascism under the guise of security and patriotism.

This administration of millionaires might not be fascist, but it has certainly borrowed more than two pages out of Mussolini’s policy book and is cleverly applying them to America’s legal and political systems.

This is evident from Bush’s new security apparatus, the Patriot Acts, faith-based initiatives, corporate privileges and, most important, the appointment of radically conservative judges at all levels of the judiciary.

The administration also has its own version of Mussolini’s black shirts, namely media demagogues spewing their hate on radio, television and print 24 hours a day. They adopt views and propaganda that subvert and belittle the laws of America and its Constitution.

They supported:

Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s refusal to abide by a federal court ruling on the separation between church and state.

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As a Semite and an Arab American, I am really dismayed when some of my Sephardic Jewish cousins accuse me of anti-Semitism.

I am not anti-Semitic, and the accusation will not prevent me from airing my views on a variety of issues.

Earlier this week I was a guest on Ricci Ware’s radio show on KTSA. Ware and I don’t see eye to eye on many ideological issues, but I have always found him to be pleasant, polite and willing to listen to different points of view.

Before my interview, he mentioned that he plans to go to Israel to report on the political situation between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Initially I thought the initiative was commendable, and I was pleased that he was going - until I learned that Pastor John Hagee of the Cornerstone Church was involved.

My knowledge of Hagee’s speeches and his financial support for Israeli settlements on expropriated Palestinian lands convinced me that, however well-intentioned Ware is, his report will not do justice to the Palestinians. It will merely be a justification for thievery and occupation in the name of God.

What can we expect from that visit? We can first expect mental images of the holy sites in Palestine, followed by interviews with Likud policymakers who will go to great lengths to justify their occupation and repression of Palestinians - all in the name of fighting terror. We will then hear about the wonderful job the settlers are doing in reclaiming Israel for the Jews.

I sincerely hope that Ware visits Gaza and reports on the shutdowns, curfews, unemployment, checkpoints, bulldozing of homes and the destruction of farms and the way of life for Palestinians.

Perhaps he can view, from the Palestinian side, the new wall being erected by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government, a wall that makes it impossible to create a Palestinian state.

Maybe it is wishful thinking on my part, because I know that if Ware dares to do that, he will be accused of biased reporting - indeed of anti-Semitism.

المزيد

Earlier this week, I had an opportunity to watch President Bush’s press conference. I had hoped to hear the president clarify his policies as well as delineate some sort of broad vision of where America is going.

What I saw was a man in distress who had little knowledge about international politics and even less about policies being implemented in his name. To every question, he merely repeated the memorized answer he has been giving since Sept. 11, 2001.

It is a shame when the president knows so little about so much. More serious is his admission that he neither listens to the radio nor reads newspapers, but relies on "objective" advisers for his information.

It seems to me that this is dangerous and shortsighted at a time when the United States needs to engage the world on a number of levels.

American foreign policy is often compared to a three-level chess game, with security occupying the top level, followed by economics and welfare. Culture occupies the third level. Smart policymakers know when to use what instrument of American foreign policy.

The Cold War ended in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed because it could no longer sustain itself. None of its nuclear warheads, nor its 11-time-zone land mass, nor its huge resource base could prevent the collapse. Perhaps the primary reason for the collapse was the Soviet Union’s emphasis on security at the expense of everything else.

I fear this administration is heading down the same path.

The United States is a great power with global responsibilities, yet this administration has neglected all of these for the sake of an illusion of security.

No nation can be 100 percent secure. The world has lived with terror and terrorists for thousands of years, and nothing this administration does will eliminate that.

This administration has made the war against terror the central theme in its domestic and foreign policy, yet it cannot fight terror alone. European support, while effective, has been limited, cautious and more selective.

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The commonly held view in Western society is that Islam relegates women to an inferior status by denying them freedoms and rights it grants to men. This view further advocates that Islam also condones violence against women including female genital mutilation. Let us look at the validity of these views.

Leaders in some Islamic societies continue archaic misogynistic practices that Islam came to destroy 14 centuries ago. Female genital mutilation, for example, is not Islamic, nor is it practiced in 95 percent of Islamic society. This pre-Islamic tradition continues in parts of Upper Egypt and Sudan and among some tribes in East Africa and the Horn of Africa.

Muslims believe that women are deficient in wisdom and in faith. Hence their biological makeup necessitates special treatment and exemptions.

The temporary deficiency in wisdom is the result of post-menstrual syndrome or pregnancy. The deficiency in faith is the consequence of not having to abide by Islamic codes. During menstruation women are not obliged to pray or to fast. They are also excused from these duties if pregnancies or breast-feedings become too uncomfortable.

Islam gives the right to the women to choose a husband and to demand what she wants in the marriage.

An Islamic marriage is based on a contract, which is comparable to a prenuptial agreement. She can stipulate anything she wants, including the right not to do the dishes. She does not come with a dowry but gets one from him.

He is responsible for fulfilling all her economic, physical and emotional needs, as well as protecting her. She can work if she has the will and capacity and, if she does,

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