Hudson Institute is attempting to encourage civil discourse on important issues of our time. However, the views expressed are not necessarily the opinions shared by those at the institute, but reflect a variety of viewpoints that may be controversial and sometimes provocative.
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http://www.hudsonny.org/2009/07/jihadist-charities-more-popular-than-american-aid-in-pakistani-refugee-camps.php
July 3, 2009 6:30 AM
by Robert Spencer
Tiny Minority of Extremists Update: the U.S. is less popular than the jihadists in Pakistan, such that even our putative friends and allies in the Pakistani government don't want to be associated with us too closely.
"In Pakistani Relief Camps, Charities Press Anti-U.S. View," by Jane Perlez and Pir Zubair Shah for the New York Times, July 2 (thanks to Varunappa):
QASIM PULA, Pakistan — Islamist charities and the United States are competing for the allegiance of the two million people displaced by the fight against the Taliban in Swat and other parts of Pakistan — and so far, the Islamists are in the lead.
Although the United States is the largest contributor to a United Nations relief effort, the Pakistani authorities have refused to allow American workers or planes to distribute the aid in the camps for displaced people. The Pakistanis do not want to be associated with their unpopular ally.
Meanwhile, in the absence of effective aid from the government, hard-line Islamist charities are using the refugee crisis to push their anti-Western agenda and to sour public opinion against the war and the United States.
Last week, a crowd of
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http://www.hudsonny.org/2009/07/cairo-speech-the-verdict-is-in.php
July 3, 2009 6:00 AM
by Ali Alyami
Journalist
“So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, and who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. This cycle of suspicion and discord must end.” President Obama, Cairo May 5, 2009
In his three appeals (his Al Arabiya interview, Ankara and Cairo speeches) to Arabs and Muslims, President Barack Obama repeated the same theme and almost identical words: America is not and will never be at war with Islam. During his visit to Saudi Arabia and remarks in Egypt, many Arabs were impressed by President Obama’s personal appeal, skillful oration and background. However, looking, beyond these perceived positives, they fear that he is going to embrace and strengthen the status quo in these two influential, but tyrannically ruled Arab countries. Many Arabs hoped that President Obama would call on the autocratic Saudi and Egyptian governments loudly and publicly to “share power with their people” in a transparent and timely manner. He did not. The Arab people are not brainless; they could differentiate between rhetoric, empty promises and deliverance.
President Obama and his Administration must know that winning Arab hearts and minds and rallying their support in his quest to defeat extremism and its byproduct, terrorism, will take more than rosy oration and support for regimes that most Arabs would like to see go.
While President Obama laudably would like to see American-Arab relations based on our common humanity, human needs and aspirations, he not only failed to address the root causes of those differences, but has also failed even to identify those dangerous and deeply rooted dissimilarities that have defined Arab-American relations for decades, if not centuries. The President did not make clear if he
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http://www.hudsonny.org/2009/07/2008-financial-crisis-strategic-framwork.php
July 3, 2009 5:30 AM
by Robert Mankin
Journalist
In a series of actions focused on stemming what is purported to be a financial system “crisis” of historic proportions, including a freezing of credit throughout the system and a residential mortgage emergency, the Government has committed vast sums of money, and profoundly changed its relationship, to the banking sector. These actions have been defensive, without a clear publically articulated strategic context. Their long-term consequences are barely discerned, let alone weighed. The patient was seen to be threatened by a catastrophe, but this was not made more definitive, at the time, than credit had become frozen and there was a housing crisis because the banks had a surfeit of “toxic assets” caused by the securitization of subprime mortgages. More problems have been unearthed since the original alarm was sounded. The problems have been decomposed into many components including: flaws in the regulatory complex of regulators and regulations, “too big to fail” institutions, the structure of the banking sector and the role of nonbank institutions, questionable Federal Government policies, practices and structures, accounting quagmires, bond rating shortfalls, and so on. At the beginning of the crisis we were counseled by our leaders in government that there was no time to engage in long-term thinking prior to approving and carrying-out these actions. The firefighting mode continues.
We still don’t know if the remedies (programs) will stem the bleeding nor the feared coming disaster. They might make matters worse. The public hasn’t been given a stable set of strategically consistent metrics to represent the problem(s) nor to indicate that the problem(s) has/have been solved. What are the metrics to be used to describe “frozen credit” and what should be used to indicate the solution? The public needs clarity for each and every program in terms of the problem the Government intends to solve, the program’s description and cost, and the milestones with metrics and dates to allow progress to be tracked. It also needs to know where the sum of the programs is leading. What is the
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http://www.hudsonny.org/2009/07/a-failed-diplomatic-outreach-to-tehran.php
July 2, 2009 6:30 AM
by A. Millar
Journalist
A few days ago Tehran expelled Britain’s diplomats and arrested some of the British embassy’s local staff. The semiofficial Fars news agency suggested that the latter had played a “significant role” in recent protests, inferring that Britain herself was formenting unrest inside Iran. Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Miliband has responded, however, saying that the suggestion was “wholly without foundation.” And the Czech EU presidency has also said that, “The harassment or intimidation of foreign and Iranian staff working at the EU embassies will be met with a strong and collective EU response.”
Speaking last year at ‘The Second Stage: Building Democracy in a Posttotalitarian World’ conference [video] hosted by The Hoover Institute, Richard Perle remarked on the difficulty facing diplomats working in authoritarian regimes. “It is almost always the case,” he said, “that encouraging [human] rights where they do not exist will
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http://www.hudsonny.org/2009/07/europe-shilling-for-allah.php
July 2, 2009 6:00 AM
by Dr. Sami Alraaba
Journalist
If Christian and Jewish religious symbols are criticized and satirized most people do not care. Nobody takes to the street to demonstrate violently against the “culprits”. A long history of enlightenment and freedom of expression has been enjoyed by Christians and Jews. They accept religious freedom as a civilized fact of life.
This, however, does not apply to radical Muslims. They exploit liberal Western legal systems and, most recently, blasphemy laws, especially in Europe, to advance their jihad agenda.
After lawsuits against Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Rachel Ehrenfeld in the UK and against many other critics of Islam, filed by zealous Muslims, a new case has arisen in Austria. Susanne Winter, a member of the Austrian FPÖ party and member of parliament was recently sentenced to three months in prison on probation and a fine of € 24 thousand. (about $40,000).
Ms. Winter’s “crime” was simply an observation, and observations must be tolerated in a society that believes in religious and civil freedom. Ms. Winter said, “If the prophet Muhammad were living, he would be indicted as a child abuser,” which is true. Muhammad married Aisha, a nine-year-old girl and consummated this marriage years before she had her first menses. And this is a clear case of child abuse.
The judge, Mr. Schwentner, commented on his sentence with the following
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http://www.hudsonny.org/2009/07/plastic-flowers-and-victory-parades.php
July 2, 2009 5:30 AM
by Nibras Kazimi
Some contractor has struck it big: whoever imported plastic flowers in recent weeks must be swimming in cash. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Iraqi Police cars and Iraqi Army Humvees have been decked out in plastic flowers and balloons, and policemen and soldiers were handing out stems of plastic flowers to passersby. Speakers were hooked up to car batteries, patriotic songs blaring. At least one traffic cop was spotted riding around, awkwardly holding a cell phone to his motorcycle’s radio with the aim of amplifying a love song saved on the phone to other motorists.
This was the scene on the streets of Baghdad on June 30th the day U.S. soldiers left Iraqi cities and garrisoned themselves in military bases away from urban areas. The date was set by the Status of Forces Agreement signed between the Bush administration and the Iraqi government last year. The latter put together elaborate celebrations—concerts, military parades, and of course, investing in plastic flowers—to mark the occasion, but impromptu street dancing with trumpets and drums, one outside my balcony, came together as teenage guys, needing release and needing to get spotted by the teenage girls
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http://www.hudsonny.org/2009/07/banking-on-allah.php
July 1, 2009 6:30 AM
by Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens
Journalist
Islamic banking is becoming increasingly accepted as a viable and fair alternative to the current "Western capitalist" banking system. European governments, including the UK's, are embracing Islamic banking. Gordon Brown recently declared that it was his desire to make Britain the Islamic finance capital of Europe. A number of leading UK banks now offer sharia-compliant financial services and the Treasury is considering the implementation of the sukok, or sharia-compliant, bond. Such moves fail to recognise Islamic banking for what it is — a modern Islamist construct, designed as another wedge between Western Muslims and their societies.
Since the recession, Islamic banking's supporters have been seizing the opportunity to present it as not only a more moral option, but as an economically safer one. But there are three questions that need answering: How is Islamic banking different? Who are its biggest cheerleaders? Why are they pushing for it?
Among the many justifications for
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