Is Our Conservatives Learning?
Interestingly, last year Arnaud de Borchgrave found it worth his time to publish an op-ed about those menacing Wahabist mosques. (Through Benador Associates yet!) This week, in his article on the Miami Seven, he writes,
Since 9/11, the FBI has been plagued not only by costly computer interface glitches, but also by a shortage of agents who could speak Arabic or Urdu. Militant mosques had been located to not much avail. What once transpired in some militant mosques is now conducted on the Internet. While al-Qaida cells undoubtedly exist in the United States, there are certainly far fewer than in Europe where Muslim minorities stick to their deprived suburbs on the edge of major cities.
My emphasis.
It certainly doesn’t seem like the network of Wahabist mosque funders has gotten its money’s worth in the United States. You can credibly claim the first WTC attacks as their single real success, iif there really is a network of Saudi funders hoping to inspire American Muslims to commit terrorism in the United States. Otherwise, their aims have foundered on the rock of something else de Borgrave 2006 has noticed:
In America, immigrant families from the Middle East, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia are to a large degree integrated, Americanized and successful.
As I’ve argued before, the first priority of any successful antiterror policy is to keep it that way.
Comment by digamma —
June 28, 2006 @ 9:41 am
Expect to hear from my lawyers.
But seriously, the really sad thing is that American Muslims voted 70-30 for Bush in 2000, because (according to a Muslim activist friend) they liked the family values talk and they were upset with Clinton’s detention policies. After 9/11 this constituency could have been really useful to the GOP, but the party threw them overboard.
Comment by Barry —
June 28, 2006 @ 10:05 am
GOP politicians are very sensitive to their core constituencies, as latinos are finding out now. When the snow piles up, there’s little disagreement on who’s for dinner.
Comment by SomeCallMeTim —
June 28, 2006 @ 11:31 pm
American Muslims voted 70-30 for Bush in 2000, because (according to a Muslim activist friend) they liked the family values talk and they were upset with Clinton’s detention policies.
Also, GHWB had unbelievable cred among the Muslims (or, maybe better, Arabs) I knew because they believed he and James Baker had been tough with Israel on Palestinian issues.
Comment by Nell —
June 29, 2006 @ 9:44 am
SCMTim is right.
W pissed away all the cred his daddy had accumulated within fifteen minutes of his first NSC meeting. I think it’s Richard Clarke’s book Against All Enemies that has the account, where Bush started off the discussion of middle east issues by announcing something like ”We should get closer to Ariel Sharon. We need to listen to what he to say.” Powell turned several shades paler, tried to object, but W was insistent.
Even if there’d been no September 11 attacks and no roundups of Muslins and Arabs, the administration’s ”we’re with Sharon” stance during the spring of 2002 would have severely eroded Arab-American support.
Comment by jlw —
June 29, 2006 @ 9:55 am
Funny thing is, the Lebanese Shiite in my office remained a big Bush supporter up to–well, he might still be one, though he was eventually carted off for going a bit too nuts at work. The post-September 11 detentions, the war in Iraq, the general undercurrent of anti-towelheadedness in the GOP rank and file could not shake his loyalty. The man was working two jobs and would parrot the Republican talking points on the economy.
Why? He was a religious conservative. Notwithstanding that he showed up for work shitfaced half the time, he admired the Republican stand on abortion, on crime control, on keeping women in their place. Heck, his own wife (who had been in the U.S. for at least a decade) didn’t speak English, didn’t drive, didn’t show her face outside the house.
I’m not positive that he was voting his values against his economic interest, per Thomas Frank. But it seemed to me his values vote was at odds with his long-term interests nonetheless.