Last night, I gave a talk at the Hartford Seminary titled “Liberalism and Islam: Pitfalls and Potentials.“  The talk centered around two themes: how normative liberalism reacts to intolerant groups in its midst, and what are the religious obligations of liberal Muslim citizens in a liberal democracy generally, and the war on terror in particular.

Last night, I gave a talk at the Hartford Seminary titled “Liberalism and Islam: Pitfalls and Potentials.“  The talk centered around two themes: how normative liberalism reacts to intolerant groups in its midst, and what are the religious obligations of liberal Muslim citizens in a liberal democracy generally, and the war on terror in particular.

Given my criticisms of US policy in the Middle East, the “War on Terror,” and its “lawfare” against US Muslims, one might reasonably question why I should remain a US citizen at all?  Indeed, I have sometimes asked myself “At what point would the limit be crossed?”  I guess the plain reason why I have never seriously contemplated renouncing US citizenship, and doubt that I ever would, is my deep conviction that substantial groups within US society share my deep opposition to these policies as well, and that the future belongs to us, not to those status quo forces that perpetuate atrocities in the name of the American people.  This otherwise disturbing article in Slate, which details the extent of the torture and international law-breaking practiced by the United States during the Bush Administration, crimes which the Obama administration foolishly chose to inter rather than investigate as the crimes that they were, strangely confirms my long-term view of the United States.  I hope my fellow American Muslim citizens, particularly the post-9/11 generation, understand that they have allies in the US; they should not think that all Americans are anti-Muslim paranoids; and that it is possible to work together with those Americans to bring a halt to these abuses, and the further entrenchment of the “creeping” surveillance and torture state.

We need you to call the White House and urge the President to veto the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012.  Time is of the essence,

as this bill has already passed the Senate and House and will be sent any day to the President for final approval.

The NDAA threatens all Americans’ civil rights and liberties by giving the government authority to indefinitely detain anyone, including US citizens, simply based on suspicion of engaging in terrorism.  Detainees under this provision will NOT be allowed access to a lawyer or a court of law.  This violates our constitutional rights, and we need your help in flooding the White House with your complaints.

Call the President now at 202-456-1111 and urge him to veto the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012.

Muslim Advocates, working in coalition with over 40 Muslim, Arab, and South Asian organizaitons and bar associations, called for  President Obama to veto the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The bill grossly undermines both our nation’s constitutional values and our security. The coalition letter requests that President Obama stand by his previous commitment to veto the NDAA.

Among the signatories to the letter are: Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS), Islamic Information Center, Islamic Society of North America, Islamic Leadership Council of Metropolitan NY, Islamic Society of Greater Houston, Somali Action Alliance, and South Asian Americans Leading Together. A full list of signatory organizations follows the letter.  A special thank you to the Muslim Bar Association of Chicago for their assistance in drafting the letter.

There is little doubt that religious commitments often conflict with political ones, at least in circumstances where religious commitments are considered to be transcendental, and at least some of them will ultimately be non-negotiable for their adherents. In Islam, the prohibition against intentionally killing other Muslims or waging war against them are examples of such commitments Muslims may have that can cause them to question the validity of certain political obligations.  This dilemma has become even more acute for American Muslims in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and the decision of the United States government to fight a global war on “terrorism” which goes well-beyond the immediate perpetrators of 9/11.  In these circumstances, and particularly because many Muslims feel obligations of solidarity with other Muslims they are under attack, e.g., ‘Iraq, what is the responsible course of conduct for American Muslims?  In this essay published first in the Islamic Monthly, I put forward an argument that requires American Muslims to create a language of critical citizenship, one that incorporates Islamic moral concerns in a critique of US policy, but at the same time transforms Islamic moral concerns into more universal ones, with the hope of creating a political discourse that reconciles the political values of modern liberal citizenship with the political values of Islam.

Lacking thumos for any fight against the Republicans, Obama has to display it through violence, most recently in the shocking assassination of Anwar Awlaki, on which I hope to have time to say more in the near future.

Quantifying the obvious: a couple of economists have authored a report showing that homeland security spending is a massive waste of expenditures, with no reasonable relationship to the actual risk of terrorism.  But don’t expect it to be reduced any time soon: too many interest groups are making too much money for these programs ever to be scaled back.  And, BTW, a recent SEC regulation designed to protect ordinary investors was struck down by the DC Circuit because, among other reasons, the SEC failed to demonstrate its cost effectiveness.  Conservatives, it seems, are indifferent to rent seeking when it comes to “security,” and especially if part of those funds goes to their own pockets, whether through increased campaign contributions or obtaining lucrative security contracts directly.