Comments on: Hobsbawm deported

By: seth edenbaum

seth edenbaum — Sat, 25 Sep 2004 23:15:28 +0000

——-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE——- Hash: SHA1 “Can someone explain this crap to me? Thanks. ——-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE——- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (MingW32) – GPGshell v3.10 Comment: My Public Key is at the following URL: Comment: http://www.alapite.net/pgp/AbiolaLapite.txt iD8DBQFBU/zIOgWD1ZKzuwkRAoK9AJ9MOoD/6D1vDWnE8QBWC3/cOUg5DQCfWDxU Wn5NijbyBbeJSh3/75gnGow= =1tj6 ——-END PGP SIGNATURE——-

By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 25 Sep 2004 19:38:14 +0000

This illustrates once again the utter cluelessness of the Bush strategy in the “war on terror.” They completely fail to understand that small tactical victories which lead to large propaganda defeats can be and often are net negatives. On the other hand, seen in the context of the War on John Kerry, the deportation was most likely a large propaganda victory and a net positive. A big, splashy, celebrity-driven story like this will be received as proof positive by many that the administration is “doing something” about terror. The dismal record of John “0 for 5,000” Ashcroft and his pals won’t get a tiny fraction of the media attention. Most of the time this administration only appears “clueless” at first glance. Once you accept that short-term political advantage is pretty much the alpha and omega of policymaking in the Bush White House, it all starts to make a lot more sense.

By: Nicholas Weininger

Nicholas Weininger — Sat, 25 Sep 2004 18:01:18 +0000

Cat Stevens is a vile person, but that’s really beside the pragmatic point. The pragmatic point is: it is very bad for our image in the world, and for the promotion by example of our ideals of freedom under law, to be seen as a country that acts capriciously and arbitrarily toward people it has vague reasons for not liking. This case is a prime example. Suppose arguendo that all the public allegations against him were and are well-founded. Denying him entry is still a really dumb idea. Whatever actual threat his presence here might represent is extremely minor compared to the damage his deportation does to our image among relatively-moderate Muslims—the people we really, really need to get on our side in order to beat al Qaeda. This illustrates once again the utter cluelessness of the Bush strategy in the “war on terror.” They completely fail to understand that small tactical victories which lead to large propaganda defeats can be and often are net negatives. (Now it might conceivably be that the INS had secret evidence that Stevens was not only a past financial supporter of Hamas but a presently active member of al-Qaeda. But given the record of our intelligence agencies regarding people like Yasser Hamdi, I am not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on that score.)

By: Soul

Soul — Sat, 25 Sep 2004 14:35:28 +0000

That’s why I don’t really trust Kevin Drum and the rest. They are more interested in ideology (their extremist moderation I suppose) That they don’t realize that by standing by and saying nothing while one lunatic gets sent away, He’s making it a lot easier for ANYONE with unpopular views to be deported. I don’t think he’d even say something if this were a US citizen and he was being exiled.

By: bad Jim

bad Jim — Sat, 25 Sep 2004 09:37:56 +0000

America is now so afraid of its shadow that it has detained, jailed and deported British journalists who didn’t have a special visa. What, you think you can visit the U.S. with just a passport (not being Brazilian, or otherwise unprivileged)?

By: snuh

snuh — Sat, 25 Sep 2004 08:22:18 +0000

so to review, the best evidence we have is an israeli government allegation that stevens gave money to hamas in 1988, at which time hamas had not been designated as a terrorist organisation by any government on earth, not even israel [in israel it was designated in 1989, whereas the unites states waited until 1995]. it was not until 1994 that hamas started carrying out car bombings and suicide bombings. this is hardly persuasive, especially considering that giving money to hamas in the 1980s is something that israel itself has been accused of. of course, no one has demonstrated that israel did in fact donate money to hamas, and unsurprisingly they deny it. but then, the same goes for stevens. anyway, this whole business about the purported hamas donation is irrelevant to the hobsbawm comparison. hobsbawm did after all give money to the british communist party as a member, and moreover did so at a time that communist parties had to assist stalin with the purges/terror/etc or be expelled from the comintern. even if the stevens-hamas thing is true, i still think the stevens-hobsbawm analogy stands.

By: ruralsaturday

ruralsaturday — Sat, 25 Sep 2004 06:37:14 +0000

Mercantile hedonism didn’t get through the Middle Ages on its own wheels. Actors and singers starved and whored their way at the bottom of what little society there was at a time when “medieval religion” was the sole carrier of scholastic knowledge. Islam is in it for the long haul, a claim that this culture whatever its current brand-name might be can’t make, unless a desperate conscienceless lunge for physical immortality at any cost can be considered “in it for the long haul”. Islam is fierce, it was born in a fierce environment, one in which even slight weakness meant death. We seem to have got beyond that for the moment, but I wonder. Nothing in Western culture seems capable of bearing us through what’s coming, which bodes fair to make the Dark Ages seem bright indeed. It’s that growing uncertainty that makes harsh traditional discipline seem more viable, and the adolescent sneering of well-fed and essentially helpless Americans seem increasingly weak. Religion isn’t a consumer choice to devout Muslims, it’s life, in opposition to death and the selfish darkness of evil. That devotion can seem dangerously ignorant to modern liberated minds. Kind of like the superstitious Christian church must have seemed to the more sophisticated, logically superior Romans, toward the end there.

By: David Tomlin

David Tomlin — Fri, 24 Sep 2004 22:58:25 +0000

After the Oklahoma city bombing, (during the Clinton years), Congress in a panic passed an anti-terrorism law, which we might now call a pre-PATRIOT Act. It was this law that authorized the deportation of people on “secret evidence”. I’m amazed that so many people are just now noticing.

By: cerebrocrat

cerebrocrat — Fri, 24 Sep 2004 22:26:54 +0000

While Chris’ post on this subject was cute, Matt Yglesias’ actually makes the point. Rule of law, as Matt says, is the real issue here, and I’m ashamed of myself for not bothering to think that far when I first heard this story. I’m not the least ashamed, however, for wishing no good on Cat Stevens whose comments about Rushdie were and remain repulsive. Repulsive also is trivializing or waving them off.

By: Another Damned Medievalist

Another Damned Medievalist — Fri, 24 Sep 2004 22:16:07 +0000

But … IIRC, Gerry has visited the White House itself, several times—and I seem to remember Martin McGinnis accompanying him on at least one occasion. I could be totally wrong, and things are much better in the Irelands than they used to be, but if there’s no statute of limitations for Cat Stevens, then WTF?

By: Emma

Emma — Fri, 24 Sep 2004 21:05:21 +0000

And Brett—we did let Nazis in here. We recruited them! NASA did bumper crop business in rocket engineers—the same folks who were bombing Allies.

By: jif

jif — Fri, 24 Sep 2004 20:54:12 +0000

ai-ya, Mr. Bellmore needs to stop reading William Safire’s obessive NYTImes op-ed columns about the UN food for oil “scandal.” It is his tired horse, and he’s riding it, but there’s probably a very good reason why he’s the only one in the posse.

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 24 Sep 2004 19:21:13 +0000

You actually think the war, of which such bloody conflicts such as Viet Nam were mere battles, wasn’t really a war? I think you start looking for generals whenever you hear the phrase “the moral equivalent of war.”

By: bob mcmanus

bob mcmanus — Fri, 24 Sep 2004 19:18:17 +0000

Oh. Should have mentioned Charlie Chaplin in post above. Don’t “argue cases” with these guys. It is never the point.

By: bob mcmanus

bob mcmanus — Fri, 24 Sep 2004 19:14:39 +0000

This isn’t about security, past behavior, or much about Cat Stevens. This is of course about intimidation, deterrence, and controlling future behavior. By refusing entry to Stevens and T Ramadan, the administration is trying to move Islam in a more “moderate” direction. Tommy Chong did federal jail time as a celebrity example. This method is at least as old as the late 40’s, and the Right keeps its tools honed forever.