Moderate Islam

I have taken and will continue to take a lot of flack from my fellow conservatives for taking the stance that Islam is not inherently barbaric and that moderate Muslims deserve our support. The response ranges from calling me a spineless, politically-correct liberal to labeling me a terrorist sympathizer to threatening me with lawsuits. The lawsuit incident is particularly memorable, and I wish I could say I was joking.

It seems I am caught between anti-war protesters who honestly believe that if the US disarmed the world would revert to its natural idyllic state of peace, tranquility, and universal love.

Comedy Central does a pretty good job of depicting one of those extremes.



http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=163653&title=marines-in-berkeley



http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=102734&title=youre-not-helping-code-pink

Meanwhile, on the other side of the spectrum we have Ann Crusader Coulter "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity". Thanks, Ann. Why don't you have a seat with Code Pink over there and sort things out?

It's extremely hard to find information that is simultaneously honest about the ferocity and barbarism of radical Islam without indulging in extremism itself. One documentary that walks this line is "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West." One scene in particular conveys the breadth of Islamic views on terrorism. This clip is available on YouTube and it surveys both the violence and atrocities of radical Islam and the voices of moderate Islam.



http://youtube.com/watch?v=QDPzPgkr4vk

The first 4 minutes are some of the most vile rhetoric from Islamic leaders in Iran, the UK, and the US. (On a tangent: if you're on a public street corner ripping up a US flag and calling for the nation to be conquered it's time to stop making 'free speech' excuses and start to remember what the words "treason" and "sedition" mean.) About 4 minutes into it you start to see the voices of moderate Islam. Here they are:

Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari (Former Dean of Islamic Law, Qatar University):
We have not succeeded in making our children love life. We have taught them how to die for the sake of Allah, but we haven't taught them how to live for the sake of Allah.

Sheik Mubarak Lamhiri
Dear brothers, [the terrorists] belong to the enemies of Islam. People who distort the image of Islam belong to the enemies.

There's also footage from Iranian demonstrations chanting "death to terrorists" in 2001. As far as I know, these demonstration took place after 9/11 and were protesting the terror attacks. Not supporting it. Every red-blooded conservative knows the story of Palestinians cheering in the streets when the towers fell. How many had any clue that there were Muslim counter-demonstrations?

Daniel Pipes is an American scholar on Islam. If you have any question about where he stands in the War on Terror, he was an adviser to Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign. He has a 2004 article on his site called "Identifying Moderate Muslims". He includes in the good guy camp both academics like Azar Nafisi, Ahmed al-Rahim, Kemal Silay, and Bassam Tibi and Islamic figures like Ahmed Subhy Mansour and Muhammad Hisham Kabbani who are speaking out against terror. There are organizations like the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and the Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism (their website seems to be defunct). More than 2,500 liberal Arabs in 23 countries had signed (as of 2004) an international petition not only calling for a treat to denounce religious incitement to violence, not only calling out "sheikhs of death" who do so, but actually demanding they be tried before an international court.

Pipes cites an article from a Saudi journalist in London named Abdel Rahman al-Rashed who states: "It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims. … We cannot clear our names unless we own up to the shameful fact that terrorism has become an Islamic enterprise; an almost exclusive monopoly, implemented by Muslim men and women."

An Egyptian named Osama El-Ghazali Harb adds: "Muslim and Arab intellectuals and opinion leaders must confront and oppose any attempt to excuse the barbaric acts of these [terrorist] groups on the grounds of the suffering endured by Muslims."

In the states Anouar Boukhars writes "Terrorism is a Muslim problem, and refusal to admit so is indeed troubling."

Not everything is flowers and rainbows. Pipes goes on to observe that radical Islam, always keen to use the West's virtues against it, is learning to fake moderation and that many seemingly legit movements (like CAIR) are covers for radical Islam. I think maybe this is why so many conservatives have thrown their hands in the air and decided to Hell with all Muslims. This is a mistake. In a war with stakes this high you don't just give up because you can't always identify your targets. Not only is that morally questionable, but it's tactically stupid.

Pipes was also quoted in Obsession, and I stand by what he said there:

It would be a terrible disservice to those Muslims who are liberal, who are democratic, who are moderate, who want to live a civilized life, to throw them in with the barbarians because they are on the right side. And, more than that, they have a great deal to offer in the war against militant Islam.

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A Very Strong Argument

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The Power of Ideology

Over twenty-five hundred years ago, Cyrus the Great carved from the ancient world an empire of terrific proportions. Like many kings before him, he commanded a fearsome army, and with it besieged the disparate kingdoms of the Middle East. Even Babylon, the greatest empire of its day, fell before his might. The people of antiquity had much to fear from him; every emperor prior had exacted terrible punishment upon the conquered. So it was with no small amount of anxiety that the inhabitants of Babylon awaited the arrival of their new ruler.

But Cyrus did not come as a conqueror. Instead, he brought with him freedoms hereto unimagined. He abolished slavery, thus ending the Jewish captivity, and penned the Cyrus Cylinder, the first universal declaration of human rights in the history of mankind. Under its auspices, Cyrus declared that all men possessed the inherent right to live and worship freely, under a leader of their own choosing. While he proclaimed himself a Zoroastrian, and therefore a monotheist, he defended vigorously the freedom of those under his rule to worship as they pleased, seeking to respect local customs and cultures, rather than supplant them.

For the next three hundred years, the empire that Cyrus founded would uphold the ideals he espoused. His vision kept countless peoples free when they would have been enslaved, and protected their right to worship. Even after the Achaemenids fell to Alexander's armies, Cyrus's beliefs lived on, eventually resurfacing under the Parthian and Sassanid kings, although never quite as nobly. The thousand years of history that followed Cyrus's death was profoundly influenced by his ideology.

Cyrus provides the perfect example of how powerful ideology can be, and how long-lived its effects truly are. That his beliefs concerned the sanctity of individual rights makes his story all the more relevant, as the very same country that birthed him--Iran--now struggles to reassert his legacy. It is imperative that American citizens join this struggle, and do everything in their power to help it succeed: just as the victory of Cyrus's ideology ushered in centuries of liberty and religious freedom for people far beyond Iranian borders, so could its defeat today begin an age of terrible oppression and suffering.

Still reeling from a revolution that began as a desperate cry for democracy and individual freedoms, Iran has since become a state gripped by tyranny, governed under the auspices of Islam. This facade of religious zealotry has done much to alienate Americans, characterized as it is by unspeakable violence and ruthless despotism. The twenty-some odd years of vitriol between Iran and America's governments does little to countermand the impression that the people of Iran are hopelessly lost, consumed by hatred. But nothing could be further from the truth, for underneath the surface of Iranian theocracy lies an embattled movement for reform, in desperate need of support from within and without. There are powerful allies within Iran for the reformists: Mohammad Khatami and Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, both respected theologians and ardent advocates of democratic reform. Shirin Ebadi, the only Iranian and only Muslim woman to ever receive a Nobel Prize, continues to struggle valiantly for civil rights (especially those of women), despite threats of imprisonment. These thinkers are the key to reversing the overwhelming apathy and hopelessness that has gripped both America and Iran. They are articulate, passionate, and unapologetically Muslim, openly defying the presiding belief that Islam cannot produce champions of civil rights.

These activists are the bridge through which Iranians and Americans can unite. The civil rights movement of the 1960s gained prominence in America because it was thrust into the life of the average American. As interest in the struggle grew, so did its media coverage, until the entire nation was consumed by the movement and its leaders. In similar fashion, the struggle for civil rights in Iran needs to become a focal point of American discourse. This begins with engaging the leaders of the Iranian reform movement, and is as simple as reading their works. By discussing, critiquing, and responding to the struggle for freedom in Iran, we lend those reformists invaluable support: the ensuing dialogue would both embolden them and strengthen their resolve. Perhaps more importantly, it would do much to assure Iranian citizens that Americans genuinely valued their desire for individual rights. In the face of such open and animated discussion, how could Iranian hardliners assert that Americans should be ignored because they don't care? And finally, the dissemination of progressive Muslim thought in America would do wonders for the level of discourse concerning Islam today, providing a direct and powerful counterbalance to the overwhelming impression of Iranians and Muslims as largely hostile people.

The benefits, should we lend our strength to their struggle, are manifold. The economic rewards are immediately evident: democratic and free countries are always more prosperous and productive than autocratic ones. Iran is ripe for investment and development, and it occupies a strategic location in global trade routes. Its intellectual capital is also largely untapped: in a study conducted by the IMF in 2006, Iran had the highest "brain drain" out of the 90 countries it measured. More than 150,000 college graduates attempt to leave Iran each year, unable to find employment despite their advanced education. This is largely due to the draconian policies regulating business and expression in the Islamic Republic; just imagine the explosion of creativity and entrepreneurism that would occur in the wake of civil liberty! Finally, the cultural and artistic heritage of Iran is extraordinarily rich, offering some of the most beautiful works of art in antiquity. Rather than continuing their isolation from the global community, a free Iran could enthusiastically share its inheritance with the world, adding its own flavor to the world's intricate tapestry.

The consequences of failing them are dire indeed. Khomeini's bloody victory over his secular allies in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 dramatically empowered the ideology of extremism in the Middle East. Despite fundamental differences in doctrine, both al-Qaeda and the Taleban looked to Iran's model for their respective movements. Had Khomeini's Republic not provided a blueprint of how to orchestrate an Islamic Revolution, it is likely that the mujahedeen of Afghanistan would have never dreamed that they could bring a similar vision to their native country. Many people do not realize that the terrorism of the Middle East, prior to the Iranian Revolution, was largely secular. It was not until Khomeini's ideology took root among the dissidents of the Middle East that terrorism took on a decidedly Islamic bent. The attacks of September 11th were orchestrated by men inspired by the Islamic Republic, notwithstanding their divergent theological beliefs. If Americans do not embrace and promote the reformist movements in the Middle East, we risk further enabling the dictators currently in power, with assuredly disastrous results.

Much as Cyrus's ideology shaped the course of history following him, so shall these struggles for individual rights today profoundly influence our future. Should a free and democratic Iran emerge, it will shine as a beacon to the rest of the world, as America has done for so many years. A free Iran ultimately means a peaceful Iran, and American support for Iran's beleaguered reformists would gain us a powerful ally. The seeds of this reform have already been planted, and it is ultimately the responsibility of Iranians to nurture and tend them. But as Americans, we must do all we can to ensure that those reformers are not silenced. By standing in solidarity with them, we proclaim that it is their ideology that must win this battle, and shape the lives of their posterity for generations to come.

Dr. King once famously declared: "We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands." I can think of no nation to whom this applies more fittingly than Iran.

(The author of this post wishes to remain anonymous.)

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Smoking, Drinking, and the Law of Unintended Consequences

Reason magazine covers a new study from the Journal of Public Economics that links smoking bans to increased fatalities from alcohol-related traffic deaths. The conclusion of the researches is a lesson in unintended consequences:

"The increased miles driven by drivers who wish to smoke and drink offsets any reduction in driving from smokers choosing to stay home after a ban, resulting in increased alcohol-related accidents," the study says.

The authors, Scott Adams of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Economics Department and Chad Cotti, currently at the University of South Carolina, call the results "surprising."

"We thought we would see a reduction," Adams said. "Our first thought was, 'Throw it away, it must be wrong.' "...

The 2-year study looks at highway fatality data involving a driver with blood alcohol content over 0.08 in cities and counties with bans and compares it to incidences in surrounding areas without bans. The study was not funded by outside organizations, the authors said.

Results show an increase in accidents in areas after smoking bans were enacted and near the jurisdiction lines.

(Madison.com)

As the Reason article points out, there are two conclusions you could draw from this. The first is that smoking bans kill people. The second is that if smoking bans were total people would no longer have any reason to drive for miles to find a place to drink and smoke so the drunk-driving effect would go away. It might, but haven't we tried Prohibition once before? I don't think it's generally considered one our finer moments.

The one conclusion I draw from this is that even feel-good policies are not immune to the Law of Unintended Consequences.

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Why the Gun Went Off

On March 26 a handgun being carried by a US Airways pilot went in the cockpit while plane was at 8.000 feet and on approach to Charlotte, North Carolina. (CNN) The plane was not significantly damaged and no one was injured, but the piilot was removed from flight duty as the TSA started a formal investigation.

The pilot was carrying a handgun as part of the Federal Flight Deck Officer program. Thousands of pilots have gone through a psychological evaluation and a week-long training course that allows them to carry handguns.

According to a federal air marshal, the pilot may have been mishandling the gun. (MSNBC) Greg Alter (presumably the same air marshal quoted by MSNBC) went on to say of the .40 caliber H&K USP "This is an extremely safe and reliable weapon. It's not going to go off on it's own." (Townhall.com)

The MSNBC article also found an expert (unnamed) to perpetuate the action-movie myth that shooting a hole in a plane "could have caused the plane to rapidly depressurize". A CBS article quoted Mike Boyd, who runs The Boyd Group, as saying "If that bullet had compromised the shell of the airplane, i.e. gone through a window, the airplane could have gone down." (CBSNews.com)

I can't really chalk this one up entirely to the anti-gun lobby even though I can't imagine what other sentiment would lead the TSA to staunchly oppose arming pilots. The fact is that it's a popular myth that a single bullet will somehow lead to a plane dropping out of the sky. No expert wants to go on record as saying never, but Earl Dowell (aeronautical engineering professor at Duke) and Fu-Kuo Chang (aeronautical engineering professor at Stanford) downplayed the risk saying that even a knocked-out window in midflight isn't likely to cause the kind of damage that would lead immediately to a crash. In 1988 an Aloha Airlines flight to Hawaii lost the roof of the jet after an explosive decompression at 24,000 feet. One flight attendant was blown out of the plane, but the pilot safely landed the airplane. (Townhall.com)

But enough about cabin depressurization. The interesting question is why the gun went off in the first place. And the most likely scenario lays the blame not on the hapless pilot, but on the TSAs idiotic required procedures for carrying a gun in the cockpit.



(Facebook users who can't see the video here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqOLjEli6yY )

Once again it seems as though irrational fear of firearms is the greatest source of danger from firearms.

UPDATE: More depressurization quotes:

"On the overall question: 'Is shooting hijackers on aircraft an appropriate thing to do considering the risk of damaging the operational integrity of the aircraft,' the answer is 'Hell Yes.' I've been a licensed aircraft mechanic for over 20 years, and I am the Lead Technician for a Major Airline. I know aircraft. It's pretty tough to down a transport category aircraft with small arms fire. Boeing's 737s, 757s and the rest are very much like bulldozers with wings on them in that regard." -- Dan Todd, Licensed Aircraft Engineer for 20 years, Lead Technician for a Major Airline

"One or even several bullets puncturing the pressure cabin wall would be hardly noticeable and the aircraft's pressurization control would easily cope with the slight loss of air. The likelihood of a single bullet causing a massive structural failure is so remote as to be insignificant." -- David M., Licensed Aircraft Engineer

(KeepandBearArms.com)

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Why Does Steve Jobs Hate Me?

I used to like iTunes. But our relationship is becoming strained. First of all, iTunes is just so damn needy. It needs to update itself all the time. What's worse, it needs to tell me about the process. I have to click "ok" like 4 times per update. Then there's the Windows Vista buttons to mash as well. Then there's the fact that I have iTunes on 3 computers. It starts to wear on a guy.

It gets worse, though. Recently iTunes has begun to start acting dishonestly. I was 1/2-way through the obnoxious OK-clicking for an update earlier this week when I realized iTunes was not updating. It was installing Safari (Apple's web browser) on my computer. How is Safari an "update" for iTunes?

This makes other annoyances, which I once simply overlooked, seem more onerous. Why is it impossible to convince my iTunes library that Harry Potter (all 7 books) is dedicedly not music. Neither is Ender's Game, or any of the other audio books I have. I can't go more than 3 or 4 song on shuffle before I'm hearing Jim Dale's sonorous narration of the Potter boy's exploits. Which, great as that may be, is not what I have in mind when I want to listen to random tunes on iTunes.

But I'll tell you what's worst of all: the quicklaunch shortcuts. Every time I have to update iTunes (and this happens with alarming frequency) I get a new cluster of desktop shortcuts I don't want and, best of all, my quicklaunch shortcuts that I do want stop functioning. I have to delete the shortcuts on the desktop and on the quicklaunch bar and make new ones.

Every time.

I'm starting to think this relationship is not healthy. For either of us.

EDIT: I forgot to mention the constant neediness for reaffirmation of our relationship. Every time I install one of these new updates, I have to sign the licence again. It's like doing a postnuptial agreement on a weekly basis. It's insane. I thought Apple cared about the user experience.

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Rethinking Poverty

The Boston Globe has a fascinating article on the economics of poverty that details the work of philosopher Charles Karelis. His main thesis, which he explores in the book The Persistence of Poverty: Why the Economics of the Well-Off Can't Help the Poor, is that the law of diminishing marginal utility does not apply to those in poverty.

The law of diminishing marginal utility is defined by Investopedia as:

A law of economics stating that as a person increases consumption of a product - while keeping consumption of other products constant - there is a decline in the marginal utility that person derives from consuming each additional unit of that product.

It's an econ 101 concept that is often explained with an ice-cream cone example. If I hand you a free ice cream cone that's great. If I hand you a second one that's good too. If I hand you a third one it starts to be an inconvenience.

It's not really a strict "law" in the physics or mathematics sense (as Wikipedia observes) but it's an important part of explaining human behavior in terms of rational decision making. The assumption that human beings make economic decisions more or less rationally is one of the bedrock principles of economics. If humans make irrational decisions, they are much harder to model mathematically.

The problem of poverty has been that poor people often act in ways that seem irrational. They drop out of school at higher rates, use drugs at higher rates, and work at lower rates than middle and upper class Americans. According to the law of diminishing marginal utility this is irrational because they are by definition working on the first ice cream cone, and that one should be the most valuable.

Karelis's hypothesis is that those in poverty see the world not in terms of opportunity but in terms of problems. His examples include bee stings and a sink full of dirty dishes. If you get one bee sting, you are likely to get ice and try and treat it, he says. But if you get 6 then your desire to treat any one of those stings goes down because you've got 5 more that will still hurt anyway. Similarly if you only have a few dishes you are more likely to do them than you would be to do the same number of dishes if the entire sink is full of dirty dishes that need to be washed.

Thus poverty itself becomes the cause of poverty by presenting people with so many problems that instead of seeking out opportunities they turn to seeking out relief from immediate sources of pain. People in poverty are still rational decision makers after all, but the laws governing their decision-making have changed.

The consequence of such a view is to rethink efforts to fight poverty. If poverty itself causes this behavior, then the answer is to simply dole out cash to those who are poor. As such, it's clear that the effort to rethink poverty along these lines is going to run into political trouble. Although that's not really the first problem. The first problem is that Karelis is approaching his subject as a philosopher and not as an economist. This means he is relying on human intuition instead of solid evidence. He says "The bee sting argument, or the car dent one I've never had anybody say that that isn't true." As appealing as it may be to intuition, economists are going to need to quantifiable evidence before they accept this new theory and so far the evidence is contradictory at best.

But even laying aside the problems of evidence, there are some problems with the logic of Karelis's argument. The first one is the question of the horse and the cart. Does poverty cause despondence leading to avoidance instead of industry, or does despondence cause avoidance instead of industry leading to poverty? This isn't a question of chronology, but of causation. Does poverty cause the attitude of helplessness, or does an attitude of helplessness cause the poverty?

It's probably a little bit of both, but it's an important question to resolve before making policy decisions based on this new theory. If lack of funds is really the sole driver of the equation, than merely providing those funds could dramatically improve poverty. But if the attitude of futility arises from other factors then the same avoidance mechanism that leads to drug use and indolence will continue to factor in even when funds are added to the equation. So instead of someone with very little cash who seeks escape from problems rather than to address them (because they are so many) you will simply end up with a person who has a lot of cash with which to escape from problems rather than to address them. Even if the poverty acts as the original reason for this sense of futility, there's no guarantee that removing the lack of cash assets will remove the sense of futility.

After all, avoidance mechanisms such as dropping out of school and using drugs indicate not merely a method of pain avoidance, but a belief in the inherent impotence of the person in question. Why should a cash windfall in any way change this sense of weakness? In fact, receiving handouts may very well further solidify the sense of being a passive victim to the fates.

All in all what Karelis seems to be observing is that poor people behave irrationally because they do not have hope that they can better their situation. They have a fatalistic worldview. I do not have high hopes that handing a fatalist a wad of cash is going to significantly alter their world view. And so while I applaud the explanatory power of Karelis's criticism of the law of diminishing marginal utility, I believe the problem needs far more analysis and that it may not, in fact, lead to the simplistic policy solutions he seems to think it will.

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The Emboldenment Effect

The Washington Times is covering a study from Harvard researchers about the "emboldenment effect" of US news media on terrorists.

Periods of intense news media coverage in the United States of criticism about the war, or of polling about public opinion on the conflict, are followed by a small but quantifiable increases in the number of attacks on civilians and U.S. forces in Iraq... The increase in attacks is more pronounced in areas of Iraq that have better access to international news media.

The paper is called "Is There an Emboldenment Effect? Evidence from the Insurgency in Iraq", and the full 49-page pdf is available here. (I haven't read it yet.)

The study could be improved, according to a specialist in statistical analysis of violent events who explains that if positive statements were also included in the analysis it would add a good observational control. She also opines that the study will likely be published because "It is good enough for peer review."

The researchers themselves are not anti-war, and they are worried that the results will be used to try and silence dissent. Instead, they believe that they are merely establishing the fact that there's a cost associated with a free and democratic society.

In my mind it's an open question. To what extent do we merely accept that negative news coverage is a necessary cost of doing business as a democracy at war. And to what extent must we be concerned that media bias is making that price higher than it has to be if the goal was just to be informed? And to what extent should politicians who embrace such unbelievably irresponsible policies as an immediate withdrawal be held responsible for the damage they are doing America's war effort and credibility?

At the very least it's time we realize that there's a cost to waging war, and also a cost to criticizing war.

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