I also agree that the president should weigh in because this is a national issue, not just a New York City issue. Do I think it’s in bad taste to build a mosque near the site of the 9/11 attacks? Not in this case, not given the explanation for the mosque by Daisy Khan, Executive Director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, one of the two organizations proposing the project:

It will have a real community feel, to celebrate the pluralism in the United States, as well as in the Islamic religion. It will also serve as a major platform for amplifying the silent voice of the majority of Muslims who have nothing to do with extremist ideologies. It will counter the extremist momentum.

…

The time for a center like this has come because Islam is an American religion. We need to take the 9/11 tragedy and turn it into something very positive.

But again, aside from the debate of propriety, they own the land they plan to develop on and they are within the zoning limits of the area. Therefore they have every right to build a mosque there. If we allow others to deny them that right then we lose a little bit more of what it means to be American, something we can’t afford to do.

The founding fathers did not establish a democracy ruled by the majority, but rather a republic ruled by law. In a true democracy, the elected officials are not held in check by the law. In a republic, the elected officials are themselves ruled by law (though they can change the law by following procedures defined by other laws). Because of this widely-held misconception, those in the majority ipso facto assume it’s their opportunity to assert their will on the people rather than governing within the checks and balances of the U.S. Constitution.

To help illustrate my point, below is a quote from Lexrex.com:

The chief characteristic and distinguishing feature of a Democracy is: Rule by Omnipotent Majority. In a democracy, The Individual, and any group of Individuals composing any Minority, have no protection against the unlimited power of The Majority. It is a case of Majority-over-Man.

And this regarding a republic (emphasis mine):

A Republic, on the other hand, has a very different purpose and an entirely different form, or system, of government. Its purpose is to control The Majority strictly, as well as all others among the people, primarily to protect The Individual’s God-given, unalienable rights and therefore for the protection of the rights of The Minority, of all minorities, and the liberties of people in general. The definition of a Republic is: a constitutionally limited government of the representative type, created by a written Constitution–adopted by the people and changeable (from its original meaning) by them only by its amendment–with its powers divided between three separate Branches: Executive, Legislative and Judicial. Here the term “the people” means, of course, the electorate.

Because of the common misunderstanding that a democracy is defined simply as ‘representation of the people’ and then the resultant, false deduction that the U.S. is a democracy because we have representation of the people, those who share a common philosophy with the ruling majority believe it’s their right, as a majority, to assert their philosophy. Constitutional process and respect for the law is thrown to the wind for the simple assumption that ‘we are the majority in the government and the majority rules in a democracy.’ Those who share this misunderstanding then become frustrated when their philosophy is resisted based on the rule of law, checks and balances, etc, which are in place to control and restrain the majority and protect the minority from the majority. See, the founding fathers were smart fellows who understood the insatiable appetites of man and so they created a system with the intent on preventing “the tyranny of the legislatures.”

Furthermore, calling the U.S. form of government a “democratic republic” is redundant, because by definition, a republic is “a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch.”

The woman with whom I began the conversation on Twitter has openly proclaimed her support of “the hallowed halls of Democracy [sic]“. However, with such false beliefs it’s fair to say she’d be better off gaining a clearer understanding of the concepts she’s using in an attempt to effectively communicate her opinion.

Use this link to see the entire conversation. The “show conversation” link on that page does a decent, but somewhat inaccurate chronological ordering of the tweets to form a conversational flow.

What’s interesting to note is that throughout the exchange she asserts her party loyalty and projects that onto me as if I too was towing a party line. I hadn’t at any point declared “a side” and instead tried to argue my position, my concepts, and ultimately my philosophy, which is itself independent of any one political party’s philosophy.

I should also remember that it’s nearly impossible to have a meaningful debate on a medium that restricts responses to 140 characters.

But communities like that seem fewer and further between these days. Now it seems like we’re in too much of a hurry with our own lives to slow down and get to know our neighbors. We all-too-often let ourselves get wrapped up in petty squabbles about who doesn’t clean up after their dog or who spends a small mint to buy the latest Wii games for their kids, rather than who needs a hand building a deck for their family or who could use some help cleaning their rain gutters in the fall.

The ramifications of a shrinking community are serious and potentially fatal to a society. The discussion and support networks that constitute the very fabric of a community bolster the individual’s and by extension the communities’ mental well-being. They also reduce poverty and crime. For example, when a community comes together to assist members who have lost jobs in the midst of a national economic crisis, the entire community benefits by preventing poverty from gaining a foot-hold in the community, which also reduces the likelihood of theft, vandalism, and violent crime.

This past week I had the distinct pleasure of witnessing a community coming together in the face of tragedy, to support and reinforce one another simply out of a respect and concern for other members of the community. My niece was hit and killed by a car while she was out roller-blading in the neighborhood with friends. Immediately the community pulled together and provided much-needed support to my sister and our family. Some brought food, paper plates, napkins, etc, while others simply stayed at the house to keep an eye on things during the chaos and to offer a shoulder to cry on for anyone who needed it. Some people donated money to help pay for expenses, while others donated their organizational skills to make sure that people were shuttled around to where they needed to go and that everyone was fed. A local church provided the location for a large community and family gathering and the preacher helped organize a memorial service that included music and a photo slide show projected onto two large screens. Before the service, the extended family sat down to a large buffet dinner donated by parents of children who were in the high-school color guard with my other niece. Flowers were donated by a teacher at the school where my sister works. The entire funeral and memorial service was made possible by family and the community, only 48 hours after the accident.

I’m afraid this is an exception rather than the rule and the loss of the larger sense of community is part and parcel of the moral decline of America. We need to reinvest in the discussion and support networks in our communities if we’re to have any hope in restoring America’s strong moral identity.

Get Involved

• Introduce yourself to your neighbors
  
• Start small by organizing a picnic with a neighbor or two
  
• Support the neighborhood kids and get to know them by buying their girl scout cookies or lemonade from their lemonade stands.
  
• Pay a local kid to mow your lawn rather than paying some large outfit to come in from outside the community
  
• Car pool with neighbors
  
• Offer to run errands for elderly in your neighborhood
  
• Organize community events around light holidays such as halloween
  
• Offer assistance to members of the community who have service members i.e. organize going-away parties before they go to basic training or before they deploy to a base far away from home
  
• Organize or become part of a neighborhood watch program
  

Learn more

• Social Isolation Growing in U.S., Study Says, The Washington Post, 23 June, 2006
  
• Report reveals loss of community spirit The Guardian, 16 August, 2006
  
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There is no question that America has all the trappings of an empire; American culture is voraciously consumed all over the planet in the form of movies, music, fast food, clothing, etc. American military Areas of Responsibility (AOR ) span the globe under six Unified Combatant Commands (UCCs). The Army’s Field Manual (FM) 3-07, titled Stability Operations Doctrine identifies five components of stability and reconstruction (read: nation-building). FM 3-07 defines the following as the range of activities in stability operations:

Reconstruction is the process of rebuilding degraded, damaged, or destroyed political, socioeconomic, and physical infrastructure to create the foundation for long-term development.

Stabilization is the process by which underlying tensions that might lead to resurgence in violence and a breakdown in law and order are managed and reduced, while efforts are made to support preconditions for successful long-term development.

President Obama, in an interview with the Washington Post stated:

We benefit from the expansion of democracy: democracies are our best trading partners, our most valuable allies, and the nations with which we share our deepest values.

…I will significantly increase funding for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and other nongovernmental organizations to support civic activists in repressive societies.

According to the National Endowment for Democracy’s ‘about’ page, NED “is a private, nonprofit organization created in 1983 to strengthen democratic institutions around the world through nongovernmental efforts. ”

With such an established apparatus for nation-building and a doctrine of expanding democracy that spans multiple presidencies, is America a de facto empire?

To answer that question, we have to look pretty far back into American history. American imperialism started with the Louisiana Purchase but didn’t really get off the ground until the Spanish-American war.

With the conclusion of the war and the signing of the Treaty of Paris of 1898, the U.S. gained four new territories; Cuba, the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico. The same year, Hawaii was annexed as a U.S territory.

Also in 1898, Albert Beverage gave a speech titled The March Of The Flag in which he made his case for American empire in the name of capitalism, in which he said the following (the speech is worth reading in its entirety):

Therefore, in this campaign, the question is larger than a party question. It is an American question. It is a world question. Shall the American people continue their march toward the commercial supremacy of the world? Shall free institutions broaden their blessed reign as the children of liberty wax in strength, until the empire of our principles is established over the hearts of all mankind?

Have we no mission to perform no duty to discharge to our fellow man? Has God endowed us with gifts beyond our deserts and marked us as the people of His peculiar favor, merely to rot in our own selfishness, as men and nations must, who take cowardice for their companion and self for their deity-as China has, as India has, as Egypt has?

…Hawaii is ours; Porto Rico is to be ours; at the prayer of her people Cuba finally will be ours; in the islands of the East, even to the gates of Asia, coaling stations are to be ours at the very least; the flag of a liberal government is to float over the Philippines, and may it be the banner that Taylor unfurled in Texas and Fremont carried to the coast.

It would seem that the late 1890′s saw a ground swell of acceptance of American ‘soft’ empire. That acceptance continued to develop into the Twentieth Century, as the empire continued to develop along economic lines–countries being pulled in for their natural or economic resources and how those resources could benefit the U.S. financially.

From the beginning of World War I, as early as 1914, Wall Street was loaning Britain and France money and giving credits to purchase war material from U.S. companies. Once America officially joined armed combat in 1917, the federal government guaranteed all loans to Britain and France. The American military-industrial complex was off to a good start.

President Wilson’s Fourteen Points speech made to a joint session of Congress in 1918, was meant to justify America’s involvement in World War I. Point number three stipulates;

The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.

It was later implied by the Nye Committee’s investigation that the huge profits made by U.S. arms manufacturers helped influence Americas involvement in the war.

Henry Luce, founder of Time magazine urged Americans to

seek and to bring forth a vision of America as a world power, which is authentically American…America as the dynamic center of ever-widening spheres of enterprise, America as the training center of the skilled servants of mankind, America as the Good Samaritan, really believing again that it is more blessed to give than to receive, and America as the powerhouse of the ideals of Freedom and Justice–out of these elements surely can be fashioned a vision of the Twentieth Centruy…the first great American Century.

We’re seeing American empire shaping into an empire of capitalism and democracy, which feed and support each other in an endless loop. Remember President Obama’s quote from above; “We benefit from the expansion of democracy: democracies are our best trading partners, our most valuable allies, and the nations with which we share our deepest values.”

By 1943, two years before the end of World War II, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had drawn up a wish list of bases to be established in at least 17 countries. Roosevelt himself requested the Marquesas and the Tuamotu Archipelago. The secretary of the navy, Frank Knox informed Congress that as we captured islands from Japan they would become ours.¹

The postwar occupations of both Japan and Germany produced extraordinary economic recovery in both countries, which the U.S. leveraged as two large markets for American goods and locations for several American military bases, further expanding the military-industrial complex made infamous by President Eisenhower’s farewell address:

Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual –is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.

American empire looks like no other empire we’ve seen. There are no colonies. Instead there are sovereign countries housing U.S. military bases on their soil. There are no colonial taxes. Instead there are contracts with American companies and huge markets in which to sell American goods. America’s empire is capitalism and her subjugates are consumers.

In later posts I’ll discuss the value of an American empire over that of less liberal alternatives, such as an empire of Russia or China.

¹Niall Ferguson, Colossus: The Price of America’s Empire, The Penguin Press, P. 68

1. Public Perceptions of Enhanced Interrogation, Ed Gillespie and Whit Ayres, August 26, 2009


2. Obama overturns Bush policy on state secrets, AFP, September 23, 2009

Excerpts:

Public Perceptions of Enhanced Interrogation, Ed Gillespie and Whit Ayres, August 26, 2009 – Excerpt:

Based on polling by Resurgent Republic, Attorney General Eric Holder’s appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate CIA officers over their interrogation of terrorism suspects is not likely to be well received by most Americans.

From May 11-14, 2009, Resurgent Republic conducted an extensive survey of registered voters regarding the debate over harsh interrogations of high-value al-Qaeda detainees. The survey specifically asked about criminal investigation of those involved in conducting enhanced interrogation techniques:

Congressman A says there should be a criminal investigation into the Justice Department lawyers who wrote legal memos authorizing harsh interrogation techniques. We need to hold people accountable for their advice justifying what was really torture.

Congressman B says there should not be a criminal investigation into harsh interrogation techniques. That investigation would divide the country, turn policy disagreements into criminal charges, and have a chilling effect on future efforts to keep America safe. We should thank the people who kept us safe, not prosecute them.

Sixty-two percent agreed with Congressman B, including a vast majority of Independents (66-29) and an overwhelming majority of Republicans (79-18). Democrats were evenly split (47% favored Congressman A and 45% favored Congressman B).

Obama overturns Bush policy on state secrets, AFP, September 23, 2009 – Excerpt:

WASHINGTON (AFP) — President Barack Obama’s administration on Wednesday made it more difficult for the government to suppress information on security grounds, amid allegations the power was used to cover up Bush-era excess.
Attorney General Eric Holder announced that from today he would personally review claims to state secrecy privilege, and vowed tougher standards would be put in place.

“Under the new policy, the department will now defend the assertion of the privilege only to the extent necessary to protect against the risk of significant harm to national security,” a Justice Department statement said.

…

The administration of president George W. Bush was accused of overusing the power, invoking it to suppress information in cases dealing with controversial wiretapping and interrogation methods.

The privilege was also invoked “to stymie legitimate cases against government misconduct,” according to the American Civil Liberties Union, a rights group, citing a case against a Boeing subsidiary for alleged involvement in renditions.

A theory I will be exploring on this site is the idea that America, as a country, is going through an identity crisis. I’ll be fleshing things out in a series of articles on various events that I feel demonstrate a country groping with self identity, much like a young college student who has just realized that the world isn’t quite what he thought it was. And so we begin our long hard look in the mirror…

One of the schisms that has contributed to America’s identity crisis is the Global War on Terror, which was made possible by the post-9/11 mindset. Not since Pearl Harbor had America seen such an attack on the Homeland. Many Americans had come to believe that acts of terrorism were something that only happened in far away places like Beirut or Kenya. But after the attacks on the twin towers and the Pentagon, Americans were sharply reminded that the world is a dangerous place and there are people who wish us harm and have the ability to inflict it upon us. The shock and disbelieve quickly turned to anger and the need for retribution. People were starting to realize that terrorism was no longer something that could be dealt with through law enforcement means.

On September 16th, 2001, Dick Cheney indicated as much on NBC’s Meet The Press when he said

We have to work the dark side, if you will. Spend time in the shadows of the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion …

One of the key divisive issues of the war is the issue of torture and specifically waterboarding. There are basically two camps to this fight; those who oppose harsh treatment of any kind, who believe any treatment contrary to the Geneva Conventions or the Army Field Manual is considered immoral. They believe that America should never stoop to the level of harsh treatment of prisoners, regardless of what information it may provide, as any information provided as a result of torture is unreliable. They also believe that by treating prisoners harshly, the U.S. loses the moral high-ground. The other camp believes that fighting terrorism is a dirty business and sometimes you have to get a little dirty yourself. They believe that if a terrorist has information that will help keep Americans safe, it is acceptable to utilize what they call enhanced interrogation techniques to gain access to this information.

The debate over torture spilled into the 2008 campaign cycle. The following two videos are indicative of the tone and verbiage that run fairly consistent whenever torture is discussed:

On January 22, 2009, President Obama signed two executive orders, one to review detention policies and the other to ensure lawful interrogation. This was a bold move, as many people believed that enhanced interrogation techniques (or torture, depending on your views) saved American lives.

In response, former Vice President Dick Cheney began speaking on various news programs claiming that by preventing the use of enhanced techniques, “you reduce the intelligence flow to the intelligence community upon which we based those policies that were so successful.” Mr. Cheney further argued that what occurred was legal and furthermore, honorable:

“I think it’s very, very important that we have a clear understanding that what happened here was an honorable approach to defending the nation, that there was nothing devious or deceitful or dishonest or illegal about what was done,”

On August 24th, 2009, the Justice Department released a redacted copy of a report by the C.I.A. Inspector General detailing the use of enhanced interrogation techniques. In the report, you can see the dilemma they faced. They clearly intended to save American lives but also felt they weren’t going to get the information they needed without stronger actions.

The capture and initial Agency interrogation of the first high value detainee, Abu Zubayadah, in March, 2002, presented the Agency with a significant dilemma. The Agency was under pressure to do everything possible to prevent further terrorist attacks. Senior Agency officials believe Abu Zubayadah was withholding information that could not be obtained through then-authorized interrogation techniques. Agency officials believed that a more robust approach was necessary to ellicit threat information from Abu Zubayada and possibly from other senior Al-Qaida high value detainees.

The report went on to note that there “were few instances of deviations from approved procedures [REDACTED] with one notable exception described in this Review.” Those two exceptions were cases of waterboarding that exceeded the approved use and frequency of waterboarding.

For me it is important to note that the Agency was working with the Department of Justice to obtain authorization for enhanced interrogation techniques and the Agency reacted to reported violations by providing “systemic, clear, and timely guidance to those involved in the CTC Detention and Interrogation Program.” They were actively taking steps to seek guidance as well as to correct mistakes, which they did not find to be systemic. This indicates to me an honest belief that what they were doing was approved by a higher legal authority (the Department of Justice) and the Agency wasn’t acting on its own or going rogue.

The report went on to indicate that they did indeed receive accurate and actionable intelligence that lead to the “identification and apprehension of other terrorists and warned of terrorist plots planned for the United States and around the world.” However, in Congressional testimony, Ali Soufan, someone with substantial experience “from going undercover as an al Qaeda operative, to unraveling terrorist cells, to tracking down the killers of the 17 U.S. sailors murdered in the USS Cole bombing” and one who was directly involved with the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah stated the following:

From my experience – and I speak as someone who has personally interrogated many terrorists and elicited important actionable intelligence– I strongly believe that it is a mistake to use what has become known as the “enhanced interrogation techniques,” a position shared by many professional operatives, including the C.I.A. officers who were present at the initial phases of the Abu Zubaydah interrogation.

These techniques, from an operational perspective, are ineffective, slow and unreliable, and as a result harmful to our efforts to defeat al Qaeda. (This is aside from the important additional considerations that they are un-American and harmful to our reputation and cause.) (emphasis mine)

He went on to say the technique he deployed, called the Informed Interrogation Approach, was already producing a “steady stream” of actionable intelligence from Zubaydah. So why then did the C.I.A. pursue ‘enhanced’ techniques, which according to Soufan, shut down Zubaydah rather than coerce him to talk?

In response to the C.I.A. IG’s report, Attorney General Eric Holder appointed Assistant Deputy Attorney General John Durham to investigate alleged torture by C.I.A. interrogators in spite of the expressed intent of President Obama to avoid becoming involved in past controversy and to avoid damaging relations between the White House and the C.I.A.. This further illustrates the level of discord within the country and the government itself. It will be interesting to see if the investigations stop with the interrogators or continues up the chain of authorization.

After 9/11 it was easy for Americans to tacitly approve of taking the fight into the shadows. The visceral urge of those in power to stop at nothing to prevent further attacks and to protect American lives at all costs was undoubtedly difficult to resist. What couldn’t have been foreseen is the way the interrogation techniques would split the country between two conflicting philosophies; one steeped in moral values and the other ground in pragmatism.

Is America a country of high moral substance or one of raw strength of will?

Further reading
US Code, Title 18 > Part I > Chapter 113C > Section 2340 (Legal definition of torture)
C.I.A. Report on Interrogation Methods