Anti-Muslim Rhetoric: Out of Control?
Two rallies were held in Lower Manhattan yesterday – one supporting the Park51 plan and others opposing it. The rally in opposition drew about 500 people, while the one in support, described by The New York Times as a “counterprotest,” drew about 200. In Tennessee, plans for a new building complex for a Muslim congregation that has existed in the same community for decades has generated similar controversy, including rallies on both sides that together drew about 1,ooo people. Since the beginning of the Park51 debate, the national level of “anti-Muslim sentiment” has remained roughly the same, although “the change in tone has been striking,” according to The Washington Post. The Post notes a Time magazine poll published last Thursday that found that 43 percent of people said that they had “somewhat unfavorable” or “very unfavorable” view of Muslims.
There has been an increase in “anti-U.S. chatter and threats” on jihadi Web sites, The Wall Street Journal reports. Although they do refer to the opposition to the Park51 plans, the “most violent threats” refer to other issues, including a Florida church’s plans to hold an “International Burn a Koran Day” on September 11th.
The New York Times describes Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam who is slated to lead Park51 as someone who has spent his career opposing violence and trying to build common ground but who may not have expected the controversy that the plan has caused. “[T]his mild-mannered guy is in the eye of a storm for which he’s not suited at all. He’s not a political leader of Muslims, yet he now somehow represents the Muslim community,” the head of the Islamic studies program at American University said.
C.I.A. Tricked into Helping Arrest Baradar to Disrupt Peace Talks?
A Pakistani official has said that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency purposely tracked Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar before he was arrested in Karachi in January, and got help from the C.I.A. without telling them who it was that they were about to capture, The New York Times reports. After Baradar, the Taliban’s second-in-command, was captured, the U.S. and Pakistan said that they didn’t realize who it was they had until after he was caught. While a Pakistani official now said that they knew who they were following but did not tell the U.S., U.S. officials said that “intelligence indicated that the target was related to Mr. Baradar,” in the words of the Times. Pakistani officials have told the Times that they picked up Baradar intentionally to disrupt preliminary talks between the Taliban and the government of Afghanistan, which they thought the U.S. to be coordinating. Some U.S. officials still believe that neither the U.S. nor Pakistan knew that it was Baradar they were about to arrest, while others say it is possible that Pakistan knew but the U.S. did not.
Khadr not Tortured, Judge Says
Judge Patrick Parrish, presiding over the military commission trial of Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr, has ruled that there is no evidence that Khadr was tortured, according to The Miami Herald. Khadr’s attorneys had argued that confessions that he had made should not be presented to the jury as they stemmed from torture and coercion. An interrogator had told him a made-up story about another detainee being gang raped. The trial, the first military commission trial at Guantanamo since President Obama took office, is currently on hold after Khadr’s appointed defense attorney collapsed on the trial’s first day earlier this month.
Torture Allegations Being Investigated Outside the U.S.
While a special prosecutor appointed by the Obama administration is investigating whether a number of CIA employees and contractors should be prosecuted for going beyond the bounds of authorized interrogation techniques, other countries are being significantly more aggressive in pursuing claims of their own roles in an alleged post-9/11 torture program run by the U.S.
Among Books about 9/11, Two Stand Out
Josh Marshall, at Talking Points Memo, writes that a request for recommendations on what books to read about 9/11 resulted in a large response but that “the overwhelming majority” of people who wrote in suggested one or the other of only two books – the 9/11 Commission Report or The Looming Tower by CLS Fellow Lawrence Wright. While Marshall theorizes that “to a degree the Report and the Wright book are probably just so good that they’ve driven others from the field,” he also wonders why more hasn’t been written on the subject.
News stories compiled by the staff of the Center on Law and Security
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