Posted on 12/22/2001 8:04:02 AM PST by tpaine
Arab American hopes to unseat Rep. Lantos
BY CHUCK CARROLL Mercury News
At a time when some Arab Americans and Muslims are lying low amid a perceived backlash in the wake of Sept. 11, Maad Abu-Ghazala is doing quite the opposite. He's running for Congress.
His opponent is Tom Lantos, one of Israel's strongest supporters and a Holocaust survivor who has been elected 11 times to represent the 12th District on the upper San Francisco Peninsula.
Abu-Ghazala, a 39-year-old software entrepreneur and attorney from Pacifica, was born in what was then part of Jordan.
He's running as a Libertarian. Normally, Libertarians are all but ignored by the major-party candidates, the mainstream media and political contributors. But, as Abu-Ghazala said, with their sharply contrasting backgrounds, this matchup is ``made for TV, almost.´´
That, combined with his determination to force a deeper discussion about why America finds itself fighting a war on terrorism, and whether Americans are giving up too much freedom in that war's prosecution, makes this contest anything but run-of-the-mill.
Lantos, who was in Washington this week as a busy Congress rushed to break for the holidays, did not return calls about the race.
Abu-Ghazala is a novice in electoral politics, but he's a member of the board of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. This week he spoke at a news conference to keep attention focused on the hundreds of people being held without charges by the FBI as part of the terrorism investigation. Abu-Ghazala said he was thinking of running even before Sept. 11, but the aftermath pushed him into the race despite the long odds and his controversial positions.
Shortly after the hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Abu-Ghazala said, he was appalled to hear that only 70 percent of Americans polled said the United States should make sure it knows who is responsible for the attack before striking back. It made him wonder about the other 30 percent of Americans.
``We just needed to bomb somebody,´´ he said. ``There was some level of that all over.´´
He also has watched in alarm as, in his view, constitutional protections and legal rights have been eroded ``with virtually no discussion.´´ As an attorney, Abu-Ghazala is especially outraged by Attorney General John Ashcroft´s announcement that the Justice Department would be monitoring communications between defense lawyers and certain terrorism suspects.
``Civil liberties have just been hacked to pieces,´´ he said.
Abu-Ghazala's main foreign policy message -- that billions of dollars in annual U.S. aid to Israel should stop -- may win favor with voters who don't like foreign aid of any kind. But if polls are correct, he might not win many supporters with the centerpiece of his domestic agenda: the protection of civil liberties during the war on terrorism.
``Whether people like the message or not, I think it´s important that they hear it,´´ he said. Win or lose, Abu-Ghazala is doing something important, said Abdallah Al-Zuabi, national field director of the Arab-American Institute, which has sought to increase Arab-American participation in the political process for 15 years.
Recognition of the need for Arabs to get more involved in politics ``was a hundred times more after 9/11,´´ Al-Zuabi said, but at the same time many have felt too intimidated to speak out. ``To have Arab Americans running for Congress and talking about these issues will encourage other Arab Americans to do so also, so it has a positive effect.´´
Abu-Ghazala is taking a classic third-party approach and must know he can't win, said Jack Pitney, a professor of government at Claremont-McKenna College in Claremont. But his background could work for him.
``Even a more mainstream candidate with a lot of money wouldn´t stand much of a chance against Lantos,´´ Pitney said. ``He´s a respected Democratic incumbent in a Democratic district. The question is whether he can get a fair hearing for his point of view.´´
Lantos, who has a strong record on human rights, may be a friend of Israel, but that doesn't make him an enemy of Arabs or Arab Americans. In fact, when the FBI uncovered an alleged plan by a leader of the radical Jewish Defense League last week to bomb a Southern California mosque and an office of Arab American Rep. Darrell Issa, R-San Clemente, Lantos was at Issa's side to denounce the terrorist plot. Abu-Ghazala believes American policies in the Middle East -- of which Lantos is an influential architect -- are one of the root causes of rampant anti-Americanism. Those policies don't begin to justify the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, though, he said. Lantos holds a different view of the cause of the terrorist attacks.
``Osama bin Laden would have us believe that the United States´ continued presence in Saudi Arabia, our sanctions policy against Iraq or even our posture in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- a cause to which he only recently converted -- provoked and justified these terrorist acts. Let no one be deceived by the cynical and hateful rhetoric,´´ Lantos said at a congressional hearing Oct. 24.
``It is our open, democratic, inclusive, free way of life that is the true object of his hatred, he said. The terrorists hate America not for what we do, but for who we are."
As I said, no matter how you cut that Whig sausage, it still ain't beefsteak.
It's because the Libertarian Party doesn't have any that you would even think to do so.
End of story!
The American Whig Party (roughly from 1834-1856) The Whig Party, in the United States, was for most of its history concerned with promoting internal improvements, such as roads, canals, railroads, deepening of rivers, etc. This was of interest to many Westerners in this period, isolated as they were and in need of markets. Abraham Lincoln was a Whig for most of this period.
Go join VA in the alumafoil section of FR. 120 posted by tpaine
And, Mr. TP, a brief dictionary or encyclopedia reference is entirely inadequate to the task of sorting out the parties by moral principles.
Hello? -- Did I say it was? -- YOU claimed they were comparable. You can't back up your BS.
It's because the Libertarian Party doesn't have any that you would even think to do so.
-- Dozens of entire FR threads are composed of arguments on libertarian principles. You deny reality.
End of story!
And, an end to your credibility.
It is from that point that you no longer have any moral principles that can withstand the slightest challenge because, in the end, it will always get back to the question of defending the innocent.
Since ancient times this has been considered a fair test of the legitimacy and utility of any regime of any kind anywhere - and the Libertarians failed the test, as did the Democrats, and as did the Whigs before them.
So you guys can post all the Libertarain cant you wish, but absent a sound first principle, it is meaningless noise.
LOL! Funny, I was thinking the same thing about you!
You haven't had a nice thing to say yet. You on the rag or what? LOL!
Thomas Paine would be proud of you1 NOT! LOL!
Absolute sickening crap. You are disgusting in your fanatical hatred.
I'm not a party member, and I don't know the exact wording on their platform regarding abortion, but your slur above is a pitiful lie.
You look like, and are, a fool.
But do tell me, what should I be 'nice' about?
I'm not a party member, and I don't know the exact wording on their platform regarding abortion, but your slur above is a pitiful lie.
You look like, and are, a fool."
And since the essence of my case is that the Libertarian position is not philosophically divorced from its 19th Century twin, the Missouri Compromise, I guess it's up to me to "prove it". So, I went right to their website, did a search for "abortion" and there it was:
http://www.lp.org/organization/history/platform/1998/womerigh.html
We oppose all laws likely to impose restrictions on free choice and private property or to widen tyranny through reverse discrimination.
Recognizing that abortion is a very sensitive issue and that libertarians can hold good-faith views on both sides, we believe the government should be kept entirely out of the question, allowing all individuals to be guided by their own consciences.
We oppose all restrictions on the sale of RU 486, and on the sale of menstruation-inducing contragestive pills, which block fertilized eggs from attaching themselves to the womb.
We oppose legislation restricting or subsidizing women's access to abortion or other reproductive health services; this includes requiring consent of the prospective father, waiting periods, and mandatory indoctrination on fetal development, as well as Medicaid or any other taxpayer funding. It is particularly harsh to force someone who believes that abortion is murder to pay for another's abortion.
We also condemn state-mandated abortions.
xxxxxxxx That's as far as I C&Pd, but someone who is speaking ON BEHALF OF the Libertarian party really ought to already know what the party's position is on one of the great live/death social issues of our day.
That way they, themselves could avoid appearing to be a total fool.
BTW, you might find a good US History 101 text and read it thoroughly. Most of the better ones cover the various compromises made over slavery. Most of the arguments made on behalf those compromises are remarkably similar to those made today by the Libertarians and others -
Your own post just made a total fool of you, but your fanaticism blinds you to that fact.
The platform belies your claim that it supports abortion/murder.
And, I have made it clear that I do not speak on BEHALF of the big 'L'.
BTW, you might find a good US History 101 text and read it thoroughly. Most of the better ones cover the various compromises made over slavery. Most of the arguments made on behalf those compromises are remarkably similar to those made today by the Libertarians and others -
So you say? - Prove your point.
All you've done so far is to prove you're a blowhard.
Of course, you being from Kali and all, guess you are used to voting for that kind of garbage. COMMUNISTS! SODOMITES!ANTI-AMERICAN trash! Gun Grabbers! Typified by the Berkeley City Council!
Hell, maybe there is home for another cat in the sack?
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