Ban on bounty hunting compromises justice
By Matt MainenOn September 14, celebrity bounty hunter Duane "Dog" Chapman, along with two associates, was arrested by the United States Marshals Service at the request of the Mexican government. His crime? "Illegally" detaining an individual and thus depriving him of his human rights in Mexico. In 2003, Chapman captured fugitive Max Factor and heir Andrew Luster who was hiding in Mexico to avoid prosecution for raping three women. Thanks to Chapman, Luster is now serving a de facto life sentence. It should also be noted that while in Mexico, it appears that Luster was making plans to kill the women he ... Read More
Islamofascism a serious threat to the world
By Matt MainenIn September of 1938, on his return from Munich, Germany, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain gleefully declared: "My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time." In his hands, he held the Munich Agreement, which gave Germany the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia. Less than a year later, Hitler seized all of Czechoslovakia and went on to invade Poland. The rest is history. What is the lesson? Appeasement does not work; it only emboldens the aggressor. This is true not only ... Read More
U.S. culturally unable to punish Muslim jihadists
By Matt MainenDetainee No. 063, Mohammed al-Qahtani, was a victim of torture, severe torture. Torture so severe in fact, that the United States and its allies should immediately halt all operations against terrorism to ensure that justice is served. After all, resources are limited, and this clearly takes priority. How badly was Mr. al-Qahtani tortured? It is extremely painful for me to write, and I pray that the reader has a stronger stomach than myself. Not only was he forced to wear a bra, but he had a thong placed on his head. He was then treated to a massage by an ... Read More
Counterpoint
By Matt Mainen
Anyone familiar with comparative politics should know that the terms used in the field are extremely flexible and change drastically over time. For Aristotle, democracy meant direct rule by the citizenry †nothing more and nothing less. This definition eventually changed to include the new phenomena of the citizenry electing officials to rule in their place. These two types of government are obviously different. In one, the people directly rule. In the other, elected officials rule. Technically, these are two different types of government, but because it is inconvenient to make new words for every modification, the term democracy stuck. ... Read More
Israeli attack on mosque likely justified
By Matt MainenThe Israeli invasion of Lebanon was a political disaster, not to mention that from many viewpoints, it was unethical. Israel not only attacked a newly elected democratic government, but destroyed billions of dollars of infrastructure. The images of burning Lebanese buildings did nothing to help Israel's precarious international image. Far worse, however, is the fact that over 1000 Lebanese civilians were killed. It is certainly possible that many were willing human shields, sacrificing their lives for the greater cause of weakening international support for Israel. What is most troubling, however, is that roughly one-third of those killed were children. If ... Read More
Point
By Matt MainenLast Friday, the Dutch government announced plans to outlaw the burqa, a full-length veil covering a Muslim woman from head-to-toe. There is a small slit where the eyes are so the woman can see. Some argue that the burqa is dictated by Islamic law. A passage from the Koran reads as follows" "O Prophet! Tell thy wives and thy daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks close round them. That will be better, so that they may be recognized and not annoyed. Allah (SWT) is ever Forgiving, Merciful [33:59]." In modern-day terms, women are to hide ... Read More
New image necessary if Democrats hope for 2008 victory
By Matt Mainen
Contrary to popular opinion and common sense, the election of 2006 was not a victory for the Democratic Party as a whole. No, it was a victory for individual candidates with the courage to run with views far different from those of the Democratic establishment. Our new Democratic Senators and Congressmen had the common sense to stand up for issues such as low taxes, Second Amendment rights, and national security. It was a victory for conservative to moderate Democrats like myself who believe that elitist New Englanders like John Kerry and Ted Kennedy can never represent the needs of the ... Read More
Saudi Arabia's attempt at women's rights pathetic
By Matt MainenPerhaps the greatest litmus test to determine a Middle Eastern country's moral progress is its adherence to the principle of equality for women. Under the Taliban, Afghan women were afforded hardly more rights than those granted to household pets. Today, women in Afghanistan have risen to positions of prominence due to the Karzai government's dedication to women's rights. The rapid changes made in Afghanistan demonstrate that if a government is committed to reforming, then tangible changes can be made in a matter of years. Surely, things are far from perfect in Afghanistan, but the struggling government has done as much ... Read More
Rethinking Somalia's plight
By Matt Mainen
An article appearing in The Washington Post ("US Debating Shift of Support in Somali Conflict") mentions that the United States is considering granting diplomatic recognition to the autonomous region of Somaliland in northwestern Somalia. Although establishing diplomatic ties with breakaway states arguably sets a bad precedent, there are clearly special circumstances in which adherence to the international norm of respecting a regime's full and complete territorial sovereignty over the land within its official borders must be bypassed. The case of Somaliland is a strong example. To set the context, Somalia is shaped like the number seven and is divided into ... Read More
U.S. hypocritical with terrorism
By Matt MainenWhile simultaneously pushing for a troop withdrawal from Iraq, the Pelosi House of Representatives passed a bill in January, making future aid to Pakistan contingent upon certification that the country is doing all it possibly can to combat the Taliban and al-Qaeda. This bill demonstrates a clear double standard with respect to the war on terror. Why must Pakistan stay the course in a battle analogous to United States' battle in Iraq? To be sure, some reports suggest that Pakistan has lost just as many troops in combating the Taliban and al-Qaeda as the US has in Iraq.The U.S. cannot ... Read More
Anti-war movement on campus proves extreme
By Matt MainenA recent article in the Retriever discussed how students from an organization at UMBC known as the Solidarity Coalition tied up the phones of Senator Barbara Mikulski's office for four hours in order to harass her staffers about her vote to further fund the war in Iraq despite the fact that she says she is opposed to the war. The article seemed to make clear that the Solidarity Coalition placed an unfair burden on the Senator's staffers when it came to providing a logically sound argument regarding the situation in Iraq. Here is an exert from the Solidarity Coalition's script:, I ... Read More
Crumbling unity in the Middle East
By Matt MainenIn the wake of the capture of 15 British naval personnel by Iran's Revolutionary Guard, United Arab Emirates (UAE) President al-Nahyan, hoping to pacify Iran, declared that the UAE would not allow any attacks or intelligence operations against Iran to be staged within its territory. However, despite the best wishes of President al-Nahyan, the bonds between the Sunni Arab Gulf States and Shiite Iran are shattering faster than they can be repaired, and it seems unlikely that anything short of miraculous diplomatic efforts can prevent the further divide along religious lines as the Muslim civil war in Iraq has placed ... Read More
Where Pakistan went wrong
By Matt MainenWith the assassination of the daughter of Pakistan, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, it has become more evident now than ever that not only has the current government of Pakistan failed to systematically and effectively defeat al-Qaeda and allied militants, but it has also proven unable, at the very least, to keep terrorism confined to its tribal territories, which Musharraf presumably and wrongly held would sustain the status quo.The interrelated reasons for Pakistan's failure in the war on terror are twofold. First, the Musharraf Administration has overestimated the threat India poses to Pakistan when compared to that of Islamist extremists. ... Read More
Know your time tables: America's inconsistent foreign policy in the Middle East
By Matt Mainen
Hillary Clinton recently announced on "Meet the Press" that if elected president, she would begin withdrawing American troops from Iraq within 60 days of her taking office and would refuse to further support the current troop surge even if asked to do so by current commander in Iraq, David Petraeus.Soon after Mrs. Clinton's remarks, the Pentagon committed an additional 3,000 troops to Afghanistan, a measure that met with virtually no criticism on the part of Democrats despite the fact that the needed time commitment for victory in Afghanistan is as (if not more) indefinite as that for Iraq.Here is the ... Read More
Point: Waterboarding is not only necessary but effective
By Matt MainenThose against waterboarding and other controversial methods of dealing with terrorists often argue that we should not have to become like the terrorists to defeat them and by engaging in painful informational extraction methods the United States loses its moral credibility. The first part of the argument is true. We don't have to become like the terrorists. We can defeat them without purposefully bombing schools and markets while beheading people for being of a different faith and using mentally challenged people and children to carry out suicide missions. Whether or not the United States occasionally uses waterboarding or other carefully ... Read More
Iraq's new Sunni force poses a threat to some
By Matt Mainen
Commentary on the success of the U.S. surge in Iraq is often coupled with praise for the Sunnis who abandoned the insurgency and joined the U.S. in the War on Terror. However, all are not happy with the grassroots Sunni's newfound success. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki allegedly fears that the 70,000 members of the Sunni Awakening Councils (SAC) could one day become a rogue militia threatening the power and influence of Iraq's central government. Considering, however, that elements of the largest Sunni bloc in Iraq's parliament continue to actively and ideologically support terror, the emergence of a Sunni political ... Read More
Reevaluating Israeli tactics
By Matt Mainen
The most famous story from the Bible is Jesus's defense of a woman accused of adultery (John 8:1-11). According to the story, a group of scribes and Pharisees bring the woman to Jesus and ask how she should be punished. According to Jewish law, women guilty of adultery are to be stoned, and the Pharisees expected Christ to suggest such. However, he had other intentions in mind. Jesus sat down and began writing the sins of the accusers into the sand (according to some traditions). When pressed by the Pharisees, Jesus said "Let he who is without sin cast the ... Read More
A democratic Iraq?
By Matt Mainen
The Maliki government finds itself at a crucial fork in the road in the wake of the Battle of Basra. By letting bygones be bygones with al-Sadr, again and again, the Iraqi government can continue its attempts to build a cohesive government on the grounds of slow but steady peacemaking. The rationale behind this approach is that eventually, a consensus of government and power-distribution will be reached as skirmishes like those witnessed in Basra become less frequent and remain only at the token level (which may already be the case).On the other hand, Sadr's quick call to peace is demonstrative ... Read More
The artificiality and hypocrisy of a timetable for Iraq
By Matt MainenThere is no common sense basis for the repeated demands for a timetable of withdrawal from Iraq, when there are no such demands for a withdrawal from Afghanistan. It has been made abundantly clear that both fronts in the war on terror are equally important, and considering that our troops in Afghanistan are being forced to sit on their hands while al-Qaeda has rebuilt to full operational capacity in Pakistan, our stay in Afghanistan will remain indefinite.This is on account of the fact that in the foreseeable future, Pakistan will neither make the sacrifices necessary to fully eliminate al-Qaeda from ... Read More
To Basra and beyond
By Matt Mainen
Those against the continued efforts in Iraq are characterized by a lack of patience and understanding that progress, both political and military, does not occur overnight. Last month, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki launched an attack against rival Shia militants in Basra. Many quickly pointed to it as a failure because the United States had to be called in and Maliki's primary objective of disarming the militants was not met. On April 20, however, the New York Times reported that the Iraqi army now controls all areas of Basra, and Maliki is not giving up on disarming militants. In fact, an ... Read More
To Basra and beyond
By Matt Mainen
Those against the continued efforts in Iraq are characterized by a lack of patience and understanding that progress, both political and military, does not occur overnight. Last month, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki launched an attack against rival Shia militants in Basra. Many quickly pointed to it as a failure because the United States had to be called in and Maliki's primary objective of disarming the militants was not met. On April 20, however, the New York Times reported that the Iraqi army now controls all areas of Basra, and Maliki is not giving up on disarming militants. In fact, an ... Read More
RSS