THE BUSH APPOINTMENTS–Part 2
By Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, Ph.D.
Minaret of Freedom Institute
In last week's column we reviewed Bush's
first cabinet
appointments. For
Muslims it was a case
of mixed signals. In
particular we saw
the appointment of Colin Powell as Secretary of State as a step
in the right
direction after agony of Madelyn Albright's one-sided senior
political staff,
while the appointment of John Ashcroft as attorney general did
not bode well
for the civil liberties of Muslims in America.
Condoleeza Rice was a question mark.
Bush has made more appointments since then, and still the
signals are
mixed.
On the plus side Bush has appointed Mitch
Daniels and Spencer Abraham,
both Arab-Americans, as director of Office of Management and
Budget and
Secretary of Energy respectively.
While
neither is Muslim, the fact is that even Christian Arabs are
vilified in this
country for similar ultimate reasons that Muslims are vilified
and Bush's
willingness to appoint two Arab-Americans in the face of that
prejudice bodes
well the relations of his administration with our community. Further, Abraham
established a good track
record with Muslims during his brief tenure as U.S. Senator from
Michigan.
Another plus is in the appointment of Rod
Paige, hitherto Houston
School Superintendent, as Secretary of Education. Page is yet another
African-American
appointee to the cabinet, and has a strong record in favor of
the types
educational reform that would benefit the Muslim community. Education was
the one issue on which Bush
had a significantly better position that Gore and this
appointment suggests
that intends to stand by that position.
Of course, it is the Congress and the Courts (and state
legislatures), not
the Secretary of Education, who determine whether or not
alternative education
will be allowed to flourish, but this appointment holds out the
hope that when
it comes time to appoint Supreme Court justices, Bush will
appoint ones who are
favorable more school choice.
I would argue that Tommy Thompson should
also be considered a positive
appointment. Thompson
was the pioneer in
welfare reform and it was his record in Wisconsin that proved
that it was
possible to put an end to the cycle of dependency that channeled
so many
Americans to into a culture of poverty.
Although welfare reform has its opponents, largely from
the bureaucrats
and politicians who benefit from the existing system, many
welfare recipients
are more interested in getting jobs than handouts. In any case,
recognition that faith-based
organizations are in a better position to deal with the deep
needs of the poor
that underlie their status than the impersonal bureaucratic
state is a
development Muslims should welcome.
Gale Norton, the first woman ever appointed
to the position of
Secretary of the Interior may or may not be good choice. She has been
criticized by environmentalists
as being in the mold of James Watt, Reagan's Interior Secretary. There is no
doubt that Norton has a string
commitment to private property, but that is not necessarily a
bad thing. On the
contrary, it is private property that
is most jealously protected by its owners.
It is well-established, for example that privately owned
forested, even
when harvested for wood, are better managed for their long term
productivity
than government owned forests.
Government owned lands, when harvested, have been
subjected to such
atrocious practices as clear-cutting, and when not harvested,
have been
subjected excessively to
problems like
forest fires due to poor management. If
Norton will guide the Interior department into a new paradigm of
trusteeship in
which private property is one of the tools for protecting the
environment, her
appointment will be a good one.
If, on the
other hand, she shares James Watt's millennial views from
Christian
fundamentalism, then we have cause to worry.
After all, why protect the environment if the world is
going to end
soon?
However, it is not because of such
questions about Gale Norton that I
say the signals are mixed.
It is because
Bush's appointment of Donald Rumsfeld to the critical post of
Secretary of
Defense is a red flag. While
we cannot
be certain that Rumsfeld will continue the hostile policies of
past American
administrations toward the Muslim world, it is a fact that this
former cold
warrior's appointment was greeted with glee by many
conservatives precisely
because they saw in it the hope that Rumsfeld's influence on the
Bush
administration would negate the influence of Powell. Powell, as his record
shows, has the cautious
attitude towards military force that is characteristic of any
good military
officer. A
commander who knows that his
own men's lives are at stake, if he is any good at all, will be
prudent about
the application of military force to solve problems. Civilian commanders
sometimes take a
glorified view of war and play down the down side. Behind Rumsfeld's
benign concern with civil
control over military authority lurks the specter of military
decision driven
by political considerations.
It is a
fact with which Muslims must come to grips that the Zionists
have been
assiduously courting the cold-warrior types with the mantra that
Islam has
replaced the Soviet Union as the new threat to a free world. Whether or not
Rumsfeld will succumb to this
Siren song has yet to be seen.
The fact
that Rumsfeld was part of the political establishment that in
the past has
sacrificed both the democratic hopes of the Muslim world and the
long-term
interests of America for short-term stability and for the sake
of the
"special relationship with Israel" must be a source of concern
not
only to Muslim-Americans, but to all Americans who feel that
America's foreign
policy must be grounded in the long-term best interests of the
American people.