Mehmet Yegin USAK Center for American Studies printable version send your friend

Monday, 23 March 2009

Frank J. Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for The Washington Times, wrote a dubious piece about US President Barack Obama’s foreign policy moves. In his comment “Embracing of Shariah?” he portrayed Obama’s visit to Turkey as part of the broad policy of embracing shariah. As a hardliner and neocon, it is understandable that the columnist would criticize the Obama administration. But, including Obama’s Turkey visit in such an argument may only be explained by a lack of knowledge of Turkey or simply bad intentions. 

Frank J. Gaffney is the head of a think tank that he established in 1988. He has a long history of a hardliner perspective and obstinate advocacy of using hard power. Gaffney worked with the Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush administrations, which are known for similar perspectives and rhetoric on world matters. Reagan’s ‘evil empire’ phrase and Bush’s ‘you are either with us or against us’ perspective may make sense in their contexts of the Cold War and the post 9/11 period. Nevertheless, Gaffney’s statements and baseless arguments in a time of peaked anti-Americanism and need for cooperation regarding the global economic crisis does not make sense at all.

As a fervent advocate for using military power rather than diplomacy, he does not seem to be content with the “change and hope” rhetoric. He especially opposed the changes to security issues. Obama’s pledge to decrease the defense budget, withdraw from Iraq, and amend the law that prohibits homosexuals from serving in the military are the main issues that evoke significant resentment of the new president. Gaffney states his perspective on these issues as “these commitments would be devastating to our security.”[i] . He also defined notorious Guantanamo as “the nation’s only state-of-the-art facility for securely holding and systematically debriefing some of our most dangerous enemies,” [ii] and named Obama’s policies to alleviate anti-Americanism as “S.U.B.M.I.S.S.I.O.N.”[iii]

Gaffney’s sensitivity to the defense budget does not appear to be about the troops in the field. He does not respect their lifestyles or even their lives.  Regarding the casualties in Iraq, his statement was quite shocking: he said “I believe they did have to die.”[iv] This statement both refuses to acknowledge the mistakes made in Iraq and offends the families of the US troops that lost their loved ones in a questionable war. His lack of respect goes along with his statements on freedom of press. He argues that broadcasts of Al Jazeera should be censored or prohibited. In his words “They should be taken off the air, one way or another”[v] This statement clearly portrays his position on freedom of press.

 Yet, he does not limit his statements and comments other to defense policy, which is his expertise.  Gaffney made comments on finance and the economy and continued his provocative discourse by naming the investments and financial relations with the Arab countries as “financial jihad.”[vi] In such economic difficulties the experts in these fields are aware how ridiculous the statement is.

Some of his statements, far from being scholarly objective, appear as accusations or exaggerations. His commentary on Charles Freeman is one of the examples. He accuses Charles Freeman being working on behalf of the “House of Saud, the Chinese Communists, the Iranian Mullahs and even the terrorists of Hamas”[vii] because he worked in Riyadh and Beijing. His comments cover even the idea of 35 terrorist training camps in the US and Canada, radically claimed by “Homegrown Jihad: The Terrorist Camps around the US”[viii] This claim is far from reality and even possibility after the 9/11 measures taken by the US government.

The list goes on and on. Thus, his comment that mentions Obama’s visit to Turkey is not free from this trend. Yet, it should be asked to what extent his argument’s are plausible in his last comment called “Embracing of Shariah” in which he argues that Obama’s visit to Turkey  is a sign of his commitment to Shariah. Of course he is trying to criticize Obama administration yet he does not have the right to do this using Turkey’s name along with the Shariah in his argumentation. Turkey is a democratic, secular country and along with its amendments in last decade according to its EU bid, the country is consolidating its democracy and secularism.  Thus, the claim that Turkey is going “on the path to Islamification” is a misjudgment or a consciously wrong statement.

Besides, the argumentation that Obama is “embracing the Muslim Brotherhood’s agenda”[ix] is also problematic. He presents four proposals from “Change Course” and argues that since these proposals are similar to the Muslim Brotherhood’s agenda, Obama is embracing such an agenda. This argument is quite biased. Having similar proposals cannot be equated with adopting the same agenda. Even conflicting parties, such as a liberal democratic country and a terrorist organization, may have similar proposals. This cannot be interpreted as that the democratic country adopted the terrorist’s agenda. For example, most of the terrorist groups have the rhetoric of “freedom” and “democracy” that can be found in the most peaceful countries’ leaders’ rhetoric.

Thus, Frank Gaffney’s dubious character, undemocratic, and exaggerated statements gives us an idea on how he wrote the commentary mentioning Obama’s visit to Turkey. Moreover, with the lack of knowledge and problematic argumentation, the piece itself is biased.

by Mehmet Yegin