Bush to Bypass Congress on the Pipes Appointment to USIP? By Andrew L. Jaffee, August 15, 2003	Home   Search   Forum   Terms

The Associated Press (AP) has joined the witch-hunt to keep Daniel Pipes, one of the U.S.'s foremost authorities on the Middle East, from being nominated to the U.S. Institute of Peace. In a story published Tuesday by the AP, the author minimized Pipes' positives and spent paragraphs on his "negatives."

First, the author had to point out:

His supporters include a number of Jewish groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Anti-Defamation League.

Of cousre, she didn't mention that Pipes is a man who is supported by moderate Muslims. Pakistani journalist Hussain Haqqani recently published an article supporting Pipes' nomination in the Wall St. Journal. The Washington Post published a letter to the editor by Tashbih Sayyed supporting the USIP nomination. Sayyed is an adjunct fellow of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

This AP writer goes on and on about Pipes' "critics."

Critics call Pipes an extremist who should not be named to a peace organization.

"I continue to believe that Dr. Pipes is not the right person for this position," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., in a statement issued Tuesday. "His record and experience do not reflect a commitment to bridging differences and preventing conflict. Surely the administration can find someone better to serve on the Board of the United States Institute of Peace."

Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., spoke out against Pipes during the committee meeting, saying his positions are inconsistent with the USIP's efforts to "contribute to the promotion of international peace and the resolution of conflicts without recourse to violence."... The expected appointment "is a defeat for democracy and an affront to Muslims, Arab-Americans and all those who seek peace," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "This person has such a long record of anti-Muslim bigotry."

The AP editorialized that Pipes:

...has called for a war on Islamic extremism, declaring in one post-Sept. 11 interview, "What we need to do is inspire fear, not affection."

So Pipes is dangerous because he wants to defeat Islamism--a cult dedicated to murdering all Americans and/or forcibly converting them to Islam? Pipes is dangerous because he foretold of 9/11? Pipes is dangerous because he speaks fairly about Muslims, being careful to distinguish between regular people and killers? Oh, how un-politically correct of Pipes to point out that:

In all, 800 persons lost their lives in the course of attacks by militant Islam on Americans before September 2001 - more than killed by any other enemy since the Vietnam War. (Further, this listing does not include the dozens more Americans in Israel killed by militant Islamic terrorists.)

And yet, these murders hardly registered. Only with the events of a year ago did Americans finally realize that "Death to America" truly is the battle cry of this era's most dangerous foe, militant Islam.

Thankfully, there are people who don't suffer from political correctness and liberal guilt. The Washington Post posted an excellent editorial by Charles Krauthammer today:

During the decades when America slept, Pipes was among the very first to understand the dangers of Islamic radicalism. In his many writings he identified it, explained its roots -- including, most notably, Wahhabism as practiced and promoted by Saudi Arabia -- and warned of its plans to infiltrate and make war on the United States itself.

Sept. 11, 2001, demonstrated his prescience. Like most prophets, he is now being punished for being right. The main charge is that he is anti-Muslim. This is false. Pipes is scrupulous in making the distinction between radical Islam and moderate Islam. Indeed, he says, "Militant Islam is the problem, and moderate Islam is the solution."

The dilemma for a free society is that radical Islam lives within the bosom of moderate Islam. The general Islamic community is the place radicals can best disguise themselves and hide. Mosques are institutions that they can exploit to advance the cause. These are obvious truths.

But when Pipes states them, he is accused of bigotry. For example, critics thunder against Pipes's assertion that "mosques require a scrutiny beyond that applied to churches and temples."

This is bigoted? How is this even controversial? Wahhabists and other radical Islamists have established mosques and other religious institutions in dozens of countries. Some of these -- most notoriously in Pakistan -- had become the locus of not just radical but terrorist activity. Where do you think Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, was radicalized and recruited? In a Buddhist monastery? He was hatched in the now notorious Finsbury Park mosque in London.

Does that mean that all mosques or a majority of mosques or even many mosques harbor such activity? No. But it does mean any given mosque is more likely to harbor such activity than any given synagogue or church.

The attack on Pipes for stating this obvious truth is just another symptom of the absurd political correctness surrounding Islamic radicalism. It is the same political correctness that prohibits ethnic profiling on airplanes. We are all supposed to pretend that we have equal suspicions of terrorist intent and thus must give equal scrutiny to a 70-year-old Irish nun, a 50-year-old Jewish seminarian, and a 30-year-old man from Saudi Arabia. Your daughter is on that plane: To whom do you want the security guards to give their attention?

And who are Pipes' greatest opponents in Congress to his USIP nomination? According to the The New Republic:

Cair [Council on American-Islamic Relations], a collective fellow-traveler of, and apologist for, Muslim extremism, has made Pipes's defeat its current priority. And three U.S. senators on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (Ted Kennedy, Tom Harkin, and Chris Dodd)--alas, all Democrats--have already signed on to its campaign (with Senator Jim Jeffords apparently leaning their way, too). The senators' public grievance is that Pipes is "provocative" and "controversial." How can any authority on the Middle East and Islamic extremism be anything else, if he is saying anything serious? And it is precisely challenging and stimulating thinking on these matters that the nation requires from its centers of learning, of which the U.S. Institute of Peace is a promising example. It is just possible, of course, that, despite the national need for bracing scholarship on the Arab and Muslim worlds, what Senator Kennedy wants the institute and its overseers to deal in is pabulum, the calming clichés that left us wholly unprepared for September 11, 2001. It is exactly Pipes's aversion to pabulum that has persuaded a wide-ranging roster of notable area specialists and independent intellectuals to publicly endorse his nomination, a roster that includes Fouad Ajami, Paul Kennedy, James Q. Wilson, John Keegan, and Raymond Tanter. For committee Democrats to defeat Pipes would not be politically wise; after all, handing a victory to the Muslim hate front is not exactly what voters want. Worse, it would signal that the Democrats are ready to silence a truthful voice of honest scholarship about the Middle East.

David Frum of the National Review Online, added to the voices of lucidity on Pipes' USIP Nomination:

Can we have a moment of appreciation please for the characteristic gustiness of President Bush’s expected recess appointment of Daniel Pipes to the board of the US Institute for Peace. Radical Muslim groups like the Council on American Islamic Relations had organized to defeat Pipes. Despite the modest importance of the Institute itself, these groups understood that the struggle over Pipes was a potentially decisive political event. For underneath the wild allegations against him (about which more in a moment), the argument over Pipes boiled down to this: is it an act of bigotry to notice that the terrorists we are fighting commit their acts of terror in the name of Islam

Pipes’ critics claimed that it was. All of their other slanders against him quickly collapse on examination into a pile of distorted quotations. Pipes has never impugned Muslims in general – on the contrary, he has been an eloquent voice in favor of the need for and possibility of democracy and liberty in the Islamic world. But he has eloquently and presciently sounded the alert for a decade and a half over the gathering menace of extremist Islamic ideology – and he has fearlessly and tirelessly struggled against that menace as it has tried to sink roots into American soil.

It is for these services to the American people that this scholar who has devoted his life to the study of Islamic civilization, and who has mastered modern and medieval Arabic for his studies, has been damned by CAIR and others as a bigot.

The word is out that President Bush has decided to push Pipes' nomination through as a "recess appointment":

By signing appointments during a congressional recess, Bush can bypass the Senate confirmation process.

I'm all for a recess appointment as I'm sick of hearing terror-supporting CAIR scream about "bigotry." But Charles Krauthammer brilliantly points out:

President Bush is considering bypassing the Senate and giving Pipes a recess appointment while Congress is out of town. For Bush, this would be an act of characteristic principle and courage. The problem, however, is that such an act makes the appointment look furtive. Worse, it lets the McCarthyites off too easy.

Pipes's appointment would be a great asset to the U.S. Institute of Peace. But it would be an even greater asset to the country to bring the Democrats' surrender to political correctness into the open. Let them declare themselves. Let the country see that for some of the most senior Democratic leaders, speaking the truth about Islamic radicalism is a disqualification for serious office.

Whatever you believe about recess appointments, please support Daniel Pipes' nomination to USIP.