I am especially interested in this photo -- and the opportunity for us to study it and think about it -- since the Administration "predator-droned" Anwar al-Awlaki into the ground on Friday. (Yes, going forward, I recognize "predator drone" as a verb.)
First, let's consider the caption from TIME's "Anwar al-Awlaki in the United States" slideshow (keeping in mind -- regardless of any ambiguity in that title -- that al-Awlaki was born and raised an American). The caption reads:
Dar al Hijrah Mosque, Falls Church, Virginia
Patricia Morris, left, and Imam Anwar al-Awlaki stand inside Dar al Hijrah Mosque in Falls Church, Virginia in 2001. In Virginia, al-Awlaki served as imam of the mosque from 2001-2002, while pursuing a doctorate at George Washington University and serving as the school's Muslim chaplain. Morris organized a vigil of solidarity at the mosque, in the weeks following the September 11 attacks.
That being the case, how are we to account for the warmth and the normalcy here amidst the children, the soft and direct expression of the man in the khakis, open shirt and sports jacket, the relaxed shoulders, the only-loosely crossed arms and the sense of affinity and collegiality between the Imam and the WASP woman? Would you say that Al-Awlaki's expression -- the photo captured in that one-month period of national soul-searching prior to attacking Afghanistan, filled with compassion and gestures of goodwill and a desire for dialogue with America's Muslim community -- reflects the mood in the U.S. before America, too, became alienated by the Bush Administration's radicalism and America experienced a progressively raw, building up of generalized hate toward the Muslim world incubating in that seventeen-month stretch of time preceding the actual launch of the misguided war on Iraq?
Al-Awlaki's story is full of contradictions. He father was a Fulbright scholar, an American academic but then, also, a member of the Yemeni government. Al-Awlaki lived in the U.S. 'til he was seven, returned to Yemen, then came back to the U.S. to go to college. In that stretch, he spent one summer against the Russians with the Afghan mujaheddin in the pre-Taliban days.
Preaching in a mosque in San Diego after receiving an M.A. in education, it is alleged that Al-Awlaki had contact with several of the 9/11 hijackers. But then, showing no signs of radicalism, he actually moved East to make a life for himself in the DC area in January 2001, becoming the Imam at the Virginia mosque shown in the photo and also becoming the Muslim chaplain at George Washington University. After the 9/11 attacks, he even had meetings with Pentagon officials to discuss cross-cultural relations, and in 2002, he was the first imam to carry out a prayer service at the U.S. Capitol. It wasn't till the end of 2002 that Al-Awlaki left the U.S., citing an increasing hostile climate for Muslims in the U.S. This was amidst a prosecution for passport fraud -- because in 1990, he stated he was from Yemen to qualify for college scholarship money. To emphasize, much has been written about Al-Awlaki and his possible roots to terrorism, but the story is ambiguous. FBI officials claim al-Awlaki had prior knowledge of 9/11, yet it wasn't until he arrived in Britain that his actions become demonstrably radicalized.
Which leads us back to the photo -- and that ambiguity.
Now ten years beyond 9/11 and three years into Obama's term, what does it mean, really, the idea of "looking back" and understanding? There was no inclination to look back and examine the Bush Administration's prosecution of the so-called "terror war" and the law-breaking actions to justify the war on Iraq. At the same time, America has failed to bring the terror suspects held at Gitmo into and under the sphere of the criminal justice system. Today, the same goes for how we deal with our persistent, if aging Muslim antagonists. If anything is shocking about what happened Friday, it's how much America's relationship with those that hate us (against a backdrop of a Middle East, and a Muslim core, most notable now for wrestling with political freedoms) falls into the knee-jerk bucket of cowboy justice, pulverization, and targeted killings -- this one, historic for the first ever of an American.
So, I'm interested in who the man is in this picture, what happened to the man in this picture, and, above all, what exactly is going on in this picture -- as we all, naturally, should be. Those questions, and the ultimate answers to those questions, I would go so far as suggest, are not only vital to our American democracy but to also recovering our sense of humanity -- even if this government, caught up in its warrior technology and bloodlust, could hardly give a damn.
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(photo: Tracy A. Woodward/The Washington Post/Getty Images original Getty caption: Patricia Morris and Imam Anwar Al Awlaki, photographed inside Dar al Hijrah Mosque in Falls Church, VA. In background are students at the Islamic School. For a story on non-Muslims reaching out to Muslims.)
Follow Michael Shaw on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bagnewsnotes
Arianna Huffington: Sunday Roundup
The al-Awlaki Killing: Cheney's Words vs. Obama's Actions
Anwar al-Awlaki death: US reticent on details as it tries manage Yemen fallout
Ruppersberger says United States safer with Anwar al-Awlaki dead
Fox News Sunday Panel Debates Legality Of Anwar al-Awlaki Assassination
Anwar al-Awlaki's death greeted by scepticism in streets of Yemen
Agencies: Al-Awlaki death may spur new attacks against U.S.
Anwar al-Awlaki or al-Aulaqi? Spellings trip up media, readers
On NPR: Al-Awlaki Talked Of Muslims Being Hurt In Post-Sept. 11 World
Our laws are meant to be applied selectively against certain political groups.
The Justice Department would probably set him free on a "Technicality".
Eric Holder lives every day of his life in wide eyed terror of what he and his party have created.
If I find you a similar picture of George Bush, and one of Dick Cheney, will you confer your absolution on them as well?
Drive the get-away car in an armed robbery and see if you aren't charged.
declare him as much of as a target as any other terrorist?
The guy had fled to a locale chosen to isolate himself as much as possible from the US justice system. He got as much process as is reasonable in such a case.
How many unsuccessful, and how many successful murders of innocents do you imagine that the constitution allows a self-declared enemy of the state to be involved in before action is taken against him?
I have a request for all of those whose defense of this man boils down to: "He won't show up at the courthouse voluntarily and the marshall can't find him so the constitution says: Let him foment and assist deadly terrorism ad infinitum."
My request is that you show me the clause in the constitution which guarantees this right..
Research for and view photos of Stalin, Mao, etc..
When the author, or any of us, becomes president, he will be briefed and only then will he make his decisions on the nations defense, right or wrong. Obama has had the courage and the integrity of character to make decisions which are not in accord with his campaign rhetoric. Facts on the ground, change decisions in the air.
Would any of us have it otherwise?
Your words are those of a principled citizen or candidate, NOT those of a person actually responsible for her countries safety. (an aside) Have you noticed that women are now being assigned such responsibility?
If you become president, you will be provided with actual live DATA with which you must formulate a plan. It could involve killing someone BEFORE others are killed. That takes good data and moral courage. What you say now is AIR because you and I are ignorant of the facts. What our fellow citizens are up to, even in other countries, can and must not be known by all of us. We must maintain secrecy of valid source data.
Be careful who you vote for because they must make difficult decisions WITHOUT YOUR superior personal unbounded intelligence, education, wisdom and morals.
the Bush/Cheney regime had not
invaded and occupied Iraq.
We made many more enemies with that folly.