Mac Dre and Anwar Al-Awlaki

The US has a fucked up way of dealing with it's problems and is doesn't work.  To illustrate this consider a bizarre analogy between the stories of Mac Dre and Anwar Al-Awlaki, two enemies of the state. 

Mac Dre, a bay area rap star, was the vocal face to his Crest neighborhood gang.  He rapped about pimping and drugs, and was imprisoned for his connections to bank robberies and other crimes.  He was constantly targeted for incarceration (and possibly assassination) by local and federal police agencies.  In fact there is little evidence that Mac Dre was interested in much more that making money off his music, which proliferated a gangster mentality.  The policy of targeting such celebrities to deal with problems of gangs and criminal activity has obviously not worked well at decreasing these activities.

This is the same strategy that the US uses to deal with terrorism.  Anwar Al-Awlaki is an American citizen targeted for assassination by the CIA and US military for his vocal support of radical Islam and terrorist measures against the US.  This is a big deal as the US generally does not publicly endorse assassination of it's citizens.  There is no public evidence of his connection with terrorist activities, it is said to be protected as state secrets.  For radical Islam, Al-Awlaki is a cleric star, but there is little reason to believe that he is a terrorist mastermind despite what he might say.  Even Osama fits pretty well into this category.  The question is how far will the assassination of such celebrities take America in it's fight against terrorism?

Targeting Mac Dre only increased his popularity and probably only drove more people towards his message of drugs and crime.  Is it that far of a stretch to suggest targeting a vocal radical Muslim will have any different effect?

There is a proper way to deal with such problems and one of the elements that is missing is respect.  Despite the difficult moral dilemma, it is important to have respect even for those who promote violence against us.  This respect can be shown by obeying US and international law.  Even more the respect can be shown by addressing the underlying issues rather then the the superficial words of vocal leaders. 

For urban gangs the underlying issues are clearly poverty and poor education.  Policing without correcting these issues only increases the violence.  For terrorism the issues are similar but also involve the meddling of the US in affairs that are not ours.  Some of these affairs, like Israel, cannot just be neglected, but should at least be handled with respect for the other perspectives.

As I listen to Mac Dre I feel no need to commit the crimes that he advocates.  It is those that live in ghettos without real freedom that feel that need and may carry it out.  I cannot really say how Muslims around the world feel but I can guess that it is similar.   Anyone who lives well in a stable community will not feel the need to do violence for confused ideological reasons.  The more we target the ideologies the more we prevent the development of such stable communities.  RIP Mac Dre.