Since Arizona enacted a set of draconian immigration laws which many claim will “exacerbate racial-profiling,” much of the focus has been on the effect its implementation will have on the state’s Latino population. However, along with being home to almost two million Latinos, Arizona has the second largest total Native American population of any state. While Native American tribes possess claims to Arizona lands that date back farther than any other group, they are often racially profiled and mistaken for undocumented immigrants of Latin American descent.

Freelance journalist and investigator Sarah Reynolds forwarded Wonk Room a video interview that she obtained with one Native American who is protesting Arizona’s new law after having been racially profiled himself. Vee Newton, who identifies himself as a Native American, told Reynolds that he was stopped at a police check point in Arizona after cops let blonde-haired people in the three cars ahead of him go by:

There was three vehicles in front of me and all the [people in the] vehicles in front of me had blonde hair. And they let them go by, but they stopped me…and they pulled me over and asked me questions about what country I was from. They asked me where I was coming from and where am I going and what am I doing. The questions were stated to me in a tone that I felt was very degrading to me. So I simply stated to them that I am a native of America, I am a native to the land and I am Native American.

This new bill targets people of my color. [...] It creates racial profiling and Native American people fall under that.

Listen:

Newton, who was wearing traditional Native American attire during the interview, pointed out that if he wore “something more comfortable,” he would “be pulled over easily.”

Newton is not alone in his opposition. Indian Country Today reports that “many American Indians [are] alarmed that tribal sovereignty has been violated, with the looming possibility that individual liberties will be threatened.” John Lewis, director of the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona stated, “This [law] impacts all indigenous people, and the lawmakers need to know it.” Ian Record, an education manager with the Native Nations Institute, further pointed out that “It has to be greatly concerning to everyone that law-abiding citizens of those nations are likely to be pulled over.” Finally, Robert Warrior, the Osage president of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, highlighted the implicit irony of the law, claiming, “It ought to go without saying that some of the people most impacted by this invidious law are descended from peoples who lived in the Sonoran Desert centuries before anyone even thought of the United States.”

It’s also worth noting that a study by the ACLU on racial profiling in Arizona found that “while African-Americans, Latinos, Native-Americans and Asian-Americans are more likely to be stopped and searched by law enforcement on suspicion of carrying contraband, whites were actually more likely to be carrying contraband.”

Dabbling in the conservative tactic of hailing failed terrorist attacks (under Democratic administrations) as “successes,” Max Boot writes “Terrorism has always been designed to make more of a psychological than a physical impact. By that standard, the Times Square bomber, whoever he is, has succeeded”:

Granted, the SUV packed with propane was an amateurish vehicle-borne improvised explosive device. It is, thankfully, worlds away from the sort of sophisticated truck bombs that al-Qaeda in Iraq has used to create carnage in Baghdad. Yet, nevertheless, it dominates news coverage in the “Great Satan” in a way that far more costly bombings overseas do not.

Yes, it’s true: Terrorist attacks — even failed terrorist attacks — inside the United States tend to receive more coverage inside the United States than terrorist attacks outside the United States. I don’t really know what to make of the fact that Boot thinks there’s something strange about this.

Even though I’ve just returned to the country after being away for a few days, my impression of the coverage tracks with Yglesias’ — that the response to the failed Times Square bomber has thus far been much less of a freak-out than the response to the failed Christmas Underwear Bomber.

Boot, on the other hand, perceives the responses as similar:

The very hysteria we currently exhibit — or that was evident after the Christmas Day attempted airline bombing — only make it clear to terrorists what an inviting target the American homeland remains. Of course they had better be careful. Al-Qaeda surely did not reckon with the size of the American response after 9/11; Osama bin Laden reportedly expected that we would fire a few cruise missiles and leave it at that. If a future terrorist attack succeeds on such a scale, the perpetrators may well come to regret their actions. In a way, then, such low-level attacks as the one in Times Square are actually more useful to terrorists than more successful bombings: they create terror but avoid a serious backlash.

First, while the understandable tendency of the news media to cover the heck out of these stories does, unfortunately, facilitate and amplify the terrorists’ intended effect, I think Boot is eliding the significant role that right wing pundits (like Bill Kristol and Britt Hume and Laura Ingraham, for example) played in promoting the failed Christmas Underwear bombing as a “success,” effectively doing Al Qaeda’s PR for them.

Second, “a serious backlash”? Like, say, an ongoing campaign of drone strikes against Al Qaeda’s top leadership? Leaving aside whether the strikes are, on balance, effective — I think there’s good evidence that, given the level of civilian casualties resulting from these strikes, and the broad moral and legal issues inherent in what are basically just assassinations, they’re not — I’m curious what Boot has in mind here. I understand that one of the central tenets of neoconservatism is that there’s no problem in foreign policy that cannot be solved by the application of even more military force, but what would Boot’s “backlash” look like? The invasion and occupation of more countries?

Actually, forget I asked.

James Schlesinger, former Nixon CIA Director, Secretary of Defense under Nixon and Ford, and leading arms-control skeptic, endorsed the ratification of a new START treaty last week in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. Schlesinger has long been a guiding light to the far right on nuclear policy issues. He fervently opposed the ratification of the CTBT in 1999 and was even against the Chemical Weapons Convention, which was ratified with bipartisan support. When Schlesinger speaks on nuclear policy, the right wing listens. Therefore, the effort to ratify START likely took a big step forward when Schlesinger said last week it was “obligatory for the US to ratify this treaty.”

As an arms-control skeptic and general foreign policy curmudgeon, Schlesinger expressed some doubts about the START treaty on balance, but he assessed that these concerns did not justify opposition to the treaty. CNAS’ Travis Sharp wrote at Nukes of Hazard:

Schlesinger authoritatively refuted arguments advanced by New START haters. Was Schlesinger effusive about the treaty? No. Did he raise potential concerns about it? Yes. But he also powerfully, if subtlety, rebutted several key criticisms of New START.

One of the main criticisms of the START treaty from conservatives has been that it does not deal with Russia’s thousands of tactical nuclear weapons that are worryingly vulnerable to terrorists looking to get their hands on nuclear weapons. While Schlesinger offered the same complaint about this START treaty and was skeptical about whether a more far-reaching follow-on treaty could be reached with Russia, he noted that to address Russia’s tactical nukes “there is no alternative” but to ratify START:

KERRY (D-MA): Based on your considerable experience in this field… leads you to make this conclusion that the step-by-step process is critical because you have to get this [New START] treaty in place and build on it in order to begin to address this further asymmetry [Russia's thousands of tactical nuclear weapons].

PERRY: That is my judgement

SCHLESINGER: I hope that you are right, Mr. Chairman.

Kerry: But What is the alternative?

SCHLESINGER. Oh, there’s no alternative. I hope that you are right that we have a further step. I don’t think the incentives the Russians have are very powerful.

Watch it:

In other words, in order to begin to address what is a major counter-terrorism concern – the danger of loose Russian tactical nukes falling into the hands of terrorists – we must ratify START.

Schlesinger also refuted other conservative arguments. He expressed “great confidence” in Secretary Gates’ approach to maintaining the nuclear arsenal. He called New START a platform to a wider arms-control effort and later in the hearing Schlesinger agreed with Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), by saying that the “failure to ratify New START is detrimental to U.S. influence over other countries’ non-proliferation policies.” John Isaacs, executive director of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, noted in a press release that:

The Secretary’s endorsement for New START is a major breakthrough for its prospects for Senate approval, since at least eight Republican votes will be needed for advice and consent to ratify the treaty…Schlesinger is extremely influential within the Republican Party for his extensive experience and forceful positions on nuclear issues.

Conservative opposition to the START treaty in the Senate should now become exceedingly difficult. As opposition to the treaty, would put conservative Senators not just to the right, but to the far right of the conservative foreign policy establishment.

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