Former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen recently equated the disparate news coverage of terrorist attacks in African and Middle Eastern countries compared to Paris, France, and controversy over Syrian refugees to the Black Lives Matter movement.
President Barack Obama speaks during a meeting with national security leaders to discuss the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, Friday, Nov. 13, 2015, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. Joining him, From left are, former Defense Secretary William Cohen, and former Secretaries of State Colin Powell and James A. Baker III. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Cohen, a moderate Republican and former U.S. representative and senator from Maine, served as Secretary of Defense (1997–2001) under Democratic President Bill Clinton.
On Nov. 17, SiriusXM’s Urban View host Joe Madison interviewed Cohen following the Nov. 13 Islamic State attacks in Paris that claimed more than 130 lives. He shared concerns from African-American listeners who questioned why attacks in African countries such as Kenya and Mali and Middle Eastern countries are paid short shrift by news media and by the government compared to the 24-hour blitz offered when Paris was attacked.
The answer, Cohen said, was two-fold.
“We have very little interest in those countries both philosophically or ideologically and economically. And second, there’s still an element of racism in our policies and we don’t care,” he said. “It’s really a double standard for the United States and the Western world when it comes to who is dying and that is a legitimate complaint.”
That double standard is also evident in the incidents that fueled the Black Lives Matter movement, Cohen added.
“The fact is Black lives have been devalued since being brought here in chains and that has continued for 300 years,” he said.
Protesters marched down Plymouth Ave. N to the Minneapolis 4th Precinct. Neighbors and community members gathered at the scene where a man was shot and wounded by a Minneapolis Police officer early Sunday, Nov. 15, 2015. The shooting outraged some community members and prompted a protest by the group Black Lives Matter Minneapolis, after some witnesses said the man was handcuffed when he was shot. Police have said their preliminary investigation shows the man was not handcuffed, but the investigation is ongoing. (Mark Vancleave/Star Tribune via AP)
“We have a movement now—Black Lives Matter. And it’s not that Black people are saying Black lives matter more. They’re saying, ‘How about equal treatment? How about treating us as being valued as much as White people?’” Cohen continued. “And you can look day after day at what’s happening on the street with how many young Black men—or women—are being stopped, frisked or shot. And you have to ask would that happen to a White person?
“It’s pretty clear we have a real problem here in terms of what’s happened over our history, that the Black race has been criminalized.”
A similar ethos is undergirding discussions about bringing Syrian refugees to the United States, Cohen said.
On Nov. 17, the U.S. House passed legislation, 289-137, which would halt the Syrian refugee resettlement program until stricter screening standards are implemented. About 29—mostly Republican—governors have also denounced the influx of Syrian refugees, saying they would not accept them in their states. And, Republican presidential candidates have also jumped on the bandwagon, saying they fear ISIS militants could be hiding among the refugees.
“This could be one of the great tactical ploys of all time,” said leading GOP candidate Donald Trump during a New Hampshire campaign speech on Sept. 30, according to MSNBC. He added, “I’m putting people on notice that are coming here from Syria as part of this mass migration, that if I win, they’re going back.”
Cohen criticized those who would take such a stance, however.
“We are feeding the flames of intolerance in this country,” he said. “The refugees have no place to go. We are part of the international community. We should be willing to take some. Yes, we have to seriously vet them considering what’s going on. But to simply consign them to a future of misery and death, that’s not who we are.”
