Spokesman for unindicted co-conspirator in terror group funding case defames Spencer on CNN

I posted a comment at LGF last year..saying I thought a few of the posters were paid by CAIR...I really thought they were...what they say is so over the top.

There are at least a half dozen death fatwas on "all Americans" utilizing "all Muslims." They always talk about Islamic duty (fard ayn, fard kifaya). Fatah and al Qaeda have promulgated two big ones. Then there's the Hook Hand Hamza argument: that we're (non-Muslims) lower than farm animals under Islamic law. We can be killed at their pleasure, he noted. He is hardly alone in this feeling.

So what sort of uninformed nimrod would I be if I didn't have some well-founded concerns about Islam?

And they are no longer there...makes me think I was right.

Robert,

Maybe you should add a tag field where posters can flag a comment (like genocidal ones) as inappropriate?

that genocidal comment was condemned by all of us. whoever wrote that stupid comment should realise the enormous damage in which they have caused. and thanks to your idiotic genocidal comment we will all be under government scrutiny. thanks moron.

btw, CAIR is reading jihadwatch, good. Then lets let them know that the USA will never be an islamic state. regardless of their violent threats and malicious actions towards us.

If CNN were a competent and honest reporting network they would make all efforts to get the one egregiously defamed during their interview - Robert - onto a follow up program. I said IF...

keep up the great humanist work RS!

Mr. Spencer has more integrity in his pinky nail than hooper has in his big fat head.

I had the opportunity to watch the exchange as well. Hooper was his tacky self applying what a couple of commenters said on Jihadwatch as if they were written by Robert Spencer himself. This misleading ploy has been played out over and over again by CAIR rep. Hooper. Both Christopher Hitchens, and Dennis Prager did an excellent job refuting the comments of Hooper at every turn.

As a commenter on Jihadwatch going on nearly 4 years, I strongly condemn commenters who insist on making these genocidal remarks, it is non-productive and does not serve the site well. I wish commenters would take the time to read what Mr. Spencer's has asked for at the beginning of every comment section.

Robert, keep up the good work. You are truly a profile in courage. When Mr. Hooper has to grasp straws to try to do a put down on both you and JW/DW, that means both you and JW/DW is doing something good.

How fortunate that you used this image from that program. Note the background image used in this program. . .now go here, to Mr. Hooper's base, the CAIR website and examine the image he and his cohorts find appropriate for display. . .(scroll down the lower left sidebar and study the image of the U.S. capitol with gold dome and added minaret.)

As Mr. Hooper stated . . ."We love the first amendment, we uphold it every day."

Yes, Mr. Hooper. Duly noted. Using that image and you dare accuse others of intimidation?

While I appreciare Prager defending you, I cannot understand why he could not have told Hooper, "Robert Spencer would never say such a thing. You are referring to the comments section, aren’t you? Not all cementers represent his views."

Instead, he said in the end of the show that he will tell you he disagrees. No “IF Robert said it, then I’ll tell him”. I am disappointed in Prager.

Robert Spencer should sue this creep, HOOP, for committing "hate speech" (which by CAIR's own definition of the term he is doing as well as setting up a "false premise.").

I learned from Robert...teach about danger...don't give in to anger and hate....and make yourself look like a fool.

"...after Hooper's use of this comment despite its being deleted, I suspect that even more strongly that it was written by a provocateur."--R.S.

I do not suspect; I am absolutely convinced the comment was planted here.

It was nice to hear Mr. Prager state so clearly that Jihad Watch is an honorable site. Not to worry, Mr. Spencer. Your admirers are legion.

justamomof4

thanks for spotting that.
that image is imperialist propaganda. saudia arabia funds CAIR. this is disgraceful. this should be our banner to show Americans the true goals of CAIR. to transform the USA into an islamic nation..

While I appreciare Prager defending you, I cannot understand why he could not have told Hooper, "Robert Spencer would never say such a thing. You are referring to the comments section, aren’t you? Not all commenters represent his views."

Instead, he said in the end of the show that he will tell you he disagrees. No “IF Robert said it, then I’ll tell him”. I am disappointed in Prager.

While I appreciate Prager defending you, I cannot understand why he could not have told Hooper, "Robert Spencer would never say such a thing. You are referring to the comments section, aren’t you? Not all commenters represent his views."

Instead, he said in the end of the show that he will tell you he disagrees. No “IF Robert said it, then I’ll tell him”. I am disappointed in Prager.

"...after Hooper's use of this comment despite its being deleted, I suspect that even more strongly that it was written by a provocateur."--R.S.

I do not suspect; I am absolutely convinced the comment was planted here.

It was nice to hear Mr. Prager state so clearly that Jihad Watch is an honorable site. Not to worry, Mr. Spencer. Your admirers are legion.

justamomof4

thanks for spotting that.
that image is imperialist propaganda. saudia arabia funds CAIR. this is disgraceful. this should be our banner to show Americans the true goals of CAIR. to transform the USA into an islamic nation..

Robert Spencer does not fight in the gutter...he wins by knockouts.

The acronym CAIR actually means "Convert All Infidels Religiously". Thank you for blogging the Koran, Mr. Spencer...amazing how a "religious book" starts with a chapter called "The Cow", isn't it?

ah! so CAIR was booked for an interview on CNN and then someone planted a genocide comment. it all makes sense now. what a crock. what a cheap salesman.

What if we fotoshopped an American flag around the Kaaba, just for fun?

As a commenter on Jihadwatch going on nearly 4 years, I strongly condemn commenters who insist on making these genocidal remarks, it is non-productive and does not serve the site well. I wish commenters would take the time to read what Mr. Spencer's has asked for at the beginning of every comment section. - Mackie

Amen to that, and thanks for your support.

I just wanted to add a link to this posting from last spring, which contains some extensive comments from Robert on... comments. I've also come to use it as my basic reference for deciding to remove a comment.

I apologize for the three duplicate posts I made. Posting comments here takes forever so I kept clicking "Post". Sorry about this Robert.

I am so bummed! I can't seem to get any of these videos to run! I downloaded Flash Player, but no dice.

The comment didn't happen to be that bit of flagrant lunacy by one "Barry Laden" (B. Laden, sic) yesterday, did it?

I think "interestinconundrum" flagged it for "clean-up" immediately as pure b.s.

Has someone done a Hooper "lie count"? Should hold a contest for "spot the lies." (another board game could be devised -- like "halal/haram"). Let's see, there's the Spencer said X lie, then there's the Cat Stevens' didn't say X lie, then there are all the lies about how much Hoopy supports the U.S. Constitution and doesn't believe in "intimidation" (o heaven forfend! perish the thought! "intimidation" why that's just so vulgar! particularly when one considers Dhimmitude and the jizya and "humiliations to pacify the Infidels" or the need to murder those who insult Mo...)

profitsbeard

yes that was the one. someone else wrote a comment for it to be removed. genocide is a disgrace to humanity. it is evil and wrong. genocide is happening right now in darfur by arabic muslims and the muslim community in the west says nothing. did Hooper condemn genocide against the "black" sudanese tribes on CNN last night?

While I am by no means a fan of hitchens, I have to admit that - unlike his book - his comments to hooper were great.

Prager did an awesome job as well, but faltered at the end. He should have defended Robert, but maybe he was just caught off guard.

Still, someone needs to confront CAiR on the air tell them that even if someone wrote a genocidal comment about muslims (does genocide even apply since it means the killing of a genepool/race?) on this board, those are only words. So far, the only people actually doing any killing are muslims.

Someone needs to ask him why infidels who diss muslims are more upseting to them than muslims who kill infidels.

Absolutely. Good job, Mr. Spencer.

I'm sorry I missed the genocidal comment yesterday, but I have some doubts about the poster.

In any case, I find it interesting that Hooper is making such a BIG fuss about mere comments alluding to genocide -- which perhaps he himself might have posted here under an assumed name for all anyone knows -- yet, he expresses no concern whatsoever for real people being murdered in the name of islam, such as those Korean hostages.

Through it all, Hooper implements the same old stunt -- coin a phrase to intimidate others into silence if they criticize you or cross examin your idea; lay blame for errant comments on your enemies to silence them; and remain silent yourself over real slaughter and murder of innocents done in the name of the ideology that you espouse.

And by-the-way, JW has been watched by numerous government agencies for a very long time.

Free speech is not dead nor is freedom to think what you choose. Hooper and CAIR are working to change that -- DON'T LET THEM INTIMIDATE YOU INTO SILENCE!

I have emailed CNN of my opinion that Robert Spencer's character and purpose was intentionally defamed by Hooper. Hooper has looked more and more horrible everytime he appears, like a man on a verge of a seizure of some sort. I wouldn't be surprised if one day soon he will be babbling that he, too, is talking to Allah.

The thing is, as you watch Mr. Hooper, observe his body language and his intonation - he's just a shill for CAIR. He doesn't actually believe the BS he's spouting. Or, if he does, its strictly automatic - there is no thought involved. He is simply mouthing words and phrases as would a good automaton salesman.
In other words, it appears that the man has no soul.
I listen to Mr. Prager almost every day. I often find him pompous and self involved to the point of being boring. But he believes the things he says. He has a certain passion and he does indeed think upon most of what he says (as long as you don't get too specific about Judaism. He tends to be a tad "unclear" on that subject in spite of "having taught the Torah for 25 years...")
I love Christopher Hitchens. He is so snide, self-righteous and unpleasantly biting to his opponents. And, as he is totally, historically and factually, accurate regarding Islamic fascism, he is a pleasure to listen to. The man has soul. (Of course, his moronic views on religion in general are inane and his biting wit tends to sound like ignorant whining but, each to his own).
Hooper is creepy in his lack of conviction on his lifestyle of choice...
I cannot actually credit him with the evil that he espouses. He seems to be more the carny barker outside the Tent of Horrors, urging everyone inside and who goes home at night never even thinking about his job; the Tent; or any of the people he has actually dealt with...

Hitchen's rocks on this clip!

http://www.slate.com/id/2171371/fr/flyout


God-Fearing People Why are we so scared of offending Muslims?

If he wants to be an atheist: fine with me. He has many redeeming qualities in this article.

Hitchens kicked Hooper's tail in that go-round. He turned ol' Ibraheem into a stuttering, stammering buffoon.

Note that Paule Zahn's introductory remarks stated that the case was considered not that serious until muslims groups exerted pressure to have it listed as hate crime and as a felony. While I read speculation to that effect, and made good sense to me, Hooper didn't deny it and even defended it.

Hitchens article posted here, and mention is made of the koran-flushing incident:

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/hang_the_free_speaker_before_the_baddies_hang_us/#commentsmore

Does anyone else notice that Hooper seems to be everywhere lately and that more often than not he's having to field more hardball questions?

look we need to use simple language for simple people. prager was convoluted, he didnt really come to the point. which is, Islam is not a race. why he never said this in simple language is beyond me. the dumb reporter made him look like a bigot. he could have "dumbed" down. used basic english, put his points acrosss in simple language that mose people understand and said, "islam is not a race". we need some sexy exciting stars, sorry prager, but this is how we will win, as this is how liberalism has won for the past 40 years.

This is incredible. Ibrahim Hooper, National Communications Director of the Council on American Islamic Relations said this:

Islam is an ideology, not race.

He is right. It is an ideology. Islam is the ideology of Arabian peninsula conquest and imperialism, rather than a religion. And, as such, it does not constitute a race.

And Dennis Prager is right. The brilliance of adopting the term Islamophobia, as opposed to Arabophobia or even Muslimophobia, is that it means that any criticism of any aspect of Islam can be met with the term Islamophobia. If you ignore the phobia part, this means that any criticism of Islam is vorboten or the CAIR stormtroopers will move in and put you in the un-PC concentration camp.

On the other hand, the logic breaks down when you looks at the phobia part of the term. Phobia implies an irrational fear. There is nothing irrational about fearing Islam. In fact, the facts would argue that it is entirely rational to fear Islam, simply based on the threats emanating from Islamic organizations or the real and factual actions of people in the name of Islam.

So Islamophobia is simply an entirely rational response to the unprecedented extremism (at least unprecedented since the days of Nazi Germany) of a specific ideology (called such by a leading spokesman for Islam in the US).

It is not racist nor phobic to have fear of Islam. It is simply rational.

Robert:

I am a firm believer that providence . . . provides. You do exhibit amazing patience and coolness under pressure. How you can put up with such deceit on a daily basis and still remain a gentleman is beyond my capacity to understand.

If CAIR had a spokesperson with your personal qualities, we would be in substantially more trouble than we are now.

OT--but the link below shows how "moderate" Islam isn't really moderate. The gentleman from Pakistan gets hung up on a couple things, but the discussion about the morality of Muhammed (may he repent for his misdeads) is truly enlightening.
http://www.news.faithfreedom.org/downloads/probing-islam.pdf

You're damn right Womble, I was a bit shocked by that comment by Da'wah Doug too. The best part was Hooper calling Islam an "ideology" rather than calling it a religion. Hmmm, too much truth from the professional spokesman.

Mr. Spencer, I am also impressed by your patience and your thoughtfulness. The Holy Spirit has blessed you with this gift (and likely honed you over time for this role) and it is pleasing to see you respond again and again with your valid criticisms of Islamic jihadist ideology.

Ideas in a society are more of a Kairos (def: God's time or when the time is ripe)nature than Chronos nature (natural time ... like a clock. You can say the same thing for decades, then WHAM, people finally get it. It is like the environmental movement in the 1970's. People thought they were loons (some really are), however now people really think twice about how pollution and chemicals effect out lives.

The lack of discernment and insight into the importance of theology/ideology for the formation of cultural attitudes towards outsiders is currently quite pathetic. The liberal/secular news will in time come to understand that Islam is a different kind of horse than Christianity/Buddhism/Hinduism. I hope it does not take a major attack on a western city with hundreds of thousands dead, however given human history often this is when people will go "Oh ... may those folks at jihadwatch.org were not wrong after all."

Keep up the good work. Personally, I suspect that the comment was a plant. It is possible it was a plant for the very show where the comment was criticized. We in the west are so naive and innocent regarding the depths of human depravity. Others and our own. (is my Calvinism showing ;) )

Obviously, Hooper had that comment planted. He knew that he was going to be interviewed on CNN and needed a red herring to throw out whenever the interview got out of his control.

For the brief time that the genocide comment was up, it is highly unlikely that Hooper would have been so blessed by chance to read it and commit it to memory before it was deleted and then have it at hand during the course of the interview.

That type of desperate childish behavior is indicative of a cornered rat...

Cheers,

http://doctorbulldog.wordpress.com

Robert et al,

A commenter at LGF just made an excellent suggestion:

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=26486#c0093

#93 Gathering Storm 7/31/2007 8:41:11 pm PDT

Charles,

Can you help Robert trace the IP address of the individual who left the genocidal / provocative comment?

It's entirely possible that that comment was posted by some cretin, but there's always the possiblity of deliberate sabotage by your fans at CAIR or one of their partners-in-jihad. Charles is extremely skilled at IP tracing, as I'm sure you know.

If you look at the CAIR website you will find language *identical* to the evasive non-responses uttered here by Hooper regarding pointed questions. Paraphrasing: "But of course we wish harmony between followers of *all* religions, they should all get along, blah blah blah" in response to a question asking whether we need fear Islam based on its record of human rights abuses and violence everywhere it finds a home. For alert viewers this was an insightful answer.

On their site are statements "condemning terrorism" and the one regarding 9/11 is simply breathtaking. It only condemns an unqualified act of terrorism, without mentioning the religion of the highjackers or the religious nature of their inspiration. It is so generalized as to be worthy of a declaration from the UN. This inability or unwillingness to self-examine or self-correct, with concomitant public candor, will help undo them in the end.

Muslims have made a point of condemning acts of terrorism but only in an abstract sense, never honing in on the connexion with Islam. In this context they never recuse fellow Muslims or other Muslim groups. "Terrorism is such a bad thing, I wish it wouldn't happen." Perhaps this reflects the perfect nature of the Koran and resulting very limited possibilities for non-heretical discussions of theology in Islam, by Muslims. Too bad for them.

Hooper and his ilk are on the defense. Let's see if we can get them on the run.

How do we know CAIR didn't post that comment that Hooper brought up in the interview?

After reading what they included in their supposed Anti Muslim hate crimes report, I wouldn't put it past them. They are low-down dirty dogs.

Robert, maybe you should file a lawsuit against CAIR for defamation. After all, it seems like Hooper and his ilk love using those to impose their will on others.

Robert's right...
that HAD to be a setup...as none of the regulars in here would make genocidal comments (unless of course, endorsing the rational idea of fighting back constitutes "genocidal"...but enough of the islamists lexicon)...

It wouldn't surprise me at all to find out he had one of his own henchmen do it, and blame us here, considering the twisted narcissistic thought process he tries to pass off as "logic".

Stay on his @$$, Robert...fraudulent scum like that must be met head-on every time they try to attack anyone who dares to call them on their fraud.

at 4:28 of the clip, hooper scooper makes a remarkable admission. (perhaps he's said it before, but I haven't heard it.) He said,

"Islam is an ideology."

I, like most JWer's I'm sure, believe that islam is an ideology as well as a religion. and I'm sure that most muslims in islamic countries would agree. but for an American spokeman for a U.S.-based muslim organization to state that here in the U.S. is startling. It's unthinkable that a spokeman for any mainstream Christian, Jewish, Hindu, etc. organization would say that Christianity, Judaism, etc. is an ideology. They'd say it's a religion. It's too bad the moderator didn't ask hooper why he called islam an ideology and not a religion. he might then have said something really damning.

We are witnessing the breakdown of CAIR, ladies and gentlemen. I would not wish to every underestimate the power of money, but the at some point even the rich come to be perceived as so out-of-touch that their money loses its power.

CAIR and its campus watchdog client, the MSA, are a spent force. They have been revealed. They are, in CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper's words, an ideology, not race. Not a religion. Not a race. An ideology. Like Nazi ideology.

Goodbye, CAIR, you're money was as well spent as George Soros'. We understand you now. You are Islamists, a tiny minority that is well-funded. You work, together with the MSA, to bring Sharia-accommodation to university campuses to Islam as a special protected group above all other religions, to work to facilitate and increase Muslim immigration to the US, even if the immigrants have ties to terrorism, and to protect any Muslim who is accused of any wrongdoing, regardless of whether the wrongdoing was real or not. You, CAIR, are not concerned with Muslims or truth, you are concerned with showing that any Muslim is right and that every demand made in the name of Islam, no matter how it infringes on the rights of non-Muslims, is correct and defensible. You are willing to expend huge amounts of money, which you are get from foreign sources, to advance this absolutist Islamist agenda. You claim to be a Muslims civil rights organization and the voice of mainstream Muslims in the US.

Goodbye, CAIR, we know this is all a lie.

Maybe one day we will see a moderate Muslim organization rise up in your stead, one that instead of desiring dominance over and submission of all others, seeks instead to practice religion as a private matter.

Maybe one day. In the meantime, the jig is up. Adios, CAIR.

Gee whiz! Anyone who reads Jihad Watch on a regular basis knows that Robert Spencer and other staff do not tolerate genocidal comments.

If I disagree strongly with a comment, I will post my own comment in response (and then get flamed... most of the time). That happened recently (sans flames) and later I saw that the original comment had been deleted. Although I thought the comment was distasteful, I didn't know how the administrators would feel about letting it stand (in the interests of free speech, for example), so of course I didn't report it.

But recently (not yesterday), someone posted a genocidal comment and I emailed Jihad Watch directly because I knew this comment had crossed a clearly-defined line. The genocidal comment was deleted pretty quickly.

I didn't see the comment that was mentioned in this thread. I'm sure it's quite possible that it was planted, given everything said about it in this thread. I wonder if it's also possible that some CAIR folks monitor the threads here and report the worst comments back to the higher-ups. That would have been "lucky" timing, though.

Is it possible to input some keywords into an internet search engine and then get "dings" when a new item pops up? If so, that might be another way they saw the post so quickly.

I wouldn't have put it past Mr. Hooper to have posted the comment himself.

Can you trace the IP address or something?

Tasty Beverage-

The poster's screen monicker was "Barry Laden". (B.Laden? Ho-ho.)

(I searched online and found that to be the name of a moderately well-known guy in England -who is a fashionista and author and recent playwright- and suspected his name was being hijacked, so maybe the faux commentor was English?)

It would be interesting to see who it tracks back to.

Ibrahim's imam cousin in Camden Town, mayhaps?

lol @ flames

Old hat, Josephine...been there, done that, bought the tshirt 10 times over...
That's why I don't flame...instead always use NAPALM.
Never leave home without it!
lol

(/sarc)

In a world where those who cannot build shacks are busy tearing down cathedrals, it is difficult to be civil. Robert Spencer is a study in character. Kids will read about him someday.

Underhanded Tactics from CAIR? Who would have thought.

I keep hearing that CAIR has only 1700 members and that jihadists represent only a minority of Islam. This piece by Paul E. Marek should dispel any misconceptions that a minority cannot create chaos on a vast scale.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/6996

A minority of 19 jihadists killed 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001. For a jihadist, or for anyone for that matter, nearly 160 to 1 is a good bet.

Hahahahaha...

Once again Dougie Hooper is not called out for his sharia support. God when will somebody nail him to the wall on that. If he supports sharia he is a sexist and a bigot. Call him that to his face! If you support a sexist and bigoted law code does that not make you a bigot!

"I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future. But I'm not going to do anything violent to promote that. I'm going to do it through education." Dougie Hooper

Thus he wants an Islamic government. By any western definition an Islamic government is bigoted and sexist. So what if he wants to do it by peaceful means (which we can call into question)!

I emailed RS yesterday and the comment was deleted quickly. "Barry Laden" posted nearly the same trash about a week ago. Clearly trying to place the offending words into search engines in relation to JW.
All I can say is the CAIR-bears must have someone reading constantly. One question for you spys, how about all the jihadists on YouTube? There is enough there to fill several pages here. Beheadings, torture...and from the comments, it seems to be an enjoyable pastime. Jihadwatch at it absolute worst doesn't hold a candle to what is on YouTube.

I was thinking that we should all be more thoughtful and constructive when posting comments here.

Personally, I have an issue with ideas, the idealogy, behind Islam, but not with Muslims as an entire group. Obviously, a Muslim that commits terrorism - that individual I have an issue with

I would also add that my concern is the effect that Islamic ideology is having upon the Muslim as a fellow human being.

Furthermore, after listening to the video clip of the CNN show - it is obvious to me that Mr. Hooper appears to be unable to respond with a direct answer to a direct question.

Although I'm tempted to support some sort of a warning flag system for similar outrageous comments as alleged by Mr. Hooper - I'd rather we see that we didn't have one, free-speech issue, but do think that there should be some way for Mr. Spencer to clarify that the views expressed in the commentary field our the individual poster and not his.

I guess CAIR reads your web site mr spencer, so I have a message for the LIARS at cair.

Mohammed was a Liar and false teacher.
MR hooper is a liar just like Mohammed.

Mohammed was a pedophile, he married a 6 year girl and slept with her when she was 9.

Does mr hopper like young girls too?

Mr. Spencer

Yes he defamed you...but then again most Americans have a inverse reaction to Dougie...

Fact: Dougie thinks Robert Spencer is bad
Fact: Dougie is a member of CAIR

Conclusion: Thus Robert Spencer must be good.

I guess CAIR reads your web site mr spencer, so I have a message for the LIARS at cair.

Mohammed was a Liar and false teacher.
MR hooper is a liar just like Mohammed.

Mohammed was a pedophile, he married a 6 year girl and slept with her when she was 9.

Does mr hopper like young girls too?

LOL, jcom972.

If I ever have my own blog, I will have a delete button beside each comment. Instead of "delete" it will say "shut up". Or maybe "please shut up" since I'm a strong believer in good manners. I'm still working out the details, obviously.

(But that's because I would never have a political blog; it would be something bland like genealogy research, sewing projects and complaining about my aches and pains.)

I consider banana-eating a hate crime because I have an anaphylactic allergy to them (yes, a banana almost killed me). Anyone eating a banana in my presence or touching something with banana-smeared hands is uttering a death threat against me. I feel unsafe in a world of banana-eaters.

I think I have a pretty strong case.

Now if someone would only make number two on a banana and leave it on my doorstep, I'd be set for life.

No food is victimless.

Aww, anyone with a single brain cell knows "comments" are not RS' opinion.

***********//////////**********************

Comments
(Note: Comments on articles are unmoderated, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Jihad Watch or Robert Spencer. Comments that are off-topic, offensive, slanderous, or otherwise annoying may be summarily deleted. However, the fact that particular comments remain on the site IN NO WAY constitutes an endorsement by Robert Spencer of the views expressed therein.)

The genocidal post was up for about 20-30 minutes before it got deleted.

I have absolutely NO DOUBT that it was implanted here deliberately by CAIR.

Robert, If you can trace the ip of the poster ("Barry Laden") -- I think that we'll be another major nail in CAIR's coffin.

Hooper's claim at the end - that Spencer believes that the practice of Islam should be made so difficult that Mohammedans would voluntarily leave - is inaccurate in that not only did Spencer never state it, but even if he was referring to the opinion at large on JW, he was still wrong in that

1. Most people on JW advocate ending Mohammedan immigration to the West, or making it more difficult. Had Hooper stated this, he'd then have been forced to defend allowing Muslims from Jihadi hotspots like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, et al coming here;
   
2. The Benes decree references that generally get invoked from time to time, advocating mass deportations given the loyalties of Muslims to the Ummah, are usually in the contexts of belligerent behavior by Muslims in the West - be it honor killings, riots in Paris, harassment of Sikh or Hindu girls in Britain by Muslim students, Muslim cabdrivers in MN refusing to service passengers who serve alcohol, Ft Dix, Dearbornistan being a Hizbullah stronghold, et al. When these things are considered, the demands to deport Muslims do become popular, and given the above contexts, who can blame those?
   

As for Hitchens, he did the job that Prager somehow just couldn't do - invoke the examples of Islamic calls for genocide of Jews and Hindus. For those here who insist on slamming atheists like him due to their views on religion, they'd do well to note that almost none of the religious conservatives do such a thorough job of ripping Islam to shreds as do Hitchens and Sam Harris, amongst others. Memo to such people: Atheists are certainly preferable to Mohammedans.

Hooper is very concerned about genocidal comments.

Do you suppose he cares (CAIRS) about the ones made by Imanutjob in Iran with regard to Israel? Doubt it.

BTW IP addresses don't always yield results. If someone is using a laptop wirelessly the IP will show up as some poor innocent nearby who has adsl or cable.

Found this out the hard way when a friend had his laptop stolen at the airport. The ISP was most reluctant to help as were the police.
We gave up in the end :(

If it is a PC you may have better luck.

I watched the videos at Hot Air earlier tonight and it was very depressing. Hitch was off his game and Zahn did an awful job of controlling the situation. Hooper was allowed to just keep talking and Zahn made it worse by talking over all of them.

It was a really bad segment, and when Hooper threw out Jihad Watch and Mr. Spenser it was from totally out of left field and he got away with it.

But the WORST part of the entire segment was Hooper having the gall to say that it was an example of "intimidation". My God! Intimidation? This man had the NERVE to claim that a Koran in a toilet was intimidating to people whose religion advocates the killing of ANYONE who disrespects it?

Unbelievable.

I like the idea of suing Hooper for defamation. I'd love to see him (or CAIR, for whom he was a spokesperson) for a billion dollars, but here's a better idea: sue him for $1 and a public retraction (or settle out of court for the retraction and he can keep his $1).

A token amount, just to underscore that you are not golddigging or trying to intimidate, only to bring the truth out and clear your name (as if this was necessary!) in a court of law. Next time this happens up the ante to $100 and multiply by 100 each time, with fair warning.

A few JihadWatchers with deep pockets can underwrite the first couple of outings in court; after that it will be unnecessary. For a lawyer I'd highly recommend Reed Rubinstein , who already has a pretty good dossier on these folks, and so far is batting 1.000. Let them file a discovery suit ... "we'll show our cards as soon as you show yours". Rubinstein has a whole laundry list of items they could be disclosing.

It's time CAIR started seeing the other side of a defamation suit. They can't seem to win playing White, so let them try Black and see how they do.

Ya know...one thing sticks out like a sore thumb I think we should ALL call the hypocrite of the NTH degree called hooper on.

How is it that a lunatic cult like his, who themselves endorse and heartily favor genocide as per their own *ahem* "scriptures", can have the colossal unmitigated gall to lecture ANYONE, let alone those of us who see right through him and his murderous ilk, about ANYTHING...
ESPECIALLY genocide???!!!

Case-in-point that druggie douggie is very much that hypocrite of the NTH degree I said he was...
nothing like letting him prove my point FOR me.

lol

The best thing with this CAIR person, Hooper, is that being on CNN while O'Reilly is on means that hardly anyone saw this person.

Robert, keep setting forth the facts. Keep setting forth the verses. Keep hammering these adherents of Islam, The Religion Of Peace.

You are right.

In that CNN segment, what Hooper said about Jihad Watch at the very end seems to be true: Hooper said that Jihad Watch says "we should make the life of Muslims in the West so difficult they will leave." It's true I've never seen Robert Spencer say that, but hasn't Hugh Fitzgerald said that? Hasn't Hugh Fitzgerald also referred every so often to the removal of Germans from Czechoslovakia after WWII, and used that as an example of the legitimacy of a possible future policy of removing Muslims? Maybe I'm misstating Hugh Fitzgerald's views. My memory is notoriously faulty. In any event, I see nothing wrong with such views, whether Fitzgerald holds them or not. After all, Muslims, so far, have failed or refused to disavow, on any significant scale, the various elements of the Qur'an that lead to jihad violence and Islamic totalitarianism. The risks are not merely theoretical. A policy of asking Muslims to leave seems far more needed in Europe than in the U.S., since we in the U.S. have, compared with Europe, relatively few Muslims. But even the U.S. should stop further immigration of Muslims here until Muslims worldwide sort out where they stand when the Qur'an, jihad, and Islamic law conflict with Western civil rights standards. So far, large percentages even of European-born Muslims show strong inclinations toward Islamic law. Since the Muslim population of Europe is growing by leaps and bounds, the inclination toward Islamic law will increasingly endanger basic human rights in Europe, especially for non-Muslims. Many experts expect Muslims to become the majority in Europe before the end of the century.

Hooper's organization CAIR, an un-indicted co-conspirator in a terror case, has been associated with Islamic terror in various ways, and Hooper wants to see Islamic law replace the U.S. Constitution, though he sometimes pretends otherwise.

Anyone who has read Spencer for any length of time knows Jihad Watch exists precisely to defend civil rights and liberties, and that anything like genocidal comments do not fit in here. If some low-life thug or provocateur left such genocidal messages, that's not Robert Spencer's fault, since he disavows all such thuggery and adheres scrupulously, even in the minutest details of his statements and policy prescriptions, to Western sensibilities with regard to the dignity of the individual and the importance of human rights.

Maybe the bigger point here is that CAIR's reference to an obscure post by a very angry person or troll or a CAIR plant is in fact the best sign of their being backed against a wall without anything positive to say for themselves. Islamists sites make genocidal statements all the time, even MSA and CAIR sites make statements (not just as comments but as leads) that appear genocidal and racist or ethnicist (most often anti-Jew, as is the prevailing fashion). So what? Everyone knows the Internet blog game. Initial posts can be provocative and some of the comments even more so.

The fact that Hooper brings this an obscure comment by some unknown anonymous poster up on national TV just underscores the fact that he has no other arguments to make at all.

I view this as a sign of the fact that CAIR is weak and in a corner.

This rubbish is the best they can come up with.

Moreover, this comes when Hooper says that Islam is "an ideology, not a race." What is that? A Freudian slip? This comment undermines everything CAIR has worked for in trying to make Islam into not only a beleaguered but some sort of meta-race, so they can play the "race" card, as they seem to always do. They call everyone a racist for opposing anything in Islam at all. That's kind of Dennis Prager's point: they want to take a term like Islamophobia that could encompass any criticism of Islam and make it as odious and horrible and vilifiable as racism.

CAIR is weak and backed into a corner, and that's why it comes out with the most stupid and transparent guilt-by-association horse dung.

CAIR is an organization that lies and lies and lies again. Their attempt to besmirch Robert Spencer with some stupid comment made by some poster of unknown provenance makes no difference. 99.9% of the people who saw this knew it was a bunch of garbage, and some fraction of that 99.9% will actually wake up and see that this is another sCAIR tactic, thus realizing or being motivated to read about what CAIR is all about. All the info. is on the Internet for all to see. The remaining 0.1% were dimwits or CAIR sympathizers anyway.

As I see it, CAIR is on the defensive. It is weak. It is desperate. It is lying through its teeth (while inadvertently admitting the truth here and there). And the great thing is it is so obvious.

So 99.9% victory to Jihad Watch and all those opposed to CAIR lies. While I sympathize with Robert for having his name dragged through the mud, he comes out clean and the other side comes out muddier than ever.

Bottom line though...still...
hooper has no room lectuing anyone on anything, especially the talking points he so tried to make from his empty pulpit of pahblum.

But PiggDogg is right...if he was on at the same time The O'Reilly Factor was, 9 of 10 people didn't even see his spew anyway...and that's giving him the benefit of the ratings at that! lol

The shrill, uptight and filibustering Mr Hooper, made everyone look good. Hypocricy runs deep in Islam. Hooper complains about a hate comment on JW, and blames RS. Yet there is no discussion of the reems of video, and audio that has muslim clerics clammering for American blood.
Also, when are they going to stop debating racism?
Is that all they got, phony racism and phony hate?
They better stick with those, if they ever start debating the Quran, Hooper and company are done for...

CONGRATULATIONS MR. SPENCER

If you have Ibraham Hooper angrily defaming you on liberal news channels, pumping his fist and raising his voice and snarling into the camera...you know you must be doing something right. :)

Of course, what Hooper is doing is reading blogs on this website and accusing Robert Spencer for everything that gets said on JihadWatch. How pathetic. Liberals and Muslim activist groups just try to enflame public opinion against their enemies by any means necessary. They USUALLY do so by telling lies about the person and almost always by putting words in their mouths that they never said. It is a slimey way to get people to think very negative things about a person, especially if they are not there to speak for themselves!

traeh-

I wish anyone who does not subscribe to the U.S. Constitution and Bill of rights would leave America.

Can any seriously believing Muslim honestly say that they do not wish for the replacement of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights with Islamic law?

Why, then, should they stay here?

They only want the destruction of what America stands for.

And why should be stand for that?

I wish they would all to take a One-Way Hadj.

And meditate in Mecca for 1350 years ...about the historical (and current) crimes of intolerant, misogynistic, slavemongering, Koranically-cruel and cosmically-arrogant Islam.

(And they can also argue about whether it's a meteorite glued into the corner of the Ka'aba, or a frozen angel, who once guarded the gate to the Garden of Eden.)

profitsbeard:

I wish anyone who does not subscribe to the U.S. Constitution and Bill of rights would leave America

Agree.

And meditate in Mecca for 1350 years ...about the historical (and current) crimes of intolerant, misogynistic, slavemongering, Koranically-cruel and cosmically-arrogant Islam.

Well, if we're talking about wishes, I probably wouldn't wish them such pains, I'd just wish they'd convert to some other religion or become atheists. But I know what you mean.

profitsbeard @ 12:39 AM (Jihadwatch needs post numbers goshdarnit)

The poster's screen monicker was "Barry Laden". (B.Laden? Ho-ho.)

Yes, har har. So clever.

It would be interesting to see who it tracks back to.

Ibrahim's imam cousin in Camden Town, mayhaps?

I would not be surprised in the least. I think it's pathetic that rational people in the 21st century have to speculate in such a manner -- but we are now, for reasons we all know, unfortunately forced to deal with an ideology that is firmly stuck in the 7th century, with all its superstitions and conspiracy theories. And now we are reduced to contemplating conspiracies as well. In the 90's my friends and I used to have great fun contriving hilarious conspiracy theories while imbibing large quantities of booze, usually after watching the latest X-Files episode. We created them deliberately as fiction, and no one believed any of it, it was just fun to make up stories.

But nowadays some conspiracies have a good chance of being true, i.e., offensive comments being deliberately posted by our jihad-worshipping enemies, to be later "exposed" as indicative of the "true nature" of Jihad Watch or LGF or Michelle Malkin or Powerline or Hot Air or etc. etc. -- any other website that recognizes or has outright learned the truth about islam and jihad.

/goodnight all, it's late here.

Muhammedans have no problem with calling Islam an ideology. Its good for us if they confirm it, because our dhimmie's are totally stuck in their 'religions are all equally bad' BS.

However, I'm not impressed with the second video with Greg Davis, the interviewer is clueless and the imam deflects away from the subject matter, which they always do, and lies about it, as always. Greg Davis with a PhD sez 'he read a book' when asked whether he has a degree in theological studies.

A commenter on youtube gets it:

As usual the Islamic spokesman claims that quotes are out of context, telling downright untruths about what or what isn't in Islamic texts (on the assumption that most viewers haven't read them and are not going to): he then, himself, proceeds to misquote the Koran (and the misquote is way out of context) and omits to mention that for Muslims, the Koran is the verbatim, imutable word of Allah - not like other holy books.

Repeat after me:

‘Islam is not a race, its an ideology’-

here confirmed by the slandering Ibrahim Hooper from CAIR, agit-prop for Islamofascism in the US.

Strangely, Muhammedans shamelessly promote their genocidal agenda of killing infidels and Joooz and everyone who criticizes Islam, and in our PC-infected, degenerated society ‘piss-Christ’ and ‘Dung-Madonna’ is ‘art’- strange that not one of these brave ‘artists’has ever come out with a ‘Piss-Mohammed’ or a blood-soaked one, what despicable cowards in the face of the enemy!

Here you can see ‘The necessity of killing everyone who insults the prophet or finds fault with him’- its incredible that people with such an agenda are not barred from immigrating here:

http://www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/misc/alshifa/pt4ch1sec2.htm

America still has question forms on its international flights asking whther the traveller was or is involved with the Nazi party, hardly a threat this day and age. Perhaps its time to move on and change that to 'have you ever been involved with islamofascsim or do you subscribe to Islamic jihad as a means to replace the elected government of the USA'

It's pretty clear that CAIR are afraid of Jihad Watch. For good reason.

Mr Spencer, you'd best contact Charles Johnson and crosscheck the identity of the creature posting as 'storagemanager'. At the very best, they are schizophrenic. And most likely utterly false.
To wit:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=21357#c0039
This person regularly alternates between agreement and slanderous attacks.

I'm far from being an angel myself, but if this is the same viper, beware.

traeh,

Your comment is exactly something I wanted to point out.

At the end, Hooper accuses JW of saying "we should make the life of Muslims in the West so difficult they will leave". As someone who's been reading JW every day for quite some time, this immediately reminded me of Hugh Fitzgerald's incisive postings. I remember several of his pieces putting forward recommendations along these lines, with which I agree.

A few examples:

Nov 1, 2006
making the conduct of a "Muslim" life more difficult
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/013841.php
(in the comments)

Nov 3, 2005
The solution is to stop all Muslim migration to the Lands of the Infidels, and wherever possible, to reverse it.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/008827.php

Oct 7, 2005
Let's end Muslim migration, and work to reverse it.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/008467.php

And many others like that. With the surrounding explanations, these are in fact reasonable proposals, that should be debated more often.

Not all muslims agree with Hooper that Islamophobia' is not racism. Look at the claim copied below from the website of FAIR (Forum against Islamphobia and Racism). No doubt Hooper will be in touch with FAIR to remonstrate with them for their dishonesty.

"Islamophobia has now become a recognised form of racism. Furthermore, as with the inaccuracy of such terms as ‘anti-Semitism’, to describe the anti-Jewish hostility that developed in the late nineteenth century, ‘Islamophobia’ bears many similar hallmarks."

http://www.fairuk.org/introduction.htm

Muslims don't shy away from violence, something we find abhorrent. They actually believe that acts of terror make people 'revert' to Islam, and its proven that it works once Islam gets the upper hand.

Whenever you watch these talk-shows the participants usually all fall over themselves when it comes to denouncing violence. When faced with Islamofascism, I'm not sure whether a closer look at this holy cow is not warranted, because I don't believe this whole thing can be resolved non-violently. Actually, I would be quite happy to discuss it. If not here, then on my blog.

Counter propaganda, exposure, shame and finally help and assitance to Muslims who want to leave the cult would be one strategy, but I don't see how we can pacify the hardcore Islamists without resorting to violence. Our respective governments have allowed this rot to fester and no-one has proposed to reverse the trend. At least a moratorium on immigration we need, now. And a repatration program for those who refuse to integrate.

But talk about trends: How do you like the new Madonna urinals?

http://sheikyermami.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/china_toilet.jpg

Anyone else catch that? Ol' Ibby admitted that Islam is an IDEOLOGY - not a race.
i•de•ol•o•gy - a system of ideas and ideals,especially one that forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy....
So we are all agreed finally that Islam is not a religion.

LOL
I'm no atheist but Christopher Hitchens is one of the West's best debunkers of Islam. I was laughing at how deftly he pushed Dougie's buttons. Dougie must have flipped his lid because his embroidered beanie was missing

Hitchens pushes Dougie's buttons:

"We put up with his ranting and distortions and self pity"

Hooper's game is to deflect and distract. He and his ilk at CAIR are afraid to take on Robert directly so they cry bloody murder about some anonymous genocidal comment (which I didn't see) in the open comments field here, like somehow that invalidates what Robert posts or comments on himself. He (the oily Hooper) got away with it this time because he succeeded in knocking Dennis Prager off balance with it.

Distasteful as it may be, anonymous angry speech is not against the law, at least not (yet) in America. Genocidal type comments are not welcome here and do not help our cause as we again see in this instance. However...

There is a HUGE difference between angry words and murderous action. As unpleasant as they can sometimes be, angry words to do not kill. Murderous action, DOES kill. Theo Van Gogh was butchered in cold blood on the streets of Amsterdam for speaking out against Islam. That, and thousands of other murderous ACTIONS in the name of Islam, is exactly what we are up against.

Ours' is a reluctant, defensive fight. As such, we stop at words and hope that it will be enough.

For our enemy, Supremacist Islam and the Muslims who preach and practice it, no boundaries constrain them. No actions are too extreme. No murder unjustified, so long as it's done in the service of Almighty Allah and to extend his Dominion over the entire world. "There Is No God But Allah and Muhammad is His Messenger."
OR ELSE!! And By God they mean it!

That, my friends, is what we are up against.

As such, it's hard for me to get too worked up about an overheated anonymous comment here or there in this forum which is dedicated to opposing and defeating this evil ideology. It's counterproductive, yes, but also inevitable given the nature of the internet and the fact that we stop at words and thus strain against them over the injustices and atrocities we see the enemy committing on a daily basis.

I must admit I laughed at the complete lack of understanding in Constitution coming from the CAIR spokesgoon Hooper. He needs to take a course in government methinks as he obvious skipped that part of his education.

CH was on top form as per normal.

When Hitchens mentioned the torrents of hate poured out by muslim websites in the Middle East, Hooper had absolutely nothing to say about it, yet he held Robert Spencer responsible for a remark made by an anonymous poster on JW. What a humbug!!

There are many regular visitors here who are (I am sure) willing to help with moderating comments, if Mr. Spencer think it is appropriate.

Duper or hooper, that is the question.
That comment was so transparently islamist as to need no explaination. Hey people, there are some out there who want to discredit JW with comments such as that, islamists/leftists/ all of the ists. It happens all the time at least it has in the years I have been hanging around here there is no way to avoid it. Sure it is pathetic but they are getting desperate these days, it goes with the terrortory. Just another episode of bad islamist theatre, it is always the same distract, deceive, deride and defame. As a matter of fact this type of behavior coming from the islamists is so predictable my dog can recognize it for what it is. Thatisall.

"I laughed at the complete lack of understanding in Constitution coming from the CAIR spokesgoon Hooper.'

From a posting above.

Hooper ignores the constitution, but probably knows it better than our elected 'leaders'- especially the idiot in chief and his picanninni Rice, who had the hide to announce to the world in front of a hundred TV camera's that 'Disrespect for the holy Koran is not now, nor will it ever be, tolerated in the US of A'- That, brother, is not only lack of undrstanding, it is a manifest of stupidity.

Or is Rice in the Islamic camp?

Mr Spencer, you'd best contact Charles Johnson and crosscheck the identity of the creature posting as 'storagemanager'. At the very best, they are schizophrenic. And most likely utterly false.
To wit:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=21357#c0039
This person regularly alternates between agreement and slanderous attacks.

I'm far from being an angel myself, but if this is the same viper, beware.

Posted by: rayra at August 1, 2007 3:47 AM

I wouldnt call him a "creature" or "viper" for calling Islam a cancer.

Hooper is a liar. He obviously implied Robert said that. All Robert does is tell the truth. Hooper and people like him are afraid of the truth. Islam is a patriarchal, intolerant (Saudi Arabia, e.g.), supremacist belief-system that condones Jew-hating in the Qu'ran.

The Qu'ran is hate speech considering that all its "peaceful verses" have been abrogated by the later chronological verses that mandate violence against unbelievers and the imposition of Sharia law on all people. The Qu'ran is hate speech.

(P.S. The Qu'ran is set-up longest to shortest verses, but what counts is chronological order. Later verses that contradict earlier ones (wine is good, alcohol is banned, e.g.) are what count. The peaceful verses that many Muslims quote to con Kafirs have been abrogated and replaced by the final call to violence against Unbelievers and their forced submission to Islam.

The cat's out of the bag, Mr. Lie Hooper.

Hoper knew very well that the genocidal comments would not be endorsed by Bob spencer, but Hopper had to have a "winning card".

what the people have now is the belief that jihadWatch promotes genocide, but in fact, JW is very clear on that.

Mr Hopper, you should be ashamed of yourself. But then again, since "war is deceit", I can understand why you emulate Muhammad, the child molestor prophet.

Kinda ironic about genocide when Muslims are commiting genocide in Sudan. Hooper happen to mention that?

Robert -
I also believe in free speech, but I know that it is unrealistic to expect anyone's website to be moderated 24 x 7, every second of the day, with every single comment ever posted. And unfortunately that is what it takes to fend off critics. Volunteer efforts won't work, because you literally need moderators on 24 x 7 guard against hate postings.

The enemies of the truth are looking for people to make hate comments, and may even have people planted to make hate comments, simply because that is the only way that they can discredit you.

My advice is to close the comments portion of JihadWatch, so that the enemies of truth no longer have an easy target for misdirection.

If you feel that you need comments, I would suggest that get a new comments portion setup where you can moderate each comment before it is posted, as Yahoo message boards allow.

Anything less, and you will continue to fight this battle of misdirection indefinitely from the enemies of truth.

Jeffrey you are doing CAIR's work by calling for the closing of comments. This is free speech. If Mr Spencer chooses to delete offensive comments, thats his right, its his blog. But to close all comments is just plain wrong if its because CAIR is watching. Just my opinion.

Maybe it would be a good idea not to hide under the bed every time someone whips out the hate card? Yes free speech is a nuisance but closing down the exchange of information is not the way to go. That is what they desire, to proceed along with everyone looking the other way so as to not appear hateful or racist. In America we tolerate all kinds of opinions and so far it has worked quite well for us, that is how we get at the truth. Continue to be manipulated by the islamists and you wont have to worry about them conquering you with force, you will hand it to them out of fear of being associated with hate. They chop of heads while chanting and praising their god and you are worried about them posting hateful rhetoric. If you cant face down rhetoric how are you ever going to face down the head choppers? Stand up for yourself don’t cower in the corner every time a islamist hater attacks.

It’s a good opinion Elric66, stick with it.

Elric66 -
I disagree with you.

Advocates of free speech do not condone hate speech. Discouraging Internet hate speech and thinking of ways to stop it is not doing CAIR's job for them; it is a challenge that EVERY single web site in the world with live comments faces as a problem.

Unfortunately in any "live" comments section, there will be crazies and there will be provocateurs that will plant hate speech. Anyone can see this on virtually any web site in the world with "live" comments.
It takes a lot of resources to keep up a web site, to provide information, to write articles, to research news, etc. Certainly, anyone who advocates keeping comments on JihadWatch should put their money where their mouth is and donate today to help offset costs.

But even then, no moderators are sitting around 24 x 7 with nothing else to do, but waiting to pounce on an inappropriate live comment, unless you are a major corporation, like FOX News, for example.

The only alternative, as I suggested, is to go to MODERATED comments only, and stop offering live comments section. The problem is that even moderated comments also take scarce resources. Then moderator(s) must review and approve EACH comment before it gets posted - which is how moderators keep hate speech from getting posted online.

If JW goes to moderated comments, I will publicly pledge to donate $100 to JW to help offset the costs of moderator resources. I am aware that is just a drop in the bucket. Who else will match my offer?

How about you Elric66? How about you tgusa?

Those of you who enjoy such comment sections -- are you willing to put your money where your mouth is? Because to keep credibility in a 21st century Internet world, the truth is that free speech with credibility is not free.

Thanks tgusa. You would have thought the Qur'an flushing would have made more of an impact on the threat of curtailing our freedom of speech and the threat of CAIR.

I dont believe jihadwatch needs to prove its credibilty to the likes of CAIR. If you want to rant about hate speech, just go on sites like Koz and wonkette. There you will fight many more crazies. Go preach to them about moderating their sites.

"Hooper knew very well that the genocidal comments would not be endorsed by Bob Spencer, but Hopper had to have a "winning card".-Crusader

You are exactly right that he knew Robert Spencer never said that. But Hooper's lie is a window into Hooper's soul. Such lies are a kind spiritual violence meant to hurt the person lied about, destroy their reputation. Hooper is not a good person. A good person would not do what he did.

Hitler recommended "spiritual violence" against opponents, the telling of lies against critics with the object being to break them. Hooper is a practitioner of such "spiritual violence" with his lies and slander. Lies that hurt other people and are meant to harm their reputation are spiritual terrorism.

Elric66 -
OK so the bottom-line is that you don't care how provocateurs and crazies distract from the important message that JihadWatch and Robert Spencer has regarding the world war.

Moreover, you are not willing to put your money where your mouth is in terms of funding JihadWatch to help moderate comments. You want to make "free" comments at JihadWatch staff's expense and labor to moderate, and have open live comments so that any crazy can make their important efforts into a target 24 x 7.

If you really believe the world is at war against Islamists and Jihadists, is this the careless attitude that you should take? Or if we are in a war, wouldn't it make sense to be serious enough about it that you reject those who try to distract from the important mission of JihadWatch?

Hooper?....wasn't that the guy in Jaws? just kiddin, anyway, he has been making his rounds in the MSM and...I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think the MSM is catching on. Is it true CAIR has only 1700 members? If so why give him the coverage. My band has played in front of 2000 people before and we aren't in the news. Thank God.

Advocates of free speech? Who are these mysterious advocates of (selected) free speech? You wouldn’t be talking about my revolutionary war ancestors, the first American advocates of free speech would you? No you couldn’t be, they would have found the idea of hate speech police reprehensible as they would the rape of the Constitution that has gone on the last several decades. I see no mention of hate speech in the Constitution or the first amendment and as a matter of fact I do not trust today’s overlords of speech, period. You endorse the hate speech police, well the first American advocates of free speech were lucky the hate speech police were not around during their era, we would not be here talking about it right now. One mans hate speech is another mans factual account. Besides, they are not going back to peacefully playing in their bomb factories just because we stop commenting. I do agree with you on the donations to JW but not necessarily for the same reason. It’s a grown up world, its mean, tough and unfair lets not behave like kindergarteners and rely on the teacher to make it all right. I don’t like the islamist videos on youtube but they serve a purpose, they enlighten us as to what the islamists believe and how they operate. This is a perfect example.

After seeing the video last night in which Mr. Hooper smeared Mr. Spencer, it is suprisng that the latter has not considered forming a lawsuit against the former because of what was said by Mr. Hooper when he first started to speak.

Robert l applaud your allowing free speech, no one in their right mind would want genocide, as we have learned so much from what the genocide caused by muslims in India, ME, etc. l do agree with posters that CAIR must of had their appologists put in those "genocidel" comments. It would be interesting to see if you can identify who did that. can l post here that l think Hooper is butt ugly and stupid? joking set aside, free speech and Democracy will be the undoing of ISLAM! yeah!!

LOL @ update...
Thanks Robert...man, douggie the druggie hoopty clearly has his schtick rehearsed from script.
He obviously needs a new playbook...we've heard that same old song & dance before...and it failed then, too.

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. Mark Twain.
JW is telling the truth and they dont like our comments either, my guess is we are too rational in exposing their agenda in a non genocidal forum. They are frightened and that is why JW is being pulled in to debates w/o representation. The all powerful JW boogyman strikes again, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain higgy, bwaahahahaha! If they didn’t believe JW is a major threat to their agenda they wouldn’t be sneaking around smearposting here and then running to the mmm the same afternoon. I wouldn’t be surprised if higgy was looking over the posters shoulder while the lines were written.

jeffreyimm-

The comment was noticed in a timely manner and removed.

Cost: zero.

Sounds like your too worried about the propaganda value of an agent provocateur's feeding of a nonsense quote to the enemy.

A question: who believes Hooper in this matter?

I've donated to Mr. Spencer & co. and will again.

Do it without preconditions.

Robert Spencer says

"Had he actually done his homework, he might have noted the many times I have stated here that genocidal comments are not welcome -- and they certainly don't reflect my views, or he could have quoted something I actually said."

As if Hooper has or had any intentions of being honest about anything to do with furthering Islam, and painting Muslims as the ultimate of ultimate victims. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Hooper planted such a comment, but again, Prager should have known better that comments from anonymous posters are not posts from Robert Spencer....he should have known better and acquiesced to the slippery snake and conceided something on CNN Paula Zhan show that should never have been conceided.

Anyways....again....Robert you need to get on one of these programs ! Lou Dobbs...appeal to him he "Hates political correctness" so he claims so go getem !

Jeffrey,
There is no easy answer.

Comments that are reviewed before they are posted open up Robert to charges of censorship. He would be accused of banning Muslim-friendly messages if none appeared. It's a no win situation.

A reviewer would surely be swamped by the number of messages. Eventually readers would be discouraged from even responding, if they felt there was no opportunity to voice their views and receive feedback in a timely fashion. CAIR will then have won.

An open forum means an occasional "hate speech" item gets in. Robert says he banned the poster. That may not work forever, with the plethora of ids available to the world, but it is a gesture of good faith on his part.

Most people on this site are interested in furthering their education and are eager to learn from other posters. The occasional off-topic post can open up areas of inquiry for people. Would these opportunities still be there if every comment had to pass muster with a censor? Where is the same interest from CAIR and from the Muslim bulletin boards on learning anything about the non-Muslim community?

Yes, I was AMAZED to hear Hooper refer to Islam as an IDEOLOGY!!!! Never forget that, folks, always fling it back in Hooper's face!

Hooper does not have the intellectual wherewithal to compete with the likes of Hitchens and Prager and Spencer.

Hooper was reduced to "Ohhhh, well, I don't think anybody should offend anybody else!" !!!!!!! My God, did he graduate high school at least?

Hooper - that's the history of the world, basically, you stupid nimrod. Do you live in reality, or what?

People, I'm interested in knowing the extent of Hooper's education. It doesn't say on his Wiki page, just that he worked at a TV station in Minneapolis in the '80's and '90's and was "Doug."

Anyone with more info on the extent of Hooper's education please post. Thank You.

PMK:
You state: "Comments that are reviewed before they are posted open up Robert to charges of censorship."

I would say: "So what?"

It is JihadWatch's website, they can censor whatever they want. Ownership is a both a right as well as a responsibility.

On FOX's O'Reilly Factor last night (watched by many, so don't discount its influence), yesterday O'Reilly took the web site freerepublic.com to task for failing to moderate comments that FOX found on the freerepublic site. The owner of freerepublic.com was on the show. Before the show, FOX went on freerepublic.com and found some hate comments that freerepublic.com's volunteer moderators had not yet deleted. O'Reilly took freerepublic.com to task for not moderating these. Basically, freerepublic.com's owner ended up looking dumb, and his comments that volunteer moderators can't catch everything was roundly denounced.

You can say this doesn't matter, it is O'Reilly's problem, it is freerepublic's problem, etc. But that is not the point - it is an illustrative example only.

You could take ANY website in the world with live comments and put them on the same TV show, and they would have the same exposure and criticism. That is the nature of the Internet. It happens everywhere.

The problem lies if you are advocating a position or viewpoint that is viewed as controversial, this loophole of live comments will consistently and endless be used to attack your web site, your positions, and your credibility. No matter who you are.

If we really believe in JihadWatch and Robert Spencer's message as much as we say we do (and I believe we do), it is in our interests to see them succeed, and to help make certain JihadWatch is not used by extremists to post hate comments in the live comments fields. Unless any of you have time to monitor the comments of JihadWatch on a 24x7 basis (and then someone with JihadWatch edit comments needs to be available on 24x7 basis), then it is in our interest to urge for moderated comments sections.

This is not a matter of freedom of speech or censorship. It is about protecting the important message that JihadWatch and Robert Spencer has from getting shouted down by extremists.

And yet, as far as i know, only BIll "koran in toilet is hate drime" Oriely ever talks about the vile crap that is posted daily on the dailyKOS. I wish one of them would have asked Hooper why it is ok for them to preach killing infidels and jews when they hold rallies even inside the us on University campuses but i can not say i dont like Islam. Am i not free to hate anyone or thing i like in this country? Will i be sued by farmers if i say i hate broccoli?
As long as i dont go arround destroying crops i should be free to hate anyone i choose, like pedophiles and rapist. As long as i do not advocate harm i can hate islam.

It sounded like slander to me. Hooper trying to give you a bad name, Robert....Hmmm wonder what he would think about a law suit against him for that. Hooper isn't too smart, is he?!

"I'm far from being an angel myself, but if this is the same viper, beware."

Posted by: rayra at August 1, 2007 3:47 AM

Are you the rayra whose comment at LGF was used by CAIR in a complaint to the FBI?

You want to know what I hate more than headhunting jihadists? The attack on our Constitution. There is no such thing as "hate speech" or "hate crime". We have a fine system of governance, we don't need idiots tinkering with what was near perfect (as close as it gets with fallible man).
"Hate speech", my ass.

I keep waiting and hoping that Western Christians and Jews will wake up to the reality of the real hatred that most Moslems hold towards them. Christians and Jews must begin understand that when hundreds of Moslem religious leaders refer to them as the sons or daughters of pigs and monkeys, they are really expressing their desire to get rid of them. Even the word infidel contains in it a reference to the ritual impurity of non Moslems, and is also a veiled invitation to their murder.
Instead, in the West, we all try to explain this sort of hateful rhetoric away as either foolish enthusiasm, a failure to understand the English language, or some sort of referral to the Arab/Israeli conflict.
God help us!

PMK:
You state: "Where is the same interest from CAIR and from the Muslim bulletin boards on learning anything about the non-Muslim community?"

I absolutely agree with you. There isn't.

The comment by CAIR is simply a propaganda ploy to undermine JihadWatch. The problem is that, for many people, it works.

I believe in a war against the enemy, you never give enemy propaganda any opportunity for credibility.

On other web sites, serious and committed individuals tolerate moderated comments, and I am certain the same thing would happen here.

In the scheme of the larger war, we have bigger issues than this that requires resource focus.

"Even the word infidel contains in it a reference to the ritual impurity of non Moslems, and is also a veiled invitation to their murder."

Posted by: beniyyar

Whenever I hear a Muslim say the word "kuffar" (sp?), it sounds like they're calling us the "n" word.

Did I touch a nerve jeffery? I wasnt aware "crazies" were posting hate comments all the time. Unless you believe that hating a hateful "religion" is "crazy"

interestinconundrum:
You state "You want to know what I hate more than headhunting jihadists? The attack on our Constitution. There is no such thing as "hate speech" or "hate crime"."

Then are you against US federal law, which absolutely recognizes hate crimes? For example, 18 U.S.C. § 245 (b)(2), is part of US federal law.

And certainly much of the rhetoric of Islamists and Jihadists against Jews and Christians classifies as hate speech in any country.

Darcy...Reality is different for muslims than for the rest of us. Because they have submitted they are locked into an ever growing state of un-reality. Islam has the same mind twisting reality of any extreemist group. It is this same Islamic twisting of reality that works so well with the PC crowd.
PCism, Nazism, communism, liberalism, Islamism, are the 'isms' of twisted mentality. People with demonstrated twisted mentalities are not competant to make important decisions...Hooper, Bush, Brown, Red Livingstone, Galloway, Armstrong, DeSousa, Esmay, Crane, and others are in the same boat of twisted mentality = incompetance, (TMI), and thier boat is sinking. I dont want these people to die...just shut up, and get out of the way.

Have a good day...

Elric66:
You state that "Did I touch a nerve jeffery?"

Yes you did. I have a good idea of the very hard work that Robert Spencer and the JihadWatch group do on this website, and I fully recognize the importance of the mission.

It is not right that those who seek to give propaganda to the enemy during war think they have a free reign to abuse the JW website's comments to give CAIR propaganda to undermine JW.

And responsible individuals on here certainly realize that. I have put my money where my mouth is on this issue to offer to help out.

What have you done?

Hate speech or Crime.

Cant anything you say that is derogatory be considered hate speech? If i call yuou a jackass it is obvilous i dont like you so would that not be it also? And as to crimes, if you kill someone odds are you hateded them for one reason or another so is that not a hate crime? Just because your are a certain race or religion and someone offends you or comitts a crime against you does not make it "hate". How do you prove i did it because i hate your race or religion and not just because you are an asshole? slipery slopes. Operation Mindcrime is in effect.

I defend free speech Jeff. Funny how you havent answered who the crazies are. Am I a crazy for hating a hateful ideology? How many crazies are on here where you feel Mr Spencer should have to look over his shoulder because the Ummah is watching?

jeffreyimm, yes I am aware that these latter day geniuses have passed "hate crime" legislation.
I just think it is totally opposite what the Founding Fathers intended for our free society.

interestinconundrum:
you refer to "latter day geniuses" for a 1969 law.
For most of us 1969 was 38 years ago.

The USA's founding fathers were simply that - founding fathers in 1776 - they were not philosophical psychics that could predict what would happen 200+ years later, or that could predict the impact of 20th century totalitarianism's threats to the USA twice, and now again with Islamist totalitarianism's threat in the 21st century.

Deal with the facts.

Jeffrey,
By giving in to them, we let them win. I also post on sites with moderated comments and it often takes days for a comment to appear on the site. There is some give and take between posters, but not nearly the amount we see on JW.
This is a resource we cannot afford to lose. It provides much more of an open discussion than any of the moderated sites.

You say we should never give enemy propaganda any opportunity for credibility. But that's exactly what you do when you take away the open forum. You say the people who come here are bigots and need a monitor. You also open yourself up to charges of censorship and there is no way to disprove it. (This is how they will interpret it and publicize it. It's not how I feel and, I'm sure, was not your intent when you made the suggestion.)

Whatever we do gives them credibility. When we leave them alone they think it's because we're afraid of them and they press on. When we defend ourselves then we're religious bigots. There's no point in trying to neutralize their avenues for propaganda. It can't be done.

We might as well just be true to ourselves. Our society has always encouraged free and open exchanges. We will defend someone's right to speak whether or not we agree with what they say. If the Muslim community has a problem with that, then it's their problem and not ours. It should not be up to us to continually prove we're good people. At some point the Muslim community needs to take responsibility. Regardless of what the banned poster might have said, you don't see Americans or other Westerners going out and planning random attacks on Muslims or targeting Muslim facilities, despite the truly heinous acts planned and sometimes (sadly) perpetrated in the name of Islam. It's time to stop acting as if we're guilty until proven innocent. I think we have shown ourselves capable of monitoring our own comments and objecting to those who go too far. The very fact that Robert was notified about one such comment attests to that.

Unless we allow everything to be aired, the stench of suspicion just grows. Hate speech laws and other limits on freedom of expression do little good in the short term and a great deal of harm in the long term.

Elric66 -
You state: "How many crazies are on here where you feel Mr Spencer should have to look over his shoulder because the Ummah is watching?"

As proven yesterday, the enemies of JihadWatch only need ONE for their propaganda purposes.
That is why JW needs to go to moderated comments.
But as Robert Spencer has pointed out in his March 5, 2006 posting, a moderator costs money.

So I have stood to pledge $100 here today to start to get others to pledge money towards a moderator.
I have already made the donation - and sent $100 to JihadWatch today for this.

You also state: "I defend free speech Jeff."

And freedom is not free.
Someone has to pay for it.
And in the case of the Internet world, the cost of unmoderated open live comments is in credibility, when enemy propaganda can be used to distort what JihadWatch is about.
So to step up right now today, I have put my money where my mouth is for a moderator.
Because I truly value the credibility of JihadWatch, and don't want enemy organizations to try to snipe at it with cheap propaganda tactics.

What are you doing about it?

Because freedom is not free.

And certainly much of the rhetoric of Islamists and Jihadists against Jews and Christians classifies as hate speech in any country.
Posted by: jeffreyimm

Let me know when anyone other than a white, Christian Anerican is charged with a "hate crime".

Living as I do in Thailand and not knowing either Prager or Hooper too well Dennis Prager comes across as sincere but far too nice and accommodating I dont think he could carry an argument with Hooper. Christopher Hitchens however could and Hooper would have a serious problem with him. My only criticism of Hitchens is as he hates ALL religions this leads to him just being dismissed as a belligerent atheist and his very good points against Islam therefore devalued. Hooper was just as oily and devious as I have read he is.

Robert Spencer:
He quoted a genocidal comment that was made on this website yesterday, and made it appear as if I had written it.

Maybe the posters who criticised me for wanting mention of a certain neo-fascist political party banned on Jihadwatch get my point now?

Any comment promoting extremist groups, or calls for violence, or even talk about burning Korans, risks damaging not only the reputation of Jihadwatch but also the anti-Islamist cause.

Besides, burning Korans harms the environment. Better to put them in the recycling, then maybe they'll get turned into copies of 1984.

Living as I do in Thailand and not knowing either Prager or Hooper too well Dennis Prager comes across as sincere but far too nice and accommodating I dont think he could carry an argument with Hooper. Christopher Hitchens however could and Hooper would have a serious problem with him. My only criticism of Hitchens is as he hates ALL religions this leads to him just being dismissed as a belligerent atheist and his very good points against Islam therefore devalued. Hooper was just as oily and devious as I have read he is.

Robert,

I think you should demand time on CNN to clear your name/Jihadwatch.

In fact you should ask CNN to give timeslot for you and Mr Hooper and challenge him.

Since CNN let your name/Jihadwatch be smeared unchallenged(at least without a robust challenge) it is your right, in my opinion.

RT

And certainly much of the rhetoric of Islamists and Jihadists against Jews and Christians classifies as hate speech in any country.
Posted by: jeffreyimm

Let me know when anyone other than a white, Christian Anerican is charged with a "hate crime".

PMK:
You state: "You say we should never give enemy propaganda any opportunity for credibility. But that's exactly what you do when you take away the open forum. You say the people who come here are bigots and need a monitor"

That is absolutely not correct.

Robert Spencer has stated that some degree of moderation is ongoing now, and when he states that reactive moderation is going on he is not saying that "the people who come here are bigots". Moreover, Robert has specifically asked for donations for a full-time moderator. I have made a small donation today, and challenged those who believe in free speech to match or surpass my donation. (No takers?)

Laura Mansfield has a very important web site on jihadism. She had a moderated forum for comments, and now I believe she has stopped comments altogether. Can you imagine the comments if she had an open forum accessible to any Jihadist?? SITE Institute provides a very important web site on jihadism - they offer no comments section, nor does the Counterterrorism Blog, or dozens of others.

The fact is that very few serious global anti-Jihadist web sites have any comments at all; when I use the would "serious" I mean those web sites that provide scholarly and intellectual blog postings on the Jihadist threat to the world, not just miscellaneous commentary. The fact is, with scarce resources, such serious anti-Jihadist web sites focus finite resources on the main message.

Among the serious global anti-Jihadist web sites, the only one that I know that allows an open live comments field with reactive moderation on best-effort basis - is JihadWatch.

So fine, if we need discussion on this website, it should be moderated discussion, and those who find value in that discussion should be willing to put their money where their mouth is and pay for a JihadWatch moderator.

Freedom isn't free.

It is JihadWatch's website, they can censor whatever they want. Ownership is a both a right as well as a responsibility.

Jeffrey,

I think you made my point. Why should it be up to Robert or Hugh or Marisol to censor the comments of the people whom they have invited to respond? And let's not pretend that moderators who are charged with weeding out "offensive" speech will give all views equal weight. We may not agree with them but pretending they aren't there does no one any good.

The problem lies if you are advocating a position or viewpoint that is viewed as controversial, this loophole of live comments will consistently and endless be used to attack your web site, your positions, and your credibility. No matter who you are.

Again, no matter what your positions, they will be attacked by someone, somewhere unless of course you are saying something totally innocuous, like "good morning". If there were zero comments, Robert would still be attacked by those who think his position is anti-Islamic. If the comments were devoid of any provocation, if all they said was "I agree", all the posters to this site would be condemned as well. Should we refrain from airing different views because they might offend Bill O'Reilly (whom I stopped watching a long time ago) or Sean Hannity or even Alan Colmes? None of them care that their views might be offensive to ME, so why should I give them deference? Bill O'Reilly airs comments that are congratulatory or planted to sell the junk on his website. The all Paris all the time news channel means nothing. Why do you care about CAIR? They aren't the ones we need to reach. Those who take their talking points from CAIR aren't interested in anything you or I have to say unless it's "how do I convert to Islam". To them anything less is hate speech.

Why would you refrain from addressing an issue just because someone might not like it? All you do is give the totalitarians more room to operate. It's been almost six years since 9/11. Where is the progress in the Muslim community? It certainly wasn't on display in Europe in the last few months. The dream of the universal caliphate is unvanquished. Why must WE in the US keep our lips pursed while Islamberg and Dearbornistan operate with impunity? They don't worry about offending us. Sauce for the goose.

Last statement on the subject, 1969 (it's nearly 40 years ago to me too, jeffrey) wasn't that long ago, but then, I am getting older.

Jeffrey,

You say the people who come here are bigots and need a monitor
Nice try, cutting it off in midsentence and mid-paragraph. In the interest of full disclosure I will repeat here verbatim, what I said there. Maybe you can answer the entire argument.

You say we should never give enemy propaganda any opportunity for credibility. But that's exactly what you do when you take away the open forum. You say the people who come here are bigots and need a monitor. You also open yourself up to charges of censorship and there is no way to disprove it. (This is how they will interpret it and publicize it. It's not how I feel and, I'm sure, was not your intent when you made the suggestion.)

You're way too vested in the idea of moderated comments.

Jeffrey,
Apologies. I didn't mean for the entire thing to post in bold print.
PMK

So one idiot posts a genocidal comment, it is reprehensible, I saw it somewhere here last week but that comment is one as opposed to millions like that coming from the Islamic side of the world. I wish I paid attention to who posted it, but again that is one stupid post.

Dennis Prager on the other hand is a great spokesman for this cause and can stand in there with anybody.

Mr. Hooper on the other hand is a typical raving lunatic and has no right to spread lies about this website. As Mr. Prager stated jihadwatch is a very important website, and no need to state Mr. Robert Spencer is an honourable man who we all owe a great deal of gratitude to.

Jeffrey,

It's a tough call. Personally, and I am sure I speak for a majority of regular posters here who do their best to further the discussion in a constructive manner, we do not want to see the live comments posting system altered, but you raise some valid points.

Blogging is a competetive business and I for one chose JW/DW because of it's free exchange of ideas and it's loose moderation. I don't know what the repercussiions would be in terms of viewership if Robert altered the format to moderated comments, but I expect that it would not be noticable in an adverse way. The pros and cons need to be weighed and ultimately I support whatever decision Robert makes on this issue.

Moderation will also lead to false claims about JW/DW. Certain groups will label it as a propogandist machine as well, where dissenting pro-Islamic voices are squelched. Another caveat is that a moderated comment that does get through will not be so easily dismissed by Robert as not supporting his position, if the comment can be misconstrued by "others" in some way.

Live comments are the most enjoyable way to go for the end-user. Most of the time, comments accentuate a recurring point or theme that Robert editorializes while relaying a news article. Not to give us laymen too much credit, but I do learn a good deal from community posters. It provides other angles which Robert cannot touch on in every thread.

If the moderation queue is quick, then there really is no downside, but rarely is anything that cut and dry. The biggest concern I have on this issue is the reactionary response based on an obviously planted comment disingenuinely used by Hooper on CNN last night. CAIR is getting scared, and rightly so, and I for one see no advantage in changing anything about this site as a response to what CAIR says or does.

Moderation of comments here will not preclude Hooper from making false claims about Robert or JW/DW as a sound bite in the future as he did last night, nor would it have prevented Prager from choking on his own tongue when he faltered in coming to Robert's defense.

Like I said, a tough call, but I support Robert's decision either way. Financial support for JW/DW is forthcoming, when feasible. I have three little anti-jihadist mouths to feed at home.

Regards,

awake

PMK:
You state:
"Why should it be up to Robert or Hugh or Marisol to censor the comments of the people whom they have invited to respond?"

Excuse me, they do that now. Just reactively on a best-effort basis. That is why I challenge the JW readers here to put their money where their mouth is and donate for a full-time moderator so that comments can be pro-actively moderated.

You state:
"And let's not pretend that moderators who are charged with weeding out "offensive" speech will give all views equal weight."

Again - I respond with "So what?"

Should Robert Spencer have given the genocide commentor "equal weight"? Of course not, he has spelled out that such comments are not acceptable and that they WILL be deleted. It is called having rules on your website, and JW does have rules.

You state:
"Again, no matter what your positions, they will be attacked by someone"

But those comments are NOT those of Robert Spencer but individual anonymous posters. The comments on JW open live comment sections are not necessarily reflective of any of JihadWatch's positions, as pointed out to CAIR's Hooper.

You state:
"Bill O'Reilly airs comments that are congratulatory or planted to sell the junk on his website. " Again - I say who cares. It was an illustrative example of similar problems that freerepublic.com's open live message board has.

You state:
"Why do you care about CAIR? "

Because CAIR continues to reach many millions of Americans with propaganda that undermines and degrades the anti-Jihadist message essential to America effectively fighting a war against Jihadism.

You state:
"They aren't the ones we need to reach. Those who take their talking points from CAIR aren't interested in anything you or I have to say unless it's "how do I convert to Islam"."

Not true, many people are still ignorant.
And they are deceived by propaganda organizations like CAIR.

You state:
"Why would you refrain from addressing an issue just because someone might not like it?"

Notice how you are putting words into my mouth?
I never said anything of the kind.
Moreover, my website UnitedStatesAction.com has been educating Americans on Jihadism since after 9/11 for the past 6 years. So I routinely post a lot of issues that "someone might not like".

My comments are ONLY in regards to an open, reactively moderated live comments field on JW. That's it. I am not advocating an end to free speech, I am not defending CAIR, and I am not saying we should not criticize Jihadism and Islamism.

What I have said repeatedly and quite clearly, is that JihadWatch posters and readers should aggressively work to donate and fund a full-time moderator for JW so that JW can have proactive moderation of comments before they get posted on JW web site, to prevent CAIR and others having cheap propaganda to use against JW.

So we have to pay money and watch what we say because CAIR is watching?

Personally, I dont CAIR what CAIT thinks. They are thugs

awake:
You state:
"Moderation will also lead to false claims about JW/DW. Certain groups will label it as a propogandist machine as well, where dissenting pro-Islamic voices are squelched."

One of the unique things about JW is that it is intellectual and scholarly, and as such, is a serious anti-Jihadist web site, not just miscellaneous commentary like other blogs.

Among other serious anti-Jihadist web sites, like SITE Institute, Laura Mansfield, etc., I know of no such site that provides comments let alone has the staff for moderated comments, but certainly does not allow open live comments.

And none of those serious anti-Jihadist web sites have false claims as propagandist machines. Sorry your argument really does not hold up to serious scrutiny and context.

Elric66 -
When it comes to money, have I hit a nerve?

You state:
"So we have to pay money and watch what we say because CAIR is watching?"

No. It costs money for JW to operate at all, and of course it also costs money for JW moderators to protect its reputation by moderating comments.

Freedom isn't free.

And when it comes to dollars, you can see how committed people really are to a cause.

PMK:
"You're way too vested in the idea of moderated comments."

This is because of my strong belief in the importance of JihadWatch as an educational tool.

Anyone else with such strong beliefs should similarly share my concerns about providing JW the funding for a full-time moderator.

You want to cough up money because you are afraid of CAIR.

I would love to see Ayaan Hirsi Ali take on Hooper in a format like this. It would surely blow the wheels off his steam engine. Ali, the ex-Muslim taking on the convert. Her precise calm replies to his bantering and interruptions. Him knowing that he can't pull the wool over the eyes of some clueless reporter as she knows who the enemy is and she would surely bring it out like no other in Hooper.

SO WHAT?

Jeffrey,

Why can't Robert say that to Hooper or anyone else who complains about the hateful comment that is out on the web for any length of time? They always tell us that the few bad Muslims are the ones killing people and they don't reflect the views of the many peaceful Muslims. Why can't the same argument be thrown back at them? Why?

Why is it up to US and not THEM to do the moderating?

Why aren't they worried about offending US?

They can dish it out, but they can't take it?

Why are we now redesigning buildings because a bathroom toilet faces Mecca? When do we just tell the propagandists to get lost? We have laws against incitement and we should enforce them.

You're the one putting words in my mouth.

Censoring - Robert exercises censoring after something goes up, not before. Generally, someone has seen it. They only take down the most egregious comments. They don't worry about how everything that is the least offensive to CAIR. You want a moderator. To do what? Identify the incendiary comments (to him, anyway) and prevent them from ever being seen. It's totally subjective. There's no denying that, if history is any guide, the moderator will go from removing incendiary comments that advocate violence to removing anything that is the slightest bit controversial. Given the volume of comments received, it would mean the end of discussions because the moderator(s) wouldn't be able to keep up with the many articles that remain open.

"And let's not pretend that moderators who are charged with weeding out "offensive" speech will give all views equal weight."

Again - I respond with "So what?"

In other words, you think it's more important not to give CAIR any fodder for its propaganda than to air viewpoints that don't agree with your delicate sensibilities.

JW does have rules. Why aren't they enough for you?

The opinions of posters, as you say, are NOT those of Robert Spencer but individual anonymous posters.

And why isn't that a legitimate answer to CAIR?

You brought up Bill O'Reilly. I merely pointed out his own hypocrisy. He lambastes FreeRepublic but he is not able to countenance any criticisms directed at him.

You care about CAIR "because CAIR continues to reach many millions of Americans with propaganda that undermines and degrades the anti-Jihadist message essential to America effectively fighting a war against Jihadism."

And so why aren't you fighting CAIR instead of enabling it?

You say: "many people are still ignorant.
And they are deceived by propaganda organizations like CAIR."

And catering to CAIR will not make countering its message any easier.

When I said "Why would you refrain from addressing an issue just because someone might not like it?" I was NOT putting words in your mouth. You were suggesting that comments that CAIR might find objectionable should not be seen by the public. If they are not seen they cannot be addressed. You would set yourself up as the guardian of all that is good.

Elric66:
You state:
"You want to cough up money because you are afraid of CAIR."

No, I have already donated again to JihadWatch today, because I know they need funds to for web site operations to weed out crazy comments, and pay for a full-time moderator.

The suggestion that someone who has been fighting Jihadist propaganda for 6 years like myself is afraid of CAIR is beyond laughable.

What are you doing?

Is the JihadWatch cause important enough to you to donate cash yourself? Or do you think it is someone else's problem?

Calling for a full time moderator because you are afraid of CAIR is your problem.

You mention crazy comments. Give us some examples of recent "crazy" comments and post the links. Come on, get to moderating Jeff.

jefferyimm has provided more propaganda on this thread than I have seen over months here. He is the product of the nanny state, he needs supervision, maybe they should give it to him by moderating his propaganda.

Jeffrey,

It wasn't an argument for or against comment moderation. It was my personal analysis of the results either way.

In all honesty, although moderation does not provide the best end result for me and others on a personal convenience level, I believe it is the way to go.

If that comment had not made it through yesterday, Hooper could not have specifically used it against Robert, so I agree with your assessment.

Your example that "no comments" blogs are not labeled as propogandist machines is not comparable to sites that allow comments, albeit moderated ones, so I disagree with your point there.

If you are insinuating that moderated comments will deflect all future criticism of Robert or JW/DW, regardless of it's validity, from the likes of CAIR and their ilk, you are being a bit naive in my opinion.

Ultimately, whatever will help Robert maintain his honorable reputation, considering the amount of time and effort already spent in developing this valuable site, I support.

Comment moderation is not a catastrophic proposal by any means. If it is a matter of funds, Robert will surely weigh in on the issue, if he supports the proposal, of course.

For proposed comment moderation:
/signed

PMK:

You state:
"Why can't Robert say that to Hooper or anyone else who complains about the hateful comment that is out on the web for any length of time?"

He can and does.
However, in recognizing the global war, there will be some who will be persuaded by Hooper's propaganda and wonder why a web site "tolerates" such comments (and JW doesn't tolerate them, but open live comments forum allows propaganda artists to make that argument).

You state:
"JW does have rules. Why aren't they enough for you?"

They are. It is not a matter of having the rules.
It is a matter of JW having the funding and resources to enforce them.
I urge your contribution to JW to help on this today.

You state:
"And so why aren't you fighting CAIR instead of enabling it?"

I do fight CAIR, and don't enable it.
And the best way to fight CAIR is with FACTS, not rhetoric.
CAIR is enabled by rhetoric from some wild-eyed posters and plants that come on live, open comment boards.

You state:
"There's no denying that, if history is any guide, the moderator will go from removing incendiary comments that advocate violence to removing anything that is the slightest bit controversial."

What history? Where? Most serious anti-Jihadist web sites don't even HAVE comments!

You state:
"And why isn't that a legitimate answer to CAIR?"

It is the answer that Robert gave.
But as I stated earlier ownership has both rights and responsiblities.
Some uneducated will buy into CAIR propaganda.
And yes, America does need to reach the uneducated and ignorant in this propaganda war from Islamists.

You state:
"In other words, you think it's more important not to give CAIR any fodder for its propaganda than to air viewpoints that don't agree with your delicate sensibilities."

No - proactive moderation would prevent individuals who plan to break JW's rules from ever letting their postings get on the Internet here in the first place.
And JW's rejection of the comment calling for genocide has nothing to do with my "delicate sensibilities", but with ensuring that all poster follow the rules.

You state:
"You're the one putting words in my mouth."

Where? You give no justification of that statement.

You state:
"You brought up Bill O'Reilly. I merely pointed out his own hypocrisy. He lambastes FreeRepublic but he is not able to countenance any criticisms directed at him."

That does not discount in any way the example I provided of how freerepublic.com's lack of proactive moderation has allowed itself to look foolish and disorganized.

You state:
"And catering to CAIR will not make countering its message any easier."

JW's rejection of the comment calling for genocide has nothing to do with my "catering to CAIR", but with ensuring that all poster follow the rules.
Pro-active moderation needs to be funded to ensure that rules are proactively followed, and also to not give ammunition to the enemy.

You state:
"You were suggesting that comments that CAIR might find objectionable should not be seen by the public"

I never stated this or anything remotely like this at all. This comes out of your own imagination.

..moderation would be seen by cair as a victory..don;t give it to them.

also..cair would like nothing better than to see us obsess over this issue..let's drop it soon and move on..the occassional nit-wit calling for some extreme action occurs in any forum of free speech..don't need nit-wits from the other extreme calling for imposition of the nanny state
here..

Awake:
You stated:

"If you are insinuating that moderated comments will deflect all future criticism of Robert or JW/DW, regardless of it's validity"

I am not. I never suggested such a thing.

You stated:
"Comment moderation is not a catastrophic proposal by any means. "

That's right.
Comments at all are a luxury that 99% of serious anti-Jihad web sites.
Most anti-jihad web sites don't have the resources for that.

You stated:
"Your example that "no comments" blogs are not labeled as propogandist machines is not comparable to sites that allow comments, albeit moderated ones,"

I merely pointed out that most serious anti-jihad web sites do not have comment sections at all.
Those sites don't give propagandist leverage on any level regarding "commentor postings", but focus specifically on the facts in the web sites. Those sites also don't have a challenge in complaints about unfair comments sections, since by having no comments, they are by default equal.

Madduck:

You state:
"moderation would be seen by cair as a victory"

Frankly, I believe this is a personality issue.
The war against Islamism and Jihadism will be long and arduous. It is essential that the facts not get lost in propaganda that can be easily headed off by small things like moderated comments. If you don't believe we are in a war, then you are right. If you believe we are in a war that requires educating the American people, then we should do everything possible.

You state:
"don't need nit-wits from the other extreme calling for imposition of the nanny state"

Comments are moderated on JW now, and clearly it is not a "nanny state". The issue I have advocated is that posters donate funds to JW to allow JW to have the resources for a full time moderator to proactively monitor the existing rules regarding comments. That is, to consistently enforce the rules that already exist.

I notice how people who are not serious about the war engage in name-calling.

You are right Madduck,
I saw the comment yesterday and I almost fingered the islamist in a posting but changed my mind. Someone else pointed it out almost immediately. Over the years we have driven many a stealth islamist out of JW. It is a game we play, spot the islamist is what we call it. And not all of them use genocidal or over the top comments many use sugar and spice to get their message across and I doubt those would be censored although the response might. I smell a rat(farfur?)again. Yesterday afternoon a comment is displayed for short time and then removed. Yet that evening they are on the air talking about it? And now we are discussing moderation, putting money JW doesn’t have toward moderation and taking away from potential new venues for the anti jihadist message? That was quick, its almost as if it was planned, ambush?

Hoopers Minyons Trolled through literally Thousands of Posts made on any given day to point out 1 post??? Not even attributable to the Host???

Can you Imagine the Money the Saudis have to pay to have so many love notes read. Every day, day after day, day in and day out???

Someone should tell Hooper he suffers from Infidelobia in one of these public get togethers.

See how he likes it.

What a bummer that some People cannot have a Beer after a hard day at the Office Computer reading love notes.

tgusa:
You state: "And now we are discussing moderation, putting money JW doesn’t have toward moderation and taking away from potential new venues for the anti jihadist message? That was quick, its almost as if it was planned, ambush?"

"NOW we are discussing moderation"? Hardly.
This has been debated for YEARS.

And Robert asked for funding for a full-time moderator in March 2006:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/010494.php

By the way, I have been bringing this issue up for YEARS myself, because I saw this type of propagandist misdirection tactic coming.

I learned this from 6+ years of educating Americans on Jihadism at my main web site UnitedStatesAction.com, and I use my real name in posting here, so you can see for yourself.

What is it that you fear from having moderated discussions? Surely any serious and responsible individual would see that this is the way to go on comments from individuals not affiliated with JihadWatch.

There was something on Michelle Malkin's blog or Hot Air recently about comment moderation on those sites. I got the impression that she is quite strict about it. I'm sorry but I can't find the link.

I wish I had money to donate to Jihad Watch. The best I can do is purchase Robert Spencer's books.

It is always a mistake to let your enemy define you.

http://www.imaginationperfumery.com/p/obsession-by-calvin-klein-for-women-1098

madduck wrote:
"cair would like nothing better than to see us obsess over this issue..let's drop it soon and move on"

Agreed. Jeffrey's points are valid and his call for financial contributions to JW/DW, in light of yesterday's events, is also a valid request.

Those of us with honest intentions can do our best to police ourselves, but we cannot stop what happened yesterday, whether it was purposely placed in malice or not, without dedicated comment moderation.

This is thankless work in which Jeffrey, an obvious ally in the war against Islam, is subjecting himself to unnecessary criticism from our own community.

Donate or don't. Agree or disagree. But let's just move along now....shall we?

Josephine,

Michelle Malkin has shut off comments unless you were already grandfathered in.

So if you read something that is completely wrong you can't refute it. For that reason, though I love Michelle's site, I won't read the comments over there as it's like watching the nightly news and screaming at the TV. They don't hear you and they don't care. Over at DKos (same ID) I got troll-rated all the time, even when I made a sincere effort to address a sig which said something to the effect that "all they know about conservatives is they want to cut taxes and hate everybody else". But at least I got to comment.

As to the topic of this section I think it would be real cool to find out the IP of the poster and and be able to link it to a CAIR plant. A lot of times these guys aren't as up-to-date about technology and think a new hotmail account is all they need to be anonymous.

Im guessing the guys a troll or plant

I think the best argument against comments moderation was made by awake at "Posted by: awake [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 1, 2007 1:05 PM"

"Another caveat is that a moderated comment that does get through will not be so easily dismissed by Robert as not supporting his position, if the comment can be misconstrued by "others" in some way."

Absolutely. Part of Spencer's brilliance is that he raises so many rhetorical questions that one isn't sure precisely what he would or would not advocate in terms of public policy.

Comments moderation could very easily be used as a sledgehammer by his enemies in making the claim that if he let a comment through he must agree with it.

That could include comments about restricting Muslim immigration or any of a number of other topics that Spencer has decided not to take a public policy stand on.

Let his readers draw various conclusions and debate public policy in the open forum (something that would be sorely missed were the comments section deleted altogether).

But the way things are now - Spencer has real plausible deniability about everything posted here. If the comments are officially moderated, he will lose that and I think it could cause not only more work for the site (in having to decide with each and every comment whether it is something that Spencer could actually endorse as his own position)but could actually provide more real ammunition against the site by creating a seeming link between what Spencer actually endorses and whatever comments are let through by the moderator.

You make a very good point Caroline. And as someone else said, "do not allow our enemies to define us"

Caroline -
You state:
"Comments moderation could very easily be used as a sledgehammer by his enemies in making the claim that if he let a comment through he must agree with it."

JihadWatch comments moderation is being done today. Just reactively, not proactively. So that argument could be made today at this moment. When other websites proactively moderate comments they don't "agree" with them, but they have standards that in comments hate comments and incitement to violence are not allowed. And JW has such rules today, they just enforce them them reactively at this point, not proactively.

So no, proactive moderation of comments does not mean any web site "agrees" with the comments, but moderates them to see that they follow existing rules on content violations.

However, for serious anti-jihad websites, public comments are a drain of resources in general that is not considered worthwhile?

Does SITE Institute allow public comments? No.
Does Laura Mansfield allow public comments? No.
Does Counterterrorism Blob allow public comments? No.
Etc., etc., etc.

They control the content of their websites.

And that is also the idea behind moderation of comments, IF comments are that important to a website. Comments have to adhere to minimal rules to be acceptable to moderated websites. That doesn't mean JW agrees to public comments, but that it will moderate out or edit public comments that violate their rules of standards.

By the way, there is no "brilliance" in being unclear in your positions to the point that any stranger can define who and what you believe. That is a back-handed complement at best.

Nor do I view Robert Spencer or JihadWatch in that way. I think they are very clear on their positions.

As to Hooper's admission: "Islam is an ideology. It's not a race. You can be a bigot."

That is indeed refreshing for him to admit that Islam is an ideology and not a race.

Wouldn't that mean that there is nothing "racist" about profiling people on the basis of their ideology? He should be asked whether it isn't in fact the case that numerous Muslims are committing terrorist attacks in the name of this "ideology" and since it isn't racist (by his own admission) to profile on that basis, whether it is unreasonable to profile on the basis of ideology?

Then he notes, "You can be a bigot".

Definition of bigot:

"A person who regards his own faith and views in matters of religion as unquestionably right, and any belief or opinion opposed to or differing from them as unreasonable or wicked. In an extended sense, a person who is intolerant of opinions which conflict with his own, as in politics or morals; one obstinately and blindly devoted to
his own church, party, belief, or opinion."

Mr Hooper should be asked whether or not - as a Muslim he regards his faith as unquestionably right and whether this isn't a fair characterization of Muslims throughout the world. I could provide him with any number of quotes from Muslims explaining that the reason that they forbid free proselytization of other religions besides Islam in Muslim majority countries is because Muslims are the only ones with the one true faith.

Muslims are notorious "bigots". Hooper should be called on that fact.

"Does SITE Institute allow public comments? No.
Does Laura Mansfield allow public comments? No.
Does Counterterrorism Blob allow public comments? No."

What is the site traffic to those sites relative to JW? And might the comparative traffic have any relationship to the fact of the open comments section at JW?

jeffreyimm: "By the way, there is no "brilliance" in being unclear in your positions to the point that any stranger can define who and what you believe. That is a back-handed complement at best."

I disagree. I don't find Spencer to be terribly forthcoming in advocating on various public policy positions that ought to follow from the information he provides about Islam. Nor do I think he is obligated to do so, as some of his detractors among the anti-jihad forces seem to believe and have publicly criticized him for.

But there's a whole lot of that going on in the comments section.

If you were the moderator, what would you do with someone advocating, say, internment after the next massive terrorist attack? Let it through? Ban it? If you let it through, could the enemy then turn around with even more ammunition and say that Spencer permits such comments in a "moderated" forum and hence he obviously must not disapprove of such policy? Or at least not see anything terribly wrong with such a position?

If Robert moved to a fully moderated comments forum then anything and everything within such sanctioned comments would be fair game for Hoopster and CAIR etc to cherry pick for examples of bigotry and "Islamophobia".

They would have a field day and make just as much or more propaganda than before because they would seize upon every imperfectly worded criticism of Islam as representative of what Robert thinks and approves of. It would play right into their hands in my opinion.

Hoopster's attack on Robert and JW means that Robert and JW is having an impact which he (and CAIR) is afraid of. It was only semi-effective in this instance because Dennis Prager was not ready for it. He will be next time.

I think Robert is doing things exactly right. Some distasteful excess of expression inevitably comes with the freedoms we enjoy, that make us strong. Weeding out the worst of that excess is already in place here. Stricter filtering will only make the comments less responsive. It will not shield Robert from what came from Hoopster last night.

The only perfect shield would be to do away with comments entirely. Hoopster and CAIR would like that best of all.

"Does SITE Institute allow public comments? No.
Does Laura Mansfield allow public comments? No.
Does Counterterrorism Blob allow public comments? No."

All effective and articulate sources and voices I'm sure, but what is their traffic compared to JW? Tiny.

leonthepigfarmer:
that genocidal comment was condemned by all of us. whoever wrote that stupid comment should realise the enormous damage in which they have caused. and thanks to your idiotic genocidal comment we will all be under government scrutiny. thanks moron.

I didnt write that comment but nevertheless I understand it.

I think it is fairly inevitable that in the next 100 years, there will be wars between Muslims and non-Muslims in Western countries. It will come to this because without a shadow of a doubt, Islam is totalitarian. It seeks to control every aspect of a countries life, there is no individualism and there is a hierarchy with Muslim male at the top and non-Muslim female at the bottom.
When those wars start occuring, at that point we separate into the Pascifists and non-Pascifists.
I am a non-Pascifist. I dont believe in simply giving up my freedom or allowing my relatives to be raped, murdered, enslaved, theft with impunity.

JW is a great website, but the issues of "what will happen?" are not faced. I would like nothing better to live with fellow humans in peace and tranquility, who may have different belief systems than mine. But everywhere Islam treads, it seeks to upset this by making sure that only its belief system is active, all others are marginalised and eliminated.

In the past 60 years, the proportion of non-Muslims in Pakistan and Bangladesh since partition has decreased. What has happened to them? Is that our future? Do we just go into oblivion? Our children and our children's children? Because unless something changes, that is our future.

Answers should be demanded from Muslims about the fate of non-Muslims in Islamic countries.

Answers should be demanded from Muslims human rights in Islamic countries (for example the fact that those of Bahai faith in Egypt cannot get recognition from the Egyptian Government - recently upheld by Egyptian Supreme Court).

And Islamic countries should be scrutinised in the UN Security council on failures to uphold human rights.

So I understand those that call for genocide. Right now, the USA and UK are at war with the Taliban in Afghanistan. If USA and UK soldiers kill Taliban, is that genocide?
Right now, genocide is being committed against Animists and Christians in Darfur in Sudan. Is that genocide?

In this troubled world, there are little easy answers. But I dont wish for a world where Islam dominates all countries.

sorry for the duplication Caroline, i see you beat me to it with the traffic point.

"Michelle Malkin has shut off comments unless you were already grandfathered in..."

Kaos Klerik -- Thanks.

Congratulations Robert & Co!

The CAIR-nazis attacks on you prove that you are freedom fighters, that can be compared to the resistance movements in occupied countries of Europe during World War II.

The Benes decrees that are sometimes mentioned on this site are endorsed by the Potsdam agreement between the victorius allied powers, so support of the Benes decrees equals to support of the Allies' victory over the nazis.

Well Alexon - you know what they say about great minds.:-)

"If you were the moderator, what would you do with someone advocating, say, internment after the next massive terrorist attack? Let it through? Ban it? If you let it through, could the enemy then turn around with even more ammunition and say that Spencer permits such comments in a "moderated" forum and hence he obviously must not disapprove of such policy? Or at least not see anything terribly wrong with such a position?" -- Caroline

Yes, it opens a terrible can of worms and exposes Robert to more cherry-picking attacks than ever since he is then seen as bestowing his imprimatur upon every comment let through.

..good point ,Caroline..active moderation would imply tacit approval of comments posted..Robert
would then be hoist on his own petard..accused of supporting every whacky notion posted.

Well, well well...

A touch late into the discussion and others have also recalled the incident but...

I too remember one of the guilty comments well. Posted by 'Barry Laden' (or something similar), it was egregious in its extremism and called for the mass murder of Muslims ["kill em all"]. Another poster immediately posted and suggest the comment be wiped. It was, if I recall correctly.

Then, a couple of days later, the genocidal comment is cited by CAIR as evidence of Robert Spencer's bigotry etc.

What a coincidence. What a jaw-droppingly amazing coincidence.

Well, well well...

A touch late into the discussion and others have also recalled the incident but...

I too remember one of the guilty comments well. Posted by 'Barry Laden' (or something similar), it was egregious in its extremism and called for the mass murder of Muslims ["kill em all"]. Another poster immediately posted and suggest the comment be wiped. It was, if I recall correctly.

Then, a couple of days later, the genocidal comment is cited by CAIR as evidence of Robert Spencer's bigotry etc.

What a coincidence. What a jaw-droppingly amazing coincidence.

Jeffreyimm -

one more point - you say, "JihadWatch comments moderation is being done today. Just reactively, not proactively."

I understand that. But that may make all the difference in terms of plausible deniability and in terms of Spencer being able to legitimately dissociate himself from the comments themselves. One may legitimately miss some things "reactively" but with proactive moderation, nothing is missed and hence seemingly everything is endorsed (the whole disclaimer thing notwithstanding).

Thank you for the nod, Caroline. It is definately worth a respectful discussion.

Jeffrey makes very valid points and does not deserve disrespect from the community based on his position on this issue.

With all the crap CAIR is pulling as of late, a change in site format to moderation might not be the best way to go, but it is the only way to prevent comments like the one yesterday from getting through.

We all know that comments are moderated reactively, but the disclaimer is clear...that the comments are unmoderated and do not reflect Robert's position.

Regards,

awake

Great Minds indeed Caroline! You also pre-empted a couple of other of my comments before they got posted by saying the same thing, only a bit better and a bit faster than I could :-(

"Hoopster", however, is my own unique twist which gives me a smile each time I type it :-) "Hopper" is kind of funny too but besmirches the name of a great American painter, so I passed on that one.

Posted by: Brett_McS

It's pretty clear that CAIR are afraid of Jihad Watch.

CAIR = Jihadwatchophobes

awake - you're quite welcome. You made an excellent point that I was merely expanding upon. Re jeffreyimm - there's no doubt at all that he's one of the good guys. It can't have escaped too many regular posters notice here that a whole lot of articles posted here were referred to Spencer from Jeffrey. And I agree with your initial sentiment that it's a tough call. But based on the "caveat" that you yourself raised, I've made my decision as to where I stand on this one on pragmatic grounds, no disrespect intended to anyone else who may have a differing opinion.

In the end, of course, it's Spencer's decision.

I would like to make a pitch for changing the format of this section to being moderated. Why should some unknown freak or provocateur be able to dump their irrelevant garbage here?

The comments section can actually be as informative - sometimes even more so - than the main article. There are a lot of people out there with very useful pieces of specialized knowledge, and they make invaluable contributions. I have learned a lot from reading the comments of some contributors here.

But if the all of the comments are going to be read eventually to determine their suitability, well then, heck, why not just read them immediately and save yourselves the embarrassment?

While I'm on a roll - a while ago I urged Mr. Spencer to merge JihadWatch and DhimmiWatch. When you do a search on one side of the great wall, you don't (I think) get articles archived on the other side.

Also, philosophically, I think it is useful to remind the public that the jihad takes on many forms - violence (JihadWatch) and intimidation (DhimmiWatch). People might get the wrong impression that actions described on DhimmiWatch are less serious than those at JihadWatch.

Plus, I'd rather not have to switch back and forth, if it's feasible. Lazy me...

I have a stupid question for Jeffrey and others who think comments at Jihad Watch should be moderated before being posted:

What could any poster here possibly say that is worse than the mainstream views of the average Muslim who defends basic Islamic theology and teachings?

"Kill them all"? So? When did saying it become worse than doing it? How many commentators at Jihad Watch have actually justified the killing of people? Go to any pro-Islam website and it's all right there. They don't even try to hide it. They don't hide it because they believe it, and it's only the words they choose to use that differ.

Suicide and murder are forbidden by the Koran, so just call it something else. Oppression and aggression are as benign as "the media writing against you". So a newspaper article, or a few cartoons, justify rioting and murder.

The difference between someone like me saying "kill them all" and a Muslim saying "kill them all" is that I'm just ranting on a blog. They do it.

To equate the two things, even if that comment was not planted and the poster really meant it, is to not live in the real world. Angry words by even the most hateful poster could never begin to equate to the everyday beliefs of 1/5th of the worlds population.

The fact that Muslims do not say what they believe in anger doesn't make their beliefs any less hateful.

ISLAM TEACHES FIRST DEGREE MURDER.

Jaynie59 -- Here's my two cents.

Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because a bunch of Islamists are posting genocidal and hateful comments doesn't mean it's appropriate or right or helpful or constructive to turn around and do the same. It just devolves into name-calling and becomes a virtual screaming match. We don't learn anything from that type of commentary.

Also, look at the tone of Robert Spencer's work. He is concerned about Islam in total and highlights the troublesome aspects of Islam as they relate to current events. He analyzes, he studies, he reports. Not once will you read anything by him that slams Muslims as a group or that could be construed as racist or hateful. He doesn't say that Muslims are wrong just because he doesn't agree with their religious beliefs; he focuses on their core teachings and the way they are or are not acted upon by the majority or minority of Muslims worldwide.

Some of us believe this approach is a solid one and would like to see it reflected (as much as possible, given that we are not scholars of Islam like Mr. Spencer or brilliant wordsmiths like Mr. Fitzgerald) in the discourse here between posters.

Someone can say "kill them all" and how can we know if they really mean it or not? How can we know when some mentally vulnerable person might read that statement and decide to take matters into his own hands? And besides, it really is advocating genocide against an entire group of people, which most people (including me) consider to be wrong.

I don't know how I feel about having more moderation in the comments here or no comments at all. It's really up to the website owners. I think everyone has made good points on the issue.

I've learned a lot from some of the folks who comment here and would be sorry to lose that. I would also miss having the opportunity to speak my mind about these issues in this forum.

Having just found this site by searching for my name on Google, I was horrified to see the discussion relating to someone using my name in a tirade of hatred.
As one of your previous bloggers has stated, I am a guy working in the fashion world (who happens to be Jewish) based in London. My surname, Laden, is a German word meaning "shop". Any co-incidence with any other Arabic name transliterated to spell like mine is purely co-incidental.
I haven't really had any problems before, but if someone is using my name illegally then that is clearly disturbing.
Here's a funny story to lighten the mood:
My best friend living in Amsterdam has my name as a contact written in the back of his passport. When he opened a bank account the manager called him in and asked who I really was..B Laden etc etc.
My friend, quite rightly shot back at him, "Oh yeh, a well known terrorist lives in London with his gay partner and runs a fashion store...get real". I thank him for that.

"Were Hooper interested in honest dealing, he would have noted that, as well as the fact that the comment he quoted was deleted, and not attributed it to me".-Robert

Robert's mind is a mind that has a great respect and love for veracity-fact-truth. That will-to-truth added to a disciplined and logical mind makes it increasingly difficult to fall into fallacy of reason as time goes on and also to readily recognize when others' thinking is crippled by fallacies of reason. In some ways Spencer's mind reminds me of the operation of Lincoln's mind in that regard.

I doubt Hooper would recognize that he engaged in the fallacy of "poisoning the well" in attempting not to address the truth or falsity of Robert's logical propositions but by attempting to make it so that people will not listen to what Robert says. The real fear with regard to people like Robert with Hooper is that other Muslims are going to see that he and others like him are speaking the truth. So Ibby and others like him must poison the well.

The problem with the habit of fallacious thinking (Ibby, e.g.) is that it tends over time to compromise the ability to think clearly and warps perception of reality. That is not in a person's true self-interest. Lincoln was once asked why he was adamant re fact-truth and answered, "I do not want to lose my best friend-myself". Hooper cannot perceive reality clearly because of his habit of thinking in fallacies. It's very unlikely he would see that he is poisoning his own well in doing that.

I think the suggestion to allow loyal JW readers to flag hate speech comments so that immediate action can be taken is an excellent one.

Maybe after a post has been flagged x number of times an alert gets out the web admin who can then deal with the offensive item.

The last thing we want is for deceitful snake oil salesmen like Hooper gaining the moral advantage because of the stupid behaviour of a random idiot.

Caroline asks several questions which I will respond to:

1. web traffic

I don't know the web traffic for SITE Institute or Laura Mansfield's web sites. However, every major media outlet - CNN, Fox, AP, use them repeatedly as sources of information for news broadcasts - see the new Al Qaeda video when it gets released shortly.

I do know the traffic for JW and CTB:

counterterrorismblog.org
5,397 avg daily visits for past month:

jihadwatch.org
30,992 avg daily visits for past month:

JW is a lot more, but CTB is hardly "tiny".

2. "plausible deniability".
Now there is a slippery slope.
I can only speak for myself - I certainly don't want to have to be protected by "plausible deniability" because I am not clear on my positions, and I seriously doubt the Robert Spencer, who prides himself on being very specific and well-documented would either.

3. Agreement with topics posed in public comments.
Public comments are just that - public comments in general. They don't now, and wouldn't in a proactively moderated comments section, reflect the views of JW or RS. And this would be stated just as it is stated now. Proactively moderated comments only deal with the issue of vulgarity, incitement to violence, threats, and the standard exceptions that almost all moderated comments sections exclude from being posted.

Jaynie59 states: "The difference between someone like me saying "kill them all" and a Muslim saying "kill them all" is that I'm just ranting on a blog. They do it."

No one I saw equated statements with actions.

However, as Josephine clearly points out, two wrongs don't make a right.

I would offer a suggestion to help - focus your frustration into something you can DO.

In the weeks after 9/11, I felt the need to do something, so I created UnitedStatesAction.com, which provides various readiness, preparation information, and education on the enemy. A year later, I started UnitedStatesAction's Yahoo group of daily terrorism news to educate the public. On my web site, you will see emergency information and specifics for many major USA cities and things that you can do, rather than simply vent frustration.

If we are in a WAR, and there is no question in my mind of that, having been both at the Pentagon and at WTC towers after 9/11, then we need to take the war seriously. The enemy will attack again. It is a matter of where, when, and how - not a matter of IF. The enemy will also continue to promote propaganda to confuse and discourage. In this war, we need to also fight back against that propaganda, but that is only PART of the fight.

Regardless, in this serious MORTAL WAR that we are engaged in, what we cannot afford is to allow anger, frustration, and fear to let us become reactive to the point that we make rash statements publicly and in writing, that will help the cause of the enemy.

Whether we have forums that are self-moderating or help fund JW to get a FT moderator, we must never give the enemy propaganda because of rash, emotional, angry, wild statements. Because the war is too serious and too important for that.

We have a mortal war to win, and we can't let ranting get in the way of our determination to defeat the enemy.

That is the end of my point on this discussion. If any of you wish to ask me anything else, you can reach me via UnitedStatesAction.com. I need to get back to doing my part for the war effort.

Hitch and Prager are unlikely allies in many ways. Not least Christopher Hitchens invokes Dennis prager's name five times in his book dedicated to ridiculing and debasing religious pundits in general (he describes Prager as a "religious broadcaster" on page 18). Those who follow the work of Hitchens will also be aware of the (public) fundamental disagreements he and Prager have.

The fact that these two men can get along so well should be taken as a good example by the representatives of CAIR and such; but I fear the reality of the matter is Hooper and his cronies are not simply ignorant vessels for raw Islamism- but quite stupid, lacking the ability to benefit from personal insight.

I suppose it's fortunate for us all that the value of Hooper's charisma seems linked to his IQ.

On the same subject, this is the third time this week that I've seen a concerted attempt made to hold website proprietors personally responsible for comments made by members of the public.

First Hayden Hewitt of LiveLeak was attacked by Raphael Rowe on BBCs "Panorama". Rowe (a man considered to be a murderer by many including a Judge at crown court) attempted to say Hayden should remove media items from his site that might be upsetting or offensive, then he tried to blame Hayden (an extremely fair and definitely non-racist man) for the comments made by some racist, antagonistic members in the comments section.
Second was Bill OReilly trying to say that both DailyKos and FreeRepublic should be held accountable for what their members post on their forums. OReilly was quick to cut off discussion about it with Harold Ford Jr when he refused to express outrage at a comment containing the N word - indicating to me that he only invited him on there to cultivate such a sentiment!
And now we've got Hooper trying to make Robert Spencer out to be the author of every comment on this site.

Bottom line is that yes, as a webmaster /moderator etc, one does have discretion to edit or remove posts and to ban members, but I don't think any webmaster should apologise or accept any kind of responsibility for comments made simply because they have not censored them. Now, if something's just inane, insipid etc, that's usually the reason it gets deleted. If someone says something outrageous, however, it's often a good spot to tear up their opinion with debate, and have it in writing.

Mr. Hooper is very rude to his opponents. He constantly interrupts the speaker...