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Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer examines MPAC's campaign against Steve Emerson in FrontPage today.
The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) has identified its chief enemy. At a conference on “Countering Religious & Political Extremism” held on December 18 (and later televised on C-Span), it distributed a 48-page booklet attacking not bin Laden, or Zawahiri, or Zarqawi, but anti-terrorism expert Steven Emerson.Entitled “Counterproductive Counterterrorism,” the booklet sought to frame opposition to Emerson as a national security issue: “In order to enhance the security of our country, it is necessary to expose the vocal minority of Americans who continue to exploit the tragedy of September 11 to advance their pre-existing anti-Muslim agenda.”
For months now, MPAC has been touting its new “National Anti-Terrorism Campaign” (NATC), garnering uncritical publicity in the media and even praise from government officials. The Campaign’s glossy brochure proclaims that “It is our duty as American Muslims to protect our country and to contribute to its betterment.” But like the old Whip Inflation Now campaign of the Ford Administration, the NATC is long on style and short on substance. It recommends, for example, that “All activities within the mosque and Islamic centers should be authorized by legitimate, acknowledged leadership…” That sounds great until one realizes that if a mosque is involved in terrorist activity, it is most likely with the complicity of mosque leadership — as per the Naqshbandi Sufi leader Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani’s 1999 testimony before a State Department Open Forum that eighty percent of American mosques were controlled by extremists.[1] The rest of MPAC’s recommendations are in the same vein, appearing to be more concerned about misbehavior by non-Muslim law enforcement officials in mosques than about the possibility of terrorist activity in those mosques. WIN buttons are one thing, but the consequences of false advertising by MPAC are much more deadly. Now with the publication of this new report, MPAC’s counterterrorism agenda seems to boil down to one substantive point: Steve Emerson, not Islamic terrorism, is the enemy.
It is very revealing that MPAC would think that Emerson is doing so much damage — to the security of our country, no less — as to call for such a response. Emerson’s anti-terror work has won accolades from across the political spectrum. Congressman Christopher Smith (R-NJ) says that “Steve Emerson deserves the highest prize — a Pulitzer or whatever it may be — for investigative journalism.” Richard Clarke, the controversial former National Security Council Counterterrorism official, has declared, “I think of Steve as the Paul Revere of terrorism.” He says that he would always go to hear Emerson speak, because “we’d always learn things we weren’t hearing from the FBI or CIA, things which almost always proved to be true.”[2] Andrew McCarthy, an Assistant U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the 1993 World Trade Center bombings, called Emerson “a valuable source of information and knowledge. And in terms of trying to find places to look for evidence, he’s a very good person to talk to. He’s got a lot of insight.”[3] A.M. Rosenthal, former managing editor of the New York Times, declared: “Steve Emerson is one of the nation’s best national security correspondents. His investigative work on radical Islamic fundamentalism is absolutely critical to this nation’s national security. There is no one else who has exhibited the same expertise, courage and determination to tackle this vital issue.”
In examining MPAC’s charges, MPAC has unwittingly revealed much about itself; to the extent the government or media continues the charade of portraying it as a “moderate” group, it becomes troubling — and not just for Emerson. A close inspection of MPAC’s charges against Emerson reveals more about MPAC that it does about Emerson: MPAC has fabricated or spread outright falsehoods and smears, raising significant questions about what the organization’s real sentiments are regarding Islamic terrorism.
“Steve Emerson and his Investigative Project,” asserts MPAC, “are among those who scapegoat American Muslims, rather than provide constructive counterterrorism policy.” Yet on none of the forty-eight pages of “Counterproductive Counterterrorism” is there a single Muslim named whom Emerson has unfairly scapegoated. MPAC charges that in his work Emerson tars all Muslims with the terrorist brush, despite the fact that Emerson himself has repeatedly maintained that most Muslims have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism or terrorist groups. In his acclaimed documentary Jihad in America, Emerson even asserted that “although the militants may claim to speak on behalf of all Muslims, Islam as a religion does not condone violence. The radicals represent only themselves – an extremist and violent fringe.” But MPAC ignores all that and charges on, claiming that “whether on television, in newspapers, or magazines, Emerson relies on his fail-safe methods of increasing fear and suspicion toward American Muslims.”
For the record, Emerson’s landmark 1994 documentary revealed and exposed the existence of Islamic terror cells and leaders in the United States with uncanny accuracy. The film alleged an Islamic Jihad cell was operating in Tampa at the University of South Florida; in 2003, USF Professor Sami Al Arian was indicted in a 50-count conspiracy as head of the Islamic Jihad in North America. Emerson’s film exposed the existence of Hamas fundraising and terrorist meetings; since 9/11, the government has initiated prosecutions and asset forfeitures against the Hamas infrastructure in the United States. The film alleged an ongoing post-1993 World Trade Center bombing Jihad conspiracy against US targets; the 9/11 attacks proved him right. The film alleged that radical Islamic charities were operating in the United States under false tax-deductible cover; since 9/11, the government has initiated the investigation and closing of various Islamic charities, and the arrest of their leaders on terrorism-related charges. The film alleged that behind closed doors, various mosques and Islamic schools were the venues of extremist exhortations to carry out Jihad against Jews and Christians; since 9/11, Emerson’s revelations have been confirmed dozens of times. The film alleged, showing never-before-seen video, that secret terrorist conferences featuring the top terrorists in the world had been held in the United States in the late 1980s and early 1990s; since 9/11, FBI and Justice Department prosecutions have revealed the existence of these terrorist conferences.
Even though the mountain of evidence he had when he made the film in 1994 revealed the extent of the massive clandestine infrastructure of militant Islamic groups in the United States, Emerson repeatedly affirmed in his narration and in on-camera interviews that militant Islam did not represent the vast majority of Muslims.
Because Emerson was so deadly accurate in pinpointing the murderous deception of radical Muslim groups hiding behind veneers of false moderation, these very groups responded to the film by claiming that Emerson was attacking Islam and insisting that there was no evidence of any militant Islamic presence in the United States. MPAC joined other “mainstream” Islamic groups (often nothing more than reconstituted organs of Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood, such as the Council on American Islamic Relations) in denouncing Emerson.
And because Emerson has been so much more effective since 9/11, behind the scenes and publicly, working with the government, Congress and the media in exposing and revealing the Islamic terrorist networks in the United States, MPAC and other Islamic “civil rights” groups have continued in their efforts at character assassination.
However, in attempting to portray Emerson as an anti-Muslim bigot and a fraud, MPAC circulates outlandish inaccuracies and demonstrably false information. Since 1994, Emerson has had to endure an unceasing campaign of slander and false accusations spread by radical Islamic groups, pro-Islamic writers and self-styled “reporters” who have done the bidding of these groups, politically-correct reporters and editorialists, apologists for militant Islamic groups, extremist left-wing groups and even ultra right-wing wackos. Because of the Internet, unfortunately, the slanders against Emerson continue to circulate long after they have been proven false.
MPAC accuses Emerson of engaging in “anti-Islam and anti-Muslim alarmist rhetoric” as long ago as the April 1995 Oklahoma City bombing; they quote him as saying that the bombing “was done with the intent to inflict as many casualties as possible…That is a Middle Eastern trait.”
If Emerson had really pointed the finger at Muslim terrorists, he would have been one of many commentators to do so in the days after the bombing. Those who actually did so on national news shows in April 1995 include former Congressman David McCurdy[4], former FBI official James Fox[5], international security expert Larry Johnson[6], the Washington Post, and the New York Times.[7] In fact, FBI officials almost universally suspected Islamic terrorists in the first 24 hours after the attack. But even in criticizing Emerson’s comments, MPAC has distorted what he said. Emerson’s full statement was different: “This was done with the attempt to inflict as many casualties as possible. That is a Middle Eastern trait and something that has been generally not carried out in this soil until we were rudely awakened to in 1993.”[8] The last part of the sentence, not quoted by MPAC, establishes that Emerson was talking about the tactics used in the attack, not who carried it out. If MPAC had wanted to present the truth, they would have seen that Emerson, following the arrest of the culprits behind the 1995 bombing, immediately stated that there was no evidence of any Middle East connection. Emerson has told me how he dissuaded Newsweek magazine editors on the Friday following the bombing from doing a story about the connection to Islamic militants, turning down a $5,000 offer. Nor does MPAC quote a contemporaneous interview by Emerson in which he stated that “there is no specific evidence about which groups are responsible.”[9]
MPAC likewise plays fast and loose with the facts in its attempts to assail Emerson’s “professional credibility.” It cites a 1991 New York Times review of Emerson’s book Terrorist that says the book was “marred by factual errors” and political bias. It doesn’t mention the political bias of the review itself, or the fact that the only “factual errors” actually referred to in the review were “mistranslations of Arabic names” — again unspecified. Emerson’s documentary Jihad In America, we’re told, was “faulted for bigotry and misrepresentation” — with no specifics, of course, as to who exactly was misrepresented. Nor does MPAC reveal who did the faulting. Surely MPAC doesn’t mean Sami Al-Arian, the University of South Florida professor whose deep involvement with the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad were first revealed in Jihad In America — and who was finally arrested and indicted in 2003 for providing material support to the Islamic Jihad. MPAC could not be talking about CAIR, the group that morphed out of the Islamic Association for Palestine, and which was exposed by the film as part of Hamas’ network in the US — characterizations affirmed in recent court decisions.
Conveniently, MPAC omits the fact that the documentary won the “Best Investigative Reporting Award in Print, Broadcast, or Book” from Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), an organization dedicated to fostering journalistic excellence. However, the MPAC report does find the time to quote Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism official, saying of Emerson’s work: “It’s total bull****. He’s trying to say people who move to this country and set up charities and think tanks and are associated with Hamas and Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah, that there’s some kind of connection between them and Sept. 11, that there’s a liaison or support network. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about...” Cannistraro’s venom was published in Salon magazine in March 2002, over eighteen months before the IRS revoked the tax-exempt status of three Muslim charities, the Benevolence International Foundation, the Global Relief Foundation, and the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, because of their ties to Hamas and or Al-Qaeda.[10] One would think that by now MPAC would know whether it was actually Emerson or Cannistraro who was really purveying bull****, but evidently not. Cannistraro, as Emerson publicly revealed in a symposium in Tampa in 1995, had actually agreed to be a defense witness for the blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman in his WTC-connected terrorism trial, but the judge disqualified him. Instead, MPAC has consistently maintained that the terror arrests of leading figures in Islamic charities “bare [sic] strong signs of politicization,”[11] although in doing so the group has not hesitated to gloss over and misrepresent the evidence. MPAC claimed, for example, that former Global Relief Foundation Chairman Rabih Haddad was only “arrested for overstaying his visa.”[12] However, the FBI revealed in court papers that Haddad had been spotted at sites that “housed and supported terrorist organizations associated with al Qaida” in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.[13]
Nonetheless, we are supposed to believe that it is Emerson who is careless with the facts.
“One example of Emerson’s journalistic sloppiness,” says MPAC, “is an August 2000 article in which he writes, ‘Terrorism experts say Hamas raises $10 million tax-free annually in the United States…’” MPAC dismisses such allegations as “wild claims” and complains that Emerson “fails to name actual sources” for them. But they don’t seem so wild or unsupported in light of testimony by Gary M. Bald, the Acting Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, before the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control on March 4, 2004. Bald testified that in 2002, the FBI blocked the assets of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), thereby “shutting down Hamas’ largest fund-raising entity in the US. The HLF had been linked to the funding of Hamas terrorist activities, and in 2000, raised $13 million.”[14] Emerson was wrong, all right: he underestimated Hamas’ take by three million dollars.
The MPAC report further faults Emerson for stating that terrorist groups established “a vast network of radical supporters running from Los Angeles to Boston.” The fact that jihad terrorists have been discovered and convicted all across the United States matters little to MPAC, which in its recent position paper on counterterrorism policy wondered “whether alleged terror plots, such as those in Seattle, Buffalo, Portland, and Detroit, actually posed threats as serious as the government initially claimed them to be.”[15] Let’s see: in the Portland case, the jihad suspects told an FBI informant that they wanted to behead unbelievers, find “real” Muslim wives who would be willing to “blow something up,” and referred to Jews as “lampshades.” They pleaded guilty to traveling to Afghanistan and trying to join the Taliban.[16] Yes, clearly an exaggerated case. And in the Buffalo case, in which six Yemeni Muslims from Lackawanna, New York were persuaded to go to a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan, the Associated Press reported: “Friends say the six men were manipulated into going to the camp by high-pressure recruiters who came to their mosque with a message of religious service.”[17] Yet MPAC has the breathtaking audacity, in trashing Emerson’s book American Jihad, to claim that he “fails to prove his most rudimentary argument in American Jihad — that terrorists are exploiting our most cherished freedoms and using their own religious and political institutions to plan and execute anti-America terrorist acts.”
The accusations go on and on. MPAC claims that “following the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, he told CNN viewers that Yugoslavs were the likely suspects.” However, this is far from the “wild accusation” that MPAC makes it out to be. In fact, Emerson was the first to report that investigators were following Serbian leads in trying to find the bombers. This was widely reported at the time, and not only by Emerson. A March 3, 1993 Associated Press story noted that “investigators in the World Trade Center bombing are giving the most credence to a Serbian militant group’s claim of responsibility, an FBI official said Wednesday.” The next day, National Public Radio reported that “the FBI says a phone caller claiming to represent a Serbian group knew the site of the World Trade Center bombing before that news was public.” The day after that, the Christian Science Monitor stated: “Investigators in the World Trade Center bombing are said to be focusing on the first claim of responsibility received: a call from a Serbian group that knew the site of the blast before the public did. ‘That’s the most likely direction and that's the first place they’re looking,’ said a Federal Bureau of Investigation official speaking yesterday on condition of anonymity.” On March 29, Newsweek added:
“Did the Muslim fundamentalists accused of bombing New York’s World Trade Center last month beat Serbian terrorists to the punch? NEWSWEEK has learned that several weeks before the Feb. 26 blast, the FBI received credible intelligence reports that Serbian radicals based in Belgrade planned to plant a bomb in a New York City building.” Yet now that twelve years have passed and memories have dimmed, MPAC is trying to pass this off as evidence of Emerson’s unreliability. (Even so, if Emerson was as anti-Muslim as MPAC alleges, why would he have reported that the Serbs were under investigation rather than Muslims?)
Similarly, MPAC shakes its head over Emerson’s saying that a bomb had likely brought down TWA Flight 800 on July 17, 1996 (not 1994, as MPAC has it). But here again, Emerson was reflecting an opinion widely held at the time. The New York Times headlined a July 19 story: “Investigators Suspect Explosive Device As Likeliest Cause For Crash Of Flight 800.” Ten days later, another Times headline read: “Plane Split in Sky, Officials Say, Suggesting Bomb.” Financial Times published an article on July 30 headed: “US Likely to Confirm Bomb Caused TWA Crash.”
But the most egregious evidence of MPAC’s venomous bias is the MPAC report’s reliance on one John Sugg. Sugg is currently writing for that beacon of journalistic superstardom, Atlanta’s Creative Loafing. But as a reporter in the late 1990s for the equally distinguished Weekly Planet of Tampa, Florida, Sugg — who has consistently defended Al Arian and other Islamic militants arrested for terrorism as innocent victims of a conspiracy by Emerson in manipulating the Justice Department and FBI — for years carried on a vendetta against Emerson — to the extent that Emerson finally sued Sugg for defamation. MPAC claims that “Emerson voluntarily withdrew the defamation lawsuit in May 2003, after failing to produce any evidence that Sugg’s report was false.”
This is, unsurprisingly, not quite true. Emerson did withdraw the lawsuit, but not because he couldn’t prove that what Sugg had written about him was false. Emerson explains: “My attorney showed in court that the allegations made by Sugg were demonstrably false. But in a post 9/11 environment, it was not worth my time and effort to pursue this any longer.”
But Sugg’s allegations, which form the most substantive portion of MPAC’s report, are simply false; the fact that they are featured so prominently in the MPAC report speaks volumes about the organization. That MPAC relies on Sugg, a discredited writer for a mall give-away weekly who has consistently claimed that the government’s investigations and prosecutions of Islamic terrorists in the United States are part of a racist conspiracy, reveals more about MPAC that it does about Emerson.
Sugg’s first charge is that Emerson misrepresented his own work as an FBI document and sold it under these false pretenses to two Associated Press reporters. However, no less an authority than former CIA Director James Woolsey has affirmed that Emerson did not write the document in question. In a statement, Woolsey said that he was personally acquainted with the actual author and had discussed the document with him — and “this individual is not Steven Emerson.”
As if that weren’t enough, Sugg also claimed (you can see why Emerson felt compelled to sue) that Emerson lied to a Senate subcommittee in 1998 when he testified that he had been informed by authorities that Islamic jihadists had sent out a hit squad to kill him. MPAC, however, relied on Sugg’s claim that John Russell, a Justice Department spokesman, responded “No, none at all” to Sugg’s question “Is there any truth to the allegation of the assassination team?”
But here again, in relying on Sugg, MPAC has omitted the part that verified Emerson’s claim. Bert Brandenburg of the Justice Department’s Office of Public Affairs wrote a letter to the editor of the Weekly Planet on June 1, 1998. (Not surprisingly, that paragon of journalistic luminosity didn’t find it fit to print.) In it, Brandenburg notes that Russell, when responding to Sugg’s inquiries, made it clear to Sugg that his answers were “based on his conversation with someone in the Terrorism Section and that he did not have any knowledge of what statements other law enforcement officials may have made.” When Russell was deposed in Emerson’s case against Sugg, Emerson’s attorney asked him: “Did you make a statement to Mr. Sugg that there was no truth to the allegation” of the death threat? Russell answered, “No, I didn’t.” Russell explained that what he told Sugg was based on his checking with DOJ’s Criminal Division, and that he was not commenting on what other government agencies knew about the threat. But Sugg did not choose to share this information with his readers. In fact, Emerson revealed in American Jihad that the agencies involved in conveying the threat to him were the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security and the FBI, not the Department of Justice.
Brandenburg adds the coup de grace in his letter: “We have checked with the FBI and determined that the FBI did in fact receive information concerning a threat in 1995 and that they advised Mr. Emerson of the danger to his life.” And Sugg knew it. During the defamation suit, Sugg’s notes on his conversation with Brandenburg came to light. Sugg wrote: “threat is accurate, did establish, Bureau seemed satisfied.” Sugg thus clearly understood that Brandenburg had told him that the FBI knew the threat to Emerson was genuine.
What’s more, the former head of FBI Domestic Counterterrorism, Robert Blitzer, declared in a 1999 statement: “While I served as Special Agent-Section Chief of the Domestic Terrorism/Counterterrorism Planning Section, National Security Division, at the Federal Bureau of Investigation Headquarters, Mr. John Sugg telephonically contacted me. I believe this call was in the summer or fall of 1998. Mr. Sugg, among other questions, asked if journalist Steven Emerson had been the subject of a death threat. I confirmed to Mr. Sugg that a couple of years ago Mr. Emerson had been the subject of a death threat by a foreign terrorist group.”
Of course, when the MPAC report charges that “Emerson’s lack of precision leads him to conflate legitimate organizations that can help America and secure the homeland with others that are neither genuinely American nor transparent,” it becomes clear why MPAC is in such a froth about Emerson: because of what he knows about MPAC itself. In American Jihad, Emerson notes that when Abdurrahman Alamoudi of the American Muslim Council, who is now serving a 23-year prison sentence for a terrorism financing conviction, encouraged the Muslim crowd at an October 2000 rally cosponsored by MPAC to declare their support of the jihad terror groups Hamas and Hizballah, “MPAC’s Political Advisor, Mahdi Bray, stood directly behind Alamoudi and was seen jubilantly exclaiming his support for these two deadly terrorist organizations.” This was just three weeks after Bray “coordinated and led a rally where approximately 2,000 people congregated in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C.” Emerson reports that “at one point during the rally, Mahdi Bray played the tambourine as one of the speakers sang, while the crowd repeated: ‘Al-Aqsa [Mosque] is calling us, let’s all go into jihad, and throw stones at the face of the Jews [sic].’”[18]
There is much more. Emerson’s Investigative Project has documented MPAC’s indefatigable and consistent opposition to the war on terror; its magazine The Minaret has dismissed key anti-terror operations as part of “[t]he American crusade against Islam and Muslims.”[19] Emerson has called attention to the fact that in a book called In Fraternity: A Message to Muslims in America, coauthor Hassan Hathout, who has served as MPAC’s President, is identified as “a close disciple of the late Hassan al-Banna of Egypt.”[20] MPAC’s magazine The Minaret spoke of Hassan Hathout’s closeness to al-Banna in a 1997 article: “My father would tell me that Hassan Hathout was a companion of Hassan al-Banna…Hassan Hathout would speak of al-Banna with such love and adoration; he would speak of a relationship not guided by politics or law but by a basic sense of human decency.”[21]
This is noteworthy because Hassan al-Banna founded the prototypical Muslim radical group of the modern age, the Muslim Brotherhood, in Egypt in 1928. The Brotherhood is the direct ancestor of both Hamas and Al-Qaeda. Al-Banna wrote in 1934 that “it is a duty incumbent on every Muslim to struggle towards the aim of making every people Muslim and the whole world Islamic, so that the banner of Islam can flutter over the earth and the call of the Muezzin can resound in all the corners of the world: God is greatest [Allahu akbar]! This is not parochialism, nor is it racial arrogance or usurpation of land.”[22] He told his followers: “Islam is faith and worship, a country and a citizenship, a religion and a state. It is spirituality and hard work. It is a Qur’an and a sword.”[23]
Do Hassan Hathout and MPAC also believe in “a Qur’an and a sword”? What Emerson and the Investigative Project have uncovered about them suggests at very least that the group should receive serious scrutiny. The fact that MPAC has singled out Emerson for such a focused and singular attack only lends credence to these suspicions. For how better to obscure the message than to discredit the messenger?
In 1995, Emerson wrote in response to critics of his statement about the Oklahoma City bombing: “The reason why these groups have singled me out is that they are trying to deny the existence of an Islamic terrorist network in the United States.”[24] That is no less true today, and clearly appears to be part of MPAC’s agenda in publishing this report: witness the classing as one of Emerson’s “wild accusations” the “declaration that Muslim terrorist sympathizers were hanging out at the White House.” It is hard to see this as a “wild accusation” given the fact that the now-jailed Abdurrahman Alamoudi, according to Daniel Pipes, “was a Washington fixture. He had many meetings with both Clintons in the White House and once joined George W. Bush at a prayer service. He arranged a Ramadan fast-breaking dinner for congressional leaders. He six times lectured abroad for the State Department and founded an organization to provide Muslim chaplains for the Department of Defense.”[25] Nor was Alamoudi the only one: Sami Al-Arian, who is now on trial on charges of being the head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the United States, attended a White House briefing by a senior Bush Administration official in June 2001.[26] In fact, in 1996 Emerson authored a series of op-eds in the Wall Street Journal that revealed that the Clinton Administration had repeatedly invited terrorist supporters, including Alamoudi, to events and receptions.
This is why MPAC’s attack on Emerson has much larger implications than the work of Emerson himself. MPAC excoriates Emerson for asserting that “political correctness enforced by American Muslim groups has limited the public’s knowledge about the spread of radical Islam in the U.S.,” but their anti-Emerson report is an example of just that. MPAC pines for a world in which the critics of radical Islam are silenced, and groups with shadowy ties to the global jihad will be able again to operate unimpeded. We can be thankful that the voices that have consistently warned us of the threat posed by militant Islam will not cower under MPAC’s pressure. But it is crucial to understand the real agenda underlying MPAC’s attack on Steve Emerson: MPAC’s agenda is to make the world safe — safe for terrorists.
Of course, MPAC is entitled, under our freedoms, to deceive — as any self-respecting militant Islamic group would if it wanted to acquire political influence. But the real danger lies in the consequences of falling for that deception. Do all those elected officials, law enforcement agents and journalists who dutifully attended MPAC’s most recent conferences, touting MPAC’s “moderation,” really understand that they are granting legitimacy to a group whose agenda is exactly the opposite of “countering religious and political extremism?”
Notes:
[1] Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, “Islamic Extremism: A Viable Threat to U.S. National Security,” speech at U.S. Department of State, January 7, 1999.
[2] Zachary Block, “One Man’s War on Terror,” Brown Alumni Magazine, November/December 2002.
[3] Ibid.
[4] CNN, April 19, 1995.
[5] CBS, April 19, 1995.
[6] PBS, April 20, 1995.
[7] April 20, 1995 articles cited in A Rush to Judgment, Council on American Islamic Relations, September 1995.
[8] CBS News, April 19, 1995.
[9] CBS, April 20, 1995.
[10] “U.S. Suspends Tax-Exempt Status of Terrorist-Linked Charities,” US Department of State, Bureau of International Information Programs, November 14, 2003.
[11] “A Review of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy: American Muslim Critique & Recommendations,” MPAC, September 2003, page 47, http://www.mpac.org/bucket_downloads/CTPaper.pdf, accessed July 12, 2004.
[12] “A Review of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy: American Muslim Critique & Recommendations,” MPAC, September 2003, page 59, http://www.mpac.org/bucket_downloads/CTPaper.pdf, accessed July 12, 2004.
[13] “Haddad: ‘I have been Railroaded,’” United Press International, May 2, 2002.
[14] Testimony of Gary M. Bald, Acting Assistant Director Counterterrorism Division, FBI, Before the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, March 4, 2004. http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress04/bald030404.htm.
[15] “A Review of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy: American Muslim Critique & Recommendations,” MPAC, September 2003, p. 55, http://www.mpac.org/bucket_downloads/CTPaper.pdf, accessed July 12, 2004.
[16] “Recordings reveal Portland Seven’s brutal mindset,” KATU News, November 20, 2003, www.katu.com.
[17] “Documents: ‘Highly valuable’ information from terror cell members,” AP, November 25, 2003.
[18] Steven Emerson, American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us, Free Press, 2002. Pp. 210-211.
[19] Muzaffar Iqbal, “The American Calamity,” The Minaret, May 2002.
[20] “About the Authors,” Hassan Hathout, Maher Hathout, and Fathi Osman, In Fraternity: A Message to Muslims in America, The Minaret Publishing House, 1989.
[21] The Minaret, March 1998, p. 41.
[22] Brynjar Lia, The Society of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt, Ithaca Press, 1998. P. 79.
[23] Shaker El-sayed, “Hassan al-Banna: The leader and the Movement,” Muslim American Society, http://www.maschicago.org/library/misc_articles/hassan_banna.htm.
[24] Steven Emerson, “Why Islamic Extremists Were The First Suspects,” Washington Times, April 27, 1995.
[25] Daniel Pipes, “A Slick Islamist Heads to Jail,” FrontPageMagazine.com, August 3, 2004.
[26] “Official: Terrorism suspect attended White House meeting,” CNN, February 23, 2003.
Posted by Robert at January 12, 2005 6:05 AM
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Do these anti-counter-terrorist types wonder why Emerson and their other targets had a "pre-existing" anti-muslim agenda. Is it because these people are simply bigots that have singled out muslims out of all the other religious groups in the world,do they think that before 9/11, there was no logical reason to have negative views on islam??? Or could it be that there might actually be some vital reason these people are anti-islam....
Anyone who raises the alarm about islam and jihad , in western countries where the threat is nigh-on ignored are the greatest HOPE for national security; not a threat to it, and to think any different is lunacy.
Posted by: Rikki![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 12, 2005 7:45 AM
OT. Just a thought, and probably (maybe?) meaningless, but...
New York- 9/11
Spain- 3/11
Van Gogh- 11/11
Is there any relationship here?
Posted by: Gary at January 12, 2005 9:12 AM
Gary, a minor correction: Theo van Gogh was murdered on 11/2/04. It was election day in the U.S. One could say it was also election day in Holland, though without the ballot.
BTW, it was that Prince of Terrorism, Yasser Arafat, who died on 11/11/04. In dying on that date, Arafat ruined the historical day when WWI came to an end, and the dead from that war are honored, either Remembrance Day or Veteran's Day, take your pick.
Posted by: Rick at January 12, 2005 9:41 AM
Steve Emerson is a contributing expert to this website -
http://counterterror.typepad.com/
The Counterterrorism Blog
The first multi-expert blog dedicated solely to counterterrorism issues, serving as a gateway to the community for policymakers and serious researchers. Designed to provide realtime information about cases and policy developments.
We need more - many more men with the moral clarity and fortitude of Steve Emerson.
at January 12, 2005 9:42 AM
MPAC has "outted" themselves.
Steven Emerson's commitment to the welfare of the American people is beyond question. MPAC's baseless attacks are a blatant and deliberate attempt to obstruct investigations on the part of private citizens and government officials into Islamic extremism in the United States and abroad.
Here is the Steven Emerson book MPAC surely does not want you to read:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0743234359/103-2324761-1072619?v=glance
Posted by: Mike at January 12, 2005 10:02 AM
In order to enhance the security of our country, it is necessary to expose the vocal minority of Americans who continue to exploit the tragedy of September 11 to advance their pre-existing anti-Muslim agenda.”
Many in this minority have NO feelings PRE 911!
911 was the wakeup. The beginning of studies....
Hatred for Muslims?....I don't hate Muslims, I hate ISLAM!
Then again moderate Muslims are not really Muslims at all except by name.They have been targeted as Kuffar (infidels) by thier own extremist mullahs and Imans.And the thousands of henchmen hell-bent on killing ANYONE they can who may appear to stand in the way of world wide shaira.
In order to enhance the security of our country???
Shouldve said "in order to enhance the kill-rate of all the pre-planned "death murder kill" cells waiting in america for the go-word.
Posted by: AvrageJoe at January 12, 2005 10:55 AM
Robert: thanks - that was one heck of a post.
Posted by: johnb at January 12, 2005 11:13 AM
How can one support Mr. Emerson and the work he does?
Posted by: JasonP at January 12, 2005 11:23 AM
Know your enemy well.
Emerson, Pipes, Spencer, and the rest are helping us to understand the world as our government, media, and educational system have failed to adequately inform, educate, and prepare us. It is an outrage that we must educate ourselves.
Thank you.
Posted by: epg at January 12, 2005 11:24 AM
Another great post with reference sites. This site is GREAT!!
Take care,
Remy
at January 12, 2005 11:24 AM
'm going to post this same message in several topics here at JW today...
I have several graphic files saved as PDFs. They are great to e-mail to your friends about the dangers of islam. If you want copies, email me at sidlawson@gmail.com and I'll send them to you.
I don't know how else to enable you to get copies. I've asked RS if he wanted copies so he could put them here at JW, but got no answer from him. So I'll send them to you if you want them - email me and I'll send them to you.
My gmail account is secure, and SusanB knows me (but not by the name of Sid).
If anyone else here in this forum has a web site wherein he/she could provide these files as a link for downloading (and not be afraid of getting murdered by an islamist here in the USA), please let me know. EVERYONE should be sending these anti-islamist PDFs to their friends, posting them in their churches and schools, putting them on windshields at the mall, DROPPING THEM FROM AIRPLANES.
Sid
Posted by: Sid Lawson at January 12, 2005 11:31 AM
Read every word, thanks Robert.
The moslem propaganda machine is truly an awesome thing, as the Israelis have found out, i think somewhat to there surprise, and as America has been finding out these last few years.
The moslem propaganda dollars have successfully moved the eurodhimmis from Israels' side to that of the arabs, separated America from most of its' euro allies, undermines every day the will of many in the west to defend themselves against an aggressive international malignancy, works with every anti-american, anti-democratic, anti-Christian force on the planet opportunistically, all this protected by the same rule of law in the western world, one that has never existed in the moslem world, that they will destroy as they take control of our societies.
And, like Emerson, you get slimed by them for writing the truth, or, like Van Gothe, murdered.
Mpac is shameless.
at January 12, 2005 11:54 AM
Add MPAC on our to-do list.
Posted by: Mike at January 12, 2005 12:13 PM
And what a "to do" list it is.
Spencer just wrote and posted a fine piece of journalism that should be required reading for the text next week on Islam and Propaganda in the West, but of course, there will be no such test, and the readership is limited. Is it any wonder? Do Spencer and his colleagues have funding around the clock from Suadi Arabia? Well, CAIR might put that out at sometime is a glossy brochure. MPAC might have Spencer and friends being the Jews on top the building directing planes into the WTC towers. They have some first class propagaqnda, in fact, some of the best that money can buy. We have Spencer and a handful of others, none of whom are financed by oil-rich Gulf States. So? Spencer and others manage to carry on effectively, and we can become the dollars they don't have in the propaganda effort: for every dollar the Saudis give we can counter with a freedom loving Human being.
We're building a volunteer army to go to the public to counter the Islamic jihad. Men and women who don't get their paychecks from the Saudi government but who take time from their lives to put in effort to organize in their communities to stop by manpower what we can't stop with money.
Some of us have been writing here for many months, we have a good idea of each other, and we write back and forth with some familiarity. On Jan. 2, 05 we, some of us, began using back pages of Jihad watch to begin a people's resistence to the jihad in our midst. We wrote and commented on how to make some kind of real counter to jihad. In less than two weeks we now have our own committee, the Planned Action Co-ordinating Committee, (PACC) at our own site off jihadwatch where we can go to begin the years long process of fighting effectively against our enemies. Not many of us are Spencers and Hughs and Emersons. But all of us are interested in fighting back in some way, and all of us are capable of something effective if we organized.
Not all of us want to organize around the same issues, but we all want to do something about the threat we live with daily. And all of us can do something. We can do more than worry. We can unite and bring Spencer's work to the general public where it belongs. We can spread the word to our friends and neighbors to the point that the PR falcks of the Islamic lobbies are spat upon when they pull out their 48 page four color glossies.
We too are the media. We don't have to be rich as Croesus to produce the truth; liars have to be rich to make the bull**** seem edible. but the truth isn't enough. It takes work to wean the public from what they've gotten used to, no matter that it's poisonous and that it stinks so badly you'd wonder how they can get it near their faces without choking. We have to work to make the public see that Islam is a violent ideology that exhorts its members to murder, that works to enslave the world population that survives under Islamic slave-rule.
There are some people here whose interests in life I don't share to any deep degree. Those people's interests, their very lives are at risk in a world of Islam. That would be you if you're a Christian, Buddhist, Jainist, Druid, or Mason. If you're a Hindu, homosexual, pub-crawler, female swimmer, or a dog-lover, your life is at risk from jihad. Regardless of my interest in your particular interests, I share with you the very fact that I'm threatened by jihad as well. These maniacs want to kill us, and the flacks are blowing cash in the attempt to make us like it. They succeed often. Most American, and nearly all the French seem to think Islam is lovely if not Love itself. Those of us who realize that Islam is a physical threat to our very lives, though we might not go to the grave for the same non-Moslem infraction, bring to my mind the line from Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead: "When they come for you they're not going to ask what kind of Jew you are."
I urge you to join us for some reflection and discussion on how to organize against Islamic jihad. If you have an interest that puts you at odds with the Islamic world, and you do because you're alive, you can join the discussion at http://jwunited.blogspot.com. We've been chatting behind the scenes for a week, and we're finding our ways around to decide how best to organize among ourselves and in our communities to fight back agianst jihad.
No, we're not up and running professional public relations pro.s. We are men and women working and learning as we go how to form interest groups, sub-committees, of people who have interests in common who care to unite to form a counter force to MPAC and CAIR, HAMAS and Islamic Jihad.
If you join us, you become part of the solution. I look forward to seeing you there.
Posted by: sonofwalker at January 12, 2005 1:39 PM
Damn this is a good column.
Posted by: DCWatson at January 12, 2005 2:11 PM
Monitor MPAC here:
http://www.mpac.org/
Monitor CAIR here:
http://www.cair-net.org/
------------------------
Anti-CAIR:
http://www.cair-net.org/
Daniel Pipes virtual library on CAIR (scroll down to "For more information on CAIR"):
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/394
Steven Emerson
Prepared statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Government Information, on February 24, 1998
(The Intimidation of Writers and Journalists by CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations); The American connections to Islamic Terror)
http://www.geocities.com/johnathanrgalt/emerson.html
at January 12, 2005 2:17 PM
For all newcomers to this site, I would like to add this to Son of Walker's eloquent PSA:
Take the time to check out the "Books" section linked at the top of the page. You will find here an indispensable list of books for those interested in the topics discussed here at Jihad/Dhimmi Watch. I would also recommend the works of former Israeli Ambassador to the UN Dore Gold (particularly "Hatred's Kingdom").
In addition to reading Jihad and Dhimmi Watch, I encourage you to check out the websites listed in the left sidebar.
Remember, Knowledge is Power.
Posted by: Mike at January 12, 2005 2:38 PM
Btw, everyone: Am I behind the times, or is the newest left-wing nut theory that Al-queda does not even exist, and was made up by the 'neo-cons'?
Posted by: Gary at January 12, 2005 2:51 PM
Rikki
You joker??
AMERICA NEEDS TO WAKE UP!
That's what we think we heard on the 11th of September 2001 (When more than 3,000 Americans were killed -AD) and maybe it was, but I think it should have been "Get Out of Bed!" In fact, I think the alarm clock has been buzzing since 1979 and we have continued to hit the snooze button and roll over for a few more minutes of peaceful sleep since then.
It was a cool fall day in November 1979 in a country going through a religious and political upheaval when a group of Iranian students attacked and seized the American Embassy in Tehran. This seizure was an outright attack on American soil; it was an attack that held the world's most powerful country hostage and paralyzed a Presidency. The attack on this sovereign U. S. embassy set the stage for events to follow for the next 23 years.
America was still reeling from the aftermath of the Vietnam experience and had a serious threat from the Soviet Union when then, President Carter, had to do something. He chose to conduct a clandestine raid in the desert.
The ill-fated mission ended in ruin, but stood as a symbol of America's inability to deal with terrorism.
America's military had been decimated and downsized/right sized since the end of the Vietnam War. A poorly trained, poorly equipped and poorly organized military was called on to execute a complex mission that was doomed from the start.
Shortly after the Tehran experience, Americans began to be kidnapped and killed throughout the Middle East. America could do little to protect her citizens living and working abroad. The attacks against US soil continued.
In April of 1983 a large vehicle packed with high explosives was driven into the US Embassy compound in Beirut. When it explodes, it kills 63 people. The alarm went off again and America hit the Snooze Button once more.
Then just six short months later a large truck heavily laden down with over 2500 pounds of TNT smashed through the main gate of the US Marine Corps headquarters in Beirut and 241 US servicemen are killed. America mourns her dead and hit the Snooze Button once more.
Two months later in December 1983, another truck loaded with explosives is driven into the US Embassy in Kuwait, and America continues her slumber.
The following year, in September 1984, another van was driven into the gates of the US Embassy in Beirut and America slept.
Soon the terrorism spreads to Europe. In April 1985 a bomb explodes in a restaurant frequented by US soldiers in Madrid.
Then in August a Volkswagen loaded with explosives is driven into the main gate of the US Air Force Base at Rhein-Main, 22 are killed and the snooze alarm is buzzing louder and louder as US interests are continually attacked.
Fifty-nine days later a cruise ship, the Achille Lauro is hijacked and we watched as an American in a wheelchair is singled out of the passenger list and executed.
The terrorists then shift their tactics to bombing civilian airliners when they bomb TWA Flight 840 in April of 1986 that killed 4 and the most tragic bombing, Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, killing 259.
Clinton treated these terrorist acts as crimes; in fact we are still trying to bring these people to trial. These are acts of war.
The wake up alarm is getting louder and louder. The terrorists decide to bring the fight to America. In January 1993, two CIA agents are shot and killed as they enter CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
The following month, February 1993, a group of terrorists are arrested after a rented van packed with explosives is driven into the underground parking garage of the World Trade Center in New York City. Six people are killed and over 1000 are injured. Still this is a crime and not an act of war?
The Snooze alarm is depressed again.
Then in November 1995 a car bomb explodes at a US military complex in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia killing seven service men and women.
A few months later in June of 1996, another truck bomb explodes only 35 yards from the US military compound in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. It destroys the Khobar Towers, a US Air Force barracks, killing 19 and injuring over 500. The terrorists are getting braver and smarter as they see that America does not respond decisively.
They move to coordinate their attacks in a simultaneous attack on two US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. These attacks were planned with precision. They kill 224. America responds with cruise missile attacks and goes back to sleep.
The USS Cole was docked in the port of Aden, Yemen for refueling on 12 October 2000, when a small craft pulled along side the ship and exploded killing 17 US Navy Sailors. Attacking a US War Ship is an act of war, but we sent the FBI to investigate the crime and went back to sleep.
And of course you know the events of 11 September 2001. Most Americans think this was the first attack against US soil or in America. How wrong they are.
America has been under a constant attack since 1979 and we chose to hit the snooze alarm and roll over and go back to sleep.
In the news lately we have seen lots of finger pointing from every high officials in government over what they knew and what they didn't know. But if you've read the papers and paid a little attention I think you can see exactly what they knew. You don't have to be in the FBI or CIA or on the National Security Council to see the pattern that has been developing since 1979.
The President is right on when he says we are engaged in a war. I think we have been in a war for the past 23 years and it will continue until we as a people decide enough is enough.
America needs to "Get out of Bed" and act decisively now. America has been changed forever. We have to be ready to pay the price and make the sacrifice to ensure our way of life continues. We cannot afford to keep hitting the snooze button again and again and roll over and go back to sleep.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Admiral Yamamoto said "...it seems all we have done is awakened a sleeping giant." This is the message we need to disseminate to terrorists around the world.
Support Our Troops and support President Bush for having the courage, political or militarily, to address what so many who preceded him didn't have the backbone to do both Democrat and Republican. This is not a political thing to be hashed over in an election year this is an AMERICAN thing. This is about our Freedom and the Freedom of our children in years to come.
Please forward this to as many people as you can especially to the young people and all those who dozed off in history class and who seem so quick to protest such a necessary military action.
Posted by onesandzeroes at June 17, 2004 12:12
Part of the American Tribe
Squirrel Hunter
Spider Killer
God Bless the USA and her Fighting Forces and ALL who Fight with her give them Strength, Wisdom, Sight, and Courage to stay the course to Victory [FREEDOM] to Destroy ALL Islamic Terrorist and ALL who Support them Amen
at January 12, 2005 4:20 PM
sonofwalker and Mike:
I can't log in at JW United. I enabled cookies but that didn't help. I e-mailed the site the day the blog was created but they still haven't answered my request for help.
Any advice?
CGW
Posted by: CGW at January 12, 2005 4:25 PM
How to Win the Holy War?
America is truly striving to do a great thing for peace in the middle east, offering its best of policy and law; yet one has to pity the people in Afghanistan where in order to feed his family a farmer has to quit growing pomegranates to grow poppies for America’s heroine addiction. This is the where the murderous propaganda comes from when we hear about Islam. These people of the Middle East have treaties and tariffs imposed on them that limit Arab tribes receiving medical and food supplies. America looks self-serving while having good intentions and evident in Sir Lanka is very good hearted when it comes to crisis. Freedom abounds in America, but the freedom of America was for the Puritan Pilgrims’ in Freedom to Worship. Not Freedom from Religion. Now, the Ten Commandments have been removed, States are separated from Church, an America now alleges to take God out of the pledge of allegiance all while in Holy War. America is about to exceed it’s altruistic good by abomination. An ole American politician once said, “America is Great because America is Good, but if America ever ceases to be good ~ it will cease to Great.” Some of you Americans might take this Holy War sacred and clean up your act and smut off television–cause if it wasn’t for your Puritan pilgrims you would have no freedom. Its no wonder the extremist Islamic people revile you! And stewardship of the earth didn’t mean kill every thing so you can rich either?. As an American Indian, I am ashamed of how America has used our earth’s resources. So if America can win in this Holy War, he should start with peace within him self instead of material gain. God Bless America’s Freedoms as the Good Puritans intended for He is the Alpha and the Omega~! God Bless America~ and the Arab people~! For, the Wrath of God is the worst terror. Striving to be Archangel.
at January 12, 2005 4:43 PM
OT:
A short update on the new site project.
Rabbit is currently busy putting all the information on the "clearinghouse" site. Once everything is given the final approval, it will be moved "Babypasta".
I can say, from all the information that was sent in and all the hard work everyone put in to this, it's going to be fantastic. I sent over 5 hours worth of data. And, have a couple more hours to send tonight.
The Mission Statement is completed, just putting 1 change in, But, it is exactly what the group stated they wanted us to represent. George Mason did a wonderful job on putting this together.
Now, the next section I would like to add is going to be called "The Experts Corner".
If everyone could forward over to me articles from the likes of Robert, Hugh, Daniel Pipes, Michelle Malkin, Ali Sina, Steve Emerson, Victor Hanson, etc., we will make a space for those.
You can forward them to susan_b356@yahoo.com
Posted by: susan_b at January 12, 2005 6:28 PM
Mr. Spencer -- Well written and thorough. Thanks.
Posted by: former liberal WF at January 12, 2005 6:46 PM
Mr. Spencer, you might want to consider including, in your excellent article, Wolf Blitzer of CNN among notables who jumped the gun and erroneously attributed the OKC bombing to radical Islamofascist jihadists.
A fine piece of work.
Posted by: Joe Dees at January 12, 2005 7:29 PM
Thank you, Robert Spencer, for a superb piece of reporting.
I did a little googling on Steve Emerson and post below the fruits of my labors:
_________
NPR's ombudsman says Steve Emerson is not banned from NPR: http://www.npr.org/yourturn/ombudsman/020222.html
_________
NPR blacklisted Steve Emerson:
"You have my promise he [Emerson] won’t be used again,” wrote NPR Producer Ellen Silva in 1998 to Ali Abunimah of American Arab Action Network. "It is NPR policy.”
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/2/19/170315.shtml
_________
Testimony of Steven Emerson with Jonathan Levin before the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, July 31, 2003:
http://govt-aff.senate.gov/_files/073103emerson.pdf
_________
Why the Islamists target Steve Emerson by Stephen Schwartz: http://www.techcentralstation.com/120704B.html
_________
A piece by Steve Emerson posted at SecularIslam.org:
http://www.secularislam.org/discussion42/_disc42/000001c4.htm
________
PS: Could somebody please provide the html tag formula for encoding a link? Thanks.
at January 12, 2005 8:01 PM
Chu-Pit-it-sta-ka-
You're about as much a Native American as I am a member of the Saudi royal family. Keep the propaganda efforts ot MuslimsWakeUp!.com and spare us you transparent masque b.s.
Shoz-Di-ji-ji* knows better.
(*'Little Bear'in Apache)
A footnote-
In contradiction to this Muslim apologist's group's claim of a 'BIG anti-Islamic slur' and 'total mistake' by Emerson:
The Oklahoma City bombing by McVeigh and company, has been tied, by journalist Jayna Davis, to Iraqi agents who emigrated after the Gulf War as 'refugees' and Al-Qaeda offshoots in the Phillipines who met with the surviving member of the mass-murder fertilizer bomb plot, Nichols. (They appear to have found 'useful idiots' in McVeigh's anti-government cabal and steered them into being de facto Muslim/Saddam-ist terrorists.)
Check it out at
She has been working with members of Congress to probe what whas been an FBI failure/cover-up from the start of the Federal Building bombing probe.
So Emerson's suspicions seem to be slowly turning out to be a good 'gut response'.
(But I've heard his punctuation is terrible; and he has been known to use a semicolon where a mere comma would suffice. That evil Muslim-bashing alarmist!)
Posted by: profitsbeard at January 12, 2005 8:08 PM
Dear chu-pit-it-sta-ka:
America has its sins to answer for, as is true of the American Indians and everyone else. But these can be seen in perspective and in fact taken as a whole are NOT nearly as horrendous as you have tried to make them look. You have done this to advance YOUR OWN AGENDA. You are an asshole and I am going to destroy your phony case.
Most of the world's wildlife and ecosystems were NOT destroyed by the United States as you incorrectly state. True, during the 19th century there were drastic depletions of the bison, passenger pigeon, whales and many others. However, during the 20th century amends were made. Populations of many endangered species were restored, and impending extinctions were averted courtesy of the Endangered Apecies Act. The East Coast nearly totally deforested in the 19th century was reforested by the most successful reforestation program in world history. None of this is anything to be 'ashamed' of. What you OUGHT to be ashamed of is your vicious distortions of reality. I am ashamed of you and your INTENTIONAL distorting of facts you. And so is everyone else. You CANNOT fool us Chu. We know history far better than you do. We made it. By the way, America's freedom stems from the COnstitution which has no influence from Puritanism.
For instance you have implied that the United States is responsible for worldwide depletion of wildlife. False.
The destruction of the Amazon's forests for example has largely been underwritten by Asians, my friend. If you 'follow the money' my friend you will see that ownershipof territory in Amazonia being denuded is land owned by Asian corporations and landowning families who leased out lands for profit. Few if any are American. The governments of South America are the ones profitting off this--not the United States. Americans have attempted to slow the destruction, to no avail. These governments are not interested. Yet your head would explode before you blame someone else other then the United States, no?
The wildlife trade in sub-Saharan Africa has little if anything to do with the United States. Most animal slaughtering in the African bush is carried out by African mafia-like organizations and directly supplies the Chinese market for food, medicinal substances and ivory. The United States is NOT 'getting rich' off any of this. I bet YOU Chu-pit are getting rich taking kickbacks badmouthing American people and making bogus statements about them. Who's paying you, buddy?
Now for islam. In its 13 centuries of Jihadist activity it has murdered at least 400 million human beings, tortured countless others. It is alien to America as its object of worship, al-lah. But what you do not know is that Muslims are IDOLATERS. Al-lah was manufactured by the Babylonians and is an idol--it bore the name 'Marduk' and could possibly prove to be Satan. The Judeo-christian deity that you write about is 'yahweh.' Some will tell you that Muslims and Christians worship the same god--but not so. AL-lah is the Arabian moon-god, once called 'marduk,' Yahweh is the being of light the jews encountered in the Old Testament. VIrtually nothing relatedto Arabs by al-lah or Marduk matches whatYahweh taught the Jews....Never shall the twain meet!
you're an ignorant idiot!
at January 12, 2005 9:39 PM
About 10 days ago I saw the MPAC give a conference on C-SPAN titled "Religious and Political Extremism." Needless to say, it little more than a bitch session against the Bush administration and the neocons (Why else do you think they included "political" in the title?).
John Esposito was on the panel. I remember him referring to Daniel Pipes as "not a scholar, but a political ideologue." The rest was mostly the same old whining by different people with Arab accents. It amazes me that a culture so lacking in empathy can feel so shameless about exploiting the empathy of others!
What really took the cake was how they handled the question and answer session; the audience wrote their questions on index cards that were collected by helpers! In other words, they wanted TOTAL CONTROL over what questions they had to face in public! This is the first time I had ever seen this cowardly technique used on C-SPAN (or anywhere for that matter!).
Geez.
Posted by: Rublev at January 12, 2005 10:21 PM
they wanted TOTAL CONTROL over what questions they had to face in public!
Posted by: Rublev
If I was a Moslem, I wouldn’t want people knowing the truth about Mohammadanism either. When you know the truth, It is so hard not to view Moslem as foolish, dumb, dense, stupid, etc... it sounds harsh, but the fact remains that the Qur’an is full of major contradictions and inaccuracies.
Common sense tells us that a book full of major errors could not possibly be the word of a divine deity.
I have yet to find one Moslem or Moslem web site that can seriously rebut any argument made on this site or any site like it.
The seem very capable of making outlandish statements that only add to the already overwhelming evidence against them.
at January 13, 2005 2:47 AM
I strongly feel that Steve Emerson has methodically researched and then convincingly put together a case that the danger militant Islamic Muslims and their terrorists organisations posing as peaceful religious organisations pose to America is real, immediate and grave. I wonder why then that the general public of America does not seem to take this threat seriously.
I base this assumption on the fact that if a clear majority of Americans (both those in power and the general public) really believed him and took the threat seriously then I would here more main-stream news stories (over here in Australia) about their views and more news of anti Islam people power events i.e. mass petitions to the government, open and frank discussions at high levels about Islam and its terrorist links, anti-Islamic rally’s etc. or at worst hearing through our biased media that Americans on the whole are voicing their Islamophobia and becoming a nation of religious bigots (as they should be in regards to Islam).
As this is not happening then I can only assume that it is the minority who understand the threat, and the majority who either don’t believe there is one at all, or don’t understand or underestimate the threat. If we take this to be true then the next question is, do the majority of the majority not believe, or do they not understand or underestimate the threat? I sincerely hope, and do believe myself that it is the latter option.
I say this as I myself, not much more than 3 months ago knew bugger all about the threat apart from what I was hearing on the mainstream media. Luckily I have an interest on getting my news from more than one source and thus in my search for un-biased or different points of view came across sites like JW. Soon I was spending most of my free time learning as much as I could about the religion itself and issues in the world today involving it. The more I learnt though the more I realised that this is a grave problem for those who want to live in a world of peace and liberty. It is only very recently though that I have started to do a few posts on JW about my fears (my posting call name is Earthling).
I live in Western Australia and all though we really don’t seem to have much of a problem here, I have learnt enough to know that Australia wide (especially the east coast) the problem is rising. Much like it seems for the rest of the world, Australian politicians and main-stream media don’t seem to do any substantive investigating in to the issue or try to take an unbiased line of reasoning and look at the threat for what it is. Instead they seem to be constantly downplaying it, claiming a few terrorists have hijacked Islam (even though they are doing exactly what the Qur’aan says to do) and even worse sometimes they seem to side with these supposed leaders/spokesmen for the so called “religion of peace” and their propaganda.
This suspicion was confirmed to me when two Christian pastors were found guilty in Victoria of religious hatred. This was because they had some sort of group discussion at their church (I believe) on the militant nature of Islam and its lack of human rights and so on. I was (and am still) in disbelief of this verdict as it seems to me that the very text that forms the basis for the religion of Islam, the Qur’aan, is itself a book that spews forth religious hatred in abundance. I can only surmise that if using the same guidelines under which the judge used to find the pastors guilty, if the Qur’aan itself was put on trial for religious hatred it to would also have to be found guilty. Is this line of reasoning flawed, I can’t see how. Whether you can put a religion on trial for religious hatred is what I don’t know (I seem to remember a Billy Connelly film though where he sued God…….can’t we sue Allah or Muhammad for religious hatred……….wishful thinking I would think).
Anyway as I have stated above I believe that it isn’t so much a problem of getting people to believe but more a problem of educating them to the exact nature of the threat thus leaving them no option of underestimating it. Thus I started to try and alert my friends to the threat of Islam and met with varying degrees of success. In the worst case a few of my friends have accused me of being racist and trying to distribute unsolicited right wing offensive rubbish. The fact that these people responded instantly to my e-mail when I had asked people to do some study of their own before writing back with rhetoric, just proves that we are facing a big problem with some of the public out there. I had thought these “friends” were quite intelligent and perceptive but since they can’t seem to grasp that Islam is a religion and not a race and that interest in and championing of the issue of understanding Islam and especially Islam militancy and Jihad has nothing to do with what side of politics you may choose, I now have to seriously question my earlier judgment on my friends mental capabilities. The fact that they are rabid raving lefties might have something to do with their response as well though.
Overall what I seemed to get most though was that my friends didn’t disagree about the evidence or threat it posed but that they really didn’t care as it didn’t affect them (90% of them are either atheists or agnostics……….I myself am an agnostic) in their day to day life. When I agreed that it isn’t a big problem here in Western Australia and that the real threat will probably be for their kids or their grandkids they also didn’t disagree, just didn’t care.
Unfortunately I don’t think they are in the minority, most people these days either misunderstand your motives for trying to alert people to a threat that doesn’t affect them, downplay the actual threat or just down right don’t give a shit. This last part is what I fear the most.
I do think that at some level a lot of people do realise the threat exists but can’t be arsed to do anything about it as it doesn’t seem to directly threaten them. This I think was the attitude of a lot of people just before WW2 and look where that got them…….DEAD. Thus I think we are doomed to be the vocal minority until such time as it’s plainly clear (say a nuclear bomb being set off in Washington, New York, or London) that Islam is a grave threat to the entire world and that there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim, only a Muslim who is fully educated as to what his religion is truly about (good Muslim), and those who aren’t (bad Muslim). Then maybe the majority of people and hopefully the majority of bad Muslims will realise that there is nothing to be gained in life by ignoring or adhering to what is by my opinion, just a death cult. Am I being overly pessimistic (I hope not), but please anyone out there with a more optimistic line of thought on our chances of educating the masses before it’s too late I would love to hear it.
This really is the true battle of the fight against Islam, as if we can’t alert the majority of the people in the west (when blatant acts like 9/11 and well written arguments like Steve Emerson’s book American Jihad haven’t been able to) to the threat Islam poses then the terrorists are already well on their way to winning.
at January 13, 2005 5:12 AM
Pythgoras,
Don't bother with the troll, "shitforbrains", err I mean Ch-pit-it-sta-ka.
He has been to the site under the following names:
urretards, hateshutup,and a few others, was emailing me for a while under the name Matt Madder. Nathan ripped him a new one over that.
He's not Indian. He does this to get a reaction. Hopeing to get someone to answer. He use to post on Pak News, using the same technique until some people of real Indian heritage tore him up.
He always goes to the Indians and we're destroying the Earth, then he will move along to Hiroshima and Nagisaki. Predictable, BORING! (yawn) same garbage.
I think he's some geeky guy that can only get attention this way, otherwise he wouldn't try SOOOOOO hard to get someone to notice him.
Posted by: susan_b at January 13, 2005 7:47 AM
Robert-
I finally got a chance to read this last night and I just wanted to compliment you on what a great job you did here. One of your best articles yet!
at January 13, 2005 10:37 AM
Chu-Pit-it-sta-ka:
Your knowledge of the Puritans vis a vis the freedoms we enjoy today is quite lacking. Our freedoms, enshrined in the Constitution, are based on the secular philiosophy and theories of the Age of Enlightenment, not on the Puritannical off-shoot of Calvinism that washed up on these shores prior to the Revolutionary Era.
Furthermore, in case you haven't noticed, this is JIHAD Watch, not Environment Watch, or Spiritual Journey Watch or American History Watch or Media Watch - can you make an effort to stay on topic? Take those other issues where they belong.
It's no wonder people think you're a troll in Native American clothing. Your rambling wrecks are quite revealing in this regard.
at January 13, 2005 10:52 AM
Dear Pythgorus, profitbeard, & Susan_b,
American Indians have been fighing terrorism since Columbus. If the truth hurts, I'm sorry. And sorry that Thirteen states weren't enough and the leader of the free world has lead us to chose war for the oil for the world economy and the United States wont abide by the Keyoto treaty to cut gas emissions because of the economy. If it wasnt for some NDNs: England, France and Spain would still have annexes here. I am trying to find the good about America. Why dont you call people bad names who are trying to take the name of God out of Pledge of Allegence. You can all me all the names you want, but it wont convince me your right and i am wrong. If it wasn't for genocide of American NDNs' then how would have Hitler thought of trying to make the perfect society? CFC's harm the people who created them - with harmful ultraviolet rays to people who have no melinin in their skin. I cant help Karma, SARS - for blankets of small pox? What's done is done. But, would seem to benefit America to get back to its original ideals in why the european came over to this country so pitiful and oppressed. The Same God that parted the Red Sea is watching this Holy War, too! So go ahead and call me names if you want - if you had a gun you'd probly shoot me too- just like an extreme Islamic prosecutor.
at January 13, 2005 11:20 AM
I do not hate the muslim world. I hate Islamic terrorism.
Posted by: flameon1 at January 13, 2005 12:10 PM
Interesting to say the least, a video message from the Islamic jihad army, (note the word jihad is only used in the title).
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7468.htm
Posted by: John B at January 13, 2005 2:58 PM
Posted by: Earthling at January 13, 2005 05:12 AM
I find the easiest way to tell people did you hear those mulsum killers JUST CUTT OFF ANOTHER PERSONS HEAD??
this works every time!!
And Talk about what them mulsums are doing around the worls Most people see things in Black and white and when confronted with the MS13 coming across the border and working with Islamic Terrorist and the Teaching of Spanish in Baggdad works too!!
Talk about the new toys[for protection] you bought and this ease the Fears of not being able to do anything !!
An armed neigbor is a good thing to have!!
and then go back to talking about the weather a safe zone people like that??
Some funny storys are good too? Like giant spidersLOL
Part of the American Tribe
Squirrel Hunter
Spider Killer
God Bless the USA and her Fighting Forces and ALL who Fight with her give them Strength,
PS
Chucks story about the people in the church is a good one and point out hundredpercent web site and show the people of Indoneisa in their full bloom??
PSS
For those real hard Lib's get the DVD "Buried in the Sand The Deception of America " and show it to them and this will open their Eyes??
Do not have children in the room while playing!!
I bought 2 so i could give one to my libairy!
at January 13, 2005 4:19 PM
Profitsbeard, you beat me to it; to all of you who may have missed it, you will indeed enjoy reading Jayna Davis' very well researched and well documented book, "The Third Terrorist."
It leaves one with the inescapable impression that the OK City bombing was an Islamic attack.
Posted by: cubed at January 13, 2005 4:44 PM
The Collective Conscience of JiHad watch & Pythgorus, profitbeard, & Susan_b,
As An American NDN who has lived beside the European for over 500 years, American NDNs are here too and I dont know why no-one says anything in defense for them because they did not want to sell their lands and walk. We survive by policy and freedom and laws. So if the Holy people of Islam are so holy then why can't live without killing? Striving to be, ARchangelrpr.
at January 13, 2005 5:44 PM
Chu-Pit-it-sta-ka
I feel that if you have an arguement you want to get across, it helps to be able to write. Maybe you should take some English comprehension classes before you start posting, as I have real trouble understanding what you are trying to say. It seems to me that you claim that you are an American NDN who has lived beside the European for over 500 years. I would have thought this was plenty of time to learn how to express what you want to say clearly.
Posted by: Earthling at January 13, 2005 8:54 PM
you claim that you are an American NDN who has lived beside the European for over 500 years. I would have thought this was plenty of time to learn how to express what you want to say clearly.
Posted by: Earthling at January 13, 2005 08:54 PM
ROTFL
YOU GET A GOLD STAR FOR THAT!!
at January 13, 2005 9:09 PM
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