In my Human Events column this week we actually meet a politician with spine:
The latest American official to be targeted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for exercising his freedom of speech is the mayor of Clarksville, Tenn., Johnny Piper. CAIR joined Clarksville-area Muslims in scolding Piper for forwarding an e-mail that protests against an Islamic stamp issued by the U.S. Postal Service.
Too many politically correct officials cower before CAIR. They accept its self-definition as a civil rights organization (which it is not) and ignore the facts that it is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas funding caseand that sevveral of its officials have been convicted of terrorism-related offenses.
But Piper — refreshingly enough — is not backing down.
It all started last Friday, when without comment Piper forwarded to city council members and other Clarksville officials a viral e-mail that has been circulating for years, although Piper received a new version that erroneously blames Barack Obama for the stamp. The e-mail calls upon “patriotic Americans” to protest against the stamp that commemorates the Muslim holidays Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. The e-mail exhorts readers to “remember the MUSLIM bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993!”
Ahmed Joudah of the Islamic Center of Clarksville declared the e-mail was marked by “appalling ignorance of what Islam is, and who Muslims are. I laughed when I read it, but at the same time, I felt sorry that we still have people around us that think that way.”
In what way did the e-mail manifest “ignorance”? Apparently Joudah was referring to its designation of the 1993 World Trade Center attack as an example of “Muslim terrorism.”…