In FrontPage I discuss the latest of many examples of Islamic supremacist organizations and “journalists” trying to keep the truth about Islam and jihad from being heard by law enforcement officials.
A smear campaign of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) recently failed to get former FBI agent John Guandolo’s training course for law enforcement officers canceled in Culpeper County, Virginia. Religion News Service ran an editorial masquerading as a news story that the Washington Post picked up, attempting to ensure that this effrontery would not be repeated.
The fiercely smiling author, Omar Sacirbey, has refused to retract demonstrable falsehoods he has published about me in the past. In his hit piece on Guandolo he is no less magnificently unimpressed with the truth, as he assembles an impressive tissue of smears, half-truths, innuendos and lies about various foes of jihad terror, and wraps them up nicely into a “news story” that the WaPo, eager as ever to run defamation in the service of Islamic supremacists and jihadists, then presents to its hapless readers.
“Law enforcement officers in Virginia,” Sacirbey began, “will no longer receive credit for a counterterrorism course taught by a former FBI agent and anti-Muslim activist after the academy where the course was taught canceled its accreditation the day it was scheduled to begin.”
Sacirbey uses “anti-Muslim” throughout this piece for foes of jihad terror, which — as I have said before when pseudo-journalistic ideologues like Sacirbey have used this term in the past — is like calling foes of Nazism “anti-German.” It shows Sacirbey’s bias and sympathy for jihadists, and should never be acceptable practice in what are supposedly respectable journalistic outlets like RNS and the WaPo. But standards go out the window when it comes to journalists covering for jihad terrorism; they do it so unanimously, zealously and unflinchingly that they must either be true believers or paid off, or both.
But as far as Sacirbey was concerned, the only one paid off was Guandolo, whose seminar, “Understanding and Investigating Jihadi Networks in America,” he noted was “advertised as $225 per trainee.”
This emphasis on the fee is straight out of the Leftist/Islamic supremacist playbook. Leftist allies of Islamic supremacism such as the Center for American Progress and the Southern Poverty Law Center have millions upon millions of dollars — far more than any counter-jihad organization or individual has ever had. But it is a staple of these smear pieces that the so-called “Islamophobia industry” is a well-heeled machine in which people are just in it for the money, as if getting regular death threats and constant vilification is worth any amount of money. Anyway, $225 is a perfectly reasonable charge for a seminar like this one — indeed, far lower than what other organizations charge for programs of similar duration.
But Sacirbey is following his marching orders: Imply that it’s all about the money. Thus he claims that after 9/11, “anti-Muslim speakers began offering their courses to local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, which paid for them with taxpayer-funded government grants. Nearly 13 years later, these speakers continue to win lucrative fees to train law enforcement officers despite a history of rhetoric that seems to undermine their credibility.”
I would have told Omar Sacirbey if he had asked me, but of course he didn’t, because he didn’t want the truth: when I was flying around the country in order to help give training seminars for the FBI, CIA, JTTF, and military groups, I didn’t get paid. Not a penny. Not even for expenses. I paid my own way, bought my own hotel rooms, etc. On a few occasions a Colonel who had me speak several times on military bases told me about a form I could fill out for reimbursement of my travel expenses. I never filled out the form. I did the training out of a sense of duty to my country, not for personal gain. If Omar Sacirbey were a journalist rather than a smear merchant, he might have asked me and some others what we were paid, whether we were paid, etc. But quite obviously he is not a journalist.
He goes on to applaud the smear campaigns of which this claim is a part, while bemoaning their occasional lack of success: “While Muslim-American activists and media reports have raised awareness about anti-Muslim trainers, occasionally resulting in curriculum reviews and canceled classes, many say the problem persists because there are too few police administrators to properly vet courses and instructors.”
What Sacirbey means is: “The problem persists because there are too few Leftists and Islamic supremacists putting pressure on police administrators so that they don’t dare host a course that tells the truth about Islam and jihad.”
But he claims that training such as Guandolo’s is actually dangerous: “The consequences, critics add, go beyond political incorrectness and include undermining public safety and obscuring real dangers as police officers chase bad leads based on profiling.”
What’s behind this absolutely baseless charge (for which Sacirbey offers no evidence, because there is none) is the ongoing effort by Hamas-linked CAIR and other groups like it to end all surveillance of Muslim communities, including the NYPD’s program which just withstood a Leftist/Islamic supremacist challenge in court.
That’s just the beginning of Sacirbey’s baseless charges and sly smears:
For example, Guandolo, who taught the Culpeper class, is seen saying in a YouTube video with anti-Muslim blogger Robert Spencer that CIA Director John Brennan converted to Islam. In another recording, he claims that Brennan is “unfit for duty,” because he has brought in leaders of Hamas to advise the government.
Note again the identifier intended to demean: I’m an “anti-Muslim blogger.” Not, say, “bestselling author and former FBI trainer.” Daniel Martin Varisco, another “Islamophobia” smear merchant, has a blog and was recently whining about how it was less popular than Jihad Watch. But you can be sure that Sacirbey would never, ever refer to Varisco as a “blogger.”
Anyway, Sacirbey presents Guandolo’s charge that Brennan is a Muslim as if it were self-evidently false. On what basis? Has Brennan ever denied this? No. Is it widely known that there is a top intelligence official in the Obama Administration’s CIA who has converted to Islam? Yes. It was reported in none other than the Washington Post in 2012. Why couldn’t it be Brennan? Did Sacirbey speak to Brennan? If he did, he doesn’t mention it in the article. What is much more likely is that Sacirbey didn’t speak to Brennan, and has no idea whether or not he is a Muslim, but since Brennan hasn’t said anything one way or the other about the charge, he uses it to portray Guandolo as crazy. (You can see the video of my interview with Guandolo here.)
And not just crazy, but depraved: “In addition, federal court papers claim that as an undercover FBI agent, Guandolo had a sexual affair with a witness that could have interfered with an investigation into corruption by former U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, a Democrat from New Orleans.”
“Could have.” Anyway, what does this have to do with whether or not John Guandolo is qualified to speak about the jihad terror threat? Why, nothing. Nothing at all. But it’s a stick that Sacirbey can use to beat Guandolo, and that’s good enough for him.
As if all this weren’t enough, Sacirbey then turns to Hamas-linked CAIR for an expert opinion:
“His views on Islam are the equivalent of historical anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic falsehoods,” said Corey Saylor, national legislative director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, wrote in a letter to Jenkins. “Guandolo offers only his own prejudiced and inaccurate conspiratorial views, not solid counterterrorism training.”
It is no surprise at all that Sacirbey doesn’t bother to mention that CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case — so named by the Justice Department. CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. CAIR’s cofounder and longtime Board chairman (Omar Ahmad), as well as its chief spokesman (Ibrahim Hooper), have made Islamic supremacist statements. Its California chapter distributed a poster telling Muslims not to talk to the FBI. CAIR has opposed every anti-terror measure that has ever been proposed or implemented.
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