If one unsavory Leftist group is good, two is better: “The Southern Poverty Law Center calls Guandolo ‘a notorious Muslim-basher and conspiracy theorist.’”
It is also no surprise that Sacirbey doesn’t bother to note that although the SPLC lists hundreds of groups as “hate groups,” they lump legitimate conservative groups in with neo-Nazis and racist groups, and include few, if any, Leftist and Muslim groups on the list. Nor does he mention that the SPLC’s “hate group” designation against the Family Research Council led one of its followers to storm the FRC offices with a gun, determined to murder the chief of the FRC. This shows that these kinds of charges shouldn’t be thrown around frivolously, as tools to demonize and marginalize those whose politics the SPLC dislikes. But that is exactly what they do. Its hard-Left leanings are well known and well documented. This Weekly Standard article sums up much of what is wrong with the SPLC.
Sacirbey breezes by the questionable aspects of these groups: “Guandolo did not agree to be interviewed but instead provided a reporter with a list of associations between founding members of CAIR and people alleged to be connected with Hamas.”
Note that Sacirbey provides no examples, and implies that CAIR’s connection to Hamas is a matter of association, and that Guandolo or one of his fellow “Islamophobes” originated it, rather than noting that it comes from the Justice Department.
Other anti-Muslim activists who regularly teach police officers include Sam Kharoba, a Jordanian-born Christian who preaches that Islam is inherently violent and that a Muslim wearing a headband signifies he wants to be a martyr….
I don’t know Kharoba, but I doubt he said that “a Muslim wearing a headband signifies he wants to be a martyr.” Sacirbey isn’t a trustworthy source. Meanwhile, by simply heaping scorn on the assertions that “Islam is inherently violent” and that “terrorism and Islam are inseparable,” Sacirbey hinders the public discussion that needs to be had about how Islamic jihadists use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify violence and supremacism. Anyone who is honest and observant can see that there is a unique problem with Islam and violence; consigning the entire question to “anti-Muslim bigotry” only actually reinforces suspicion of Islam and Muslims that non-Muslims do have.
Spencer, founder of the JihadWatch.com blog and whose anti-Muslim writings were cited by Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik, has given seminars on Islam and jihad to the U.S. Central Command, Army Command, the Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group, the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the U.S. intelligence community, according to CAIR.
You’d think Sacirbey would be ashamed to play the Breivik card after Breivik himself has publicly stated that he associated himself with the counter-jihad movement in order to discredit that movement. Of course, maybe Breivik was a convinced counter-jihadist and then tried to throw people off the scent with his recent claim; even if that were true, Sacirbey is trying to associate me with Breivik’s murders while not bothering to mention that Breivik actually criticized me for not calling for violence, saying of me, Bat Ye’or and other critics of jihad terror: “If these authors are to [sic] scared to propagate a conservative revolution and armed resistance then other authors will have to.” (Breivik, 2083: A European Declaration of Independence, p. 743) Breivik explains in his manifesto that he was “radicalized” by his experiences with Muslim immigrants in the early 1990s, before I had published anything about Islam (See Breivik, p. 1348). That Sacirbey omits all this is nothing short of libelous, and shows yet again his propagandistic agenda.
It’s funny also how Sacirbey attributes those items from my resume to CAIR, as if they investigated me and ferreted all that out. Actually they only had to search as far as my bio on this site. If Sacirbey wants proof that I did this training, I have plenty, including certificates of appreciation from Central Command and the Asymmetric Warfare Group. But of course, he didn’t ask.
In July 2011, Gawker reported two of Spencer’s most criticized books, “The Truth about Muhammad” and “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam,” are recommended in FBI training materials.
Criticized by whom, exactly, and for what agenda? Sacirbey doesn’t say. What in either of them is factually inaccurate? Sacirbey doesn’t say, because he can’t, because the books are accurate.
Critics of these speakers have in some cases succeeded in getting their courses canceled. In Illinois, three sessions of a course taught by Kharoba were canceled last year; the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said it would no longer use Kharoba. In 2011, the FBI did a review of its materials and trainers after news reports that their materials contained anti-Islamic instruction.
Actually they did it after 57 Muslim groups, including many with ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, wrote to John Brennan demanding that I be removed as an FBI trainer and that counter-terror materials be scrubbed of references to Islam and jihad. Brennan immediately agreed, without any apparent thought to the associations and allegiances of the groups that were making their demand, or to their goal in all this.
Prior to Guandolo’s course, Jenkins agreed to let local Muslims and Saylor deliver a presentation to officers where they described the history and beliefs of Islam, and warned about stereotypes and misperceptions about Muslims.
This is how those Islamic supremacist liars and smear artists at Hamas-linked CAIR get a foot in the door. Jenkins, had he been informed enough, would have done better to tell Saylor that no group with ties to Hamas was going to make any presentation.
“I think they looked at his resume, former FBI and former Marine, and did not look much further,” said Saylor. “A quick Internet search reveals his professional and bias issues.”
This is how groups like Hamas-linked CAIR and their “journalist” allies like Sacirbey operate: they pile up false charges and half-truths, creating the appearance of “professional and bias issues,” so that officials who are busy and harried and careless (i.e., most officials) simply don’t want the controversy, and shy away from the speakers CAIR targets. It’s insidious and dishonest, but all too often it works. The possibility that a group with associations and positions like CAIR’s might want to silence foes of jihad terror simply because they are foes of jihad terror doesn’t enter into the mind of too many people.
Steve Emmons, executive director of Oklahoma’s Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training, said his agency doesn’t have enough personnel to vet the 3,000 course requests the council gets annually….
It wouldn’t take much to avoid future controversies like this, Emmons said.
“If we even had two or three people who did nothing else but look at the paperwork that comes in with the course materials and lesson plans and that kind of thing, yeah, we’d be able to review those things.”
They should also look long and hard at who is doing the complaining, and ponder what their agenda might be. And what Omar Sacirbey’s is, quite obviously.