In FrontPage this morning I dissect more victimhood propaganda from our old friend Haroon “Dwayne” Moghul. Oh, and by the way, Dwayne, my Starbucks name is “Haroon.”
The clown prince of “Islamophobia” propagandists, Haroon Moghul, published this ominous diagnosis in Time Magazine last week:
Your smartphone is more advanced than nearly every air-traffic control system. Our sewage pipes, bridges and highways are falling apart. The residents of Flint, Michigan, just found their water is the opposite of potable. We are still the world’s most powerful country, one of the most secure, and one of the most stable. But our country has been crumbling apart for years now, and we’ve done next to nothing about it.
You can blame Islamophobia for that.
It’s always fun to see Haroon Moghul, or “Dwayne,” as he styles himself for fear of “Islamophobia” at Starbucks, taking up the cudgels again, as his increasingly risible “Islamophobia” victimhood posturing is always good for laughs: Dwayne is far funnier than, say, Dean Obeidallah, who actually calls himself a comedian but appears never to have said anything funny in his life.
Yet to be sure, Moghul is as vicious as other “Islamophobia” propagandists, despite his comic persona: he cheerfully traffics in defamation and dishonesty and routinely takes advantage of his audience’s ignorance about Islam to invert reality, portraying Muslims as victims of a cruel “Islamophobia” machine, instead of non-Muslims threatened by the global jihad.
And now we learn from the sage and stalwart Dwayne that “Islamophobia” is to blame for the disintegration of America’s infrastructure. What? Have dastardly “Islamophobes” infiltrated the air-traffic control system and the government of Flint, Michigan? Have these “Islamophobic” villains persuaded those who take care of our nation’s sewage pipes, bridges and highways that if they kept them in good repair, Muslims might use them?
No. Dwayne has a splendid comic touch, but he is not quite that good. What he means is that if we hadn’t spent all that money in Iraq and Afghanistan, we would have the money to shore up our infrastructure. And that is actually true. Osama bin Laden has stated that he carried out the 9/11 attacks in order to weaken America economically, and he succeeded in splendid fashion. Both the Iraq and Afghanistan incursions were disasters in every way. They were intended to create stable secular republics that would be beacons of freedom in the Islamic world; only someone who believed that Islam is religion of peace that is completely compatible with democracy could ever have thought that outcome would be achieved.
The problem, however, was how we responded to 9/11, not the fact that we responded at all. But Moghul is suggesting that the best response to the global jihad threat would be to ignore it: al-Qaeda, he says, was “a fringe terrorist movement with the support of the backwater Taliban” that Bush transformed into “an existential threat to Western civilization.” Never mind that the Taliban actually ruled Afghanistan at the time, and that al-Qaeda had a global network and had declared war against the United States. “Jeb Bush was one of the rare Republican candidates who wasn’t an anti-Muslim bigot, but he still described ISIS as an ‘existential threat.’ Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, maybe, and in any case, Jeb’s out. But I hardly think Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi can destroy the world’s most powerful nation.” Certainly not by means of a conventional war. But his plan is to overwhelm law enforcement and intelligence agencies with so many jihad attacks and plots that they collapse, and bring the whole system down with them.
And in September 2014, the Islamic State issued a lengthy call to Muslims to murder non-Muslim civilians in the U.S. It says: “If you are not able to find an IED or a bullet, then single out the disbelieving American, Frenchman, or any of their allies. Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him down from a high place, or choke him, or poison him. Do not lack. Do not be contemptible. Let your slogan be, ‘May I not be saved if the cross worshipper and taghūt (ruler ruling by manmade laws) patron survives.’ If you are unable to do so, then burn his home, car, or business. Or destroy his crops. If you are unable to do so, then spit in his face.”
Yes, how “Islamophobic” of Jeb to see this group as an existential threat!
What’s more, as wrongheaded as Bush was about both Iraq and Afghanistan, he was responding to a jihad attack that took 3,000 lives. Haroon Moghul is characterizing that response as “Islamophobia.” Apparently he would have preferred we had surrendered outright.
Moghul also whined: “Has any other demographic had to suffer the indignity of being declared insufficiently loyal to be President, or hear proposals to be banned from the country?” Of course, no one said that Muslims were “insufficiently loyal to be President” or should be banned from the country. Ben Carson noted that elements of Sharia contradict Constitutional freedoms, which is manifestly true, since Sharia denies the freedom of speech and equality of rights for women and non-Muslims. Carson pointed out that a Sharia-adherent Muslim would have troubled defending certain elements of the Constitution. That was true, and needs to be discussed. Instead, as Leftist commentators always do, Dwayne misrepresents the position of those he hates and fears and sets up a straw man.
The very concept of “Islamophobia,” for that matter, is a straw man. Moghul decries what he calls “the deliberate and calculated inflammation of anti-Muslim sentiment on the right,” maintaining that “anti-Muslim sentiment” comes from sinister professional “Islamophobes.” He would have us believe that nobody would get a negative view of Islam from, say, Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki and Khaled Shaikh Mohammed and Muhammad Atta and Nidal Malik Hasan and Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Mohammed Abdulazeez and Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik and so very many others like them. Tell us another, Dwayne!
Time Magazine was once the place where Whittaker Chambers wrote his lyrical and elegant paeans to freedom and rallying cries to stand against Communist tyranny. Now it gives itself over to the likes of Haroon Moghul to pen preposterous victimhood narratives in support of Islamic supremacist tyranny. A swift and steep descent indeed.

Angemon says
How much was spent on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? And how much was spent on “entitlement” programs in the same time frame?
revereridesagain says
Ye gods, Robert, does Dwayne mean to tell me that all those potholes in the Southeast Expressway I bounced over last time I drove home from Ahavath Torah (Stephen Coughlin’s talk, worth every mile) are the result of Islamophobia? Maybe we could put all those prison dawah Muslim jailbirds in Massachusetts to work filling them in.
I think Dwayne’s just cranky because he can’t get an open carry permit for his scimitar.
Jay Boo says
I can understand a Muslim with a Muslim sounding name wishing to be called “Dwayne” at Starbuck’s call out that your order is ready.
I find no blame there.
However, Muslims should not mislabel this as OUR problem due to our Islamophobia.
After all, they have clearly brought this on themselves.
Every Muslim should not be afraid, but should be rightfully ashamed to be called a Muslim.
The least they could do is to bow their heads in shame and offer us an apology.
Mirren10 says
“Oh, and by the way, Dwayne, *my* Starbuck’s name is Haroon.”
Shrieks ! Mr Spencer, I *love* you ! 🙂
sidney penny says
“Oh, and by the way, Dwayne, my Starbucks name is “Haroon.”
Oh, Robert Spencer, you are very funny.
sidney penny says
Almost as good as your talks;
“I have my Koran here.(pause), I don’t leave home without it”(laughter)
rabrooks says
Islamophobia? Islama-in my crosshaires! What kind of idiot who claims to be some type of moderating party, would hear the “2014, the Islamic State issued a lengthy call to Muslims to murder non-Muslim civilians in the U.S.” and in no way question the intent of the speaker, but blame Americans for reacting. When any organism is threatened, it will take a means to defend itself. But that’s the key. Defending ourselves is “islamophobic”. Real simple.How could anyone, ever agree with crap like this? Once again, you can’t make up stuff like this.
SoCalMike says
Time Magazine provided a forum for Treason during the Cold War too.
They are just repeating today what they did back then.
Grizzly Bernadotte says
Islamophobia is stupid word…morons that use such words should go see what these moslem supremacists arecdoing to europe. They intend upon the extinction of the unique european cultures and put into force ISIS STYLE SHARIA LAW. They want war…welcome to world war 3. WW3Will be fought differently to what you expected.
But Europe must choose Islam or Death…there is no other choice.