This article is an excellent example of how Leftists and Islamic supremacists take on those whom they hate and fear: they don’t ever engage their arguments or make any attempt to refute them on a rational basis. Instead, they heap personal attacks upon their foes, and pretend that what they’re saying is self-evidently false. They apparently think that they don’t have to bother with genuine discussion and debate because the ignorance and credulity of their readers is impenetrable. On that score they’re probably right. More below.
“The Ayaan Hirsi Ali problem: why do anti-Islam Muslims keep getting promoted as ‘experts’?,” by Wardah Khalid, Vox, March 1, 2016:
A 2011 Air Force Research Laboratory white paper has been widely and rightly criticized in recent weeks for making a number of offensive and unsubstantiated claims about Islam, including that wearing hijab — the Islamic headscarf — is a form of “passive terrorism.”
The article, titled “A Strategic Plan to Defeat Radical Islam,” was published online a few weeks ago by the website Public Intelligence and had been reissued by the Air Force as recently as last summer. It is shocking and irresponsible that such an outrageous claim was included in a military report, but perhaps most surprising of all is that the author was not some far right-wing pundit, but a Muslim.
So saying that wearing hijab is a form of “passive terrorism” is an “offensive and unsubstantiated claim,” and indeed, an “outrageous” one. But note that Wardah Khalid does nothing to substantiate her claims that this is a terrible thing to say. She offers nary a single reason why anyone should not think that wearing hijab is a form of “passive terrorism.” All she has done is throw mud. And there’s more mud coming:
The writer is Tawfik Hamid a self-proclaimed “Islamic thinker and reformer, and one time Islamic extremist from Egypt.” He is currently a fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies and is the author of a number of books on radical Islam.
But it’s not just this one report or this one author. Hamid is part of a long line of “pseudo-experts” on Islam, and he represents a much larger problem in which fringe Muslim Americans pushing an anti-Islam agenda are promoted as legitimate experts, thus mainstreaming ideas that are both offensive and incorrect.
Why is Tawfik Hamid a “pseudo-expert”? Why, because Wardah Khalid says so, and apparently because he has made this claim that we are supposed to take as “offensive and unsubstantiated.” Yet more glaringly unsubstantiated here is any reason why Tawfik Hamid should be seen as unreliable.
These pseudo-experts typically argue some version of the idea that Islam is inherently violent and oppressive and needs to be reformed or defeated altogether. Their views are treated as legitimate by virtue of their religion; they are Muslim or formerly Muslim themselves, so they must know. This doesn’t just lead groups like the Air Force Research Laboratory to portray junk analysis as correct; it also promotes fringe ideologues as legitimate representatives of Islam and of Muslim Americans, when they are anything but.
Has Wardah Khalid established that Islam is not “inherently violent and oppressive”? No, she doesn’t even bother. It’s “junk analysis,” you see, and no doubt if you’re skeptical of this in light of the loudly proclaimed Islamic bona fides of the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hizballah, and so many other jihad terror groups, you’re a racist, bigoted Islamophobe.
Most famous is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Dutch-American author and former Muslim who argues for a complete reformation of Islam, calling it “the new fascism” and “a destructive, nihilistic cult of death.” She demanded a Western-led war on the religion and was cited as a source of inspiration in the 1,500-page manifesto of Anders Breivik, the right-wing shooter who killed 77 people and injured 319 in Norway. Hirsi Ali later sympathized with Breivik’s argument that he “had no other choice but to use violence.”…
The claim that Ayaan Hirsi Ali justified Breivik’s murders or sympathized with his argument is plain libel; she did no such thing. Breivik was a psychopath who murdered people because he was a psychopath; if Ayaan Hirsi Ali had really incited him to kill, there would be other readers of Ayaan killing people. In reality, Ayaan Hirsi Ali never called for violence against anyone, and never justified any, and in making this claim, Wardah Khalid reveals how deeply mendacious she really is, and how desperate to discredit those whom she hates and fears.
A fellow laureate of the Lantos Prize is Irshad Manji, who argues that the entire religion of Islam requires reform. Manji has also testified against “political correctness” around Islam at a Homeland Security subcommittee hearing on the Fort Hood shooter, strongly implying that the FBI intentionally withheld critical information that could have stopped the shooter because of its fear of speaking out against Islam. This was despite openly admitting that she had absolutely no knowledge of whether FBI officers actually withheld any information. Her only claims to expertise were her negative personal experiences in Islamic school and her current status as a “reformist” Muslim.
Does Wardah Khalid explain why “the entire religion of Islam” does not need reform? No. And I don’t know what Manji said about Fort Hood — Wardah Khalid isn’t specific enough for her claims to be checked — but it is a matter of public record that the Fort Hood jihad murderer, Nidal Malik Hasan, was promoted despite having been in touch with Anwar al-Awlaki and having frightened his coworkers with his talk of jihad. The massacre could certainly have been prevented had it not been for politically correct fears of prosecuting a Muslim officer.
Zuhdi Jasser, the founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, was relatively unknown to the Muslim American community until he testified at Rep. Peter King’s extremely controversial homegrown Islamic terrorism hearings in 2011, where he stated that Muslims are “long overdue for an ideological counter-jihad.” He claimed that Muslim American leaders, including imams, are contributing to radicalization by not actively campaigning against political Islam or for the separation of mosque and state.
Jasser’s are ideas we would more easily recognize for what they are — and would likely reject out of hand — if not for the fact that Jasser is himself Muslim.
Does Wardah Khalid prove that Muslim American leaders, including imams, are not contributing to radicalization? No.
And so it goes. Being an Islamic supremacist spokesman today is a great gig. It gets you fawned over in the mainstream media and a ready platform to smear your enemies, and you never have to explain yourself or defend your views in any way. No wonder there are so many of them.