Latest Updates: anti-Muslim fearmongering RSS

  • johnpi 9:37 pm on February 20, 2010 | 3 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: anti-Muslim fearmongering, , , Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, , , , , , ,

    Long Wars Journal publishes a very personal defense of Rashad Hussain, Obama’s newly-announced envoy to the OIC, written by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross.

    Before I address the various controversies that have surrounded Rashad, I’d like to make clear that I have known him for a considerable length of time, since 1998. Those familiar with my own biography will realize that I was a practicing Muslim back then. So I have known him as a co-religionist; and know him now as someone who worships a different God than I do, but whose religious practice I respect.
    ….

    I think the dozen years in which I have known Rashad and had the opportunity to assess his beliefs and character provide important context for this defense. Many of the attacks on him are the proverbial view from 50,000 feet: and it is sometimes easy to misunderstand what you see from that distance.

    I’m surprised to see this coming from Gartenstein-Ross, who (according to his Wikipedia bio) has worked for Smearcaster Steven Emerson (also one of the media persecutors of Sami al-Arian) and who wrote a book, “My Year Inside Radical Islam: A Memoir” that the Wiki bio says has been called the American version of Ed Hussain’s “The Islamist.” Here’s the first sentence:

    Before I was an FBI informant, an apostate, and a blasphemer, I was a devout believer in radical Islam who worked for a Saudi-funded charity that sent money to al-Qaeda.

    Here, he offers an insight into Rashad’s remarks about al-Arian:

    Rashad’s concerns about the al-Arian prosecution, and other prosecutions that he discussed in that context, stemmed not from an Islamist ideology but rather from a civil-libertarian ideology. It is clear from his 2004 speech that Rashad is a Kerry-supporting Democrat rather than a bin Laden-supporting jihadist.

     

  • johnpi 6:59 pm on February 11, 2010 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: anti-Muslim fearmongering, , , , , , , , , , , ,

    Tennessee mosque vandalized after local tv station airs irresponsible report on ‘homegrown jihad.’

    The local news report prominently referenced a ‘documentary’ by the Christian Action Network about Jamaat ul-Fuqra communities, including one in central Tennessee called Islamville. I blogged about both the alarmist irresponsible CAN film and the Fuqra last year (also here and here).

    Amanda Terkel writes about what happened in Tennessee:

    …the Nashville CBS affiliate (Channel 5) decided to give the film legitimacy by conducting an “EXCLUSIVE” investigation into a Muslim community in rural Tennessee called Islamville, which is featured in the movie. “Some believe it is a secret Islamic terrorist training camp,” reads the Channel 5 article. “Others have said that’s simply not true.

    The two-part ’special’ report found nothing of concern, but the two days of hype leading up to the report may have precipitated this:

    Photobucket

    There was also a note taped to a youth facility nearby with a bunch of comments about Islam being the enemy, satanic, etc, etc. A spokesman for the mostly Somali mosque said:

    “It’s unexpected,” he adds. “The only thing I can think of is the sensationalized reporting [by Channel 5] over Sunday and Monday. That’s the only thing I can think of. Even after 9/11 we have never had any vandalism.“

     

  • johnpi 8:55 pm on February 10, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: anti-Muslim fearmongering, , , , ,

    Conservative activists rebel against Fox News: Saudi ownership Is ‘really dangerous for America.’

    Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal owns a 7 percent stake in News Corp — the parent company of Fox News — making him the largest shareholder outside the family of News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch. Alwaleed has grown close with the Murdoch enterprise, recently endorsing James Murdoch to succeed his father and creating a content-sharing agreement with Fox News for his own media conglomerate, Rotana.

    Last weekend, at the right-wing Constitutional Coalition’s annual conference in St. Louis, Joseph Farah, publisher of the far right WorldNetDaily, blasted Fox News for its relationship with Alwaleed. Farah noted correctly that Alwaleed had boasted in the past about forcing Fox News to change its content relating to its coverage of riots in Paris, and warned that such foreign ownership of American media is “really dangerous.” ThinkProgress was at the speech and observed attendees of the conference murmuring and shaking their heads in disapproval.

    The Saudis get demonized from every point on the US political spectrum. The writer of the above at the liberal Think Progress blog then points out:

    With the Citizens United Supreme Court decision essentially freeing corporations to spend unlimited amounts in campaigns, theoretically Alwaleed can pressure the American corporations he owns stock in to spend millions — or even billions — of dollars attacking candidates he opposes.

    Problem here is that the Saudis sometimes appear in American political discourse as a proxy for ’scary Muslims,’ and so I see these kind of comments as skewing dangerously close to anti-Muslim fearmongering.

     

  • thabet 5:54 am on January 30, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: anti-Muslim fearmongering, , , , , , ,

    Eurabia, the ’shoddy and just plain wrong genre that refuses to die’.

     

  • johnpi 8:05 am on January 21, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: anti-Muslim fearmongering, , ,

    Muslim police in the UK have attacked the government’s anti-terrorism strategy for triggering an upsurge in Islamophobia and deepening divisions in communities.

    The National Association of Muslim Police (NAMP) warned that the Prevent programme, which aims to combat violent extremism, was “stigmatising” Muslims by focusing on “so-called Islamist extremism.”

    The group said the real threat came from the growing far-right movement.

    “The hatred towards Muslims has grown to a level that defies all logic and is an affront to British values,” said the association in a written submission to a parliamentary commission examining the anti-terror initiative.

    “The climate is such that Muslims are subject to daily abuse in a manner that would be ridiculed by Britain, were this to occur anywhere else.”

    There may be a “connection in the rise of Islamophobia and our Prevent programme as it feeds on the stereotypes that the media and some rightwing parties promote,” the group said.

    These stereotypes were that “all Muslims are evil and non-trustworthy”, added the officers.

     

  • johnpi 10:48 pm on January 11, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: anti-Muslim fearmongering, , , , , New Mexico, ,

    The Muslim students at the University of New Mexico are fed up with the constant drip of racist, Islamophobic dreck in the comments on an Oct. 26 2009, letter to the editor of the campus newspaper. I posted an excerpt and a link here at TI at the time, prompting one of our regular commenters to observe:

    Comments over there are BATSHIT. Beyond Gongshow of Idiocy. They read like manifestos of the radical KILL ALL MOZLEMS AFORE THEY KILLS US nutters.

    The campus Muslim Student Association penned a more careful, politick letter in response that was published in the student newspaper, and which I’m reproducing here in full:

    On behalf of the Muslim Student Association at the University of New Mexico, we would like to express our concerns and disappointment about many of the comments posted in response to the article, “UNM’s Islam classes teach non-Muslims fear, hatred” published online on Oct. 26.

    Many comments posted in response to the article eluded discussing the issue the author of the article was presenting. Instead, the comments slowly drifted to discussing Islam as a religion, which is not a problem. We live in a free country, and our freedom of speech is one of the many qualities that define this great nation. But freedom of speech should not be abused to slander and vilify a people or religion.

    Our organization found that may of the comments posted on the Daily Lobo’s Web site can be characterized as extremely racist:

    (More …)

     

  • johnpi 8:59 am on January 11, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: anti-Muslim fearmongering, , , , , ,

    US Congressional Rep. Sue Myrick appears to be making a bid to become the next prominent anti-Muslim fearmonger in the US. She has begun a regularly weekly Youtube infomercial series that will discuss the dangers of Islamic terrorism and “the threat to Western civilization” that will also play on her congressional website.

    The usual MO of people like Myrick is to take voices from the margins of the Muslim community and represent them as being at the center. As Willow wrote in 2008, “Would it be a smear against America if someone made a documentary citing only The KKK, the Weathermen, the Freemen, and the Black Panthers?”

    TPM reports that in the coming weeks she will produce an episode that will be based on the same document that the “Third Jihad” hate film is based on – a letter supposedly written by an anonymous “North American operative” of the Muslim Brotherhood and which it is claimed reveals a ‘civilizational jihad’ and a secret master plan among Muslims to destroy the US from within and create an Islamic state in North America.

    Myrick, who represents the 9th congressional district in North Carolina, is pushing her audience to promote the fear:

    Visit our Web site on a regular basis because we’re going to be posting a lot of new information, and it will be valuable to you, and you can share it with your friends and neighbors so they can be educated as well. Because if the American people don’t know what’s going on, we might as well hang it up.

     

  • johnpi 1:14 am on December 22, 2009 | 3 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , anti-Muslim fearmongering, , , ,

    The Christian Science Monitor, which ran a series last week on the hijab and is generally considered to be a neutral secular alternative source of news, has run an editorial about the upcoming trials of 11 men for their roles in mass casualty attacks on the US. The author says it will be a “moment of truth” for the Muslim world about Islamic theology.

    I’m uncertain how to respond to this editorial. I can’t determine if its intent is to reinforce anti-Muslim fearmongering, or if it is a genuine attempt to describe reality.

    If it had been written by someone like Daniel Piper or Robert Spencer then it would be fairly simple, but the author, Walter Rogers, doesn’t appear to be another neocon smearcasting flunkie. Rogers has been the object of hasbara attacks for his criticism of Israel, and advocates that the US should withdraw from Afghanistan.

    Rogers writes, “Political correctness aside, the jury is still out in the court of American public opinion” on whether Islam is a religion of peace.

    He says the trials will also raise the question of dual or divided loyalty, a question that has been raised about many American minorities.

    And then he cites the writings of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson about their dealings with the sultan of Tripoli to assert the perspective that Islam has a long history of belligerence.

    Walters concludes with this: “As with all faiths, virtue lies in the effect it has on its adherents. So it is not unfair to ask: “Which Islam is the religion of peace, and how do we tell the difference?” Only Muslims can answer that.”

    Agenda-driven fearmongering or attempt to describe reality…not sure.

     

  • johnpi 11:23 pm on December 19, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , anti-Muslim fearmongering, , B'nai Brith, ,

    Challenging what is becoming an increasingly common Islamophobic smear: That Islam is somehow juxtaposed with Nazism. Usually a photo is bandied about of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem meeting with Adolf Hitler. Sheila Musagi writes:

    The actual Nazi party originated in Germany, a predominantly Christian country. The actual Facists came out of Italy, another predominantly Christian country. The Nazis and Fascists were predominantly Christians. Christianity had a role in the rise and fall of the Nazi’s. The Vatican signed a concordat with Hitler’s Reich. The Catholic responses to Hitler were ambiguous at least.

    There are numerous photographs of Hitler with various Christian clergy including Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo, the papal nuncio in Berlin, and with a Catholic Cardinal, Spanish and German Bishops giving Nazi and Fascist salutes, Cardinal Michael Faulhaber marching in a Nazi parade, the Reich Bishop Ludwig Muller, and many more that are still available. There are also numerous photographs of Christian symbols in Nazi artifacts.

    The latest example of the Nazi libel is a full-page newspaper ad taken out by the Canadian branch of B’nai Brith. BB once had a reputation as a solid defender of core liberal values: anti-racist and against persecution of peoples for their physical or cultural attributes. But an advertisement like this largely undermines that reputation and makes a plain example of how B’nai Brith – along with some other Jewish civil rights organizations such as the ADL – have been emptied out of their core values and now engage in the same kind of low conduct they were created to resist.

     

  • johnpi 9:32 am on December 17, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: anti-Muslim fearmongering, , Evan Kohlmann, , ,

    Much thanks to Eli Clifton for drawing attention to Thomas Friedman’s Tuesday column in the New York Times where he says the Muslim world needs to undergo a bloody, traumatic civil war on a par with the American Civil War in order to defeat extremism. Thanks Tom.

    What’s worse, the expert who is his main source of information for the column is none other than Evan Kohlmann, a “terrorism expert” every bit as stupid and ignorant and willfully misleading as Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer.

    How stupid is Kohlmann? He was finally banned from testifying in a terrorism trial in 2008, but Clifton draws attention to a Spinwatch article wherein this wonderful courtroom performance on Kohlmann’s part is recounted from earlier in his career:

    There have been numerous attempts to [ban Kohlmann from testifying in terrorism trials] in the past four years, which until now have been unsuccessful.

    In one such case Kohlmann was put forward as an expert on the Bangladeshi Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami. Under cross examination it transpired that he had never written any papers on the party, nor been interviewed about the group. He had never been to Bangladesh, could not name the country’s Prime Minister nor the name of the leader of Jamaat-e-Islami. Neither could he name a single political party in the country.

    When he was asked if he had heard of the Bangladeshi National Party – which led the political coalition joined by Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh at that time – he said it sounded “vaguely familiar”. Incredibly Kohlmann was still permitted as an expert witness.

    Wow.

    This is the source for the columnist who was ‘voted by a bipartisan group of nearly 250 Washington “insiders” as the most influential media figure in shaping their own opinions and worldviews.’

     

  • johnpi 6:06 pm on December 14, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: anti-Muslim fearmongering,

    Glenn Greenwald takes on the allegedly growing domestic Muslim threat.

    At least from all appearances, these claims are being made exclusively on the basis of a handful of recent episodes involving American Muslims accused of having links to Al Qaeda and/or the Taliban. There is no data whatsoever offered to corroborate the claim of a “trend.” Given the obvious dangers inherent in trumpeting threats from internal sources — as well as the motives the Government generally has in disseminating such warnings and the motive it specifically has when escalating a war — far more than a few anecdotes ought to be required before any of this is believed.

     

  • johnpi 4:36 pm on November 19, 2009 | 25 Permalink
    Tags: , anti-Muslim fearmongering, , , , ,

    Virulent Muslim hater Rudolph Giuliani is running for US Senate in New York next year, aiming for White House in 2012: Report.

    Following earlier reports that former New York City mayor and Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani had decided not to enter the 2010 governor’s race comes word that he has decided to run for Senate instead.

    While Giuliani’s spokeswoman is denying that he has made up his mind about which race, if any, to enter, sources tell the New York Daily News that Giuliani has been telling people he “plans to run against Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in 2010 to fill out the remaining two years of Hillary Clinton’s term.”

    Giuliani is prominently featured in the ‘Third Jihad‘ movie, and was talked up by his New Hampshire campaign manager last year as the guy who could “Chase Muslims back into their caves or get rid of them.“

     

  • buzz 4:36 am on November 18, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: anti-Muslim fearmongering, , , ,

     

    CAIR: Va. Gov-Elect Asked to Repudiate Anti-Islam Donor’s Remarks

    One of McDonnell’s top contributors says Muslims should be treated like communists, fascists

    WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — A prominent national Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization today called on Virginia’s Governor-elect Robert F. McDonnell to publicly repudiate anti-Islam remarks by Pat Robertson, the televangelist and gubernatorial campaign contributor who recently said Islam is “not a religion” and that American Muslims should be treated like members of a communist or fascist party.

    (More …)

     

  • johnpi 6:34 am on November 11, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , anti-Muslim fearmongering, ,

    Muslim Mafia author’s call for backlash against Muslims embarrasses even right-wing think tank.

    This just goes to prove what I’ve suspected all along, that Muslim bashers use the phrase ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ as a proxy epithet to refer to all Muslims.

    …the right-wing think tank that published conservative author Dave Gaubatz’s call for a backlash against the “Muslim community” has now scrubbed the line and replaced it with a call for a backlash against the “Muslim Brotherhood.”

    Here is the line as it was:

    Politicians, Muslims, and law enforcement are concerned about a ‘backlash’ against Muslims. Now is the time for a professional and legal backlash against the Muslim community and their leaders. Muslims know what materials are being taught in their mosques and they know many of the materials instruct young Muslims to kill innocent people who do not adhere to Sharia law.

    And as it appears now:

    Politicians, Muslims, and law enforcement are concerned about a ‘backlash’ against Muslims. Now is the time for a professional and legal backlash against the Muslim Brotherhood and their leaders. Muslims know what materials are being taught in their mosques and they know many of the materials instruct young Muslims to kill innocent people who do not adhere to Sharia law.

    As TPM observes, “Even on its own terms, the new passage doesn’t make a ton of sense, shifting from Muslims to Muslim Brotherhood and back to Muslims.”

     

  • johnpi 7:15 am on November 10, 2009 | 18 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , anti-Muslim fearmongering, , , , ,

    A Hindu writer at Forbes magazine has coined a new term he hopes catches on: ‘Going Muslim’ a play on a term that has existed in American popular culture for awhile, ‘Going postal.’

    “Going postal” is a piquant American phrase that describes the phenomenon of violent rage in which a worker–archetypically a postal worker–”snaps” and guns down his colleagues.

    As the enormity of the actions of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan sinks in, we must ask whether we are confronting a new phenomenon of violent rage, one we might dub–disconcertingly–”Going Muslim.” This phrase would describe the turn of events where a seemingly integrated Muslim-American–a friendly donut vendor in New York, say, or an officer in the U.S. Army at Fort Hood–discards his apparent integration into American society and elects to vindicate his religion in an act of messianic violence against his fellow Americans. This would appear to be what happened in the case of Maj. Hasan.

    The difference between “going postal,” in the conventional sense, and “going Muslim,” in the sense that I suggest, is that there would not necessarily be a psychological “snapping” point in the case of the imminently violent Muslim; instead, there could be a calculated discarding of camouflage–the camouflage of integration–in an act of revelatory catharsis.

    The writer, Tunku Varadarajan, goes on to complain about ‘political correctness,’ as so many other articles of this ilk have.

     

  • johnpi 4:37 pm on November 9, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , anti-Muslim fearmongering, , , ,

    Muslim Mafia author explicitly calls for “a professional and legal backlash against the Muslim community and their leaders.”

    In assigning collective blame for the Fort Hood killings, Gaubatz said:

    Politicians, Muslims, and law enforcement are concerned about a ‘backlash’ against Muslims. Now is the time for a professional and legal backlash against the Muslim community and their leaders. Muslims know what materials are being taught in their mosques and they know many of the materials instruct young Muslims to kill innocent people who do not adhere to Sharia law. If Muslims do not want a backlash, then I would recommend a “house cleaning.” Stack every Saudi, al Qaeda, Pakistani, Taliban, Hamas, and Muslim Brotherhood piece of material from their mosque and have a bonfire. Tell the American, Jewish, and Muslim community this hatred will no longer be allowed in their mosques.

    As TPM notes, all of this might be dismissed as the ranting of a fringe lunatic, but for the fact that Gaubatz’s work has been circulated and endorsed by prominent Republican lawmakers.

     

  • johnpi 7:20 pm on November 6, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , anti-Muslim fearmongering, , , , , collective guilt, , , , ,

    Media Matters has put together a concentrated mass of garbage in the form of a roundup article of right-wing media efforts to demonize Muslims over the last 24 hours.

    It appears that ‘political correctness’, ie, the effort on the part of well-intentioned Americans to be fair and just and not ascribe collective guilt, is as much a target as Muslims.

     

  • johnpi 7:14 pm on November 6, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: anti-Muslim fearmongering, ,

    Fox pundits muse about ‘special screenings’ and ‘special debriefings’ for Muslims in the military.

    On Fox and Friends, host Geraldo Rivera, after offering an homage to Muslims who have served honorably in the military, suggested that “special debriefings” and “special screenings” of Muslim soldiers should be considered.

    “If I’m going to be sticking in an outpost, I got to know the guy next to me is not going to want to kill me,” said Brian Kilmeade. Gretchen Carlson pondered whether the military had been “exercising political correctness in not approaching” Hasan “as seriously as they would have had he not been a Muslim.”

     

  • johnpi 6:57 pm on November 6, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: anti-Muslim fearmongering, , ,

    Muslim Mafia booster Rep. Myrick: I’m on the Hasan case.

    Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC), who wrote the foreword to Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld that’s Conspiring to Islamize America, said today she is “very concerned” about infiltration of the military by jihadists.

    “We can’t continue to be so politically correct that we’re going to say this wasn’t religiously motivated,” Myrick told the Charlotte, North Carolina, CBS affiliate. She noted the reports that Nidal Malik Hasan shouted “Allahu Akbar” before he allegedly opened fire in the shooting spree at Fort Hood Thursday.

    With the line about political correctness, Myrick was echoing conservative writers like Michelle Malkin, who declared today “political correctness is the handmaiden of terror.”

    Hasan’s motivation in the shootings is not yet clear. President Obama said today: “I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we get all the facts.”

    I’m sure the “Muslim Mafia” Islamophobia project is going to get a force multiplier effect from yesterday’s events.

     

  • johnpi 6:50 am on November 6, 2009 | 31 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: anti-Muslim fearmongering, , , , , , ,

    Fort Hood anti-Muslim Backlash immediate.

    Funny thing about this story is that there is no “lead,” no summary or topic sentence, just backlash examples and background information on Hasan.

    His name had barely been released, his heritage and history not immediately known, but the reaction was fast and furious.

    “Jihad at Fort Hood?” read the headline of a post on the Jihad Watch blog just moments after Nidal Malik Hasan was identified as the alleged perpetrator of a mass shooting at the Texas military base that killed 12 people and wounded 31 others.

    “The name tells us a lot, does it not, senator?” Fox News’s Shep Smith said while interviewing Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas senator.

    This is also where I become very critical of the older civil rights and anti-discrimination organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center. There is not one word today on the possible impending backlash from this attack on either their blog or their website. Yet, if you read the linked story above you’ll see progressive/liberal bloggers (ideologically, the SPLC’s fellow travelers) throughout the blogosphere are talking/cautioning/warning and imploring people to resist collective punishment/retaliation. The SPLC does note anti-Muslim attacks from time to time, but it seems to be wearing blinders the rest of the time when it comes to Muslims.

     

  • johnpi 10:03 am on November 4, 2009 | 9 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , anti-Muslim fearmongering, , , , , , , , , ,

    Key resource in fight against anti-Muslim fearmongering movies disappears.

    The website “Obsession with Hate” that was created by the Hate Hurts America Multifaith Community Coalition – of which CAIR is a “coordinating member” – to combat the anti-Muslim hate movies “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West” and “The Third Jihad” is gone. Its address was http://www.obsessionwithhate.com.

    Many Muslim blogs as well as civil rights and civil liberties groups linked to the site to provide a vital corrective to the two hate documentaries that are still being shown to groups all across the US when smear merchants like Walid Shobat and Nonie Darwish speak. All of those sites now have broken links that redirect them to a “GoDaddy.com” page.

    The “Obsession with Hate” website broke a major story against the two documentaries. When Islamic studies professor Khaleel Mohammed who appears in the “Obsession” movie declared he had been tricked by the makers into participating and called it a “vile piece of propaganda” he gave his statement exclusively to the OwH website. The only place you are going to find Mohammed’s statement now is at blogs like my own that excerpted it extensively or just flat-out republished it despite the “exclusive” tag.

    I also used the site earlier this year to identify Glen Jenvey as one of the Obsession documentary’s pundits when Jenvey’s ‘fake Islamist’ story was developing.

    For the organizations that were involved in creating the website and promoting it within the Muslim community as a reliable resource to now close it down is deeply irresponsible, and lends itself to creating a reputation that CAIR and the other groups involved are flakey and unreliable partners in the fight against Islamophobia and anti-Muslim propaganda.

     

  • johnpi 7:18 pm on October 20, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: anti-Muslim fearmongering, , , ,

    Fox News piles on Imam Siraj Wahhaj. Very sleazy.

     

  • johnpi 6:34 pm on October 15, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: anti-Muslim fearmongering, , , , , , ,

    Glenn Greenwald drills in on the ‘Muslim spies’ fiasco in Congress, using a chart to draw attention to the idiocy of the fearmonger that America is at risk of “Islamization” as promoted by four Republican Congressional reps, Sue Myrick (R-N.C.), John Shadegg (R-Ariz.), Paul Broun (R-Ga.) and Trent Franks (R-Ariz.).

    Photobucket

    Says Glenn:

    89.3 percent of the members of Congress are Christian, 8.4% are Jewish, and a grand total of 2 members (.4%) are Muslim. Their representation on the chart (the green section) is so small they’re practically invisible. Muslims comprise .6% of the American population. Yet these people are running around screaming about the imminent “Islamization of America” and imposition of Sharia law and calling for criminal investigations because a few interns on Congressional Committees — American citizens — might be Muslim and are therefore “spies.”

    In an update he adds:

    The U.S. Congress and the country belong to CAIR members every bit as much as they belong to Myrick and her constituents.

    Thank you Glenn.

     

  • johnpi 5:59 pm on October 15, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , anti-Muslim fearmongering, , , , , , ,

    TPM has more on the author of the book that unleashed the Republican hysteria about “Muslim spies:”

    That would be David Gaubatz, a former Air Force investigator and Arabic speaker, who dispatched his son Chris to grow a beard and go undercover as a Muslim to obtain an internship at the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Gaubatz, who has long warned about the threat of Islamism in the United States, has claimed that he found Saddam’s long-lost WMDs while in Iraq and has labeled Obama “Muslim” and a “self-admitted ‘crack head.’”

    Here’s a neat check list of teh Crazy of Gaubatz compiled by TPM:

    • He referred to “our Muslim leader” Barack Obama on his blog last year.

    • He has claimed that he personally found sites with Iraqi weapons of mass destruction when he was an agent with the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations in 2003. But the Syrians beat us to the punch on excavating the sites, Gaubatz claims, and the U.S. government suppressed the information to avoid the “explosive revelation of their own lethal incompetence.”

    • Just yesterday he wondered about Congress’ two Muslim representatives, “How much information do we have on Carson and Congressman Keith Ellison?”

    • According to Glenn Greenwald, Gaubatz in 2007 was focusing his time on creating “a comprehensive map of every mosque and Islamic school in the U.S” in order to determine which ones were preaching “Islamic law.” The Web site that explained that project has since been made private.

    • He said in September 2008 on a now scrubbed blog post at http://www.jihadishere.blogspot.com that: “We are now on the verge of allowing a self admitted ‘crack-head’ to have his finger on every nuclear weapon in America.”

    • He apparently has a history of faking conversions to Islam as part of his investigations.

     

  • johnpi 5:41 pm on October 15, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , anti-Muslim fearmongering, , , , , John Conyers, , Loretta Sanchez, , , , ,

    TPM has been doing an excellent job of covering the response to the ‘Muslim spies’ accusation that four Republican reps. made yesterday, ie, that CAIR interns on Capitol Hill are actually “spies” who are somehow working against American interests in favor of a mythical Muslim collective. The four reps are Sue Myrick (R-N.C.), John Shadegg (R-Ariz.), Paul Broun (R-Ga.) and Trent Franks (R-Ariz.).

    First there were the strong denunciations that came from congressional Democrats Loretta Sanchez, Andre Carson and John Conyers. Carson called it “”fearmongering at its worst.” Here’s Sanchez:

    As a strong advocate for diversity and religious freedom, I find these claims to be outrageous and offensive. I urge the rest of my colleagues to join me in denouncing this witch hunt, which is clearly intended to create fear and distrust in our Capitol Hill community.

    Andre Carson, it turns out, was “infiltrated” by a fake CAIR intern who was actually the son of the author of a World Net Daily publication that incited the four Republican reps. to make their “Muslim spies” charge. The author is P. David Gaubatz, and his son is Chris. Here is a picture of Chris in his Muslim persona with Rep. Carson:

    Photobucket

     

  • buzz 1:32 pm on October 6, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: anti-Muslim fearmongering, Big Brother, Divide and Conquer, , , , ,

    thecell2

    Orange Alerts are back!

    Former NFL quarterback and terrorism expert John Elway is hosting a new video from “The Cell” which is advocating awareness in an ominous 8 minute video which runs down a list of terrorist warning signs: fertilizer, disposable mobile phones, strange equipment, rehearsals, picture taking, making money….basically everything, everything is a sign you are a terrorist. That fact that you are or look Muslim is just icing on the cake.

    Heavy music, obligatory 9-11 footage. Brilliant advice on tracking down the terrorists. I think this is just a colorado thing. I hope. Click on pic to see the goods. 8 reasons to be in a continual state of fear.

     

  • johnpi 8:33 pm on October 1, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: anti-Muslim fearmongering, , , ,

    Keith Ellison rocks.

    Congressman rebukes fellow Muslim for linking Islam to terrorism.

    Congressman Keith Ellison denounced Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, for warning that political Islam has a militant strain that’s used to justify terrorism.

    Jasser told a congressional briefing that terrorism won’t be stopped until his Islamic faith goes through its own Reformation to separate mosque and state.

    Ellison responded by accusing Jasser of giving people a “license for bigotry.”

    The Minnesota Democrat said every religion has its violent extremists, and told Jasser, “I think people who want to engage in nothing less than Muslim-hating really love you a lot, because you give them freedom to do that.”

     

  • johnpi 5:49 am on October 1, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: anti-Muslim fearmongering, , , , Maine

    Christian Action Network sues the state of Maine after it revokes permission for the group to fundraise there, citing a letter the group sent out that was inflammatory against Muslims.

    Today the Christian Action Network (CAN) filed a federal lawsuit against the state of Maine for censoring a fundraising letter state officials claimed contained “an inflammatory anti-Muslim message.” Maine officials fined and banned CAN from mailing any future letters under the threat of criminal prosecution. Liberty Counsel represents CAN.

    CAN was in good standing with a valid license for prior years in Maine, authorizing the group to mail letters in the state. CAN filed to renew its license in March 2009, prior to sending the letter, and the check for the annual license was deposited and cashed by the state. In April, CAN mailed a letter exposing how some public schools were promoting Islam by providing instruction on the Five Pillars of Islam and the Koran. The letter pointed out that some schools have provided a “prayer room” for Muslims and one textbook that told seventh grade students they “will become Muslim.” The letter listed Governor John Baldacci as a person who is over the public schools and someone to whom the recipients of the letter should voice their opinion.

    CAN was informed in May 2009 that its application was now being denied, and a $4,000 fine was imposed for three reasons: (1) the state alleged CAN’s letter contained “an inflammatory anti-Muslim message;” (2) the letter used Gov. John Baldacci’s name without his approval; and (3) the registration was allegedly “incomplete.”

     

  • johnpi 5:50 pm on September 29, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: anti-Muslim fearmongering, , , Dove World Outreach Center,

    Church group that sent its children to school in “Islam is the devil” shirts has a poor reputation on other issues too.

    Former members of the Dove World Outreach Center have accused Jones and his wife Sylvia, also a pastor, of exploiting the volunteer labor of church members, who work long, unpaid hours for the Joneses’ for-profit eBay business, TS and Company LLC, right here in Gainesville. Moreover, the Joneses are accused of controlling and manipulative behavior that sounds eerily cult-like.

     

  • johnpi 2:23 pm on September 23, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: anti-Muslim fearmongering, , ,

    The strange case of the philandering, Muslim-threat-hyping FBI agent.

    An FBI agent who worked on the corruption case of former Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson resigned after superiors found a list he wrote of his sexual conquests with agents and a confidential source, according to court documents.

    The same agent, John Guandolo, who is married and who unsuccessfully solicited a $75,000 donation for an anti-terrorism group from a wealthy witness in the Jefferson case with whom he was having an affair, resigned from the FBI and appears to have landed on his feet on the speaking circuit playing up the threat of Islamic terrorism.

    The confidential source was a former tech executive named Lori Modi:

    Mody also told the FBI that Guandolo approached her with information about five “anti-terrorism organizations,” including one affiliated with “a person named Emerson,” and wanted her to make a $75,000 donation to one of them. She declined.

    That would be Smearcasting standout Steven Emerson. TPM writes, “Perhaps it’s not a surprising that Guandolo has emerged issuing what can charitably be described as overheated warnings about Islamic extremism,” and then quotes a Tennessee newspaper describing comments Guandolo made to it:

    Every major Muslim organization is controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood, the former FBI agent said, which he said was formed to overthrow America and establish Islamic law.
    “They’re having great success of implementing Shariah law, I could give you a thousand examples,” Guandolo said.

     

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