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Chronology of Islam in America (2012)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
March 2012 - Page Two
North Jersey lawmaker withdraws anti-Sharia bill at urging of Muslims
March 12: Responding to concerns it could vilify Muslims, a state lawmaker has withdrawn a bill that would have broadly outlawed foreign laws, including Islamic religious principles. Assemblywoman Holly Schepisi, R-River Vale, had sponsored a bill to prohibit the application of foreign laws when they conflict with constitutional rights. But Muslim leaders said bills with similar language had been promoted in other states against Sharia or Islamic principles. Schepisi met with Muslim and Arab community leaders Feb. 28 and again informally at a March 4 fundraiser for Sen. Gerry Cardinale, R-Demarest. Aref Assaf, president of the American Arab Forum, was among several leaders to call for the bill to be withdrawn. “New Jersey need not follow other states that have either passed or attempted to pass similar legislation that has the principal objective of demonizing the faith of millions of American Muslims,” he said. The bill – which was originally introduced in 2010 by Assemblywoman Charlotte Vandervalk – was assigned to the judiciary committee but was never heard, Schepisi said. The Council on American-Islamic Relations has fought similar bills that have emerged across the country and released a guide for communities to oppose such legislation last month. [The Record]
Students walked out of Horowitz lecture in protest of ‘destructive’ remarks
March 12: David Horowitz, a pro-Israel activist, spoke at UNC (University of North Carolina) today in a “Why Israel is the Victim in the Middle East” lecture. About 20 minutes into the lecture, nearly all the students in attendance walked out of Hamilton Hall. The protest was in response to what participants referred to as “slanderous” remarks about Muslims and members of Arab nations. Horowitz has been noted for criticizing groups such as the Muslim Students Association, associating them with terrorist groups. About 150 people attended the lecture, most of whom participated in the protest. Mariem Masmoudi, co-founder of UNC’s Israeli-Palestinian Dialogue Committee, said Horowitz’s remarks were “insulting and destructive.” The Committee for a Better Carolina was granted $7,000 in student fees by Student Congress to bring Horowitz to speak at UNC. Leaders of Muslim and Jewish student organizations said UNC is a very inclusive campus, a concept which was, in their belief, contravened by Horowitz’s remarks. [Reesenews]
South Dakota Governor signs unconstitutional anti-Muslim bill
March 12: South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard (R) signed today an unconstitutional law that purports to target courts applying religious law, but which is almost certainly part of a broader push by Islamophobic advocates to fight the imaginary problem of courts substituting Islamic law for American law. The brief bill Daugaard signed provides simply that “[n]o court, administrative agency, or other governmental agency may enforce any provisions of any religious code.” Although this bill does not specifically call out any particular religion for ill treatment, it violates the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution. As the Supreme Court explained in Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. Hialeah, “the protections of the Free Exercise Clause pertain if the law at issue discriminates against some or all religious beliefs or regulates or prohibits conduct because it is undertaken for religious reasons.” While it is uncommon for American courts to apply religious law, it is not unheard of. Private parties sometimes enter into contracts where they agree to resolve their disputes under something other than U.S. law, and individuals sometimes write wills devising their property according to the tenets of their faith. Under the bill Daugaard signed, however, courts will be allowed to enforce contracts requiring disputes to be resolved under French law or ancient Roman law or under the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons second edition rules, but they won’t be allowed to enforce contracts requiring disputes to be resolved under the requirements of someone’s religious beliefs. This is discrimination “against some or all religious beliefs,” and is therefore unconstitutional. [Think Progress]
Right Wing religious fundamentalists raise the specter of an American theocracy
March 14: Religion certainly has its place in America but not in this American government. Yet what we are seeing on a daily basis is a concentrated effort by the Republican presidential candidates and various party leaders to inject religious fundamentalism into this country's political process. This movement represents a clear and present danger to this nation's democracy and it must be stopped in its tracks. Theocracy is "a form of government whose officials believe that they guided by a divine authority." America is a democracy, a government of the people and rule of the majority. It would be great if America had a government in which policies and actions were guided by ethics, integrity and principles of morality. While we're currently not that fortunate, the last thing we need is one in which right wing religious fundamentalists, guided by their own chosen brand of divine guidance, are in control. After America entered the 21st century, this country has fallen under the domination and power of the military-industrial complex that has created a massive, terribly expensive war machine. It was done right before our eyes and no one did anything to stop it. So I completely dismiss the argument that the development of a theocratic-based government in America is an impossibility. So where is the evidence that would support the premise that such a theocratic movement actually exists? Here are a few of the many examples: Rick Santorum, criticizing President Obama's agenda as he spoke to Tea Party conservatives in Columbus, Ohio recently, was reported to have said that "it's not about you. It's not about your quality of life. It's not about your jobs. It's about some phony ideal. Some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology." The statements that Santorum has made are incredulous. In a 2008 interview with the Oxford Centre for Religion and Public Life he was asked if Obama was "a secular, liberal, Christian." He said, "I don't think there is such a thing," To take what is plainly written and say that 'I don't agree with that, therefore I don't have to pay attention to it,' means you're not what you say you are. You're a liberal something, but you're not a Christian." Mitt Romney said that President Barack Obama's administration has "fought against religion and sought to substitute a secular agenda for one grounded in faith." Romney also said, "Unfortunately, possibly because of the people the president hangs around with, and their agenda, their secular agenda -- they have fought against religion." That's yet another example of how these fundamentalists choose to interpret the meaning of someone else's beliefs. Here's another quote from someone of that same mindset. On the "Morning Joe" show on MSNBC, Franklin Graham, son of the respected evangelist Billy Graham, was asked by the panelists why he was willing to say that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was a Christian but expressed doubt that President Obama is. Graham said: "All I know is that under Obama " the Muslims of the world, he seems to be more concerned about them than the Christians that are being murdered in the Muslim world." In America today we are seeing a close association between those who would like to impose their own particular religious beliefs on others and those who want to control and restrict women's individual rights. In most cases these two very rigid ideologies blend together perfectly in the same settings. The views of these ideologues relative to religion and women's rights both seem to be a throwback to times long past. While their message doesn't resonate with the majority of Americans they continue to trumpet it endlessly. [Michael Payne – OpEdNews]
New Obama Executive Order seizes U.S. infrastructure and citizens for military preparedness
March 16: Barack Obama signed today an Executive Order stating that the President and his specifically designated Secretaries now have the authority to commandeer all domestic U.S. resources including food and water. The EO also states that the President and his Secretaries have the authority to seize all transportation, energy, and infrastructure inside the United States as well as forcibly induct/draft American citizens into the military. The EO also contains a vague reference in regards to harnessing American citizens to fulfill “labor requirements” for the purposes of national defense. Not only that, but the authority claimed inside the EO does not only apply to National Emergencies and times of war. It also applies in peacetime. The National Defense Resources Preparedness Executive Order exploits the “authority” granted to the President in the Defense Production Act of 1950 in order to assert that virtually every means of human survival is now available for confiscation and control by the President via his and his Secretaries’ whim. The unconstitutionality of the overwhelming majority of Executive Orders is well established, as well as the illegality of denying citizens their basic Constitutional and human rights, even in the event of a legitimate national emergency. Likewise, it should also be pointed out that, like Obama’s recent Libyan adventure and the foregone conclusion of a Syrian intervention, there is no mention of Congress beyond a minor role of keeping the allegedly co-equal branch of government informed on contextually meaningless developments. As was mentioned above, the scope of the EO is virtually all-encompassing. For instance, in “Section 201 – Priorities and Allocations Authorities,” the EO explains that the authority for the actions described in the opening paragraph rests with the President but is now delegated to the various Secretaries of the U.S. Federal Government. [By Brandon Turbeville - Global Research]
Florida Muslims could be pivotal in 2012 election
March 18: Muslims have the potential to play a pivotal role in the 2012 election as Islamophobia and immigration issues galvanize the minority group into a voting bloc, according to a forum today at the University of Central Florida. Florida has an estimated 124,000 registered Muslim voters, and Orange and Osceola counties rank high in registered Muslim voters, said Daniel Hummel, a research associate with the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, based in Washington, D.C. In the swing state of Florida, Muslims helped elect George Bush in 2000 and Barack Obama in 2008. "If they vote as a bloc, they can have a huge influence on the election," Hummel said. High-profile prejudice against Muslims — ranging from Qur'an-burring Gainesville pastor Terry Jones to Congressman Allen West, who condemned Islam as a threat to America — tends to unite a people who perceive themselves as under attack, said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida. And the anti-immigration fervor, while aimed largely at Hispanics, also has alienated Muslims from the Republican Party, said Imran Siddiqui, a board member of Emerge USA, a Muslim organization based in South Florida. [Orlando Sentinel]
Democratic Senators issue strong warning about use of the Patriot Act
March 18: For more than two years, a handful of Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee have warned that the government is secretly interpreting its surveillance powers under the Patriot Act in a way that would be alarming if the public — or even others in Congress — knew about it. On March 15, two of those senators — Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado — went further. They said a top-secret intelligence operation that is based on that secret legal theory is not as crucial to national security as executive branch officials have maintained. The senators, who also said that Americans would be “stunned” to know what the government thought the Patriot Act allowed it to do, made their remarks in a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. after a Justice Department official last month told a judge that disclosing anything about the program “could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States.” The Justice Department has argued that disclosing information about its interpretation of the Patriot Act could alert adversaries to how the government collects certain intelligence. It is seeking the dismissal of two Freedom of Information Act lawsuits — by The New York Times and by the American Civil Liberties Union — related to how the Patriot Act has been interpreted. The senators wrote that it was appropriate to keep specific operations secret. But, they said, the government in a democracy must act within publicly understood law so that voters “can ratify or reject decisions made on their behalf” — even if that “obligation to be transparent with the public” creates other challenges. The dispute centers on what the government thinks it is allowed to do under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, under which agents may obtain a secret order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court allowing them to get access to any “tangible things” — like business records — that are deemed “relevant” to a terrorism or espionage investigation. There appears to be both an ordinary use for Section 215 orders — akin to using a grand jury subpoena to get specific information in a traditional criminal investigation — and a separate, classified intelligence collection activity that also relies upon them. The interpretation of Section 215 that authorizes this secret surveillance operation is apparently not obvious from a plain text reading of the provision, and was developed through a series of classified rulings by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The letter from Mr. Wyden and Mr. Udall also complained that while the Obama administration told Congress in August 2009 that it would establish “a regular process for reviewing, redacting and releasing significant opinions” of the court, since then “not a single redacted opinion has been released.” [New York Times]
Advocacy groups send letter to Eric Holder asking him to investigate NYPD’s Muslim surveillance
March 19: A group of 110 advocacy and activist organizations teamed together to send a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder today asking him to investigate whether the NYPD violated the constitutional rights of American Muslims with its widespread Muslim surveillance program. Signatories of the letter included; the New York Chapter of the NAACP, Occupy Wall Street, Muslim Advocates, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice and the Muslim Bar Associations of New York, D.C., Florida, Southern California and Chicago. “The NYPD appears to have targeted individuals and communities for surveillance based upon nothing more than their faith. Such measures are just the latest manifestation of the NYPD’s discriminatory practices against racial, religious, and ethnic minorities,” the letter said. “In light of the breadth of information now available, we strongly urge the Department of Justice to commence a prompt investigation into NYPD surveillance of Muslims in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut, including determining whether potentially unlawful surveillance continues.” The NYPD Muslim surveillance program gained widespread attention following the publication of a series of articles in the Associated Press. In the letter to Mr. Holder, the signatories also criticized the department for airing a controversial allegedly Islamophobic film, “The Third Jihad,” which featured an interview with NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly.
“The NYPD’s improper targeting of innocent Muslims is compounded by its use of a film entitled The Third Jihad. This offensive film falsely depicts Muslims as violent people seeking world domination and was shown continuously at police headquarters, and viewed by an estimated 1,500 officers. Moreover, the producers of the bigoted film conducted a ninety-minute interview with Commissioner Raymond Kelly,” the letter said. “Attempts at seeking accountability for the NYPD at the state level have been unsuccessful. With Governor Cuomo’s support, New York State Attorney General Schneiderman recently declined to pursue an investigation, and Mayor Bloomberg has repeatedly defended the NYPD’s monitoring of Muslims as legal and constitutional,” the letter said. “It is deeply disturbing that these officials, who are charged with protecting our civil rights and liberties, appear unwilling to hold the NYPD accountable for its abusive policing practices.”
Earlier this month, Mr. Holder said he found the reports of the NYPD’s Muslim surveillance “disturbing” and was reviewing them at the Justice Department. “At least what I’ve read publicly, and again, just what I’ve read in the newspapers, is disturbing,” Mr. Holder said. “And these are things that are under review at the Justice Department.” Mr. Holder has also been contacted by 34 members of the House of Representatives asking him to investigate the matter. In the letter to Mr. Holder today, the signatories said they had been unable to get officials at the local level to take action. [Politicker]
Former PA Governor acting as boosters for terror group
March 19: The Treasury Department is investigating the speaking fees received by the former Pennsylvania governor on behalf of an Iranian exile group that's on the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations. Mr. Rendell told The New York Times he had received about $150,000 for seven or eight speeches that called for taking the Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MEK, off the list (even though he clearly knew little about the organization). But why is Treasury targeting only Mr. Rendell? There's an astonishing list of high-level former officials -- from both parties -- who've embraced the MEK cause, for which they've collected big bucks, along with trips to pro-MEK conferences in Brussels, London, Berlin and Paris. And why have so many prominent men linked their names to an outfit with such a shady, and cultish, reputation -- a group that has killed Americans and done dirty work for Saddam Hussein? The MEK is lobbying hard for the State Department to take it off the terrorist list. (A decision is supposed to be made by the end of March.) It has won support, on the Democratic side, from former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, former U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli and retired Gen. James Jones, President Barack Obama's first national security adviser. And of course, Mr. Rendell.
As for Republicans, boosters include former CIA directors James Woolsey (a big backer of the Iraq War) and Porter J. Goss; former FBI director Louis Freeh; former Attorney General Michael Mukasey; former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani; and President George W. Bush’s first homeland security chief, former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge. Never mind that Mr. Bush renewed the MEK's terrorist designation four times. Add to the list a number of retired generals, along with John Bolton, foreign policy adviser to Newt Gingrich, and Mitchell Reiss, who advises Mitt Romney. Apparently none of these pooh-bahs ever asked about the source of their honoraria. "Nobody has ever been able to figure out where the money comes from," says Iran expert Barbara Slavin, the Washington correspondent for al-Monitor.com, a new website on the Mideast. Rumors abound that funds come from Gulf countries opposed to Iran, or from Israel, which reportedly has close contacts with the MEK, or from Iranian exiles. Nor do MEK boosters appear to have researched the group's violent history, which should have been well-known to many of them.
The group began as a Marxist-Islamist group supporting Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei; it killed six Americans in the 1970s. In the 1980s, having broken with the Tehran regime, it sought refuge in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The Iraqi leader used MEK forces to attack Iran in a brutal war that lasted a decade, and to kill rebellious Kurds and Shiites. For that reason, the MEK is despised inside Iraq, where U.S. officials are trying to resettle 2,800 remaining MEK fighters. The Iraqis want to evict them from their base at Camp Ashraf. More critically, the group is also despised inside Iran. "In the eyes of the Iranians, they embedded with the enemy. They were traitors," says Iran expert Vali Nasr. They are regarded likewise across the Iranian political spectrum, including by leaders of the Green Movement. The idea that the group has vast support inside Iran is simply untrue.
When Mr. Ridge labeled the MEK the "most effective opposition movement" of the Iranian people, he was talking nonsense, a sad commentary on what he didn't learn as homeland security chief. Moreover, the MEK reportedly operates like a cult, forcing members into celibacy and exacting total obedience to the MEK's leader, the Paris-based Maryam Rajavi. All that may not matter to some MEK boosters, like Mr. Giuliani. He recently declared on Fox News that the MEK should be named Time Magazine "person of the year." His reason: According to an NBC News report, the group was trained by Israel's Mossad to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists. The MEK was also reportedly used by Israel to leak intelligence about a secret Iranian nuclear facility. What Mr. Giuliani and other advocates ignore is that -- whatever the MEK's role in covert activities -- the group does not have the support of the Iranian people. Delisting it may permit it to lobby more openly for support from gullible backers. It may help those who are seeking an exile group to tout as the vehicle for Iran regime change. (Does no one remember the saga of the Pentagon's favorite Iraqi exile, Ahmed Chalabi?) [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]
Meet the right's favorite Islamic activist
March 19: In early March, members of a Muslim group gathered for a press conference at Manhattan's One Police Plaza to send a clear message to the New York City Police Department about its controversial surveillance program targeting Muslim Americans. That message was: "We are not here to criticize the NYPD," declared Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD), who was joined by House Homeland Security chairman Peter King (R-N.Y.), "but rather to thank them for doing the work that we as Muslims should be doing, which is monitoring extremism, following extremism, and helping counter the ideologies that create radicalization in our communities." An Arizona physician and Navy veteran, Jasser has lately become the right's go-to guy when it comes to providing cover for policies or positions that many Muslim Americans contend are discriminatory. When controversy over the so-called Ground Zero mosque erupted, Jasser, a frequent guest on Fox News, accused the builders of trying to "diminish what happened" on September 11, 2001. He has supported statewide bans on Shariah law in American courts and has helped bolster conservative warnings that American Muslims seek to replace the Constitution with a harsh interpretation of Islamic law. "America is at war with theocratic Muslim despots who seek the imposition of Shariah and don't believe in the equality of all before the law, blind to faith," Jasser testified during hearings held by King's committee last year on homegrown terrorism. There he also supported conservative allegations that many American Muslim organizations—and particularly the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)—are Islamists seeking to "advance political Islam in the West." Jasser sometimes refers to other Muslim organizations as "Muslim Brotherhood legacy groups."
Many American Muslim groups, meanwhile, view Jasser as a reliable apologist for Republicans and anti-Muslim figures—one with little grassroots support in the American Muslim community. "He actually plays into the whole narrative that comes from the Islamophobia industry—that it's not the extremists that are the problem, or Al Qaeda that's the problem," says Haris Tarin, director of the Washington, DC, office of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. "Mr. Jasser says that the Muslim American community, its institutions, and establishments are the problem. He might bring up some issues that are valid in terms of reform, but his approach is throwing the whole community under the bus." That assessment is shared by Jasser's father-in-law, Dr. Ahmad Banna, who is the president of the Cleveland, Ohio chapter of CAIR—one of Jasser's prime targets. "He thinks he's speaking the truth, but he's really attacking everybody," Banna says. Jasser has been especially critical of CAIR for accepting donations from foreign sources.
Founded in 2007, Jasser's group is not a membership organization, but he says that 2,500 people have signed up to receive AIFD's literature. The group's modest operating budget has grown steadily since its creation, reaching $200,000, according to its 2010 tax forms. In 2007, according to the Washington Post, Jasser received a $100,000 donation from Christian conservative financier Foster Friess, who is now bankrolling the super-PAC supporting Rick Santorum's presidential bid. Jasser declined to elaborate on exactly how much Friess had given AIFD, though he said the financier contributed $70,000 to his organization in 2010 for a Muslim youth retreat hosted by the group. (Friess told MSNBC that he was backing Santorum because he is "incredibly versed in one of the number one issues of our time—and that is violent Islamic extremism.") Jasser says he is reluctant to discuss his group's funding sources. "Many people donate anonymously because they get targeted," he said. "I don't want to publicly discuss with you things that are not public." But he confirmed that his organization has received funding from groups often considered to have an anti-Muslim bent.
Jasser told Mother Jones that the AIFD had accepted $5,000 from the Center for Security Policy, which gave Jasser its "defender of the home front" award in 2008, to cover "security" costs for its recent New York event. Headed by Frank Gaffney, a Reagan-era Pentagon official, the center published a report in 2010 warning that American Muslims are seeking to replace the Constitution with a strict interpretation of Islamic law. The "expert" in Islamic religious law cited in the report, an attorney named David Yerushalmi, is responsible for authoring draft anti-Shariah legislation that has served as a blueprint for anti-Shariah laws across the US. Yerushalmi has suggested that "acting in furtherance of Islam" should be a felony. According to a 2011 report by the Center for American Progress, Jasser's group also received funding from the William Rosenwald Family Fund, which has given millions to organizations CAP describes as Islamophobic. Jasser said his group has also received a one-time, unsolicited donation of $10,000 from the Clarion Fund, which is associated with Aish HaTorah, a right-wing Israeli group described by Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic as "just about the most fundamentalist movement in Judaism today." [Mother Jones]
The PQ plays its anti-immigrant card, again
March 19: The Parti Québécois's recent launching of a false J'accuse at the Quebec Muslim community over halal meat epitomizes a time-tested tactic in the pursuit of political support that Hollywood and citizens alike have long lampooned. Like the characters in Wag the Dog, a film about a Washington spin doctor who distracts the electorate from a presidential scandal by hiring a Hollywood producer to create a fake war, the PQ finds itself attempting to distract the Quebec public with seemingly parochial issues under the aegis of "values" debates while trying to avoid substantive issues of greater import. In doing so the PQ leadership, like other politicians around the world, including Nicolas Sarkozy of France, seems to have settled upon Muslim citizens as the easily identifiable "other" when trying to shore up support among the electorate. (Side note: Even Sarkozy has now backed away from his previous position on halal meat and tried to make nice with French Muslims.) The PQ's alarmist rhetoric over the Muslim halal methodology of ritual animal slaughter reached the absurd when the party declared that it "slams directly against Québécois values." Precisely which values it does not divulge; nor does it give any reason for singling out the Muslim method of halal slaughter vs. the very similar Jewish kosher practice.
It is not surprising that the proverbial fear card is being played by the Parti Québécois, which has not missed the opportunity to make anti-immigrant statements and take positions against those deemed as "other." Former PQ leader Jacques Parizeau blamed his party's defeat in the 1995 sovereignty referendum on "ethnic vote," which alienated many of the province's foreign-born population. More recently, PQ MNA Louise Beaudoin hailed the decision to bar Sikhs from entering the National Assembly with their kirpans. On the face of it, the PQ is arguing that Quebec should interfere with religious freedom - the right of Canadian Muslims to slaughter meat according to their tradition, and by implication, the right of Canadian Jews to do the same. The PQ's bizarre position does not hold water even within the paradigm of laïcité, which holds that religion should be absent from government affairs and government should not be involved in religious matters. [Montreal Gazette]
More than half of Canadians mistrust Muslims, poll says
March 20: More than half of all Canadians believe Muslims can't be trusted and nearly as many believe discrimination against Muslims is "mainly their fault," according to the results of a new national survey released ahead of Wednesday's International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The online poll of 1,522 Canadians, commissioned by the Montreal-based Association for Canadian Studies and Toronto-based Canadian Race Relations Foundation, also highlights how Canadians see the Internet as by far the leading conduit for racism in the country, and that more than one-third of respondents say they've "witnessed a racist incident" in the past year. ACS executive director Jack Jedwab described the results as a "disturbing" sign that racism not only remains a problem in the country but that many Canadians feel comfortable holding transparently discriminatory views, then saying things like: "If we feel this way about you, it's your fault." Ayman Al-Yassini, executive director of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, said the findings provide more reasons to promote better inter-faith and inter-cultural relations and to "build bridges among different communities" in Canada to combat discrimination. "This is also more evidence that the Internet has become the major vehicle for spreading hatred and prejudice," he said. [Postmedia News]
The ex-FBI informant with a change of heart: 'There is no real hunt. It's fixed'
March 20: Craig Monteilh was involved in one of the most controversial tactics: the use of "confidential informants" in so-called entrapment cases. This is when suspects carry out or plot fake terrorist "attacks" at the request or under the close supervision of an FBI undercover operation using secret informants. Often those informants have serious criminal records or are supplied with a financial motivation to net suspects. In the case of the Newburgh Four – where four men were convicted for a fake terror attack on Jewish targets in the Bronx – a confidential informant offered $250,000, a free holiday and a car to one suspect for help with the attack. In the case of the Fort Dix Five, which involved a fake plan to attack a New Jersey military base, one informant's criminal past included attempted murder, while another admitted in court at least two of the suspects later jailed for life had not known of any plot. Such actions have led Muslim civil rights groups to wonder if their communities are being unfairly targeted in a spying game that is rigged against them. Monteilh says that is exactly what happens. "The way the FBI conducts their operations, It is all about entrapment … I know the game, I know the dynamics of it. It's such a joke, a real joke. There is no real hunt. It's fixed," he said.
But Monteilh has regrets now about his involvement in a scheme called Operation Flex. Sitting in the kitchen of his modest home in Irvine, near Los Angeles, Monteilh said the FBI should publicly apologise for his fruitless quest to root out Islamic radicals in Orange County, though he does not hold out much hope that will happen. "They don't have the humility to admit a mistake," he said. Monteilh's story sounds like something out of a pulp thriller. Under the supervision of two FBI agents the muscle-bound fitness instructor created a fictitious French-Syrian altar ego, called Farouk Aziz. In this disguise in 2006 Monteilh started hanging around mosques in Orange County – the long stretch of suburbia south of LA – and pretended to convert to Islam. He was tasked with befriending Muslims and blanket recording their conversations. All this information was then fed back to the FBI who told Monteilh to act like a radical himself to lure out Islamist sympathizers. Yet, far from succeeding, Monteilh eventually so unnerved Orange County's Muslim community that that they got a restraining order against him. In an ironic twist, they also reported Monteilh to the FBI: unaware he was in fact working undercover for the agency.
Posing as Farouk Aziz he would infiltrate local mosques and Islamic groups around Orange County. "Paul Allen said: 'Craig, you are going to be our computer worm. Our guy that gives us the real pulse of the Muslim community in America'," Monteilh said. The operation began simply enough. Monteilh started hanging out at mosques, posing as Aziz, and explaining he wanted to learn more about religion. In July, 2006, at the Islamic Center of Irvine, he converted to Islam. Monteilh also began attending other mosques, including the Orange County Islamic Foundation. Monteilh began circulating endlessly from mosque to mosque, spending long days in prayer or reading books or just hanging out in order to get as many people as possible to talk to him. "Slowly I began to wear the robes, the hat, the scarf and they saw me slowly transform and growing a beard. At that point, about three or four months later, [my FBI handlers] said: 'OK, now start to ask questions'." Those questions were aimed at rooting out radicals. Monteilh would talk of his curiosity over the concepts of jihad and what Muslims should do about injustices in the world, especially where it pertained to American foreign policy. He talked of access to weapons, a possible desire to be a martyr and inquired after like-minded souls. It was all aimed at trapping people in condemning statements. "The skill is that I am going to get you to say something. I am cornering you to say "jihad"," he said. Of course, the chats were recorded.
In scenes out of a James Bond movie, Monteilh said he sometimes wore a secret video recorder sewn into his shirt. At other times he activated an audio recorder on his key rings. Monteilh left his keys in offices and rooms in the mosques that he attended in the hope of recording conversations that took place when he was not here. He did it so often that he earned a reputation with other worshippers for being careless with his keys. The recordings were passed back to his FBI handlers at least once a week. He also met with them every two months at a hotel room in nearby Anaheim for a more intense debriefing. Monteilh says he was grilled on specific individuals and asked to view charts showing networks of relationships among Orange County's Muslim population. He said the FBI had two basic aims. Firstly, they aimed to uncover potential militants. Secondly, they could also use any information Monteilh discovered – like an affair or someone being gay – to turn targeted people into becoming FBI informants themselves….Far from uncovering radical terror networks, Monteilh ended up traumatising the community he was sent into. Instead of embracing calls for jihad or his questions about suicide bombers or his claims to have access to weapons, Monteilh was instead reported to the FBI as a potentially dangerous extremist. A restraining order was also taken out against him in June 2007, asking him to stay away from the Islamic Center of Irvine. Operation Flex was a bust and Monteilh had to kill off his life as Farouk Aziz.
But the story did not end there. In circumstances that remain murky Monteilh then sued the FBI over his treatment, claiming that they abandoned him once the operation was over. He also ended up in jail after Irvine police prosecuted him for defrauding two women, including a former girlfriend, as part of an illegal trade in human growth hormone at fitness clubs. (Monteilh claims those actions were carried out as part of another secret string operation for which he was forced to carry the can.) What is not in doubt is that Monteilh's identity later became public. In 2009 the FBI brought a case against Ahmad Niazi, an Afghan immigrant in Orange County. The evidence included secret recordings and even calling Osama bin Laden "an angel". That was Monteilh's work and he outed himself to the press to the shock of the very Muslims he had been spying on who now realised that Farouk Aziz – the radical they had reported to the FBI two years earlier – had in fact been an undercover FBI operative. Now Monteilh says he set Niazi up and the FBI was trying to blackmail the Afghani into being an informant. "I built the whole relationship with Niazi. Through my coercion we talked about jihad a lot," he said. The FBI's charges against Niazi were indeed later dropped. Now Monteilh has joined an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit against the FBI. Amazingly, after first befriending Muslim leaders in Orange County as Farouk Aziz, then betraying them as Craig Monteilh, he has now joined forces with them again to campaign for their civil liberties. [The Guardian]
Columnist Slams Islamophobic 'Fearmonger' Steve Emerson
March 20: For Steve Emerson, the danger is very clear and very present: A surprising number of American officials and institutions are in the tank to Islamic extremists and their handmaidens. Emerson accuses the Obama administration of being infiltrated by radical followers of Islam inside our own country and throughout the world. Emerson, the executive director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, spent an hour last week with the Review-Journal editorial board and was accompanied by Elliot Karp, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas. In the short time Emerson spent at the newspaper, he managed to indict a number of law enforcement institutions and officers as patsies for the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic extremists in our midst. For one, there's the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Emerson said the FBI is so focused not offending Islamist and Arabic groups with allegiances to Hamas and Hezbollah that it's getting in the way of anti-terrorism investigations. "The agents on the ground understand exactly what's going on," Emerson says cryptically of the bureau's political atmosphere. When asked to elaborate, he replies, "I have to protect my sources." Emerson has confidence in his own ability to spot the terrorists among us. He brags that his sources are "sometimes even better than the bureau." He adds that his field intelligence was superior to the FBI's in part because "informants are more likely to work for us."
That's not all. He also has the sneaking suspicion that a talk he was scheduled to give to a group of CIA operatives was derailed by the Obama administration. Who knew President Barrack Obama had enough hours in the day to dispatch CIA Director David Petraeus to teach Emerson a lesson? Then there's Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca. In 2010, Baca was honored by the Council on Arab-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has been linked to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. CAIR also actively challenges Muslim stereotypes and presents the Islamic side of issues. "He believes CAIR is a wonderful organization," Emerson says sarcastically. " … I'm not calling him evil, or fundamentally stupid, but he is in bed with the bad guys." Obviously, Emerson isn't shy about pointing fingers. Nor is he simply a sign-waving conspiracy theorist. His allies on the right consider him a Cassandra who warns us about the dangers of Islamic extremism at home and abroad, and especially as it affects Israel. He is a leading firebrand from the school of thought that goes something like, "Not all Muslims are plotting terrorist acts, just most of them." [By John L. Smith Las Vegas Review Journal]
Hatred wrapped in Righteousness and Patriotism
March 21: Barack Obama had his Jeremiah Wright. John McCain had his John Hagee (and Rod Parsley). Rick Perry had his... Rick Perry. Now Rick Santorum has his Dennis Terry. In a diatribe against "liberals," Buddhists and Muslims (and by extension, all other political beliefs and religious faiths), Rev. Dennis Terry introduced Rick Santorum and told all of the imagined enemies of America to "Get out!" And while other religious leaders have voiced similar "Christian only" sentiments, it was Terry's vehemence that shook the country. It was a vehemence that laid raw hatred at everyone's feet. Now Dennis Terry is trying to tell people that the video was "edited" and his comments "twisted." He is about love, after all, as all Christian are taught to love their brothers, even their enemies. Just as David Barton revises American history to prove that America was founded as a totally Christian Nation, Terry is revising his own statements and actions right before our eyes. If it weren't so mind-numbingly disingenuous, his response to the blowback would be considered very low comedy.
Assumptions, purposely skewed reasoning, and generalizations are the stock-in-trade of people like Anderson, Fischer...and Terry: 1. People do not worship Buddha in the same sense they would worship God. Buddha is NOT a god. 2. The same goes for Muslims "worshiping" Mohammed. Mohammed is a prophet, a messenger. 3. For all the pronouncements of David Barton, the America-was-founded-as-a-Christian-nation meme has never held water with reputable historians. 4. Not all liberals are "naysayers" and unpatriotic. It has even been argued that people who criticize their own country are, in a sense, more patriotic than their flag-waving compatriots. 5. "Get Out!" means just that: Terry wants people to leave who disagree with him. 6. Allah is the same God as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That's why it is called an Abrahamic religion. Islam reveres the Old Testament of the Bible and Muslims are taught to respect Jesus as a prophet. [By Rev. Dan Vojir – OpEd]
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