In February 2009, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) received some very good news. A woman named Brigitte Gabriel had been disinvited from speaking at the United States Air Force Academy, due to MRFF's year-long battle to stop the U.S. military from allowing Islamophobic fear-mongers to speak at our military's colleges and service academies under the guise of anti-terrorism training.
Just about a year earlier, in February 2008, the Air Force Academy had invited a group called the "3 ex-Terrorists" to speak at its 50th Annual Academy Assembly on the topic "Dismantling Terrorism: Developing Actionable Solutions for Today's Plague of Violence." One member of this trio of self-proclaimed ex-terrorists turned evangelical Christians was Walid Shoebat.
After repeated demands for equal time to counter the anti-Muslim preaching of these so-called terrorism experts, the Air Force Academy eventually allowed MRFF founder and president, and Academy graduate, Mikey Weinstein, MRFF Advisory Board member and Islam scholar Reza Aslan, and MRFF Board member and former Ambassador Joe Wilson to speak to the cadets.
If the name Walid Shoebat sounds familiar, it's because CNN just did an exposé on him a few weeks ago (article, video: part 1, part 2). As CNN reported, Shoebat is still being hired to speak to Homeland Security and law enforcement agencies, despite the fact that he has repeatedly been exposed as a fraud by both journalists and academics. Shoebat's mission is clear -- to spread a fear of Muslims and rail against all that liberal political correctness that's causing so many Americans to treat Muslims just like everyone else.
The message of Brigitte Gabriel, founder of ACT! for America and author of Because They Hate is the same as Shoebat's. In June 2007, Gabriel, who has also been brought in as a terrorism expert by several government agencies, delivered a lecture at the U.S. military's Joint Forces Staff College (JFSC) as part of the JFSC's Islam elective for American military and national security personnel.
During the Q & A part of this lecture, a JFSC student asked Gabriel, "Should we resist Muslims who want to seek political office in this nation?" This was Gabriel's answer:
"Absolutely. If a Muslim who has -- who is -- a practicing Muslim who believes the word of the Koran to be the word of Allah, who abides by Islam, who goes to mosque and prays every Friday, who prays five times a day -- this practicing Muslim, who believes in the teachings of the Koran, cannot be a loyal citizen to the United States of America."
Gabriel then proceeded to give the following reason for a Muslim's oath of office being meaningless:
"A Muslim is allowed to lie under any situation to make Islam, or for the benefit of Islam in the long run. A Muslim sworn to office can lay his hand on the Koran and say 'I swear that I'm telling the truth and nothing but the truth,' fully knowing that he is lying because the same Koran that he is swearing on justifies his lying in order to advance the cause of Islam. What is worrisome about that is when we are faced with war and a Muslim political official in office has to make a decision either in the interest of the United States, which is considered infidel according to the teachings of Islam, and our Constitution is uncompatible [sic] with Islam -- not compatible -- that Muslim in office will always have his loyalty to Islam."
Gabriel also expressed her views on immigration:
"Those Al Qaeda members and Hezbollah members who are coming into the United States, they are immediately going from the Mexican border into the major cities where there is large Islamic concentration in the United States, such as 'Dearbornistan' Michigan..."
So, what does all this have to do with Norwegian Christian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik? Well, Walid Shoebat and Brigitte Gabriel are two of the anti-Muslim activists who show up in his manifesto. Shoebat is quoted about fifteen times throughout the manifesto, and a link to a 45-minute Brigitte Gabriel video is provided for further information on one of the sections.
But the most frequently cited author in the manifesto is Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam. Spencer is quoted by Breivik over three dozen times, in several places at great length, and Breivik wrote, "About Islam I recommend essentially everything written by Robert Spencer." Breivik even used a take-off on Spencer's book title for a section of his manifesto, which he titled "A politically incorrect guide to the lynching of multiculturalist traitors."
MRFF is quite familiar with Robert Spencer's book, having received numerous complaints over the past few years from service members who want it removed from the military's PXs and BXs, where it is usually displayed right next to the military Bibles.
Three other authors quoted or recommended by Breivik -- Serge Trifkovic, Bat Ye'or, and Abdullah Al Araby -- all appeared in the same Islamophbic pseudo-documentary with Shoebat and Spencer, "Islam: What the West Needs to Know."
In 2008, when the politically useful anti-Muslim film Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West was being distributed by the millions in swing states via DVDs inserted in major newspapers, MRFF discovered that this same film, which featured both Shoebat and Gabriel, was being used by the U.S. military. MRFF was able to stop some of the screenings of this film, but many others did take place. The packaging of the "campaign" version even carried the endorsement of a professor from the Naval War College, lending the credibility of the U.S. military to this piece of Islamophobic propaganda.
In short, all of the popular anti-Muslim writers and speakers cited in Breivik's manifesto have essentially the same message -- Muslims are taking over the "Christian" world and must be stopped. And these same writers and speakers all have multiple connections to each other. They appear in the same films, link to each other's websites, promote each other's books and videos, are listed by the same speakers bureaus, serve in various capacities in each other's organizations, etc.
Because I work for MRFF, my focus needs to be on stopping the tide of Islamophobia within the military, but, after reading Breivik's manifesto, it would be impossible for me not to be thinking about the other dangers posed by these Islamophobic fear-mongers, who are feeding countless Americans -- some of whom might be unstable enough to carry out a "mission" like that of Breivik -- a steady diet of justification for their twisted religious or political ideologies.
While it is clear from Breivik's manifesto that he began to formulate his ideas several years before the post 9-11 "popularization" of Islamophobia, I think it's completely legitimate to ask the question: Just how much did the constant validation of these ideas by the likes of Gabriel, Shoebat, and Spencer play a role in Breivik's ultimate decision to actually carry out his terrorist attacks?
In the USA we have freedom of speech and the press, so you can't just ban these authors because you happen to disagree with them and throw around the "islamophbic". In the USA, we are allowed to discuss these issues.
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2011/summer/jihad-against-islam
An overview of the professional anti-Muslim inner circle in the U.S.
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2011/summer/the-anti-muslim-inner-circle
A key example of the anti-Muslim bias of an allegedly "objective" anti-Muslim professional who is leading the efforts to legislate against the anti-Muslim-imagined version of Sharia Law, in the United States:
http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2011/06/13/study-of-radicalization-in-mosques-reflects-anti-muslim-bias-of-co-autho/
To date, these people have been very good (devious) at manufacturing a certain degree of credibility, but they've been found out.
I just wish the fact they'd been found out had reached Breivik in time. Tragically, it did not.
Let's all do out part to spread this accurate information about professional anti-Muslims as far and wide as possible to try to help prevent further tragedy.
I've been saying for many months that the calculated efforts by professional anti-Muslims to influence law enforcement and government agencies with their lies about Islam and Muslims are deeply and heinously problematic.
To see exactly how bad it is, via 89 pages of well-researched and cited information regarding exactly how professional anti-Muslims make up stuff about Islam and Muslims, please read this:
http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/training/Muslim_Menace_Complete.pdf
“‘Manufacturing the Muslim Menace: Private Firms, Public Servants, & the
Threat to Rights and Security’ is a “must read.” Thom Cincotta's heavily
documented critical study uncovers and exposes the dangers to national security
posed by a group of private security firms operating outside o icially accredited
systems. These firms o er anti-terrorism training programs, driven by an
ideological agenda that trade facts for fiction and promote Islamophobic
conspiracy theories that demonize mainstream Islam and Muslim
communities.”
–John Esposito
Founding Director
Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding,
Professor of religion, international affairs and
Islamic studies Georgetown University
1. Islamists have played the angle of any criticism towards them is utter prejudice, discounting any argument legitimate or not. Basically if someone has an issue they hate Islam, hence Islamophobia. The problem with embracing this term is that it creates polarization in which that anyone with any issue is prejudiced or that allowing Western society to be overrun by Islam. You aren't giving any room for middle ground which apparently where everything is.
2. Do not impose the American mind set on European sentiment. You are forgetting that Europe has a massive Muslim immigrant population and like all societies with sudden massive outside populations. Not to mention that Europeans are less inclined to absorb new and different cultures and that many Islam infused cultures are recalcitrant about being absorbed into a new culture. Europe has had this issue some time now, and has polarized society. Europe does not need academics to "brainwash".
3. Terrorists quote many legitimate a people. Just because they are quoted, by a psycho no less doesn't mean they are inciting hatred.
1. This is not accurate. It's very simple, really: if someone is criticizing the actual views or actions of Muslim extremists, that's not Islamophobia. If someone is falsely stating that all, or most, Muslims think like extremists, and/or that Islam teaches or supports extremism, this is false, prejudicial, and Islamophobic. Criticizing drunk drivers is one thing; being afraid that all or most drivers are drunk, and broadcasting that error as fact is quite another.
2. For the most part, I agree with what you are saying here, in terms of the differences in the dynamics between European cultures and immigrants, in comparison to the U.S. However, the dynamics of European anti-Muslim arguments seem very similar to those found in the U.S. -- they are exaggerated, fabricated and/or prejudicial. Example: Geert Wilders himself says that only about 5% of all Muslims are radical, and then trashes all of Islam full-time with defamatory trash like Fitna.
3. I agree with this, in general. It's not anti-Islam arguments themselves I have a problem with, it's that anti-Islam arguments always paint a significantly distorted picture of Islam and Muslims, and some people, like Breivik, are naive enough to confuse these arguments with fact, and then act on their misunderstanding. That's a huge problem, obviously.
Should they all be part of the new witch hunt?
The Unabomber cited Al Gore's book 'Earth in the Balance' as an inspiration in his manifesto. Should Al Gore be silenced?
Just because a lone madman reads what he wants into what any source says does not automatically translate into guilt by some six degrees of separation.
What would exacerbate the Norwegian tragedy is if it results in the suppression of free speech and the exchange of ideas.
Some of the people you cite such as Bridgette Gabrielle have an excellent knowledge base and speak from experience ( Gabrielle herself escaped from Lebanon's civil war and personally witnessed horrific events in that nation).
Bat Y'eor is a renowned author who escaped from religious persecution in Egypt. She has spoken at the UN, Yale, Harvard, Stanford and has produced definitive works in both English and French.
These people should not be held responsible for the actions of some madman any more than Al Gore should be held responsible for the Unabomber's terror spree.
The main problem I have is that despite their credibility, people like Bridgette Gabriel and Bat Ye'or are spreading false information about Islam and Muslims that other people are believing.
If they would just state their views as opinions, instead of falsely attesting that their views are facts, and if they wouldn't engage in the blatant conjecture of saying that "Muslims believe" or "Islam teaches", when no such assertions could be true, per the vast variety in Muslim belief and Islamic teachings and interpretations, that would go a long way toward helping the confusion that many people have, and toward helping maintain their (i.e. people like Gabriel and Ye'or) own long-term credibility, which is currently plummeting like a paralyzed falcon.
For exactly how and why the credibility of professional anti-Muslims is plummeting, please read this:
http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/training/Muslim_Menace_Complete.pdf
She says:
==
"If a Muslim who has -- who is -- a practicing Muslim who believes the word of the Koran to be the word of Allah, who abides by Islam ... cannot be a loyal citizen to the United States of America."
==
Utterly false. Millions of American Muslims are good American citizens.
http://clarifyingislam.com/2011/05/01/american-muslims-are-good-american-citizens/
She says:
==
"A Muslim is allowed to lie under any situation to make Islam, or for the benefit of Islam in the long run."
==
Again: utterly untrue.
She is citing the false anti-Islam misunderstanding of the teaching of Taqiyya - which is solely about Muslims being able to lie about being Muslim, in order to save their own lives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiyya
She says:
==
"Those Al Qaeda members and Hezbollah members who are coming into the United States, they are immediately going from the Mexican border into the major cities where there is large Islamic concentration in the United States, such as 'Dearbornistan' Michigan..."
==
One of the biggest lies of the anti-Islam movement.
CNN Interview w/Dearborn Michigan Mayor - "No Sharia In Dearborn"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3V57aLHfes
http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/wilders-partly-blame-norway-attacks
It's pretty ridiculous that a large part of Brevik's justification for mass murder is based upon fabrications created by professional anti-Muslims such as Geert Wilders and others.
From the report by Publiceye
“Kill them, including the children.”
The above quote is from what one official involved in homeland security said was how she understood the underlying theme of a speech by Walid Shoebat at an anti-terrorism training in Las Vegas in
October 2010.
This is how the law enforcement who are to protect the people irrespective of their faith, color, etc. brainwashed into by the so call "experts on Islam".
How many people here in USA can differentiate between a Middle eastern and Indian, a Muslim from a Hindu or Sikh.
Please see my other comments in this thread for a bit of elaboration on why and how I agree with you, specifically.