Some people seem to have great difficulty in understanding why U.S. Rep. Peter King's hearings on radicalization of American Muslims, set to open this Thursday, are seen as so loathsome by so many. Let me try to explain.
Imagine, for starters, if another congressman -- say, Keith Ellison of Minnesota, a Democrat and the first Muslim elected to Congress -- decided to hold hearings on the Christian fundamentalist community and the radicalization of some of its members. After all, it is undeniably fundamentalists who have formed the bulk of the extremists who have burned or bombed hundreds of abortion clinics and murdered eight providers or their assistants. The vast majority of these people have been motivated, as most have said themselves, by their interpretations of Christianity.
Well, I think you can see where this is going. You wouldn't have time to snap your fingers before outraged Americans, metaphorically speaking, surrounded the Capitol carrying pitchforks and torches, demanding the heads of their representatives. Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, to mention just a couple of the far-right talking heads, would erupt before their Fox News audiences. After all, just think back to the self-righteous hullabaloo that broke out when a leaked 2009 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report on the radical right suggested that hate groups were interested in recruiting returning veterans with military skills. Conservatives around the country went into outrage mode, shouting to the skies that the perfectly accurate report was calling all veterans potential Timothy McVeighs. The political right is the first to scream "demonization" when it feels it is being targeted.
There's another very good reason why the hearings organized by King, a Republican from New York who chairs the Homeland Security Committee, amount to what an editorial in today's New York Times called "Mr. King's show trial." Peter King does not come to the question of radical Islam with clean hands.
This is a man who has said that 80% to 85% of American mosques are run by extremists -- jihadists -- and who told a reporter that "unfortunately, we have too many mosques in this country." He says that Al Qaeda is aggressively recruiting Muslims in this country. Last month, he was the first guest on a cable television show hosted by Brigitte Gabriel, the founder of the aggressively anti-Muslim ACT! for America group and one of the more obnoxious Muslim-bashers around (the Times reported Monday that she claims radical Muslims have "infiltrated" the CIA, FBI, Pentagon and more). He claims that the vast majority of American Muslims and their leaders have refused to cooperate with law enforcement investigations of jihadists -- but then says he can't reveal his law enforcement sources.
In fact, like virtually all King's claims, that last is baloney. As a study last month from the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security revealed, 48 of the 120 Muslims suspected of plotting terror attacks in the United States since 9/11 were turned in by fellow Muslims. What's more, leaders of virtually all responsible law enforcement groups report that most Muslims are highly cooperative.
King is holding his version of the McCarthy hearings at a time when extremist groups in the United States -- hate groups, antigovernment "Patriot" zealots and extremist vigilante organizations -- are expanding dramatically. Just last month, a new Southern Poverty Law Center report showed that the number of three strands of the radical right went from 1,753 groups in 2009 to 2,145 last year. In January, authorities arrested a neo-Nazi apparently planning a bomb attack on the Arizona border; found a powerful bomb set to explode by a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade; and seized a man apparently about to bomb a Michigan mosque. And just last week, a large group of Muslim-haters screamed a litany of insults against Muslims at a California fundraisers, terrifying their cowering children, as can be seen in video of the event.
But King has no interest in these threats. To him, Islam is the enemy.
The reality is that King's hearing are about demonizing Muslims, and they are, unfortunately, very likely to accomplish that goal. After all, they come in the midst of a renewed bout of Islamophobia -- a round of hatred and fear that began last summer when other opportunistic politicians ginned up alarm about the Islamic center planned for lower Manhattan. They follow by just a few months the adoption of an absurd Oklahoma law designed to prevent the introduction of Islamic religious law in the state's courts -- a law that is now being emulated elsewhere.
Ultimately, this kind of demonization leads to violence against the targeted minorities. President George W. Bush understood that, and that is why, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, he gave a number of speeches saying that Muslims and Arabs were not our enemies -- Al Qaeda was. As a result, anti-Muslim hate crimes, which had spiked up an astounding 1,700% after the attack, dropped by two thirds the following year. Bush may have made many mistakes as a president, but he clearly understood that demonizing minorities ultimately leads to violence.
Words have consequences -- unfortunately, even Peter King's.
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There is nothing wrong with anti-government groups. This country was founded upon that very principle. Perhaps you should stop being an apologists for the state, as it has caused more human suffering than any other entity known to man.
I think they're more marxist than they accuse everybody else of being, but, in the spirit of the moment-and as it's never too early for Christmas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NKHJ64qRR8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-LlUZ3qIqw
And that's a fact.
"The case of Colleen R. LaRose – also known as “Jihad Jane” and “Fatima Rose” – raises troubling questions about the ability of Al Qaeda to attract US-born women to terrorism."
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0310/Jihad-Jane-How-does-Al-Qaeda-recruit-US-born-women
Absolutely correct. There is no rational way to refute this statement.
"The United States is facing a more dynamic terrorism threat than was posed by al Qaeda nine years ago as the group has spread its ideology to regional terrorist groups... new terrorism threat assessment organized by the former chairman of the 9/11 Commission with the Bipartisan Policy Center's National Security Preparedness Group.
The assessment also says al Qaeda has staged an early stage recruitment and radicalization operation in the United States: "Al-Qaeda and its allies arguably have been able to establish at least an embryonic terrorist recruitment, radicalization and operational infrastructure in the United States with effects both at home and abroad."
The assessment was led by the former chair and vice-chairman of the 9/11 Commission, Tom Kean( Repub) and Lee Hamilton ( Dem.).
"Al-Qaeda and allied groups and those inspired by its ideas continue to pose a threat to the United States. Although it is less severe than the catastrophic proportions of a 9/11-like attack, the threat today is more complex and more diverse than at any time over the past nine years,"
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/report-terrorism-al-qaeda-us-homegrown-terror-threat/story?id=11606459
He was instrumental is the peace agreement between the IRA and their opponents even to where Obama asked him to be a diplomat to Ireland recently. Read the fact before you post.
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I don't care what he has done recently. The fact remains that he openly supported and provided financial support for a terrorist organization for the THIRTY YEARS prior to the peace agreement and as such has no standing in these matters. Mind you he supported the IRA during the years when they killed the most people.