Why has Obama's Justice Department failed to take action to stop the training of counterterrorism agents by anti-Muslim bigots?
One website in particular has carried over 25 articles mentioning one of the most outlandish bigots, Walid Shobat. These online articles date back to 2008.
Over at the website Talk to Action, writers have covered this story for years, including Richard Bartholomew, Chris Rodda, Rachel Tabachnick, Bruce Wilson, Eileen Fleming, and Fred Clarkson-- find the posts by clicking here.
At Political Research Associates, our staffer Thomas Cincotta has been researching a report, to be published this January, that exposes an influential anti-Islam and anti-Muslim segment of the counter-terrorism training industry. What follows is a story PRA sent around last week to our e-mail subscribers:
Since September 11, 2001, the "war on terror" has given rise to a steadily-expanding panoply of companies that offer training in SWAT tactics, cyber- security, bomb detection, school safety, and infrastructure reinforcement. The same national security concerns have bolstered a class of self-proclaimed terrorism experts who decry Islam as an evil religion of terrorists and routinely brand Muslims as primitive, vengeful, duplicitous, and belligerent people who oppress women and gays, and possess values that are irreconcilable with "western Judeo-Christian civilization."
A PRA investigation finds that these two phenomena overlap in a distinct and influential group of security "experts" who peddle Islamophobic conspiracy theories to public and private homeland-security professionals - audiences charged with shaping and implementing U.S. counter-terrorism policy.
"Aiming anti-Muslim messages at law-enforcement and intelligence analysts is dangerous for both domestic security and civil liberties. What we're seeing is the use of fear to politicize police work and marginalize American Muslims," says Thomas Cincotta, Civil Liberties Project Director. "These messages are pure prejudice, and unfortunately, our tax dollars are paying for them."
The mainstreaming of Islamophobia was everywhere evident in media headlines this past summer. Plans for an Islamic center, proposed by the Cordoba Initiative for a site in lower Manhattan, drew ferocious public opposition laden with bigoted rhetoric.
Mark Williams, then-chairman of the Tea Party Express, called the proposed prayer space "a mosque for the worship of the terrorists' monkey god." Protest signs showing the words "Sharia Law" written in dripping blood on the streets of lower Manhattan echoed books written by right-wing authors like Robert Spencer. Spencer distorts "jihad" to mean warfare against non-believers in an attempt to institute Islamic law worldwide, and equates "jihadism" with mainstream Islamic theology. Terry Jones, pastor of the Dove World Church in Florida and author of a book called Islam is of the Devil, famously planned to host "International Burn a Quran Day."
While such inflammatory and inaccurate claims about Islam capture headlines and fuel public debate, they are also quietly and persistently presented as facts to law enforcement personnel and other public servants.
"Out of the limelight," explains Cincotta, "counter-terrorism training outfits use their speakers' credentials as former police and intelligence agents to legitimize the same kind of Islamophobia witnessed at anti-mosque rallies in lower Manhattan and around the country. These firms give an air of legitimacy to rabidly anti-Muslim messages that have no proper place in competent policing."
Cincotta's forthcoming report, to be published by PRA in January, exposes an influential anti-Islam and anti-Muslim segment of the counter-terrorism training industry. He charts how these firms' right-wing biases threaten to permeate all levels of the homeland security apparatus. The report spotlights three firms [see sidebar] that form an ideological bridge between Muslim-bashing outlets and U.S. military, security, and law enforcement organizations--effectively institutionalizing Islamophobia across the government and public service sectors.
These firms supply an academic façade and the stamp of law enforcement approval to further Islamophobia.
Cincotta says, "We are working with advocacy groups to strategize about how communities can ensure that their police and local homeland-security professionals get competent training--not the bias and hate that these pseudo-experts promote."
When PRA discovered in March that the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) had contracted with Security Solutions International to conduct a training on radical Islam, we notified the Muslim American Society, ACLU, and our other advocacy partners, who used our research on SSI to compel MBTA Chief MacMillian to cancel the agency's training. PRA will employ our forthcoming report to open a conversation with allies around the country about this and other strategies to push back against government-sanctioned Islamophobia.
ACLU, and our other advocacy partners, who used our research on SSI to compel MBTA Chief MacMillian to cancel the agency's training. PRA will employ our forthcoming report to open a conversation with allies around the country about this and other strategies to push back against government-sanctioned Islamophobia.