White House, New York Times: Don’t Fight Jihad, It Will Only Provoke More Jihad

Posted By Robert Spencer
http://frontpagemag.com/
August 8, 2011

How many times do you think Scott Shane is going to smear me in The New York Times (my comment on the first time is here) without bothering to even try to create the appearance of journalism by contacting me for comment?

Answer: As many times as he wants, because he is accountable to no one except his hard-Left masters, and they don’t care how viciously biased he is, as long as he serves their agenda.

“To Fight Radical Islam, U.S. Wants Muslim Allies,” by Scott Shane in The New York Times, August 3 (thanks to all who sent this in):

WASHINGTON — Rolling out a new strategy for combating radicalization, White House officials on Wednesday warned that casting broad suspicion on Muslim Americans is counterproductive and could backfire by alienating a religious minority and fueling extremism.

This is ridiculous on its face. We are not to cast “broad suspicion on Muslim Americans,” or else they will become alienated and this will fuel “extremism” — in other words, this inappropriate casting of suspicion will provoke some Muslims to turn to jihad. Yet by what criteria are we to distinguish between Muslims in the U.S. of whom we should be suspicious, and those of whom suspicion is unjustified, because that suspicion will provoke “extremism”? Wouldn’t a Muslim who would turn to violent jihad because he is unjustly suspected of an affinity for violent jihad be a justified object of suspicion?

And since no criteria are offered for non-Muslims to use to determine which Muslims are justifiably suspect and which aren’t, the implication is clear: no Muslims are justifiably suspect. There is no “extremism” among Muslims in the U.S., except that which is provoked by non-Muslim “suspicion.” Naser Abdo? Abdulhakim Muhammad? Naveed Haq? Nidal Hasan? Daniel Boyd? Faisal Shahzad? James Cromitie, David Williams and Onta Williams? Ahmed Ferhani and Mohamed Mamdouh? Pshaw. It is only non-Muslim suspicion that provokes “extremism” among Muslims, not anything that is happening in mosques or anywhere among Muslims in the U.S.

The administration also promised to identify accurate educational materials about Islam for law enforcement officers, providing an alternative to biased and ill-informed literature in use in recent years, including by the F.B.I. Denis R. McDonough, President Obama’s deputy national security adviser, told reporters that Al Qaeda and those it inspired remained the biggest terrorist threat inside the United States. But he said the bombing and shootings in Norway last month, carried out by a right-wing, anti-Muslim extremist, were a reminder that the government could not focus exclusively on any single brand of radicalism.

Yeah, one nutcase who supposedly found incitement to violence in my (and others’) defense of human rights and freedom versus 17,000+ jihad attacks since 9/11, carried out explicitly and proudly in the name of Islam and with reference to Islamic texts and teachings, and the government should change its focus. And don’t worry: it will.

Meanwhile, the “biased and ill-informed literature” in question includes my books, but neither Scott Shane or Denis R. McDonough nor anyone else can show any inaccuracy in any of them. It is noteworthy that in this torrent of abuse and scapegoating over the last couple of weeks, blaming me for the Norway shooting, no one has come up with any gotcha quote from me — no incitement to violence, no broad-brush demonization of all Muslims (although it is routinely alleged that I do this), and not even anything false. The windy “refutations” of my work that are available online are generally windy tu quoques that point the finger at the West and Christianity without ever genuinely showing that what I say is false. And the numerous jihad attacks that happen worldwide on a daily basis show that, lo and behold, for some reason many Muslims have misunderstood Islam in the same way I have. No one ever explains how they have so drastically misunderstood their peaceful religion in such large numbers, or why the misunderstanders themselves consistently claim for themselves the mantle of Islamic authenticity, and in that generally go unchallenged by their peaceful brethren in the West.

But the demonization continues apace, and the Big Lie that I am a racist and hatemonger is repeated endlessly, despite the fact that I have consistently, over ten books, hundreds of articles, and 25,000+ blog posts, rejected racism and firmly advocated for the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, and the equality of rights of all people. It may be that this campaign will succeed, and all counterjihadists will be finally discredited. Then all will be well, eh? “Islamophobia” eradicated! And then the world will wake up the next day and find that the jihad continues and Islamic supremacism still advances, and there will be no one to speak up for and defend freedom.

Don’t believe me? No problem. You’ll find out soon enough. But remember one thing also: in Hamas-linked CAIR’s recent report on “Islamophobia,” it made the unexpected admission that not all criticism of Islam constituted “Islamophobia.” But did it offer any examples of critics of Islam, or of jihad, or of Islamic supremacism, who were not “Islamophobes”? Why, no. It didn’t. And that’s because it couldn’t. Its assurance that not all criticism of Islam was “Islamophobia” was just window dressing for the leftist suckers who make up its audience, when in fact Hamas-linked CAIR and its allies defame as racist and bigoted anyone and everyone who dares to stand up against the jihad in any way. And sure, they can demonize us, marginalize us, and cut us off. And then make no mistake: if you resist them, your turn will be next.

Mr. McDonough said that Al Qaeda had a “bankrupt ideology,” but that accusing the entire Muslim community of complicity in terrorism could “feed the sense of disenchantment and disenfranchisement that may spur violent extremist radicalization.”

No one I know has ever accused the “entire Muslim community of complicity in terrorism.” I have never done that, and challenge Scott Shane or anyone else to show that I have. But here again, does McDonough’s mouth connect to his brain at all? He is saying that falsely accusing peaceful Muslims of “complicity in terrorism” could make them turn toward…terrorism? So then how peaceful were they in the first place?

See, I am being accused every day now of being complicit in mass murder and even of being a murderer myself. Yet there is no amount of this defamation that I could be subjected to that would ever make me become a murderer myself. There is no amount of lies and abuse they could throw at me that would ever make me turn to violent “extremism” myself. And I think this is true of most people — at least most who are sane. Yet McDonough and Shane seem to take it for granted that false accusations against Muslims will make them kill, and that instead of telling the Muslims in question to get hold of themselves and be reasonable, this means we have to tiptoe around them and avoid saying anything that even appears to be a false accusation — and we even have to stop telling truths, for fear they will fuel “extremism.” After all, the U.S. government and the media are engaged in a massive operation of denial of the obvious fact that Islamic jihadists use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify violence and supremacism. And why? Because they are afraid of fueling “extremism” by appearing to associate Islam with terrorism. And so Islamic jihadists can associate Islam with terrorism all day, but we are not allowed to notice.
This is madness.

Instead, he said, Muslim Americans should be treated as a crucial ally of the government in combating extremism….

Fine. Such as who? Hamas-linked CAIR, with its “Don’t Talk to the FBI” poster? MPAC, with its hollow and deceptive condemnations of terror? Exactly which Muslim group in America has actually shown itself to be a “crucial ally of the government in combating extremism”? Can McDonough answer that? Can Shane?

Since the Fort Hood attacks, there have been a number of foiled plots by radicalized Muslims in the United States, as well as by extreme right-wing and white supremacist ideologues.

Far more of the former than of the latter, but Scott Shane will not tell you that.

Conservative critics of the Obama administration, including Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York, have accused it of political correctness in avoiding applying the “Islamic” label to plots and attacks by Muslims. Mr. King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has held a series of hearings focusing exclusively on the threat from Muslim extremists, drawing fire from Muslim groups. In March, on the eve of Mr. King’s first hearing, Mr. McDonough spoke at a Virginia Islamic center to reassure Muslim Americans that the government would fight extremism without practicing “guilt by association.”…

No reassurance was offered to non-Muslim Americans that the government would fight extremism by doing anything effective to call Muslim groups in the U.S. to account for their deceptive and empty support for anti-terror efforts.

A National Security Council expert on extremism who helped devise the new strategy, Quintan Wiktorowicz, said the administration was aware of “inaccurate training” on Islam for law enforcement officers. He said the administration would compile “gold standard” materials to be posted on the Web for officials to draw upon.

A January study by a liberal research group found a pattern of misleading and inflammatory training about Islam across the country, and a 2009 F.B.I. training document obtained recently by the American Civil Liberties Union gave a provocative account of Islam. That F.B.I. PowerPoint presentation was used for classes for law enforcement personnel at the bureau’s academy in Virginia, but it is no longer in use, according to the bureau.

The F.B.I. document recommended two books by Robert Spencer, an anti-Muslim blogger and author whose work was repeatedly cited in the online manifesto of Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian accused of killing at least 76 people last month. Mr. Spencer, who operates the Web site Jihad Watch, has said he opposes violence and condemns Mr. Breivik’s actions.

Yep. But Scott Shane thinks it pertinent to drag Breivik into this piece anyway, since he can’t find anything actually “misleading and inflammatory” in what I write. Breivik will have to serve. And he will. Now at last the media and its Islamic supremacist allies have someone other than Tim McVeigh to cite as evidence of “right-wing extremism.” And they will ride it for all it’s worth.