You may remember my September 9 column about the shocking Muslim Brotherhood strategy document revealed in the Holy Land Foundation trial. The memo outlined the powerful international organization's long-term plan to establish itself in civil society through a variety of front groups, and ultimately lead an Islamic revolution. From the document:
The process of settlement [of Islam in the United States] is a "Civilization-Jihadist" process with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that all their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" their miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim's destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who choose to slack.
Why was this featured in the trial? Because most of the mainstream Islamic organizations in the US are either controlled by the Brotherhood, or considered by the Brotherhood to be allies. This document, by the way, was the basis for a Defense Department analysis calling the Brotherhood a "threat organization," and warning that its affiliates (ISNA, CAIR, et alia) ought to be considered part of its network by the US Government.
Point is, this document is the real deal. It wasn't even contested at trial by the defense. This should be taken seriously by the media. It is being taken seriously by Pentagon intelligence analysts. It ought to have sent up massive red flags in the US media, because it suggests -- no, it demands -- a top-to-bottom reappraisal of what we think we know about mainstream US Muslim organizations. I'm not saying that the memo ought to be taken uncritically; I am saying, though, that the news media ought to at the very least have investigated it and its implications.
Well, last night, preparing a paper on the news media's curious lack of curiosity about radical Islam in the US, I did a Nexis search of American newspapers to find out who, if anybody, reported on the document's existence. There was the initial mention of the document in the final paragraph of an August Dallas Morning News story. Then there was my Sept 9 column in the News, which was picked up by exactly three newspapers: one in Sacramento, one in Pittsburgh, and one in Augusta, Ga. There were several mentions in The Washington Times. And there was an editorial in Investors Business Daily. And the Dallas Morning News did a much longer follow-up story on the document.
That's it. One of the biggest stories in the domestic war on Islamic terrorism breaks in a federal trial -- an actual radical Islamic document that calls into question the bona fides of virtually every leading Muslim organization here -- and only a handful of newspapers see fit to notice it. By the way, one of the top five newspapers in the US commissioned an op-ed from me about the document after my initial column, and set it for publication -- but spiked it at the last minute, without explanation.
Look, lots of important stories receive little or no attention. But I am convinced this is one of the biggest. And it's not being ignored for lack of knowledge or evidence. It's for lack of caring. It's for reasons of political correctness.
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I don't think it's a PC agenda so much as a worldview problem combined with paternalism and basic laziness.
Most journalism grads are liberal in the same way most business grads are conservative. That's the worldview--an instinctive inclination to stand up for the little guy against an "overzealous" criminal prosecution.
Toss in the paternalism: I think a lot of them actually believe that even mentioning the Muslim angle will lead to pogroms.
Here's where I'm going to veer off course a little bit and look at the consequences of it. Of course, the paternalism has the miserable side effect of shutting off a good deal of the external pressure for the Muslim community to address its real problems, reform and assimilate. This leads to the infantilization of too much of the Muslim community and the cultivation of a victim mentality and the repeated playing of the fraying "Islamophobia" card.
This, of course, has the ironic effect of poisoning an increasing number of the non-Muslim population against Muslims. Sorry, but the Muslims don't have the moral authority or genuinely aggrieved status of, say, American Indians or black Americans. Muslims can't claim any such analogy to those groups or even Latinos, who have also been subject to significant, if lesser, discrimination.
All of this leads to increasing friction and the decay in regard for Muslims in this country, as the polls show. And I'm afraid that it's only going to get worse with time.
To use an analogy: nobody pretended that there wasn't a massive Italian component to organized crime in America, reporting busts without using surnames or trying to spin the fact that some of the suspects were from Palermo and others from Messina made them from "diverse [and otherwise unspecified] backgrounds."
The Bush administration bears the first-cause responsibility for its egregious secrecy in all of its dealings with the press on this and other issues. Why should a government source be trusted, if the reasonable assumption is either it is directly associated with the administration and is deliberately withholding information, or it is dependent on information from the administration and simply not getting it?
Having and keeping secrets is a critical aspect of government, I never dispute that. The Bush years show how this necessity can be abused.
Look, lots of important stories receive little or no attention. But I am convinced this is one of the biggest. And it's not being ignored for lack of knowledge or evidence. It's for lack of caring. It's for reasons of political correctness.
The more I think about this, the more I consider that Rod could be right about the PC component, even if he's right in a way he doesn't want to consider.
Why isn't the HLF trial more widely covered if it's so important? And I do agree that it's an important trial. Could it be that the state of Israel stands to lose more with negative press on this trial? No one really wants to discuss Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine, no one really wants to talk about how Israeli secret agents testify anonymously in the trial, and these secret agents present 'evidence'that was gathered by Israeli soldiers from houses that were destroyed in occupied territories by Israeli ordnance.
But the main reason the HLF trial and the "shocking" MB document are being "ignored" as Rod puts it, is because too many people in the media don't want Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine to get the media coverage it really deserves.
Any serious investigation of this MB document and the trial that brought it to light would require a serious investigation of Israel's occupation of Palestine and how this occuption helps fan the flames of hatred of Muslims and Jews as well as Christians.
"Like Rod, Scot and Rob are convinced that Muslims are to the United States what communism was in the 50s and 60s - a one size fits all boogie man for all your xenophobic needs."
As usual, Will, you have no idea what you're talking about. I won't speak for Rod and Scott, but I'm in no way xenophobic. I'm all for immigration provided it's legal (both sides of my family are from early 20th century immigrant stock). Many Muslims, however, have shown themselves to be untrustworthy, and I'd argue that they need to be screened more carefully than others when they enter the country. Call this profiling if you'd like. If men in tartan kilts started blowing things up and hijacking planes, I'd say the same thing about Scotsmen.
American patriots versus American hatriots. The battle has been going on for well over half a century, but the hatriots have gained powerful, incestuous allies: the Democrat Party base; most of the major media; a growing Western Socialism; almost all of the homosexual movement; most of the atheist movement; the academy to a great extent; and, only when it suits their purpose, the Islamists.
Still, it's only fifty-fifty that the hatriots will win in 2008.
"And an Angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm".
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