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Two Sides Fighting Terror
For years many of us have been saying that the Muslim leaders in the US must actively speak out against terrorism. We have also heard of Muslim leaders who profess to oppose terrorism and insist that they do not harbor recruits or recruiters of terrorism.
Imagine my disappointment as I learn that mosques may not be screening for jihadis. According to Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch, who has been tracking mosques who report to the authorities, “…mosques are not putting jihadis out, or making it clear that they are unwelcome, or, for the most part, reporting them to authorities when they learn of what they’re doing.”
In contrast, a counterterrorism program in Dearborn led by its Police Chief Ron Haddad, has shown success in identifying potential terrorists:
In a city where nearly a third of the approximately 95,000 residents are Arab-American or of Arab descent, Haddad’s department has a deep network of contacts in the community and makes regular visits to Dearborn’s 38 schools and its many mosques. He sponsors a program called “Stepping Up,” which includes an annual awards ceremony (the next is April 12) for residents reporting crime. At least twice in the past several years, fearing influence from ISIL or online propaganda on their children, Haddad says, Muslim fathers have turned in their own sons. In another case, it was students at a largely Muslim high school calling about a troubled peer.
The FBI also began rolling out a secret informant program in key cities to see how well the program will work. Unfortunately groups, Muslim and non-Muslim, have emerged that challenge the FBI’s efforts to identify potential terrorists.
Most recently the WSJ reported on Dr. Dale Broome in San Bernardino who, after the terror attack, wrote up a pledge that could be signed by Muslim leaders, that “among other things, committed Muslim leaders to ‘implement a program to monitor members of my mosque who may be planning, recruiting or participating in such criminal activity.’ They would also be asked to report any suspicious individuals to authorities and encourage their congregations to do the same.”
Dr. Broome asked a local Muslim, Dr. Mohammad Hossain, who had lived in the U.S. for 40 years, if he would sign the pledge. Dr. Hossain asked that Dr. Broome submit the pledge to the interfaith council to which both men belonged. Dr. Hossain refused to sign the pledge, as did everyone on the council, except Dr. Broome. Dr. Hossain said, according to WSJ, that terrorism was a political not religious act that was carried out by a tiny minority on the fringes of Islam. It wasn’t his responsibility to combat the fear of Islam by signing pledges or reporting suspects.
So we have those who are actively fighting the recruitment of Islamist terrorists, such as communities like Dearborn along with the FBI, and those, including Muslims and their communities’ supporters, who feel that Muslims and mosques should not be singled out by those within their community, or those outside.
These circumstances raise a number of questions: is the larger Muslim community prepared to fight Islamist terrorism or not? How do we support the FBI in its efforts to identify potential terrorists without their limiting the civil rights of others? Can we trust that the Muslim communities who say they wish to help are doing so?
Published in General
BTW, here’s M. Zuhdi Jasser’s take on Keith Ellison who is being proposed for the DNC.
Hi, Susan. I clicked on the above link and all I got was a long ad for Gmail … is there another link? Thanks.
Sorry, TT. Here’s the direct link.
The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers…
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Erdogan is another one who greatly worries me. He is a regional threat and may one day be a threat to the world. He has turned Turkey into a tyranny that is no longer a democracy. Thanks for the quote, Kozak.
Just the idea of turning one’s child over to the authorities because he or she has become radicalized and might do something horrific. Can you imagine the parent’s pain? First, knowing that you’ve failed to raise your child to be a good human being. Second, that they’ve become a danger to the lives of innocent people. Third, that you (in some sense) are betraying them by turning them in.
Opposing things you believe to be sound implementations of one’s faith would be an odd demand. The reason that good Muslims don’t support terrorist attacks on America is not that violence is always wrong.
It’s more similar to the reason that good Catholics didn’t support the IRA. Disgusting numbers did, but they did so out of ignorance of their faith or in knowing contravention of it. Violence as part of a legitimately constituted military at the behest of a legitimate sovereign is often an important moral good. Murdering people as an expression of your political views or as an adjunct to your drug dealing, not so much.
America permits Muslims freedom of worship. As such, the use of violence in connection with America is a valid choice of noble action, but only violence in defense of America or in support of America.
If ISIS really were a Caliphate, that would change. Since its claims are entirely ridiculous, though (they simply do not, as an objective matter, rule the Muslim world), anti-Western Sunni jihad as it currently exists is very difficult to justify theologically. Iranian terrorism, Saddamite terrorism, and Qaddafi era Libyan terrorism each had stronger justifications.
You’re correct of course, James. Osama bin Laden had no problem using the Koran and its teachings to Al Qaeda’s benefit, including distortions. I don’t believe, however, that intellectuals or Islamic scholars are the ones joining the anti-Western ranks. In fact, I understand that there are many Muslims who have never read the Koran or who are familiar with the hadiths. So I doubt that those joining up look to rationale or theological justifications. I’m going to guess that they assume those who promote violence are speaking “the truth.”
I suspect that Ellison was picked for the head of DNC to allow the Democrats to demonstrate their own tolerance and their opponents intolerance. Ellison’s controversial background was bound to draw flak from the right, giving Democrats plenty of opportunity to fling charges of xenophobia and islamophobia around.
The MSM will, of course, run interference for them by refusing to print or air the full truth of Ellison’s connections to radical Islam, while right-wing news sources have already highlighted it. As a result, the argument over his pick will likely widen the divide between left and right. People on the left, kept ignorant by their “bubble keepers,” will be horrified by the right’s outrage, while people on the right, unaware of the left’s ignorance, will be horrified by the left’s lack of outrage.
Not all Muslims who “don’t engage in the open conflict” are benign. The Muslim Brotherhood, for example, is highly disciplined and tends to play a very long game. About 80 years from its foundation to Morsi gaining power, for example. They historically have refrained from violence not out of principle but due to thinking that premature violence – instigated before gaining tactical superiority – just makes the job harder. Their Project in the US was first drafted in 1982. Many of today’s violent jihadis are impatient spinoffs from the Brotherhood.
People, we don’t get to tell them what their “real” religion is. Everything ISIS and Al Queda believes is in black and white in the Koran. ISIS uses textbooks printed in Saudi Arabia to teach from because the Wahabi’s are so in line with them. Huge numbers of Muslims are in favor of Sharia law, even among Muslims in the US and the West.
Thank you!
I don’t think you will thank me when I extrapolate from that fact. To whit, the Wahabi, Salafist version is at least as “real” as any other version, and pretending it isn’t in not going to work. And to me that means anyone who believes in that form of Islam, or Sharia is not welcome in the US.
Agree.
My sentence you quoted was the most “generous” yet honest one I could conjure quickly while typing. It was an attempt to be “balanced” in my commenting. Why be concerned with balance? I did not want the thread to be easily sidetracked by claims of my being closed minded, not looking at the whole picture (a la commentary about Fidel Castro), and or challenged in the form of “I once knew a Muslim, he was a very nice person, and he never hurt nobody.” (hear Edith Bunker’s voice/inflection as you read that last sentence.)
OntheleftCoast, it’s just my way. It’s out of respect for the post’s author, if I’ve written something, that couldresult in a member creating a personal issue with me, I try to neutralize the personal criticism opportunity so that the OP will remain on topic.
TT, I don’t see @ontheleftcoast as being confrontive; I think he was just addressing another side of the issue. I think you’ve both done an excellent job of presenting various aspects of the issue without disagreeing with each other. Either of you can set me straight if I’m wrong.
Oops Susan, Sorry if my comment came off wrong. I did not think OTLC was being confrontational at all. I was just commenting to him, given that I totally agree with him — the “why” of my previously written sentence which may have been read as being contrary to his.
<smilingly> You know, I remind myself all the time of the saying: “if you are explaining, you are already losing” — and still I keep stepping in it. I just can’t help myself, LOL.
Me, too! Obviously!
Sure. Any religion is defined by the people who believe it – so most religions are quite diverse. I find this uncontroversial.
Wrt sharia in the US – similarly uncontroversial. I don’t automatically privilege religious beliefs over other ideologies.