tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post1382273071460417583..comments2024-03-27T15:36:44.737-07:00Comments on Haq's Musings: FBI Entrapping Young Muslims in Phony Terror Plots?Riaz Haqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comBlogger61125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-89876919071530382832020-10-06T10:46:44.684-07:002020-10-06T10:46:44.684-07:00Aslam noted the tree plantation program is also ge...Aslam noted the tree plantation program is also generating tens of thousands of new employment opportunities and is expected to create about 1.5 million jobs over the next three years when the government will have hit the target of nearly 3.3 billion trees.<br /><br />“For every dollar you invest in nature, you get nine dollars back. So, you get jobs, you get local employment, you get (a) green economy going,” the minister told VOA.<br /><br />“Even during the COVID era, we created 84,000 jobs for people who were out of jobs,” he added, referring to the coronavirus pandemic that hit Pakistan in February.<br /><br />The outbreak prompted Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government to introduce nationwide lockdowns to curb the spread of the COVID-19 virus, which has infected at least 315,000 Pakistanis, and resulted in more than 6,500 deaths. New infections, however, have dramatically and steadily declined to several hundred a day since June, encouraging the government to lift all lockdowns. <br /><br />Khan spearheaded a reforestation campaign, known as Billion Tree Tsunami, in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, which his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Party has been governing since 2013. <br /><br />The four-year program restored 350,000 hectares of forests and degraded land, surpassing its 348,400 hectares commitment to the Bonn Challenge and winning Khan international praise for his climate change efforts.<br /><br />The Bonn Challenge, established in 2011, calls for the restoration of 350 million hectares of deforested and degraded lands by 2030.<br /><br />Billion Tree Tsunami program<br /><br />The Billion Tree Tsunami program generated about 500,000 green jobs for men and women in poverty-stricken remote areas of the scenic Pakistani province. It has established a network of private tree nurseries and boosted local incomes. <br /><br />The World Wildlife Fund-Pakistan (WWF-P), which monitored and audited the tree-planting effort in KP, reported that the project has been an environmental, economic and social success, with one of the highest survival rates of trees in the world, ranging from 75% to more than 80%.<br /><br />Officials at the International Union for Conservation of Nature-Pakistan (ICUN-P) hailed the initiative as “a true conservation success story.”<br /><br />Khan launched the Ten Billion Tree Tsunami program after his party won the July 2018 national election and he became prime minister.<br /><br />Third-party audit<br /><br />Last week, the Pakistani government signed an agreement with a consortium of three international organizations for a third-party monitoring and evaluation of the “Ten Billion Tree Tsunami” program from 2020 to 2024.<br /><br />The consortium comprises WWF-P, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and ICUN-P.<br /><br />FAO deputy representative Farrukh Toirovi described the program as a historic undertaking by Pakistan.<br /><br />“This is a project which will benefit not only today the people of Pakistan, but also it will be benefiting the people all around the world and the region, and also for the people of the generations to come,” Toirovi said. "We from FAO are interested in this project so that we can take these lessons from Pakistan and try to use it also in other countries.”<br /><br />Hammad Khan Naqi, director general of the WWF-Pakistan, explained that his organization will evaluate 30% of the plantation sites, 30% for wildlife conservation and 100% percent of the protected areas across the country.<br /><br />Pakistani officials say the unprecedented third-party monitoring of a government project will ensure impartial “verification, transparency and accountability” of the massive reforestation drive and of the public funds being spent on it.<br /><br />Authorities say a key part of the project is to curtail activities of the powerful “timber mafia” that for decades has operated in Pakistan unhindered. <br /><br />The KP provincial government effectively dismantled hundreds of illegal sawmills and arrested timber cutters while implementing the ‘Billion Tree Tsunami’ project there, leaving at least two forest guards dead in such encounters and injuring many more.<br /><br /> Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-81397876584764722832017-03-26T19:48:58.569-07:002017-03-26T19:48:58.569-07:00Did an #FBI informant/agent encourage first #ISIS ...Did an #FBI informant/agent encourage first #ISIS claimed #terrorist attack on #American soil in #Garland, #Texas?<br />http://www.cbsnews.com/news/terrorism-in-garland-texas-what-the-fbi-knew-before-the-2015-attack/<br /><br />It’s mostly been forgotten because the two terrorists were killed by local cops before they managed to murder anyone. In looking into what happened in Garland, we were surprised to discover just how close the FBI was to one of the terrorists. Not only had the FBI been monitoring him for years, there was an undercover agent right behind him when the first shots were fired.<br /><br />Anderson Cooper: After the trial, you discovered that the government knew a lot more about the Garland attack than they had let on?<br /><br />Dan Maynard: That’s right. Yeah. After the trial we found out that they had had an undercover agent who had been texting with Simpson, less than three weeks before the attack, to him “Tear up Texas.” Which to me was an encouragement to Simpson.<br /><br />The man he’s talking about was a special agent of the FBI, working undercover posing as an Islamic radical. The government sent attorney Dan Maynard 60 pages of declassified encrypted messages between the agent and Elton Simpson – and argued “Tear up Texas” was not an incitement. But Simpson’s response was incriminating, referring to the attack against cartoonists at the French magazine Charlie Hebdo: “bro, you don’t have to say that...” He wrote “you know what happened in Paris… so that goes without saying. No need to be direct.” <br /><br />But it turns out the undercover agent did more than just communicate online with Elton Simpson. In an affidavit filed in another case the government disclosed that the FBI undercover agent had actually “traveled to Garland, Texas, and was present… at the event.”<br /><br />Dan Maynard: I was shocked. I mean I was shocked that the government hadn’t turned this over. I wanted to know when did he get there, why was he there?<br /><br />And this past November, Maynard was given another batch of documents by the government, revealing the biggest surprise of all. The undercover FBI agent was in a car directly behind Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi when they started shooting. This cell-phone photo of school security guard Bruce Joiner and police officer Greg Stevens was taken by the undercover agent seconds before the attack.<br /><br />Anderson Cooper: The idea that he’s taking photograph of the two people who happen to be attacked moments before they’re attacked.<br /><br />Dan Maynard: It’s stunning.<br /><br />Anderson Cooper: I mean, talk about being in the right or the wrong place at the right or the wrong time.<br /><br />Dan Maynard: The idea that he’s right there 30 seconds before the attack happens is just incredible to me.<br /><br />Anderson Cooper: What would you want to ask the undercover agent?<br /><br />Dan Maynard: I would love to ask the undercover agent-- Are these the only communications that you had with Simpson? Did you have more communications with Simpson? How is it that you ended up coming to Garland, Texas? Why are you even there?<br /><br />We wanted to ask the FBI those same questions. But the bureau would not agree to an interview. All the FBI would give us was this email statement. It reads: “There was no advance knowledge of a plot to attack the cartoon drawing contest in Garland, Texas.”<br /><br />If you’re wondering what happened to the FBI’s undercover agent, he fled the scene but was stopped at gunpoint by Garland police. This is video of him in handcuffs, recorded by a local news crew. We’ve blurred his face to protect his identity.<br /><br />Dan Maynard: I can’t tell you whether the FBI knew the attack was gonna occur. I don’t like to think that they let it occur. But it is shocking to me that an undercover agent sees fellas jumping out of a car and he drives on. I find that shocking.<br />Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-67776620862576600222016-08-24T08:56:47.553-07:002016-08-24T08:56:47.553-07:00The #FBI is 'manufacturing #terrorism cases...The #FBI is 'manufacturing #terrorism cases' on a greater scale than ever before. #Islamophobia http://read.bi/1YgTvYo via @BI_Defense<br /><br />The FBI has ramped up its use of sting operations in terrorism cases, dispatching undercover agents to pose as jihadists and ensnare Americans suspected of backing ISIS, aka the Islamic State, Daesh, or ISIL.<br /><br />On Thursday, roughly 67% of prosecutions involving suspected ISIS supporters include evidence from undercover operations, according to The New York Times.<br /><br />In many cases, agents will seek out people who have somehow demonstrated radical views, and then coax them into plotting an act of terrorism — often providing weapons and money. Before the suspects can carry out their plans, though, they're arrested.<br /><br />But critics say that the FBI's tactics serve to entrap only individuals who would never have committed any violence without the government's instigation.<br /><br />"They're manufacturing terrorism cases," Michael German, a former undercover agent with the FBI who now researches national-security law at New York University's Brennan Center for Justice, told The Times. "These people are five steps away from being a danger to the United States."<br /><br />'They target people who are genuinely psychotic'<br />Increasingly, experts are worried that undercover operations of this kind infringe on the rights of Americans.<br /><br />Stephen Downs, an attorney and founding member of Project Salam , which gives legal support to Muslims, told Business Insider that " the government has developed a technique of engaging targets in conversations of a somewhat provocative nature, and then trying to pick up on things the target says, which might suggest illegal activity — and then trying to push them into pursuing those particular activities."<br /><br />Downs also said that the FBI often targets particularly vulnerable people, such as those with mental disabilities.<br /><br />"Very often, they [the FBI] target people who are genuinely psychotic, who are taking medication," he said.<br /><br />Last March, The Intercept profiled 25-year-old Sami Osmakac, who was "broke and struggling with mental illness" when he became the target of an FBI sting operation.<br /><br />"The FBI provided all of the weapons seen in Osmakac's martyrdom video," The Intercept reported. "The bureau also gave Osmakac the car bomb he allegedly planned to detonate, and even money for a taxi so he could get to where the FBI needed him to go."<br /><br />A recent study cited by BuzzFeed examined undercover operations for signs of entrapment by looking at terrorism prosecutions dating back to 9/11.<br /><br />The study coded each case for up to 20 signals that an individual had been a victim of this kind of entrapment, such as whether the defendant had no previous involvement in terrorism or whether they had been given some kind of monetary incentive to commit a crime.<br /><br />The vast majority of the 317 cases involving undercover operations contained signs of entrapment.<br /><br />Countless legal challenges have been made against these prosecutions, and facts supporting an entrapment defense are "pretty widespread," Jesse Norris, a legal scholar at SUNY Fredonia and the study’s leader, told BuzzFeed.Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-19865734648560233152016-06-08T12:34:19.952-07:002016-06-08T12:34:19.952-07:00#FBI using stings in #ISIS cases. Entrapping young...#FBI using stings in #ISIS cases. Entrapping young #Muslims? Manufacturing #terror plots? #Islamophobia http://www.sfgate.com/nation/article/FBI-steps-up-use-of-stings-in-Islamic-State-cases-7968986.php?cmpid=twitter-desktop … via @SFGate<br /><br /><br />In Rochester, New York, a paid informant went undercover and drove a man suspected of being an Islamic extremist, Emanuel Lutchman, to a Wal-Mart in December to buy a machete, ski masks, zip ties and other supplies for a would-be terrorist attack on New Year’s Eve. Because Lutchman, a mentally ill panhandler, had no money, the informant covered the $40 cost.<br />The FBI has about 1,000 open investigations into “homegrown violent extremists,” which it defines as Americans motivated by a foreign terrorist group, including the Islamic State, to conduct attacks at home, officials said. They said a “significant number” of cases — hundreds in all — had entailed undercover operations against people suspected of being Islamic extremists, but that the FBI did not have precise numbers.<br />But court records examined by The Timesindicate that the FBI has used undercover operations with increasing frequency in its Islamic State investigations since the earliest cases emerged in March 2014.<br />Only about 30 percent of the first few dozen prosecutions through late 2014 appear to have relied on evidence gathered through undercover operations. That number climbed to about 45 percent by early last year, with a string of undercover prosecutions in New York, Minnesota and Illinois. And since February 2015, about 40 of 60 Islamic State prosecutions, or 67 percent, have been based on undercover operations.<br />Muslim leaders wary<br />The number of Islamic State prosecutions overall has slowed since January; officials believe a spate of prosecutions late last year may have deterred plotters. But undercover stings have remained the norm. So far this year, eight of the dozen Islamic State prosecutions have relied on undercover operatives, court records indicate.<br />In the most recent case, prosecutors two weeks ago charged a Bronx man, Sajmir Alimehmeti, 22, with traveling to Europe twice to try to fight with the Islamic State. He met with at least three undercover agents during the FBI’s investigation.<br />The stings have left many Muslim leaders wary, even as the FBI has sought to build bridges to Muslim Americans. At mosques in Oregon, imams sometimes warn of FBI informants and caution “that we have those among us who are not with us,” said Tom Nelson, a Muslim lawyer in Portland who has represented a number of local men in terrorism-related cases.<br />His message for his Muslim friends, Nelson said, is blunt.<br />“Avoid the FBI like the plague,” he said. “They’re definitely not an ally. That’s what the FBI does — they infiltrate.”<br /><br /><br />Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-25298313829407242132016-01-02T10:41:18.721-08:002016-01-02T10:41:18.721-08:00#ISIS New Year #terror plot story totally bogus. h...#ISIS New Year #terror plot story totally bogus. http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/isis-new-years-eve-terror-plot-story-totally-bogus#.VogY7eYhOII.twitter …<br /><br />Another major holiday, another sensational ISIS terror plot the FBI takes credit for preventing. This time, the case splashed across the news is that of Emanuel Lutchman, a 25-year-old panhandler in Rochester, New York who allegedly plotted to attack a restaurant on New Years Eve. All major network broadcasts lead with the story and it was breathlessly featured everywhere from The New York Times to CNN. There’s only one problem: the way the story is being presented is wildly inaccurate and in many ways factually false.<br /><br />Like almost all 11th hour FBI terror busts, the only thing the media has to go off is a DOJ criminal complaint that’s released to the press. Statements from the accused or their lawyer very rarely reach the public. And the criminal complaint and FBI press release are framed to deliberately deceive the media.<br /><br />Let’s run down some of the key claims made by the media and why they’re either factually incorrect or misleading.<br /><br />Claim: The plot was directed by ISIS<br /><br />While the FBI's public statements to the media imply Lutchman was having discussions with real ISIS recruiters, the actual court documents are careful to never make this specific claim, only saying “Mr. Lutchman claims to have received direction from an overseas ISIL member.” For the purposes of proving “attempt to material support of ISIS” prosecutors do not need to actually show a material connection to ISIS, only an attempt to do so. It remains unclear if Lutchman’s contact (“Overseas individual” as the affidavit calls him) was, in fact, a member of ISIS but this hasn’t stopped the media from asserting it as fact.<br /><br />Claim: Lutchman bought weapons for the attack at Walmart<br /><br />Several media outlets, from Heavy.com to CBS to local reporters claimed Lutchman bought his weapons but this is inaccurate. He actually went along while a paid informant, at the direction of the FBI, purchased the equipment. Nominally this was because Lutchman could not afford the $40 worth of supplies. This means one of two things: Either A) Lutchman was looking for an out and used his inability to pay for the items as an excuse, only to be further pressured by the FBI or B) Lutchman did indeed not have the wherewithal to muster $40 to go on his own suicide attack which, on its face, should give any critical thinker pause.<br /><br />This was a man who, according to his grandmother, “can’t buy Pampers for his son" who was being sponsored not by ISIS (evidently, his contact in Syria couldn’t send him $40 or fill out an Amazon purchase) but quite literally by the FBI. The fact that FBI knowingly bought the weapons for the attack is a clear sign the FBI wasn’t interested in thwarting a plot, but building a case. Notice how the New York Times cleverly gets around the awkward fact by reporting Lutchman “gathered” the materials since they can’t say he bought them. Because he didn’t, the FBI did.<br /><br /><br />Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-66321529691655715042015-07-17T21:40:52.847-07:002015-07-17T21:40:52.847-07:00Long history of attacks on US recruit centers star...Long history of attacks on US recruit centers starting with Vietnam war. #ChattanoogaShooting http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/07/17/from-tenn-to-times-square-military-recruiting-centers-prove-easy-targets/ …<br /><br />Military recruiting centers were first targeted during the Vietnam War. As the casualties mounted and the campaign became bitterly unpopular, anti-war activists began bombing recruitment offices across the United States....On Jan. 2, 1973, a U.S. Navy recruiting center in Portland was seriously damaged by a bomb explosion. Two days later, a nearby U.S. Army recruiting center was dynamited. Frank Stearns Giese, a 63-year-old former Oregon college professor, was convicted of plotting the bombings based upon his fingerprints being found on a Black Panther book.....In 1986, 22-year-old neo-Nazi Robert Elliot Pires was arrested and accused of a string of bombings, including an attempted attack on a military recruitment building....Two years later, Yu Kikumura, a member of the Japanese Red Army, a communist militia, was arrested while planning to bomb a military recruitment office in Manhattan to protest the U.S. bombing of Libya.....Since Sept. 11, 2001, however, military recruitment centers have primarily been targeted by Islamist terrorists.Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-22685659201006915992015-06-19T16:44:46.238-07:002015-06-19T16:44:46.238-07:00The shooting in Charleston this week that ended wi...The shooting in Charleston this week that ended with nine people dead fits the textbook description of a terrorist attack. The victims were African American, gunned down at a historic black church. The suspect is a white 21-year-old who was apparently a white supremacist.<br />“I don’t even think twice about it,” says Juliette Kayyem, a former counterterrorism official at the Department of Homeland Security. “This is a template, essentially at this stage, for terrorism. He says what he’s doing, he says why he’s doing it, he says what he wants the result [to be],” Kayyem says. “Too much ink has been wasted on this question. It is terrorism.”<br />It is important to accurately label acts of terrorism for a host of different reasons. People in the news media need to be accurate if they want to maintain any credibility. The history of violence perpetrated against African Americans in US history is part of the story and needs to be acknowledged. There has also been a tendency to use the “terrorism” when the suspects are foreign, especially Muslim, says Michael German, a former FBI official who worked undercover to prosecute white supremacists.<br />“Since 9-11, when people use the word ‘terrorism’, they’re referring only to one type of violence and ignoring the fact that terrorism committed by Muslims is only one piece of the political violence that takes place not just in American society, but around the world,” German says.<br />“The numbers of people killed by far-right extremists [in the US] typically exceeds any other type of group on an annual basis,” he says. <br />White supremacist groups remain a persistent threat in the US, German adds. The 1993 bombing in Oklahoma City was the worst terrorist attack on US soil until September 11, 2001. Radical right-wing groups have also tried to obtain weapons of mass destruction.<br />But German says law enforcement needs to be smart about the way it responds to any and all terrorist threats, and avoid the worst excesses committed during America’s long-running "war on terror." “If we are going to have a counterterrorism effort, it should be focused on the actual people who are engaging in terrorist acts,” German says. “They should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”<br />The "terrorism" label can lead to problems in law enforcement, German says. One of them includes going after people who espouse ideologies considered radical. “Once you go down that path, there are a lot of different things [we] don’t agree with. And once people begin to be targeted for their beliefs, when they’re not actually engaged in criminal activity, that hurts our society as well.”<br />Federal officials say they are investigating the shooting in Charleston from all angles. "The department is looking at this crime from all angles, including as a hate crime and as an act of domestic terrorism," Department of Justice spokeswoman Emily Pierce said in a statement.<br />From a legal perspective, labeling the attack in Charleston an act of terrorism could cause problems by making the case against the suspected shooter more difficult to prosecute. “Terrorism charges are sometimes unnecessary,” Kayyem says. In the case of the convicted Boston Marathon bomber, for example, Dzokhar Tsarnaev did not face formal terrorism charges.<br />“A lot of times, prosecutors do not want to bring cases that require proof of intent,” she says. “If the facts are there, then just bring a factual case. I have no problem saying this is terrorism, but also being very comfortable with this just being a series of murder charges, legally speaking.”<br /><br />http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-06-19/course-charleston-shooting-was-terrorism-question-what-s-best-responseRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-15895597598417183222015-06-04T16:10:41.290-07:002015-06-04T16:10:41.290-07:00"There's an organization responsible for ..."There's an organization responsible for more terrorism plots in the United States than al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab and ISIS combined: The FBI. How? Why? In an eye-opening talk, investigative journalist Trevor Aaronson reveals a disturbing FBI practice that breeds terrorist plots by exploiting Muslim-Americans with mental health problems."<br /><br /><br />http://www.ted.com/talks/trevor_aaronson_how_this_fbi_strategy_is_actually_creating_us_based_terroristsRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-72266893600004199902015-01-27T15:54:24.095-08:002015-01-27T15:54:24.095-08:00People think that catching terrorists is just a ma...People think that catching terrorists is just a matter of finding them – but, just as often, terrorists are created by the people doing the chase.<br /><br />While making our film (T)ERROR, which tracks a single counter-terrorism sting operation over seven months, we realized that most people have serious misconceptions about FBI counter-terrorism efforts. They assume that informants infiltrate terrorist networks and then provide the FBI with information about those networks in order to stop terrorist plots from being carried out. That’s not true in the vast majority of domestic terrorism cases.<br /><br />Since 9/11, as Human Rights Watch and others have documented, the FBI has routinely used paid informants not to capture existing terrorists, but to cultivate them. Through elaborate sting operations, informants are directed to spend months – sometimes years – building relationships with targets, stoking their anger and offering ideas and incentives that encourage them to engage in terrorist activity. And the moment a target takes a decisive step forward, crossing the line from aspirational to operational, the FBI swoops in to arrest him.<br /><br />The targets of FBI stings are almost exclusively Muslim men between the ages of 15 and 35. They also tend to be angry, isolated and impoverished – in other words, eager for companionship and easy to manipulate. Many of the informants are well-remunerated con men with criminal histories, whom the FBI cannot guarantee won’t coerce targets into plots in order to secure their own paychecks. The stakes are high: informants stand to make as much as $100,000 over the course of a single investigation, not to mention considerable bonuses in the case of successful convictions.<br /><br />A recent example: on 14 January, the FBI announced that it had interrupted an Isis-inspired terrorist plot in the United States. Christopher Lee Cornell, a 20-year-old recent Muslim convert from Cincinnati, was allegedly plotting to attack the US Capitol with pipe bombs and gun down government officials. Cornell was arrested after purchasing two semiautomatic weapons from an Ohio gun store because the man that Cornell thought was his partner was actually an FBI informant. His plot was foiled by the FBI, after they ensured the cooperation of the store owner.<br /><br />We see the same story repeated over and over: of the domestic terrorism plots interrupted by law enforcement over the past decade, all but four were initiated by an informant-provocateur acting under FBI supervision. Conveniently for the FBI, network news anchors choose to parrot FBI press releases and herald suspects’ alleged associations with radical Islam, and the steady stream of “interrupted plots” provides the government with ample evidence that the terrorist threat is ever-present and that expanded surveillance is essential to national security.<br /><br />Less than a day after Cornell’s arrest, House Speaker John Boehner praised NSA spying for uncovering the plot – even though the FBI asserts that it learned of Cornell’s alleged activities through the informant. When pressed for details, Boehner refused to elaborate, saying only, “We’ll let the whole story roll out”. He added that lawmakers need to consider this particular plot when discussing amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.<br /><br />Although then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales released guidelines governing the FBI’s use of confidential informants in 2006, there is no congressional oversight of these activities. Even though Attorney General Eric Holder recently revised federal law-enforcement guidelines to limit racial profiling, and despite evidence that the FBI engages in profiling when identifying persons of investigative interest, the FBI will be exempt from these revised guidelines in the interests of national security.<br /><br /><br />http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/26/fbi-surveillance-counterterrorism-entrapment-terror-documentary-sundanceRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-86763972360444037992014-10-02T09:41:39.153-07:002014-10-02T09:41:39.153-07:00ASLAN: Islam doesn't promote violence or peace...ASLAN: Islam doesn't promote violence or peace. Islam is just a religion, and like every religion in the world, it depends on what you bring to it. If you're a violent person, your Islam, your Judaism, your Christianity, your Hinduism is going to be violent. There are Buddhist -- marauding Buddhist monks in Myanmar slaughtering<br /><br />women and children. Does Buddhism promote violence? Of course not. People are violent or peaceful. And that depends on their politics, their social world, the way that they see their communities, the way they see themselves. <br /><br />CAMEROTA: So, Reza, you don't think that there's anything more -- there's -- the justice system in Muslim countries you don't think is somehow more primitive or subjugates women more than in other countries? <br /><br />ASLAN: Did you hear what you just said? You said in Muslim countries. <br /><br />I just told you that, Indonesia, women are absolutely 100 percent equal to men. In Turkey, they have had more female representatives, more female heads of state in Turkey than we have in the United States. <br /><br />LEMON: Yes, but in Pakistan...<br />-------<br /><br />(CROSSTALK)<br /><br />ASLAN: Stop saying things like "Muslim countries."<br /><br /><br />ASLAN: Stoning and mutilation and those barbaric practices should be condemned and criticized by everyone. The actions of individuals and societies and countries like Iran, like Pakistan, like Saudi Arabia must be condemned, because they don't belong in the 21st century.<br /><br />But to say Muslim countries, as though Pakistan and Turkey are the same, as though Indonesia and Saudi Arabia are the same, as though somehow what is happening in the most extreme forms of these repressive countries, these autocratic countries, is representative of what's happening in every other Muslim country, is, frankly -- and I use this word seriously -- stupid. So let's stop doing that. <br /><br />LEMON: OK, Reza. Let's -- I want you to listen to Benjamin Netanyahu again. This is actually the one I wanted you to hear. ASLAN: Yes, the ISIS. <br /><br />(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)<br /><br />NETANYAHU: But our hopes and the world's hopes for peace are in danger, because everywhere we look, militant Islam is on the march. It's not militants. It's not Islam. It's militant Islam. And, typically, its first victims are other Muslims, but it spares no one. <br /><br />(END VIDEO CLIP)<br /><br />LEMON: He's making a clear distinction there. He says it's not militants, it's not Islam; it's militant Islam. Do you understand his distinction there? Is he correct? <br /><br />ASLAN: Well, he's correct in talking about militant Islam being a problem. <br /><br />He is absolutely incorrect in talking about ISIS equaling Hamas. That's just ridiculous. No one takes him seriously when he says things like that. And, frankly, it's precisely why, under his leadership, Israel has become so incredibly isolated from the rest of the global community. <br /><br />Those kinds of statements are illogical, they're irrational, they're so obviously propagandistic. In fact, he went so far as to then bring up the Nazis, which has become kind of a verbal tick for him whenever he brings up either Hamas or ISIS. <br /><br />Again, these kinds of oversimplifications I think only cause more danger. There is a very real problem. ISIS is a problem. Al Qaeda is a problem. These militant Islamic groups like Hamas, like Hezbollah, like the Taliban have to be dealt with. But it doesn't actually help us to deal with them when, instead of talking about rational conflicts, rational criticisms of a particular religion, we instead so easily slip into bigotry by simply painting everyone with a single brush, as we have been doing in this conversation, mind you.<br /><br /><br />http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/09/30/reza_aslan_mahers_facile_generalizations_of_islam_the_definition_of_bigotry.htmlRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-44143322888493438822013-02-02T10:01:25.539-08:002013-02-02T10:01:25.539-08:00HWJ: "What if this technique led to a 50% dec...HWJ: "What if this technique led to a 50% decrease in terrorist attacks in Pakistan? Would you then consider the method as justified or would you still consider it "unfair targeting"?"<br /><br />First, such entrapment of innocents does nothing to reduce terror attacks. <br /><br />Second, even if it did, it would still be wrong to sweep up youth of a certain faith and ethnicity in the name of fighting terror. Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-31268580607504561662013-02-02T09:53:32.783-08:002013-02-02T09:53:32.783-08:00^^RH: "The FBI has intensified its pursuit of...^^RH: "The FBI has intensified its pursuit of "home-grown" terrorists, allegedly foiling scores of plots around the United States since 9/11 terrorist attacks in America. The question now being increasingly asked is: Would there be many such terror plots to foil without government informants used to create them?"<br />----<br /><br />What if GOP did the same thing in our country and locked-up all the potential/aspiring radicals? What if this technique led to a 50% decrease in terrorist attacks in Pakistan? Would you then consider the method as justified or would you still consider it "unfair targeting"?Hopewinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07885301987622998733noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-9849187812826271982013-01-15T06:01:40.244-08:002013-01-15T06:01:40.244-08:00
Jan 15,013:
Here is another phony entrapment targ...<br />Jan 15,013:<br />Here is another phony entrapment targeting our Pakistani Model Minority in the US--<br />http://alturl.com/cush9Hopewinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07885301987622998733noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-46378567904390510452012-03-21T19:09:33.793-07:002012-03-21T19:09:33.793-07:00Here's a Guardian story on a former FBI inform...Here's a <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/20/fbi-informant?newsfeed=true" rel="nofollow">Guardian story</a> on a former FBI informant saying "It is all about entrapment." <br /><br /><i>Craig Monteilh says he did not balk when his FBI handlers gave him the OK to have sex with the Muslim women his undercover operation was targeting. Nor, at the time, did he shy away from recording their pillow talk.<br /><br />"They said, if it would enhance the intelligence, go ahead and have sex. So I did," Monteilh told the Guardian as he described his year as a confidential FBI informant sent on a secret mission to infiltrate southern Californian mosques.<br /><br />It is an astonishing admission that goes that goes to the heart of the intelligence surveillance of Muslim communities in America in the years after 9/11. While police and FBI leaders have insisted they are acting to defend America from a terrorist attack, civil liberties groups have insisted they have repeatedly gone too far and treated an entire religious group as suspicious.<br /><br />Monteilh was involved in one of the most controversial tactics: the use of "confidential informants" in so-called entrapment cases. This is when suspects carry out or plot fake terrorist "attacks" at the request or under the close supervision of an FBI undercover operation using secret informants. Often those informants have serious criminal records or are supplied with a financial motivation to net suspects.<br /><br />In the case of the Newburgh Four – where four men were convicted for a fake terror attack on Jewish targets in the Bronx – a confidential informant offered $250,000, a free holiday and a car to one suspect for help with the attack.<br /><br />In the case of the Fort Dix Five, which involved a fake plan to attack a New Jersey military base, one informant's criminal past included attempted murder, while another admitted in court at least two of the suspects later jailed for life had not known of any plot.<br /><br />Such actions have led Muslim civil rights groups to wonder if their communities are being unfairly targeted in a spying game that is rigged against them. Monteilh says that is exactly what happens. "The way the FBI conducts their operations, It is all about entrapment … I know the game, I know the dynamics of it. It's such a joke, a real joke. There is no real hunt. It's fixed," he said....</i><br /><br />http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/20/fbi-informant?newsfeed=trueRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-15391018253204477852012-02-08T19:46:29.905-08:002012-02-08T19:46:29.905-08:00Here are some excerpts of a NY Times story "R...Here are some excerpts of a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/us/radical-muslim-americans-pose-little-threat-study-says.html?_r=1" rel="nofollow">NY Times story</a> "Radical U.S. Muslims Little Threat, Study Says":<br /><br /><i>A feared wave of homegrown terrorism by radicalized Muslim Americans has not materialized, with plots and arrests dropping sharply over the two years since an unusual peak in 2009, according to a new study by a North Carolina research group.<br /><br />The study, to be released on Wednesday, found that 20 Muslim Americans were charged in violent plots or attacks in 2011, down from 26 in 2010 and a spike of 47 in 2009.<br /><br />Charles Kurzman, the author of the report for the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security, called terrorism by Muslim Americans “a minuscule threat to public safety.” Of about 14,000 murders in the United States last year, not a single one resulted from Islamic extremism, said Mr. Kurzman, a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina.<br /><br />The report also found that no single ethnic group predominated among Muslims charged in terrorism cases last year — six were of Arab ancestry, five were white, three were African-American and two were Iranian, Mr. Kurzman said. That pattern of ethnic diversity has held for those arrested since Sept. 11, 2001, he said.<br /><br />Forty percent of those charged in 2011 were converts to Islam, Mr. Kurzman found, slightly higher than the 35 percent of those charged since the 2001 attacks. His new report is based on the continuation of research he conducted for a book he published last year, “The Missing Martyrs: Why There Are So Few Muslim Terrorists.”<br /><br />The decline in cases since 2009 has come as a relief to law enforcement and counterterrorism officials. In that year, the authorities were surprised by a series of terrorist plots or attacks, including the killing of 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., by an Army psychiatrist who had embraced radical Islam, Maj. Nidal Hasan. <br />------------------<br />But the number of cases declined, returning to the rough average of about 20 Muslim Americans accused of extremist violence per year that has prevailed since the 2001 attacks, with 193 people in that category over the decade. By Mr. Kurzman’s count, 462 other Muslim Americans have been charged since 2001 for nonviolent crimes in support of terrorism, including financing and making false statements.<br /><br />The 2011 cases include just one actual series of attacks, which caused no injuries, involving rifle shots fired late at night at military buildings in Northern Virginia. A former Marine Corps reservist, Yonathan Melaku, pleaded guilty in the case last month in an agreement that calls for a 25-year prison sentence.<br /><br />Other plots unearthed by law enforcement last year and listed in Mr. Kurzman’s report included a suspected Iranian plan to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States, a scheme to attack a Shiite mosque in Michigan and another to blow up synagogues, churches and the Empire State Building.<br /><br />“Fortunately, very few of these people are competent and very few get to the stage of preparing an attack without coming to the attention of the authorities,” Mr. Kurzman said. </i> <br /><br />http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/us/radical-muslim-americans-pose-little-threat-study-says.html?_r=1Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-21178722881401994242012-01-24T21:02:29.821-08:002012-01-24T21:02:29.821-08:00Here's a NY Times story of a police training v...Here's a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/nyregion/in-police-training-a-dark-film-on-us-muslims.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=third%20jihad%20&st=cse" rel="nofollow">NY Times</a> story of a police training video promoting hatred against Muslims:<br /><br /><i>Ominous music plays as images appear on the screen: Muslim terrorists shoot Christians in the head, car bombs explode, executed children lie covered by sheets and a doctored photograph shows an Islamic flag flying over the White House. <br /><br />“This is the true agenda of much of Islam in America,” a narrator intones. “A strategy to infiltrate and dominate America. ... This is the war you don’t know about.”<br /><br />This is the feature-length film titled “The Third Jihad,” paid for by a nonprofit group, which was shown to more than a thousand officers as part of training in the New York Police Department.<br /><br />In January 2011, when news broke that the department had used the film in training, a top police official denied it, then said it had been mistakenly screened “a couple of times” for a few officers.<br /><br />A year later, police documents obtained under the state’s Freedom of Information Law reveal a different reality: “The Third Jihad,” which includes an interview with Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, was shown, according to internal police reports, “on a continuous loop” for between three months and one year of training.<br /><br />During that time, at least 1,489 police officers, from lieutenants to detectives to patrol officers, saw the film. <br />---------------<br />The film posits that there were three jihads: One at the time of Muhammad, a second in the Middle Ages and a third that is under way covertly throughout the West today.<br /><br />This is, the film claims, “the 1,400-year war.”<br /><br />How the film came to be used in police training, and even for how long, was not clear. An undated memorandum from the department’s commanding officer for specialized training noted that an employee of the federal Department of Homeland Security handed the DVD to the New York police in January 2010. Since then, this officer said, the video was shown continuously “during the sign-in, medical and administrative orientation process.” A Department of Homeland Security spokesman said it was never used in its curriculum, and might have come from a contractor.<br /><br />As it turned out, it was police officers who blew the whistle after watching the film. Late in 2010, Mr. Robbins contacted an officer who spoke of his unease with the film; another officer, said Zead Ramadan, the New York president of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, talked of seeing it during a training session the previous summer. “The officer was completely offended by it as a Muslim,” Mr. Ramadan said. “It defiled our faith and misrepresented everything we stood for.”<br /><br />When the news broke about the movie last year, Mr. Browne called it a “wacky film” that had been shown “only a couple of times when officers were filling out paperwork before the actual course work began.”<br />-----------<br />There is the question of the officers who viewed the movie during training. Mr. Browne said the Police Department had no plans to correct any false impressions the movie might have left behind.<br /><br />“There’s no plan to contact officers who saw it,” he said, or to “add other programming as a result.” </i><br /><br />http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/nyregion/in-police-training-a-dark-film-on-us-muslims.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=third%20jihad%20&st=cseRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-90052237476034467662011-12-11T10:54:52.426-08:002011-12-11T10:54:52.426-08:00Here's a Washington Post report on advertisers...Here's a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/companies-pull-ads-from-muslim-reality-tv-show/2011/12/09/gIQANywmiO_story.html" rel="nofollow">Washington Post</a> report on advertisers pulling out of TLC's "All-American Muslim" reality TV show:<br /><br /><i>Lowe’s, the national hardware chain, has pulled commercials from future episodes of “All-American Muslim,” a TLC reality-TV show, after protests by Christian groups.<br /><br />The Florida Family Association, a Tampa Bay group, has led a campaign urging companies to pull ads on “All-American Muslim.” The FFA contends that 65 of 67 companies it has targeted have pulled their ads, including Bank of America, the Campbell Soup Co., Dell, Estee Lauder, General Motors, Goodyear, Green Mountain Coffee, McDonalds, Sears, and Wal-Mart.<br /><br />“’All-American Muslim’ is propaganda clearly designed to counter legitimate and present-day concerns about many Muslims who are advancing Islamic fundamentalism and Sharia law,” the Florida group asserts in a letter it asks members to send to TLC advertisers.<br /><br />“The show profiles only Muslims that appear to be ordinary folks while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to the liberties and traditional values that the majority of Americans cherish,” the FFA’s letter continues.<br /><br />It was not clear whether the companies cited by the Florida Family Association, which has also targeted shows like MTV’s “Degrassi,” stopped advertising on “All-American Muslim” because of pressure or for other reasons.<br /><br />Emails from Home Depot and Sweet’N Low posted on the Florida Family Association’s website suggest the companies had simply bought one commercial spot, and didn’t cancel any commercials.<br /><br />A spokeswoman for Amway, also cited by the Florida group, denied the company pulled advertising from “All-American Muslim,” and said those reports were “misleading” and “falsely named” Amway.<br /><br />Lowe’s acknowledged pulling commercials from “All-American Muslim” following consumer complaints, but denied they came from one group.<br /><br />“We understand the program raised concerns, complaints, or issues from multiple sides of the viewer spectrum, which we found after doing research of news articles and blogs covering the show,” said Katie Cody, a Lowe’s spokeswoman.<br /><br />Cody declined to specify whether the complaints were anti-Muslim, and whether Lowe’s advertises on shows with Christian, Jewish, or other religious characters or themes. “It is certainly never Lowe’s intent to alienate anyone,” Cody said.<br /><br />“Shame on Lowe’s, and shame on every one of these companies if they really did cave in to such bigotry and hatred,” wrote Sheila Musaji, who blogs at theamericanmuslim.org. If the Florida Family Association and other reports are misrepresenting these companies, she added, “then they need to speak up.”<br /><br />The first of eight weekly episodes of “All-American Muslim,” which follows five Lebanese families in Dearborn, Mich., premiered on Nov. 13.<br /><br />A TLC spokeswoman, Laurie Goldberg, said the network could not comment about the alleged advertising defections, but that the show maintained “strong” advertising. “There are no plans to pull the show. The show is going to continue as planned,” said Goldberg.</i><br /><br />http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/companies-pull-ads-from-muslim-reality-tv-show/2011/12/09/gIQANywmiO_story.htmlRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-40227891836877451562011-09-15T14:20:53.630-07:002011-09-15T14:20:53.630-07:00Here's a France24 story about New York's &...Here's a <a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20110909-new-york-little-pakistan-rises-911-ashes-september-11-brooklyn-copo-neighbourhood-immigration" rel="nofollow">France24 story</a> about New York's "Little Pakistan":<br /><br /><i>Following the 9/11 attacks of 2001, renewed fears of terrorism turned the New York community of Little Pakistan into a ghost town. But 10 years later, this Brooklyn neighbourhood has learned some important lessons in community activism.<br />-----<br />In Little Pakistan, a New York neighbourhood where the store signs are in English and Urdu, the rich smell of freshly fried samsosas entices mothers in hijabs walking their children home from school.<br /><br />On the corner of Coney Island and Foster avenues, a cheerful, matronly woman roasting corn on a charcoal spit provides a lively commentary on the neighborhood. “This is Little Pakistan, it's going well here,” Kaneez Fatima says, in her native Urdu. “This is my home. I'm the queen of this place,” she adds with a throaty laugh. Around her, a clutch of clients chomping her roasted corn sportingly agree.<br /><br />Ten years after the 9/11 attacks, commerce is brisk – or as brisk as one could hope for during an economic crisis – along this stretch of Coney Island Avenue.<br /><br />The area has come a long way since the dark days following the biggest terrorist attacks on US soil. As law enforcement officials began patrolling here and detaining hundreds of Pakistani immigrants – often for minor infractions – in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, a climate of fear gripped the community. Numerous wives, mothers and sisters, some of them non-English speakers, had no idea back then where their menfolk were being held.<br /><br />In the following months, once-thriving stores permanently closed their shutters as thousands of Pakistani immigrants packed up and left, often either for Canada or Pakistan. By May 2003, about 15,000 of the once 120,000-strong community had left, according to Pakistani government estimates.<br />----<br />Of the estimated 700,000 Pakistani-Americans, roughly two-thirds live in the New York area. Over the past decade, Little Pakistan has periodically turned into a focal point for journalists who swoop down on the area to take the community's temperature with every new black mark on Pakistan's terrorism track record.<br /><br />And there have been many black marks. In May 2010, a newly nationalised US citizen of Pakistani origin attempted to detonate an explosive device in a car on Times Square. When he was arrested, Faisal Shahzad admitted to receiving bomb-making training in Pakistan’s Waziristan province.<br /><br />A year later, US Navy SEALS and CIA operatives found and killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a house in Abbottabad, not far from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, renewing US suspicions that Pakistan's military establishment is protecting Islamist militants.<br /><br />With every crisis in US-Pakistani relations, community leaders in Little Pakistan spring into action, taking to the airwaves to reiterate the community's rejection of violence and their history of being patriotic, law-abiding US citizens.<br />------------<br />COPO, for instance, was founded by a local businessman who turned his fabric store into a temporary community service centre, believing that once the neighbourhood's immediate problems were resolved, he would close down the organisation and get back to business.<br /><br />Engaging with America<br /><br />Nearly a decade later, COPO not only survives but has vastly expanded its operations, conducting English-language classes, youth programs and forums where law enforcement officials meet with community members in order to discuss each other's concerns.<br /><br />Caught unprepared shortly after 9/11, the community is now keenly aware of the importance of empowering its members to engage actively with officials in their new home, rather than fearing and fleeing them.<br />...</i>Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-49673425285575526272011-07-28T11:40:32.744-07:002011-07-28T11:40:32.744-07:00It's interesting to see how the Christian righ...It's interesting to see how the Christian right-wingers in America, like the Hindu Nationalists in India, are trying to distance themselves from Breivik. It's the same people who routinely blame the entire Muslim faith for the actions of a few who claim to be Muslim.<br /><br />Here's an excerpt from a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/jon-stewart-fox-news-calls-christians-victims-of-norway-attacks/2011/07/28/gIQA2rhCfI_blog.html" rel="nofollow">Washington Post</a> report:<br /><br /><i>On Wednesday’s “Daily Show,” Stewart took issue with Fox News claiming that the “liberal media” unfairly labeled the suspect, Anders Behring Breivik, as a Christian, therefore victimizing other Christians in the process.<br /><br />On Fox Business Network’s “America’s Nightly Scoreboard,” contributor Lt. Col. Ralph Peters said that Breivik is not a Christian because “anybody can claim anything,” and also that the suspect is “a godsend to the liberal media.”<br /><br />“There have been tens of thousands of Islamist terrorist attacks, and the media have rushed to say it's nothing to do with Islam,” he said. “Now one crazy claims he's a Christian and commits an act of terror, and ... we expect more Christian terrorists.”<br /><br />Bill O’Reilly said it was “impossible” that Breivik is Christian just because he claimed he was one. But Stewart pointed out that O’Reilly felt comfortable calling the suspect in the Fort Hood shooting, Nidal Malik Hasan, a “Muslim terrorist” because he had a business card that read “Soldier of Allah.”<br /><br />“See. That guy printed up a ‘Soldier of Allah’ business card. The other guy only printed up an ‘Army of Christ’ manifesto,” Stewart said. “I guess the only connection is both psychos, for some reason, spent the day at Kinko’s.”<br /><br />Jordan Sekulow, The Post’s Religion Right Now blogger, agreed that Breivik is not a “Christian” just because he used the term.<br /><br />“Breivik is not a ‘Christian terrorist’ because, according to his own description of what the word ‘Christian’ means to him, and his actions, he is not a Christian,” Sekulow wrote.<br /><br />The Rev. Barry Lynn, a contributor to The Post’s On Faith, thinks O’Reilly’s claim is “nonsense.”<br /><br />“Breivik says he is a Christian; he wrote a ‘manifesto’ in which he attempts to link Christianity to opposition to Muslim immigration,” Lynn wrote. “Yet he failed miserably to understand the faith he claimed to champion.”</i><br /><br />http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/jon-stewart-fox-news-calls-christians-victims-of-norway-attacks/2011/07/28/gIQA2rhCfI_blog.htmlRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-34067672728295174332011-07-28T09:27:56.425-07:002011-07-28T09:27:56.425-07:00Here's an excerpt from an interesting article ...Here's an excerpt from an interesting article titled "FBI ‘Islam 101′ Guide Depicted Muslims as 7th-Century Simpletons by Spencer Ackerman published in <a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/07/fbi-islam-101-guide/" rel="nofollow">Wired Magazine</a>:<br /><br /><i>As recently as January 2009, the FBI thought its agents ought to know the following crucial information about Muslims:<br /><br /> * They engage in a “circumcision ritual”<br /> * More than 9,000 of them are in the U.S. military<br /> * Their religion “transforms [a] country’s culture into 7th-century Arabian ways.”<br /><br />And this was what the FBI considered “recommended reading” about Islam:<br /><br /> * A much-criticized tome, The Arab Mind, that one reviewer called “a collection of outrageously broad — and often suspect — generalizations“<br /> * A book by one of Norwegian terrorist suspect Anders Behring Breivik’s favorite anti-Muslim authors.<br /><br />All this is revealed in a PowerPoint presentation by the FBI’s Law Enforcement Communications Unit (.pdf), which trains new Bureau recruits. Among the 62 slides in the presentation, designed to teach techniques for “successful interviews/interrogations with individuals from the M.E. [Middle East],” is an instruction that the “Arabic mind” is “swayed more by words than ideas and more by ideas than facts.”<br /><br />The briefing presents much information that has nothing to do with crime and everything to do with constitutionally-protected religious practice and social behavior, such as estimating the number of mosques in America and listing the states with the largest Muslim populations.<br /><br />Other slides paint Islam in a less malicious light, and one urges “respectful liaison” as a “proactive approach” to engaging Muslims. But even those exhibit what one American Muslim civil rights leader calls “the understanding of a third grader, and even then, a badly misinformed third grader.”<br /><br />One slide asks, “Is Iran an Arab country?” (It’s not.) Another is just a picture of worry beads.<br /><br />“Based on this presentation, it is easy to see why so many in law enforcement and the FBI view American Muslims with ignorance and suspicion,” says Farhana Khera, the executive director of Muslim Advocates, a legal aid group. “The presentation appears to treat all Muslims with one broad brush and makes no distinction between lawful religious practice and beliefs and unlawful activities.”...</i><br /><br />http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/07/fbi-islam-101-guide/Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-21654568486934016532011-04-15T10:23:59.082-07:002011-04-15T10:23:59.082-07:00Here's an Op Ed about Pakistani-American Syed ...Here's an Op Ed about Pakistani-American Syed Fahad Hashmi published in the <a href="http://chronicle.com/article/My-Student-the-Terrorist/126937/" rel="nofollow">San Francisco Chronicle</a>:<br /><br /><i>By Jeanne Theoharis (Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College)<br /><br />Pale and gaunt, he stood there, having endured three years of pretrial solitary confinement. "Alhamdullilah," he said.<br /><br />Yes. He had allowed an acquaintance to stay with him in his student apartment in London—an acquaintance who had raincoats, ponchos, and waterproof socks in his luggage, which the acquaintance later delivered to Al Qaeda.<br />---------<br />Eight years earlier, Fahad and I had sat across from each other in my office. A student in my civil-rights seminar, he had come in to discuss his final research paper. Months after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, he wanted to examine the denial of civil rights and constitutional protections that Muslim groups across the political spectrum were facing in the United States.<br />----------<br />A day before trial, the government dropped the other three charges. That it did so suggests that it had applied draconian pretrial measures, not because it considered Fahad a high-level terrorist, but to induce his cooperation or conviction.<br /><br />Six weeks later, Judge Preska sentenced him to 15 years in prison. At the sentencing, it became clear that Fahad posed a threat not only because of luggage brought to his apartment, but because of his ideology. Assistant U.S. Attorney Brendan McGuire called it "an ideology of violence and intolerance," noting that "not every person who supports Al Qaeda is going to pull a trigger or throw a bomb or launch an attack." Citing Fahad's "anti-American jihadist ideology," the judge echoed that McCarthyesque logic of deterrence.<br />------------<br />We have freedom of speech and build bridges of dialogue and debate, I teach my students, and what makes that hard is that we have to hear things we do not like and be confronted with truths and opinions far removed from our own.<br /><br />But those lessons are not upheld in our public culture, which has drawn arbitrary, silencing constrictions around the speech and association of Muslim-Americans. While Christian and Jewish political dissents regularly enter American public debate (militant Christian anti-abortion rhetoric, for instance, may be censured but is not criminalized), Islamic political dissent condemning U.S. practices becomes "subject to ferocious penalties," as Randolph Bourne decried long ago, and Fahad had quoted in his paper.<br /><br />"If you see something, say something." Our duty, I believe, is different—to see in a terrorism suspect a person deserving of rights and humane treatment; to speak out against torture when it happens in a New York jail, not just when it occurs overseas; to insist that the Bill of Rights applies to all defendants all of the time. To take responsibility for the ways each of us has become complicit in the civil-rights violations of our era.We have freedom of speech and build bridges of dialogue and debate, I teach my students, and what makes that hard is that we have to hear things we do not like and be confronted with truths and opinions far removed from our own.<br /></i>Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-28809607545763396002011-03-27T09:25:03.836-07:002011-03-27T09:25:03.836-07:00In a Newsweek interview, Japanse-American historia...In a <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2011/03/20/interview-francis-fukuyama.html" rel="nofollow">Newsweek</a> interview, Japanse-American historian Francis Fukuyama warns that "the entire internment episode was a grave injustice. Any person of Japanese-American ancestry watching today’s Islamophobia has to be very sensitive."<br /><br />http://www.newsweek.com/2011/03/20/interview-francis-fukuyama.htmlRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-57909614988802138162011-03-15T23:21:06.248-07:002011-03-15T23:21:06.248-07:00Here's an excerpt from a piece by Jack Hunter ...Here's an excerpt from a piece by Jack Hunter titled "Peter King's Radical Ignorance" in <a href="http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2011/03/15/peter-kings-radical-ignorance/" rel="nofollow">The American Conservative</a> magazine:<br /><br /><i>This is not unlike when we are told that terrorists simply “hate our freedom,” as President Bush and his Republican supporters like Rep. King have always considered a satisfactory explanation for our problems with radical Islam. Yet using two of the very examples cited at King’s hearings—Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan and the Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad—what can we deduce about what actually causes domestic Islamic terrorism? If virtually every would-be domestic Islamic terrorist cites the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as their primary motivation—which virtually all of them do including Hasan and Shahzad—and yet we are still fighting wars in both countries allegedly in the name of fighting terrorists… might it be time to reexamine and perhaps reassess our foreign policy? Are we attacking the problem of radical Islam or helping to create it? Has the War on Terror actually become a war for it?<br /><br />Yet few dare raise these most pertinent questions. When longtime DC-based tax activist Grover Norquist suggested in January that conservatives should begin to have a conversation about the wisdom of our war in Afghanistan, he was swiftly denounced by many on the Right for even daring to discuss the matter. Norquist defended his suggestion: “I’m confident about where that conversation would go. And I think the people who are against that conversation know where it would go, too.” Addressing some of his harsher critics, Norquist shot back: “Shut up is not an argument… Many of the people who want us to stay in Afghanistan are smart people. There are good arguments for their position. So let’s hear them.”<br /><br />But hearing any serious cost/benefit analysis about our current foreign policy is about as likely to happen as Washington leaders addressing and correcting our reckless domestic policy of trillion dollar deficits and debt. It is simply assumed that the status quo, whatever it may be, is somehow beneficial and necessary by its own volition. Or perhaps worse, politicians fear that the many special interests involved could potentially be jeopardized by any substantive examination of the way Washington conducts its business.<br /><br />This characteristic intellectual laziness among the political class is particularly troubling when it comes to the threat of terrorism, domestic or otherwise. We continue to fret over the Islamic terror effect while steadfastly refusing to even consider the cause of Islamic terrorism, making King’s hearings last week little more than another example of Washington’s typical grandstanding buffoonery. Yes, King and his allies on this issue are indeed right that the problem of domestic Islamic terrorism is a concern—but their ongoing blindness toward the primary cause of their concern prevents them from even attempting to examine this issue comprehensively. Peter King might as well have called for congressional hearings on the problem of teenage sex while leaving raging hormones completely out of the equation. And let us hear no more from Washington leaders who want to “keep us safe” until they are first willing to look at the policies of their own making that continue to endanger us the most.</i>Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-86455228017478703152011-03-11T22:50:08.966-08:002011-03-11T22:50:08.966-08:00Here are some excerpts from an Op Ed published in ...Here are some excerpts from an Op Ed published in <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/mar/11/islam-congress" rel="nofollow">The Guardian</a> today on King's hearings:<br /><br /><i>Despite a recent study showing that 40% of all extremist plots in America were thwarted as a result of Muslim American help, King ignores this evidence and stubbornly asserts there is a "lack of cooperation" by Muslims with law enforcement. The intent, scope and framing of King's hearing have been criticised by law enforcement officials, counter-terrorism professionals, civil rights organisations, interfaith leaders and political commentators as being misguided, ineffective and potentially dangerous.<br /><br />Undeniably, violent extremism poses a threat to America, and a few radicalised Muslims have committed or attempted to commit acts of violence. Evidence includes Nidal Hasan Malik, who shot 13 soldiers last year, and Faisal Shaizad, the failed Times Square bomber in New York. However, the majority of terror plots in America since 9/11 has been committed by non-Muslims, especially rightwing extremists and white supremacists. Examples include the failed Martin Luther King parade bomber in Washington state; Jared Lee Loughner, the Arizona shooter who killed six people, including a judge, and Joseph Stack who flew his plane into an IRS building last year. In fact, a near-record 1,000 hate groups currently exist in America, and, as the Southern Poverty Law Centre reports, most are a result of "radical rightwing expansion, represented by hatemongers, the nativists and the antigovernment zealots".<br /><br />So, why is King's focus solely on Muslim Americans, especially when Muslim American terrorism and involvement in extremism has significantly decreased, according to a recent Duke University study?<br /><br />Unfortunately, history has shown that some people would sacrifice the rights of minorities for the illusion of feeling safe, as witnessed when innocent Japanese Americans were interned in camps during the second world war and viewed as a subversive fifth column, purely on account of their ethnicity. At a time when 60% of Americans don't know a Muslim and nearly 50% hold a negative view of Islam, it is unsurprising that 52% of Americans are comfortable with King's hearing being focused solely on Muslims.<br /><br />As a Muslim American, and a member of America's most diverse religious group, I can testify that we are not a monolithic entity who share a collective consciousness and are automatically alerted to the perverse inclinations of all radicalised loners. Furthermore, Muslim Americans do not have specialised knowledge or heightened awareness of extremist threats – just as Italian Americans do not have innate knowledge of the Mafia's criminal operations. Perhaps King should invite the cast of Jersey Shore and the Sopranos to field that inquiry.</i><br /><br />http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/mar/11/islam-congressRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-61794251346041976612011-02-22T21:55:48.241-08:002011-02-22T21:55:48.241-08:00Here's an excerpt from a Washington Post repor...Here's an excerpt from a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/20/AR2011022002975.html" rel="nofollow">Washington Post</a> report on the futility of killing al Qaeda foot soldiers by drone attacks:<br /><br /><i>CIA drone attacks in Pakistan killed at least 581 militants last year, according to independent estimates. The number of those militants noteworthy enough to appear on a U.S. list of most-wanted terrorists: two. <br /><br />Despite a major escalation in the number of unmanned Predator strikes being carried out under the Obama administration, data from government and independent sources indicate that the number of high-ranking militants being killed as a result has either slipped or barely increased.<br /><br />Even more generous counts - which indicate that the CIA killed as many as 13 "high-value targets" - suggest that the drone program is hitting senior operatives only a fraction of the time. <br /><br />...<br />Senior Pakistani officials recently asked the Obama administration to put new restraints on a targeted-killing program that the government in Islamabad has secretly authorized for years.<br /><br />The CIA is increasingly killing "mere foot soldiers," a senior Pakistani official said, adding that the issue has come up in discussions in Washington involving President Asif Ali Zardari. The official said Pakistan has pressed the Americans "to find better targets, do it more sparingly and be a little less gung-ho."<br />...<br />The intensity of the strikes has caused an increase in the number of fatalities. The New America Foundation estimates that at least 607 people were killed in 2010, which would mean that a single year has accounted for nearly half of the number of deaths since 2004, when the program began.<br />Overall, the foundation estimates that 32 of those killed could be considered "militant leaders" of al-Qaeda or the Taliban, or about 2 percent.<br />...</i>Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.com