And Fox News once again gives the Council on American-Islamic Relations a platform without breathing a hint of the truth about the group. Judson Berger's bias is obvious and heavy-handed, but he is just another mainstream media reporter: the Society of Professional Journalists has done all it can to ensure that unsavory Islamic supremacist groups like CAIR a free pass, while anyone who dares speak the truth about the Islamic jihad is regarded with intense skepticism at best and open contempt at worst.
In any case, Berger's piece is ironic: it is an object lesson in what happens to those who dare to speak the truth about the global jihad and Islamic supremacism. And so it is a vivid illustration of why our conference is so urgently needed.
"CPAC Session on Jihad, Free Speech Attracts Complaints," by Judson Berger for FOXNews.com, February 17 (thanks to all who sent this in):
A panel discussion on the threat posed by "Islamic supremacism," Shariah and political correctness has been scheduled for this week's Conservative Political Action Conference, stirring complaints from some American Muslims that the exercise amounts to Muslim-bashing.
Longtime Jihad Watch readers will know that this is always the complaint whenever anyone ventures into these areas. The one who are always insisting most loudly that honest discussion of the jihad doctrine and Islamic supremacism somehow involves the implication that all Muslims are being called terrorists or evil are almost invariably apologists for jihad terror -- not the anti-jihad activists who are being thus criticized.
The two-hour session, titled "Jihad: The Political Third Rail," is set for Friday morning, right in the middle of the three-day annual summit of conservative icons and activists in Washington, D.C.Scheduled to speak are Steve Coughlin, a former Pentagon specialist on Islamic law who was fired two years ago, allegedly under pressure from pro-Muslim officials, and Wafa Sultan, an author and prominent critic of Islam. The discussion is billed as a window into Islam's "war on free speech," the "encroachment" of Shariah -- or Islamic law -- in the West and efforts by the Muslim Brotherhood to infiltrate American society.
Overall, CPAC is attuned more to political strategy and domestic issues, but organizers of the "Jihad" session have been trying to stir the pot with what they call a blunt and objective discussion of Muslims' attempts to harm the West while silencing criticism.
Notice that Berger portrays the Islamic war on free speech as something we are merely claiming is taking place. He probably made no effort to find out whether such a thing was really going on at all. He probably has no idea that the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), to which Obama just sent a special envoy, has for years now spearheaded an effort at the UN to compel member states to criminalize what it calls "defamation of religions," but by which it clearly means any honest discussion of the texts and teachings of Islam that jihadists invoke to justify violence and supremacism. In 2008, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the Secretary General of the OIC, which is the largest voting bloc at the United Nations today, warned the West about "red lines that should not be crossed" regarding free speech about Islam and terrorism.
But Judson Berger apparently knows or cares nothing about any of this. He thinks we're just stirring the pot.
Mission accomplished. The pot has been stirred."It's unfortunate that a conservative conference would be in any way associated with Muslim bashers and Islamophobes," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "It's a free country. They're free to be anti-Muslim bigots if they like, but it's really up to the organizers of CPAC to determine if they're going to allow their conference to be associated with the hate-filled views of those who will be speaking."
It's unfortunate that FoxNews would quote the likes of Ibrahim Hooper, known affectionately here as Honest Ibe, without informing its readers about CAIR's background. CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case -- so named by the Justice Department. CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. CAIR's cofounder and longtime Board chairman (Omar Ahmad), as well as its chief spokesman (Honest Ibe Hooper), have made Islamic supremacist statements. CAIR has warred against free speech in the past.
But Judson Berger doesn't tell you any of that. He just lets Hooper defame the conference organizers and speakers without even bothering to look into the other side of the issue. While he obviously spoke with Pamela Geller, Berger did not contact me for this article. Nor does he seem to have given Pamela a chance to respond to Hooper's smears.
The session appears to be attracting attention on both sides of the issue. While CAIR and a few blogs have blasted CPAC for putting on the event, co-host Pamela Geller said she's already gotten hundreds of RSVPs."It really will be enormously informative," she said. "Conservatives want to know."
Geller, publisher of the AtlasShrugs.com blog, is putting on the talk with Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer. Both are fierce critics of Islam.
Anyone, non-Muslim or Muslim, who isn't a "fierce critic" of a totalitarian, supremacist ideology that is making war against unbelievers in order to subjugate them as inferiors under the rule of that totalitarian legal system, deny women's rights, and extinguish the freedom of speech and the freedom of conscience, ought to embark upon a serious reevaluation of his values and priorities.
Geller said CPAC and the American Conservative Union, which sponsors it, do not do enough to draw attention to the issues being discussed and have tried to avoid such topics in the past.Referring to a Saturday session titled, "You've Been Lied To: Why Real Conservatives are Against the War on Terror," she said it was "incredible" that the only other related session at CPAC was taking the opposite approach.
Arguing that self-imposed censorship is crippling U.S. understanding of the wars it is in, she noted that the Pentagon's recent report into the Fort Hood shooting did not mention possible religious motivations behind the attack.
"When nowhere in that document was Islam or Jihad mentioned, then Houston, we have a problem," Geller said. "People need to understand what is the motivation."
Geller is a lightning rod for controversy, even without a forum on Islamic Jihad. Her Web site ranges in content from critiques of the Obama administration to alerts about Muslim terror attacks to more conspiratorial and outrageous postings. One blog last August questioned why the media were not reporting President Obama's "strange sexual predilections" and suggested that Obama traveled to Pakistan in the 1980s "for the drugs and came back with Jihad."
Now Berger brings out his hatchet. These statements are from this Atlas Shrugs post. In it, Pamela Geller argued that the mainstream media was avid to print every lie about Sarah Palin, but never investigated similar rumors, and much more substantial allegations, about Barack Obama. It is a call for consistency from the mainstream media -- but Berger here presents two quotes that by themselves suggest that Geller was gratuitously retailing innuendo about Obama. The one with the shady journalistic ethics here is Judson Berger, not Pamela Geller.
Geller said she anticipated being depicted as anti-Muslim for the CPAC session, but was not concerned about the event drifting over the line from thoughtful discussion on political correctness to virulent tirade on Islam as a whole."I'm not worried, because if everything is racism, then nothing is racism," she said....
Obviously from her remark about racism, she was saying that when CAIR and its allies level this charge indiscriminately, it loses all force. She was not by any stretch of the imagination saying that she didn't mind if the event became a "virulent tirade on Islam as a whole."
This kind of hit-and-run reportage ought to earn Judson Berger the contempt of every respectable journalist. Except there are hardly any respectable journalists left. He is just another run-of-the-mill mainstream media hack, worthy of the company of Michael Kruse, Meredith Heagney, Phil Keating, S. I. Rosenbaum, and innumerable others.
But Judson Berger doesn't tell you any of that. He just lets Hooper defame the conference organizers and speakers without even bothering to look into the other side of the issue.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: If Islam above criticism, and it is (as we see in this Fox News example), then the logical follow-on is that Moslem activists like the Underwear Bomber are to be publicly congratulated for their adherence to the Islam belief system.
*** 92:5 ***
Fair and Balanced, or Unfair and Distorted? This is a classic example of how a Fictive Reality is maintained.
Q: Does no one check a damned fact any more?
A: Not if he has a mass audience.
"but Berger here presents two quotes that by themselves suggest that Geller was gratuitously retailing innuendo about Obama."
Please, there are tons more, every second post is about Obama being a secret muslim, dedicated to the destruction of America, etc..
Dont worry though, I seriously doubt this guy even bothered to do a little bit of research.
"Fair and Balanced, or Unfair and Distorted?"
The latter.
Just as how this WH claims it's "transparent" when it's really opaque as all-get-out. This WH is Orwellian and Kafkaesque.
This WH employs the euphemism "man-made disaster" when the truth is "Islamic Jihad."
This WH and it's Orwellian minion AG Holder employ the euphemism "substantial support" when the truth is "enemy combatant."
"1984" and "Newspeak" live at the Mohammedan Hussein WH.
There has never been a more dangerous U.S. president. Nixon looks like a nursery-schooler in comparison.
mp11
I don't believe you. You're a liar. And you're gone.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
"Obama being a secret muslim, dedicated to the destruction of America"
Exactly, Mohammedan mp11. Of course Hussein is a Muslim. And here's his rotten, evil, belief system:
"Islam is a revolutionary faith that comes to destroy any government made by man. Islam doesn’t look for a nation to be in a better condition than another nation. Islam doesn’t care about the land or who owns the land. The goal of Islam is to rule the entire world and submit all of mankind to the faith of Islam. Any nation or power that gets in the way of that goal, Islam will fight and destroy. In order to fulfill that goal, Islam can use every power available every way it can be used to bring worldwide revolution. This is Jihad. "
-Sayeed Abdul A'la Maududi, ‘Jihad in Islam’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umrjDnj8nbg
Pim Fortuyn, that well-known right-winger, unburdening himself in a just-released tape.
In the days of yore, used to be that a side engaged in a public debate lived or died based on its facts. If the facts didn't check out, the people arguing the side were either ignored or laughed off the air.
*** 47:24 ***
No more. Now, there is no shame, no ethic, no basic standards. Now, it's almost required that you adhere to a ridiculous and untenable position that doesn't square with the facts. We all know about the pathetic conventions running amok among modern college professors, news entertainers, reporters, teachers, bureaucrats, priests, judges, you name it.
*** 2:6 ***
Some think it's the attraction of a warm comfortable popular unquestioned pious position. That's part of it, but just as important is the penalty to be paid for publicly taking a cold hard look at unpopular facts, acknowledged facts yes, but uncool insensitive facts. Spencer and Geller are paying that penalty now, and in fact have been for years now. With the mass audience around the CPAC gig, they are so close but apparently still so far. Frustrating.
*** 2:9 ***
I don't know which "superstar" Fictive Reality is worse: the fake science of man-made climate change Green scam, or the fake history of Islam world takeover play. Both are dangerous, but the latter more so, and bound to cause damage much deeper and much more permanent.
The significance of Saudi Arabia's large ownership stake of News Corp. (inc. Fox News), is taking increasing political effect:
"Conservative Activists Rebel Against Fox News: Saudi Ownership Is ‘Really Dangerous For America’"
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/02/10/right-rebels-foxnews/
Looks like Fox is sinking into the darkness as well as all the other MSM.
We may have to depend on Breit Bart TV because it's clear we have very few friends in DC.
I await a Presidential order favoring Islam in America.
This is nothing new, Fox has been kissing up to CAIR for quite a while now. Does anyone remember when O'Rielly called
Ibrahim Hooper a " stand up guy ". Look at how they covered the Rifqa Barry story. It wasn't much better that CNN or MSNBC. If you notice even Glenn Beck has not had anything to say about CAIR or Islam's love affair with terror. The Saudi's own any where from 15 to 20% of Fox. They are as responsible for today's world wide Muslim problems as Iran.
Mental vision of Robert Spencer, the white knight on a white horse, defending fair damsels from insult and injury.
Bravo!
Spot on, Xavier.
" Fox has been kissing up to CAIR for quite a while now. Does anyone remember when O'Rielly called Ibrahim Hooper a " stand up guy ".
O'Reilly is the biggest wimp when it comes to Islam.
And this is the reason:
'Islamophobes' unwelcome at Fox News
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=899728
Waleed Shoebat:
"Today, I'm not invited at Fox News. Neither is Robert Spencer or Brigitte Gabriel," he laments. "But Ibrahim Hooper is invited to speak at Fox News. It used to be that experts on terrorism who are critical of the Islamic views [were] able to get a voice on Fox News. Those days are gone."
Robert, is it true you have typed and submitted this here comment:
"I don't believe you. You're a liar. And you're gone."
This sounds too much like a rhetoric of someone who's practicing "a totalitarian, supremacist ideology that is making war against unbelievers in order to subjugate them as inferiors"... Don't fall into the very pit you're trying to expose as being evil, lest you appear as it's siren...
There seems to be a faction of the anti-Islam movement whose members persist in defending George Bush, FOX news, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, at al. of that ilk -- even though these PC-MC-deformed pundits continue to fail to progress along the learning curve with which the rest of us unremarkably and normally intelligent people seem to have no trouble.
So, whenever you're not invited, it must be a jihadist gathering? Ever think that you're just not important or viewer-attracting enough to appear on television?
Fox news is in a business of making money, the very virtue that you accuse Obama of forsaking, and according to their marketing research your shrieks will not attract viewers, deal with it.
Your references only strengthen my point:
"Today, I'm not invited at Fox News. Neither is Robert Spencer or Brigitte Gabriel," he laments. "But Ibrahim Hooper is invited to speak at Fox News. It used to be that experts on terrorism who are critical of the Islamic views [were] able to get a voice on Fox News. Those days are gone."
Who died and made you an expert? Have you ever defused a bomb?
Is this a joke?
"Pamela Geller argued that the mainstream media was avid to print every lie about Sarah Palin, but never investigated similar rumors, and much more substantial allegations, about Barack Obama."
The media didn't need to make up any lies about Sarah Palin. She exposed her mediocrity herself on many occasion. Her own comments on foreign policy (Putin rearing his head), media (newspapers she read but could not name), mentally challenged (retarded).
Obama on the other hand is an intelligent and articulate person who's been democratically voted into office by the American people, who obviously disagree with your chauvinistic ramblings...
It is not true, as the poster above appears to believe, that everyone who voted for Obama "obviously disagree with" what is called, bizarrely, "chauvinistic ramblings" which is hardly the way to accurately describe alarm over Islam, its meaning, and menace, and the ability of its adherents to shut off intelligent discussion, and critical scrutiny, of this Total Belief-System. Bush was bad enough, with his sentimentalism about "religion" and his deep belief that anything called a "religion" must be worthy of respect.
I know many people who voted for Obama. Not all of them are now delighted with their choice. Some of those people find his policies on this or on that still worthy of support, but many of those I know who voted for him are most dismayed by three things:
First, his solicitousness for, and weakness displayed toward, those who are the malefactors of great wealth and who have been allowed, by him and his policies, so far to get away with murder. See Elizabeth Warren, see Simon Johnson, see many others.
Second, his inability to use -- as he should -- the justified fear of Islam, and the use of the Money Weapon by the sinister Saudis (whose money pays for mosques, madrasas, campaigns of Da'wa especially targetted at the economically and psychically marginal, and armies of Western hirelings to do Saudi and Arab and Muslim bidding)-- in order to win support among those who might otherwise prevent energy legislation designed to diminish the use of fossil fuels, especially coal and oil. If he cannot figure out that he will need Republican support, and that the ony way he will get it is if he couches his appeal on energy as a way to limit the Money Weapon of Islam, then he really is a fool, and apparently would prefer to keep on protecting Islam even if it means a failure to come to grips with global warming. Quite something.
Third, one can be a liberal, and deplore Islam as a totalitarian system, and one can also be alarmed by everytyhing that is happening to the historic heart of the West, the countries of Europe, where there is a general malaise brought on by the realization, suddenly becoming clear to many, that those who allowed in Muslim immigrants, by the millions, without carefully studying the texts and tenets of Islam, and the doctrine of Jihad (which can be pursued by many means other than terrorism or combat, qitaal -- the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da'wa, and -- as predicted by Boumedienne at the U.N. in 1974, and re-predicted by Khaddafy a few years ago -- demographic conquets. I am talking about real liberals, old-fashioned liberals, William-Proxmire-Henry-Jackson-Fiorello-La-Guardia-Millicent-Fenwick liberals, not what that word, for some, means today.
There is nothing about General Chauvin in the desire to minimize the risk to the Western world, to its art, its science, its mental freedoms -- not any of which could have existed for one minute in the world of Islam.
Look around, for god's sake. Study the world. Synchronically. Diachronically. Open your eyes.
Obama appears more intelligent & certainly has the "charismatic" quality of class-A charlatans.
He wasn't a man of many real accomplishments, not even military service .
What he really had was a first class lie , sold by a first class lobby with a lot to gain.The American public and the MSM bought the "first black president" lie hook , line & sinker.
Everyone got a little bit of a pay off as they checked of his name (whites proved to themselves & everyone else they weren't racist, blacks found their savior, hispanics agreed with the blacks), even if it was simply a fleeting feeling of accomplishment, it felt great at the time.
The smart ones are beginning to re-think their actions.
Hugh: you sir, as always present a very valid and articulate argument, and deserve respect and response.
However, my apparent lack of English education led me to another pitfall, namely: "obviously disagree with". What I ment was "disagreeD with". I do acknowledge, that many people who voted for Obama last year would not do so now, unlike myself who still thinks that he was the best of two evils (do not take me literally).
As for your other comments, in the line of Obama enabling and encouraging muslims... He's just picking up where prior presidents left off. Who played nice with Iran and Lebanon? Who sided with Saudis? Who armed Afgans and trained Osama's gang? Who got in bed with Pakistan? I'm afraid Obama and his family is not included in any of the answers, unlike some prior presidents and their families...
You ask me to look around and study the world, trust me I try, and am willing to admit and learn from my mistakes, just point them out.
Why do you equate military service with real accomplishments? Most Nobel laureates (scratch the peace category) didn't serve in the military, nonetheless their accomplishments are considered to be ultimate human achievements.
You do have a point claiming some whites masked their inner racist by voting black, and blacks obviously voting for a brother, topped off by hispanics voting (black?!? wtf???). But hey, dude, welcome to America, this is what vote is all about. Freedom man, it's here to stay.
This was wrong, and offensive, I beg pardon: "Why do you equate military service with real accomplishments?", read "Why do you equate military service with life accomplishments?"
"...stirring complaints from some American Muslims that the exercise amounts to Muslim-bashing."--from Judson Berger
I don't doubt that Judson Berger would be able to find "some American Muslims" to provide a negative perspective on the event featuring critics of Islam, jihad, and sharia. I do doubt, however, that the name Ibrahim Hooper--the only Muslim actually quoted or mentioned in the article--was obtained by chance or random selection. There is no doubt that CAIR's Ibrahim Hooper is the U.S. mainstream media's "go-to guy" on these kinds of Islam-related stories. Why?
I think it is likely that CAIR and Ibrahim Hooper selected the media outlets at which they wished to be publicized (rather than the media organizations just randomly stumbling upon CAIR). The media organizations in question are basically stooges, mindlessly providing free advertising and public relations for sharia activists and jihadists of tongue and pen such as CAIR.
Why is it that the media cannot seem to find moderate Muslims, who have no nefarious connections or extremist views?
...it's not that there aren't such moderate Muslims. There are indeed a few who sometimes appear in the mainstream media, but usually we see hard-line sharia activist groups such as CAIR in the media. Why is that?
'cause it sells...
I must confess; I was a little dumbstruck at Robert's post re MP11. It was quick & clean like a lightning stroke & had the effect of a thunderclap. Boom...outta' here!
Reminder: This site is Robert's creation & the product of his passion & hard work. He doesn't have to put with anything he considers inappropriate. Obviously that would include attacks on his comrades-in-arms behind their backs in his back yard. That's the response of an honorable man who defends his friends.
Another little reminder is that this guy keeps track of what happens on his site--he's reading the posts! So much of this islam-related business is theater-of-the absurd that I only hope he gets some good laughs from all the clever & funny posts--we all know this is serious business--but unlike in islam--there IS some fun here, too!
All that said...I surely hope that I don't ever get a correspondence from Mr. Spencer signed, "cordially..."
kozlodoev, you are a pest.
You derailed this thread like others before it. Do you have any other agenda other than to confuse?
"Anyone, non-Muslim or Muslim, who isn't a "fierce critic" of a totalitarian, supremacist ideology that is making war against unbelievers in order to subjugate them as inferiors under the rule of that totalitarian legal system, deny women's rights, and extinguish the freedom of speech and the freedom of conscience, ought to embark upon a serious reevaluation of his values and priorities."
Perfectly said. That's the real crux of the situation: the issue isn't why Robert and the rest of us here have the views that we do---the question is why so many people who claim to believe in the values of the West WON'T stand up for them pursuant to this issue, despite MOUNTAIN RANGES of historical evidence on the nature of Islam.
IF YOU have to ask that question then you are ignorant indeed.
It is easy to tell you are NO American patriot. You have nothing to add to the CONSTRUCTIVE work done here to expose NASTY and evil sharia law and that pedophile, violent and FALSE prophet, who called himself mohammed.
If you answer me I will not be reading it so save yourself some time and effort poopie!
ThinkThrice - if we wait for the entire western civilization to stand up - we are truly doomed. It only takes one man or women to stand up, even peacefully to make a difference. A coward dies a 1000 deaths. A brave man, but once. I would rather die once for my Lord and Savior then bow to someone else's god or religion. I know how He lived and how He died.
On its own, maybe MP11's gratuitous attack wouldn't warrant too much reaction - but given how much in the past he has whined about all the wrongs of this site, surely Robert's done him a huge favour?
Although it's an approach that if repeated too often would mean risking following in the footsteps of a certain Charles Johnson.
As for CAIR, they call everyone who outs them "bigots" because that's all they CAN do. Much like MP11.