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Our Internal Islamist Enemies
TechCentral Station via FPM ^
| May 13, 2K4
| Stephen Schwartz
Posted on 05/13/2004 12:47:35 AM PDT by rdb3
While the attention of most Americans, and much of the Islamic world, has been focused on the scandal of American soldiers' conduct at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, other events signal a deepening and dangerous crisis for American society and its relationship to Muslims who live within the borders of the U.S.
One such development is the detention on Thursday, May 6, of Brandon Mayfield, a 37-year old lawyer from Portland, Ore., as a possible material witness or "person of interest" in the conspiracy to perpetrate the horrific Madrid metro bombings of March 11.
Mayfield, who became a Muslim after marrying an Egyptian woman in 1989, now joins the list of "new Muslims" (a term Muslims consider preferable to "convert") who have become notorious to Americans since the thin, bedraggled John Walker Lindh, barely out of his teens, was pulled from the battlefield of Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan late in 2001. A soldier in the Taliban, Lindh shocked an America that never before knew such types even existed. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Then came José Padilla, a former gang member and petty criminal in his early 30s, and an associate of various Islamic extremists, held as a "dirty bomb" plotter, and therefore as an enemy combatant, for the past two years.
After him the case of the Portland Seven emerged, involving a terrorist cell in Oregon that included at least two "new Muslims." The group tried to get to Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban in the wake of September 11, 2001. Jeffrey Leon Battle, 34, and Patrice Lumumba Ford, 32, were sentenced to 18 years each in February of this year for conspiracy to levy war against the U.S. Battle's ex-wife, October Martinique Lewis, 27, was previously sentenced to three years for providing financial support to the group.
Next was Randall Todd Royer, 31, of northern Virginia, who pled guilty to weapons and explosives charges, and received 20 years in prison, following a notable public career that included harassing and threatening various critics of Islamic extremism (myself included) as well as organizing support for a jihadist terror group active in Kashmir. His group included other "new Muslims."
And now comes Mayfield, whose fingerprint may have been identified on a plastic bag containing detonators found in Spain after the atrocity there. Mayfield had represented Portland Seven member Battle in a child custody case when the latter was arrested.
Mayfield's biography includes other troubling items. As a law student at Washburn University, in Topeka, Kan., he helped organize a branch of the Muslim Student Association of the U.S. and Canada (MSA), which was set up by agents of Saudi Arabia's official Islamic clerical establishment to propagate the extremist doctrines of Wahhabism.
The Bilal Masjid (Mosque), which Mayfield attended in Beaverton, Ore., was the same institution favored by the Portland Seven. Its website, at www.bilalmasjid.com, includes a set of links supporting Islamist radical advocacy and organizations. While the website promises "Bilal Masjid doesn't necessarily endorse the contents of any of the links," they include a disabled link to The Meaning of Qur'an by Syed Abul Ala' Maududi. Maududi (1903-1979), was one of the primary ideologists of violent jihadism.
In addition, the site offers links to extremist Islamic relief groups. They include the Benevolence International Foundation, the Global Relief Foundation, and the International Islamic Relief Organization, the latter an arm of the Saudi-government -- all of which have been shown to have participated in the funding of al-Qaeda -- as well as the Holy Land Foundation for Relief for Relief and Development, shut down by the U.S. authorities. Other links lead to the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) a Pakistani-American movement inspired by Maududi and known for intimidating dissident Muslims in America, and to Project Islamic Hope, an element in the "Wahhabi lobby" of extremist groups that dominates American Islam. The Bilal Masjid thus appears to be a fairly typical Wahhabi-controlled mosque.
Twelve years ago, when his middle child, a daughter, was born, Mayfield doubtless did not think a time would come when the name chosen for her, Sharia, would seem menacing. But it certainly puts a different construction on statements by a professor at Washburn, Pakistan-born Ali Khan, that "Mayfield connected his religion with his legal studies."
As so often these days, media find ordinary Americans anxious to swear to the normality of Brandon Mayfield -- just as other reporters in other heartland communities found relatives and friends that sprang to declare the soldiers accused of abusing Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib to be nice people. However, Mayfield's relatives appeared awfully anxious to declare the case to have proven the USA Patriot Act a failure; their response was not exactly nonideological.
TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: islam; islamists; jihadinamerica; muslims
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1
posted on
05/13/2004 12:47:36 AM PDT
by
rdb3
To: rdb3
It seems that another apologist thinks that we, Americans, are treating Muslims within our own country unfairly.
Gee, maybe we have reasons for that. Most Muslims in American (native-born or otherwise) have professed their FIRST loyalty is to Islam, NOT the US. Secondly, I may have missed a couple of news broadcasts due to illness or sleeping, or something but, if memory serves me correctly, in the entire world, there is one . . . just one "religion" that has declared war on the United States and the west. ISLAM. I think we are justified in our suspicions, fears and distrust of these murdering scum. Islam appeals to the lowest common denominator and the basest instincts of man.
As a "religion" of peace, Islam has sanctioned the murder of more innocent people than the Crusades. It is the only "religion" of which I am aware that preaches hate, barbarism, slavery, oppression and murder. All of the apologists in the world can't change the fact that Islamics have brought a very bright light to bear on them and expose them for the sick, twisted, thugs, anarchists and murderes that they are.
2
posted on
05/13/2004 2:02:52 AM PDT
by
DustyMoment
(Repeal CFR NOW!!)
To: DustyMoment
It is the only "religion" of which I am aware that preaches hate, barbarism, slavery, oppression and murder. And they call this "holiness."
All of the apologists in the world can't change the fact that Islamics have brought a very bright light to bear on them and expose them for the sick, twisted, thugs, anarchists and murderes that they are.
I agree, but you know what? I have this unction that is expressed in Matthew 26:6-8. I see the world at the crossroads. It is the fight of our lives and for our future.
Yet that unction still says "for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet."
It's rough, but take heart. It is just beginning.
3
posted on
05/13/2004 2:24:47 AM PDT
by
rdb3
($710.96... The price of freedom.)
To: DustyMoment
To whom are you referring?
It seems that another apologist....
4
posted on
05/13/2004 2:30:50 AM PDT
by
Ready4Freddy
(Veni Vidi Velcro)
To: rdb3
It's all very simple. The book that they won't let you touch, because you are an infadel says this:
"When you meet the unbelievers in the Jihad strike off their heads and, when you have laid them low, bind your captives firmly." - Koran 47: 4
5
posted on
05/13/2004 2:31:24 AM PDT
by
Dec31,1999
(Capital punishment saves lives.)
To: Ready4Freddy
Stephen Schwartz - the author of the article.
6
posted on
05/13/2004 2:41:56 AM PDT
by
DustyMoment
(Repeal CFR NOW!!)
To: rdb3
Odd that the author didn't mention that Mayfield had a common Army posting w/ John Allen Muhammad.
7
posted on
05/13/2004 2:44:09 AM PDT
by
Ready4Freddy
(Veni Vidi Velcro)
To: DustyMoment
Methinks you misread the article.
8
posted on
05/13/2004 2:45:05 AM PDT
by
Ready4Freddy
(Veni Vidi Velcro)
To: rdb3
I am not familiar with the unction but have reached the same conclusion. This IS the fight of our lives and it is, IMO, one of biblical proportions because it is truly a battle between good and evil.
(The Muslims are evil, for those Dem lurkers who aren't sure which is which . . . or what the meaning of "is" is).
9
posted on
05/13/2004 2:45:17 AM PDT
by
DustyMoment
(Repeal CFR NOW!!)
To: DustyMoment
Yup, you did, Tho not absolutely required, sometimes it's best to read the entire article before jumping to your foregone conclusion. ;>)
Methinks you misread the article.
10
posted on
05/13/2004 3:04:19 AM PDT
by
Ready4Freddy
(Veni Vidi Velcro)
To: Ready4Freddy
Is it me or are people jumping the gun on Tech Central articles a lot?
Don't they know TCS is on our side(generally?) A
11
posted on
05/13/2004 4:03:46 AM PDT
by
Skywalk
To: rdb3
EXPEL ISLAM FROM OUR SHORES! EXPEL ISLAM FROM ENGLAND! EXPEL ISLAM FROM CANADA! EXPEL ISLAM FROM AUSTRALIA! EXPEL ISLAM FROM EUROPE! EXPEL ISLAM FROM SOUTH AMERICA! EXPEL ISLAM FROM INDIA! EXPEL ISLAM FROM CHINA! EXPEL ISLAM FROM WHEREVER CIVILIZED HUMAN BEINGS ARE TRYING TO LIVE PEACEFUL AND PRODUCTIVE LIVES!
12
posted on
05/13/2004 4:45:19 AM PDT
by
Fithee
To: Fithee
"Our Internal Islamist Enemies"
You mean like Ted Kennedy?
To: DustyMoment
Well, the enemy IS in our community right now. I was amazed on 9/11 at the amount of people here in Bridgeport CT (where I work) who were actually cheering and dancing in the streets as the towers fell.
It seems like every self serve gas station and mini-mart in town was celebrating the deaths of those people.
I'm not really sure we should import the worlds riff-raff after seeing what I saw that day.
14
posted on
05/13/2004 5:10:22 AM PDT
by
taxed2death
(A few billion here, a few trillion there...we're all friends right?)
To: dennisw; Cachelot; Yehuda; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; ...
If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.
15
posted on
05/13/2004 5:34:19 AM PDT
by
SJackson
(Slaughter the Jews wherever you find them. Their spilled blood pleases Allah, Haj Amin el-Husseini)
To: SJackson
BUMP
16
posted on
05/13/2004 5:49:51 AM PDT
by
Happy2BMe
(U.S.A. - - United We Stand - - Divided We Fall - - Support Our Troops - - Vote BUSH)
To: DustyMoment; rdb3
>>>>It seems that another apologist thinks that we, Americans, are treating Muslims within our own country unfairly<<<<
Mr. Schwartz is Muslim convert also, but he hides this fact in order to dupe readers into his alleged impartiality.
He is not a columnist. He is The Fifth columnist.
17
posted on
05/13/2004 6:50:40 AM PDT
by
DTA
(you ain't seen nothing yet)
To: Travis McGee
FYI
18
posted on
05/13/2004 8:43:11 AM PDT
by
knighthawk
(Some people say that we'll get nowhere at all, let 'em tear down the world but we ain't gonna fall)
To: DustyMoment
Did we read the same article? Cause I didn't get that from it.
Stephen Schwartz is a leftist(red diaper doper baby) who became a Sufi Muslim after going to the Balkens as a reporter. He since then has gone on to war against radical Islam and (in particularly wahhabi Isalm). He has written a pretty good book "The Two Faces of Islam The House of Saud from tradition to terror".
While I can't endorse everything in this book (he doesn't really understand the religous right) but when it come to wahhabi Isalm and our good friends the Sudis he nails it.
A speech he gave at Hillsdale
http://www.hillsdale.edu/newimprimis/default.htm Radical Islam in America
When the horror of September 11 happened, Americans experienced a great deal of confusion and heard a great deal of speculation about the motives for anti-American terrorism. It was natural for most of us to assume that we were attacked because of who we are: because we are wealthy, because we are a dominant power in the world and because we represent ideas that are in conflict with the ideas of radical Islam. Many also assumed – wrongly I think – that it had mostly to do with the Middle East and Israel. But almost immediately a very interesting fact emerged: of the 19 suicide terrorists on September 11, 15 were subjects of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Why is this important? It is important because these were not poor people from refugee camps on the West Bank or in Gaza. These were not people who had grown up feeling some grievance against Israel and the United States because they lived in difficult conditions. These were not people from the crowded and disrupted communities of Egypt or Pakistan, or people who had experienced anti-Islamic violence in the last 20 years and had therefore turned against the United States. These people had grown up in the country that Americans often think of as our most solid and dependable ally in the Arab world – the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Thus the question arose: Why would Saudis be involved in this?
Related questions followed: What does it mean that Osama Bin Laden is a Saudi? And that so many members of Al-Qaeda are Saudis? Why is it that Al-Qaeda is essentially a Saudi political movement? And that 25 percent of those detained in Guantanamo are Saudis? Why is it that a country the U.S. had favored, to which the U.S. had delivered an enormous amount of wealth through the purchase of oil – a country that the U.S. had protected militarily, and whose young people have been educated in America for many years – why was Saudi Arabia, of all countries, so connected to the attacks of September 11?
19
posted on
05/13/2004 9:58:47 AM PDT
by
Valin
(Hating people is like burning down your house to kill a rat)
To: DTA
Have you ever read what he writes?
20
posted on
05/13/2004 9:59:59 AM PDT
by
Valin
(Hating people is like burning down your house to kill a rat)
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