Posted on 10/20/2001 3:33:07 PM PDT by vrwc54
WASHINGTON - Steven Emerson is giving instructions on how to reach his office. He is widely recognized as America's foremost independent investigative expert on Islamic terrorism. According to the former head of FBI investigations and counter-terrorism, Oliver Revell, he is better informed about the activities of terrorists in America than the FBI itself.Over the telephone, Mr. Emerson makes me promise that I will not print anything that might reveal the location of his office, nor the size of his staff. He warns when I arrive at the building, I must ask for him by suite number only. "Do not," he stresses, "ask for me by name, or the police will come and pick you up." He requests that I destroy the paper on which I record his precise address.
Had this happened before Sept. 11, I might have thought Mr. Emerson a tad paranoid. Now I see him as a man who understands what we're up against. A former journalist for CNN and U.S. News &World Report, and the author of four books on terrorism and the Middle East, Mr. Emerson, and his office, can usually only be accessed by the government and intelligence officials who depend on his data banks.
In fact, Mr. Emerson has understood what we were up against long before the rest of us ever did. He's been warning America about the threat inside its borders for years. In Jihad in America, a PBS documentary he produced in 1994, Mr. Emerson stood in front of the World Trade Center and suggested that the 1993 attempt to bring the building down was an unfinished project. In 1997, he told the Middle East Quarterly: "If anything, the threat is greater now than before. The infrastructure now exists to carry off 20 simultaneous World Trade Center-type bombings across the United States."
On the morning I meet him, the weary-looking 47-year-old arrives for our appointment two hours late. He's gulping coffee from a super-slurpee-sized plastic cup. He has scarcely slept since Sept. 11. Once shunned by mainstream U.S. media as an extremist and a racist, he is now in constant demand by major U.S. news outlets. In the weeks after the attacks, he has testified before several Senate and Congressional committees on terrorism and government reform. After his interview with me, he will go to a meeting in the White House.
His organization, The Investigative Project, is a non-profit outfit that tracks the activities, statements, and fund-raising of Islamic terrorist groups operating in the U.S., as well as the mainstream, tax-exempt, charitable organizations which serve as their fronts. I ask him just how many people are involved in militant Islamic activities in America?
"How many of the 6 million to 7 million Muslims in America are radical? It's a small percentage," he says. "But there's no good public opinion poll and there never will be. The same mild-mannered people who pay their bills on time also end up becoming terrorists, so it's almost impossible to tell. One thing is clear: Wherever there is Islamic extremism there's a nexus to the potential of violence.
"So, if there are organizations in America which talk about Jihad, and praise Hamas and Hezbollah -- and there are 15 to 20 of these groups, and thousands of followers -- you can constitute that as a major following. Anybody who subscribes to the tenets of militant Islamic fundamentalism is capable of violence.
"What do they want? It runs in varying degrees. One, they want political influence. Two, they want to see the U.S. become a Muslim country. Three, they want the U.S. to be sensitive to the legitimate interests of Muslims around the world, which they define as support of the Jihad in Palestine, the Jihad in Chechnya, the Jihad in the Philippines, the Jihad in Saudia Arabia."
One question that emerges is why is Mr. Emerson's work even necessary? Why hasn't the U.S. government done this for itself?
"The problem is," he says, "it was illegal for the FBI to collect this information. They can't go into a mosque just because someone is yelling
"The problem is," he says, "it was illegal for the FBI to collect this information. They can't go into a mosque just because someone is yelling 'Death to America!' The FBI is prohibited from monitoring activities of extremist groups unless a crime has been committed or can be shown to be imminent."I used to quote an FBI field agent who said that the only problem with the 1993 WTC bombing was that it didn't kill enough people. Obviously he did not mean it in a venal way, but he was portraying the level of indifference that really plagued the whole law enforcement establishment.
"There are a couple of unsung heroes in the government who definitely tried to wake up the establishment. A few key [prosecutors] would come to us and say: 'Help us. We know there are cells. We know there are problems. We know America is going to get hit. But we can't get this material from the FBI.' I remember giving briefings to Senators on a very small matter: the absence of Arabic and Farsi speakers in the intelligence community. I told them that intelligence matters were incomplete because there aren't enough linguistic experts. And [FBI director] Louis Freeh shot me down entirely. He said: 'We have the problem under control. We don't need any more resources.'"
And now the FBI is recruiting Arabic speakers over the Internet?
"It shows you the desperation at this point," says Emerson. "But to recruit among the Muslim community is very difficult. The organized Muslim leadership has consistently portrayed the FBI as the enemy. It has consistently portrayed the conviction of Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman [for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Centre] as an injustice. It has consistently portrayed the U.S. as engaging in a war on Islam. You have this mentality out there that is no different, to a certain extent, than the way Osama bin Laden has portrayed the United States."
I suggest to Mr. Emerson it's difficult to differentiate between moderate and extremist Muslims when the moderates refuse to denounce the violence of the extremists.
"When they refuse to denounce it," Emerson replies, "or when there are no moderates."
No moderates? It may seem an immoderate suggestion, but Mr. Emerson has devoted the last seven years of his life to recording what U.S. Islamic leaders say among themselves. For example, Muzammil Siddiqui, the former president of Islamic Society of North America and Imam of the Islamic Society of Orange County in California, was invited to the Oval office by George W. Bush on Sept. 26 so that the President could thank him for his participation in the national day of mourning and remembrance. Imam Siddiqui told the President: "The Muslim community has unanimously condemned and deplored the crime committed on Sept. 11, 2001. It was a most horrible crime against our nation and against humanity."
But a year ago, at a Jerusalem Day rally in Washington, Imam Siddiqui had a different message: "We want to awaken the conscience of America," he told the crowd. "Because if you remain on the side of injustice, the wrath of God will come. Please all Americans, do remember that, that Allah is watching everyone. If you continue doing injustice, and tolerating injustice, the wrath of God will come."
At a benefit dinner organized by the Muslim American Society and the Council on American Islamic Relations among others, just two days before the WTC attacks, U.S. Muslim leader Hamza Yusuf told the crowd: "This country [America] unfortunately has a great, great tribulation coming to it. And much of it is already here, yet people are too illiterate to read the writing on the wall."
"There are moderates among the rank and file," explains Mr. Emerson. "But the vast majority of Islamic clerics from the Middle East, are thoroughly saturated with promoting Islamic terrorism. Despite what they might say at their religious dinners and dialogues, it's what they say among themselves that counts. They use the dialogue to get a seat at the table. "
You'd think the White House would know about the double-talk.
"They don't know about it. Siddiqui is the leader of one of the largest Islamic groups in the United States. He talks a nice game. Everyone says he's a nice guy. But the level of naivetŽ and denial [among Americans] is nothing short of astonishing.
"It's very difficult to get a sense of the dimension of what we're up against because of the level of deception. There isn't a moderate Islamic leadership. There isn't. And someone has got to say it. We deny it at our peril. When the President talks about Islam being hijacked, what's really happening is that the Muslim extremists have hijacked the leadership."
What can America do?
"It's too soon to talk about restructuring the FBI, which must be restructured. But it's not too soon to discuss who is welcome in the halls of the White House and the Senate. There was a major meeting the other day between 20 Democratic Senators and representatives of militant Islamic groups. It was just obscene. The Islamic leaders now come crying under victimhood status and as being the subject of hate crimes. But no one has demanded that the price of coming to the table is that they thoroughly repudiate Islamic terrorism."
If you think we're any better off in Canada, think again. In his testimony to the Congressional Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims on Jan. 26, 2000, Mr. Emerson presented this piece of information courtesy of Ward Elock, the Director of CSIS: "With perhaps the singular exception of the United States, there are more international terrorist groups active [in Canada] than in any country in the world."
I explain to Mr. Emerson the presumption among many Canadians that the terrorists are only here because of our proximity to the United States, that they don't plan to do anything to us. Is that too smug?
"Well," he says, "there was a smugness in the U.S. too which was: We know the terrorists are here, but they're not going to carry out any attacks here. They're just here for fund-raising, or recruitment, or for political safe-haven, and therefore, we don't have to worry about them.
"The attitude of the U.S. government was, well, so long as they are killing Jews, or Israelis, or moderate Muslims, that's not our problem. They're not out for us. Suddenly we realize they are out for us. And shame on us. Because they have been telling us, through their actions and through their words that they're going to kill us."
Let us all listen more carefully now.
L
Therein lies the rub: the perpetually PC have a proven track record of denying hard realities--to the peril of us all.
They are still not listening.
That's the problem.
This deserves another BUMP!
Precisely the reason we should begin immediate deportations of all no-citizen mulsims. I don't give a fog whose feelings get hurt. I read somewhwere recently that 80% of the mosques in America are headed by extremists.
JIHAD IN AMERICA - ONLINE VIDEO - by STEVEN EMERSON [Thread II]
Yeah, the 80% figure was from this thread:Blind Faith: W.'s Unreliable Advisor on Islam
I read somewhere that there is a fatwa against him.
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