“Counter To The Facts”: Pushing For Mosque Surveillance, Fox News Is Fighting The Last War
Reaching for one of its favorite War on Terror talking points, Fox News is leading a charge in the wake of the Orlando gun massacre to push for surveillance of mosques in America. Convinced that a pressing response to the attack on a gay nightclub is for law enforcement to keep close tabs on Muslims at prayer, Fox News continues to hype the initiative as a solution to pending terror threats in the United States — and specifically, to stem the tide of ISIS recruitment in America.
But there’s no indication domestic mosque surveillance uncovers useful terror information. Just ask the New York Police Department, whose extensive, post-9/11 Muslim surveillance program turned out to be a “failure by any reasonable standard,” according to the Cato Institute.
And now with ISIS focusing its recruitment online and hoping for self-radicalization among converts, the notion that law enforcement can round up ISIS sympathizers meeting and plotting inside American mosques runs counter to the facts.
Nonetheless, Fox News is pushing for the divisive, Bush-era tactic to be revived and embraced. “How stupid is it to pull police officers out of the mosques? Absolutely stupid,” Rudy Giuliani complained on Fox News this week, while Greg Gutfeld compared Islam to biker gangs and suggested both needed to be watched closely to head off crime sprees.
Not surprisingly, Fox News is echoing allegations often made by members of the Republican Party about how mosques are a breeding ground for homegrown terrorism and need to be spied on.
“I want surveillance of certain mosques if that’s OK,” Republican Party presumptive nominee Donald Trump told a crowd in Birmingham, Ala. last November. That same week Trump announced he’d “strongly consider” shutting down mosques in the U.S. Trump raised the idea again earlier this week at a rally in Atlanta, saying, “We have to maybe check, respectfully, the mosques and we have to check other places because this is a problem that, if we don’t solve it, it’s going to eat our country alive.”
For years, New York Republican Congressman Peter King, with the help of Fox News, led an anti-mosque crusade, complete with congressional hearings that were denounced as being McCarthy-like.
Today’s endorsement of mosque surveillance represents Fox News’ long-running attempt to collectively criminalize Islam in America and to often portray Muslims as would-be terrorists. (Recall the open hysteria Fox News helped foment in its opposition to the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” in 2011.)
But Fox News’ advocacy for mosque surveillance, and its suggestion that it would help ferret out dangerous ISIS sympathizers, runs counter to recent events and counter to research that indicates those handful of American Muslims who embrace deadly violence are mostly self-radicalized and they become that way online, not by listening to sermons from radical Imams in U.S. mosques.
In the wake of recent terror attacks in Boston, San Bernardino and Orlando, there were no findings that the bombers and gunmen were radicalized in their local mosques or planned their attacks there; that the mosques were in any way directly connected to the acts of violence. There were no sweeping indictments made by law enforcement.
In fact in Boston, bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev had been threatened with expulsion from his mosque after he angrily interrupted a speaker who compared Prophet Muhammad with Dr. Martin Luther King. “The congregation shouted him out of the mosque,”said a spokesman for the mosque.
And that fits what researchers have been reporting in recent years.
Last December, George Washington University’s Program on Extremism issued a report, “ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa.” It showed “how social media plays a crucial role in the radicalization and, at times, mobilization of U.S.-based ISIS sympathizers,” according to the university.
Key points from the report included:
- “Several thousand Americans consume ISIS propaganda online creating what has been described as a ‘radicalization echo chamber.’ “
- “Twitter is ‘by far the platform of choice’ for American activists to connect. Other routes include Facebook, Google+ and Tumblr, along with messaging services like ‘Kik, Telegram, surespot, and the dark web.’”
Additionally, the report noted that jihadist radicalization in the United States is “significantly smaller” than in most European countries, in part because of fewer “radicalizing agents” in America, such as “radical mosques, extremist preachers, and recruiting networks.”
Also last year, Scott Atran, co-founder of the Center for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict at Oxford University, reported his research indicated, “More than 80 per cent who join the Islamic State do so through peer-to-peer relationships, mostly with friends and sometimes family. Very few join in mosques or through recruitment by anonymous strangers.”
The Associated Press reported that Atran told a meeting of the United Nations’ Security Council’s counter-terrorism committee that “radicalization rarely occurs in mosques.”
Meanwhile, a 2010 study by researchers at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that the number of radicalized Muslims in the U.S. was relatively low and that Muslim-American communities effectively prevent radicalization.
Rather than being a spawning ground for extremism, there are indications mosques are actively working to thwart it. That same 2010 study found “48 of the 120 Muslims suspected of plotting domestic terrorist attacks since Sept. 11, 2001, were turned in by fellow Muslims, including parents, mosque members and even a Facebook friend,” The New York Times reported.
Last year, the Times examined ISIS’ recruiting efforts in the United States and detailed one example of a local Imam dissuading a possible convert named Amir:
Amir then had some long talks with Imam Magid, who pointed him to passages in the Quran that forbid killing other Muslims, innocent women and children. Amir concluded that the Islamic State was only sowing chaos and hatred, which the Prophet Muhammad abhorred.
That kind of pushback against extremism from mosque leaders might be one reason why the NYPD’s massive surveillance program produced so little useful information. The operation, which remained secret for years, not only infiltrated mosques, but assigned detectives to map out entire Muslim communities, as well as track Muslims’ daily activities, and investigate college students.
The goal was to “sniff out would-be terrorists before they could launch attacks,” according to the Cato Institute.
Fox News likes to pretend it was an intelligence success, which is why it must be resuscitated. “We broke so many, so many plots by eavesdropping on these radical mosques,” Fox News’ Bo Dietl claimed last year.
In fact, the exact opposite was true.
“In more than six years of spying on Muslim neighborhoods, eavesdropping on conversations and cataloguing mosques, the New York Police Department’s secret Demographics Unit never generated a lead or triggered a terrorism investigation, the department acknowledged in court testimony unsealed late Monday,” the Associated Press reported.
Correct. Six years of mosque surveillance in New York City in the wake of 9/11 did not produce a single lead or trigger one terrorism investigation for the NYPD.
But now Fox News thinks in an age of online recruiting, snooping on U.S. mosques is the answer to unearthing terror threats?
By: Eric Boehlert, Media Matters for America, June 16, 2016
“Struck Just The Right Note”: At Baltimore Mosque, Obama Crushes The Muslim Haters
The two most powerful moments during President Obama’s first visit to an American mosque on Wednesday didn’t happen during his speech. Rather, they occurred in the moments before the president took the podium.
The first came when a color guard made up of young Muslim American Boy and Girl Scouts entered the venue. One of the older scouts told the flag bearer: “Proudly present the flag of the United States of America.” The audience, ranging from community leaders to Muslim-American military veterans to the two Muslim members of Congress, stood in unison to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
The words of this pledge never seem to resonate as much. Here we were waiting for the President of the United States to speak to us because the spike in anti-Muslim hate had so skyrocketed that he felt compelled to address the issue. I had to fight back tears as we got to the last line of the pledge: “one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
You see, that last line is the promise that brought my Muslim immigrant father as well as the parents, grandparents, and even some of the people in that room to come to America. They came here for the promise of being treated equally regardless of faith, ethnicity, or race. But that promise has been in peril as of late.
And the second moment that emotionally stood out was when the young African-American-Muslim woman, Sabah, introduced the president. Sabah spoke of the challenges of wearing a hijab—some had called her a terrorist. Yet she noted that far more of her fellow Americans of all backgrounds had been supportive. And then she delivered a passionate line that elicited huge applause from the crowd: “I’m proud to be American, I’m proud to be black, and I’m proud to be Muslim.”
That is what America is truly about. We can be hyphenated Americans and be just as American as anyone else.
President Obama even touched on Sabah’s very point in his speech when he said, “You aren’t Muslim or American. You are Muslim and American.” That was a theme that came up often in his speech at the Islamic Center of Baltimore, which was part pep talk for Muslims, part calling out the haters and also part calling on Muslims to play a role in countering radicalization.
But the heart of the President’s speech was trying to educate our fellow Americans about Islam to counter the anti-Muslim climate we live in today. One that has seen close to 100 anti-Muslim hate crimes in the last two months according to a Department of Justice official I spoke to at the event, which is far higher than we see reported in the media.
Obama began by countering the concept that some on the right peddle that Islam is foreign to America. The president declared, “Islam has always been part of America.” Adding, “Starting in colonial times, many of the slaves brought here from Africa were Muslim.”
The president also spoke of how Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia statute for religious freedom expressly included Islam as one of the protected faiths (“the Mahometan” was TJ’s word for a Muslim). Obama also added something I had never heard before: Some had accused Jefferson of being a closeted Muslim. (I wonder who was the Donald Trump of the 1700s who did that?!)
Obama then traced the contributions of Muslims in America as well as noting that Muslim Americans keep us safe. “They’re our police and our firefighters…They serve honorably in our armed forces—meaning they fight and bleed and die for our freedom. And some rest in Arlington National Cemetery. “
And the president recognized the extraordinary Muslims he had met at the mosque that day, from educators to business people to the first hijab-wearing Muslim to qualify for the U.S. Olympic team. But he added that despite the accomplishments of so many Muslims, he “could not help but be heartbroken to hear their worries and their anxieties.”
Obama relayed how he had received letters from Muslim-American parents who shared disturbing questions their young children were asking, like, “Are we going to be forced out of the country? Are we going to be rounded up?” Another Muslim American child wrote to him to say, “I’m scared.” The president responded forcefully that these are “conversations that you shouldn’t have to have with children—not in this country.”
The reality though is that’s where we are today as a community. There are young Muslim Americans who have been made to feel less than fully American simply because of their faith. We are seeing Muslim-American students bullied and taunted for wearing a hijab or having a first name like Mohammed.
The questions I find myself asking are: Will it get worse? Will the extreme voices win out? Will the good people simply be “bystanders to bigotry,” as Obama put it? Or will the voices of reason prevail?
I’m sure many Muslims at the event had similar question in mind. Perhaps sensing that, Obama told the audience: “I believe that, ultimately, our best voices will win out. And that gives me confidence and faith in the future.”
With of every fiber of my being I believe the president is correct. And despite the Trumps, Ben Carsons, or others on the right who believe that demonizing Muslims will make us cower in fear or even consider leaving this country, they are wrong. Our community, like every other minority community, will grow and prosper. I say that because our nation’s history tells us so. And because of our nation’s eternal promise that liberty and justice are not reserved only for one select religion or race, but “for all.”
By: Dean Obeidallah, The Daily Beast, February 4, 2016
“A Problem Already”: Trump Is A Problem For The GOP And The U.S. Regardless Of His Political Prospects
For months pundits, including myself, have been predicting that Donald Trump lacks a serious, sustained path to the presidency. I still doubt he can win the Republican nomination and am totally convinced that if he became the general election candidate, the November elections would be a bloodbath for the Republican Party.
Others argue that Trump’s anti-immigration, xenophobic, outsider message combined with his celebrity status will be enough to squeak through this crowded field of candidates and secure the nomination.
But this is not just a political parlor game anymore. It is not enough to argue, as Robert Schlesinger did here, that Trump too shall pass or, as Nate Silver does at FiveThirtyEight, that Trump’s support now constitutes only about 6-8 percent of the electorate and that in the last two elections in Iowa and New Hampshire close to half of Republicans made up their minds during the last week before the caucus and primary. Polls will change he says, voters will pay more attention as we approach February and Trump is likely to fade.
More important than Trump’s ultimate fate is his impact on the American psyche, and the world’s.
The real question is the influence that Trump is having on the electorate – with other Republican candidates doing their best to imitate his bluster and outrageousness. From his early criticism of Arizona Sen. John McCain for being a captured war hero, to his repeated demonizing of immigrants as rapists, to his totally false claim that thousands of Muslims in New Jersey were cheering 9/11, Trump does not let up. He is clear about his desire to surveil and even close mosques, to create “watch lists” of Muslims, to bring back waterboarding and more.
The other candidates follow suit: Ben Carson rejects electing a Muslim as president, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush believe, as The Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus writes, “Syrian Christians should be admitted in preference to Muslims.”
Imagine, if you will, a good portion of the over 1.6 billion Muslims (23.4 percent of the world’s population) watching television as this parade of Republican candidates bash them, treat them as pariahs, misrepresent their goals and aspirations and place in the world. And imagine, further, that this becomes their image of America, of what we stand for, of who we are. What are they to do, how do they respond, how are they to act towards us?
Our fear of the terrorists and outrageous ad hoc rhetoric does nothing but create more terrorists. Just as the misguided war in Iraq created more terrorists than it killed what we are facing today in this campaign for president is harming our goals of peace and stability.
It is important to take on the terrorists, to root them out, to build a large and meaningful world coalition against them. But the approach of Donald Trump and others undermines this goal and makes it much more difficult to win the hearts and minds as well as win the battlefield.
The sooner we put an end to the irresponsibility of Trump and the others in this Republican field the better. Then, we can get on with solving the problem of radical jihad in the world.
By: Peter Fenn, Political Strategist and Head of Fenn Communications; U. S. News and World Report, November 25, 2015
“Imaginary Footage Roils Republican Race”: Trump Is Trying To Justify His Right-Wing Approach To Registering Muslim Americans
It doesn’t happen often, but once in a great while, videos that don’t exist can cause a stir. In 2008, for example, a variety of far-right activists claimed they saw footage of Michelle Obama referring to white people as “whitey.” The video was fictional – the conservatives who made the claims were lying – but the chatter surrounding the made-up story grew pretty loud.
More recently, Republican presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina falsely claimed she’d seen an abortion-related video that does not, in reality, exist. Pressed for an explanation, Fiorina simply dug in, stubbornly pretending fiction is fact.
And this week, as Rachel noted on the show last night, we’re confronted once more with a high-profile Republican trying to make an offensive point by pointing to footage that exists only in the world of make-believe.
At issue are imaginary reports from 9/11 that Trump believes show “thousands and thousands” of Jersey City residents of Middle Eastern descent cheering when the Twin Towers fell. The Republican frontrunner initially made the claim late last week, but he’s now repeated it and defended it several times since – pointing to news coverage Trump claims to have seen, but which remains entirely imaginary.
[I]n a sign the campaign and Trump himself may be at least a little concerned about the way his comments are perceived, the Donald made an impromptu call to NBC News Monday afternoon. Offering reassurance that he had indeed seen video of the celebrations on television on and “all over the Internet,” Trump said, “I have the world’s greatest memory. It’s one thing everyone agrees on.”
Trump even asked for news organizations to apologize to him for fact-checking his made-up claim. “Many people have tweeted that I am right!” he argued on Twitter, as if this were persuasive.
Making matters slightly worse, Trump’s obvious nonsense was also briefly endorsed yesterday afternoon by one of his GOP rivals.
Dr. Ben Carson apologized for asserting the widely discredited allegation that thousands of American Muslims had celebrated the 9/11 attacks in New Jersey. He told NBC News on Monday that he’d been thinking of celebrations captured in the Middle East – and not New Jersey.
Adding his voice to claims most recently made by Republican front-runner Donald Trump, Carson told reporters twice on Monday that he’d seen the “film” of the celebrations. When asked by NBC News specifically if he meant in New Jersey, he replied yes. Later on Monday, his campaign began walking back the comment.
We’ve reached a very strange point in American politics. A candidate for the nation’s highest office is seen as having done something halfway admirable because he’s acknowledged a misstep in which he confused New Jersey and the Middle East.
As for Trump, NBC News’ Katy Tur asked the New York Republican yesterday, “Where did you see the video? We can`t find anything in our archives. Others can`t find anything in theirs.”
Trump replied, “I saw video. It was on television. How would I know? You`ll have to find it. I`ve also seen it all over the Internet. I`ve seen it on the Internet over the years. I`ve seen it on the Internet.”
Actually, no, he hasn’t, because the video does not exist.
What’s more, let’s not forget that the point of this entire fiasco is that Trump is trying to justify his right-wing approach to registering Muslim Americans and spying on houses of worship. In other words, we’re talking about a racially charged lie about imaginary news reports, created to defend a racially charged policy agenda.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, November 24, 2015
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