www.amperspective.com Online Magazine
Executive Editor: Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Chronology of Islam in America (2015)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
September 2015 page two
40 percent Republicans want to outlaw Islam in America
Sept 29: The New York Times today published the result of a poll in North Carolina by Public Policy Polling, or PPP indicating that 40 percent Republican voters answered yes when asked: “Do you think the religion of Islam should be legal or illegal in the United States? Rightly, The New York Times' headline for the poll results was: New Poll Finds Anti-Muslim Sentiment Frighteningly High. The story, written by Lawrence Downes, says call it Trumpism, an adhoc term for the cresting wave of white Republican resentment that Donald Trump has been surfing like Duke Kahanamoku. "Some find it fascinating. Late night comics like Stephen Colbert have been treating it like it’s hilarious. But a lot of people take Mr. Trump completely seriously, and support him fervently. So when do we start being frightened for this country?" Downes wrote. According to the New York Times, among others, the following questions were asked in the North Carolina poll: (1) Do you think a Muslim should ever be allowed to be President of the United States, or not? Alarmingly, 72 percent said a Muslim should not be allowed to be President of the United States. Only 16 percent said a Muslim should be allowed. (2) Do you think the religion of Islam should be legal or illegal in the United States? The voters were evenly divided on this issue as 40 percent said Islam should be legal in the United States, while 40 percent said Islam should be illegal in the United States. 20 percent were not sure.
The Public Policy Polling press release said: "It's safe to say Ben Carson and Donald Trump's recent comments about Islam aren't going to hurt them too much with their base of supporters. 44% of Carson voters think Islam should be illegal in the United States, to only 38% who think it should be legal. And with Trump voters the numbers are even more extreme - 52% think Islam should be illegal to just 31% that believe it should be allowed. Republican voters in the state as a whole are evenly divided with 40% thinking the practice of Islam should be legal and 40% thinking it should not. Given those numbers it's not surprising that on the more narrow issue of whether a Muslim should be allowed to serve as President, only 16% of Republicans say yes to 72% who say no. And this all feeds into a broader concern that President Obama is waging a war on Christianity- 72% express that sentiment to only 20% who disagree with it." Public Policy Polling surveyed 1,268 voters from September 24th to 27th, including 605 Democratic primary voters and 576 Republican primary voters.
The New York Times writer asks: Do these people know what it means to outlaw Muslim worship? Do they teach history in the North Carolina schools? Do they know what would happen if we closed mosques, arrested worshipers and prayer leaders, imposed religious tests for public office? The debate of outlawing Islam in America is not new. In 2006 Islamophobe David Yerushalmi established, an anti-Muslim organization - the Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE) - to banish Islam from the US by making "adherence to Islam" punishable by 20 years in prison. Not surprisingly, Yerushalmi is behind the anti-Islam/anti-sharia legislations introduced in several states on the pretext of protecting us from the non-existent threat of Sharia law being imposed on the United States. Not surprisingly, SANE is listed as a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). [AMP Report]
Honda Introduces Bipartisan Freedom of Faith Act
Sept 30: Today, Congressman Mike Honda (D-Silicon Valley), along with his Republican colleague Rep. David Jolly (R-Fla.) introduced the bipartisan Freedom of Faith Act, which will make permanent the visa program for non-minister religious workers. The current visa program is set to expire at the end of this month. “America’s faith communities are a vibrant part of the fabric of our country. They promote community building and preserve religious history. Ensuring that they have a flourishing workforce will help preserve the services provided by our religious institutions without interruption,” Congressman Honda said. “People turn to their faith for guidance, in times of need, and to connect with other followers of their faith. Taking this commonsense measure will provide stability and ensure that people can always rely on their faith-based communities.” The Freedom of Faith Act will benefit America’s numerous faith communities by providing consistent access to trained religious workers. These workers teach in religious schools, give spiritual counsel, design and build places of worship, and provide specialized religious knowledge. They fill a dramatic shortage in the religions workforce and training facilities in the United States, and provide a link for faith communities to their ancestral roots. [Mike Honda]
FBI tactics to unearth ISIS recruits: effective or entrapment?
Sept 30: The FBI uses undercover agents and sting operations to round up ISIS recruits in US. But critics say such tactics also catch 'fake' terrorists who otherwise would not have taken action, further alienating the Muslim community. On paper, John T. Booker of Topeka, Kan., looked like a worthy recruit for the US Army. The 19-year-old had served as a master sergeant in the Junior ROTC program at Topeka West High School. But a few weeks before he was to report for basic training, Mr. Booker, a Muslim, wrote something unusual on his Facebook page. “I will soon be leaving you forever so goodbye! I’m going to wage jihad and hope ... that i die.” When confronted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Booker candidly admitted that he admired Maj. Nidal Hassan, the Army psychiatrist who massacred 13 unarmed soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, in November 2009 while shouting “God is Great” in Arabic. Booker told the FBI that he’d reached the same conclusion, according to court documents. In essence, he was joining the US Army to ambush and kill American soldiers. The Army withdrew its offer to Booker. What happened next in Booker’s case illustrates what many experts say is a major shortcoming in how the US government is responding to the threat of Islamic extremism.
John T. Booker Jr was arrested on April 10 and indicted on April 16 for planning to carry out a suicide bombing at an Army installation on behalf of the terror group ISIS.
Rather than viewing Booker’s alarming statements as a cry for help from a young man with recognized mental health issues, federal agents sought to build a criminal case against him. They introduced an undercover operative who told Booker he’d help him join the Islamic State group, but that Booker would first have to prove his devotion to the cause, according to federal documents. A second undercover operative was introduced, this one posing as a religious leader seeking to conduct terror attacks in the US. After months of discussions, Booker volunteered to carry out a suicide truck bomb attack at a Kansas military base. Federal agents helped him produce his own martyrdom video. The FBI also built a “bomb” in a van that Booker could deliver. The device was, in fact, an inert decoy. Booker was arrested while trying to arm the device near an entrance to the base. He is charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and faces up to life in prison if convicted.
To critics, such techniques smack of entrapment – encouraging naive or mentally challenged individuals to engage in criminal behavior they wouldn’t otherwise commit. These law-enforcement operations are taking place amid a backdrop of a sophisticated and methodical recruitment effort by the Islamic State organization that seeks to radicalize receptive individuals in any and every corner of America. So far, the FBI has managed to identify and neutralize the growing number of would-be recruits. It is a remarkable accomplishment, experts say. But law-enforcement officials are worried about those they haven’t yet detected. US officials have used confidential informants and undercover agents to help assess whether a particular individual poses a threat to public safety or national security. If so, a quick sting operation can neutralize the threat. Nonetheless, there is significant criticism. The primary objection is that such tactics often place the FBI in the role of inventing fake terror plots that create and ensnare “fake” terrorists. It is a distinction frequently glossed over in sensational media coverage playing up the disrupted “plot.” The suspects are often individuals with mental health issues or other vulnerabilities who, but for the intervention of FBI undercover operatives, might never possess the capability of carrying off such a plot. “In many instances, these people have espoused these opinions for a long time without ever actually taking action beyond just speaking about them,” says John Robbins, executive director of the Massachusetts chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations. Research by his organization shows that when the suspect is a Muslim, authorities tend to downplay potential contributing factors such as mental illness, he says.
“The FBI is really good at catching its own terrorists,” says Yasir Qadhi, a leading Islamic scholar in the US and a professor at Rhodes College in Memphis. Professor Qadhi says sting operations have further alienated large segments of an American Muslim population already reeling from widespread discrimination, surveillance, and racial profiling by US authorities since the 911 attacks. Among Muslims, Qadhi says, each new sting operation is not seen as an effort to protect people from violence. Instead, it is viewed as further evidence of government hostility toward Muslims. “When you set up a 17-year-old kid and you go and you wire your informants and you rile him up and then you catch him in the act, you’ve lost the trust of an entire community with that one stupid act,” he says. In one respect, what the undercover agents are doing is finishing the work of the IS recruiters who were methodically grooming and radicalizing their targets, experts say. In essence, the FBI takes up where the radical recruiters left off, further pushing young Americans over the line toward violent extremism, not to benefit the IS group or its fledgling caliphate, but for the sake of winning a criminal conviction in federal court. To those in the target’s family or his or her community who see this process up close, it is frightening and counterproductive, analysts say. Friends and family members could be a natural early-warning system to identify signs of radicalization, says John Horgan, a psychologist and terrorism expert at Georgia State University. “From the research I’ve done, we are finding that those kinds of issues don’t get reported because people are afraid of the consequences,” he says. Years of suspicion, surveillance, and tough law-enforcement tactics in the war on terror have undercut any sense of trust between the Muslim community and the government. “This is basic stuff,” Professor Horgan says. “It is community policing, it is outreach, it is building trust and figuring out what are the safe mechanisms through which people can report suspicions or call up an agency to say, ‘Hey, I think my child might be in danger of radicalization. What do I do?’ ” The professor adds: “We haven’t seen that kind of thinking, we haven’t seen those kinds of resources being developed here [in the US].” “Parents are placed in an untenable situation,” he adds. “Our strategy is devoid of early off ramps for diverting this kind of activity and that feeds a vicious cycle of mistrust, which we see in greater numbers of arrests,” he says. “It feeds the assumption that there is no real interest in stemming the tide of radicalization.” [Christian Science Monitor]
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