The New York Times is immensely frightened by the appointments of Pompeo and Bolton, and that’s a very good sign. But they’ve put their smear machine into high gear. Much more below.
“Pompeo and Bolton Appointments Raise Alarm Over Ties to Anti-Islam Groups,” by Laurie Goodstein, New York Times, April 6, 2018:
Nearly two months after the Boston Marathon bombing, Mike Pompeo, then a congressman from Kansas, took to the floor of the House to denounce American Muslim leaders for what he called their “silence” in response to the heinous terrorist attack.
“Silence has made these Islamic leaders across America potentially complicit in these acts,” Mr. Pompeo said, reading from prepared remarks.
In fact, more than half a dozen American Muslim organizations had issued statements condemning the bombing within hours of the attack. In the days following, Muslim groups organized news conferences, blood drives and prayer vigils. Mr. Pompeo was immediately informed that he was wrong, but did not apologize or respond to Muslim groups stung by his remarks….
As always, condemnations are easy, action is hard. What are Muslim organizations in the U.S. doing to prevent the next jihad massacre? Where are the programs teaching young Muslims to reject the al-Qaeda/ISIS understanding of Islam, and indeed, to reject jihad terror altogether, as well as the aspects of Sharia that contradict American law? Nowhere.
Later on the Times engages in the familiar Leftist media tactic of presenting statements that are demonstrably true without refutation, as if they were self-evidently false:
Mr. Pompeo as a congressman arranged a briefing for one such group called Act for America, or ACT, on Capitol Hill and accepted the group’s National Security Eagle Award in 2016, according to the group’s website. Local ACT chapters have protested the construction of mosques, as well as school textbooks that include information about Islam, and have promoted “anti-Shariah” bills in state legislatures. The founder of ACT, Brigitte Gabriel, has written that “the purest form of Islam” is behind the terrorist attacks: “It’s not radical Islam. It’s what Islam is at its core.”
Horrifying! Can Laurie Goodstein present any evidence for her evident assumption that terrorist attacks do not represent “what Islam is at its core”? Of course she can’t. She is just relying on the likely ignorance of her audience. It is doubtful that anything beyond a handful of Times readers are familiar with this material:
“We will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve…” (Qur’an 3:151)“When your Lord was revealing to the angels, ‘I am with you; so confirm the believers. I shall cast terror into the unbelievers’ hearts; so strike above the necks, and strike every finger of them!” (Qur’an 8:12)
“Make ready for them whatever force and strings of horses you can, to strike terror thereby into the enemy of Allah and your enemy…” (Qur’an 8:60)
“Then, when the sacred months are over, kill the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them, and confine them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they repent, and perform the prayer, and pay the alms, then let them go their way; Allah is All-forgiving, All-compassionate.” (Qur’an 9:5)
“Fight those who believe not in Allah and the Last Day and do not forbid what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden, and do not practice the religion of truth, even if they are of the People of the Book — until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.” (Qur’an 9:29)
“Allah has bought from the believers their selves and their possessions against the gift of Paradise; they fight in the way of Allah; they kill, and are killed…” (Qur’an 9:111)
And these statements attributed to Muhammad:
“I have been made victorious through terror.” (Bukhari 4:52.220)
“Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war…When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them…. If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them. (Muslim 4294)
“I have been commanded to fight against people so long as they do not declare that there is no god but Allah, and he who professed it was guaranteed the protection of his property and life on my behalf except for the right affairs rest with Allah.” (Muslim 30)
Mr. Bolton is chairman of the Gatestone Institute, a think tank that regularly features articles on its website promoting the notion that pliant European countries, especially Britain, are submitting to “Islamization” by hostile Muslim migrants….
Anyone who has been paying the remotest attention to what is going on in Britain and Europe will know that there is ample reason for concern about this.
Both Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Bolton have appeared frequently on the radio show of Frank Gaffney Jr., the president and founder of the Center for Security Policy, a think tank that argues that mosques and Muslims across America are engaged in a “stealth jihad” to “Islamize” the country by taking advantage of American pluralism and democracy.
Mr. Bolton has occasionally nodded along to some of Mr. Gaffney’s falsehoods. When Huma Abedin, an American Muslim who was a close aide to Hillary Clinton, was wrongly accused of being a secret member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mr. Bolton told Mr. Gaffney’s radio show that he did not see any problem with raising the question, even though a host of senators had denounced it.
A host of senators denouncing something doesn’t prove anything. Go back in history, and you can find a host of senators denouncing the abolition of slavery. In reality, Huma Abedin has extensive ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. It is suspicious indeed that this was considered beyond the pale to point out, and unworthy of investigation.
On another show in 2015, Mr. Gaffney said that President Barack Obama displayed “kind of an affinity for, if not the violent beheading and crucifixions and slaying of Christians and all that, but at least for the cause for which these guys are engaged in such activities.”
Mr. Pompeo agreed, saying, “Frank, every place you stare at the president’s policies and statements, you see what you just described.”
You don’t? Obama frequently praised Islam but never had a positive word for Christianity. He let in thousands of Muslim migrants but kept out Christian refugees. I suppose it’s “Islamophobic” to point out such things.
Mr. Gaffney went on to ask Mr. Pompeo whether he had concerns about Representative André Carson, a Democrat of Indiana who is Muslim, and who served on the House Intelligence Committee. Mr. Carson has “deep personal ties to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and organizations,” Mr. Gaffney asserted, an accusation that is unfounded….
Unfounded? Really? Here is a 20-page dossier fully documenting Carson’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. It shows that Carson has worked extensively with Muslim Brotherhood groups including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), even after being warned about them. It is the height of irresponsibility, as well as dishonesty, for Goodstein to toss off this accusation as “unfounded” while ignoring all the evidence to the contrary, and not even bothering to inform her readers that it exists.
The idea that American Muslims are a subversive fifth column is rejected by mainstream experts. Muslims make up less than 1 percent of the American population and many of those who are immigrants came to the United States to escape authoritarian Muslim countries; imposing Shariah law is not on their agenda. American Muslim leaders have denounced the Islamic State, which has threatened them with death.
A captured internal Muslim Brotherhood document says that the Muslim Brothers “must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” — “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America,” by Mohamed Akram, May 19, 1991. All the major Muslim organizations in the U.S. — CAIR, ISNA, MAS, MSA, IIIT, and more — are listed in this document as partner organizations in this effort.
Wa’el N. Alzayat, who was a Middle East expert at the State Department and senior policy adviser to Samantha Power, the former United Nations ambassador, said of Mr. Pompeo’s comments, “Imagine if this stuff had been said about Jews, or African-Americans or Chinese-Americans. And yet, we’re living with an administration that is actually rewarding people with racist views or racist associations with some of the highest positions in our government.”
There are no Jewish, African-American (with the arguable exception of Black Lives Matter) and Chinese-American groups that are carrying out terror attacks and boasting that they will soon bring down the government and install one to their liking.
Mr. Bolton, a fierce critic of Mr. Obama, wrote the foreword to a 2013 book by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, “The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America.” Ms. Geller has said that the only moderate Muslims are secular Muslims, and that allowing Muslims to pray in public schools or workplaces would lead to the “mosque-ing” of America. She led the fight against a mosque near the site of the World Trade Center.
Yes, and so? 70% of Americans opposed the Ground Zero Mosque. And what in Pamela Geller’s statements, or in our book, is false? The Times doesn’t bother to say. Laurie Goodstein knows that the easy marks and Leftist ideologues that make up the majority of the Times’ readership will swallow what she says uncritically.