Another Agenda

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CAIR rails against ‘Extremist right-wing’ American media in Saudi daily

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In today’s English language Saudi government daily newspaper, the Arab News, CAIR’s, Nihad Awad, has chosen to use this foreign venue to respond to legitimate criticism for an American Muslim organization.

Arab News reporter, Barbara Ferguson, reporting for the Saudi government daily out of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, provides this so-called news “report” available on-line.

In this report, the following accusations are leveled in Saudi media in response to Audrey Hudson’s most recent reporting for the Washington Times.

But not all American Muslims believe in CAIR’s diligence. Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, a Phoenix physician and chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, AIFD, said the announcement by CAIR “continues the tired stoking of the flames of victimization.

“They are unfortunately exploiting, for purely political reasons, what should be a sacred and purely spiritual story of our faith’s annual holy pilgrimage to Makkah,” Dr. Jasser told The Washington Times. …

This Saudi government report and CAIR response with its venue speaks for itself.

CAIR chooses to malignantly label a leading American newspaper in their own backyard of Washington, D.C. as ‘militant’ in a foreign, Saudi government owned newspaper out of Jeddah. The choice of this foreign venue to levy complaints about valid criticism of them in the U.S. certainly calls to question whether their motivation is purely civil rights or driving wedges between the Muslim and non-Muslim American community during this upcoming sacred and holy period of Hajj travel.

Mr. Awad’s responses to the recent criticism I leveled against CAIR’s strategy on the heels of the national attention to the flying imam fiasco, remains rather vacuous. He conveniently misses the entire point concerning the climate in America which that fiasco created and amplified due to their misguided priorities for American Muslims.

Arizona Islamist Media- (Issue No. 3.0)– “Arab Voice Rushes to Reassure its Readers and Advertisers while issuing veiled threats to its ‘Enemies'”

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[This piece appeared in the June 2006 issue of the Arab Voice on page 1]- translation provided by AIFD. AIFD Comment below translated article. “If you hear bad things about me” by Marwan Ahmed, Editor-in-Chief “If you do not like to be criticized do not do anything that leads to it. Our work in journalism forces upon us to have an opinion and to take a stand. Journalism that pleases everyone is a deceiving form of journalism and many times journalism results in many friends and enemies.” “Today we have friends and we have enemies. But our enemies are predominant at this time due to our clear and solid stands on several issues and due to our obvious influence on the local Arab American forum and the clear relationship we manage to build in the economic and political milieus. And because of the bridges we built between the Arab community and other communities, some started to build animosity and vengeance and envy to influence advertisers who use our publication to stop using us in order to put pressure on us. But they ended up failing in all of their attempts of both the old and the new in forcing us to change our fixed attitudes. They started claiming that we hate Shiites and other times they said we hate Christians or that we support terrorism.” “In all of this I would like to relay good tidings for the readers that all of these are false claims and some of the advertisers informed us officially about them and that they had no influence on them and their intention of continued advertisement.” “And we say this so that we wontﾒ be blamed for any measures that we take against these individuals who are trying to subvert our interest and our rights in the freedom of opinion and publication. We need to mention also that publications that take certain attitudes stimulate discussion and exchange of ideas which in the final analysis is to the interest of the community which is by itself in the interest of the advertisers and their businesses.” “I have other good tidings to relay to all readers and haters, that we will continue reporting our attitude strongly and our advertisers will not be affected. We will always express fully where we stand even if we pay for it a price from the financial or personal standpoint. As the poet said, ﾓif my criticism comes to your from one who is deficient, it is further proof of his deficiency and of my wholesomeness.ﾔ —————————————————- AIFD COMMENT: This rambling nonsensical diatribe is a most bizarre letter of reassurance to his readers and advertisers. It is quite remarkable that Mr. Ahmed has resorted already after just four months of our educational program to front page diatribes of fear which one would have thought would happen only as a last resort not as an initial salvo. His comments are intentially vague, and one can only guess that they refer to some of our educational efforts at AIFD herein to expose his ideology. Our Arizona Islamist Watch reports have focused on simply disseminating his ideology in an educational manner and responding to it from an anti-Islamist Muslim perspective. We do this to inform the public about the opinions distributed by the Arabic language Arab Voice and the English language Muslim Voice while showing that other entirely different viewpoints do exist in the Muslim community. Yet, note Mr. Ahmedﾒs complete avoidance in this editorial of any issues of substance but rather focus upon demonization of others and victimization of himselfﾗtelling his readers, ﾓeven if we pay for it a priceﾔ. This hyperbolic response comes yet only after a mere 4 months and counting of exposure of his pervasive Islamism to the general public. For the first time in over 10 years, this educational service from AIFD has begun to break the Islamist monopoly which Breek Publishing has on opinion representation in the activist Muslim community locally. For some reason which is not clear here, Mr. Ahmed is very upset about this. His comments in Arabic to his local Arabic audience seem to say that when the same freedom of speech he enjoys and uses is used by those who disagree with him to provide an alternative viewpoint, it becomes ﾓhate, vengeance, and envy.ﾔ Mr. Ahmed conveniently confuses his own Arizona public accountability for all of his opinions with his own visceral emotions of choice– ﾑhateﾒ and ﾑvengeanceﾔ Most papers of credibility would have welcomed attention to their opinions from other mediums since newspapers are supposed to be in ‘opinion’ industry. However, his victimization response can only mean that Breek Publishing has a great deal to hide. Why fear an informational service which highlights his Islamism? Our educational program only informs the greater Arizona community about Breek Publishingﾒs opinions and material while also providing some response. There is nothing more democratic than that. Breek Publishingﾒs form of democracy has nothing to do with real debate of the issuesﾗIslamism vs anti-islamism within Islam. In fact, much as one may find in the ailing Arab world, anti-democratic forces prefer to demonize individuals and distribute hateful cartoons in the name of democracy (as Mr. Ahmed has before) rather than try and defend their politically volatile Islamist opinions to the greater Arizona community. Finally, Mr. Ahmed has also already begun to discharge veiled threats in Arabic telling his readers, ﾓso that he wonﾒt be blamed for any measures that he takes against these individualsﾔ. Certainly not typical comments for a serious journalist. Herein is the typical Islamist dissociation of responsibility for their own actions. He is already laying the groundwork in Arabic on his pages for taking ‘measures’. It would seem that from the outset, he would rather begin by doling out veiled threats than by engaging in a legitimate debate about the incompatibility of Islamism with Americanism or any of a number of the other topics our reports have exposed. His is just another typical response from a dodging Islamist. Islamists will do anything to avoid real debate. They prefer to focus on demonizing those who disagree with them while wrapping themselves shamelessly in victimization and freedom of speech all the while denying the same for their adversaries. Perhaps it is becoming more clear now why in over ten years no one else had yet outed Mr. Ahmedﾒs Arabic publication to the greater Arizona community. ——————————————————————————– This report and translation is provided as a service to our community. We pray that this type of extremism and lack of moderation in opinion does not represent the majority of Muslims and Arabs in the community. See “Why AIFD provides the ‘Arizona Islamist Media Reports” for our commentary which clearly explains our intentions in providing these reports.

Arizona Islamist Media- (Issue No. 1.5)– Local Muslim Voice continues anti-military extreme bias

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The following are excerpts from an article in the February 2006 local Muslim Voice entitled: “ﾓMilitary forces criticized as a persistent problem for every day youthﾔ. ﾓThey want you! The military wants people to join now more than ever. With the ongoing war in Iraq, and people being killed and the militaryﾒs numberﾒs dwindling. The military is a great opportunityﾅif youﾒre moderately poor, and canﾒt afford college or if you just want to serve your country. Even though you would be fighting for a pointless war, and a brainless leader. Most of the people that join the service do so because the military offers to pay for your college once you are done serving.” “However, with the ongoing war, many may not even come back from the war and even be able to go to college and others may be so disabled that they will have to endure many months or even years of rehabilitationﾅ.ﾔ ﾓthough the DEP (delayed entry program) military policy clearly states that recruits are allowed to change their minds and not enlist, and the military recruiters who help the students sign up sometimes ﾑthreaten them , tinimdate them, and tell outright liesﾔ These are among the findings of a five-month investigation entitled ﾓGI Liesﾔ led by reporter Dale Russell of Fox 5 TV News.ﾔ ﾓThe military goes crazy when theyﾒre trying to recruit you, they wonﾒt stop calling you and sending you stuff,ﾔ Sunnyslope junior Amanda Nelson said. The military barges into peopleﾒs lives and wonﾒt leave them alone. ﾅ they donﾒt care how they do it, just as long as they do it.ﾔ AIFD Comment: While a few of our American military recruiters could be inappropriate in their tactics, this piece in distribution to the Muslim community malignantly paints a skewed picture of our entire military. In fact it baits the Muslim community to hate all military recruiters. If extreme opinions such as this were balanced by more positive truthful examples of the benefits of military service to our youth and service to our nation, this piece would be insignificant. But in the context of repeated anti-military polemics in this newspaper with no local rival, it is exceedingly harmful to the perceptions of the Muslim and Arab communities. There is no wonder the numbers of Muslim youth applying for our military academies, ROTC, and other military programs continues to be abysmal. This propaganda may sell and be inconsequential on Al Jazeera, but locally left without balance it only serves to drive a malignant wedge between our Muslim community and our American military. Anecdotal and sloppy reporting like this is intentionally placed in cultural newspapers by Islamists in order to turn off any interest potential local moderate Muslim youth may have in serving their nation in the military. This piece is an example of the repeated subversion of the image of the American military by some of those who have never served and have no first hand knowledge of their biases. This article and its views run at the core of the war of ideas that we need to wage against the Islamists and the threat which their ideology poses to our youth and to our security. If Islamists succeed in destroying the image of our American military within the local Muslim youth, enlistment in the armed forces will be a rare occurrence from our youth and greatly discouraged by their parents and family. The one-sided nature of this type of negative propaganda within the Muslim community should no longer be unopposed. It is time for the Muslim community to be exposed to other viewpoints about the honor and distinction of serving in uniform with any branch of our armed services. It is in fact the deep tradition of voluntary military service from American families from across our nation which is the backbone of our strength as a democracy. Demonizing the military is akin to demonizing the American people. As the only print so far in the Valley speaking specifically to the Muslim community in Arizona, this cannot represent the majority of Muslims in the Valley and their viewpoint of the honor of serving in the U.S. military. In fact, many American Muslims serve today proudly in active duty. However, one would be hard pressed to ever find a positive piece in the Muslim Voice about our brave soldiers who protect our nation and fight radical islamists abroad. A balanced debate about the activities and conduct of our armed services is always healthy in a democracy; however, constant one-sided discouragement from service and dissemination of blatant prejudice and bias against our military is a disservice to our nation and to our security. Until our Muslim youth are encouraged to participate more readily in our armed services this type of hate will continue. Until our Muslim youth begin to personally testify to their own families and thought leaders in our community of their positive experiences in serving their nation, the conspiracy theory mentality upon which all of this hate is based will continue to certainly propagate. Meanwhile, back at home, local Islamists will continue to disseminate this type of vitriol and keep the divide of hate wide between American Muslims and the U.S. military wide rather than encourage participation in the most direct form of fulfillment of their citizenship oath- military service.