Trump's Invented Memory about Muslims

Why does Trump pretend to remember seeing "thousands and thousands" of New Jersey Muslims celebrating the 9/11 attacks? To justify his promise to register and monitor Muslims in America.

Trump's 9/11 Recollection

No, Muslims in New Jersey were not celebrating the Twin Towers attacks, but someone was. Writes Grant F. Smith:

[T]he highly documented five celebrants – later joined by two more from the same company apprehended after giving false information to law enforcement – were not Arab or Muslim.

The celebrants were – as noted here – all Israelis.

Also see this.

Fail-safe Method

Hat tip: Liberty.me, with apologies to Karl Kraus.

Is Obama Trying to Alienate Muslim-American Youth?

A 19-year-old Chicago-area man was arrested last weekend for attempting to help the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The U.S. government says Mohammed Hamzah Khan, an American citizen, faces 15 years in prison because he was at an airport with a ticket to Turkey and had left references to ISIS and a note to his parents saying he was going to Syria.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration says it will step up outreach efforts with American Muslims to counter ISIS’s campaign to attract young Western Muslims to its cause.

Is this any way for the government to keep the turmoil in Iraq and Syria from washing up on America’s shores?

Read it here.

Op-ed: Muslim Radicals Strike at U.S. Foreign Policy

U.S. Rep. Peter King's recent hearing on the domestic radicalization of Muslims was an act of misdirection. While King, a New York Republican, no doubt exaggerates this phenomenon, he might as well have held a hearing on why objects drop when let go. The answer is obvious. The violence the U.S. government inflicts on the Muslim world is the source of hostility to America. If it’s true of people in the Middle East and North Africa, why wouldn’t it also be true of Muslim Americans?

Read the rest of the op-ed here.

Egypt Today

Good to see the tyrant, Mubarak, out of there. It is something to celebrate, indeed. But now the army is in charge. Here's hoping the Egyptians "won't get fooled again." Do they fully appreciate what they've experienced the last few weeks? They peacefully abolished the government. Must they institute a new one? They shouldn't assume the answer is yes.

As Americans, our task is to do what we can to stop the U.S. government from further interference in Egypt and the region. Forty years of backing Egyptian autocrats is quite enough. But there is little doubt the U.S. government will work hard to influence the writing of a constitution in order to exclude the Muslim Brotherhood and others it does not like. It will also meddle with whatever elections are held. Keep an eye on the National Endowment for Democracy, an arm of the government that exists almost entirely to influence other countries' elections. (Imagine if a foreign government were doing that here!)

The U.S. government of course will dangle big sums of money in front of the new powers that be to get them to toe the line, and the treasure will be hard to resist. Ideally, the Egyptians will tell the Americans to keep their filthy money (which is also a tax-subsidy for the U.S. military-industrial complex), institute radical free-market reforms (including land reform and dispossession of crony capitalists), and go their own independent way. We can dream, can't we?

I know it is not to be expected any time soon, but the U.S. government should end all economic and military subsidies to each country in the region, starting with Israel (which did not want to see Mubarak or Suleiman go) and Egypt. Such an infusion of wealth has many bad effects, and one of the worst is that it enables the recipients to disguise their failings and escape responsibility (at least for a while). They should all have to stand on their own feet and rectify the injustices they have perpetrated. This of course includes the Israeli government's crimes against the Palestinians. Justice for the Palestinians would remove a huge obstacle to tranquility and progress in the region. Moreover, as long as the U.S. government is seen as an accomplice to those crimes -- which it is -- the American people will be associated with the oppression of Arabs and Muslims. We must not tolerate that any longer.

Good luck to the Egyptians. I rejoice in their triumph. How remarkable that they could drive out the dictator without firing a shot. Ideas do indeed rule the world. Even in the United States.

Juan Williams: Who Cares?

Must I wade into this? Do I care what NPR does? I don't get nervous when I see people dressed in Muslim garb. The 9/11 hijackers wore western clothes. Wouldn't hijackers be expected to? No one has pointed out that Williams, like so many others, misrepresented the remarks of would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad. Williams and Bill O'Reilly are jerks. Dash it, these guys aren't worth my scarce time.

The Lying Media and the "War on Terror"

Faisal Shahzad was sentenced to life in prison the other day for trying to set off a car bomb in Times Square last May. At his sentencing Shahzad said what almost every Muslim says when he pleads guilty to or is sentenced for committing or attempting to commit violence against Americans:

We are only Muslims trying to defend our religion, people, homes and land, but if you call us terrorists, then we are proud terrorists, and we will keep on terrorizing you until you leave our lands and people at peace.

The Associated Press reported the quote in full.

But that's not what the Washington Post wanted you to read. So it gutted the quote leaving: "We are only Muslims . . . but if you call us terrorists, we are proud terrorists, and we will keep on terrorizing you."

The Washington Times, doctoring the AP story, did the same thing.

Ditto USA Today.

The New York Times did a better job, sprinkling the quote throughout its story but burying "we will keep on terrorizing until you leave our land and people at peace."

Why won't the mass media let the American people see the full story? Muslim violence is not aimed at American freedom. It is retaliation for decades of U.S. government crimes against Muslims.

The establishment media are lapdogs of the warfare state, as slavish as any publication in the old Soviet Union.

Terrorism: Made in the U.S.A.

U.S. policy — no matter who’s in power — couldn’t be better tailored to recruit terrorists. We can keep pretending we are innocent victims. Or we can finally put the responsibility where it belongs: in Washington, D.C.

The rest of my latest op-ed is here.