Daily Kos and Others on Jihad
Thu, May 15, 2008 at 8:23:08 am PDT
Jeffrey Imm has a detailed report on the efforts to disguise and redefine the word “jihad,” taking place at the Department of Homeland Security, the National Counter Terrorism Center — and the Daily Kos.
What do the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC), and the Daily Kos all have in common? They are all seeking to define the enemy as other than “jihadists”.
A. Daily Kos: Jihad Not Terrorism
Three weeks after AP’s report of the NCTC/DHS recommendations to eliminate the term “jihadist” (among others) from the lexicon describing Jihadist terrorism, the latest salvo in this “war of ideas” was published on the popular Daily Kos web site by “Amad” on May 12: “Who Speaks for Islam? Part 3b: Jihad, Religion & Politics”. The Daily Kos author states that to “most Muslims, jihad implies honor and sacrifice for others”, and “[u]sing jihad and terrorism as synonyms is wrong and counterproductive” — seeking to define the threat as “extremism”. The article also expands on the real cause of “extremism” as “disrespect for Islam”, “aggressive” U.S. foreign policy, and “double-standards exhibited by the US on democracy and human-rights”. It quotes a student at the American University of Cairo as condemning U.S. foreign policy: “Bush has given Israel carte blanch to attack Palestinians and Lebanese. The war on terror is an open-ended war on Muslims.”
Daily Kos provides a biography on “Amad” stating: “Amad runs MuslimMatters.org... [and]... was one of the founders of Texas Dawah.” Amad’s blogroll on Daily Kos promotes MuslimMatters.org and CAIR. What Daily Kos does not mention is who some of the participants at Texas Dawah meetings and at the MuslimMatters.org website are, as they include supporters of jihadist groups, unindicted co-conspirators in U.S. terror trials, and supporters of the Taliban.
Texas Dawah 2007 convention speakers included:- Siraj Wahhaj - “unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing”. “Blind Sheik” Omar Abdel-Rahman attended Imam Wahhaj’s mosque and gave a lecture at the mosque stating “Muslims should rob banks to benefit Islam”. Siraj Wahhaj has reportedly called for replacing the U.S. government with an Islamic caliphate.
- Imam Johari Abdul-Malik - outreach director for Dar al-Hijrah mosque where “Virginia 11” member Ali Asad Chandia attended (supporter of Lashkar-e-Taiba group) and alleged fund raiser for Ali Asad Chandia. Abdu-Malik supported litigation to stop Israeli attacks on Hamas leaders.
- Dr. Salah As-Sawi - issued refutation of fatwa with the intent to deny that American Muslim soldiers had the responsibility to fight against the Taliban after 9/11 attacks, history of involvement with organizations under investigation, and served as a professor at Al-Azhar in Egypt - reportedly “a bastion of the dangerous Muslim Brotherhood.”
- The December 3, 2007 Jawa Report also provides other details about Texas Dawah speakers.
Another speaker at the Texas Dawah 2007 convention, who is also a regular contributor to MuslimMatters.org, is Musa Maguire. As Musa states in one of his articles on MuslimMatters.org, “I always get a special welcome from the folks at the airport...[t]o be fair, I can understand why I may have ended up on one of their lists”. But MuslimMatters.org’s Musa Maguire does not tell you why. Could it be because Musa (aka Thomas) Maguire is the cousin of American Taliban John Walker Lindh?
In 2006, the Daily Telegraph reported on Musa Maguire and American Taliban John Walker Lindh: “Thomas Maguire, his cousin, also converted as a teenager, but said that Lindh found the rigorous path of Islam easier to follow. ‘John exhibited a glowing innocence that propelled him to openly investigate the truth of Islam,’ Maguire (known as Musa) wrote on a Muslim website. Maguire, who now hosts an English-language talk show on an Egyptian cable television network, praised Lindh’s ‘unswerving’ faith and thoughtfulness. In words that would unnerve many Americans, he also described his cousin as ‘one of the greatest success stories in the modern propagation of Islam in the West’.” Musa Maguire calls American Taliban John Walker Lindh aka “Sulayman” - “a champion of Islam”, has charged that “the case against Sulayman is nothing less than attack against our deen”, and states that he “deserves the support of the Muslim community”.
The ideological influences of those associated with the MuslimMatters.org author and Texas Dawah co-founder writing in Daily Kos provide context behind his attempts to convince millions of Americans that Jihad is not terrorism, and that our only enemy is “extremism”.
Why does it matter what the Daily Kos reports? According to the latest blog traffic statistics for 2008, the Daily Kos is getting between 20 million and 30 million visits per month. Daily Kos has had its own meetings with Democratic primary candidates for president. Daily Kos contributors include current office holders such as: Nancy Pelosi, Richard Durbin, Tom Harkin, John Conyers, Barbara Boxer, Russ Feingold, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Jim Moran, and Barack Obama.
