Florida Law Enforcement Receiving Counter-terrorism Home Schooling from ‘Expert’ Sam Kharoba
No, that’s not sarcasm, this guy Kharoba is actually teaching so called counter-terrorism courses to Florida cops from his home. Home schooling. For law enforcement. I wish I was kidding, but I’m not.
What are these police departments thinking? Americans’ lives depend on law enforcement getting this stuff right. Do they even Google these guys before they hire them? It seems they don’t, and that anyone with a Arabic name and a few connections can open up a counter-terrorism workshop in his garage or whatever.
Googling Sam Kharoba brings up no less than two articles from reputable sources in the first page of results in which a very unflattering light is shone on him. For anyone who has a lick of sense, that should be enough to immediately raise red flags about his qualifications as an “expert” :
How We Train Our Cops to Fear Islam —The Washington Monthly (March/April 2011)
Annals of the great post-9/11 panic: Teaching cops nonsense about Islam —Foreign Policy Magazine (March 2, 2011)
Note: I read both of the articles above when they came out. The first one was posted here at LGF, I believe by iceweasel.
This situation of law enforcement hiring do-it-yourself “experts” with little or no professional credentials in the field of counter-terrorism is untenable. It’s insanely irresponsible and dangerous—it could cost you, me, or any of our loved ones their lives.
People say Muslims don’t speak out enough. Well, here are Muslim all across Florida raising an alarm. Will anyone listen, or will they just say Muslims are looking for “special treatment” or trying to escape scrutiny? I’m going to say it for the umpteenth time: Know who your enemies are, and who your enemies AREN’T, and don’t say we didn’t try to warn you about the snake oil salesmen.
I honestly don’t know what else to say. When are we going to learn? Why isn’t the government putting a stop to this?
There’s a call to dialogue, from a small Muslim community to law enforcement officials, echoing across Florida.
It’s a call for understanding, tolerance and education, to cross cultural boundary lines and request leaders on both sides to ask questions, share a meal and discuss concerns.
The call comes in response to one Cape Coral man’s at-home counterterrorism training business, which he’s used to train thousands of law enforcement officials around the nation for a decade.
Last week, at two news conferences held by the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, representatives from 30 mosques and Islamic centers and other individuals around the state announced they’d sent a letter to Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Gerald Bailey, denouncing Sam Kharoba and calling for him to be removed from teaching courses.
They allege Kharoba makes “sweeping generalizations” about Muslims and say he’s not qualified to teach, let alone train police about their religion. They want the chance to set the record straight and don’t understand why, if local police departments wanted information on Islam, they didn’t come to the source.