THE STORY OF ADAM

HERE IS THE story of how I got snookered into supporting a group of nincompoops, and what happened with these same nimcompoops at George Washington University a week later…

On the morning of October 8, a group hung more than 100 posters containing the text “Hate Muslims? So do we!!!” The poster also featured a picture of an Arab man, labeling Muslims with “lasers in eyes,” “venom from mouth” and a “suicide vest.”

Two days passed. Finally, seven students admitted the actions to the GWU newspaper, The Hatchet, with Adam Kokesh, a grad student admitting his leadership of the group. Two others signed confessions with the university's police department but chose to protect their identity by not coming forward publicly. Reportedly, the students involved met each other through the Campus Anti-War Network, a student organization.

In their own defense, the group claimed that the poster was meant to mock Islamo-Facism Awareness Week, an event organized by Young America’s Foundation, a conservative organization. Kokesh, a prominent anti-war Iraq veteran, and one of the two members of the IVAW that I had met at a fundraiser eight days prior to the mass posting, admitted that the satirical posters were intended to be overtly racist, therefore rendering them "obviously" satirical.

The political vision of Adam Kokesh insists that those who oppose Islamofascism, and want to educate people to its dangers, are racist, but the problems with that stance are immediate, and would include Muslims who speak out, like Muslims Against Sharia. And the rub is intensified when we include notable ex-Muslims and those "treasured" moderate Muslims who brave retaliation within their own ranks to oppose the radical Islamic fundamentalism.

These twisted arguments against Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week inevitably infected liberal Fox News pundit Alan Colmes (who'd invited Kokesh onto his show, but had to reel him in when Kokesh accused the show itself of racism because it didn't have room for Kokesh's Muslim friend to sit on the panel) with the same loss of judgement a few days later when Colmes was completely flummoxed by terrorist expert Steve Emerson by repeatedly insisting that, “The word Islamofascist smears all Muslims!”

Of course, the Colmes logic (and Bush with his "Religion of Peace" mantra) is strained beyond credibility because it falsely describes the dangerous and ruthless war ideology we’re all up against, and have been for several decades, while others before us have been fighting off these jihad-inspired marauders across the globe for centuries.

What did Mr. Kokesh and his band of merry “satirists” get for their inflammatory smears against a reputable organization, (Young America’s Foundation)? Disciplinary probation and a mere $25 fine each. But for those living here in DC when the firestorm broke out, university officials and DC police were in a fearsome lather in broadcasting their hunt for these "hate speech" criminals. Turns out, it was just satire. Oh, now I see.

Sergio Gor, YAF’s president, indicated that he was unhappy with the outcome of the judicial proceedings, pointing out that the students unfairly attacked his group and should be suspended or expelled. “I think it’s absolutely unacceptable that, once again, we see the double standards that are being applied—because the punishment doesn’t fit the crime,” Gor said.

With all that dirty laundry out of the way, allow me to share a personal observation. As stated above, I met Adam Kokesh in person a mere eight days before this scandal hit the GW campus. I donated thirteen small painting works to the silent auction fundraiser in which he appeared, raising several hundred dollars to benefit the IVAW cause. My position on the war is predicated on fighting the real war, not a war intent on nation-building and spreading democracy to an improbable candidate. Hugh Fitzgerald of Jihad Watch admirably articulates this position here, and I tend to agree with his language.

So while I found myself standing on a crowded wooden deck in southern Maryland fumbling with plastic plate and beer cup among a group of hardcore anti-war activists, pseudo-pacifists, and friends of Nader, most of whom I might surely disagree on most political talking points, I felt that I could concede common ground with regards to witnessing for a patriotic intelligence in saving American lives and treasure by withdrawing from Iraq sooner rather than later with the intent of throwing the Camp of Islam into inevitable chaos and allowing it to do unto itself what it wishes to do unto us, thus weakening it, and at the same time, revealing its true ugly nature.

Yes. There I was on the deck. Two former Iraq War veterans, who at some point later in the afternoon would give five minute pep talks to the crowd of devoted activists, included Adam Kokesh. What I found very strange as each of these two former military combatants passed, or I should say, pressed by me in the elbow to elbow strain of the moment on a crowded deck, was this. I was wearing a black t-shirt with the word SECURITY in bold white letters sprawled across the front. Who hasn't seen these shirts, right? I recollect buying my two at a JC Penney Big & Tall Man's shop.

But immediately upon meeting me eye to eye, each of the former soldiers cum activists, as they pushed past me following each other to the opposite end of the crowded deck, staggered backwards a few inches, their heads thrown back in a whiplash movement, after reading the word SECURITY on my shirt. One of them, and I believe it was the other young man, and not Mr. Kokesh, who said to me with a puzzled look, "I guess that shirt gets you into a lot of places, doesn't it?"

I was stunned by this visual image of him jerking back, and was already busy trying to interpret it in my mind, but I still managed to reply, "Well, I guess it does."

Not exactly the king of the snappy comebacks, but I remain perplexed at the notion that the written word—security—itself was tantamount to intimidation in the minds of these two young former soldiers.