MODERATION BY ANY OTHER NAME

MONDAY MARKED THE FIFTH anniversary of the imprisonment of Sami Al-Arian, the notorious Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader who operated for years out of the University of South Florida, where he taught computer science. The Leftist LinkTV (“Television Without Borders”) celebrated the day with the premiere of USA vs AL-ARIAN, a hagiographical documentary about the jailed jihadist, who is currently on a hunger strike after refusing to testify to a grand jury about the activities of Islamic charities and other organizations in Virginia.

LinkTV works hard to portray Al-Arian as a martyr, saying: “Al-Arian, who is diabetic, is on a hunger strike in protest of his continued imprisonment beyond his scheduled release date, despite being acquitted in a jury trial. His health is deteriorating rapidly, as his food and water strike nears the one-month mark.”

Acquitted in a jury trial? Then why is he in prison? Because Al-Arian, LinkTV later reports, "pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy in aiding Palestinian Islamic Jihad associates in nonviolent ways in return for receiving the minimum prison sentence, including time served, and to be deported from the country upon his release.”

In reality, Al-Arian pleaded guilty to a charge of “conspiracy to make or receive contributions of funds to or for the benefit of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a Specially Designated Terrorist” organization. If PIJ is a terrorist group, then “non-violent” aid to it is comparable to contributions to Nazi charitable organizations (and yes, they did have them). Al-Arian was aiding a jihad terrorist group, period. And his plea agreement leaves no room for doubt: “Defendant is pleading guilty because defendant is in fact guilty. The defendant certifies that the defendant does hereby admit that the facts set forth [in the plea agreement] are true, and were this case to go to trial, the United States would be able to prove those specific facts and others beyond a reasonable doubt.” What’s more, Al-Arian acknowledged that he was “pleading guilty freely and voluntarily…and without threats, force, intimidation, or coercion of any kind.”

As far as LinkTV is concerned, the hounding of this good man is all part of the persecution of Muslims in the post-9/11 Amerikkkan police state, you see: “USA vs AL-ARIAN is the personal story of the Al-Arian family, who like many Muslims in the U.S. today, are navigating the new laws and political climate of post-9/11 America.”

But it was Al-Arian who worked hard to create a climate of intimidation and violence. He stood by approvingly at one Islamic conference while former Cleveland Imam Fawaz Damra (himself now also deported) tried to raise money for Islamic Jihad by saying: “Donate to the Islamic Jihad. Nidal Zalooum from the Islamic Jihad held a dagger and stabbed four of the Jews in the courtyard of Al-Haram Al-Qudsi….One of them would leave his house with a knife to stab the Jews -- twelve Jews -- after the events of the Gulf War. Brothers, the Intifadah calls you. Five hundred dollars! Who would add to five hundred dollars?”

Al-Arian and Damra operated for years within the United States while enjoying reputations as moderates. Damra was one of the signers of the 2005 fatwa condemning terrorism issued by the Fiqh Council of North America under the auspices of the Council on American Islamic Relations and the Muslim Public Affairs Council. Damra’s name among the signatories lends credence to the view that this fatwa, despite the enthusiastic praise it has received from the mainstream media, is in fact another exercise in the deception that Damra and Al-Arian so skillfully practiced in America for so long, while continuing behind closed doors to support jihad terror.

Another video that was shown publicly for the first time at his trial depicts Al-Arian, the mild-mannered computer science professor, exhorting his Muslim audience to “adopt the choice of jihad.” And of course, most notoriously, Al-Arian has said: “Let us damn America, let us damn Israel, let us damn them and their allies until death.”

Al-Arian’s guilty plea and future deportation thus constitute a significant setback for the subversive, stealth jihad that the mujahedin have been waging in the West, largely (but not solely) by financing jihad activities elsewhere in the world under religious and academic cover.

That LinkTV would mark the fifth anniversary of his imprisonment by trying to portray him as a Muslim Gandhi, railroaded by a racist U.S. government avid for terror convictions, is unconscionable. LinkTV plays into the hands of those friends of Sami Al-Arian who would destroy LinkTV along with the rest of the embattled civilizational outposts of the confused and squabbling West.

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.