Muslim group: Republican ‘Islamophobia machine’ encouraging violent attacks

Categorized | Loon Politics

Muslim group: Republican ‘Islamophobia machine’ encouraging violent attacks

Posted on 14 August 2012 by Amago

Muslim group: Republican ‘Islamophobia machine’ encouraging violent attacks

Following an acid bomb being hurled at a Muslim school in the Chicago suburb of Lombard, a spokesperson for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) told Raw Story that the number of attacks on American Muslims has escalated recently due in part to the Republican Party’s “Islamophobia machine” encouraging a tiny minority of extremists toward increasingly violent behaviors.

About 50 people were inside the Lombard school building for Ramadan prayers when the acid bomb exploded, according to area media. The unknown attacker reportedly filled a 7-Up bottle with acid and other materials, then threw it at a window. Nobody was injured, but worshipers said they heard a loud explosion when the bomb went off. CAIR asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Tuesday morning to immediately begin searching for the individual responsible.

For Illinois Muslims, Monday night’s acid bombing marks the second attack on a Muslim-affiliated installation in less than a week. Police arrested 51-year-old David Conrad last weekend after he allegedly opened fire on a mosque in Morton Grove, Illinois, narrowly missing a security guard as worshipers prayed inside. The FBI said it would leave the investigation of the mosque shooting to local law enforcement.

“I don’t know what’s going on, other than it being the month of Ramadan with heightened activity at mosques nationwide,” Ibrahim Hooper, communications director for CAIR, told Raw Story. “I think most of these things are related to the rise of anti-Muslim sentiment in our society, generated by a well financed Islamophobia machine… The same kind of people cited by [Norway mass murderer] Anders Breivik in his manifesto.”

The shooting incident occurred just hours after Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL), a tea party favorite, told an audience that Muslims are “much more” of a threat to Americans than ever before, adding that people of the Islamic faith are “trying to kill Americans every week.” His comments followed a conspiracy theory spun by Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN), who called for an investigation into whether Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is secretly controlling an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a Democratic member of Congress.

Though some well known Republicans like House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) criticized Bachmann’s call for an anti-Muslim witch-hunt, many Republican Party leaders defended it, including a top spokesman for presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

Both recent attacks in Illinois appear to be part of a growing emergence of extreme anti-Islamic sentiment across the country.

Just two months ago in Dearborn, Michigan, a group of Christian missionaries hijacked an Arab-American festival, walking through it carrying a pig’s head on a pike and signs insulting the Prophet Mohammed. In California last week, an unknown person hurled pig feet at the site of a proposed mosque. In Rhode Island one week ago, a vandal smashed the sign in front of Masjid Al-Islam in North Smithfield. In Oklahoma on Sunday, vandals fired paintballs at the doors of the Grand Mosque of Oklahoma City. And a suspicious fire that destroyed a mosque in Joplin, Missouri — the second suspicious blaze there in about a month — is still under investigation.

In the wake of these events, CAIR advised Muslim-American communities to begin taking their security more seriously. The group recommended installing video surveillance at mosques and schools, asking for additional police patrols, meeting with elected officials, documenting suspicious people and making off-side backups of important records.

“Whenever you have people with some measure of respect in society smearing Muslims and Islam, it’s going to have a negative impact in terms of these kinds of incidents,” Hooper concluded. “[They should] act responsibly and tone down this anti-Muslim rhetoric. Unfortunately, it seems that Islamophobia is now a plank of the Republican Party’s political platform. It’s really disturbing. When I get a call about another incident of anti-Muslim hatred by an elected official, I don’t even have to ask what party they’re from. It’s always the Republican Party.”
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rbg

This si horrible to read about and I pray our country sees the error of its ways. I am a democrat and I have also noticed the Republican agenda getting more and more extreme and hate filled. America was founded on the idea of freedom of religion. This is why our ancestors left England, to escape persecution. The Republican party is seeking to attack the religious freedoms of Americans by encouraging attacks on Muslims. I do not know a lot about the Islamic religion, but what I do know, it seems like a peaceful and beautiful religion that shares a lot in common with Christianity. I will pray for our country’s eye to be opened and the hate to stop.
RDS

Bunch of people with Arabic-sounding names practicing gun safety?

Forget it, the FBI will be on to them in 10 seconds flat, and then trumpet it as a triumph in their war against Homegrown Terrorism (TM).

It’s a damn if you do, damn if you don’t situation.
khushboo

Good advice Jack. Thanks!
http://thepenofawanderingstranger.com/personal Jack Cope

khushboo, thanks for the compliments Yes, perhaps unintentional, we have a misunderstanding. As I said, I have no problem with reasonable firearms owners or those who know how to defend doing the defending. During my time training people however I’ve found far to many that think Grand Theft Auto and Battlefield are valid training and that holding a pistol sideways increases accuracy…

Yes, I exaggerate but you get my point. Maturity can be gained easily enough, it just takes a change of mindset, to see that a firearm is a tool and not an accessory, and it’ll come. Maybe I’ve seen to much violence and death and I am weary of it but I do recognize the need to have self defense, especially in the USA. As you say, both Islamically and under law US Muslims are obliged to defend themselves. Being non-violent as far as possible is best but there is no need to be a doormat.

I’ll disagree that an immature owner can save lives though, if you don’t know what you’re doing then you’re just a liability. Heck, the NRA offer’s reasonably priced training and I believe they are obliged to give it if you ask due to their code of ethics. They might be disagreeable with me on other things but we both agree that a trained owner is far better than a kid who thinks the ‘desert eagle is cool’. Get a couple of local Muslims in your area to go through the instructors course and they can get everyone up to speed.
khushboo

Have Walsh, Bachman, Spencer, Geller, West, and all the other Islamophobic bigots ever condemned violence against Muslims? Did any of them condemn anti-Muslim hate crimes and violence following any of the recent attacks?”

ofcourse not. They’re buncha hypocrites! Glad you brought that up.
khushboo

With all due respect JC, and I truly mean that, are you actually comparing muslims4liberty with haters? You’re a smart man and I usually agree with you but I think you stepped out of line there, perhaps unintentionally. As I’m sure you’ve noticed that there’s been a thousand cases of verbal and physical discrimination against us. Will it stop simply by being passive? I don’t think so! Police and the FBI hasn’t done much to help us because they come in after the damage is already done. and we know how wonderful the NYPD and the FBI have been towards us. Telling people to not have protection and expect only the police and the terrorists to have one is very dangerous advice, in my opinion. We should all protect ourselves, whether you think we’re immature or not. Even an immature one can save lives. We need to start thinking a step ahead of these bigots now. Islamically, we’re suppose to defend ourselves, not be aggressors though. It is also our constitutional right.
http://thepenofawanderingstranger.com/personal Jack Cope

khushboo, Syria is a state without law where the government is killing to keep power. Thankfully the US still has laws and a society that in general condemns violence.

I’ve just seen far to many Muslims, young ones in particular, thinking that ‘packing heat’ works. With all due respect and sorry to be picking you out Muslims4liberty, your language is just wrong and doesn’t show the sense of maturity I’d want with a firearms owner. Owning a firearm and using it to defend oneself and one’s community or property is serious shite, not something to be thrown out along with phrases like ‘chunks of hot lead’. Need I remind you that guns don’t kill, irresponsible owners do. And as Lo says, fearful people and guns is not a nice combination, just look at the people who are attacking Muslims with them. Do you want to become what you hate?
Hatethehaterz

I’m in total agreement with Muslims4liberty and Khushboo. We should protect ourselves (where it is legal to do so). Unfortunately California and (I think) Illinois have draconian gun laws. Many of the recent Mosque attacks occured in these states. I used to live in California and for sure you’re not going to get a ccw there unless you’re law enforcement or have a really good reason (unfortunately being Muslim is the opposite of a good reason around here).

I also agree with the title of the article that all the hate speech against Muslims is responsible for encouraging violent extremist attcks against our community. These hateful bigots always go on and on about how Muslims never condemn violence. And while this narrative is completely false, what about them? Have Walsh, Bachman, Spencer, Geller, West, and all the other Islamophobic bigots ever condemned violence against Muslims? Did any of them condemn anti-Muslim hate crimes and violence following any of the recent attacks?
khushboo

So Lo, do you think the oppressed in Syria should not have guns to fight back?
Lo

I have little respect for all this talk of ‘packing heat’ and ‘puttting chunks of hot lead’ in someone that has already been gunned down. How is that even Islamic anyway? Islam doesn’t even allow slaughtering animals with more than one strike. Protection and security is one thing but bringing a weapon to a place of worship and actually expecting to use them, that’s just fear. Fearful people and guns; not exactly a dream combination.

CAIR must have their hands quite full right now. They’re fighting the good fight; they have brought justice to a lot of people and made a lot of noise to bring attention to the reality of Islamophobia. They have gained a lot of respect from the peopel that matters. If one is angry and wants to fight back against all this hate, joining an organisation like CAIR would be a great way to do it.

Remember, God loves the oppressed.
khushboo

Muslims4Liberty, I agree. My feeling about guns is either no one should carry it or we should all carry it. If a gunman entered a hood, he would be shot down (comedian Hughley). Police will only be there to draw a chalk around your body. The Joplin mosque had security cameras and look what good that did?! They still haven’t caught the arsonist that was clearly shown on camera. If you’re against carrying guns, then every mosque should have armed police officers during large gatherings.
http://thepenofawanderingstranger.com/personal Jack Cope

‘Until we send a we few of these loons to their maker for attacking us, this will not stop. FIGHT BACK FIRST.’

I’d urge caution on the issue. Though it is true that both the laws of the land and the Qu’ran give us the right to defend ourselves, no one argues that, it is wise that we dread carefully on how this comes about. Stating that we should ‘fight back first’ is wrong, for starters the Quran states that any violence is in defense first and foremost. Not everyone hates Muslims, in fact the vast majority of people are OK with us, there is no need to go gung ho about everything. Sadly to many of the Muslims I’ve seen have fallen into the line of thinking that ‘guns make everything better’. They don’t and can end up making things worse.

That said I have no problem with responsible defending at all. I’ve trained a number of people (including a large number of sisters) on self defense and advised on security to various Islamic organizations, there is no fault in being prepared. A properly trained citizen is a godsend to law enforcement and society at large, a crazed gun nut with an arsenal of firearms he doesn’t know how to use is just an accident waiting to happen.

We need to ensure that we don’t turn our masjids into fortresses and our communities into garrisons. If we isolate ourselves then those that are against us have won, we cannot let that happen.
http://www.muslims4liberty.org Muslims4Liberty

We have to stop asking others to defend us, if we arent willing to defend ourselves out of fear we might be labeled. They ALREADY call us terrorists, carrying weapons to defend our masjids,our women, our children and ourselves won’t change that. but IT WILL deter further violent attacks. muslims4liberty.org
http://www.muslims4liberty.org Muslims4Liberty

Invest your time and money in a CCP (concealed carry permit), one for you AND YOUR WIFE, sisters, mother, daughter. I’ll be packing heat at the masjid from now on. I advise the rest of you to do the same. ISCF in Central Florida (famous because of traitor and turncoat “Imam” Muhammad Musri) has sent out a video to their members encouraging them to “run,hide, then fight as a last resort”. The video tells members to leave those who slow you down behind to die. Where do you run to in a Masjid? What is there to hide behind? What hide behind the minbar? NO, fight back first. If a loon comes in the mosque put two chunks of hot lead in him, one to put him down, and one to make sure he stays down. When did leaving the weak behind to die become “prophetic” advice? Until we send a we few of these loons to their maker for attacking us, this will not stop. FIGHT BACK FIRST.
mindy1

I hate it when people use MY country as an excuse to hate, we were formed to grant rights to all, look at the constitution. I wish I could send the haters away to a desert island.