Robert Spencer

The blog wars have started again. Charles Johnson, seems to have gotten under the skin of good ole’ Robert Spencer once more. In a recent post on Little Green Footballs, Johnson lays out the top 10 reasons he has parted ways with the Right-wing, of which he was formerly a solid member. He writes in his ninth reason that he left the Right because of,

9. Anti-Islamic bigotry that goes far beyond simply criticizing radical Islam, into support for fascism, violence, and genocide (see: Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, etc.)

Spencer, takes umbrage at being accurately described as a bigot and responds with what can only be described as a volley of insults calling Johnson a “CAIR tool,” “libelblogger” who has “betrayed all his principles, friends, and associates.” He also plays the victim card and states that Johnson is a thug who is inciting his followers to hate and frenzied hysteria,

The thuggish libelblogger incites his sycophants and whips them into a frenzy of hate.

It is pathetic and ironic to watch Spencer, who we have exposed as a persistent Islam hater, Muslim basher, disingenuous liar, supporter of Euro-Supremacism and neo-Fascism to project onto his ex-ally, his own failings. Spencer, along with the rest of the Right-wing is in the throes of a strange evolution that sees it devolving into a group of hate-filled conspiracy theorists who either have to reform and transform or will remain defeated, forced by their own hand to witness the slow migration of its more sane and rational members to other platforms.

Spencer ends his diatribe by waxing ineloquent and asks,

One can only wonder what sickness of soul would lead this man to devote so much time and effort to lying about other people and trying to destroy them.

“Sickness of soul” indeed. The irony is overwhelming. Spencer is one of the biggest liars in the blogosphere, he has a whole website devoted to bashing Islam and skewing reality while destroying anyone who disagrees with him. All Johnson did was write a single sentence about Spencer, yet it seems it is enough for Spencer to think Johnson is stoking a (excuse the term) crusade against him. It seems some one’s conscious is bothering them.

Meanwhile, in the same post one of Spencer’s supporters takes a shot at LoonWatch. After deleting one commenters link to a LoonWatch truth piece on Spencer, Darcy writes,

lol,You think we would actually check out the repellent, idiotic, “loonwatch?”

Only loons go there, like you. Take your trash elsewhere, loonatic (misspelling deliberate).

The truth hurts. The fact is Spencer and his drones can’t bear to feel the fire, and are despondent at ever adequately and substantively rebutting any of the facts provided here on LoonWatch, such as the latest piece by Danios which all but obliterates Spencer’s Dhimmi argument.

English Defense League Protester

The blog wars have heated up again. Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, former ally and friend of Robert Spencer, exposes another instance of Spencer teaming up and hobnobbing with extremists; this time it’s the English Defense League and the Christian Action Network.

The English Defense League is an organization that claims to speak out against Islamic Extremists but many have linked them to far right organizations, football hooligans, and neo-fascists such as the BNP. The organization was founded by Jeff Marsh, a Welsh hooligan. Barth notes, “Separate from the MFE and UBA are the English and Welsh Defence League (EWDL) and Casuals United, run by the Welsh hooligan Jeff Marsh.” Read more on Jeff Marsh’s sordid past here.

In a post titled ‘English Defense League’ Riot in Birmingham, Charles Johnson writes,

And look who’s hanging out with the English Defense League now, on a tour of Britain with wacko fundamentalist nutbag Martin Mawyer and his “Christian Action Network” — none other than Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch: English Defence League Interviewed by Veteran US Anti-Gay Bigot.

It seems that Spencer was in Britain as part of a tour with the Christian Action Network. The Christian Action Network is the same organization which suggested that Hillary Clinton was a Lesbian,

The Christian Action Network (CAN), a Religious Right group based in Forest, Va., held a press conference in New York City Sept. 7 to announce plans to place ads in the New York media suggesting that Clinton is gay. The organization freely admitted that it had no hard evidence for the allegation but cited ongoing “rumors.”

Bartholomew notes,

The Christian Action Network was apparently in the UK as part of a tour with none other than Robert Spencer. In an August posting on Jihad Watch, Spencer tells us that:

I had a most illuminating dinner with a group including Douglas Murray that offered a bracing introduction to British dhimmitude: we had to move our dinner at the last minute since the proprietors of the George Restaurant didn’t like us discussing jihad and Islamization on the premises…When not getting bounced out of pubs, the intrepid Jason Campbell of the Christian Action Network and I took strolls into a few mosques…

This is the same dinner which the English Defense League were invited to, as Adrian Morgan of Family Security Matters (another extreme right wing group) admits in an attempted defense of Robert Spencer, “The EDL had been invited to the George pub.” Robert Spencer wants us to believe that all this is a coincidence and is crying that he is a victim of guilt by association, which is quite rich considering how, as we have demonstrated, Spencer traffics in nothing but guilt by association. I guess this time it’s a case of Spencer not being able to take his own medicine?

Spencer responds to the accusation by Charles Johnson with a searing salvo of cheap shots and name calling. Is that any way to act for an “objective scholar?” He calls him “libelblogger,” “lying scoundrel” and calls those who are member’s of LGF “cult members.”

Robert Spencer seems to still be fuming at being outed by Charles Johnson, who many in the anti-Muslim blogsphere think of as a “traitor” for exposing Spencer’s proclivity to be an apologist for fascists as well as his joining a genocidal Faceebook club.

Islamophobes Inc., Robert Spencer and Geert Wilders

Recently the American Library Association & the Ethnic & Multicultural Information Exchange Roundtable was to hold a discussion around the topic of Perspectives on Islam: Beyond the Stereotyping. For all intents and purposes the forthcoming discussion seemed very promising. It would confront and discuss the important issue of stereotypical portrayals of Islam and all that is associated with it such as myths and smears.

The program ran into trouble when without the knowledge of the other panelists, and seemingly without any sort of vetting, the ALA invited a well known anti-Islam and anti-Muslim blogger and writer — Robert Spencer. To say the least this made more than a few people scratch their heads. How could a reputable organization invite a well known Islamophobe who traffics in perpetuating stereotypes to speak at an event that is supposed to go beyond stereotypes?

To understand just how strange this was just imagine if the ALA had invited David Duke as a speaker on matters of race, say on a panel discussing the topic Perspectives on Race: Beyond Stereotyping. Does anyone believe he would be invited?

This was the very reason that a group of librarians, scholars and individuals sent a letter to the ALA protesting the inclusion of Robert Spencer on the panel. In it they detail their reasons and their apprehension at the severe lapse of judgment and error on the part of the ALA,

Even the most cursory overview of Mr. Spencer’s oeuvre makes it clear that in fact he has no place on a panel whose aim is to dispel stereotypes about Islam. Indeed, we, as librarians, scholars, and individuals are deeply concerned by ALA & EMIERT’s choice of Mr. Spencer for such a panel: Mr. Spencer espouses a view of Islam as a system of belief which is essentially violent, undemocratic, totalitarian, exclusive and at war with all non-Muslims. Mr. Spencer in fact goes as far as to equate Islam with fascism. According to him,

The misbegotten term “Islamo-fascism” is wholly redundant: Islam itself is a kind of fascism that achieves its full and proper form only when it assumes the powers of the state.” (www.jihadwatch.com/islam101)

Hence a question arises as to the justification for inviting a speaker who cannot see anything positive about Islamic beliefs, cultures, societies, histories, etc. to talk to an audience in order to dispel negative views of Islam. We are indeed saddened and puzzled by ALA’s choice for their panel, especially in that this appears to be a rare opportunity to educate people about Islam against the backdrop of an overwhelming atmosphere of ignorance, and negative stereotyping.

The open letter to the ALA resulted in the other three panelists withdrawing their participation in protest against the inclusion of Robert Spencer who they only learned was going to be a part of the panel a few days ago. This resulted eventually in the ALA canceling the event.

This cancellation served as a continuing repudiation of Spencer by scholars and his growing inability to cross over into the mainstream. Increasingly, Spencer’s voice is limited to the echo chamber that is the cottage industry of Islam-bashing which contains such “luminaries” as Debbie Schlussel, Brigitte Gabriel, and Andrew Bostom (!).

In response to being outed by the academics and librarians Spencer wrote a usual shrill diatribe in which he attacked his former friend Charles Johnson, CAIR and accused the ALA of “caving-in” to pressure. Yet by responding it seems Spencer has just dug himself further in a hole that leaves him wide open to further accusations, of at the very least, brazenly supporting loony anti-Muslimism and Islamophobia.

This is all the more revealing in light of a recent comment on Loonwatch from an obvious Spencer fan by the name of John Jackson on a post about Debbie Schlussel. In it Jackson agrees with another commenter Sami and says, “You do a great disservice to Robert Spencer by lumping him in with Debbie Schlussel as ‘Islamophobes’. Schlussel goes off the deep end frequently. I have never seen Spencer do the same.”

It may be true (though I don’t think so) that Spencer doesn’t go off the deep end “frequently” but he does go off the deep end — a lot. Also he takes issue with Spencer being lumped in with the likes of Schlussel, but why not? The only difference between Debbie Schlussel and Robert Spencer is that Debbie doesn’t hide her hate and vitriol against Muslims or Islam nor does she attempt to couch it in an air of objectivity. Furthermore, it wasn’t Loonwatch that first lumped Spencer in with Schlussel but the excellent report produced by FAIR titled Smearcasters.

In Spencer’s response to ALA’s cancellation he lashed out against Smearcasters and to the chagrin of John Jackson he didn’t qualify his attack by saying that some of the profiled such as Debbie Schlussel go off the “deep end frequently” or that Debbie was a “retard” as Sami wrote,  instead he defended them saying, “In reality, the “Smearcasters” report was a political hit piece on an array of the opponents of CAIR and its allied groups.”

For Spencer those profiled by Smearcasters were the victims of a “hit piece” on mere “opponents of CAIR and its allied groups.” Yes, nothing to do with their hate and bigotry Spencer! This is nothing less than an indirect endorsement of all those in the report, and so it is not us lumping in Spencer with what Spencer supporter Sami called “retards” but Spencer himself.

In the same response Spencer further goes after CAIR and defends his alliance with Geert Wilders, the controversial and fascist European politician stating,

CAIR’s Honest Ibe Hooper doesn’t have to resort to such circumlocutions. I didn’t actually have anything to do with that conference in Florida, but Hoop could just say straight out that I support Wilders. And so should anyone who holds dear the Western values that are threatened by Islamic supremacists — notably, as I said above, the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, the equality of rights of all people before the law.

There it is straight from his pen and that’s why Spencer keeps digging himself a hole. His support for Geert Wilders is his downfall because any objective and thorough understanding of Geert Wilders, what he has said and what he represents will prove the lie to the claim made by Spencer that he cares about Democratic freedoms and Rights because if he did he wouldn’t support Wilders and company.

Wilders is on record stating that religious freedom, a cornerstone of the foundation of modern democracies everywhere should not apply to Muslims,

Islam is not a religion… the Quran is a book that calls for hatred, that calls for violence, for murder, for terrorism, for war, and submission…We should also stop pretending that Islam is a religion…the right to religious freedom should not apply to Islam.

This is not the only place that Wilders has made this statement he has repeated it to roaring applause at Synagogues and conferences.

It is unbelievable that Spencer would now attempt to posit himself as an objective academic researching and writing on Islam when he unabashedly “supports” odious and reprehensible individuals such as Geert Wilders. Who can take Spencer’s grandiose claim seriously that he is fighting for the freedom of speech, freedom of conscious, indeed for Western civilization itself against “Islamic supremacism” when he supports and calls on us to support one who would infringe on the right of individuals to freely practice their faith.

What can you expect though from one who joined a group that aimed for a reconquista of modern day Turkey, forcibly replacing its Muslim population with a Christian one?

Also Read Svend’s take: Joke of the Day: Robert Spencer as Bridge-Builder

Debbie Schlussel

The continuing internet blog wars amongst the anti-Muslims and Islamophobes have been quite funny and interesting for all that they reveal about the agendas driving them.  It was only a matter of time before the fault lines began to appear amongst a group for whom it will be noted (a piece in the future) were really only united by a hate for Islam and Muslims, and in which their real motivations were self-aggrandizement coupled with hatred of the other.

Some bloggers such as Charles Johnson of Little Green Football’s have calmed their rhetoric and focused on other subjects such as science and local politics, while Robert Spencer and his allies have continued their hatred unabated, though stung by the increasing irrelevance of their movement in the Obama age. Who knows how long this will last or the eventual outcome of the Great Blog Soap Opera?

Yet, the fault lines were appearing earlier when in September of 2008 Debbie Schlussel, a well known Islamophobe came out strongly against both Walid Shoebat calling him a “fake terrorist” and Steven Emerson who she described as a “phony.”  All these are welcome contributions to the exposition of the loons and may have softened the image of Schlussel as an Islamophobe in the minds of some if it weren’t for the fact that her motivation in exposing these two wasn’t pure ego.

She was compelled to reluctantly spill the truth about these two for the simple reason that in the case of Shoebat he “cursed her out” and failed to cite the use of Schlussel’s work. So no one should fall under the illusion that her turn of face in exposing these two was motivated by a cathartic realization that they are haters, it was all personal and business — not principles.

In other news the Los Angeles Times has taken Schlussel to task for saying that the recent Ron Howard directed movie Angels and Demons was soft on Muslim Terrorists. Patrick Goldstein aptly describes Schlussel as, “a trigger happy anti-Muslim zealot.”

Just when Ron Howard thought he was in the clear, having avoided being attacks by the Vatican for any anti-Catholic story lines in his upcoming “Angels and Demons,” he now finds himself under fire from the one and only Debbie Schlussel. Revered as a truth-teller in conservative circles, the blogger-critic is actually a trigger-happy anti-Muslim zealot — she went nuclear last year when ”Defiance” Ed Zwick director refused to condemn Hamas — who’s now taking aim at “Angels and Demons,” which she (big surprise) thinks is soft on Muslim terrorists.

How did the Howard-directed thriller go from being anti-Catholic to pro-Muslim? According to early press reports, Howard apparently changed the identity of an assassin, who is Muslim in the Dan Brown bestseller, to someone who is now Danish. For the rest of us, this is — how should I put it — not such a big deal. But for Schlussel? She writes:

“Over the years, I’ve written about the many movies in which Hollywood changes the villain or the terrorist in the original script or novel from a Muslim to something else out of politically correct deference to Islam, the religion of whiners (and ultimately, murderers). Now, Hollywood continues in this tradition. … I’m already learning that ['Angels and Demons'] has been ‘disinfected’ by Islamopanderers (director Ron Howard) not wanting to upset our dear friends in the ‘Religion of Peace,’ who might do something ‘peaceful’ if the movie had stayed true to the book.”

This is just part of a prolonged Schlussel shame campaign, often based on the flimsiest of evidence, to belittle Hollywood for not treating Muslims as wild-eyed villains. In one of her classic posts, she attacked Marvel Comics for giving academic internships to Arab students from the United Arab Emirates, using that as evidence to support her outrageous claim that “Spider-Man and the Hulk are embracing the new Nazis.” She also recently ridiculed the Wall Street Journal for allowing one of its reporters (”with a Muslim-sounding first name”) to write admiringly about a Muslim author doing a DC comic book.

I don’t exactly have a direct line to Ron Howard to talk to him about his casting process. But here’s my suggestion: The next time Howard does a Dan Brown thriller, if there’s a good part for a terrorist, I think he oughta make sure Debbie Schlussel gets first crack at the job.

As Goldstein points out this isn’t the first time that Schlussel has supposedly “uncovered” a so called nefarious Muslim plot against the West — it is a trademark of her paranoid writing. When the Virginia Tech Massacre occurred, the police told the press that the shooter was an “Asian male” Schlussel was quick to tie it to Muslims, saying in a racist screed that “Pakis are considered ‘Asian,’” and that it could be “part of a co-ordinated terrorist plot by Pakistanis.”

Later when it was revealed that the shooter was a student of Korean background and that he authored a play titled Ismail Ax, she continued to attempt to tie the massacre to Muslims, insisting that the Muslim sounding name of Ismail in the play penned by the murderer was enough to conclude that he was a “secret” Muslim and that Islam was to blame.

Needless to say this was rejected by the police as it was obvious that the murderer had no ties to Islam or Muslims. Even more egregious, the ironic fact lost on Schlussel that Muslims died in the massacre.

The case of Debbie Schlussel, a certified trigger happy anti-Muslim highlights the absurdity of the loon blogsphere. All of them have bigger egos than the other and they are willing to throw one another under the bus if it suits them.  It kind of reminds one of the statement “There is no honor amongst thieves” reworked as “There is no honor amongst Islamophobes.”

Charles Johnson

If none of you have noticed by now there is a civil war raging in the Islamophobic Anti-Muslim blog-world. We expect to talk about this in greater detail but at least one site has dedicated itself to tracking the ins-and-outs of what they hilariously term the “Great Soap Opera.”

It has gotten to a level where web media outlets such as The Washington Independent have taken notice and started writing about it. Gawker also mercilessly ripped apart the players involved in this melodrama which pits the leader and founder of the so called “anti-jihad movement,” Charles Johnson against his former followers and friends Robert Spencer, Baron Bodissey (!) and loon blogger Pam Geller. Enjoy!

It’s hard to know what to make of Charles Johnson, the batshit crazy founder of Little Green Footballs, engendering the hatred of his even batshit-crazier former compatriots.

Johnson and his recent penchant for heretical thinking has sparked a full-on blogger civil war (and got Glenn Beck all mad), pitting stupid brother against stupid brother. The Washington Independent took a look yesterday:

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, jazz musician and Web designer Charles Johnson has devoted his blog, Little Green Footballs, to exposing Muslim extremism in and outside the United States. His targets have included the Council on American-Islamic Relations, filmmaker Michael Moore, Reuters, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Dan Rather, and the late pro-Palestinian activist Rachel Corrie - who some LGF commenters (not Johnson) call “St. Pancake,” a tribute to the Israeli steamroller that killed her. LGF helped write the lexicon of the self-styled “anti-Jihadist” blogosphere - from “moonbat” (”an unthinking or insane leftist”) to “anti-idiotarian” (”anyone who grasps the significance of and does his or her best to combat the post-9/11 political alliance between the ‘Old Left’ and militant Islam”).

But in the early days of Barack Obama’s presidency, LGF has become better known for the various fights it picks with many on the right - including conservative bloggers, critics of Islamic extremism, and critics of Islam in general who used to be Johnson’s fellow travelers.

At issue is an anti-Islamic conference in 2007 organized by some of Johnson’s acolytes. Among the invited attendees were members of a Belgian political party with ties to neo-Nazism, which is a perfectly natural fit, seeing as how the conference was organized around the idea that you should hate people who are different from you. Johnson took issue with the idea of his beloved anti-Islam movement being associated with neo-Nazis, and used his blog to attack members of the movement who got to cozy with extremists.

The whole thing has gotten out of hand, he told the Independent: “I don’t think there is an anti-jihadist movement anymore. It’s all a bunch of kooks.”

Well imagine that! If you organize people around the notion that all Muslims everywhere want to kill white Americans, some kooks show up at the table.

Johnson’s experience with the nutjobs-of which he is one-on the right is an object lesson in why soft-headed liberals like to keep an eye on seemingly respectable people who flirt with hatred and racism in their political messaging. Because even if those people stop short of actually saying, “Let’s round up the Muslins,” they tend to attract, and lend credence to, the people who are going for that in the first place.

Johnson should be commended for taking a stand against neo-Nazis and Glenn Beck. And he should still be condemned for spending the last eight years giving them ammunition and inspiration. If neo-Nazis are into your ideas, Charles, you might want to rethink them.

Robert Spencer

In observing and chronicling the Loon world one finds that the subject of history comes up frequently and a lot of times the loons revisit history and distort it so they can manipulate it to fit their ideological worldview. In rare cases however do we have a situation in which history is revisited in such a manner as to blatantly align oneself with ancient pogroms and modern campaigns of complete annihilation and ethnic cleansing.

Yet, this is exactly the case that we have with the completely self-taught, pseudo-Islamic Scholar Robert Spencer. Spencer is the progenitor of the hate site Jihadwatch which is host to some of the most vile anti-Muslim and Islamophobic hysteria on the internet. Spencer himself claims that he is just objectively working to expose the fact that Islam is “extremist,” “violently expansionist,” and sometimes not even a religion at all but a “political ideology.”

Do Spencer’s claims to be an objective analyst of Islam hold water?

Recently, Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, a former ally of Spencer’s and not an individual sympathetic to Islam exposed Spencer’s partnership with fascist European politicians as well as brought to light the fact that Spencer, on his personal Facebook account joined a group which seeks to reconquer present day Turkey, effectively expel and slaughter 150 Million Muslims and replace them with Christians.

The group Spencer joined is called The Campaign for the Reconquista in Anatolia. If you recall the Reconquista was that delightful campaign undertaken by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain which lead to the murder, expulsion and forced conversions of all of Spain’s Muslims and Jews. It also set the stage for the Inquisition. Is it a coincidence that this self described “expert” on Islam would join a group named after a campaign that resulted in the ethnic and religious cleansing of a whole nation? Sure sounds like impartial scholarship to me!

The Campaign for the Reconquista in Anatolia’s lofty mission statement:

Once the former East Roman capital is recaptured every single brick, pavingstone, copper wire, bolt nut & screw, piece of ceramic, shard of glass, plank of wood and fleck of paint, placed within this city after May 29th 1453 will be systematically demolished, melted burnt and ground down into a fine dust, shipped out to the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean in oil tankers and sporadically scattered over a wide area, so that there will be no physical remains of the city of Istanbul whatsoever.

The main aims of this group are to:

. Advocate the total Reconquest and complete reassimilation of the Anatolia penninsular, eastern Thrace, northern Cyprus, Greater Armenia, The Pontus and Antiochia through the medium of Greek, Armenian, Cypriot, Byzantine, Pontic and Syriac National Sovereignty and on an unconditional basis.

. The complete unilateral and nonnegotiable permanent ethnic transformation of these territories in order to co-opt the first aim.

. And the establishment of a National coalitionary Greater European confederativesuper state in order to secure the first two aims, withguaranteed sovereign borders, fixed permanent garrisons and the necessary military means to ensure alien repatriation with a view to permanent long term resettlement.

* This group entirely understands and accepts that this project will require the displacement of up to 150 million persons, an armed and para-militarily active settler rediasporaof at least 15 million economically viable semi-civilian colonists, an occupation force consisting of at least 2 million professional troops, a military presents in all territories between Anatolia and West Turkestan and anything between 0.5 and 5 trillion dollars worth of fiscal capital in order to complete. Furthermore this group also realises that the territories for resettlement in lower central Asia may not be currently suitable for such a large demographic intake and that therefore, mass sterilisation via sexual segregation and voluntary euthanasia programmes (may for the time being), need to remain on the table in order to prevent a latter humanitarian disaster.

* This group is not a hate group and it entirely recognises the fact that the majority of Turks currently living on the Anatolian peninsular are not responsible for the actions of their ancestors. However, they ARE in possession of stolen land and property that does not rightfully belong to them either as a Nation or as individuals, which essentially makes them a Nation of squatters. Therefore this is a group for the expression and advocation of national, racial and civilizational patriotic duty (no matter how unpleasant that duty might be) and for the principle of ethnic primogenture (particularly among civilized Nations that have either been destroyed or severely ravaged by culturally inferior Nations), so please keep comments above the intellectual level of the average 5 year old’s!

Looking at Spencer one might be tempted to think: this guy couldn’t be part of a Reconquista, his flabby physique suggests he would have a hard time lifting a pocket protector let alone a sword. You would be correct to think that but it seems the proof is in the pudding, Spencer in the footsteps of old Don Quixote De La Mancha dreams to be a chivalrous white knight but instead of fighting wind mills Spencer has set his sight on conquering and “liberating” Constantinople which for over 500 years has been known as Istanbul.

What’s more is that this isn’t the first time that Robert Spencer has delved into the topic of reconquering Turkey and changing the demographics of the entire nation. In an article he posted on his hate site titled, The Nakba, May, 29, 1453 he posts the following header:

Calling Robert Spencer an objective analyst and scholar of Islam it turns out is like saying Danny DeVito is an NBA All-Star, the fact is that he joined a group seeking to expel and kill 150 million Muslims, to any sane individual that would indicate otherwise.