Top Menu

On Gaffney’s Radio Show, Rep. King Suggests Muslims Aren’t American

On point piece from Sarah Posner, another writer who was an extraordinary “anti-Loon” in 2010. It goes to show that despite all of Rep. King’s protestations that his hearings are innocent of bigotry his statements prove otherwise.

On Gaffney’s Radio Show, Rep. King Suggests Muslims Aren’t American

by Sarah Posner (Religion Dispatches)

Lee Fang at Think Progress reports that Rep. Peter King (R-NY), chair of the House Homeland Security Committee who plans on holding hearings on the “radicalization” of American Muslims, said on Frank Gaffney’s radio program last week that Muslims aren’t real Americans in combatting terrorism:

Joining anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney on Gaffney’s radio program last week, King doubled down on his promise to launch a witch-hunt against Muslims. He repeated a falsehood that he stated earlier — that American Muslims never cooperate to combat terrorism. But in addition to this claim, King made the extraordinary smear that American Muslims aren’t “American” when it comes to war. “[W]hen a war begins,” King said, every ethnic and religious group unites as “Americans.” “But in this case,” King continued, referring to Muslims, “this is not the situation. … Whether it’s cultural tradition, whatever, the fact is the Muslim community does not cooperate anywhere near to the extent that it should.”

As I reported last week, Gaffney has disgusted some conservatives with his anti-Muslim bigotry; one Muslim conservative activist, Suhail Khan, told me that is why Gaffney has beenexcluded from next month’s Conservative Political Action Conference. Yet that doesn’t stop CPAC from including a group like the David Horowitz Freedom Center, which supportsFront Page magazine, which has promoted Gaffney’s work, including Gaffney’s smear of Khan.

As King’s willingness to appear on Gaffney’s radio show and affirm his notions that Muslims can’t be real Americans shows, Gaffney is not the pariah some in CPAC might contend he is. By way of another example, as I reported, Gaffney was appointed to the advisory board of the Clarion Fund, whose Islamophobic propaganda films have been promoted by current and former elected officials and the Republican Jewish Committee, and which plans to screen its latest documentary, Iranium, to lawmakers early next month.

Gaffney has been peddling the bogus claim that shari’ah law represents a real threat to the Constitution, and has called on Congress to “investigate” that as well. He employs someone who believes being Muslim should be criminalized. He brought that dog and pony show to Capitol Hill late last year for the benefit of House staffers, and spoke to a room of about 50 people. It surely is a deeply troubling development that King is cavorting with Gaffney and pontificating about the “Americanism” of American Muslims, in light of Gaffney’s agitation about fifth columns of shari’ah proponents bent on undermining the Constitution.

, , , , , , , , , ,

    • muhammad ‘abd-al haqq

      How does supporting war indicate one’s “Americanness” of Muslims. dissent and freedom to dissent are just as American. nationalism is definitely the new tribalism. i am all for fighting terrorism, but nowadays joining the US military almost always guarantees that a Muslim soldier will be fighting fellow Muslims.Refusal to support war is not the same as aiding and abetting terrorist enemies.

      Allahu A’lam

    • Layla

      Gafney also appeared as an expert witness in the trial of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, TN. He told us that Sharia Law is taking over but he actually TESTIFIED in court that he is not an expert on Sharia Law.

    • mindy1

      oh, okay

    • Al

      No it was WWI, thus the fallout of Germany’s humiliating defeat where the Jews took an inactive role in the war movement (so the story goes…actually 100,000 Jews fought with Germany). Here is a link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_legend

    • mindy1

      @AL, that was WWII, but yes talk like that is disconcerting

    • Al

      “King made the extraordinary smear that American Muslims aren’t “American” when it comes to war. “[W]hen a war begins,” King said, every ethnic and religious group unites as “Americans.” “But in this case,” King continued, referring to Muslims, “this is not the situation. …”

      This sounds remarkably similiar to the German argument regarding the Jewish populace during WWI…

Powered by Loon Watchers