Bartholomew's Notes

The Rapid City Journal has a review of Walid Shoebat’s recent participation in a Homeland Security Conference in South Dakota. Shoebat, as I’ve blogged previously, claims that Barack Obama is a secret Muslim working to advance terrorist goals, and that the Bible predicts the coming of a Muslim anti-Christ. However, it seems that at this event he preferred to emphasise the general threat of Muslims: as a ex-Muslim, he knows how evil and dangerous Muslims are, and he has inside knowledge of Muslim infiltration:

“You’ve been infiltrated at all levels,” Shoebat said. “Are all Muslims who interpret for the U.S. military terrorists? Of course not. But that doesn’t mean you play Russian roulette.”

…Shoebat cited excerpts from the Quran, which is the Muslim holy book, that justified violence against non-Muslims and particularly Jews. These excerpts, he said, showed that Islam itself was inherently violent.

“If you meet the unbelievers, then smite off their necks,'” Shoebat quoted the Quran, a translation of the fourth verse of chapter 47.

“What part of ‘smite off their necks’ do you Americans not understand?” he asked.

He rejected what he called the “myth” that “the Muslim world is divided in two – moderate Islam and extremist Islam.”

Apparently, he sprinkled some “fluent Arabic for quotations” into his talk, but what kind of expertise is this supposed to be? Everyone knows that there are violent passages in the Koran, and anyone can easily find lists of such material on the internet. Devoid of context, and in the hands of man driven primarily by hatred of Muslims (in particular, it seems likely, his abusive late father), how is this useful for police and law-enforcement work?

That’s not a question troubling the official who invited him:

Jim Carpenter, director of homeland security for South Dakota, said Shoebat was invited back this year because last year’s speech was among the most popular among the law enforcement, fire, medical and other personnel at the conference.

“The critiques and evaluations that came back highly recommended that he come back again,” Carpenter said. “We acted on those, and that’s why he came back.”

Carpenter was formerly director of the state Office of Highway Safety, and he took up his current position in April 2010. It is unlikely that he knows much about Islam or terrorism, or how to evaluate the worth of self-purported experts in the subject – although one might have reasonably expected a bit more general discernment.

Further:

Lt. James Johns of the Rapid City Police Department watched Shoebat talk Wednesday. He said it was “a good opportunity for us here in Rapid City to see some of the things that are going on out there.”

“Obviously, Mr. Shoebat has his personal views on things. That doesn’t mean that everybody in the room shares the same views or same ideas,” Johns said. “His information is out there. We process it and develop our own critical thinking.”

So why not just get a speaker who isn’t a raving ideologue? For instance, this write up of a talk given last November by someone named Michael Knapp to a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps in Michigan gives the impression that it was a much more intelligent and informative event. There are plenty of real experts who can be consulted on the subject of Islam and terrorism, working at locations such as the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism.

The history of law enforcement agencies developing “critical thinking” after exposure to pseudo-experts is not encouraging: some of us remember how police and social workers in the USA and UK became caught up in a hysteria over “Satanic Ritual Abuse” in the 1980s and early 1990s. Not only were the lives of innocent people destroyed: actual sexual abuse occurring in various institutions was largely overlooked.

Meanwhile, Shoebat’s blog is complaining that critical coverage of his visit to South Dakota has been orchestrated by CAIR in collaboration with CNN:

…CNN sent two investigative journalists Kathleen Johnston and Drew Griffin to cover the conference from Atlanta GA which is a long way to travel to visit a small conference in a state with such low population.

The only conclusion is that the journalists or others at CNN were tipped off to this event by CAIR and jumped to their rescue. CAIR’s obvious strategy is to discredit people like Walid Shoebat so that the truth does not get to the American people.

…The journalists only tried to focus on the money Shoebat was paid, the finances of the charitable foundation, the advisory board members, and the credibility of Shoebat’s story but never asked about the issues that Shoebat was invited to the conference to speak about. Shoebat offered to provide proof of his story but up until now, CNN has not contacted him in order to get it.

It appeared that the whole purpose of the trip from Atlanta by CNN was to come to the rescue of CAIR. CNN’s presence was clearly intended to smear Shoebat. The question needing to be asked is how involved was CAIR in that attempt. It will be very revealing once the report is shown on their network.

Shoebat claims to have planted a bomb for the PLO in the 1970s, and to have worked with the Muslim Brotherhood when he came to the USA. But even if this story is true (and some doubts have been raised), this no more makes him an expert than robbing a bank makes one a criminologist.

One doesn’t have to take CAIR’s objections to Shoebat on trust: any sensible adult must hear alarm bells when confronted with statements such as “it is very clear that Barack Hussein Obama is definitely a Muslim” and “I would wish that the whole Muslim world would listen to Mr Bakri and fight by the sword literally. This way the nukes will take care of the whole problem once and for all”.

UPDATE: Shoebat’s boilerplate anti-Islam rantings were apparently worth $5,000, plus expenses:

A speaker at a Homeland Security conference in Rapid City whose remarks about Muslims sparked controversy earlier this month was paid $5,000 plus expenses for his appearance.

The Rapid City Journal originally requested the fee amount immediately after the May 11 event, but Alexa White, assistant coordinator of Rapid City-Pennington County Emergency Management, denied the request. The Journal subsequently filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act with White, who released the fee information May 19.

…The money for the honorariums came from the federal Department of Homeland Security.

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