Bartholomew's Notes

The Village Voice has the latest on politically-skewed “anti-terror” law enforcement training:

This month, when a group of New York City police officers showed up for their required counter-terrorism training, they got to watch a movie.

…The film is called The Third Jihad. It is 72 minutes of gruesome footage of bombing carnage, frenzied crowds, burning American flags, flaming churches, and seething mullahs.

…”After it was over, I was thinking, ‘What was that?’ ” said a cop who saw the movie at a training facility used by the department in Coney Island. “It was so ridiculously one-sided. It just made Muslims look like the enemy. It was straight propaganda.”

As it happens, police officials agree that this is a “wacky movie,” as deputy commissioner Paul Browne said, that never should have been shown to officers. Browne initially insisted that cops had never seen the flick. “It was reviewed and found to be inappropriate,” he said. Further checking revealed that the movie had been aired for officers. It was a mistake, Browne said. “It was not approved for the curriculum. It’s not shown for any purpose now.”

The report notes tells us that the film includes punditry from Glenn Beck – presumably footage, since he’s not listed as an interviewee. As has been widely reported, the Third Jihad was produced by the Clarion Fund, which was also responsible for the documentary Obsession (the Fund also promoted the “Islam doll” conspiracy theory). DVDs of Obsession were widely distributed for free in 2008 in the run-up to the presidential election: it should be noted (a) that the Clarion Fund website carried material explictly endorsing McCain until it came to general notice; (b) that the Obsession giveaway apparently targeted swing states; and (c) that at least one of the “experts” featured in the Obsession film – namely Walid Shoebat – has been known to promote the conspiracy theory that Obama is “really” a Muslim.

The role of dubious and ideologically-driven “self-described experts” advising law enforcement was the subject of a Washington Post report last month, as I blogged here; Chip Berlet, meanwhile, has recently announced that Political Research Associates has a forthcoming report on “key counter-terrorism firms offering highly politicized, biased seminars and industry conferences.”

In 2008 I noted that the Third Jihad cover art had been tweaked a couple of times before the documentary came out, although at least one person who left comments wasn’t impressed by my suggestion about why this may have occured.

(Hat tip: The Revealer)

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