From Artcore III, a show posted on Blog Talk Radio:
Exclusive interview with Detective Michael Riker (Ret.), President of the International Counter-Terrorism Officers Association, and surprise guest Erotic Artist Nancy Peach!
Alas, Peach did not in fact appear on the show, although we did hear from Riker: he and host Will Griffith expressed their displeasure and dismay at critical scrutiny to which the ICTOA has recently been subjected. As I blogged earlier this month, the ICTOA features in a new report published by Political Research Associates on some troubling trends in “anti-terror” training being given to law-enforcement professionals. In particular, the report notes an appearance by Walid Shoebat at one ICTOA event:
Shoebat is a convert to Christianity, having formerly been a Muslim with links to the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. In his presentation, called The Jihad Mindset and How to Defeat It: Why We Want to Kill You, he accused Muslim men of raping women, children and young boys. “They are paedophiles!” he shouted.
According to the report, Shoebat went on: “The Muslim beheads with a smile. You can see it on YouTube, on TV; the Afghan child trained to execute Christians. You say that Islam is a peaceful religion? Why? It hates the west.”
He also said: “Islam is a revolution and is intent to destroy all other systems. They want to expand, like Nazism.”
…One conference participant from the Southern Nevada Fusion Center told a PRA investigator in attendance that Shoebat’s presentation was “spot on.” The staffer continued, saying that government officials should be saying the same things as Shoebat, but they will not due to fear of “political correctness.”
In November, the ICTOA sponsored an “alternative” Foot Hood massacre memorial event, which featured Shoebat alongside Robert Spencer and Jerry Boykin.
Riker complains that the PRA report (which he and Griffith decline to reference directly, preferring to make references to “internet yahoos”) has unfairly accused him of being a bigot, when in fact his wife is Puerto Rican and his circle of friends and colleagues is multi-racial. Of course, this is beside the point – nobody is accusing him of racial prejudice, but his endorsement of Shoebat’s inflammatory rhetoric speaks for itself. Riker is still sticking with Shoebat, though – he tells the old story of how Shoebat had bombed a bank in Israel some years ago on behalf of the PLO, prompting Griffith to ask: “what better expert on terrorism than a former Palestinian terrorist?”
This unshakable confidence in Shoebat should set off alarm bells for any serious professional: even if it is true that Shoebat did in fact bomb a bank (the Jerusalem Post – hardly a leftist outfit – is sceptical), how does that make him an expert on anything other than how to bomb a bank? Robbing a bank doesn’t make one a criminologist, yet Shoebat constantly dines out on the notion that his background provides unique insight into the “essence” of terrorism and of Islam. Shoebat’s utterances are so extravagant as to be absurd: he claims that he knows that Obama is a Muslim (“Islam could not defeat us by destroying the twin towers. But they are able to defeat us by sneaking in their man”), and he wishes that “nukes” would “take care” of the Muslim world.
And that’s not even counting his second job visiting churches to warn of the coming Islamic Anti-Christ, based on a bizarre pseudo-analysis of the Book of Revelation: as I write these words, Shoebat is at the First Baptist Church in Raytown, Missouri, expounding on just this point in an event alongside Glenn Beck’s End-Times Prophet Joel Richardson.
I previously blogged on Riker’s links to Will Griffith here. Griffith is a rather odd character: in September, he broadcast a strange “9/11 Address To The Nation”, in which he railed against “elites” and the “enemy within”, named as “ultra-liberals” and “diversity”. He also alluded to a personal scandal from before he came “to know God”; this was reportedly a past role as a transvestite prostitute, although, bizarrely, the only details about this are on sites listed as having belonged to “the Griffith Corporation”. After I blogged about this, I received a positive comment from someone purporting to be an Islamist; curiously, this person’s IP address was shared by someone else who commented shortly afterwards, and whose email address tracked back to a name associated with Griffith’s “GCIS” organisation.
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