Islam, the Irish, and Peter King

I suspect that some American Muslims, particularly young men, may be uniquely susceptible to recruitment by international terrorist networks. I suspect that the larger American Muslim community will be very unsympathetic to such activities. Whether my suspicions are correct or not is a reasonable question.

For that reason, I see nothing wrong with the House Committee on Homeland Security's hearing entitled: "The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community's Response." If organized cells of militant Islamists were developing in America, then we would damn well need to know about it. I emphasize the "if" for I very much doubt that they are, in any meaningful sense.

I do see something egregiously awkward in the fact that New York Republican Peter King is conducting these hearings. Here is a bit from Scott Shane's remarkable report in the New York Times:

Long before he became an outspoken voice in Congress about the threat from terrorism, he was a fervent supporter of a terrorist group, the Irish Republican Army.

"We must pledge ourselves to support those brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry," Mr. King told a pro-I.R.A. rally on Long Island, where he was serving as Nassau County comptroller, in 1982. Three years later he declared, "If civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation, it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the I.R.A. for it."

As Mr. King, a Republican, rose as a Long Island politician in the 1980s, benefiting from strong Irish-American support, the I.R.A. was carrying out a bloody campaign of bombing and sniping, targeting the British Army, Protestant paramilitaries and sometimes pubs and other civilian gathering spots. His statements, along with his close ties to key figures in the military and political wings of the I.R.A., drew the attention of British and American authorities.

A judge in Belfast threw him out of an I.R.A. murder trial, calling him an "obvious collaborator," said Ed Moloney, an Irish journalist and author of "A Secret History of the I.R.A." In 1984, Mr. King complained that the Secret Service had investigated him as a "security risk," Mr. Moloney said.

Now I am in an unusual position here. I can speak, in that pious and sexy way that is popular, about "my people." My mother's maiden name was Daugherty. Her father was your standard issue Irish American Mick. My last name is French; but it has an Irish version that may have been the original version: Bhlainséir. Blanchardstown is suburb of Dublin.

Shane points out the irony of Representative King's presence. The chairman of a hearing on domestic Islamic terrorism was himself a terrorist sympathizer if not, indeed, a collaborator. The IRA was as nasty a gaggle of cutthroats as ever there was. Peter King's support for them, his willingness to absolve them of their crimes, his refusal now to admit that he was wrong, are all deplorable. They make him a very poor choice for the roll that he has come to play.

On the other hand, he offers us a very useful comparison. The Irish Republican Army had deep roots among my people. Rep. King absolves himself by saying that the IRA was never at war with the U.S. That's right, but the U.S. and Britain have long been staunch allies. If the IRA never conducted operations against targets in the U.S. they were following a well worn principle: "don't shit where you eat." A lot of my people were funding the IRA.

Of course the vast majority of Irish Americans was uninterested in and would have been unsympathetic to the IRA, if they had thought about it. I expect that Muslim Americans will follow suit. It's the American way.

However, a lot of Americans did support the IRA and they were pretty much all of them Irish. I don't know if Congress ever held hearings on this, but they would have certainly been right to do so. American support for the IRA was morally if not legally criminal and it was a matter of national interest.

Many years ago I was in an Irish bar listening to hours of wonderful Celtic music on St. Patty's day. I was with a table of grad students. Late in the evening one of the bands played several IRA songs (Black and Tan, etc.). After the third such number all of the folks at my table, myself included, raised our glasses and shouted "God Save The Queen!" Fortunately, we were among California Irish and not Chicago Irish, so I live to tell the tale. There is a lot of tale there worth telling.

Comments

[BillW]

Yes, I remember those days well. As a practicing Catholic times were hard on my whole family when Congress held their hearings on "The Extent of IRA Support in the American Catholic Community and That Community's Response" Congressional investigators pored over the bank and telephone records of everyone they determined to have eaten fish on a Friday - a very high probability indicator of terrorist support.

We couldn't argue withsound logic, however. Since all IRA members are Catholic it only stood to reason to suspect all Catholics of supporting the IRA. So we understood that losing our Constitutional right to practice religion as we saw fit without interference from the government was the price to pay for believing in the same faith as the handful of Catholics who actively supported the IRA.

[Miranda]

Although I am still not comfortable with the hearings, I can understand why concern about American safety might sometimes have to trump worries about making members of one group or another feel awkward. Nevertheless, I remain worried that the hearings could become more than just a source of embarassment.

I had not heard of Peter King's IRA connection. I suppose it is possible that his experience with radical groups gives him special knowledge in the field, but it is rather difficult to trust someone who has supported terror to investigate the problems of terrorism.

As a side note: I still know the words to Black and Tans by heart. It was required singing in a college class! My Irish ancestors might have been proud, but my English ancestors were probably rolling in their graves.

[TL Winslow]

The drift of this article is that all religions are morally equivalent and only the tactic of terrorism is on the table, hence since Peter King supported the IRA he has no business chairing hearings on Islamic radicalization. Sorry, this betrays an utter ignorance of Islam and its 1400-year track record. Yes, the sad struggle in Ireland between Catholics and Protestants based on religious differences was misguided, but the new reality shaping up in Europe is that mass Muslim immigration is threatening a cultural-ideological conflict that can easily turn into all-out civil war, making the Irish Troubles look like nothing. The PC media that has been freaking out about the hearings, and trying to get them stopped because they "put an entire religion on trial" are so ignorant of history that it would be funny if it weren't so tragic?

Why do I say tragic? Just Google "Eurabia" and see how Muslim immigration in Europe, which is far more advanced than in the U.S., has been treated by Muslims as an invasion, causing them to set up "Stans" that refuse to assimilate into European society and instead are hostile enemy territories with connects to the Muslim world, threatening civil war.

This was easily predictable, since from day one in the 7th cent. Islam has been a world domination ideology cloaked in a religion whose god Allah commands all Muslims to conquer the world for him and set up his Way AKA Sharia, a government that he rules through the Quran that makes Muslims superior to non-Muslims and destroys all freedoms, literally consigning all who won't submit or surrender to Hell. That's why there is a Muslim world: there's ancient battle lines. Catholics and Protestants are both on the other side of those lines, with a common cause against losing it all to Islam, which treats them all as infidels worthy of no freedoms or rights.

The Peter King hearings should be about Muslims who were permitted to immigrate from the Muslim world like the Times Square Bomber, or children of such, like Maj. Nidal Hasan, and suddenly imbibed the Quran and its message that it's us vs. them, and realized that the orders of Allah haven't got an expired time limit. Sadly, the Democrats have decided to turn them into a circus with Muslim disinfo. artists like Muslim congressman Keith Ellison, who was given a disproportionately large platform in the hearings as well as the media, where he lied outrageously at will without fear of them exposing him, since his whole message was for the hearings to stop and Islam to be considered untouchable by Congress per se. What's causing American Muslims to become jihadists bent on murdering all "infidels"? Politics? No, the Quran.

The hearings, while a start, are not nearly enough, because the real hearings should be about Congress declaring a moratorium on immigration from the Muslim world until it changes as shown by dropping Islam as the official religion, chucking at least half of the Quran, opening up to all religions, and rejoining the human race as originally promised in the 1920s by Kemal Ataturk, but never delivered. The squabbles between Westerners are totally irrelevant in the face of the monolithic threat of resurgent Islam, which is threatening to plunge the world into a new world war.

I'm just an ignorant bigot? Let's see. On the Bill Maher show recently, Ellison quoted Quran 5:32 to the effect that the taking of an innocent human life is like killing all of humanity, attempting to portray Muslims as misunderstood Ghandis. Actually, he deliberately omitted Quran 5:33, where Allah warns that any attempt to oppose Islam or Muhammad by Jews or other infidels, including both Catholics and Protestants shall be dealt with by Muslims by beheading or dismemberment, because they are no longer considered innocent but guilty - and Muslims can't argue with god, now can they? The body count because of that verse is in the hundreds of millions now, so Ellison's Pinocchio act is not only sad it's sick.

Who is Ellison? He's just a front for the insidious CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which is a front for the worldwide Muslim Brotherhood, whose stated goal is the subversion of the West and replacement by monolithic Islam and Sharia. Too bad, the PC media is currently playing ostrich on the whole issue, preferring to trivialize it as a problem non-Muslims have with "Islamophobia", a term coined by Ayatollah Khomeini for those afraid of his stated goal of taking over the world for Allah! Yes, the entire West needs to be afraid of Islam because it's not just a religion, it comes with its own government that is an archenemy of our freedoms, and in America's case, our Constitution itself. No American Muslim can swear allegiance to the Constitution in good faith, because every time he reads the Quran it tells him to abolish it and substitute the Quran, making for an irreconcilable conflict, and this issue is so basic that Congress is betraying the public trust to ignore it.

Why doesn't Congress unite on this issue and recognize that the battle lines are still very real and get over its suicidal misguided blindness that treats Islam as the same as other major religions when it's the declared enemy of them all, and will be satisfied with nothing but total supremacy?

In the Internet Age, anybody can learn how Islam is so different than other religions and why by reading the blogs of Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Historyscoper, etc. Do it now or suffer the consequences later.

[BillW]

Miranda:

"Although I am still not comfortable with the hearings, I can understand why concern about American safety might sometimes have to trump worries about making members of one group or another feel awkward."

I don't think the American Revolution was fought in order to prevent the colonists from "feeling awkward". I believe their emotions and convictions that spawned the Bill of Rights ran a bit stronger than that. If all it takes is Congressional concern for our safety to trump the Constitution, we are doomed. Habeous Corpus, 2nd Ammendment gun rights, freedom of speech and the press, the notion of innocent until prven guilty ... all easily tossed out the window in the name of preserving our safety by a concerned Congress if you want them to have that much authority.

As Blackstone's fundamental cornerstone of our law said, "better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer." In this case, better to have ten potential terrorists go unchecked than have one peaceful American Muslim denied his right to pracice his faith.

TL: Quite the diatribe on Islam. Inasmuchas you have stated that it is "utter ignorance" to presume that all religions are morally equivalent, and you have watched Bill Maher and done Google searches sufficient to declare Islam to be morally deficient (presumably morally inequivalent to Christianity), perhaps you can watch a little more TV and Google a bit more on the rest of the religions and let us know which one is the morally superior faith. We can then declare the morally superior faith to be the American religion, and make converting to that faith and practicing it a condition of citizenship. Problem solved!

Sorry for bing so facetious. Let me address your comment seriously. You wrote, "I'm just an ignorant bigot?" The answer to your question is a resounding yes. Maybe in the course of your Googling you can find the time to look into threats large numbers of ignorant people perceived the Catholics, Jews, Eastern Europeans, Irish, Chinese and just about every religious or ethnic group to be when they immigrated to the USA. You will find that, in just about every case, someoe like you found a few examples of bad folks within the ethnic group, picked up an odd fact here or there from their holy book or cultural heritage, and parlayed it into a full blown case for large scale discrinination. You can find scholarly tomes making a clear case for the inherent laziness, immorality and dishonesty of every one of those groups ... and they all sound a lot like your comment. You will find 'scientific evidence' of the mental and moral inferiority of blacks, Asians and native Americans.

It seems to be part of our grand Ameican tradition to meet every new cultural group coming into the US with ignorance and bigotry such as the piece you wrote. Luckily for all of us, the Constitution and the Supreme Court will prevail as they always do, and Congressman King's efforts to pander political favor by jumping out in front of the ignorant, fearful and bigoted will not be allowed to result in action.

Think I'm wrong - being unfair - don't know what I'm talking about? I'll tell you what: I imagine you are a member of a mainstream religion. Tell me what it is and I will Google it for a while and find an impressive list of serial killers, anarchists and other unsavory characters who claimed to be adherents of that faith, find a couple of quotes I can take out of context from some nut-case minister on the fringes of your faith, cherry-pick a fact here and a quote there and make a case just as compelling as yours that it is a morally inferior religion - a cult really - with a true agenda of destroying the American way of life. It won't be hard to do.

[Anthony Renli]

Dr. Blanchard,

The issue isn't that the hearings are about Saudi Muslims (like the ones who flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon) or even Arab Muslims, it's all American Muslims, be they Turkish, African, Persian, Asian, or pick your ethnic group. The only defining characteristic is their religion. This would in fact the be equivalent of a hearing on all Christians(Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox) on Radicalization in the Christian Churches because the Timothy McVeigh was associated with the Branch Davidians.

There isn't the level of precision that you are talking about - which I still don't believe is in keeping with American principals. Representative King is holding hearings on the Radicalization of American Muslims. Not Wahabists (like Al Queda), or even the larger Sunni school, all of them. This IS the equivalent of holding a hearing on ALL Christians because of the actions of Operation Rescue/the Branch Davidians/Timothy McVeigh.

The fact that Representative King supported another terrorist group that bombed civilians, trained in the same terrorist training camps as the PLO and Hamas, and funneled money to the PLO and Hamas, and the fact that he to this day still refuses to disavow what they did, means that his reasoning for these trials is at best questionable.

[BillW]

Well said, Anthony

[Miranda]

BillW: I have not changed my mind on the issue and I still agree with you. But I do see how a reasonable person could disagree with me - hence my comment. Dr. Blanchard argues that the hearings are not, in fact, unconstitutional. As long as the hearings are just hearings, he is probably right. But I do think they come dangerously close.

[TL Winslow]

"The answer to your question is a resounding yes. Maybe in the course of your Googling you can find the time to look into threats large numbers of ignorant people perceived the Catholics, Jews, Eastern Europeans, Irish, Chinese and just about every religious or ethnic group to be when they immigrated to the USA. You will find that, in just about every case, someoe [sic] like you found a few examples of bad folks within the ethnic group, picked up an odd fact here or there from their holy book or cultural heritage, and parlayed it into a full blown case for large scale discrinination [sic]."

Sorry, but it's you who is lacking in the history department, not me. I tried to lead you to some information and you decided to pontificate without even looking at it, which is the very definition of a bigot, sorry. Yes, when Catholics were allowed to immigrate to the Protestant-run U.S, which was mighty big of it, grin, they were discriminated against, which isn't surprising since they went to different churches on Sunday, and there was hundreds of years of history of hatred and war between Protestants and Catholics in Europe. Luckily thanks to the march of secularism, science, Darwinian evolution, Communism, atheism and agnosticism etc., the Vatican was losing its grip on all Catholics, along with its temporal power in Italy, and it all came out well in the end, and is even working out in Ireland.

Of course the Jews were discriminated against bigtime after mass immigration from East Europe, but ended up proving themselves as intellectual leaders in almost every field, although anti-Semitism is far from dead, and might be said to be reviving in Europe under the guise of pro-Palestinian anti-Israeli politics.

But the point I was making is not that you're an ignorant bigot, since I don't know you. It was that Americans as a group are ignorant of Islam and its roots and history, which make it far different from Christianity and Judaism, and much more dangerous

First, the Quran is their holy book whose commands can't be overruled, and it orders all Muslims to disregard national boundaries and work to create a worldwide Umma or Muslim world that faces Mecca five times a day for prayers and obeys only Allah, and entails controlling the government and subjecting non-Muslims to Sharia. As such it is incompatible with our way of life and Constitution, making it not only constitutional but mandatory for Congress to act to stop it. To be tolerant of the intolerant is not wisdom but suicide. As Frank Gaffney says, the preaching of Sharia in the U.S. is sedition. See:

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?283485-Frank-Gaffney-Muslims-Practicing-Sharia-Should-Be-Prosecuted-for-Sedition-Gaffney-calls-f

Judaism actually has something similar to Sharia but it only applies to the Holy Land, where Jews have a historical right to their own state and can enact any type of govt. they want. With Christianity the NT only commands believers to preach the Gospel not take over the world and rule it now, but too bad, the Christian churches got into govt. control for centuries and stunk themselves up, but are pretty much out of that business now. As to Islam, when the West dismantled the caliphate in the 1920s, Muslim leaders promised to be good and join the human race, and it seemed like they might for awhile, but the signs are there every day that the old Quran-thumping Sharia-and-jihad loving hard core is back as strong as ever, sorry. The first breakthrough for them was the 1979 Iranian Rev., in case you missed it.

America has been a melting pot for various religious groups, yes, but when it comes to Islam it is likely to meet its match because with all religious groups holy books rule, and America can't force Muslims to ditch it to be loyal to the Constitution. It's not about race, because Islam isn't a race, it's an ideology that wants to absorb all races. It's like a rachet wrench that only turns in one direction - its. In short, Allah's orders to subvert and overthrow all infidel govts. including ours are still in effect, and it's not about us or our political system, it's about them, sorry. That's why the Muslim world must go back to its promises to change and oust Islam as the official religion before Congress should allow more immigration, else they're inviting in a Trojan Horse that will cause endless conflict and eventually lead to civil war - not because there's anything wrong with us, but because there's something wrong with the ideology of Islam.

Your ignorance is exposed most openly by even trying to equate Muslims coming to America with previous waves of Catholics and Jews. Let me guess, some of your best friends are Muslim, and black too, maybe gay and whatever. Sorry, Quran 5:51 commands Muslims to not even make friends with infidels; those that claim to do so are fighting Allah himself. See

http://plancksconstant.org/blog1/2010/04/the_quran_in_context.html

I'm sure you already read it, not :) In short, why pontificate on a subject in public that you know nothing about when it only exposes your ignorance and contributes nothing to debate? Take my advice and study up for about a year then check back with me. There's 1400 years to catch up on, a lot, but I did it so what's your excuse? It's only Muslims with an agenda to conquer America for Allah who are high-handedly trying to silence all debate on Islam, or even study of any material on Islam published by critics, in the knowledge that when Americans figure them out, they will soon shut the gates to more immigration and let people from other parts of the world move up in line. Intolerance of debate or criticism of Islam is itself Sharia.

Duh, the best place to master all the facts is the Historyscoper's free online Islam course, I wrote it:

http://go.to/islamhistory

The best place to keep up on daily global news of Islam's war on the ostriching non-Muslim world is the Historyscoper's Islam Watch Blog:

http://tinyurl.com/islamwatch

[Jimi]

"For a long time, many in the U.S. thought that our unique melting pot meant we were immune from this threat. That was false hope, and false comfort. This threat is real, and it is serious" Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough, 2011

"2010 saw more plots involving homegrown Sunni extremists — those ideologically aligned with al-Qaida — than in the previous year. Key to this trend has been the development of a U.S.-specific narrative that motivates individuals to violence," National Intelligence Director-James Clapper 2011

"We welcome congressional involvement in the issue; it's a very important issue." Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough, 2011

"The threat has changed from simply worrying about foreigners coming here, to worrying about people in the United States, American citizens — raised here, born here, and who for whatever reason, have decided that they are going to become radicalized and take up arms against the nation in which they were born.” Attorney General-Eric Holder 2011

“We are now operating under the assumption, based on the latest intelligence and recent arrests, that individuals prepared to carry out terrorist attacks and acts of violence might be in the United States.” DHS-Janet Napalitano 2011

“The terrorist threat to the homeland is, in many ways, at its most heightened state since 9/11,” DHS-Janet Napalitano 2011

“Al-Qaeda and its adherents have increasingly turned to another troubling tactic: attempting to recruit and radicalize people to terrorism here in the United States,” Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough, 2011

“American Muslims must take the lead in creating solutions to the radicalization of our own,” a Muslim former U.S. Navy lieutenant commander and now president of the Phoenix-based American Islamic Forum for Democracy-Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, M.D 2011

"I actually consider Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, with Al-Alwaki as a leader within that organization, probably the most significant risk to the U.S. homeland." National Counterterrorism Center-Micheal Leiter 2011

"Homegrown radicalization is part of al-Qaida's strategy to continue attacking the United States," Peter King 2011

[larry kurtz]

"Today, however, we have reached an era in which the existing system is on the verge of collapse, with colonizer and colonized alike resting near a precipitous edge. We can either succumb to the ongoing discourse of complacency propagated by the colonizing government, or we can mobilize for revolutionary change."

http://waziyatawin.net/commentary/?page_id=20

One more martyr or suicide by cop?

"A protest march down Haines Avenue transformed itself into a long line of grieving, angry mourners Tuesday at the Mother Butler Center when about 60 mostly Native American protesters greeted the parents of a young Lakota man who was shot and killed by a Pennington County deputy on May 2. Many people questioned the use of deadly force instead of a Taser to subdue Capps.

"Five shells for an Indian; a Taser for a white man," said Edgar Bear Runner, an Oglala Lakota who drove from Porcupine for the protest." The United Urban Warrior Society is affiliated with AIM, said organizer James Swan. Swan called Capps' death an overreaction to a "young man carrying a stick." The United Urban Warrior Society is affiliated with AIM, said organizer James Swan."

http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/article_647ba242-6e41-11df-8e1d-001cc4c03286.html

2011 is the year of Red Power.

[Ken Blanchard]

Anthony: No. The hearings were about radicalization in American Muslim communities. If 'radicalization' had meant doctrinal matters, then I would certainly share Miranda's concerns. However, it clearly meant 'militarization'. That is a perfectly reasonable topic for Congress to investigate.

Congress has the authority, under the Constitution, to investigate any matter about which it might legislate. Terrorism comes under that heading.

BillW: Congress should have investigated IRA activity in the U.S. more vigorously than it ever did. The reason it didn't is because us Irish Americans would have blocked it. That was a betrayal of our English allies.

If should investigations had been conducted, they would not have included an investigation of anyone who eats fish on Friday. No investigation of Muslim radicalization today would include an investigation of everyone who uses a foot bath.