Oh, it’s just another case of “Islamophobia” and “racism” that’s being under-reported by the media.
The New York Times reported “Secret Desert Force Set Up by Blackwater’s Founder” and “Protesters Killed in Clashes With Israel” and “I.M.F. Chief’s Arrest Creates Confusion in French Politics” prominently on the front page last Sunday.
But they buried a real news story.
The Los Angeles Times is reporting that the federal government is charging two South Florida imams with conspiracy in a plot to raise money for the Pakistani Taliban whose aim was to "murder, maim and kidnap."
They arrested six in the plot last weekend.
“Authorities say the ringleader of the group is Hafiz Khan,” writes the LATimes, “a 76-year-old imam at a mosque in Miami. He was arrested Saturday by a group of nearly 30 FBI agents who waited until his early-morning services were done before taking him into custody.”
Glad they waited for services to take place.
The authorities probably got the imam confused with some Jewish or German or Australian terrorists because of the inherent prejudice all Americans feel when we see a Muslim dressed in traditional garb, practicing their religion of peace.
Thankfully, there wasn’t a plane nearby that someone could prevent Khan from boarding.
Now that would have made the news. Or at least the front page of the NYT.
“In the wider Islamic community of South Florida,” says the Wall Street Journal, “many feared that the imams' arrests would trigger a backlash against Muslims.”
Oh, those poor Muslims in America. Cue the Council on American-Islamic Relations and other unindicted co-conspirators to give us one of their stock racism lectures.
Unindicted co-conspirators are always feeling the backlash in the U.S. of the actions of just a few very prominent heroes in their community. Those heroes, we’re assured, always seemed harmless as they were plotting to murder and maim.
The presumed “backlash” probably has nothing to do with the fact that Muslims tolerate such people in their midst. The spokesmen for the mosques always seem SO shocked that such people are their leaders. Their ignorance is reassuring to me.
The "backlash," therefore, is probably only the result of how imams dress.
Never mind; I’m sure it’s the Tea Party’s fault somehow. Or maybe the fault of a Delta pilot.
I’ll wait for the Huffington Post, NPR and Chris Matthews to explain it to me.
“Officials said the suspects raised up to $45,000 and were linked to the Pakistani Taliban,” says the Times article “the group that recruited the would-be Times Square bomber in New York last year.”
One of the imams’ sons, Ikram Khan, of course, denied that his father supported the Taliban: "None of my family supports the Taliban," he said according to the Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale. "We support this country."
The Times reports that a spokesman for the mosque in South Florida says Khan-the-imam is a "very gentle 76-year-old man, like a typical grandfather. Everybody respects him and treats him nicely because of his demeanor and because of his Islamic knowledge."
The Taliban group he’s linked to was also responsible for the attack on a U.S. military base at Khowst, where seven CIA officers were killed. Khan allegedly said that he hoped 50,000 more Americans would meet the same fate as the Americans at Khowst.
Isn’t that just typical of YOUR grandfather? Always into some mischief or another!
Quick, someone book him a flight to Charlotte so Khan can address the the North American Imams Federation on “Islamophobia” or what the Federation defines as a “prejudice against, or an irrational fear of Islam or Muslims.”
I’m feeling kind of irrational right now about imams in general.
Maybe the North American Imam Federation can straighten me out.
I don’t know about you and your family, but my family’s fear of Muslims has nothing to with the propensity of Muslims to be the ones caught trying to blow up planes, buildings and kids with Downs Syndrome. It has nothing to do with Yemenis shouting “God is Great” at 30,000 feet while storming a cockpit.
No, it’s mostly centered around the way Muslims dress and the fact that they invaded Europe in the 11th century.
I’m ok with people who have metal sticking out of various parts of their face and tattoo themselves head to foot, but put on a robe, and I feel irrational.
Hey, the Battle of Manzikert still rankles in our home.
In fact, the prejudice I feel, they tell me, is almost exactly like when African Americans had to sit in the back of the bus and couldn’t drink out of the same water fountains as whites.
Almost exactly like that.
Almost.
Thank goodness for the liberal press.
If it weren't for them, I might have thought that the prejudice Muslims feel might be related to the violence that accompanies the "Death-to-America" rhetoric they espouse and their more explosive statements.
Instead, now I know that my prejudice is rooted only in their fashion statements.
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