By: Mohammad Hassam Kang
Last Thursday, outside New York City Hall, a number of Muslim and interfaith groups were seen gathered asking for the resignation of Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. The protests have come after a series of reports were released regarding a homeland security training film that singles out Muslim minority groups by using a series of characterizations of Islam and Muslim people, which were seen as offensive to many. Police Spokesperson Paul Brown was also asked to step down after defending the showing of the film to as many as 1,500 members of the police force, which was entitled, "The Third Jihad".
The film claims in some parts that Muslims are threatening an uprising against the United States that could potentially collapse the society from within. The film further claims that Muslims are attempting to create an Islamic state in North America, and have thus become a salient national security threat, which is argued by Dr. Zuhdi Jasser of the American-Islamic Forum for Democracy.
Although previously promised that members of the police force had no hand in making the film, it was discovered that Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, himself, had given an hour long interview for the film. The film was
made and distributed by a non profit organization called the Clarion Fund which labels itself as an organization that distributes documentaries on the threats of radical Islam. It is also famous for its Bush years propaganda film that was distributed to millions of homes, entitled "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West".
The pressure for certain police officials to resign should not at all be seen as a surprise at this point. The NYPD police force has worked closely with CIA and Homeland Security officials, and, on a number of occasions, has issued reports that targeted Muslim communities and places of worship with the use of informants imbedded into Muslim communities. It also created a demographics unit that created maps of Muslim communities.
The demographics unit focused on 28 ethnicities of interest, but police officials insisted that racial profiling was not driving their investigations. Notably so, the surveillance of anyone based on ethnicity who is not involved in any crime is against the law for any police organization.
Imam Hajj Talib Abdur-Rashid of the Islamic Leadership Council said in a speech outside of the protest at city hall, that whenever in the past Muslim communities have raised concern over the bigotry and Islamophobia of the police force, they were smugly dismissed, while tactics have grown more aggressive in nature. Meanwhile stop and search policies have effected Black and Latino males in drug running and gun planting, arrests of occupy protestors and journalists, and caused the entrapment of young muslims in terror plots offering them rewards, all of which have caused disgust of the police force over the last few years.
Recently, a federal probe sent to investigate the instances that were considered an abuse of power after the Associated Press reported on them late last year, came back with nothing. However many Muslim advocate groups are claiming the act to be laughable, as the agency launched an investigation on itself. Cleared of wrongdoing, CIA officials said there was nothing other than a lack of clear supervision in the case of Lawrence Sanchez being sent to the force with little oversight.
However incendiary remarks about Islam and Muslim people in the film only reflect the protocol of the demographics unit. The unit sent plain clothes officers to Muslim community centers and businesses and put
hundreds of people’s personal information that were convicted of no wrongdoing into intelligence databases. The fact of targeting Muslim communities for no better reason than their confession of faith has already become a widespread practice, so we see the corrosive effects of some of the Islamophobic propaganda and explosive rhetoric that characterizes Islamic society as a fast spreading plague.
The film is more than an hour worth of footage of angry mullas, burning American flags, destroyed churches, and statements that the violence and frenzy of Muslims is at the success of their 1,400 year plot for world domination.
Recent revelations pinpoint that funding for the film is traced back to the 16th richest man in the world; Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. The Jewish businessman and wealthy supporter of Israel, who was involved in a corruption scandal involving underground drug and prostitute businesses at his Chinese Sands Casino, has treated the upcoming election as a high stakes poker game. This is considering his 5 million dollar donation to the Newt Gingrich Super PAC "Winning our Future".
It was reported last week that his wife had donated another 5 million and promised the campaign unlimited financial support. As a previously unorganized campaign that lacked funding, it has now gained some serious influence and reach.
Former Speaker Gingrich admitted in a recent interview with NBC that the cause for Adelson's large donation was one key issue: support for Israel. Gingrich, who has made his foreign policy towards the Middle East increasingly hostile is probably only doing so to meet the requirements of his donors, as a fiery Newt backed many other candidates on going to war with Iran, a country that has taken a less than friendly position with Israel.
Adelson is the owner of Israel’s largest daily newspaper and a close friend of Benjamin Netanyahu. He is also a big supporter of the Clarion Fund. Gingrich recently stated in an interview that Palestinians didn't exist before Israeli occupation and they were Arabs from other lands, which is a view that Adelson supports. However, even as late as 2005, Newt was seen arguing for aid to Palestinians that matched U.S programs for Israel, and encouraged Palestinians to invest in their ancestral lands. Adelson has consequently become the posterchild for all the problems with American politics, and a testament to what influences real change in politics: dirty money.
Supreme Court laws that file corporations as people and speech as money, guarantee no limit for such donations, while no other couple has ever given more to a single candidate and had as big of an impact. Especially in states like Florida, where absentee ballots already placed Mitt Romney with almost double the votes even days ahead of the race, Gingrich would have no chance to sustain his candidacy without some major money to back him up. Views like Sheldon Adelson that believe Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Prime Minister, is a terrorist or that the Palestinians are a made up people who are politically designed to overthrow Israel, begin to leak into the mainstream.
It’s just like how the jingle from a bad advertisement might stay in your head for a couple of days and then you find yourself humming it a week later. This mental conditioning by using intense images of Muslims in burqas and strapped with bombs, have been instilled even about the most devout Muslims, as stereotypes.
However, there is also a very affluent class of people that spread a message of Islam as an ideology based around violence. Adelson left AIPAC after learning of congressional measures attempted by the group to give economic aid to Palestinians. He said that the two state solution proposed by Palestinian leaders is a stepping stone to the destruction of the Jewish people.
So upon hearing Santorum's stance on bombing Iran, Romney's stance on never negotiating with Taliban, and Gingrich trying to disprove the existence of Palestinians as if they were some kind of mythical gnomes, we've found that the extreme opinions of the GOP front-runners are not original, but supplemented, and usually with millions of
dollars. Enforcement of terrorist related activity also only applies to Muslims. It can be seen that with enough power and influence, Adelson has not only managed to misinform whole training programs for enforcers of the law and homeland security outfits, but also buy a whole issue for an entire candidacy, which reflects once again that dirty money plays a significant role in not only this country’s politics, but also its policing.
We live in a time where not only racial profiling still exists, but where by the time they're building the jail, they already know who is going to be inside.
The film claims in some parts that Muslims are threatening an uprising against the United States that could potentially collapse the society from within. The film further claims that Muslims are attempting to create an Islamic state in North America, and have thus become a salient national security threat, which is argued by Dr. Zuhdi Jasser of the American-Islamic Forum for Democracy.
Although previously promised that members of the police force had no hand in making the film, it was discovered that Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, himself, had given an hour long interview for the film. The film was
made and distributed by a non profit organization called the Clarion Fund which labels itself as an organization that distributes documentaries on the threats of radical Islam. It is also famous for its Bush years propaganda film that was distributed to millions of homes, entitled "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West".
The pressure for certain police officials to resign should not at all be seen as a surprise at this point. The NYPD police force has worked closely with CIA and Homeland Security officials, and, on a number of occasions, has issued reports that targeted Muslim communities and places of worship with the use of informants imbedded into Muslim communities. It also created a demographics unit that created maps of Muslim communities.
The demographics unit focused on 28 ethnicities of interest, but police officials insisted that racial profiling was not driving their investigations. Notably so, the surveillance of anyone based on ethnicity who is not involved in any crime is against the law for any police organization.
Imam Hajj Talib Abdur-Rashid of the Islamic Leadership Council said in a speech outside of the protest at city hall, that whenever in the past Muslim communities have raised concern over the bigotry and Islamophobia of the police force, they were smugly dismissed, while tactics have grown more aggressive in nature. Meanwhile stop and search policies have effected Black and Latino males in drug running and gun planting, arrests of occupy protestors and journalists, and caused the entrapment of young muslims in terror plots offering them rewards, all of which have caused disgust of the police force over the last few years.
Recently, a federal probe sent to investigate the instances that were considered an abuse of power after the Associated Press reported on them late last year, came back with nothing. However many Muslim advocate groups are claiming the act to be laughable, as the agency launched an investigation on itself. Cleared of wrongdoing, CIA officials said there was nothing other than a lack of clear supervision in the case of Lawrence Sanchez being sent to the force with little oversight.
However incendiary remarks about Islam and Muslim people in the film only reflect the protocol of the demographics unit. The unit sent plain clothes officers to Muslim community centers and businesses and put
hundreds of people’s personal information that were convicted of no wrongdoing into intelligence databases. The fact of targeting Muslim communities for no better reason than their confession of faith has already become a widespread practice, so we see the corrosive effects of some of the Islamophobic propaganda and explosive rhetoric that characterizes Islamic society as a fast spreading plague.
The film is more than an hour worth of footage of angry mullas, burning American flags, destroyed churches, and statements that the violence and frenzy of Muslims is at the success of their 1,400 year plot for world domination.
Recent revelations pinpoint that funding for the film is traced back to the 16th richest man in the world; Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. The Jewish businessman and wealthy supporter of Israel, who was involved in a corruption scandal involving underground drug and prostitute businesses at his Chinese Sands Casino, has treated the upcoming election as a high stakes poker game. This is considering his 5 million dollar donation to the Newt Gingrich Super PAC "Winning our Future".
It was reported last week that his wife had donated another 5 million and promised the campaign unlimited financial support. As a previously unorganized campaign that lacked funding, it has now gained some serious influence and reach.
Former Speaker Gingrich admitted in a recent interview with NBC that the cause for Adelson's large donation was one key issue: support for Israel. Gingrich, who has made his foreign policy towards the Middle East increasingly hostile is probably only doing so to meet the requirements of his donors, as a fiery Newt backed many other candidates on going to war with Iran, a country that has taken a less than friendly position with Israel.
Adelson is the owner of Israel’s largest daily newspaper and a close friend of Benjamin Netanyahu. He is also a big supporter of the Clarion Fund. Gingrich recently stated in an interview that Palestinians didn't exist before Israeli occupation and they were Arabs from other lands, which is a view that Adelson supports. However, even as late as 2005, Newt was seen arguing for aid to Palestinians that matched U.S programs for Israel, and encouraged Palestinians to invest in their ancestral lands. Adelson has consequently become the posterchild for all the problems with American politics, and a testament to what influences real change in politics: dirty money.
Supreme Court laws that file corporations as people and speech as money, guarantee no limit for such donations, while no other couple has ever given more to a single candidate and had as big of an impact. Especially in states like Florida, where absentee ballots already placed Mitt Romney with almost double the votes even days ahead of the race, Gingrich would have no chance to sustain his candidacy without some major money to back him up. Views like Sheldon Adelson that believe Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Prime Minister, is a terrorist or that the Palestinians are a made up people who are politically designed to overthrow Israel, begin to leak into the mainstream.
It’s just like how the jingle from a bad advertisement might stay in your head for a couple of days and then you find yourself humming it a week later. This mental conditioning by using intense images of Muslims in burqas and strapped with bombs, have been instilled even about the most devout Muslims, as stereotypes.
However, there is also a very affluent class of people that spread a message of Islam as an ideology based around violence. Adelson left AIPAC after learning of congressional measures attempted by the group to give economic aid to Palestinians. He said that the two state solution proposed by Palestinian leaders is a stepping stone to the destruction of the Jewish people.
So upon hearing Santorum's stance on bombing Iran, Romney's stance on never negotiating with Taliban, and Gingrich trying to disprove the existence of Palestinians as if they were some kind of mythical gnomes, we've found that the extreme opinions of the GOP front-runners are not original, but supplemented, and usually with millions of
dollars. Enforcement of terrorist related activity also only applies to Muslims. It can be seen that with enough power and influence, Adelson has not only managed to misinform whole training programs for enforcers of the law and homeland security outfits, but also buy a whole issue for an entire candidacy, which reflects once again that dirty money plays a significant role in not only this country’s politics, but also its policing.
We live in a time where not only racial profiling still exists, but where by the time they're building the jail, they already know who is going to be inside.
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