Michele Bachmann’s McCarthyite Crusade Against Huma Abedin And Other Muslims
Michele Bachmann and several other Members of Congress are engaging in the despicable tactics of Joe McCarthy.
Michelle Bachmann and several of her fellow Republican Members of Congress have spent the last week or so engaged in a witch hunt against supposed Muslim infiltration of the U.S. Government, focusing their ire on Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s long-time aide and the wife of former Congressman Anthony Weiner:
Last week five Republican members of the House of Representatives, including former presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, made claims that Abedin’s family has ties to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and questioned whether she is part of a nefarious conspiracy to harm the United States by influencing U.S. foreign policy with her high-level position at the State Department.
“The Departments Deputy, Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin, has three family members – her late father, her mother and her brother – connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and /or organizations. Her position affords her routine access to the Secretary and to policy making,” according to the the June 13thletter, signed by Reps. Bachmann, R-Minn., Trent Franks, R-Ariz., Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, Thomas Rooney, R-Fla., and Lynn Westmoreland, R-GA.
The letter was sent to Harold Geisel, the Deputy Inspector General at the Department of State, while similar copies were sent to the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Defense and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
The lawmakers point to a report by the Center for Security Policy, a conservative think tank, which makes the allegations about Abedin’s family ties and calls on the Deputy Inspector General of the Department of State to begin an investigation into the possibility that Abedin and other American officials are using their influence to promote the cause of the Muslim Brotherhood within the U.S. government.
I’ve embedded the letter below so you can judge it for yourself, but the McCarthyism here is rather apparent. Then, as now, a person’s connections to other people, including in this case someone who has been dead since 1993, are being used to accuse them of being an infiltrator and an enemy of the United States. The fact that Abedin was born in the United States doesn’t even matter, although, of course, the people who Joe McCarthy sought to destroy were all American citizens as well so that doesn’t really shield anyone from having their reputation smeared. There is absolutely no evidence that Abedin herself has any connections to Muslim extremists. Indeed, even the organizations that her family members have been allegedly connected to in the past don’t really constitute the kind of extremism that Bachmann and the other Members of Congress are accusing her of in their letter. It’s also worth noting that Abedin had to obtain a Security Clearance to get her current position as Hillary Clinton’s right hand woman, and that would have included a thorough background check. The idea that the people at the State Department who are responsible for such things would have missed anything serious, or would have let it slide for political reasons is, quite simply, absurd.
Yesterday, Senator John McCain took to the floor of the Senate to criticize the Members of Congress who sent the letter in no uncertain terms:
In an unusually direct speech aimed at members of his own party, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) took to the floor of the Senate on Wednesday to defend a longtime aide and confidant of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Huma Abedin, a Muslim and the deputy chief of staff and aide to Clinton, has been accused by former presidential candidate Michele Bachmann (Minn.) and four other House Republicans of being connected to a conspiracy theory that the Muslim Brotherhood is trying to infiltrate the highest levels of the U.S. government.
(…)
“Rarely do I come to the floor of this institution to discuss particular individuals,” McCain said at the beginning of his remarks. “But I understand how painful and injurious it is when a person’s character, reputation and patriotism are attacked without concern for fact or fairness.”
McCain called Abedin a friend and a devoted public servant, and denounced what he called “sinister” accusations. The charges “are nothing less than an unwarranted and unfounded attack on an honorable woman, a dedicated American and a loyal public servant,” McCain said. “These attacks on Huma have no logic, no basis and no merit. And they need to stop now.”
The Arizona senator chastised his fellow Republicans for distorting what it means to be an American.
“This is about who we are as a nation, and who we still aspire to be. . . . When anyone, not least a member of Congress, launches specious and degrading attacks against fellow Americans on the basis of nothing more than fear of who they are and ignorance of what they stand for, it defames the spirit of our nation, and we all grow poorer because of it.”
McCain didn’t mention Bachmann or the others by name, but it was clear who he was talking about. Moreover, it’s rare for a Member of Congress to so directly criticize a fellow Member on the floor. McCain was joined by Ed Rollins, who had been the manager of Bachmann’s Presidential campaign. Rollins was particularly harsh:
As a member of Congress, with a seat on the House Intelligence Committee, Mrs. Bachmann you know better. Shame on you, Michele! You should stand on the floor of the House and apologize to Huma Abedin and to Secretary Clinton and to the millions of hard working,loyal, Muslim Americans for your wild and unsubstantiated charges. As a devoted Christian, you need to ask forgiveness for this grievous lack of judgment and reckless behavior.
The odds that Bachmann will actually apologize are, of course, non-existent. She and her fellow Members, which include such luminaries of paranoia as Louie Gohmert, who last year was alleging that terrorists were giving birth to babies who could claim American citizen and then return years later to commit acts of terrorism, are of a piece with anti-Muslim extremists like Pamela Gellar, Robert Spencer, and Frank Gaffney. For these people, anything Muslim is seen as a security threat, even something as innocuous as an Islamic Community Center in lower Manhattan or a Michigan High School scheduling football practice at night so it doesn’t conflict with Ramadan. It is hate, pure and simple, and whether they actually believe it or not or are just saying stuff like this for financial and political advantage doesn’t really matter. They’re lying, and in the purpose they are smearing someone who has been working in public service for years now despite the fact that there’s no evidence to distrust her. It’s McCarthyism with a 21st Century twist.
The first time this came up an Army Attorney named Joseph Welch posed a question to Joe McCarthy:
We could ask the same question today of Congresswoman Bachmann and her cohorts. Of course, the answer is no. These people have no decency, they have no shame, they don’t care who they destroy.
Here’s the Bachmann Letter:
Michele Bachmann Letter To State Department Inspector General
Anyone that knows anything about the conduct of the U.S. war on terror knows that it depends on Muslim linguists and experts, both U.S. citizens, and foreigners, to a great degree.
As Anderson Cooper pointed out…if Bachmann really thought this was an
why wouldn’t she quietly contact
The problem for Republicans is this woman is not an outlier…she is right in the mainstream…an opinion-maker. Winner of the Ames Straw Poll. Founder of the Tea Party Caucus. Assistant Minority Leader under DeLay.
She is a strong opponent of dollar from being replaced by a foreign currency, votes against increased education funding, and she’s smart enough to not be fooled by something as silly as the Global Warming hoax.
She, like Romney, was not in favor of saving the Auto Industry.
And she knows damn well, like Rush and Sununu and Romney, that Obama harbors Anti-American views.
Unfortunately…this is todays Republican Party.
There are people who see this as a Christian Nation, rather than one with freedom of religion.
(Or, to paraphrase Henry Ford, you can choose any religion as long as it’s Christian.)
It’s not just Bachmann:
http://www.theagitator.com/2012/07/18/catching-hell-for-hiring-a-muslim/
@C. Clavin:
But hey, she is for lower taxes on the wealthy so she has Doug and James’ votes.
In their mind:
– Lower taxes > anti-muslim demagoguery
– Lower taxes > increased education funding
– Lower taxes > Global Warming
– Lower taxes > saving the Auto Industry
They are no better than Joe Paterno, enablers of monsters destroying lives.
@Loviatar:
That is so wrong I don’t even know where to begin. How you can say that when both James and I have written multiple posts over the years about how the GOP has drifted in the wrong direction, and after I personally have written multiple posts criticizing the anti-Muslim bigotry on the right, I don’t know how to explain other than the fact that you simply didn’t bother to do some research.
And for the record, I’d never vote or Bachmann or any of the other 5 Congressmen who joined her in this insanity.
– Senator McCain said it well.
Michele Bachmann and her fellow travelers:
are a complete disgrace, it’s that simple.
I wonder if Romney will criticize this bigotry. (I don’t wonder at all – of course he won’t)
The sad thing is trying to work how much of this islamophobia is cynical opportunism, and how much is because of an apparent diet of lead paint chips.
@Doug Mataconis:
Joe Paterno also said he did everything he was “required” to do, in other words he did enough to salve his corrupt little conscience while enabling a child molester for 14 years.
James and you occasionally put out a post to salve your consciences while you’ve gone about enabling the Republican party of the last 12 years. Please tell me what is the theoretical difference in what Joe Paterno did and what you and James and any so called “reasonable” Republican has done over the past 12 years.
———-
P.S.
Think about it, a Democratic president put your party’s holy grail idea on the table: a deal for a 3:1 spending cut vs. tax hike and they turned it down. Your presidential candidates rejected a 10:1 deal, your base has booed a serviceman and chanted for the death of anyone who couldn’t afford healthcare insurance. Accept it, you’re an enabler for
the Bachmann wing oftoday’s Republican party.———
P.P.S.
To cut off your I’m a Libertarian speech: quack, quack
@Loviatar:
You’re seriously making an equivalence between voting Republican and covering up for a child rapist? Really?
@Doug Mataconis:
You’ve also said on numerous occasions that you will continue to vote Republican, so your words are just that: words. Until your outrage leads to some change in your actions, it’s hard to give it much credit.
Stormy,
I’ve said I will vote for people who happen to be Republican if I think they are the best choice. I voted for Bob McDonnell and Bill Bolling in 2009, for example, and really don’t have any regrets about that. I did not, however, vote for Ken Cuccinelli that year
Besides, Stormy, are you really telling me that the only acceptable vote is one for a Democrat? If you are, then this conversation is rather pointless.
@Doug Mataconis:
No. But there’s a difference between being someone who votes for Republicans, and being a Republican voter. My own votes tend to be a mix of Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and non-votes. What my problem with you is that you’ve made it clear that you default to Republican unless they give you some reason not to vote for them rather than defaulting the neutral and expecting them to give you some reason to start supporting them.
@Stormy Dragon:
Yes I am, in the sense they are doing nothing while others within their party are destroying lives.
You have an entity dedicated to destroying lives in the pursuit of their own selfish goals, you have others within their party who are aware of lives being destroyed but do nothing because their own life might be slightly impacted.
@Loviatar: A child rapist can only harm those who he has direct physical contact with. It’s pretty much a limiting function.
A Republican can hurt far more — how many children will be harmed by rejecting the Medicaid expansion, or ignoring global warming?
Lovitar.
I am not a member of the GOP so nobody “withing my party” is doing anything.
@Doug Mataconis:
quack, quack
So marrying a Jewish congressman and having a baby with him is just to have the perfect cover?
@Swearyanthony: Contrary to popular opinion, people don’t have to put out statements regarding everybody else’s statements.
Um, “crusade”? Isn’t that a little insensitive Doug? lol
@Stormy Dragon:
That my be your perception about how I approach these things. It is not, however, reality.
I think we can all agree that the real crime here is that orange sweater.
Props to McCain for calling this what it is. I’m not a huge fan of the guy, but he’s a good one when it comes to such things (see also: telling some loon back in ’08 that Obama wasn’t a Muslim or was American or whatever). Similar to Dubya repeatedly telling the loons that Islam itself wasn’t the enemy and especially to lay of American Muslims. I really, really, really dislike Dubya, but he did that right. And I think it helped a little bit.
More please.
I think the 5 were trying to redirect attention from the missing tax return shambles last week since Bachmann at any rate was already on record with anti-Muslim hate speech. The letter is dated Friday which was panic day that had half a dozen extraordinary Romney interviews.
It says all you need to know about the 5 that they hide behind their speech and debate immunity to defame the lady in question.
@al-Ameda: You forgot Allen West (R-Fla).
My gawd Stormy Dragon, what do you expect of Doug? He’s already shredded what credibility he had as a neutral observer by doing muliple negative posts about Bain, about Palin, about Michele Bachman, about how “risky” it is for Romney to punch back twice as hard at the First African-American Chicago President, about the obviously bogus Soros poll showing Hispanics going 70/22 for Obama who hasn’t done much for them, and joined the Beltway Gang call for more tax returns from Romney, even though 7 or 10 or 20 or 30 years worth won’t be enough for you or Obama.
Let’s get real here about Doug—he ain’t no conservative and he ain’t no libertarian but you’ll never be satisfied until he starts writing for The Nation, Mother Jones, HuffPo, and appears on msnbc.
Just leave him alone—he’s doing what he can to appease his base.
This isn’t surprising. Bachmann not only is loopy, which by itself is not that horrible of a thing, she’s religious loopy, which amps it up to 11.
@Doug Mataconis:
That seems to be the perception of nearly everyone who reads this blog. If your writing is leading nearly everyone to the same wrong conclusion, perhaps it should be considered whether that is the result of some defect in the writing rather than in the readers.
@Doug Mataconis:
Bob McDonnell, graduate of Regents University?
That’s your example of a wondeful moderate Republican? I bet he did wonders for the welfare of gays and lesbians in your state, right?
Where do you think he stands on forced vaginal probing of women seeking abortions?
Hmmmm, BACHMANN…..I believe thats German. And didn’t they elect Nazis? and kill millions of Jews? and plunge the world into the abyss of war and destruction?
And didn’t she marry one of these Nazi Jew killers?
And doesn’t he hold some strange influence over her?
Therefore I urge all readers to contact Homeland Security and profess outrage that a Nazi Jew killer disguised as a patriotic congresswoman from the heartland is really out to destroy Amerika and return the Sudetenland back to the Deutsch republic.
This cancer on America must be stopped before she runs for re-election. And where exactly was she born? She says Iowa, but does anyone from Iowa remember her?
@paladin:
Thanks for the memo from the alternative universe, Paladin.
Doug is a fairly typical libertarian type. Sometimes referred to as glibertarian (to be fair, he’s blogging, and blogging can make one glib). Socially he’s quite liberal. Fiscally he’s to the Right of most Republicans. Given tension between the two, as there usually is, he’ll pick the fiscal “conservative” over the social liberal, apparently. Bob McDonnell, fer instance.
But no, Doug is not a liberal pretending to be libertarian. Nor do I think he’s really a Republican. I do think he will pick taxes/spending over other considerations most of the time (unless the GOP candidate does a bad job of hiding loony tunes reactionary social positions. Doug might’ve been in a tough spot if the GOP had actually nominated Santorum).
IF
IF, and I emphasize IF, a US Muslim gives his full allegiance to Allah and the Islamic Leadership based on the Koran, Haddith, Jihad and Sharia Law, and gives merely a token allegiance to this nation in order to benefit himself and his family economically and socially, and IF he raises his family in the same belief system, I suggest that he and his progeny are eventually a potential threat to the nation.
IF, again IF, the recorded 4.3 million Muslims in the US harbor as a guess merely 1% of their fellows that are truly fanatical Islamic Jihadists, we have a serious and blind or hidden problem of 43,000 potential terrorists in the nation. That is a significant sleeper 5th column. Blind, because we simply cannot watch and control so many potential terrorists. We must wait until they act, and suffer the consequences. IF, however, the percentage is a lot higher, the problem becomes much, much worse. Who knows the reality? Of course, the majority of US Muslims are productive, law abiding, and good citizens, as Huma Abedin most likely is.
Our religious freedom law is not a suicide pact, however, but it seems AS IF that we are treating it as one, since many sects of Islam, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Wahabbi, vow to eradicate the infidel and work to establish a new Islamic Caliphate when the time is right and the conditions are favorable.
This may well not be for many years until their power, high birthrate numbers and influence grow sufficiently here in the US. We see this slow and steady accretion of power in the UK and Europe right now, and it has made real progress in the last few years.
Rather than sweeping this problem under the rug of religious freedom to our eventual regret, I suggest that it should be faced directly now: the question then is: How? I see no acceptable answer– none at all. I suggest that no FBI investigation or security clearance investigation or even an oath of allegiance would discover many of these people in our midst unless they commit a crime. We are eventually at risk of being conquered by the leveraging of our own law: failure to recognize and act on the peril. Assimilation is not working now either, I believe. Even deportation is not feasible because we cannot identify the bad guys, and sending all Muslims back home is most certainly out of the question.
Perhaps, if we ignore the problem, it will all go away. Just as the UK and Europe did.
.Gee Rob, why can’t you just take Doug for what he is? Why do you feel you must be his apologist?
If you like his stuff,you’re likely a leftwinger—NTTAWWT. Don’t make Doug something he isn’t.
Like all bloggers,Doug covets page views and the way to do that here is just exactly what he is doing now.
So what?
Rather than sweeping this problem under the rug of religious freedom to our eventual regret, I suggest that it should be faced directly now:
Face your paranoid delusions on your own, scumbag.
@nightrider: I.m sure they will probably say it’s just Taqiyya allowing her to attempt to blend in in such a way that only intellectual powerhouses such as Louis Gohmert can discern.
@paladin:
My gawd Stormy Dragon, what do you expect of Doug? He’s already shredded what credibility he had as a neutral observer
Has Doug ever claimed to be a “neutral observer?” No, he has not. He is a blogger who writes his opinions on this blog. What makes you think he is required to live up to some standard you invented for him?
about the obviously bogus Soros poll
Soros! Drink!
showing Hispanics going 70/22 for Obama who hasn’t done much for them,
You’re right. Hispanics secretly love Romney and Republicans for wanting to pass laws requiring cops to harass them just for looking Hispanic. It’ll be awesome when they reveal their ruse in November and all vote for Romney, right?
and joined the Beltway Gang call for more tax returns from Romney, even though 7 or 10 or 20 or 30 years worth won’t be enough for you or Obama.
How about just one complete year? Is that too much to ask? Because he hasn’t even done that.
@mannning: So there is a massive problem assuming your endless hypotheticals that may or may not be accurate, yet we are all doomed if we don’t contain it yet you see that as impossible to do.
Thanks for clearing that up.
@Gromitt Gunn:
What Hillary is wearing isn’t any better. The idea that women have an innate fashion sense is a real hoot.
@mantis:
My my, such language! Can’t hear a reasoned account, can you? Where is the dilusion? Exactly where is it? I defy you to find one in what I wrote. Show your reasoning, not your invective.
@MM:
You do not want to hear a solution. I didn’t want to even suggest one. Perhaps in your infinite wisdom, you can do so?
You are so right mantis—if Soros says it, it must be true!
Where is the dilusion?
The “problem” you define is your “dilusion” (sic).
@paladin:
You are so right mantis—if Soros says it, it must be true!
Drink!
So far the reactions to my comment are just about what I expected. Blow it away as a dilusion, or piffle it away as unreal. The problem is my comment understates the problem if anything, since the number of Muslims in the US is north of 6 million, not 4.3 million, and the percentage of Jihadists in the Muslim population is well north of 1% also. What happens when the US Muslim population exceeds 10% of the total, what with their much higher birthrate?
It isn’t a problem for me, but for my children or their children; I will be long dead before the crisis comes. But we can have more and more jihadist bombings, shootouts, and such in the meantime, and more attempts to impose Sharia Law locally. It just goes to show that many prefer to stick their heads in the sand, even after the truly horrid examples of Islamic terrorism shown to us in the news daily for years and years on end, and especially those committed or attempted in the US. It defies logical explanation. I can only surmise that such commenters don’t read the newspapers or listen to TV news reports. Why, there IS no terrorism anywhere!
Ostriches!
@mantis:
Most definitely not good enough. In fact, stupid. Did you raise your head out of the sand just to write that s**t?
I’m waiting for the third monkey to show up.
@mannning:
Look out, there’s a Mooslim in your cornflakes!
Delusion not dilusion. Spellchecker on the blink.
@mantis:
A dead one if so!
@mannning: How do you propose I provide a solution to a problem that exists via meandering hypothetical? If any one of your assumptions is inaccurate (including the assumption that you know ANYTHING about what I do or do not want to hear), then both the scope of the issue and the possible solution to said issue is inaccurate as well.
@mannning:
.
What that people think you’re an demagoguing A$$.
@paladin:
Did I miss something in this article, did Soros have something to do with the Bachmann and her fellow Islamophobes in the Republican congressional delegation?
@MM:
When you forget the gobbledegook you gave and the IFs I put in, and look at the real world, what do you find? A large number of Muslims, over a billion, and a finite percentage of them are terrorists. You find a large number of them in the US as well, over 6 million by some reports, and a finite percentage of them are Islamic Jihadists/terrorists too, I believe. Too many to keep track of. The only common denominator is their religion–Islam. We have religious freedom here, so Islam is protected. Yet, some real and large number of these Muslims, anywhere up to 60 thousand or even more(1% or more), are latent Islamic Jihadist terrorists that mean us harm sooner or later.
What to do?
I do not see this as a delusional problem as praying mantis and you see it. The only assumption I have made is that the percentage of Jihadists in the US is roughly equal to the percentage of Jihadists in the rest of the Muslim population worldwide. I do not count the high percentage of Muslim sympathizers that give material support to the Jihadists, but they most certainly exist in the US, and can likely be pressed into Jihadist service when needed.( I needn’t make it only my assumption that the Jihadists mean us harm; that is as good as given.)
So, again, what to do?
@mannning: What don’t you tell us, instead of hinting around. Because the only solution I can see your screeds leading to is one of genocide — that you seem to believe the only way us “good” guys will be safe is if we exterminate — excuse me, murder — every Muslim either within our borders or on the planet. But you keep pussyfooting around this, apparently believing that if you just lay your logic a little more clearly we’ll all pick up pitchforks and join your jihad. Or pogrom, or whatever you want to call it.
For me, at least, no thanks.
Manning, if you post your comment about a secret hypothetical underground 5th column infiltration over at one of the Breitbart sites the good folks there will offer plenty of solutions for you to enjoy reading.
@mannning:
In the real world, our government is well aware that some number of the world’s Muslims are terrorists. The government’s response includes surveillance to identify terrorists, and assassination. The government is also aware that some number of Muslims in the US are potential terrorists, and its response is surveillance, spying on Muslims (infiltrating mosques, etc), large-scale monitoring of communications, sting operations, and arrests.
Some actual numbers on the extent of Muslim terrorism in the US in the decade since 9/11 is at:
http://sanford.duke.edu/centers/tcths/about/documents/Kurzman_Muslim-American_Terrorism_Since_911_An_Accounting.pdf
The number of terror attempts/incidents in the US has been fairly small during that time period, as have the number of people involved in such attempts.
You said:
The 6 million figure is a high-end estimate (contrast it with, for example, the 2010 Pew estimate of 2.6 million Muslims in the US). The “well north of 1%” figure seems like something you just made up (of course, the number depends on how you define “Jihadist”). If you think that there are really 60,000+ Muslims in the US who are terrorists, you should consider what the US would be experiencing if that were true.
You said:
Really? Seriously, how long do you think it’ll take for the Muslims in the US to get enough power to “eradicate the infidel” in America and establish a new Islamic Caliphate here? It’s taken them 2 years just to get a mosque built in Tennessee. I know you said that it may be “many years” but, to give some perspective, in 2030 the population of the US is estimated to be be around 360 million (US census estimate). The number of Muslims in the US in 2030 is estimated to be around 6.2 million (Pew) or, if we doubled your high estimate of the current Muslim population, maybe 12 or so million.
In general, I think you’re taking a known real problem (Islamic terrorism) and then adding in a bunch of impossible to disprove FUD (you’re an ex IBM-er, you know the term).
@Loviatar:
No, that the ostrich crowd would come out in full force, invective and all, and there you are!
@wr:
You must be kidding. Takes one of your type to come up with that. Can you be just a tad less bloodthirsty? Keep your genocide thoughts to yourself. That is certainly not something any rational person would propose, but you discovered it!
@Scott O:
Another ostrich squalks. Nothing secret about the existence and intentions of Jihadists: it is right there in the references for all to read, and right there in the UK and Europe for all to observe. Maybe you slept through 9/11 and a dozen or more other terrorist events. Maybe you slept through Iraq and Afghanistan.Or maybe it’s just poor eyesight, or poor concentration.
Thank God in heaven we have some good men on the watch now and not ostriches.
Millions of people in those countries think we are the terrorists. Are you so unsophisticated that you don’t realize that? What do you say to a woman in Iraq who’s children were blown to bits in the “Shock & Awe” bombings?
Saying “They are the bad guys, they cause all the problems, I am one of the good guys” is human nature – it has been going on forever.
@mannning:
IF
IF, and I emphasize IF, you had a brain you still wouldn’t be as smart as the Scarecrow.
IF, and I emphasize IF, you had a heart you still wouldn’t be as kind as the Tin Man.
IF, and I emphasize IF, you had a spine you still wouldn’t be as courageous as the Cowardly Lion.
But you don’t so you’re a Republican. Occasionally, I feel kind of sad for you being such an empty, heartless person, but then I remember what you hope to accomplish with your ideas and then I feel nothing but contempt.
@mannning: I was just saying you’re looking for answers in the wrong place. Let’s face it, most of the wimps that visit this site couldn’t extract a confession if someone else was turning the thumb screws for them.
@ratufa:
Try a birthrate 2.5 to 3 times ours, then run it out to 2050 or later, not 2030, that is too soon.
To become a real threat, an insurrection group has to reach perhaps 7 to 10% of the population, unless they get a lot of outside help along the way once they begin to move. I wonder if there will be any available to them then from the massive numbers of Muslims around the world slipping in over the years? Will we have porus borders then? Don’t know.
Haven’t heard FUD used in 20 years, and it does apply here, it is just that I believe I am pointing out tserious possibilities. There is a lot of FUD that comes simply from the existence of Islamic terrorism/jihadism. I lost several friends in 9/11. The Pentagon hit was exactly where my team had just finished the Navy’s Command Center upgrade. I had been there the night before, showing my daughter where I had been working for 7 years before I retired. And, one of our architecture teams was in a tower at Marsh and Maclellan’s offices. Hard to forget–ever.
@Loviatar:
As I have for those who shove their heads into the sand. You have no idea, it seems, of what I wish to accomplish. It is simply to get your heads out of the sand and look at the real world. But a hopeless task for most here. Do you really think that Muslims come with lollypops for you and the children?
@anjin-san:
Your reversal creates more nonsense. That we are considered terrorists only heightens the ferver of the Jihadists to wreck revenge on the US, and to get those they call the bad guys and put them down. So we are back to an eventual threat against us again. Thanks for the boost to my argument.
@Scott O:
Scott, I am well aware of the sites that wrestle with this problem. I happen to believe that many of them are coalescing around a maximum solution that I abhor. But, you are indeed right that no considered answers will result here if the comments so far represent the best of the lot. I did figure on the ostrich reaction, but there are some folks here that do think for themselves. So far, zip!
Sorry if i called you an ostrich through misunderstanding your remark.
@mannning:
I had this huge beautiful take down around head in sand vs. head up the A$$, but then I realized you’re not even worth the insult.
.
Bring on superdestroyer, at least he is fun to bait, you, you’re nothing but a waste of carbon.
@mannning:
Serious question: considering how — honestly — soft our internal security underbelly is, why has there to date, not been a single internal terrorist attack on a civilian target post 9/11 motivated by radical Islam. There have been limited incidents — see Mj. Hassan — but why haven’t suicide bombers or random shooter’s been going after malls? It would be easy to do (see Columbine and Virginia Tech as examples of spectacular violence committed in “soft” locations)? And none of them require the coordination we have seen in a number of “terrorism stings.”
While I do no doubt that one will eventually happen on our soil (as did 9/11), one has to ask if there are so many sleeper agents, why has it been 10 years with (thank your personal deity) no such action?
@mannning: Further Manning, could you explain why we should take your concerns more seriously than those published at the turn on the 19/20th century about Zionism and radical Judaism? If you review the pamphlets that circulated in those days — culminating in the “Priniciples of Zion” — you will find similar arguments about the coming war with the Jewish enemy within.
Or, for that matter, in the same time frame (and for most of the 20th century) of the problem of terrorists from John Bull’s Other Island? Because, if you were in the UK, people made very similar claims about the Irish. A century later, the Queen meets with former IRA members.
@ratufa:
Not to mention the fact that after it has been all but built there are serious attempts to Zone it out of existence (and pretend that the Muslim community that has been worshiping in Murfreesboro doesn’t really exist).
@mannning:
Do you really think that Muslims come with lollypops for you and the children?
Have you ever actually met a Muslim? If so, how did you escape death? Please teach us, for our children’s sake!
@mannning:
Romney/Bachmann 2012. Otherwise we’re all dead.
Manning:
It occurs to me that on a number of issues, you positions seem driven by an existential fear of what might happen. In the last few weeks you’ve been afraid that the government will raise taxes to as high as 60% of income, that Obama will do all of the evil/secret things conservatives say he’s been planning IF he gets reelected, and that there is most likely a growing Muslim insurrection in the US.
Generally speaking, as others have pointed out, there’s little evidence to suggest that any of the possibilities are likely probabilities. And yet you seem to treat all of them as if they are inevitable.
@mattb:
Well now, nothing but death and taxes is inevitable. I have no fears on the scores you cited, since I will be long gone by the time any of them would seriously affect me personally, barring a major catastrophe of some sort. In my current situation, even a tax hike of 60% might not hit me at all, so long as deductions aren’t substantially reduced. It would hit my children, however. Then too, by the time the Muslim population in the US exceeds 10 to12% of the total, I will be long gone. So any fears I have are for my future generations, and the world they will inherit some twenty or thirty years down the road, and the sheer patriotism and love of the US that wishes a peaceful world for our country.
Perhaps there is a comparison here between the growing impact the 12% black population has had on the nation so far versus, say, a 12% Muslim population, in terms of political clout, crime and economic impact. I’d say it would be about the same level for Muslims when they get there, except for the key factor of Islamic aspirations and the support they are given from the Islamic world. Aye, there’s the rub.
Three comments on the rate of occurrance of so-called terrorist attacks in the US: 1) we have been successful so far in keeping the lid on, no question; however, 2) there is a disturbing trend in the reporting of incidents via the law enforcement channels, and that is to refuse to classify many events as terror related or Muslim related when they clearly are, such as a number of honor killings for one type, for example; and 3) as the Muslim population explodes, and it will because of their much higher birthrate than ours, it will become ever more difficult to keep them at bay twenty or thirty years hence. The models, as I stated, are the UK and Europe, the results of which are shocking and pervasive now.
This is the nub of the matter when you couple this population growth to the aspirations of the Jihadist elements over time. I cannot believe that anyone refuses to grasp these aspirations they have documented for the long term and preached incessantly in their mosques weekly here in the US. So I have taken them at their word.
That no greater number of incidents have occurred could have several logical explanations, such as orders to cool it for now from the imams until the time is ripe and they give the word. There is little need to give such clear and unambiguous warning to the nation now. There is significant discipline in the Islamic world, but some will break discipline anyway such as Hassan, possibly out of excessive zeal, or the excess zeal of his dead mentor, so there will quite likely be further incidents as we go.
Perhaps you have missed the real impact of the Tennessee mosque story. There, as in a large number of other rural or suburban localities, and even in NYC ( over 100 mosques), the Muslim population has grown to the point that they can afford and support many more compounds and mosques around the nation. One count had the number of mosques in the US at 1,200; another added the ad hoc, home-based, or storefront mosques to the total, which then reached about 10,000.
-30-
@Chico:
Michele Bachmann’s McCarthyite Crusade Against Huma Abedin And Other Muslims
Doug Mataconis · Thursday, July 19, 2012 · 74 Comments
Michelle Bachmann and several of her fellow Republican Members of Congress have spent the last week or so engaged in a witch hunt against supposed Muslim infiltration of the U.S. Government, focusing their ire on Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s long-time aide and the wife of former Congressman Anthony Weiner:
Last week five Republican members of the House of Representatives, including former presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, made claims that Abedin’s family has ties to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and questioned whether she is part of a nefarious conspiracy to harm the United States by influencing U.S. foreign policy with her high-level position at the State Department.
“The Departments Deputy, Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin, has three family members – her late father, her mother and her brother – connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and /or organizations. Her position affords her routine access to the Secretary and to policy making,” according to the the June 13thletter, signed by Reps. Bachmann, R-Minn., Trent Franks, R-Ariz., Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, Thomas Rooney, R-Fla., and Lynn Westmoreland, R-GA.
The letter was sent to Harold Geisel, the Deputy Inspector General at the Department of State, while similar copies were sent to the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Defense and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
The lawmakers point to a report by the Center for Security Policy, a conservative think tank, which makes the allegations about Abedin’s family ties and calls on the Deputy Inspector General of the Department of State to begin an investigation into the possibility that Abedin and other American officials are using their influence to promote the cause of the Muslim Brotherhood within the U.S. government.
I’ve embedded the letter below so you can judge it for yourself, but the McCarthyism here is rather apparent. Then, as now, a person’s connections to other people, including in this case someone who has been dead since 1993, are being used to accuse them of being an infiltrator and an enemy of the United States. The fact that Abedin was born in the United States doesn’t even matter, although, of course, the people who Joe McCarthy sought to destroy were all American citizens as well so that doesn’t really shield anyone from having their reputation smeared. There is absolutely no evidence that Abedin herself has any connections to Muslim extremists. Indeed, even the organizations that her family members have been allegedly connected to in the past don’t really constitute the kind of extremism that Bachmann and the other Members of Congress are accusing her of in their letter. It’s also worth noting that Abedin had to obtain a Security Clearance to get her current position as Hillary Clinton’s right hand woman, and that would have included a thorough background check. The idea that the people at the State Department who are responsible for such things would have missed anything serious, or would have let it slide for political reasons is, quite simply, absurd.
Yesterday, Senator John McCain took to the floor of the Senate to criticize the Members of Congress who sent the letter in no uncertain terms:
In an unusually direct speech aimed at members of his own party, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) took to the floor of the Senate on Wednesday to defend a longtime aide and confidant of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Huma Abedin, a Muslim and the deputy chief of staff and aide to Clinton, has been accused by former presidential candidate Michele Bachmann (Minn.) and four other House Republicans of being connected to a conspiracy theory that the Muslim Brotherhood is trying to infiltrate the highest levels of the U.S. government.
(…)
“Rarely do I come to the floor of this institution to discuss particular individuals,” McCain said at the beginning of his remarks. “But I understand how painful and injurious it is when a person’s character, reputation and patriotism are attacked without concern for fact or fairness.”
McCain called Abedin a friend and a devoted public servant, and denounced what he called “sinister” accusations. The charges “are nothing less than an unwarranted and unfounded attack on an honorable woman, a dedicated American and a loyal public servant,” McCain said. “These attacks on Huma have no logic, no basis and no merit. And they need to stop now.”
The Arizona senator chastised his fellow Republicans for distorting what it means to be an American.
“This is about who we are as a nation, and who we still aspire to be. . . . When anyone, not least a member of Congress, launches specious and degrading attacks against fellow Americans on the basis of nothing more than fear of who they are and ignorance of what they stand for, it defames the spirit of our nation, and we all grow poorer because of it.”
McCain didn’t mention Bachmann or the others by name, but it was clear who he was talking about. Moreover, it’s rare for a Member of Congress to so directly criticize a fellow Member on the floor. McCain was joined by Ed Rollins, who had been the manager of Bachmann’s Presidential campaign. Rollins was particularly harsh:
As a member of Congress, with a seat on the House Intelligence Committee, Mrs. Bachmann you know better. Shame on you, Michele! You should stand on the floor of the House and apologize to Huma Abedin and to Secretary Clinton and to the millions of hard working,loyal, Muslim Americans for your wild and unsubstantiated charges. As a devoted Christian, you need to ask forgiveness for this grievous lack of judgment and reckless behavior.
The odds that Bachmann will actually apologize are, of course, non-existent. She and her fellow Members, which include such luminaries of paranoia as Louie Gohmert, who last year was alleging that terrorists were giving birth to babies who could claim American citizen and then return years later to commit acts of terrorism, are of a piece with anti-Muslim extremists like Pamela Gellar, Robert Spencer, and Frank Gaffney. For these people, anything Muslim is seen as a security threat, even something as innocuous as an Islamic Community Center in lower Manhattan or a Michigan High School scheduling football practice at night so it doesn’t conflict with Ramadan. It is hate, pure and simple, and whether they actually believe it or not or are just saying stuff like this for financial and political advantage doesn’t really matter. They’re lying, and in the purpose they are smearing someone who has been working in public service for years now despite the fact that there’s no evidence to distrust her. It’s McCarthyism with a 21st Century twist.
The first time this came up an Army Attorney named Joseph Welch posed a question to Joe McCarthy:
We could ask the same question today of Congresswoman Bachmann and her cohorts. Of course, the answer is no. These people have no decency, they have no shame, they don’t care who they destroy.
Here’s the Bachmann Letter:
Michele Bachmann Letter To State Department Inspector General
submit
FILED UNDER: Congress, Doug Mataconis, Islam, National Security, Religion, US Politics, Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin, John McCain, Louie Gohmert, Michele Bachmann
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About Doug Mataconis
Doug is an attorney in private practice in Northern Virginia. He holds a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May, 2010 and also writes at Below The Beltway. Follow Doug on Twitter | Facebook
Comments
Chico says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 11:10
Anyone that knows anything about the conduct of the U.S. war on terror knows that it depends on Muslim linguists and experts, both U.S. citizens, and foreigners, to a great degree.
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C. Clavin says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 11:17
As Anderson Cooper pointed out…if Bachmann really thought this was an
“…insidious security threat into the highest reaches of government…”
why wouldn’t she quietly contact
“…you know, Homeland Security and FBI, and ask for a secret investigation by which Congress people can do?”
The problem for Republicans is this woman is not an outlier…she is right in the mainstream…an opinion-maker. Winner of the Ames Straw Poll. Founder of the Tea Party Caucus. Assistant Minority Leader under DeLay.
She is a strong opponent of dollar from being replaced by a foreign currency, votes against increased education funding, and she’s smart enough to not be fooled by something as silly as the Global Warming hoax.
She, like Romney, was not in favor of saving the Auto Industry.
And she knows damn well, like Rush and Sununu and Romney, that Obama harbors Anti-American views.
Unfortunately…this is todays Republican Party.
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john personna says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 11:19
There are people who see this as a Christian Nation, rather than one with freedom of religion.
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john personna says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 11:20
(Or, to paraphrase Henry Ford, you can choose any religion as long as it’s Christian.)
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Stormy Dragon says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 11:33
It’s not just Bachmann:
http://www.theagitator.com/2012/07/18/catching-hell-for-hiring-a-muslim/
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Loviatar says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 11:35
@C. Clavin:
But hey, she is for lower taxes on the wealthy so she has Doug and James’ votes.
In their mind:
– Lower taxes > anti-muslim demagoguery
– Lower taxes > increased education funding
– Lower taxes > Global Warming
– Lower taxes > saving the Auto Industry
They are no better than Joe Paterno, enablers of monsters destroying lives.
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Doug Mataconis says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 11:38
@Loviatar:
That is so wrong I don’t even know where to begin. How you can say that when both James and I have written multiple posts over the years about how the GOP has drifted in the wrong direction, and after I personally have written multiple posts criticizing the anti-Muslim bigotry on the right, I don’t know how to explain other than the fact that you simply didn’t bother to do some research.
And for the record, I’d never vote or Bachmann or any of the other 5 Congressmen who joined her in this insanity.
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al-Ameda says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 11:48
“Rarely do I come to the floor of this institution to discuss particular individuals,” McCain said at the beginning of his remarks. “But I understand how painful and injurious it is when a person’s character, reputation and patriotism are attacked without concern for fact or fairness.”
McCain called Abedin a friend and a devoted public servant, and denounced what he called “sinister” accusations. The charges “are nothing less than an unwarranted and unfounded attack on an honorable woman, a dedicated American and a loyal public servant,” McCain said. “These attacks on Huma have no logic, no basis and no merit. And they need to stop now.”
– Senator McCain said it well.
Michele Bachmann and her fellow travelers:
Trent Franks, R-Ariz., Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, Thomas Rooney, R-Fla., and Lynn Westmoreland, R-GA.
are a complete disgrace, it’s that simple.
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Swearyanthony says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 11:53
I wonder if Romney will criticize this bigotry. (I don’t wonder at all – of course he won’t)
The sad thing is trying to work how much of this islamophobia is cynical opportunism, and how much is because of an apparent diet of lead paint chips.
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Loviatar says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 11:56
@Doug Mataconis:
Joe Paterno also said he did everything he was “required” to do, in other words he did enough to salve his corrupt little conscience while enabling a child molester for 14 years.
James and you occasionally put out a post to salve your consciences while you’ve gone about enabling the Republican party of the last 12 years. Please tell me what is the theoretical difference in what Joe Paterno did and what you and James and any so called “reasonable” Republican has done over the past 12 years.
———-
P.S.
Think about it, a Democratic president put your party’s holy grail idea on the table: a deal for a 3:1 spending cut vs. tax hike and they turned it down. Your presidential candidates rejected a 10:1 deal, your base has booed a serviceman and chanted for the death of anyone who couldn’t afford healthcare insurance. Accept it, you’re an enabler for the Bachmann wing of today’s Republican party.
———
P.P.S.
To cut off your I’m a Libertarian speech: quack, quack
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Stormy Dragon says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 12:11
@Loviatar:
Please tell me what is the theoretical difference in what Joe Paterno did and what you and James and any so called “reasonable” Republican has done over the past 12 years.
You’re seriously making an equivalence between voting Republican and covering up for a child rapist? Really?
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Stormy Dragon says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 12:16
@Doug Mataconis:
That is so wrong I don’t even know where to begin. How you can say that when both James and I have written multiple posts over the years about how the GOP has drifted in the wrong direction, and after I personally have written multiple posts criticizing the anti-Muslim bigotry on the right, I don’t know how to explain other than the fact that you simply didn’t bother to do some research.
You’ve also said on numerous occasions that you will continue to vote Republican, so your words are just that: words. Until your outrage leads to some change in your actions, it’s hard to give it much credit.
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Doug Mataconis says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 12:17
Stormy,
I’ve said I will vote for people who happen to be Republican if I think they are the best choice. I voted for Bob McDonnell and Bill Bolling in 2009, for example, and really don’t have any regrets about that. I did not, however, vote for Ken Cuccinelli that year
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Doug Mataconis says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 12:18
Besides, Stormy, are you really telling me that the only acceptable vote is one for a Democrat? If you are, then this conversation is rather pointless.
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Stormy Dragon says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 12:22
@Doug Mataconis:
No. But there’s a difference between being someone who votes for Republicans, and being a Republican voter. My own votes tend to be a mix of Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and non-votes. What my problem with you is that you’ve made it clear that you default to Republican unless they give you some reason not to vote for them rather than defaulting the neutral and expecting them to give you some reason to start supporting them.
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Loviatar says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 12:24
@Stormy Dragon:
Yes I am, in the sense they are doing nothing while others within their party are destroying lives.
You have an entity dedicated to destroying lives in the pursuit of their own selfish goals, you have others within their party who are aware of lives being destroyed but do nothing because their own life might be slightly impacted.
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Gustopher says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 12:26
@Loviatar: A child rapist can only harm those who he has direct physical contact with. It’s pretty much a limiting function.
A Republican can hurt far more — how many children will be harmed by rejecting the Medicaid expansion, or ignoring global warming?
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Doug Mataconis says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 12:26
Lovitar.
I am not a member of the GOP so nobody “withing my party” is doing anything.
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Loviatar says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 12:27
@Doug Mataconis:
quack, quack
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nightrider says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 12:32
So marrying a Jewish congressman and having a baby with him is just to have the perfect cover?
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Franklin says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 12:56
@Swearyanthony: Contrary to popular opinion, people don’t have to put out statements regarding everybody else’s statements.
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paladin says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 13:03
Um, “crusade”? Isn’t that a little insensitive Doug? lol
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Doug Mataconis says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 13:10
@Stormy Dragon:
That my be your perception about how I approach these things. It is not, however, reality.
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Gromitt Gunn says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 13:25
I think we can all agree that the real crime here is that orange sweater.
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Rob in CT says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 13:25
Props to McCain for calling this what it is. I’m not a huge fan of the guy, but he’s a good one when it comes to such things (see also: telling some loon back in ’08 that Obama wasn’t a Muslim or was American or whatever). Similar to Dubya repeatedly telling the loons that Islam itself wasn’t the enemy and especially to lay of American Muslims. I really, really, really dislike Dubya, but he did that right. And I think it helped a little bit.
More please.
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rudderpedals says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 13:26
I think the 5 were trying to redirect attention from the missing tax return shambles last week since Bachmann at any rate was already on record with anti-Muslim hate speech. The letter is dated Friday which was panic day that had half a dozen extraordinary Romney interviews.
It says all you need to know about the 5 that they hide behind their speech and debate immunity to defame the lady in question.
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Barry says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 13:57
@al-Ameda: You forgot Allen West (R-Fla).
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paladin says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 13:58
My gawd Stormy Dragon, what do you expect of Doug? He’s already shredded what credibility he had as a neutral observer by doing muliple negative posts about Bain, about Palin, about Michele Bachman, about how “risky” it is for Romney to punch back twice as hard at the First African-American Chicago President, about the obviously bogus Soros poll showing Hispanics going 70/22 for Obama who hasn’t done much for them, and joined the Beltway Gang call for more tax returns from Romney, even though 7 or 10 or 20 or 30 years worth won’t be enough for you or Obama.
Let’s get real here about Doug—he ain’t no conservative and he ain’t no libertarian but you’ll never be satisfied until he starts writing for The Nation, Mother Jones, HuffPo, and appears on msnbc.
Just leave him alone—he’s doing what he can to appease his base.
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Tsar Nicholas says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 14:38
This isn’t surprising. Bachmann not only is loopy, which by itself is not that horrible of a thing, she’s religious loopy, which amps it up to 11.
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Stormy Dragon says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 14:44
@Doug Mataconis:
That my be your perception about how I approach these things.
That seems to be the perception of nearly everyone who reads this blog. If your writing is leading nearly everyone to the same wrong conclusion, perhaps it should be considered whether that is the result of some defect in the writing rather than in the readers.
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swbarnes2 says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 14:46
@Doug Mataconis:
I voted for Bob McDonnell and Bill Bolling in 2009, for example, and really don’t have any regrets about that.
Bob McDonnell, graduate of Regents University?
That’s your example of a wondeful moderate Republican? I bet he did wonders for the welfare of gays and lesbians in your state, right?
Where do you think he stands on forced vaginal probing of women seeking abortions?
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The Q says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 15:01
Hmmmm, BACHMANN…..I believe thats German. And didn’t they elect Nazis? and kill millions of Jews? and plunge the world into the abyss of war and destruction?
And didn’t she marry one of these Nazi Jew killers?
And doesn’t he hold some strange influence over her?
Therefore I urge all readers to contact Homeland Security and profess outrage that a Nazi Jew killer disguised as a patriotic congresswoman from the heartland is really out to destroy Amerika and return the Sudetenland back to the Deutsch republic.
This cancer on America must be stopped before she runs for re-election. And where exactly was she born? She says Iowa, but does anyone from Iowa remember her?
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Rob in CT says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 15:04
@paladin:
Thanks for the memo from the alternative universe, Paladin.
Doug is a fairly typical libertarian type. Sometimes referred to as glibertarian (to be fair, he’s blogging, and blogging can make one glib). Socially he’s quite liberal. Fiscally he’s to the Right of most Republicans. Given tension between the two, as there usually is, he’ll pick the fiscal “conservative” over the social liberal, apparently. Bob McDonnell, fer instance.
But no, Doug is not a liberal pretending to be libertarian. Nor do I think he’s really a Republican. I do think he will pick taxes/spending over other considerations most of the time (unless the GOP candidate does a bad job of hiding loony tunes reactionary social positions. Doug might’ve been in a tough spot if the GOP had actually nominated Santorum).
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mannning says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 15:17
IF
IF, and I emphasize IF, a US Muslim gives his full allegiance to Allah and the Islamic Leadership based on the Koran, Haddith, Jihad and Sharia Law, and gives merely a token allegiance to this nation in order to benefit himself and his family economically and socially, and IF he raises his family in the same belief system, I suggest that he and his progeny are eventually a potential threat to the nation.
IF, again IF, the recorded 4.3 million Muslims in the US harbor as a guess merely 1% of their fellows that are truly fanatical Islamic Jihadists, we have a serious and blind or hidden problem of 43,000 potential terrorists in the nation. That is a significant sleeper 5th column. Blind, because we simply cannot watch and control so many potential terrorists. We must wait until they act, and suffer the consequences. IF, however, the percentage is a lot higher, the problem becomes much, much worse. Who knows the reality? Of course, the majority of US Muslims are productive, law abiding, and good citizens, as Huma Abedin most likely is.
Our religious freedom law is not a suicide pact, however, but it seems AS IF that we are treating it as one, since many sects of Islam, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Wahabbi, vow to eradicate the infidel and work to establish a new Islamic Caliphate when the time is right and the conditions are favorable.
This may well not be for many years until their power, high birthrate numbers and influence grow sufficiently here in the US. We see this slow and steady accretion of power in the UK and Europe right now, and it has made real progress in the last few years.
Rather than sweeping this problem under the rug of religious freedom to our eventual regret, I suggest that it should be faced directly now: the question then is: How? I see no acceptable answer– none at all. I suggest that no FBI investigation or security clearance investigation or even an oath of allegiance would discover many of these people in our midst unless they commit a crime. We are eventually at risk of being conquered by the leveraging of our own law: failure to recognize and act on the peril. Assimilation is not working now either, I believe. Even deportation is not feasible because we cannot identify the bad guys, and sending all Muslims back home is most certainly out of the question.
Perhaps, if we ignore the problem, it will all go away. Just as the UK and Europe did.
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paladin says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 15:22
.Gee Rob, why can’t you just take Doug for what he is? Why do you feel you must be his apologist?
If you like his stuff,you’re likely a leftwinger—NTTAWWT. Don’t make Doug something he isn’t.
Like all bloggers,Doug covets page views and the way to do that here is just exactly what he is doing now.
So what?
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mantis says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 15:27
Rather than sweeping this problem under the rug of religious freedom to our eventual regret, I suggest that it should be faced directly now:
Face your paranoid delusions on your own, scumbag.
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MM says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 15:56
@nightrider: I.m sure they will probably say it’s just Taqiyya allowing her to attempt to blend in in such a way that only intellectual powerhouses such as Louis Gohmert can discern.
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mantis says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 15:58
@paladin:
My gawd Stormy Dragon, what do you expect of Doug? He’s already shredded what credibility he had as a neutral observer
Has Doug ever claimed to be a “neutral observer?” No, he has not. He is a blogger who writes his opinions on this blog. What makes you think he is required to live up to some standard you invented for him?
about the obviously bogus Soros poll
Soros! Drink!
showing Hispanics going 70/22 for Obama who hasn’t done much for them,
You’re right. Hispanics secretly love Romney and Republicans for wanting to pass laws requiring cops to harass them just for looking Hispanic. It’ll be awesome when they reveal their ruse in November and all vote for Romney, right?
and joined the Beltway Gang call for more tax returns from Romney, even though 7 or 10 or 20 or 30 years worth won’t be enough for you or Obama.
How about just one complete year? Is that too much to ask? Because he hasn’t even done that.
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MM says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 16:00
@mannning: So there is a massive problem assuming your endless hypotheticals that may or may not be accurate, yet we are all doomed if we don’t contain it yet you see that as impossible to do.
Thanks for clearing that up.
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Ben Wolf says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 16:01
@Gromitt Gunn:
I think we can all agree that the real crime here is that orange sweater.
What Hillary is wearing isn’t any better. The idea that women have an innate fashion sense is a real hoot.
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mannning says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 16:31
@mantis:
My my, such language! Can’t hear a reasoned account, can you? Where is the dilusion? Exactly where is it? I defy you to find one in what I wrote. Show your reasoning, not your invective.
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mannning says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 16:33
@MM:
You do not want to hear a solution. I didn’t want to even suggest one. Perhaps in your infinite wisdom, you can do so?
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paladin says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 16:38
You are so right mantis—if Soros says it, it must be true!
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mantis says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 16:40
Where is the dilusion?
The “problem” you define is your “dilusion” (sic).
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mantis says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 16:40
@paladin:
You are so right mantis—if Soros says it, it must be true!
Drink!
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mannning says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 16:59
So far the reactions to my comment are just about what I expected. Blow it away as a dilusion, or piffle it away as unreal. The problem is my comment understates the problem if anything, since the number of Muslims in the US is north of 6 million, not 4.3 million, and the percentage of Jihadists in the Muslim population is well north of 1% also. What happens when the US Muslim population exceeds 10% of the total, what with their much higher birthrate?
It isn’t a problem for me, but for my children or their children; I will be long dead before the crisis comes. But we can have more and more jihadist bombings, shootouts, and such in the meantime, and more attempts to impose Sharia Law locally. It just goes to show that many prefer to stick their heads in the sand, even after the truly horrid examples of Islamic terrorism shown to us in the news daily for years and years on end, and especially those committed or attempted in the US. It defies logical explanation. I can only surmise that such commenters don’t read the newspapers or listen to TV news reports. Why, there IS no terrorism anywhere!
Ostriches!
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mannning says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 17:01
@mantis:
Most definitely not good enough. In fact, stupid. Did you raise your head out of the sand just to write that s**t?
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mannning says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 17:05
I’m waiting for the third monkey to show up.
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mantis says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 17:06
@mannning:
Look out, there’s a Mooslim in your cornflakes!
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mannning says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 17:09
Delusion not dilusion. Spellchecker on the blink.
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mannning says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 17:10
@mantis:
A dead one if so!
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MM says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 17:22
@mannning: How do you propose I provide a solution to a problem that exists via meandering hypothetical? If any one of your assumptions is inaccurate (including the assumption that you know ANYTHING about what I do or do not want to hear), then both the scope of the issue and the possible solution to said issue is inaccurate as well.
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Loviatar says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 17:35
@mannning:
So far the reactions to my comment are just about what I expected.
.
What that people think you’re an demagoguing A$$.
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al-Ameda says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 17:47
@paladin:
about the obviously bogus Soros poll showing Hispanics going 70/22 for Obama who hasn’t done much for them
Did I miss something in this article, did Soros have something to do with the Bachmann and her fellow Islamophobes in the Republican congressional delegation?
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mannning says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 18:17
@MM:
When you forget the gobbledegook you gave and the IFs I put in, and look at the real world, what do you find? A large number of Muslims, over a billion, and a finite percentage of them are terrorists. You find a large number of them in the US as well, over 6 million by some reports, and a finite percentage of them are Islamic Jihadists/terrorists too, I believe. Too many to keep track of. The only common denominator is their religion–Islam. We have religious freedom here, so Islam is protected. Yet, some real and large number of these Muslims, anywhere up to 60 thousand or even more(1% or more), are latent Islamic Jihadist terrorists that mean us harm sooner or later.
What to do?
I do not see this as a delusional problem as praying mantis and you see it. The only assumption I have made is that the percentage of Jihadists in the US is roughly equal to the percentage of Jihadists in the rest of the Muslim population worldwide. I do not count the high percentage of Muslim sympathizers that give material support to the Jihadists, but they most certainly exist in the US, and can likely be pressed into Jihadist service when needed.( I needn’t make it only my assumption that the Jihadists mean us harm; that is as good as given.)
So, again, what to do?
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wr says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 18:37
@mannning: What don’t you tell us, instead of hinting around. Because the only solution I can see your screeds leading to is one of genocide — that you seem to believe the only way us “good” guys will be safe is if we exterminate — excuse me, murder — every Muslim either within our borders or on the planet. But you keep pussyfooting around this, apparently believing that if you just lay your logic a little more clearly we’ll all pick up pitchforks and join your jihad. Or pogrom, or whatever you want to call it.
For me, at least, no thanks.
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Scott O says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 20:39
Manning, if you post your comment about a secret hypothetical underground 5th column infiltration over at one of the Breitbart sites the good folks there will offer plenty of solutions for you to enjoy reading.
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ratufa says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 21:35
@mannning:
In the real world, our government is well aware that some number of the world’s Muslims are terrorists. The government’s response includes surveillance to identify terrorists, and assassination. The government is also aware that some number of Muslims in the US are potential terrorists, and its response is surveillance, spying on Muslims (infiltrating mosques, etc), large-scale monitoring of communications, sting operations, and arrests.
Some actual numbers on the extent of Muslim terrorism in the US in the decade since 9/11 is at:
http://sanford.duke.edu/centers/tcths/about/documents/Kurzman_Muslim-American_Terrorism_Since_911_An_Accounting.pdf
The number of terror attempts/incidents in the US has been fairly small during that time period, as have the number of people involved in such attempts.
You said:
The problem is my comment understates the problem if anything, since the number of Muslims in the US is north of 6 million, not 4.3 million, and the percentage of Jihadists in the Muslim population is well north of 1% also.
The 6 million figure is a high-end estimate (contrast it with, for example, the 2010 Pew estimate of 2.6 million Muslims in the US). The “well north of 1%” figure seems like something you just made up (of course, the number depends on how you define “Jihadist”). If you think that there are really 60,000+ Muslims in the US who are terrorists, you should consider what the US would be experiencing if that were true.
You said:
Our religious freedom law is not a suicide pact, however, but it seems AS IF that we are treating it as one, since many sects of Islam, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Wahabbi, vow to eradicate the infidel and work to establish a new Islamic Caliphate when the time is right and the conditions are favorable.
This may well not be for many years until their power, high birthrate numbers and influence grow sufficiently here in the US. We see this slow and steady accretion of power in the UK and Europe right now, and it has made real progress in the last few years.
Really? Seriously, how long do you think it’ll take for the Muslims in the US to get enough power to “eradicate the infidel” in America and establish a new Islamic Caliphate here? It’s taken them 2 years just to get a mosque built in Tennessee. I know you said that it may be “many years” but, to give some perspective, in 2030 the population of the US is estimated to be be around 360 million (US census estimate). The number of Muslims in the US in 2030 is estimated to be around 6.2 million (Pew) or, if we doubled your high estimate of the current Muslim population, maybe 12 or so million.
In general, I think you’re taking a known real problem (Islamic terrorism) and then adding in a bunch of impossible to disprove FUD (you’re an ex IBM-er, you know the term).
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mannning says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 21:46
@Loviatar:
No, that the ostrich crowd would come out in full force, invective and all, and there you are!
@wr:
You must be kidding. Takes one of your type to come up with that. Can you be just a tad less bloodthirsty? Keep your genocide thoughts to yourself. That is certainly not something any rational person would propose, but you discovered it!
@Scott O:
Another ostrich squalks. Nothing secret about the existence and intentions of Jihadists: it is right there in the references for all to read, and right there in the UK and Europe for all to observe. Maybe you slept through 9/11 and a dozen or more other terrorist events. Maybe you slept through Iraq and Afghanistan.Or maybe it’s just poor eyesight, or poor concentration.
Thank God in heaven we have some good men on the watch now and not ostriches.
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anjin-san says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 22:42
Maybe you slept through 9/11 and a dozen or more other terrorist events. Maybe you slept through Iraq and Afghanistan.
Millions of people in those countries think we are the terrorists. Are you so unsophisticated that you don’t realize that? What do you say to a woman in Iraq who’s children were blown to bits in the “Shock & Awe” bombings?
Saying “They are the bad guys, they cause all the problems, I am one of the good guys” is human nature – it has been going on forever.
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Loviatar says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 23:01
@mannning:
IF
IF, and I emphasize IF, you had a brain you still wouldn’t be as smart as the Scarecrow.
IF, and I emphasize IF, you had a heart you still wouldn’t be as kind as the Tin Man.
IF, and I emphasize IF, you had a spine you still wouldn’t be as courageous as the Cowardly Lion.
But you don’t so you’re a Republican. Occasionally, I feel kind of sad for you being such an empty, heartless person, but then I remember what you hope to accomplish with your ideas and then I feel nothing but contempt.
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Scott O says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 23:16
@mannning: I was just saying you’re looking for answers in the wrong place. Let’s face it, most of the wimps that visit this site couldn’t extract a confession if someone else was turning the thumb screws for them.
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mannning says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 23:21
@ratufa:
Try a birthrate 2.5 to 3 times ours, then run it out to 2050 or later, not 2030, that is too soon.
To become a real threat, an insurrection group has to reach perhaps 7 to 10% of the population, unless they get a lot of outside help along the way once they begin to move. I wonder if there will be any available to them then from the massive numbers of Muslims around the world slipping in over the years? Will we have porus borders then? Don’t know.
Haven’t heard FUD used in 20 years, and it does apply here, it is just that I believe I am pointing out tserious possibilities. There is a lot of FUD that comes simply from the existence of Islamic terrorism/jihadism. I lost several friends in 9/11. The Pentagon hit was exactly where my team had just finished the Navy’s Command Center upgrade. I had been there the night before, showing my daughter where I had been working for 7 years before I retired. And, one of our architecture teams was in a tower at Marsh and Maclellan’s offices. Hard to forget–ever.
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mannning says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 23:37
@Loviatar:
As I have for those who shove their heads into the sand. You have no idea, it seems, of what I wish to accomplish. It is simply to get your heads out of the sand and look at the real world. But a hopeless task for most here. Do you really think that Muslims come with lollypops for you and the children?
@anjin-san:
Your reversal creates more nonsense. That we are considered terrorists only heightens the ferver of the Jihadists to wreck revenge on the US, and to get those they call the bad guys and put them down. So we are back to an eventual threat against us again. Thanks for the boost to my argument.
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mannning says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 23:51
@Scott O:
Scott, I am well aware of the sites that wrestle with this problem. I happen to believe that many of them are coalescing around a maximum solution that I abhor. But, you are indeed right that no considered answers will result here if the comments so far represent the best of the lot. I did figure on the ostrich reaction, but there are some folks here that do think for themselves. So far, zip!
Sorry if i called you an ostrich through misunderstanding your remark.
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Loviatar says:
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 23:55
@mannning:
I had this huge beautiful take down around head in sand vs. head up the A$$, but then I realized you’re not even worth the insult.
.
Bring on superdestroyer, at least he is fun to bait, you, you’re nothing but a waste of carbon.
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mattb says:
Friday, July 20, 2012 at 00:31
@mannning:
The problem is my comment understates the problem if anything, since the number of Muslims in the US is north of 6 million, not 4.3 million, and the percentage of Jihadists in the Muslim population is well north of 1% also.
Serious question: considering how — honestly — soft our internal security underbelly is, why has there to date, not been a single internal terrorist attack on a civilian target post 9/11 motivated by radical Islam. There have been limited incidents — see Mj. Hassan — but why haven’t suicide bombers or random shooter’s been going after malls? It would be easy to do (see Columbine and Virginia Tech as examples of spectacular violence committed in “soft” locations)? And none of them require the coordination we have seen in a number of “terrorism stings.”
While I do no doubt that one will eventually happen on our soil (as did 9/11), one has to ask if there are so many sleeper agents, why has it been 10 years with (thank your personal deity) no such action?
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mattb says:
Friday, July 20, 2012 at 00:36
@mannning: Further Manning, could you explain why we should take your concerns more seriously than those published at the turn on the 19/20th century about Zionism and radical Judaism? If you review the pamphlets that circulated in those days — culminating in the “Priniciples of Zion” — you will find similar arguments about the coming war with the Jewish enemy within.
Or, for that matter, in the same time frame (and for most of the 20th century) of the problem of terrorists from John Bull’s Other Island? Because, if you were in the UK, people made very similar claims about the Irish. A century later, the Queen meets with former IRA members.
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mattb says:
Friday, July 20, 2012 at 00:39
@ratufa:
It’s taken them 2 years just to get a mosque built in Tennessee.
Not to mention the fact that after it has been all but built there are serious attempts to Zone it out of existence (and pretend that the Muslim community that has been worshiping in Murfreesboro doesn’t really exist).
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mantis says:
Friday, July 20, 2012 at 01:05
@mannning:
Do you really think that Muslims come with lollypops for you and the children?
Have you ever actually met a Muslim? If so, how did you escape death? Please teach us, for our children’s sake!
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Scott O says:
Friday, July 20, 2012 at 01:30
@mannning:
Romney/Bachmann 2012. Otherwise we’re all dead.
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mattb says:
Friday, July 20, 2012 at 08:49
Manning:
It occurs to me that on a number of issues, you positions seem driven by an existential fear of what might happen. In the last few weeks you’ve been afraid that the government will raise taxes to as high as 60% of income, that Obama will do all of the evil/secret things conservatives say he’s been planning IF he gets reelected, and that there is most likely a growing Muslim insurrection in the US.
Generally speaking, as others have pointed out, there’s little evidence to suggest that any of the possibilities are likely probabilities. And yet you seem to treat all of them as if they are inevitable.
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mannning says:
Friday, July 20, 2012 at 11:29
@mattb:
Well now, nothing but death and taxes is inevitable. I have no fears on the scores you cited, since I will be long gone by the time any of them would seriously affect me personally, barring a major catastrophe of some sort. In my current situation, even a tax hike of 60% might not hit me at all, so long as deductions aren’t substantially reduced. It would hit my children, however. Then too, by the time the Muslim population in the US exceeds 10 to12% of the total, I will be long gone. So any fears I have are for my future generations, and the world they will inherit some twenty or thirty years down the road, and the sheer patriotism and love of the US that wishes a peaceful world for our country.
Perhaps there is a comparison here between the growing impact the 12% black population has had on the nation so far versus, say, a 12% Muslim population, in terms of political clout, crime and economic impact. I’d say it would be about the same level for Muslims when they get there, except for the key factor of Islamic aspirations and the support they are given from the Islamic world. Aye, there’s the rub.
Three comments on the rate of occurrance of so-called terrorist attacks in the US: 1) we have been successful so far in keeping the lid on, no question; however, 2) there is a disturbing trend in the reporting of incidents via the law enforcement channels, and that is to refuse to classify many events as terror related or Muslim related when they clearly are, such as a number of honor killings for one type, for example; and 3) as the Muslim population explodes, and it will because of their much higher birthrate than ours, it will become ever more difficult to keep them at bay twenty or thirty years hence. The models, as I stated, are the UK and Europe, the results of which are shocking and pervasive now.
This is the nub of the matter when you couple this population growth to the aspirations of the Jihadist elements over time. I cannot believe that anyone refuses to grasp these aspirations they have documented for the long term and preached incessantly in their mosques weekly here in the US. So I have taken them at their word.
That no greater number of incidents have occurred could have several logical explanations, such as orders to cool it for now from the imams until the time is ripe and they give the word. There is little need to give such clear and unambiguous warning to the nation now. There is significant discipline in the Islamic world, but some will break discipline anyway such as Hassan, possibly out of excessive zeal, or the excess zeal of his dead mentor, so there will quite likely be further incidents as we go.
Perhaps you have missed the real impact of the Tennessee mosque story. There, as in a large number of other rural or suburban localities, and even in NYC ( over 100 mosques), the Muslim population has grown to the point that they can afford and support many more compounds and mosques around the nation. One count had the number of mosques in the US at 1,200; another added the ad hoc, home-based, or storefront mosques to the total, which then reached about 10,000.
-30-
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helen says:
Friday, July 20, 2012 at 14:31
@Chico:
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Speak Your Mind
Name *Michelle Bachmann should be banned from Congress and removed from office immediately! It is dangerous for a Senator to incite hatred, fear and violence from the floor of Congress!!
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@mannning,
Thanks for taking the time to draft that reply. I don’t agree with most of it. But it’s clear that so much of this has to do with opinions and hypotheticals versus facts, that there’s little hope for a productive conversation.
All I can say is that I see reflections in your writings of things said in the past about other “dangerous” ethnic groups – in particular Jews. History has, by all legitimates accounts, proven that most of those past predictions were wrong. It is my hope, and my expectation, that so to will your predictions be proven wrong.
But only time will tell.
@mattb: Oh, and in addition to the Jews, I would suggest looking at some of the comments circulating about Japanese Americans in the wake of Pearl Harbor and the lead up to the forced detention (something that most rational people see as a blight upon our recent history and the so called “greatest generation). You’ll find very similar sort of fears about a disciplined force of “sleeper” agents.
@mattb:
Indeed, I had all of those in mind as I contemplated what to do for myself. Each one had its serious consequences, which actually tempered my responses to the Islamic threat substantially.
If you want to read about what quite a number of intelligent Europeans think about their particular situation vis a vis Islam, Jihadism, and Sharia go to:
http://www.gatesofvienna.com and http://www.libertiesalliance.org/.
There, a substantial movement to block the progress of Islamic thought and law in every European nation is well underway. One might ask why they are so up in arms? It is because they perceive a growing threat to freedom of thought from Islam and reversion of their laws to Sharia in every nation over there. I believe it is prudent to listen to their complaints and thoughts, since we could be in the same situation before too long.
Correction> the proper URL for Gates of Vienna is:
http://www.gatesofvienna.blogspot.com
@Doug Mataconis:
Doug, how about asking the Romney campaign for a comment? Most of us don’t get to vote for or against Michelle Bachmann. But all of us have a decision to make about Romney.
So far, he’s been as silent about Bachmann as the Republican leadership was about McCarthy. Seems to me that if Romney doesn’t speak out, he ought to lose the vote of every decent American.
Well.. it looks like a few people have some serious crow eating to do..you just knew the truth would come out at some point..
http://directorblue.blogspot.ca/2012/07/great-news-clinton-aide-huma-abedin.html