Wilfredo Amr Ruiz: ‘We Are Not at War
With Islam' - Ad Criticizing Muslims
12 May 2012
By Juan Cole
Former President George W. Bush and President Barack
Obama have persistently affirmed: "We are not at war
with Islam," trying to assure 1.7 billion Muslims that
the military actions of the so-called "war against
terrorism" do not constitute belligerence against
Islam or Muslims.
This incessant message of denial is hard to swallow by
many sectors of our society, and the world at large,
since the United States has engaged in multiple wars
of occupation in Muslim countries including Iraq and
Afghanistan. In addition, it conducts routine military
incursions and bombardment campaigns on Pakistan,
Yemen, Libya and other Muslim countries. Furthermore,
thousands of Muslim citizens around the world are
subjected to arrest without formal accusations or due
process of law. Incarcerations and even torture takes
place at a network of international secret prisons and
"black hole" locations operated or accessed by the CIA
and other intelligence agencies.
Unfortunately, in the American political arena there
is also the perception that the government security
and intelligence agencies and military apparatus are
at war with Islam and Muslims. They substantiate this
notion with continuous discriminatory and prejudiced
policies affecting American Muslims and their
institutions. Let us take, for example, the harsh
experience New York Muslims are undergoing with the
NYPD. They are subject to widespread and ongoing
espionage policies from their own police department,
which include the opening of dossiers based on ethnic
and religious profiling. This openly unconstitutional
practice is not based on suspiciousness of them
committing crimes or being engaged in an ongoing
criminal enterprise. Rather, the information recorded
documents the restaurants they frequent, the books
they check out, and even the times and places where
they conduct their daily prayers.
Evidently, the constant Islamophobic discourses have
resonated to the military branches, resulting in the
offering of multiple training courses with
discriminatory, bigoted and offensive materials. Some
of these academic materials recently discovered are
taught at the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk,
Va., in which mainstream Muslim persons and
organizations are characterized as radical, violent
extremists. The course even calls for treating the
Muslim civilian population the way the Japanese were
dealt with at Hiroshima, with nuclear attacks on the
holy cities of Mecca and Medina and wiping out
civilians. It promotes a total war on Islam affirming
that there is no such thing as moderate Islam. The
military training course participants are encouraged
to think of themselves as a "resistance movement to
Islam." Other various training courses with xenophobic
and bigoted content offered to the FBI have also been
exposed. These are not isolated and unique classes,
but multiple trainings held at numerous venues to
hundreds of military officers and intelligence agents
that are responsible for the safety and security of
our nation. Notwithstanding the military and FBI's
promises to review their courses and purge the
training curriculums of Islamophobic materials, we
need ask ourselves: How many other courses (most of
them classified as "Secret") have been offered and,
perhaps, are still being offered in these highly
secured and secret agencies without public exposure?
The sad reality is that our nation has
institutionalized vigilance based on stereotypical
ethnic and religious profiling. Let us just examine
for a moment the recent incident at Fort Lauderdale
International Airport, where an 18-month-old toddler,
a daughter of American parents of Middle Eastern
descent, was ordered off a plane by Jet Blue Airline's
officials who claimed she was on the TSA's "no fly"
list: a list obviously fed with the names of people
selected based on ethnic and religious profiling. The
toddler case is not the only one of its kind, as
another 500 American citizens are also in these
puzzling and sinister lists in the absence of due
process. The lists are not only ineffective, but
openly unconstitutional because individuals are
included without notification or being told why they
are on the list and without the chance to rebut the
basis of their inclusion.
What will our political leaders do to try to erase the
idea that the Nation is engaged in a war against Islam
and Muslims? The major challenge they confront in this
task is that the more time elapses, the more
discrimination, oppression, persecution and injustices
cements against American Muslims and their
institutions.
President Obama still has the option and opportunity
to rise to the occasion and confront this most
delicate situation at the level it merits. He might,
perhaps, start cleaning and straightening the
Executive Branch from head to toe. The president
should take steps that truly guarantee the elimination
of racial and religious profiling exercised by law
enforcement agencies and should swiftly end all the
futile wars on Muslim countries once and for all.
Perhaps, he should follow the Executive Order he
signed back on Jan. 22, 2009, mandating the "Closure
of Detention Facilities at Guantanamo" and the
"Immediate Review of All Guantanamo Detentions." Only
such decisive actions will sustain the hollowed
presidential words: "We are not at war with Islam."
Ad Criticizing Muslim Chaplain At
WFU Draws Fire
An alumnus from Wake Forest University who took out an
advertisement in Monday's Winston-Salem Journal
criticizing Imam Khalid Griggs, a university chaplain,
said he did so as a way of pushing his alma mater into
playing host to a debate on Shariah law.
In the ad, which ran the day of Wake Forest's
graduation, Donald Woodsmall claims that Griggs is a
"Shariah supremacist who believes that everyone should
live under Islamic Shariah law, with Islamic law
replacing all man-made laws, including the U.S.
Constitution."
Griggs did not return emails and a phone call. Brett
Eaton, a spokesman for Wake Forest, said the
university would not comment on the ad.
Woodsmall, a 1977 graduate of Wake Forest, is a
businessman who lives near Charlottesville, Va. He has
criticized the university's decision in 2010 to hire
Griggs. Griggs is also the imam of the Community
Mosque on Waughtown Street.
For the past several months, Woodsmall has tried to
get President Nathan Hatch to consent to a symposium
on Shariah law, the moral code and religious law of
Islam. Woodsmall believes Muslims who adhere to
Shariah are a threat to national security.
His correspondences with Hatch have also included
accusations that Griggs is following the ideology of
the terrorists who bombed the World Trade Center.
Hatch has declined the requests for a symposium.
Woodsmall said Tuesday that he doesn't want to get
Griggs fired.
"If Wake Forest believes I'm wrong, then let's have a
symposium or debate. My goal is to educate as many
people as possible, at Wake Forest and beyond, what
Shariah law is and why it's a threat to America,"
Woodsmall said. "I think it's of national importance,
not just to Wake Forest but to a nation."
Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on
American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy group based in
Washington, called the ad a "bizarro, anti-Shariah
diatribe," of the type becoming more common since the
controversy over Park 51, the so-called ground zero
mosque, in New York.
Hooper criticized the Journal for running the ad.
"This is the kind of language reserved for Internet
hate sites," Hooper said. "It's a big concern that a
reputable newspaper would publish that kind of
unanswered hate without giving the person targeted
some kind of opportunity to respond or challenge
whether it should even be published. They hope that if
they throw enough mud against the wall, some of it
will stick, and Muslims deal with that tactic everyday
in America."
Jeffrey Green, the Journal's president and publisher,
said: "We treated this ad the same way we do political
advertising. The ad was the opinion of the individual
that bought the space. He paid for it and signed his
name to it."
Woodsmall has started a Facebook page titled Alumni
for a Shariah-Free Wake Forest. As of late Monday
night, it had 44 "likes."
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