Fear mongering, Muslim Americans, and Fort Hood tragedy

By Louay Safi
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Dec 9, 2009

Muslim bashing is the new cottage industry with its own industrial barons and wide web of fear mongering bloggers ready on a moment notice to echo the noise generated at the industry’s hate mills.

The buzzword at the anti-Muslim network and its far-right bloggers this weekend was my recent visit to Fort Hood. The reporting was not on the content of my presentation or the purpose of my visit, but rather over a set of fictitious affiliations and unfounded accusations. The attack focused mainly on the fact that I am a director with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), an umbrella organization that represents professional Muslim organizations and Islamic centers across the United States and Canada.

The buzz started from the Jihad Watch blog of Robert Spencer, the epicenter of anti-Muslim propaganda. Spencer harbors boundless hatred towards Islam and Muslims and spends his day spinning every piece of news involving Muslims that he thinks he could manipulate.

On December 2, Spencer published a posting on his blog insinuating that the organization I represent is an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood and that ISNA is involved in “a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands? [sic]” Let alone the absurdity of the claim, it is bogus and unfounded. || Read more