A Muslim America - Only a Matter of Time?

By way of Powerline and an August 10th New York Sun column by MEMRI's Steven Stalinsky comes this fascinatingly candid disclosure from the leaders of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the Saudi publication Ukaz in 1999:

CAIR leaders discussed the organization's manipulation of the press under the headline "A Muslim America - Only a Matter of Time." One leader stated openly, "We control the media instead of the media controlling us." CAIR's founder, Nihad Awadh, described techniques utilized by the group's spokesman, Ibrahim Hooper, to infiltrate the press: "You will be surprised to hear that all his articles do not go through censorship and correction in the big papers," Mr. Awadh said.

A CAIR leader added, "CAIR [exerts] today an organized and educated effort, using American media techniques and exploiting American legal loopholes...For example: One of the editors of the American monthlies attacked the Muslims...Answering these allegations, CAIR convened a press conference and recruited all Muslims to call the monthly in every communication method, and we paralyzed the paper's interests, and the man [the editor] was forced to apologize...We exploit this position whenever someone else rises up to attack Muslims, and present to him what happened to those before him, and then he retracts...This method has gained us great achievements and stops serious attempts to attack Islam."

Thus has this veritable Islamist fifth column bullied its way out of any and all accountability for its hateful, imperialist ideology and the tactics it uses to advance it. And they don't limit themselves to playing defense, either:

In an interview with the Saudi Gazette on June 24, 2005, while visiting the kingdom, [Islamic Information Center Chairman Jamal] Badawi said: "9/11 was un-Islamic," and "I strongly condemn the September 11 attacks ... whoever did it," adding, "It is not confirmed yet who is actually behind the attacks." In the Saudi Gazette story, Mr. Badawi discussed the difficulty in drawing up an "agreement on how terrorism should be defined" and said exploding cars in Iraq's markets and killing civilians should be included.

Mr. Badawi went on to make an outrageous claim - that America could be behind these attacks: "This has to be investigated as to who is actually behind this ... There have been allegations that I cannot confirm that people going to the market to buy vegetables are stopped in the name of inspecting their cars by [American] forces, their hands are tied and they are blindfolded. There have been cases and I want a clarification from American officials to these allegations. After inspecting their cars they are allowed to go and when the car reaches [the] checkpoint it explodes and they call them suicide bombers, perhaps the occupants of the car were not even aware that they are carrying a bomb in their car. Such incidents should be thoroughly probed."

Sounds outrageous, doesn't it? But does it sound any different than what the American Left - as currently fronted by one Cindy Sheehan - has been saying ever since 9/11?

Propaganda is a vital tool in wartime, and it is a tool that we are negligently forgoing in the GWOT. And I'm not just referring to the growing tone-deafness of the Bush Administration, either. Joel Mowbray elaborates at some length in the Washington Times today on how even right-wing media stalwarts are running away from the CAIR insurgency rather than stand and fight them:

Whether WMAL intended to or not, the station has handed CAIR arguably its biggest victory to date, and has certainly increased the legitimacy of an organization that deserves none.

It won't just be radio talk hosts that will start feeling chilly when the topic of Islam arises. Television personalities, reporters, columnists, or anyone who works for a corporate interest that would bristle at being the target of a CAIR scare campaign would think twice before making even entirely defensible statements. It's not inconceivable that the media outlet could set up clear demarcation lines and declare certain subject matters or groups off-limits.

In fairness to WMAL, it isn't the first conservative media outlet to bow to CAIR pressure. National Review (where this columnist once worked) earlier this year removed a book from its online bookstore deemed "bigoted" and "anti-Muslim hate" by CAIR after the group sent a threatening letter to major advertiser Boeing — which sells planes to many wealthy Arabs.

The threat of public controversy is apparently so strong that major media outlets — the top conservative talk station in the nation's capital and the nation's premier conservative publication — are fleeing from rather than fighting an organization replete with ripe targets.

Is it any wonder that Islamic fundamentalists believe that their takeover of America from within is "just a matter of time"? When even institutions from the portion of our culture that one would think most likely to stand up for that culture and call CAIR's bluff dhimmi-ize themselves instead at the slightest application public pressure - leaving completely aside their domestic political opponents, who have made actively common cause with America's enemies - can you blame them for their contemptuous triumphalism?

How more ironic is it that our elites are bowing the knee to Allah (whether they realize it or not) at the same time that public opinion in the Muslim world may be turning in our direction:

According to the massive Pew Global Attitudes Survey, views of the United States have been improving. We’re not exactly back to the days when Kuwaiti babies were being named George Bush, but the trends are in our favor. The share of people with a favorable view of America went up in Indonesia by some 23 points, in Lebanon by 15 points, and in Jordan by 16 points. Trends in France, Germany, Russia, and India have been moving our way, too.

But the news gets even better. Support for terrorism and Osama bin Laden has been plummeting across the Arab and Muslim world (save for in Jordan, where the large Palestinian population plays a big role). Support for democracy, meanwhile, has improved. According to Pew, “nearly three-quarters of Moroccans and roughly half of those in Pakistan, Turkey and Indonesia see Islamic extremism as a threat to their countries.” The share of those supporting suicide bombings and the targeting of civilians has fallen by more than one-third in Lebanon — where democracy is on the move, by the way — and by 16 and 27 points in Pakistan and Morocco, respectively. Similar declines in support for Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and the like have been recorded.

This is entirely attributable to our "staying of the course" in the GWOT in general and Iraq in particular. Our actions there and in Afghanistan have re-established the U.S. as "the strong horse" in the mind of the "Arab street." Doesn't mean they don't still think we're infidels who deserve to burn, burn, burn, but it does mean that they're less inclined to think they can make it happen via the trail Osama bin Laden has tried to blaze, and which has since generated so devastating a blowback.

Just as the enemy populace is reaching the conclusion that they can't beat us, our entire media (mainstream AND Extreme) and one major political party (with the isolated GOP carbunkle) is fanatically determined to run up the white flag.

We may win this war - but we'll be hard-pressed to say that we deserved to.