Is the Obama Administration Serious about Anti-Muslim Demonization in Law Enforcement?

On August 4, 2011, the White House released a new strategy to counter violent extremism. The Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC) expressed support for the plan, Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States, which must be seen as a rejection of the Senator Joe Lieberman’s (I-CT) and Rep. Peter King’s (R-NY) narrow focus on Islamic-inspired terrorism as the pre-eminent domestic threat. The administrations plan recognizes that “individuals from a broad array of communities and walks of life in the United States have been radicalized to support or commit acts of ideologically-inspired violence.”

The vagueness of the plan combined with its calls for monitoring, more policing of communities, and early intervention to stave off undefined “extremism,” may undermine civil liberties and constitutional freedoms. Plus, the strategy’s emphasis on violence inspired by ideology may do more to elevate fears of terrorism that are out of proportion with the actual threat. As Charles Kurzman reminds us this week, 15,000 people are murdered each year in the United States:

Islamic terrorism, including the Beltway sniper attacks, has accounted for almost three dozen deaths in America since 9/11—a small fraction of the violence that the country experiences every year. The toll would have been higher if the perpetrators had been more competent . . . Even so, the number of perpetrators has been relatively low. Fewer than 200 Muslim-Americans have engaged in terrorist plots over the past decade—that's out of a population of approximately two million. This constitutes a serious problem, but not nearly as grave as public concern would suggest.

But there is good news in this document. The Obama White House takes a decided stance against the fearmongering and scapegoating of Muslims that is on the rise in our political discourse, and even with domestic security and law enforcement circles.

White House Plan Cautions Against Demonizing Muslim Americans

While the White House prioritizes the threat from al-Qa’ida in this strategy, it calls on law enforcement and federal agencies to counter propaganda that the United States “is somehow at war with Islam.” The plan reminds the public once again that

the United States is not, and never will be, at war with Islam. Islam is part of America, a country that cherishes the active participation of all its citizens, regardless of background and belief. We live what al-Qa’ida violently rejects – religious freedom and pluralism.

The White House calls for a paradigm of engagement with Muslim communities based on mutual respect, warning that “our words and deeds can either fuel or counter violent ideologies.”

Here, the White House rhetorically condemns any “actions and statements that cast suspicion toward entire communities, promote hatred and division, and send messages to certain Americans that they are somehow less American because of their faith or how they look.” Such actions “reinforce violent extremist propaganda and feed the sense of disenchantment and disenfranchisement that may spur violent extremist radicalization.” But so far, federal agencies have not taken decisive, official action to prevent such destructive and counter-productive messages from being promoted within the ranks of the intelligence community.

Is Law Enforcement Getting the Message?

The White House is relying on local, state, and federal law enforcement to interact with individuals and deter them from using violence. Yet groups like the International Counter Terrorism Officers Association (ICTOA) are sending divisive messages to those very same ranks. The ICTOA is a private association of law enforcement and security professionals founded by NYPD officers. The ICTOA was profiled in a recent report by Political Research Associates called Manufacturing the Muslim Menace because it belongs to a pattern of flawed and biased trainings for law enforcement.

As reported by blogger Richard Bartholomew, the upcoming Ninth Conference of the ICTOA will include Senior Intelligence Analyst William Gawthrop. Speakers like Gawthrop cast suspicion on Muslims in precisely the way the White House has condemned.

Senior Intelligence Analyst Cites "High Birthrates" as Islamic "Tool of Penetration"

A retired U.S. Army counterintelligence officer, Gawthrop once worked as program manager for the Joint Terrorism Task Force of the Defense Department’s Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA). According to the ACLU, CIFA was responsible for amassing secret databases on peaceful protest until the program was shut down in August 2008. In October, Gawthrop will be speaking to police officers, sheriffs, and intelligence analysts from around the country whose travel to the event is made possible by public tax dollars. He will present on the “Influence of the Sharia on Law Enforcement Investigations.” In a paper on the same topic, Gawthrop echoes GOP presidential candidates like Hermain Cain when he questions whether Muslim police or intelligence officers can effectively interview terrorism subjects, based on an assumed “divided loyalty.” After detailing what he described as Islamic legal prescriptions on keeping secrets and lying, Gawthrop writes,

Conflicting ideological beliefs impose an encumbrance on the believer. If the believer is also an investigator or analyst shouldering the responsibilities of an intelligence or law enforcement investigation, and he is confronted with a divided loyalty situation, it is logical that the believer may adhere to the calling of the higher authority.

(Wm. Gawthrop, “The Influence of Islamic Law on Intelligence and Law Enforcement,” The Vanguard: Journal f the Military Intelligence Corps Association, Vol. 16, No. 1 Jan 2011, p. 9-19).

In other contexts, Gawthrop’s observations on Islam are far more inflammatory. In a working draft paper on “Islam’s Tools of Penetration,” Gawthrop cites Muslim immigration and “high birthrates” as methods for Islam’s supposed conquest of the world. He writes:

• Westerners are not able to maintain their present numbers

• Only Poland, Ireland, Malta, and Israel have naturally growing populations.

• Muslims have some of the most robust birth rates in the world.

• John R. Weeks study: Countries with large numbers of Muslims have a crude birth rate of 42 per thousand.

• Developed countries have a crude birth rate of just 13 per thousand

• 6 children per Muslim woman, 1.7 per woman in the developed countries

(Wm. Gawthrop, “Islam’s Tools of Penetration,” Working Draft, p. 39). This birth rate motif emerges from folks who worry about the “Islamicization of Europe” and the “Demographic Winter.” The message is both fundamentally racist and white supremacist, with close ties to the neoconservative and Christian right xenophobia toward Muslims. “Demographic Winter” is a code phrase for fears among white people that they are being outbred by people of color, and is pushed by the World Congress of Families, says PRA Senior Analyst Chip Berlet.

Gawthrop also casts mosques and the services they perform for communities “as the guarantor and essence of lines of communication penetrating and consolidating Islamic footholds in unconquered tterritories.” (p. 86) Citing former Muslim turned Christian evangelist Mark Gabriel, Gawthrop characterizes mosques as “a place of worship, weapons depot, [and] military planning headquarters.” (“Tools,” p. 85)

Biased FBI Training Manual on Arab Culture and Islam

This week, we learned that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) also recommended Mark Gabriel’s Islam and Terrorism to new recruits as part of a two-day training on Arab and Islamic Culture. The ACLU obtained a 62-page PowerPoint training presentation used by the FBI to teach new recruits ways to deal with “individuals from the M.E. [Middle East] during interviews and interrogations.” The briefing provides facts about Muslims and their religion which are replete with over-generalizations and over-simplifications. The training material acknowledges that there are more than fifty-one Muslim majority countries stretching from Mali to Malaysia and Afghanistan to Algeria, it paints the Muslim or Arab world as homogeneous. On a slide called “Islam 101”, four bullet points list:

• No separation between church and state.

• Hard for Westerners to understand.

• Transforms country's culture into 7th century Arabian ways.

• Regulates most aspects of life.

On a slide entitled “Language,” one bullet point reads: “It is the characteristic of the Arabic mind to be swayed more by words than ideas and more by ideas than facts.” Wired's Danger Room blog reported on the presentation and received this statement from representatives at the FBI: “The FBI new agent population at Quantico is exposed to a diverse curriculum in many specific areas, including Islam and Muslim culture. The presentation in question was a rudimentary version used for a limited time that has since been replaced.” While the training document is no longer in use, the latest revision date listed on its first page is January 15, 2009, notes Al Jazeera coverage.

I was happy to read in the August 4, 2011 New York Times that “the administration promised to identify accurate educational materials about Islam for law enforcement officers, providing an alternative to biased and ill-informed literature in use in recent years, including by the FBI.” Clearly, there is much work to be done in rooting out hateful or divisive stereotypes about Muslims which cast suspicion on entire communities. Kevin Gosztola of Firedoglake offered this poignant critical reflection:

The strategy presents a decent foundation for addressing whatever extremism the nation should address. However, it is an utterly meaningless strategy if some of the poorest communities in America continue to be used by the FBI as a laboratory for launching entrapment schemes to catch so-called terrorists. It is purely prose if law enforcement continues to train agents or police to investigate and monitor not just crime but the religious practice and social behavior of entire communities. And, it is merely something officials in law enforcement can use to cover their ass and argue they are not targeting Muslims if Muslim Americans continue to have reason to believe their government is conducting surveillance on the mosques they pray in because of their religion.

Recipe for Profiling: Boston Transit Police Study the "Legal Wing of Jihad in America"

Why are Boston Transit Police Studying Islam?

While reading the February/March 2010 issue of the industry magazine Counter Terrorist (a publication of Security Solutions International), I came across a troubling advertisement.

On May 10-12, 2010, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is sponsoring a three-day seminar in Florida that takes participants through the “formative phases of the Islamic religion” and the branches and ideologies of Islam to help them “really understand how extremism is organized in Radical Islam.”

The MBTA is promoting a discriminatory seminar, led by SSI Security Solutions International, which raises concerns about whether such training is counter-productive, promotes racial and religious profiling, and makes local residents less safe. Why is the cash-strapped MBTA using limited funds to study the political or religious motives of potential terrorists? Is this the best way to keep T riders safe? How will this training affect religious and ethnic/racial bias among intelligence officials and the police?

The course content, according to the advertisement, includes “Arab naming conventions,” “Women in Islam and Female Suicide Bombers,” and “The Legal wing of Jihad in America.” Of what concern is the LEGAL wing of [alleged] jihad in America to the Boston’s transit police since it is, by that definition, legal?

This course promotes thinly-disguised Islamophobia that harkens back to McCarthyistic witch hunts for communist front organizations. It has nothing to do with effective law enforcement. Indoctrinating metro Boston law enforcement with these inflammatory views is a recipe for racial, ethnic, religious, and political profiling. Unquestionably, courses of this nature will lead law enforcement attendees to subject individuals to increased scrutiny (and possibly illegal searches) based on their appearance and beliefs, rather than conduct. Law enforcement resources are better spent protecting infrastructure and observing criminal conduct, not studying (or tracking) peoples’ religious belief systems and political motivations.

Security Solutions International is a Miami-based company founded in 2004 [1] that bills itself as a frontline defense against the threat of “radical Islam” and prime provider of “homeland security training” to a range of clients, including local police forces, corporations, and federal agencies. [2] Employing alarmist rhetoric about Islamic groups’ purported existential threat to the United States in the “war on terror,” SSI’s website encourages “first Responders and interested members of the concerned public to help Security Solutions International fight the war on terror. Radical Islam has an agenda and wants to destroy our country. As part of our mission, we are dedicated to keeping you informed about the enemy and developments in this global conflict.”[3]

According to the bio of SSI’s CEO, Solomon Bradman, he formerly managed “Diplomat Trading, a multi-million dollar exporter of Electronic Equipment specializing in Central America, South America and the Caribbean. He has a Bachelor's degree from Thomas Edison State College in Aviation. His management and administrative training and experience began while running the fixed base operation at Marathon Airport back in 1984 where he eventually ended up manager, chief pilot, and head flight instructor until moving to Denver to pursue a pilot position with Rocky Mountain Airways. … Over the last three years his responsibilities as CEO of SSI have required his experience and full attention to Administration, Marketing, Sales, Product Development and Public Relations, including being a spokesperson for SSI and appearing on news casts on NBC, CBS, and ABC commenting on SSI programs and security issues. He also provides articles on Aviation-related security issues to top publications such as Business Aviation, Helicopter Monthly and others.” [4]

SSI lists two products that are presumably provided to people who sign up to be SSI “Patriot Partners”: the Counter Terrorist newsletter, an SSI publication that claims to keep readers “up-to-date with developments, technologies, successes and … failures in the global struggle against Islamofascism”; and “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War against the West,” a controversial film described as “hate propaganda” by some critics and distributed by the Clarion Fund, a nonprofit organization closely linked to both the U.S. and Israeli right-wing. [5]

Among the activities SSI advertises on its website are a training course for law enforcement agencies that is entitled “The Islamic Jihadist Threat” and a Department of Homeland Security-funded training program in Israel for U.S. clients. According to SSI’s website, this course is a two-day program “designed to give First Responders a deep understanding of the terror mindset and an explanation of the reasons for the Global Jihad as well as practical tips for Law Enforcement in detecting, preventing and responding to acts of terror.” Course topics include “Where does the hatred come from?- Arab naming conventions - Jihad - The Five Pillars of Islam - Ramadan - Domestic Terror groups - International Terror groups - Understanding the culture of Jihad.”[6]

The course has been harshly criticized. In 2008, for example, the Washington state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) argued that SSI’s training at the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission promoted stereotypes that could lead to prejudicial profiling of Muslims. A CAIR representative told the Seattle Times, “Most police officers don’t have a basic grounding in Islam, so before you teach them about Islam, how can you teach them about radical Islam? It just makes you nervous because when a law-enforcement person pulls someone over, when they see a Muslim person or someone who appears Muslim to them—all this information they just learned kicks in.”[7]

In August 2009, Political Research Associates attended a two-hour presentation by Long Beach, California, Police Detective Ebrahim Ashabi, SSI’s purported expert on Islamic culture. Det. Ashabi says he is trying to help law enforcement “gain a better understanding of how terrorists think and why they are terrorists.” He offered an explanation of the political and social origins of Islam, the Spread of Islam, Prophet Muhammad, Ottoman Empire, The Crusades, the Muslim brotherhood, Hezbollah, and the long-term goals of terrorism. Such lessons are counter-productive; by suggesting that violent terrorism finds its roots in the Islamic religion, SSI is legitimizing claims by terrorist organizations that their acts are justified by faith, when in fact they are distorting Islam for their own political aims.

Det. Ashabi provided a window into the mindset of some counter terrorism specialists who believe that there are no good Muslims, only bad ones. Ashabi contends that the Muslim Brotherhood aims “to destroy Western civilization from within, through subversive means, legal, political and non-terrorist means, and by changing laws and U.S. constitution. He cited several examples of Islamic “infiltration,” such as the July 29, 2009 arrest of 7 men in North Carolina charged with terrorist conspiracy to wage an Islamic holy war overseas; the Holy Land Foundation case (wherein individuals were accused of giving aid to a group with ties to Hamas that was not on the U.S. government’s list of forbidden charities); and the shooting of police deputy in Fresno by a Kashmir group.

However, with those criminal cases, Ashabi lumps in “on-going threats of lawsuits against police and other law enforcement agencies that offer counter terrorism and race awareness training programs (alleging racial, religious profiling) as means of intimidating police departments to stop training programs.” He cited the July 2009 case (above) of the Seattle Police Department taking criticism from CAIR over its race awareness program. PRA’s investigator, Mary Fischer, observed, “It’s Ashabi’s belief that CAIR is a serious threat to U.S. safety and that the organization continues to permeate all facets of our society in effort to undermine it. One strategy it seeks to use--nominate Muslim sympathizers to political office and law enforcement ranks to then gain access to computer databases.”

So, the MBTA is sponsoring a seminar which views as suspect Muslim-Americans’ participation in the democratic political process. We need to tell MBTA officials that the public does not approve of this religious prejudice. This is not the first time that MBTA has partnered with SSI. In August 2009, PRA requested records related to a similar course held in Massachusetts last year, but the MBTA failed to supply the requested materials. No law enforcement agency should not be lending its name or funds to SSI, whose aim is to stir up suspicion of all Arab, Muslim, Middle Eastern, and South Asian persons, or to get rich trying.

* UPDATE: In response to community concerns, the MBTA canceled its sponsorship of the seminar run by Security Solutions International on March 31, 2010.

Sources

1. Market Wire, “Miami Becomes the Homeland Security Capital of the USA during the UASI National Conference April 10th-April 13th,” April 5, 2007.
2. See Security Solutions International website.
3. SSI, “Patriot Partners,” (accessed September 28, 2009)
4. SSI, “Corporate Officers,” (accessed September 28, 2009)
5. SSI, “Patriot Partners,” (accessed September 28, 2009)
6. SSI, “The Islamic Jihadist Threat,” (accessed October 1, 2009)
7. Janet I. Tu, “Does Course on Islam Give law Enforcers Wrong Idea?” Seattle Times, May 26, 2008.

Information for this posting also comes from Right Web, a project of Political Research Associates, http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/bradman_solomon

Government Sets Sights on Extremists

        Hot Air Leads to Violence?  Homeland Security apparently thinks so.  The Department of Homeland Security recently warned law enforcement that disenchanted, angry Americans are like kernels of corn under heat, ready to pop at any time.  Both threats and instances of Right-wing violence has definitely increased in response to the election of Barack Obama, but Homeland Security's report is off the mark.  It targets "extremist thought" as the problem.  When government conflates ideology with violent action, all free speech - whether from the Left or Right - is at risk.  We need to build a progressive movement that channels peoples' anger to challenge the causes of social injustices, while exposing the rightwing's false populism.  Supporting surveillance of right-wing groups only gives government license to repress the Left, as well.

        Homeland Security's recent report simplistically conflates ill-defined “extremist” viewpoints with violent criminal activity.  It is completely insensitive to free speech guarantees.  The government urges law enforcement to exercise “intense scrutiny” of groups espousing many different agendas.  Tax protestors, anti-immigrant activists, white supremacists, militias, and “One World Government Extremists” all garner suspicion. 

(you can download a copy of the report here)

        Urging police to study and observe people based on their beliefs chills everyone’s freedom of speech and association.  Under the U.S. Constitution, people are free to espouse any  beliefs and recruit people to organize, short of threatening imminent acts of violence.  (See, e.g., Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969))  This strategy targets the beliefs and ideological motivations of mobilized citizens, rather than suspected criminal activity.  “Threats from white supremacist and violent antigovernment groups during 2009 have been largely rhetorical and have not indicated plans to carry out violent acts,” says the Homeland Security report, making it clear that what is being targeted here is speech.

        It would be a mistake for critics to think that the Obama administration is singling out the Right.  For the past eight years, Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, FBI, and other agencies have been intimidating and spying on anti-war, globalization, and environmental activists.  There is no evidence of a sea change under Obama, the domestic security apparatus continues to do so.  For example, in January 2009, Homeland Security warned “Leftwing Extremists Likely to Increase Use of Cyber Attacks over the Coming Decade.”  That report defined "leftwing extremists" as groups or individuals who embrace radical elements of the anarchist, animal rights, or environmental movements and are often willing to violate the law to achieve their objectives. It lumped together the Ruckus Society and Recreate 68 with the Animal Defense League, Earth First!, and other groups whose activities have never been linked to a single attack on human life.   Andrea Tantaros at the FOX Forum blog asked,  

where was the DHS when Code Pink was trying to handcuff former administration officials or when leftist groups like ACORN were slashing tires, intimidating voters and vandalizing campaign headquarters (not to mention bullying banks to give bad loans to people who couldn’t afford them)?

Homeland Security was right where you would expect them to be.  Denver Police slammed a Code Pink activist to the ground at a DNC protest this Summer.  Police and federal agents raided the residences of RNC protestors before any protests took place at the Republican Convention in St. Paul.   It is good news that some on the Right are waking up to the fact that the "war on terror" is being manipulated to justify infringements on civil liberties.  Unfortunately, this newfound concern appears to have less to do with commitment to defend the civil and political rights of all U.S. residents, than with concern that right-wing causes might be repressed under the current administration.  Let not progressives follow the same unprincipled and short-sighted path.  However tempting it may be to compromise principles for political advantage, we should remember how infrequently it is we live under a federal administration not overtly hostile to the Left.  To celebrate DHS' new concern about the right is to revel in historical amnesia.

        Homeland Security’s warning not only threatens civil liberties, but it's also bad counter-terrorism.  The report singles out “a parent’s unemployment” as a possible marker for “the formation of right wing extremist beliefs.”  Given the explosion in the ranks of the unemployed, how is this possibly an effective strategy for preventing terrorism?   

        This is a futile and wasteful approach to policing terrorism.  When police make decisions about resources and staffing, they should not focus on the distant causes of terrorism, such as family upbringing or the content of literature.  Police should focus on operational factors such as targets, weapons, tools, and facilitating conditions – all of which are accessible to intervention – in order to limit opportunities for terrorist action and planning.  Homeland Security’s emphasis on the intricacies of “extremist” ideology takes resources away from what really counts and casts too many under suspicion of terrorism.  The Obama Administration has abandoned use of the phrase "war on terror."  That is a good start, but substance is what matters most.  They must now abandon the domestic "war on terror" ideology of "violent radicalization" that, like earlier repressive witch hunts, violate our rights with the promise of protecting them.

Special thanks to Tarso Ramos of Political Research Associates for his assistance on this blog entry!

"Our freedom of speech is freedom or death

We go to fight the powers that be."

                  - Public Enemy, "Fight the Power