Thursday, March 10, 2011
Hargrove At the D.C. Hearings on Islamic Extremism: "Something Is Wrong With the Muslim Leadership in Nashville"
Posted by Brantley Hargrove on Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 10:24 AM
Marvin Bledsoe said in today's House Homeland Security Committee hearings on Islamic extremism that Bledsoe had been sent to a terrorist training camp in Yemen by the former imam of Al-Farooq Mosque. "What happened to Carlos at those Nashville mosques isn't normal."
Yet so far, there's been no evidence that the assertion is at all true. The prevailing theory at the FBI — and of Bledsoe's own lawyer — has been that he was radicalized in Yemen. Born and raised in the Baptist Church, he converted to Islam while attending TSU and worshiped regularly at the Islamic Center. In 2007, he decided to visit Mecca and learn Arabic. He got a job teaching English in the port city of Aden in Yemen and married a student. Some of his students, his lawyer once claimed, were Afghans who'd been maimed in the war, souring the young man on the U.S. and its military.
Much about Bledsoe's life in that country remains unknown, but just months after his wedding he was picked up for overstaying his visa. Authorities discovered he was carrying a fake Somali ID — an immediate red flag because the failed state is known as a terrorist training ground. Bledsoe was interviewed by FBI officials soon after and was deported roughly two-and-a-half months later. It was that time spent in Yemeni lock-up, however, that likely radicalized Bledsoe, the FBI believes, not some Nashville imam. Nor, as Bledsoe has claimed, was he a member of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. All indications so far point to a troubled young man acting on his own.
At the outset, critics have worried that the hearings held by House Homeland Security Committee Chair Peter King (R-NY) would do little more than inflame hostility against Muslims — particularly at a time when nearly half of those responding to a Washington Post/ABC poll report unfavorable views of Islam. At least one committee member said today that the hearings were taking the country "down a dangerous path" — and one not without its antecedent when minorities are singled out in a climate of fear and anger.
Comments (25)
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Peter King's hearings are a perfect example of what conservatives do when they don't have any ideas.
Conservatives don't have any ideas on how to fix education, so they go after teachers and try to take their rights away.
Conservatives don't have any ideas on how to fix health care, so they go after people who don't have insurance and try to prevent them from getting it.
Conservatives don't have any ideas on how to create jobs, so they go after immigrants.
Conservatives don't have any ideas about how to get along with Muslim Americans or about how to make the U.S. safer, so they go after them with hearings, try to alienate them and if that does't work, they resort to torture.
Conservatives don't have any ideas about how to create jobs, so they go after the poor and middle class and take away their wealth and earnings so the conservatives' wealthy buddies get more wealthy.
It's really sad.
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The purpose of these hearings, as ostensibly is the case of all congressional hearings, is to ascertain what is "at all true." These are some serious allegations about Al-Farooq, and frankly they have been on the radar a long time even though you wouldn't realize it from the non-coverage by Nashville media. The criticism of King's hearings almost has been infantilism writ large, a sort of stick the fingers in the ears and yell "lalalalala" and divert attention from their serious nature. Given the growing severity and intensity of attacks by radicalized, American-born Muslims, such hearings should have been held 10 years ago. Nashvillians frankly need to know whether it has vipers in its bosom, and has needed that knowledge a long time.
There's way more of a threat from white supremacist, anti-tax and christian extremists in this country than from Muslims. Plots by right-wing extremists and white supremacists alone outnumber Muslim plots, and that's FBI stats. So, if we're going to start rooting out evil from our bosom, maybe we ought to be rooting around in some of the radical Christian churches in Nashville that are predominantly attended by white conservatives.
No one can dispute the step by step evidence of radicalization in this young man's life. He didn't become radicalized overnight. The disappiontement here is that liberals dont want to have this conversation: the effort and success radical islam is making to recruit Americans.
What about the effort and success radical white supremacists are making in radicalizing and recruiting terrorists, who harass and kill non-whites and immigrants. Or that radical Christians are making in recuriting anti-abortion extremists, who kill doctors and harass women exercising their rights. Maybe we should be investigating those organiztions, too. Conservatives should be disappointed in themselves for persecuting one segment of a population while ignoring another segment of the population that, according to statistics, is much more of a threat.
FFF, I would propose to you that when America goes on to fight two wars against international white supremicist and violent radical christian organizations, then our leaders should investigate their attempts at harming our country.
We did investigate Nazi and Communist infiltration in our country when they were a self proclaimed threat to America.
If you watch the hearings, you will also see muslims themselves talking about the need to tackle radicalization taking place in American mosques. Should we not also give these Americans a voice to improve the safety of their local communities?
one war kyle....iraq, as has been noted for awhile now, was fought on the whims of the previous administration.
Rep. King is a hero. After the empty musings of George "Selected" Bush about the religion, and the near-retarded, teleprompter-read banalities of Barack "Chauncey the Gardener" Obama about the basic goodness of Islam, it was past due that congressional hearings begin into the true nature of the radicalization of American Muslims. People can deny reality as much as FFF does above, but this festering boil has to be lanced. For it to be done in a way that doesn't discriminate and focuses on what is the true nature of the problem, it is time for the left-wing and Bush-type right-wingers to grow up. If this hearing has done anything, it has exposed how significant political minorities have thwarted scholarly, dispassionate investigation of an Islamist Fifth Column that operates with near-impunity. Either that ends or we can expect more and more acts of mass murder.
From the facts apparent, the young Bledsoe was sent to/duped into going to Yemen to be radicalized or further radicalized, as the case may be, after a dose of U.S.-based cult-style brainwashing, to which young people of Bledsoe's age group are so susceptible.
Before their mid-twenties, young people's brains are not yet fully developed, and capacity for reasoning and judgment are immature. In fact, the brainwaves of children and to some extent those of teenagers and people in their very early twenties reveal a constant hypnotic state. Brainwashing, however, is remarkably easy to do to people of any age, as our military and intelligence agencies know and as many of us paying attention to the explosion of control cults during the 1960s and 1970s observed.
Apparently, Carlos was on the FBI's radar before he left the United States. For good reason and in relation to the company he kept, I venture to say.
It would be terribly naive and dangerous to believe recruitment for Islamic terrorism and jihad is not happening in this state or any state. Americans who want to OD on a gumdrops-and-lollipops worldview are the kind of people who get other people killed. I ditched that view when my brain matured, decades ago.
In order to make it easier to recognize and hate Muslims in America, I wonder if the Republicans could require them to wear "Star of David" armbands whenever they go out in public.
I am sure there is a warehouse of those armbands somewhere near Auschwitz or Treblinka.
Why does every fucking thing have to be about religion?
Contrary to what you might think, the radical islam agenda does not want to attack us simply because we exist. Maybe if congress explored some of the cause-and-effect circumstances surrounding the last 50 years of foreign policy...
you know, unilateral support for Israel no matter what they decide to do.
Suppressing homegrown democracy in the Middle East because it doesn't suit 'our interests.'
Invading Iraq for no goddamn good reason.
Lining the pockets of some truly questionable individuals for the sake of black gold.
We are not blameless here. Oh oh, right, they're brown. Let's push them around anyway.
You know, Donna, just because you preface assertions with "apparently," doesn't mean you get to make things up. He wasn't on the FBI's radar until after he got caught in Yemen with a fake Somali passport. Also, there is nothing "apparent" about his being duped into going to Yemen to be radicalized, because there is no evidence of it. That's a hell of a charge to make when no one in the FBI has implicated anyone in the Nashville Muslim community. I know it would comfortably fit your narrative if Bledsoe were a part of some larger conspiracy, but he isn't -- that's according to the prosecutor and the FBI. He's just a confused, incredibly misguided young man who did something horrible in the name of a faith he clearly did not understand.
FFFlakery,
"What about the effort and success radical white supremacists are making in radicalizing and recruiting terrorists, who harass and kill non-whites and immigrants. Or that radical Christians are making in recuriting anti-abortion extremists, who kill doctors and harass women exercising their rights. Maybe we should be investigating those organiztions, too."
The federal government does monitor those groups. The Ruby Ridge tragedy, for example, was the result of federal efforts against them. And they damn well should be keeping a close eye on the white supremacist groups. And the violent anti-abortionists.
You might read this for a bit of a different perspective. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte…
And Ruth Marcus is no neo-con.
kylepostlewaite,
"We did investigate Nazi and Communist infiltration in our country when they were a self proclaimed threat to America."
Careful. You will get accused of McCarthyism around here for daring to suggest that there was Communist infiltration of America. Didn't you know that this is a conservative myth? That is why liberal historians and other cultural elites call that period the "McCarthy Era" instead of the "Hiss Era."
In case you've forgotten what started this mess to begin with it was Osama Bin Laden's outrage that infidel troops (American) dared to set foot in Saudi Arabia (his Holy Land) during the Gulf War. With his $350 million fortune he was able to do something about it and still is today even if he does have to hide in a cave. Hindsight is great, particularly mine, and I remember at the time that I thought it would be a great idea to roll on into Baghdad and take out Saddam Hussein and be done with him. In and out with no criticism from abroad. But Brent Scowcraft talked Bush I into coming home and it looked good at the time because we had lost very few troops. But if we had taken out Hussein during the Gulf War we could have used all of our resources to focus on Bin Laden and the Taliban after the 9/11 attacks. Now, twenty years after the Gulf War, we're contending with homegrown Muslim terrorists because we couldn't find Bin Laden. And even though Libs are assuring us American Muslims will really not be a problem, somehow I do not find comfort in their stance.
Brantley:
You "apparently" are allergic to information that might contradict what you want to believe.
Before posting my previous comment here, I had followed The Tennessean's link to Melvin Bledsoe's testimony before the Congressional Committee on Homeland Security, I read Bledsoe's testimony, which, as quoted on the newspaper's Web site, contains this passage:
"... They set him up, telling him that he could teach English at a British School in Aden in South Yemen.
"This school turned out to be a front and Carlos ended up in a training camp run by terrorists.
"Carlos’s joining in with Yemeni extremists was facilitated by their American counterparts in Nashville. We have since discovered that the former Imam of a Nashville mosque, the Al Farooq Mosque, wrote the recommendation letter Carlos needed for the school in Yemen.
"We also discovered that the school functions as an intake front for radicalizing and training Westerners for Jihad.
"From what I understand, the FBI had been following Carlos since before he left Nashville and continued to do so after he came back from Yemen. When Carlos was arrested for overstaying his visa in October of 2008, he was interviewed by an FBI agent based in Nashville even before the U.S. Embassy was alerted about the arrest.
"According to the Embassy, the FBI was alarmed about what they learned from Carlos.
"We wish they could have told us - his family – about what they learned. If we knew how serious his extremism had become, we could have put in every effort to prevent the tragedy in Arkansas from happening.
"When my son was arrested in Yemen, my family cried out for help in bringing our son back to America from our Government. We got in touch with the U.S. Embassy and the State Department. We also asked for help from our U.S. Representative, Steve Cohen’s office, and from FBI Special Agent Greg Thomason, who had been tracking my son since Nashville...."
Brantley, my previous comment here is based on Bledsoe's testimony. The facts apparent. I have not spoken with the FBI. If they want or wanted to contradict Bledsoe's statement, I'm sure they will or would have by now.
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110310…
As for your attempt to call me a liar, Brantley: I can always back up what I write. I don't make things up.
I'll take this opportunity to quote some parts of an Associated Press story by Eileen Sullivan that I read today and that is in regard to the aforementioned committee hearing called by U.S. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., who "declared U.S. Muslims are doing too little to help fight terror in America."
"... The Council on American-Islamic Relations, for instance, has launched one of the most aggressive media campaigns in the country, often making itself the public face of the Muslim community when talking about fighting terrorism. The group has an extremely strained relationship with law enforcement.
"The Justice Department has linked the group to a terror financing case, and the FBI will not work directly with its members. The group's California chapter recently put up a poster reading, "Build a wall of resistance. Don't talk to the FBI.'"
Yes, CAIR is an un-indicted co-conspirator with the Holy Land Foundation, who was funding Hamas and other terrorist operations. That barely scratched the surface, though. I recommend this article:
War is Deceit: The Divine Deception
An Empiricist Analysis of Islamic Imperialist Doctrine
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50552133
Wow, burrito and FFFakery are so great at telling lies, I'm surprised The Scene hasn't offered them a job writing blahgs yet. Has anyone heard of any evil white man plots carried out in the last ten years? Do white supremacists slaughter our soldiers? Do they try to blow up Christmas tree lighting ceremonies? Practically every recent terrorist scheme uncovered or carried out in the WORLD has been linked to Islamic extremism, and yes, world theocracy is their goal. You can bow to Mecca if you want, groveling liberal dogs. I won't. This congressional hearing should've happened six years ago. Maybe the Fort Hood massacre (Islamic terror attack) could've been averted.
gast....there was no mandate from ANYONE on bush the elder going in to eliminate saddam. the mandate was to Free Kuwait and nothing more. that he actually listened to the rest of the world, finished the job, and then pulled back is to his eternal credit....unlike his son, who just couldn't seem to leave well enough alone!
@brian: you're forgetting that Congress approved the funding for the invasion, that even Bill Clinton (and remember he had access to much of the intelligence) said that President Bush would be remiss in his duties if he didn't take out Saddam Hussein. Hussein, himself, before he was executed, said he wanted the world to think he had WMDs so that Iran wouldn't invade and that he thought Western actions would be limited to a few bombings. Also, the reason so much of Eupope was angry at us was because we interrupted their secret trade with Iraq that was valued in the billions but was in violation of UN sanctions. The bastards got caught with their hands in the cookie jar. But also remember that we had dozens of allies fighting with us in Iraq. And... the British intelligence officer who provided us with the information about Iraq's buying yellow cake from Niger committed suicide (hmmm) the day after the invasion. Maybe he's the one you should be angry with.
"You can bow to Mecca if you want, groveling liberal dogs."
There's some intellectual banter for you. I bet that guy's got headgear with teabags hanging off it.
That's some interesting info in the above comments, but even if its all true, that doesn't discount the fact that this is a two-way street. If you think we are the blameless shining city on the hill then you've got your head up your ass.
Donna, you've made my point for me. Nobody other than Marvin Bledsoe is saying any of that. I'm sure, for his part, it's easier to believe in a grand conspiracy than it is to believe your son's mind became twisted. Carlos was not a part of the Nashville Muslim community. From what I've heard, he went to the mosque a few times, kept to himself and left for Yemen. Telling is the fact that neither the FBI nor the prosecutor is implicating any Nashville Muslims. I'd put my money on the Feds and the Little Rock DA rather than a grieving father groping for answers and reasons that might make this bitter pill a little easier to swallow.
Mr. Hargrove,
I think you're doing an excellent job of making Donna Locke's point. You discount the ("grieving") father 's knowledge of his son on the grounds that he's potentially biased. But your version of the facts seems rather disingenous. He "went to the mosque a few times" and then (according to your filtration of the facts) just happened to end up in Yemen. I'm not big on conspiracy theories, but it seems to me that you've got your head buried deep in the sand on this one.
Establishing causality "beyond a shadow of a doubt" is impossible. You could always claim that the Bledsoe boy was deranged and "misinterpreted" the "holy teachings" at the mosque.
There are many good and wonderful Islamic people who deserve our respect and protection. That is not the point. The point is, that virtually all serious terrorist acts of late have been perpetrated by Islamic groups, all of which will claim innocence and virtue right up to the point that they kill some people. A balance has to be struck.
For decades (DECADES!) liberals were claiming the Rosenbergs were innocent victims of nasty Republicans --- right up to the moment that released classified documents from Russia confirmed that they were indeed Russian spies whose treason accelerated the progress of Russia's nuclear program at great cost to us. That latter "inconvenient truth" was buried on page 17 of the NY Times the day the story broke.
So while I strongly agree we have to keep the redneck hate-element here firmly under control, I also feel that vigilance is indeed necessary. This a tough balancing act, but balance is needed, not liberal platitudes and one-sided sifting of facts.
I don't know when liberals will open their eyes and see the truth. It's not with any man but Quran.
Quran demands Jihad and the murderer Mohammad cried Jihad as a duty for all Muslims to follow. For those who do not follow Jihad are labeled as "Coward" and Allah will punish them written in Quran.
So, any Pious Muslam must follow the path of Jihad until as Obama said in Egypt, when the whole world becomes peaceful (by Islam conquest - he omitted this part as he quoted from Jihadic verse in Quran)
Mohammad was possessed by schezpphrenic spirit who caused Mohammad suffer the infamous epileptic seizures frequently.
If one reads, one can see the schzophrenic or bipolar tendency in Quran.
We need to burn the evil book, Quran, in the whole world.
We need to destroy all mosques and prohibit the teaching of Mohammad who is like Hitler that turns innocent minds to murderers.
