Following the murderous attack at a Colorado Planned Parenthood by disturbed loner Robert Lewis Dear, the discussion quickly centered on a “climate of hate” or “culture of violence” pro-life organizations supposedly created against abortion supporters.
This was in part because Dear may have uttered the phrase “no more baby parts,” a possible reference to a series of pro-life undercover videos documenting how individuals affiliated with Planned Parenthood have engaged in the sale and transfer of fetal issue.
This messaging targeting pro-life organizations was not accidental, but rather part of a concentrated effort, BuzzFeed reported:
The word ‘terrorism’ is important, activists told BuzzFeed News. They’re trying to make the case that anti-abortion rhetoric ties directly to abortion clinic vandalism, and, finally, to the Colorado shooting. ‘Terrorism’ signals that the ideology behind the shooting was extreme in nature, activists said, and suggests a network of anti-abortion groups and advocates are helping to fuel violence.
Hogue said she knows a thorough investigation into the Colorado shooting is ongoing, and that details of the shooter and his motivations will continue to come out. But the deaths at a Planned Parenthood clinic are about more than one man’s acts, she told BuzzFeed News in an interview.
‘The story is not about this one guy,’ she said. ‘The story is about a really well-funded, really well-connected infrastructure that outlives any one candidate, any one guy, and creates a culture.’
By comparison, following the attack at the Inland Regional Center, where Syed Farooq and his wife Tasheen Malik killed 14 and wounded many more, the Left’s reaction was almost entirely the opposite, seeking to limit the discussion to just the perpetrators. While finally forced to do so following the discovery of an entire “IED factory” in their home, reports admitted Farooq had “been radicalized,” a passive phrase offering no clues as to who or what had created the “culture of violence” surrounding the two terrorists.
A recently revealed Twitter account evidently belonging to Syed Farooq was discovered, however, showing the shooter followed several organizations typically viewed as “mainstream” Islamic groups, including the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR), CAIR-San Francisco Bay-Area, the Muslim American Society (MAS), and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA)’s “Why Islam” campaign Twitter, in addition to several pro-Islamic feeds and the official Free Syrian Army page.
Will there be any analysis about whether these organizations may have used rhetoric resulting in a “climate of hate?” Every one of these groups has been recognized as members or allies of the Muslim Brotherhood, a global Islamic organization dedicated to imposing Sharia law. Isn’t it possible that the MB and its front groups bear some responsibility for rhetoric that might invite violence?
Islamists Certainly Use Violent Rhetoric
Consider that in 2010 Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie (now in prison in Egypt) gave a speech entitled, “The U.S. Is Now Experiencing the Beginning of Its End,” where he described the United States as “immoral” and headed for its demise, and called for waging jihad.
Closer to home, in 1998 CAIR National founder emeritus Omar Ahmad told an audience, “Islam wasn’t in America to be equal to any other faith but to be dominant.” CAIR executive director Nihad Awad informed readers of Islam Online that there is a “coordinated campaign against Islam” in the United States carried out by Christians and the pro-Israel lobby, and that the anti-terror policies of the U.S. government were racist. In 2001, Awad said “resistance” to Israel “may be necessary.”
CAIR San Francisco leader Zahra Billoo encouraged anti-American hatred on her Twitter feed, raising questions of whether U.S. troops should be honored for fighting “unjust wars” but seeking help for a “clack liberation soldier,” Jamil Abdullah Amin (a.k.a. H.Rap Brown), a Georgia-based imam and former Black Panther in jail for murdering a police officer.
Amin’s arrest also motivated now-deceased al-Qaeda terrorist Anwar Awlaki, who was investigated by the FBI while he went on tour speaking to raise funds for Amin’s defense. In fact, that speech occurred in southern California just two days after 9/11, and was sponsored by CAIR, MAS, and ICNA, among other MB-affiliated groups.
Islamists Have Also Gone from Words to Violence
Nor is CAIR alone in ratcheting up tensions with their words. Former ICNA President Abdul Malik Mujahid has described American Muslims as “living in a Virtual internment camp,” and as a population “under siege.” Mujahid has been criticized for his statement at a 1995 Islamic Society of North America conference apparently attempting to encourage Muslims to fight jihad in Bosnia:
Qital [killing] is an essential element of Islam. And sometimes you don’t like it. Qital is ordained upon you, though it is hateful to you, but it may happen that you hate a thing which is good for you, and it may happen that you love a thing which is bad for you…. And one example is, now we have 60 or so Muslim countries, and not a single one of them wants to go for Qital and Jihad for Bosnia. Qital is ordained upon you though it is hateful to you.
Mujahid has admitted to making the statement, but claims it was taken out of context. Mujahid was also one of the organizers of a “Stand With the Prophet” rally against the “blasphemous” drawing of Islam’s prophet Mohammed in Garland, Texas. A cartoon contest held in the same location in support of free speech was attacked by Islamic State supporters Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi earlier this year.
ICNA is the U.S. front of Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), a Pakistan-based Islamic movement related to the Muslim Brotherhood. The leader of JeI in Pakistan, Sirajul Haq, declared in January that the West had chosen a path leading “to a third world war” due to its “extremist” stance supporting freedom of speech by permitting people to draw Mohammed.
Former MAS Freedom Foundation director Mahdi Bray has described the United States as waging a “war on Muslims” (a propaganda point also frequently used by al-Qaeda and the Islamic State), of “stealing from poor Muslim Americans,” and said a U.S. anti-terrorism trial “legally lynched” convicted (and deported) Palestinian Islamic Jihad organizer Sami Al-Arian.
Given Farooq’s support for these groups, and given their rhetoric, perhaps its time to ask how these statements influenced the “climate of violence”? There’s certainly a better case to be made that Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups, whose leaders extol “resistance” and say “killing is ordained upon you” might have a bigger role in those who carry out murder than a series of investigative videos.
