The NY TIMES is following this story!

February 7, 2008

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

The Air Force Academy was criticized by Muslim and religious freedom organizations for playing host on Wednesday to three speakers who critics say are evangelical Christians falsely claiming to be former Muslim terrorists.

The three men were invited as part of a weeklong conference on terrorism organized by cadets at the academy’s Colorado Springs campus under the auspices of the political science department.

The three will be paid a total of $13,000 for their appearance, some of it from private donors, said Maj. Brett Ashworth, a spokesman for the academy.

The three were invited because “they offered a unique perspective from inside terrorism,” Major Ashworth said. The conference is to result in a report on methods to combat terrorism that will be sent to the Pentagon, members of Congress and other influential officials, he added.

Members of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a group suing the federal government to combat what it calls creeping evangelism in the armed forces, said it was typical of the Air Force Academy to invite born-again Christians to address cadets on terrorism rather than experts who could teach students about the Middle East.

“This stuff going on at the academy today is part of the endemic evangelical infiltration that continues,” said David Antoon, a 1970 academy graduate and a foundation member.

The three men were invited to talk about being recruited and trained as terrorists, not religion, although one of them, Zak Anani, did tell students that converting to Christianity from Islam saved his life, said John Van Winkle, another spokesman for the academy.

Muslim organizations objected to the fact that no other perspective about Islam was offered, saying that the three speakers — Mr. Anani, Kamal Saleem and Walid Shoebat — habitually paint Muslims as inherently violent. All were born in the Middle East but Mr. Saleem and Mr. Shoebat are now American citizens, while Mr. Anani has Canadian citizenship.

“Their entire world view is based on the idea that Islam is evil,” said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on Islamic American Relations. “We want to provide a balancing perspective to their hate speech.”

Academic professors and others who have heard the three men speak in the United States and Canada said some of their stories border on the fantastic, like Mr. Saleem’s account of how, as a child, he infiltrated Israel to plant bombs via a network of tunnels underneath the Golan Heights. No such incidents have been reported, the academic experts said. They also question how three middle-aged men who claim they were recruited as teenagers or younger could have been steeped in the violent religious ideology that only became prevalent in the late 1980s.

Prof. Douglas Howard, who teaches the history of the modern Middle East at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., heard Mr. Saleem speak last November at the college and said he thought the three were connected to several major Christian evangelical organizations.

“It was just an old time gospel hour — ‘Jesus can change your life, he changed mine,’ ” Mr. Howard said. “That is mixed in with ‘Watch out America, wake up America, the danger of Islam is here.’ ”

Mr. Howard said his doubts about their authenticity grew after stories like the Golan Heights saga as well as something on Mr. Saleem’s Web site along the lines that he was descended from the grand wazir of Islam. “The grand wazir of Islam is a nonsensical term,” Mr. Howard said.

Keith Davies, the director of the Walid Shoebat Foundation, which organizes their appearances, said critics tried to undermine the speakers’ reputation because “they can’t argue with the message.”

Arab-American civil rights organizations question why, at a time when the United States government has vigorously moved to jail or at least deport anyone with a known terrorist connection, the three men, if they are telling the truth, are allowed to circulate freely. A spokesman for the F.B.I. said there were no warrants for their arrest.

by Eileen Fleming (135 articles, 45 quicklinks, 260 diaries, 577 comments) on Thursday, February 7, 2008 at 7:31:43 AM
 

my first threat of leagl action

I received my first threat of legal action on Feb. 5th AM, just hours after

Failure of Intelligence to Support the Troops

Read more...

Was published.

At 1 AM on Fat Tuesday morn, Keith Davies, Walid's handler sent me an email threat of a lawsuit unless I issued "a full apology and retraction"

Walid's OP followed his threat, which OPN has published in full and from which I only excerpt. Before I reply to Walid's epistle, I begin with my email reply to his handler:

Hi Keith,



No apology and no retraction will come from me. The issue for me and the point of my article which Walid and you ignore is:



Walid's brand of Christianity has nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus who promised it is the peacemakers who are the children of God and not those that bomb, torture, starve or occupy others.



Walid's brand of Christianity defies that "God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. There is no fear in love. Perfect love drives out all fear because fear has to do with punishment." 1 John 4:16, 18



Walid's brand of Christianity as professed by anti-Christ's [against the teachings of Christ] such as John Hagee and Tim La Haye's Left Behind nonsense is the epitome of the spirit of the anti-Christ: fear of the other that drives one to violence.



Walid's brand of Christianity thrives on fear and Jesus said: "FEAR NOT! You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free."





Walid's brand of Christianity leaves behind all the non-negotiables for those who claim to be a Christian; which is you must forgive, bless and love your enemies.



The problem is not with Christianity but that too few have done it the way Jesus taught and modeled: to always work for PEACEFUL resolutions, even to the point of returning violence with compassion and forgiveness, as Jesus did when nailed to a cross and he prayed: "Father forgive them, they do not know what they are doing."



St. Paul who never hesitated expressing his freedom of speech warned, "Do not judge the non-believer, it is none of your business. But, when it comes to the believer, provoke one another to good works."



God knows the motivations of Walid's heart, but as Rev. Awad warned, "Christians are called by God to prayerfully use the gift of discernment."



Discernment and good intelligence is what our troops need, and that is not what they are receiving on February 6, 2008 at the USA Air Force Academy, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in the heart of the western Bible Belt.





"You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won't back down."-Tom Petty

Eileen Fleming,

Reporter and Editor WAWA:

by Eileen Fleming (135 articles, 45 quicklinks, 260 diaries, 577 comments) on Thursday, February 7, 2008 at 7:44:08 AM
 

the rest of my reply

WAWA Blog February 7, 2008: It maybe Ash Wednesday, but I am still laughing over Fat Tuesday morning. 

by Eileen Fleming (135 articles, 45 quicklinks, 260 diaries, 577 comments) on Thursday, February 7, 2008 at 7:47:51 AM
 

Why are you not holed up at Guantanamo ?

If this Walid Shoebat person truly is a terrorist, then will somebody please explain to me WHY is he not being prosecuted for his crimes. The way I see it is, if the man spent the best years of his life murdering and maiming innocent Israelis, then he should be holed up at Guantanamo and be serving time for his actions, not be treated like some kind of media star. Would we forgive the perpetrators of 9/11 simply if they were to convert to an extremist form of fundamentalist Christianity ?

The man keeps blabbering away, yes, yes, I was a terrorist. How pathetic can it get ? If he really was a terrorist, please LOCK HIM UP and stop misusing the nonsense he sprouts as a means of slandering innocent Muslims, who, unlike him, for the most part are not involved in illegal activities.

by Suhail Shafi (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 5 comments) on Monday, February 11, 2008 at 6:47:16 PM
 

Is this Balanced?

How is this balanced reporting?

by Marie Peters (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments) on Thursday, February 14, 2008 at 6:55:07 PM