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Open Season on Muslims in America - by Stephen Lendman
More than ever today, Muslims are public enemy number one. Post-9/11, they've been ruthlessly vilified and persecuted for their faith, ethnicity, prominence and activism. As a result, innocent men and women have been spuriously called terrorists, or charged with conspiracy to provide them material support.
No wonder as an earlier article explained. They've been unfairly portrayed as culturally inferior, dirty, lecherous, untrustworthy, religiously fanatical, violent, gun-toting terrorists. As a result, hundreds have been wrongfully arrested, charged, convicted and imprisoned, guilty only of being Muslims in America at the wrong time. Their treatment represents a clear indictment of US injustice, targeting innocent victims for political advantage.
A September 20 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report titled, "American Jihadist Terrorism: Combating a Complex Threat" explains more about America's scheme, naming names, "plots," and dates to highlight the "threat." It begins saying:
"Between May 2009 and August 2010 (alone), arrests were made for 19 'homegrown,' jihadist-inspired terrorist plots by American citizens or legal permanent residents of the United States." They were Muslims "susceptible to ideologies supporting a violent form of jihad, a term willfully misused. CRS suggests that jihad = violence, "jihadists,"....illegally supporting, plotting, or directly engaging in violent terrorist activity."
Post-9/11, CRS cited 40 homegrown "jihadist" plots, including attacks on America, likely reflecting Al Qaeda directed schemes, it said.
During America's "war on terror," terms like Al Qaeda, outside enemies, jihadists, and Islamic terrorists are interchangeably used to incite fear. Recruited by the CIA and Pakistan's ISI, Al Qaeda or Mujahideen were defenders of Muslim lands against the 1980s Soviet Afghan occupation. At the time, Reagan officials called them a "necessary response" against imperial communism.
In 1998, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter's National Security Advisor, confirmed it in an interview, saying:
"....CIA aid to the Mujahideen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan" in late December 1979. President Carter then "signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the President in which I explained to him that in my opinion, this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention."
He explained further that America had "the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War. Indeed for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire."
Key is that Al Qaeda was Washington's invention. Reagan called them freedom fighters. Today, under any name, they're "terrorists," innocent Americans wrongfully charged with supporting them, mostly through entrapment stings producing no evidence besides what paid FBI informants say. It's their word against suspects, as well as illegally taped conversations, innocent comments from them made to sound incriminating.
"How Do People Become Violent Jihadists," CRS asked? Charismatic "(i)ntermediaries, social networks, the Internet, and prisons" play key roles...."
Plots enumerated include:
(1) "Endgames," involving individuals wanting to become foreign fighters in conflict zones;
(2) Suicide or Martyrdom" by violent jihad;
(3) "Success of Lone Wolves," unconnected to others; and
