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February 13, 2008 at 01:12:26
US Air Force Academy Used "Former Terrorists" to Proselytize Fundamentalist Christianity to Cadets by jason leopold Page 1 of 2 page(s) |
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Last week, the prestigious United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs invited three self-described former terrorists who have boasted about murdering hundreds of civilians in the Middle East and blowing up a bank in Israel to speak to cadets about the evils of Islam and their experiences as alleged radical Islamic fundamentalists.
Walid Shoebat, Kamal Saleem and Zacharia Anani claim they were once members of the Palestine Liberation Organization who "practiced hatred against Christians, Jews and Americans, have rioted, bombed and maimed" civilians. Anani maintains that he was trained to kill Jews as a teenager and claims responsibility for the deaths of 223 Arabs who he says he personally killed in "gang warfare." Shoebat and Saleem are US citizens and Anani is a Canadian citizen.
The ex-terrorists have since disavowed their alleged ties with the PLO, denounced their allegiance to Islam, converted to Christianity, and are now on the lecture circuit where their discussions often center on their faith as Christians and how it is a way to conquer Islamic extremists. They maintain a website, 3exterrorists.com, where they say Muslims by and large are determined to launch "jihad's" against the United States. Shoebat is the author of the book "Why We Want to Kill You," released in February 2007.
Shoebat, Saleem and Anani were asked by Air Force Academy officials to speak at last Wednesday's 50th Annual Academy Assembly on the topic: "Dismantling Terrorism: Developing Actionable Solutions for Today’s Plague of Violence” for which they were paid $13,000.
A day before they were due to speak to US Air Force Academy cadets, Meade Warthen, a US Air Force Academy spokesman, said Saleem, Shoebat, and Anani were invited to speak at the academy last week "about their experiences as terrorists so cadets can be prepared for leadership positions on the war on terror."
"The academy assembly has nothing to do with religion or anything with Evangelical Christianity," Warthen said in an interview. "They were invited to give a perspective from a terrorist point-of-view. But we have no control over what they say about any religion good or bad and we certainly are not going to guarantee that they won't say anything" critical about Islam or Muslims.
But moments after taking the stage to address academy cadets, Shoebat and his alleged terrorist colleagues did just that. The men railed against Islam, and praised their newfound faith as Christians.
Getting inside the mind of a terrorist would seem to be an important issue, but these alleged ex-terrorists' close ties to apocalyptic end-times preachers such as John Hagee and Tim LaHaye has caused some to question the veracity of their credentials and wonder if their true mission is to proselytize.
Mikey Weinstein, founder and president of the watchdog group The Military Religious Freedom Foundation http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org and a 1977 graduate of the Air Force Academy, said in an interview that the ex-terrorists are disseminating propaganda and maligning Islam and all Muslims as evildoers while preaching the virtues of fundamental Christianity in hopes of converting the "unchurched"--which ultimately is the goal of behind their lectures. Weinstein criticized the Air Force Academy's decision to invite Shoebat, Saleem, and Anani to speak to cadets saying that it's just another example of the Air Force Academy's long documented history of using unconstitutional, propaganda, fear, and military command influence to promote fundamentalist Christianity to its cadets and staff.
In 2005, Brig. Gen. Cecil R. Richardson, the deputy Air Force Chief of Chaplains, was quoted in a front-page, July 12, 2005, New York Times story saying the Air Force reserves the right "to evangelize the unchurched."
The distinction, Richardson said at the time, "is that proselytizing is trying to convert someone in an aggressive way, while evangelizing is more gently sharing the gospel."
Weinstein filed a federal lawsuit against the Air Force in October 2005 after Richardson's comments were published alleging "severe, systemic and pervasive" religious discrimination within the Air Force. The federal lawsuit was dismissed, but the Air Force agreed to withdraw a document that authorized chaplains to evangelize members of the military.
Weinstein says the inclusion of the ex-terrorists as guest speakers is the US Air Force Academy’s way of continuing to proselytize.
"In the four years that our Military Religious Freedom Foundation has been fighting this invasion of fundamentalist Christianity in the US military absolutely nothing has been as surreal as this event," Weinstein said. "The US Air Force Academy has either invited Osama Bin Laden and his buddies or Las Vegas Elvis impersonators to come to speak. No matter which category this falls into to this represents a scandalous outrage that is off the scale of repugnancy and duplicity. These three jokers are as much former Islamic terrorists as Star Trek’s Captain James T. Kirk was a real Starship Captain. Our foundation will immediately include this entire sordid matter as part of our federal lawsuit against the Pentagon currently being litigated in Kansas City."
In September, MRFF filed a lawsuit in federal court against Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and US Army Maj. Freddy Welborn, on behalf of an Army soldier stationed in Iraq. The complaint filed in US District Court in Kansas City alleges that Jeremy Hall's an Army specialist currently on active duty in Combat Operations Base Speicher, Iraq, First Amendment rights were violated when Welborn threatened to retaliate against Hall and block his reenlistment in the Army because of Hall's atheist beliefs.
Prior to the ex-terrorists appearance at the US Air Force Academy last week, the Washington, DC-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an Islamic civil rights organization, said last week that it asked academy officials to invite members of Colorado’s Muslim community to “offer balancing perspective to what the "hate-filled rhetoric" of the invited speakers.”
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So,...
are these three supposed to have changed? Or have they simply changed brands? by John Sanchez Jr. (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 25 diaries, 1793 comments [148 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Wednesday, Feb 13, 2008 at 9:39:54 AM  (0+)
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They are imposters
Contacted last week, a State Department official said the alleged terrorists would have had to disclose their terrorist ties on their application for citizenship and if they did it "would have most certainly raised red-flags, led to deportation, or arrests." If they lied on their applications and did not disclose their terrorist ties that would be considered a felony and would result in immediate deportation, the state department official. Your above referred comment strengthens the belief that the three self-proclaimed “terrorists” are no more than imposters. But who are they? Who is Walid Shoebat? Walid Shoebat has found a way to make money by fabricating a fantasy story and claiming to be a former terrorist. Shoebat's father was from Beit Sahour in Palestine and his mother was an American Christian. His father was not a practicing Muslim and Shoebat spent very few years in Palestine. When Shoebat was young his father killed another man in Beit Sahour and the family was forced to leave town while Shoebat was young. Walid Shoebat and his mother returned to the United States and he was raised a Christian. Shoebat now gets between $13,000 to $15,000 per speaking event. Who is Kamal Saleem? Doug Howard, a professor of Middle East history at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., says he and several other academics have been researching the men since Kamal Saleem spoke at the college last fall. “We suspect he’s a fraud,” Howard said. Howard has determined that Saleem’s real name is Khodor Shami, a Lebanese who immigrated as a student and worked for the Christian Broadcasting Network for 16 years starting in the late 1980s. He was hired in 2003 at Focus on the Family. Who is Zachariah Anani? Tom Quiggin, Canada's only court-qualified expert on global jihadism and a former Police intelligence and national security expert, says that Zachariah Anani's tales of terror and murder just don't jibe with the time and place he claims to have been killing. "Mr. Anani's not an individual who rates the slightest degree of credibility, based on the stories that he has told," said Quiggin. "It appears to be that Mr. Anani is nothing more than an extremist who is trying to create an imaginative history from a contemporary set of fears and stories," said Quiggin. Why they are not arrested? The question is if the three were actually terrorists then why they weren’t jailed or deported? According to Rev. Jim Sutter of the HateWatch.com, every known terrorist is on one or more of the 12 US watchlists, and the combined watchlist used by TSA to screen airline passengers. Shoebat is going around the country, making this claim over and over that he used to be a terrorist - are you really naive enough to think that if his claim were true, he wouldn't be on a watch list? Shoebat has a "highly questionable" background. He has admitted to not using his real name as he travels around the country, picking up a small mountain of cash at speaking engagements, through his writing books and columns, where he tells us how Islam is evil, and how he was a big, bad former terrorist. Yet he freely flies around the country, not being on anyone's watchlist or the no-fly list. UC Davis police asked to detain admitted 'terrorist' Not surprisingly, in February 2007, the Sacramento Valley chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SV) called on campus police at the University of California - Davis to detain Walid Shoebat who was scheduled to speak at UC Davis because he has stated publicly that he bombed an Israeli bank and participated in other acts of violence in the Middle East. Why Shoebat is not arrested? Mission statement on his website gives us some clue: Walid Shoebat Foundation: An organization that cries out for the Justice of Israel and the Jewish people. In short, apparently the trio is not arrested simply because they have converted to Christianity and support Israel. However, it is disappointing that a prestigious military institution like the US Air Force Academy became part of the imposters’ dubious mission of fomenting hate and prejudice through bigotry. Abdus Sattar Ghazali by Abdus Sattar Ghazali (87 articles, 1 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 1 comments) on Wednesday, Feb 13, 2008 at 12:51:30 PM (0+)
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It is arguable...
that those who profit from making the public fearful are terrorists, and they should be accorded the same treatment as terrorists regardless of the religion they claim to profess this week. by John Sanchez Jr. (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 25 diaries, 1793 comments [148 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Wednesday, Feb 13, 2008 at 1:45:53 PM (0+)
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How Sad.
People trained to lie, steal and murder in the name of a book, a book that specifically says DO NOT lie, DO NOT steal and DO NOT murder. Certainly proves just how gullible human beings can be at times. by Edward Ulysses Cate (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 232 comments [9 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Wednesday, Feb 13, 2008 at 3:00:35 PM (0+)
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Fundies are Fundies
These three are either criminals that should be jailed and then deported, or they are liars. Either way, a Fundie is a Fundie, christian or moslem. In any case, they should not be at the Air Force Academy, as should not be all the christian fundies. Regardless of their ilk, no Fundie should be proselytizing in the military. by kanawah (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 100 comments) on Wednesday, Feb 13, 2008 at 5:40:19 PM (0+)
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Poor journalism
Walid Shoebat never boasted about killing any civilian. Can you show a single quote? Evidence? You can't even if you try. Have you interviewed these men before you published your article? Or is this a rehash of the garbage that floats around? As far as the $13,000, do you publish articles on how much Clinton or Gore get paid for speaking? Would you mind if you got paid $13,000 for each lousey article you publish? Your statement that “the men railed against Islam”, don’t you think that we have enough “railing” against Christianity? CAIR was offered to speak on terrorism, yet they rejected, all they wanted to speak is on “Islam”. Yet it is ok that they speak on Islam, yet no Christian is allowed to speak? Can a speaker be a Christian? Or must he be only Buddhist or atheist? I heard these men, in fact Walid Shoebat stated in his speech “I condemn anyone who flushes a Quran in the toilet, this is disgusting.” Did you giveWalid’s quote in your biased article? What’s wrong if Kamal Saleem became Christian? Do you condemn people for converting to Islam? Everyone is fee to convert to whatever religion they choose? by Marie Peters (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments) on Thursday, Feb 14, 2008 at 6:21:28 PM (0+)
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