The FBI is teaching its counterterrorism agents that “main stream” [sic] American Muslims are likely to be terrorist sympathizers; that the Prophet Mohammed was a “cult leader”; and that the Islamic practice of giving charity is no more than a “funding mechanism for combat.”
At the Bureau’s training ground in Quantico, Virginia, agents are shown a chart contending that the more “devout” a Muslim, the more likely he is to be “violent.” Those destructive tendencies cannot be reversed, an FBI instructional presentation adds: “Any war against non-believers is justified” under Muslim law; a “moderating process cannot happen if the Koran continues to be regarded as the unalterable word of Allah.”
These are excerpts from dozens of pages of recent FBI training material on Islam that Danger Room has acquired. In them, the Constitutionally protected religious faith of millions of Americans is portrayed as an indicator of terrorist activity.
“There may not be a ‘radical’ threat as much as it is simply a normal assertion of the orthodox ideology,” one FBI presentation notes. “The strategic themes animating these Islamic values are not fringe; they are main stream.”
The FBI isn’t just treading on thin legal ice by portraying ordinary, observant Americans as terrorists-in-waiting, former counterterrorism agents say. It’s also playing into al-Qaida’s hands.
The official version
What the FBI says is absolutely true. The problems with the report are many. For example the use of the word “combat.” What is wrong with “to contend against?” Every religion is a cult contending against something. Mostly sin. Whatever that is? The fringe of every religion ——-Christian, Judaism, etc.——are “prone” to violence. “We the people” and our FBI should be keeping an eye on all of them. Especially when people like Netanyhu are running Israel.
a “moderating process cannot happen if the Koran continues to be regarded as the unalterable word of Allah.”
Interesting. How about we substitute “Bible” for “Koran” and “God” for “Allah”, and see how that holds for particularly fundamentalist Christians.
The Prophet Mohammed was a cult leader. And Jesus and his disciples constituted a “what” – and early Christians constituted a “what”, until the Roman Empire adopted Christianity as the official religion of the Empire around 330 AD?
Next time some asshole Republican complains about waste, fraud, and abuse of government funds, how about pointing to this idiotic program of training? And fire the people responsible for it.
Funny. The Constitution. What was that again?
The Constitution is a joke.