James Yee and CAIR: the government MADE the “Fort Dix Six” do it!

James Yee, former military chaplain at Gitmo who was caught with documents that listed detainees by name, their cell locations, and their interrogators.  Hardly information necessary to minister to them, and he never did come up with an explanation for it.  The government badly fumbled the case against him, and he’s free now – and a mouthpiece for unindicted terror supporters at CAIR.  In the defense of the Fort Dix Six, he says,

“It seems like these guys under normal circumstances weren’t going to do anything until a government informant initiates contact with them and incites them,”

Except they were already doing something.  As Andrew Whitehead writes,

It was under normal circumstances that the FBI learned of the Fort Dix Six’s jihadist practices when one of the six brought a home made terror training video tape to a shop to have the tape converted to DVD.  The employee watched the tape in the course of making the copy, and viewed alarming and shocking militant jihad-like activity which prompted him to call the authorities. Undoubtedly due to the efforts of groups like CAIR, the clerk actually worried over being called a racist if he called the authorities and alerted them to what he had seen.

Over at Muslims Against Sharia, Allen Jannsen provides three quarters of a loaf.  Yes, there is a fringe element in Islam doing these things, and that fringe element hates moderate Muslims perhaps even more than they hate us infidels.  Yes, there are fringe elements in every religion.  But rather than citing abortion clinic bombers, who are faith-based terrorists, he cites the Oklahoma City bombing.  Except that Tim McVeigh was a lapsed Catholic whose motivations for the bombing were revenge against the government for Waco and Ruby Ridge.  There has never been a major terror attack that has been claimed to be based on the Christian faith.  And even the smaller attacks are few and far between.  There have been about 160 incidents – mostly arson, but 37 bombings – of abortion clinics over twelve years.  Nor do such terrorists benefit from the silence and/or support of Christians in general.  Eric Rudolph enjoyed the support of a handful of people, but was reduced to living in the woods, stealing from vegetable gardens, and going into a nearby town to scavenge from dumpsters for a reason – he wasn’t well enough supported to have better alternatives.  And as for his “Christian faith” since he was imprisoned, he’s written,

“Many good people continue to send me money and books. Most of them have, of course, an agenda; mostly born-again Christians looking to save my soul. I suppose the assumption is made that because I’m in here I must be a ’sinner’ in need of salvation, and they would be glad to sell me a ticket to heaven, hawking this salvation like peanuts at a ballgame. I do appreciate their charity, but I could really do without the condescension. They have been so nice I would hate to break it to them that I really prefer Nietzsche to the Bible.”

So much for his Christianity.  In any event, I appreciate that Janssen is onboard with the idea of the Islamic neighborhood watch concept, and I should probably not criticize them too much – we really are in agreement overall.  He complains,

Instead of a fast and forceful condemnation of acts of terrorism, Islamic Apologists are quick to jump to the defense of these people. This not only gives a false impression of the situation, but actually encourages others to take up the banner of whatever particular lunacy is the order of the day. And more the pity, because until the apologists learn to keep there mouths shut the problem will be self-perpetuating.

That would certainly help a great deal.  He’s certainly doing a better job of identifying the problem than the media or our government is.  And his solution is an excellent start.  But I agree with Robert Spencer that what is most needed is Islamic scholars to step up to the plate and refute the radical ideology.

Yet while Muslim and non-Muslim spokesmen have spilled oceans of ink since 9/11 asserting that Islam condemns “terrorism” and the killing of “innocents,” without defining what is meant by either term, no one has ever produced any examples of authoritative and orthodox Islamic religious scholars rejecting, on Islamic grounds, jihad violence against non-Muslims; rejecting the idea that Sharia law should be instituted in the Muslim and non-Muslim world; and teaching the idea that non-Muslims and Muslims should live together indefinitely as equals.