Useful fools for the bin Ladenists, cited in today's Wall Street Journal, no less:
Islamic radicals are seizing on protests against a planned Islamic community center near Manhattan's Ground Zero and anti-Muslim rhetoric elsewhere as a propaganda opportunity and are stepping up anti-U.S. chatter and threats on their websites...
Controversy over the community center, which will contain a mosque and other facilities, has helped fan anti-Muslim rhetoric in the U.S. far from Lower Manhattan in recent weeks.
Jarret Brachman, director of Cronus Global, a security consulting firm, and author of the book Global Jihadism, said al Qaeda and other groups have long used imagery from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to recruit new members. But the U.S. position has been that those wars are not against Islam and that the U.S. has Muslim allies in the fight.
Anti-Muslim rhetoric in the U.S is different, since jihadists can use Americans' words to make the case that the U.S. is indeed at war with Islam. The violent postings are not just on al Qaeda-linked websites but on prominent, mainstream Muslim chat forums, Mr. Brachman said.
"We are handing al Qaeda a propaganda coup, an absolute propaganda coup," with the Islamic-center controversy, said Evan Kohlmann, an independent terrorism consultant at Flashpoint Partners who monitors jihadist websites.
Critics of the proposed Islamic center said their right to speak out shouldn't be influenced by the possibility of jihadist threats. "We will never win a war when we are afraid to even name our enemies," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said in an e-mail Sunday.
So the egregious Mr. Gingrich has named American muslims who have absolutely nothing to do with violent extremists or the 9/11 attacks "our enemies." Good work, Newt! Out of respect for the sensitivities of our readers, I won't use the only descriptive words for this creature that reach far enough into the gutter to brand Mr. Gingrich appropriately and where he lies.
Yeah, I guess I'm harping on this controversy, but nothing has struck me as such a perfect storm of nothingness - in terms of any substantive issue - combined with an aggressively ignorant, and even vicious, mean-streak, courtesy of cold, calculating demagogues of the Right. Not to mention the cowardice of too many politicians who should know better. I try not to use the term "Un-American" because it's so easily and often misused, but if it ever had any meaning - in the sense of a willful departure from the values of the Bill of Rights - it surely applies to the likes of Gingrich and Co.
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