The news that the family of Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry owned a ranch known by the name “Niggerhead” has sparked outrage. But both Perry–and Mitt Romney, who is leading the Republican presidential pack for now–have no shame and have faced little scrutiny when it comes to their courting of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian activists and advisers.
Perry, who says that his support for Israel derives from God, is close with an ardent backer of Israel who is tied to the viciously anti-Muslim movie “Obsession,” as investigative journalist Wayne Barrett reported earlier this week in the Daily Beast. And one of Romney’s “special advisers” in his “shadow National Security Council” is Walid Phares, an Islamophobe featured in the Center for American Progress report, Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America.
Barrett writes that Rabbi Irwin Katsof, who has taken Perry to Israel twice, is a “singularly important bridge between Perry and Israel’s supporters in the U.S.” Barrett also uncovers details that link Katsof to the Islamophobic film “Obsession,” which was sent to mailboxes in swing-states during the 2008 presidential election.
Perry’s ties to Katsof should come as no surprise, given that Perry surrounds himself with other “violent Jewish extremists,” as Max Blumenthal reported for Al Akhbar English. These revelations about those close to Perry should cloud the image of Perry as a friend to the Muslim community–which might be a good thing politically for Perry, who is seeking the support of a party whose base is not friendly to Muslims.
Romney, whose tack in the campaign has been to be the moderate, responsible Republican who can beat Barack Obama, is courting advisers with similar views on Israel/Palestine and Islam. While his “shadow” national security team includes neoconservative stalwarts like Dan Senor, the most alarming member of the team is Phares. Phares was a member of the Lebanese Front, the Christian militia that took part in the Sabra and Shatila massacres in Lebanon.
Here’s the Center for American Progress profile of him in their Fear, Inc. report:
Walid Phares is currently a senior fellow and the director of the Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C. Phares, age 53, also acts as an “expert” lecturer on “Islamist Jihadism” for the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies. Phares is touted as an authentic expert on Muslims and political Islam despite being a former militiaman and foreign affairs spokesman for the mostly Christian Lebanese Front, which was responsible for the Sabra and Shatila massacres of Muslims during the September 1982 Lebanese Civil War.
Phares promotes the conspiracy theory of mainstream Muslim organizations posing as radical Islamist cells. He warns that “jihadists within the West pose as civil rights advocates” and patiently recruit until “[a]lmost all mosques, educational centers,and socioeconomic institutions fall into their hands.” He was originally scheduled to testify at Rep. King’s criticized hearings on the alleged radicalization of the Muslim American community but was dropped at the last moment after his sordid history with the Lebanese Forces was uncovered.
When Phares was asked about his connection to the leadership that allowed the atrocities to occur, he simply replied, “Everybody did silly stuff, on both hands… but amazingly enough, the Guardians of the Cedars [a right-wing Christian religious group within the Lebanese Forces] have been the most moral fighters.”
The inclusion of Phares as one of Romney’s advisers should put lie to the notion that there exists a “moderate” GOP. But the most frustrating thing of all is that Obama won’t make an issue out of Islamophobia and a candidate’s views on Israel. Obama runs away from any contact with Muslim groups and will spend a big chunk of his re-election campaign defending his record as a great ally of Israel. Meanwhile, no matter who is president in 2012, Palestinians will continue to suffer under a U.S.-backed occupation and Muslims in America will continue to deal with systematic rights violations and bigotry.
Alex Kane, a freelance journalist based in New York City, blogs at alexbkane.wordpress.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexbkane.
Looks like you guys are voting Obama again. How about using the hundreds of thousands of dollars wasted on the flotillas to support a political candidate? How about winning in ONE district? Why not prove your theory about educating Americans by focusing on ONE district and educating them there? That you won’t do these things show that you know also that your theory’s are just wrong.
“The inclusion of Phares as one of Romney’s advisers should put lie to the notion that there exists a “moderate” GOP”
Chomsky said recently that the Dems are now where moderate Republicans used to be and the Republicans have shifted even further right. Into the foothills of corporate fascism I guess .
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/09/201192514364490977.html
There was also a sharp change in the US economy in the 1970s, towards financialisation and export of production. A variety of factors converged to create a vicious cycle of radical concentration of wealth, primarily in the top fraction of 1 per cent of the population – mostly CEOs, hedge-fund managers, and the like. That leads to the concentration of political power, hence state policies to increase economic concentration: fiscal policies, rules of corporate governance, deregulation, and much more. Meanwhile the costs of electoral campaigns skyrocketed, driving the parties into the pockets of concentrated capital, increasingly financial: the Republicans reflexively, the Democrats – by now what used to be moderate Republicans – not far behind.
Elections have become a charade, run by the public relations industry. After his 2008 victory, Obama won an award from the industry for the best marketing campaign of the year. Executives were euphoric. In the business press they explained that they had been marketing candidates like other commodities since Ronald Reagan, but 2008 was their greatest achievement and would change the style in corporate boardrooms. The 2012 election is expected to cost $2bn, mostly in corporate funding. Small wonder that Obama is selecting business leaders for top positions. The public is angry and frustrated, but as long as the Muasher principle prevails, that doesn’t matter.
While wealth and power have narrowly concentrated, for most of the population real incomes have stagnated and people have been getting by with increased work hours, debt, and asset inflation, regularly destroyed by the financial crises that began as the regulatory apparatus was dismantled starting in the 1980s.
None of this is problematic for the very wealthy, who benefit from a government insurance policy called “too big to fail.” The banks and investment firms can make risky transactions, with rich rewards, and when the system inevitably crashes, they can run to the nanny state for a taxpayer bailout, clutching their copies of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman.
That has been the regular process since the Reagan years, each crisis more extreme than the last – for the public population, that is. Right now, real unemployment is at Depression levels for much of the population, while Goldman Sachs, one of the main architects of the current crisis, is richer than ever. It has just quietly announced $17.5bn in compensation for last year, with CEO Lloyd Blankfein receiving a $12.6m bonus while his base salary more than triples.
It wouldn’t do to focus attention on such facts as these. Accordingly, propaganda must seek to blame others, in the past few months, public sector workers, their fat salaries, exorbitant pensions, and so on: all fantasy, on the model of Reaganite imagery of black mothers being driven in their limousines to pick up welfare checks – and other models that need not be mentioned. We all must tighten our belts; almost all, that is.
Don’t forget the rabid Islamaphobic arch-Zionist Cain.
“Pam Geller Linked Anti-Muslim Activist Calls For Mass Murder Of Congressmen, Muslims, Liberals And Journalists”
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/10/04/335823/pam-geller-john-jay-mass-murder/
Google cache of the offending page, October 2, 2011. Catch it while you can.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://wintersoldier2008.typepad.com/summer_patriot_winter_sol/2011/09/start-the-revolution-.html
“Everybody did silly stuff, on both hands… but amazingly enough, the Guardians of the Cedars [a right-wing Christian religious group within the Lebanese Forces] have been the most moral fighters.”
This must be wrong. The most moral fighters is always IDF!!! Even when they do silly stuff.
It is their trademark.
If you steal their trademark then you must be anti-IDF.
And then Dershowitz will enter the stage and prove that you are anti-something by pretending that a glove doesn’t fit or some other silly stuff.