People believe what they want to believe. Mention the word “terrorists”, and images of bearded men brandishing Kalishnikovs immediately pop to mind. Last week, the FBI swooped in on seven men accused of planning an attack on Chicago’s Sears Tower.
Presumably, the group calling itself Seas of David had aspired to wipe out as many “devils” as possible.
At first glance, the profiles that the mainstream media coughed up on these homegrown terrorists were entirely typical.
Who else can they be but Muslims?
To make matters clearer, US Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales has little doubt
that the group is
inspired by, (wait for the drumroll)
…a violent jihadist message.
Which is funny, because a source close to one of the arrested men insists that,
…He studies the Bible and cares only for Jesus.
A clear paradox then. All good people know that Jihad and Jesus don’t mix. So even though the seven misfits subscribe to a belief that is a hotchpotch of the
Semitic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, an unconscious consensus was reached to play up only one part of the unholy triad- Islam.
The proof, as they say, is entirely in the pudding. The name of one of the
alleged attackers kept on appearing- Brother Sunni. Evidently, it’s trumpeted as irrevocable proof of Islam’s doctrinal involvement in the aborted Sears attack.
Thanks to the Iraq war, Americans are intimately familiar with the term Sunni. It’s the majority group in Islam, and currently makes a nuisance of itself by lending its name to certain recalcitrant groups and districts in Iraq.
Brother Sunni crops up in almost all the news reports, despite the fact that its a blatant mispronunciation. Wolf Blitzer, anchor of CNN’s Situation Room, recently interviewed the sister of one of the arrested suspects, Marlene Phanor.
BLITZER: Is your brother a Muslim?
PHANOR: No, sir. He’s not a Muslim. He’s a Catholic.
BLITZER: Does he go to church?
PHANOR: Excuse me?
BLITZER: Does he go to church?
PHANOR: Yes, he goes to church. He’s a Catholic. We’re at the St. Mary’s Catholic Church…
Ms Phanor added that her brother also attended a temple, where meetings were held. Smelling blood, Blitzer pounced,
BLITZER: Was that temple a Muslim temple?
PHANOR: I’m not sure, but I know my brother is a Catholic.
BLITZER: Why did — does the government say he is also known as Brother Sunni?
PHANOR: Well, no all call themselves brothers. Why, I don’t know, but the whole little group call themselves brother.
BLITZER: Did you ever hear your brother being called Sunni?
PHANOR: Yes, that’s his nickname. It’s not Sunni, it’s sunny, like, is it a sunny day. Yes, that’s his name.
BLITZER: So, confusion is that he was called Sunny, not Sunni, because Sunni, as you know, is one of the religious groups in Islam.
So much for Brother Sunni. And the temple itself is no mystery. If Wolf Blitzer had done his homework, he might have stumbled on the fact that the group derived most of its teachings from the Moorish Science Temple of America, an early 20th century religion founded by the Timothy Drew, a wandering African-American circus magician who claimed to have been raised by Cherokee Indians and to have learnt “high magic” in Egypt. Drew went on to style himself an “angel” and prophet of Allah.
Interestingly, Drew’s students included Wallace Fard Muhammad, founder of the Nation of Islam, a group that is considered heretical by Muslims.
It is eminently clear that the media reports on the arrest of the seven
men have more the flavor of a witch-hunt than anything else. Another chink in the
so-called war on terror.
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hc, might be more to it than a mere witch hunt.
According to Time Magazine: “From initial reports and the contents of the indictment, the latter seems most likely. The arrested men appear to be part of a cult organization proclaiming itself to be Muslim — although a member of the same religious group says it is, in fact, based on a homebrew of Islam and Christianity, and calls itself “Seas of David.” Its members, mainly Americans and Haitan immigrants, clearly have an enthusiasm for emulating and following al-Qaeda. But their only “connection” with al-Qaeda appears to have been the fact that a government informant who had infiltrated their ranks had apparently convinced the alleged conspirators that he was, in fact, a Qaeda operative. The oaths of allegiance to the organization [ie Qaida] alleged by the indictment to have been taken by the accused were administered not by any representative of the organization, but to a U.S. government agent posing as a Qaeda operative [ie, he's an agent provocateur].”
these men were set up. you have to ask yrself why?
Or it might be they just wanted the fifty grand they were trying to get out of what they thought was an Al Qaeda operative. It will all come out in the wash, but dirtier and more silly than when it went in.
sheila,
thought you should have a look at this:
Jon Stewart deconstructs the Miami 7
peace
Shalom,
Thanks bro jc. Have viewed the clip and read the article in Time.
My impression that there is a perverse effort to play up the group’s so-called islamic credentials (where none exists) and then link it to their alleged plans remains.
On a sidenote, I love Jon Stewart. I’ve been a fan for years.