Re: Dawud Walid’s August 13 blog post, “Freedom of speech does not mean accepting voices of incivility": Earlier this month, at Eastern Michigan University, I debated two Muslim spokesmen. Dawud Walid of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was so threatened by my presence that he wrote on The Detroit News’ Politics Blog, criticizing event organizers for giving me a “dignified platform.”
Why is CAIR so afraid that I might be heard?
Walid accuses me of fomenting “ethnic and religious intolerance.” But he doesn’t offer a single example of my supposed “bigotry” and “hate speech.” He doesn’t because he can’t: I don’t engage in any “hate speech” or “ethnic and religious intolerance.” Actually, I speak and act in defense of the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience and the principle of equality of rights of all people before the law.
I’ve trained the FBI, U.S. military groups, and intelligence agencies, explicating how Islamic jihadists use texts of Islam to justify violence. Since Walid professes to oppose the understanding of Islam advanced by those jihadists, he shouldn’t object to my doing that.
But he does. A clue as to why comes from his affiliation with CAIR. CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case — so named by the Justice Department. CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hezbollah. Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. CAIR’s California chapter distributed a poster telling Muslims not to talk to the FBI. CAIR has opposed virtually every anti-terror measure that has ever been implemented.
CAIR mounts campaigns of defamation against anyone who speaks out against jihad terror, hurling spurious charges of “hate” and “bigotry” to intimidate Americans into thinking that there’s something wrong with resisting jihad violence.
That’s at the heart of their campaign against me.
The ugly result of Walid’s smear campaign will be to render Americans mute and defenseless against the advancing jihad. That’s an outcome all free people should reject.
