ELECTION 2008
Convention Democrats warned about radical Islam
‘It is a serious threat. This war is against our way of life’
Posted: August 26, 2008
9:36 pm Eastern By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
DENVER - A statement of issues and positions provided by the Democratic National Convention includes not a single reference to “radical Islam,” and its only references to “Islam” are to an imam scheduled to speak and to identify Afghanistan as where the U.S. should be battling al-Qaida, since “the vast majority of Muslims believe in a future of peace, tolerance.”
However, an organization has been flooding DNC delegates and Denver with copies of the video “Obsession” because members believe the threat to the U.S. is being dismissed or minimized, and the results – like those of Sept. 11, 2001 – could be catastrophic.
“The reaction has been everything from people who are upset with us and call us Islamophobes to a gay, Jewish delegate who’s seen ‘Obsession’ and told us the Democrats aren’t taking radical Islamic fundamentalists seriously,” said Karen England, a spokeswoman for the group promoting the Watch Obsession website.
An incident in Denver just as preparations for the DNC were in full swing provides some grounds to believe the issue should be addressed, the video promoters say. Days before the DNC convened, a Somali man who had been living in Canada was found dead in a Denver hotel with a pound of sodium cyanide in his room.
The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force said there was no confirmation that Saleman Abdirahman Dirie, 29, had terrorist ties, and local law enforcement officials tried to minimize the discovery.
But to others, it was a red flag. Andrew Ternay, a Defense Department contractor, told KNCN-TV in Denver, “I don’t see how anybody could do anything but look into the possibility that this is a potential terrorist attack.”
Denver police called the death an “isolated incident” and denied terror connections, explaining, “Nobody knows what was in this gentleman’s mind.”
But sodium cyanide, while available and commonly used in rat poison, generally isn’t discovered in pound quantities in a swanky suites-only hotel along with the dead body of a traveler. It also can be mixed to produce lethal cyanide gas.
Denver news reports also identified a blog item just weeks earlier from a poster identifying himself by the same name who said of Christians, “Kill them, Kill them, Kill them, that is my massage (sic).”
On the Watch Obsession website, promoters, who arranged for a truck to drive Denver’s streets advertising the video and an aerial banner to fly over the city this week, suggested the possibility that “there really are evil people who spend all their time thinking and planning the destruction of American men, women and children.”
“While Christians and Jews are primary targets, these very bad terrorists do not discriminate in their desire to kill and destroy anyone who does not believe as they do,” the website warned. “Americans must accept this fact – America is at war. In an effort to ‘wake-up’ America, the Watch Obsession Citizen Education Program is mobilizing Americans across the U.S. to watch ‘Obsession’ and to then actively work, each and every day until the election, to have their ‘universe’ of family and friends, watch ‘Obsession.”
For those not in Denver for the DNC, or in St. Paul next week for the Republican National Convention where a similar promotion will be held, the video is available at Shop.WND.com, WND’s online store.
The award-winning documentary lets viewers into the minds of radical Islamists to see and hear what they actually believe about the West.
Including footage from Arabic television rarely seen in the West and the testimonies of former terrorists, it is a confirmation of the call by Islamic leaders for world domination.
The undercover footage shows suicide bomber initiations, the indoctrination of young children into hate and violence, secret jihad meetings and public celebrations of 9/11. So powerful is its message, Muslim opposition sparked attempts to prevent its showing at State University of New York-Stonybrook, Georgia Tech and a community in Winnipeg.
It features a number of experts on Islam and demonstrates parallels between British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s doomed strategy of appeasing Hitler and the West’s current attitude of appeasing Iran and its radicals.
England told WND the message is that radical Islam must be taken seriously.
“It is a serious threat. This war is against our way of life,” she told WND.
The message, however, has some ways to go, apparently. At the DNC, the campaign for Obama scheduled Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America to speak at its “interfaith gathering,” which opened DNC events.
Fox News reported ISNA is suspected of having ties to radical terrorism worldwide and during the recent Holy Land Foundation terrorism trial was regarded as an “unindicted co-conspirator” by the U.S. government.
The government alleged documents show ISNA is supported by the Muslim Brotherhood, which has called for “jihad” against the West.
Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy told Fox the Muslim Brotherhood seeks “our destruction.”
DNC officials defended Mattson as “an ambassador for Islam who preaches tolerance.”