Edwin Meese

The fear-mongering against Ramadan grew so vociferous that Edwin Meese, former Reagan administration Attorney General and Ronald Reagan Chair in Public Policy at the Heritage Foundation, became a target of Geller and Gaffney’s campaign after he endorsed Ramadan. Geller wrote:

James Lafferty, SIOA board member and VAST [Virginia Anti-Shariah Task Force] chairman, just advised me that Ed Meese bought into stealth jihadist David Ramadan’s ruse. That’s just what this country needs, more Muslim Brotherhood plants in the legislature.

And Gaffney, Geller, and Islamophobic blogger Robert Spencer — all of whom are featured in the Center for American Progress’s report, “Fear Inc.: The Roots Of the Islamophobia Network” — issued a letter to Meese, demanding he withdraw his endorsement.

Yesterday, Meese explained to NewsMax TV why he chose to endorse Ramadan and how the hate campaign against Muslims goes against American values. Meese says he supported Ramadan because he’s a “fine man” who “thought very much in terms of political lines the same way I do.” Watch it:

Gaffney, Geller, Spencer and others’ attacks on Ramadan didn’t deter Meese because he saw them as a “fringe group” accusing Ramadan of “…not being totally an American or being an Islamist or somehow not being worthy of running for office.” The attacks strengthened Meese’s conviction in helping Ramadan’s candidacy. “I felt that this was an unfair attack and persisted in my support of him because of that,” said Meese.

Meese says his exposure to the “fringe group” that attacked Ramadan concerns him because “I think it’s always serious when any American is disparaged [...] solely because of their religion or their background when there’s no basis for it.”

It’s heartening to see conservatives begin to speak out against the forces of intolerance within their camp; hopefully, Meese will find more allies than opponents among fellow Republicans.

But Gingrich’s anti-Muslim crusade found an ally with noted Islamophobe Frank Gaffney. Gaffney, the president of the Center for Security Policy, leaped on Gingrich’s anti-Shariah comments yesterday in a column for National Review Online and on his radio show, Secure Freedom Radio. His column reads:

Newt is absolutely right in making such a distinction [between a "moderate person who worships Allah" or "a person who belonged to any kind of belief in sharia, any kind of effort to impose that on the rest of us]. The danger we currently face from the so-called Muslim world arises not from the fact that people are Muslim, but from the extent to which they adhere to the totalitarian, supremacist Islamic doctrine of sharia.

Speaking on his radio show yesterday, Gaffney took a similar line:

With his successive warnings about sharia…Newt Gingrich has, in my judgement, rendered a real public service. We must know who are enemies are and we must defeat, not accommodate, those who in the name of Sharia are obliged to wage Jihad against us. And we must keep America Sharia free.

But Gaffney’s concerns about religious and personal freedoms rarely extend to Muslim Americans. Last year, he said:

A mosque that is used to promote a seditious program, which is what Sharia is…that is not a protected religious practice, that is in fact sedition.

Newt Gingrich makes no secret of his hostility toward Muslims but Frank Gaffney’s defacto endorsement — he also picked up an endorsement from anti-Muslim activist and Gaffney ally Pamela Geller — might not be helpful as Gingrich attempts to appeal to moderate voters and chip away at Mitt Romney’s momentum in the primaries. Gaffney is a noted member of the Islamophobic far-right and his organization, the Center for Security Policy, was highlighted as a major nexus for the anti-Sharia initiatives sweeping the country in the Center for American Progress’s report, Fear, Inc.

Extra security guards at the Nashville anti-Muslim conference equipped with handguns.

We were hoping to speak again with Gaffney at the “Preserving Freedom Conference” in Nashville, Tennessee, a gathering of other opponents of Islam, last Friday. Initially, Gaffney agreed to speak to us and said he would grant an interview after his book signing.

As we waited, several security personnel hovered around. When he finished signing the last book, Gaffney promptly stood up, and walked out of the conference, refusing to make eye-contact with us. Five security guards, all wearing bullet-proof vests under their suits, quickly surrounded Gaffney and physically blocked us from approaching him. We followed him into the parking lot to ask if had forgotten about us, but Gaffney refused to acknowledge our presence. Instead, one of the conference’s burly security men moved to ensure we couldn’t come within several yards of the neoconservative activist. After a few minutes of confusion, we turned on our camera to try to record what was going on. And just before he got into his car, Gaffney responded, “I gotta go”:

FANG: Uh, Undersecretary Gaffney, you said you’d give us a few comments after the event?

CLIFTON: Undersecretary, you have two minutes?

GAFFNEY: I gotta go.

FANG: Any reason you have five security guards protecting you here? We’ve interviewed you in the past!

Watch it:

Gaffney’s retreat from ThinkProgress seemed bizarre, but similar hostility was evident throughout the conference. Lou Ann Zelnick, a failed congressional candidate and activist involved in protesting the construction of a mosque in nearby Murfreesboro, yelled at us without provocation.

Later in the evening, towards the end of the conference, we encountered three additional security guards. The new guards, who paced near us at times, had handguns displayed in their holsters.

Gaffney and McCarthy, who both are mentioned in CAP’s report as part of the influential “Islamophobia network,” make a series of unfounded allegations against CAP and the report.

McCarthy, the author of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America, has made no secret of his dislike for Muslims and progressives. His eagerness to create a grand-conspiracy between the two was on full display during the interview.

But Gaffney and McCarthy take a turn into uncharted, and wildly unsubstantiated, territory when they float the theory that the CAP report was, as Frank Gaffney declares, a product of “a red-green axis between George Soros’ friends and beneficiaries on the radical left like the Center for American Progress and the Islamists, the Muslim Brotherhood most notably.”

Listen here (Gaffney’s theory of a “red-green axis” starts at 3:45):

Gaffney, and his allies like Robert Spencer and David Horowitz, have been desperate to paint Fear, Inc. and CAP as a radical institution aligned with violent Islamists. But their attempts to make their fantasies a reality has resulted in some bizarre attempts at guilt-by-association.

Gaffney, McCarthy, and most critics of the report — Islamophobe Pamela Geller said the authors should “choke on their own vomit” — are eager to discredit CAP and the report’s authors using factually baseless attack and wildly speculative conspiracy theories. McCarthy responded to Gaffney’s “red-green axis” theory that, “the evidence [that radical Islamists and the Center for American Progress] cooperate is so strong, that the real question that the interesting quesiton is ‘why this happened’ not ‘whether it happened.’

Conveniently, neither McCarthy nor Gaffney provide any actual evidence of this bizarre theory. But the report does show plenty of evidence of their hostility toward American Muslims. In 2009, Gaffney announced there is “mounting evidence that the president not only identifies with Muslims but may actually be one himself” and, after the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) banned Gaffney for making baseless accusations against board members, he declared that the Muslim Brotherhood had “infiltrated” CPAC.

While Gaffney might be finding fewer friendly audiences for his anti-Muslim conspiracy theories, he and his friends still have a home on AM radio, every weeknight.

Although Gaffney has enjoyed an uninterrupted platform on major media outlets, this conference, however, might be different. Former Maryland state Del. Saqib Ali (D) and activists from a number of civil rights groups in Maryland have organized a rally outside the conference. “Unfortunately, instead of inviting legitimate conservative speakers, MDCAN has instead chosen speakers who are well-known conspiracy theorists, McCarthyites, racists and anti-Muslim fanatics,” Ali wrote in a letter protesting the event.

Gaffney, whose unhinged anti-Muslim writings heavily influenced the Norway mass murderer, has responded to Ali’s rally with his signature style of paranoia:

“This is standard operating procedure for CAIR and other Muslim Brotherhood front groups,” Gaffney told TheDC in a discussion about the letter. “They are trying to impose what are known as Shariah blasphemy laws, whereby anyone who says anything critical about Islam, no matter how true, is to be silenced. It is actually a capital offense.”

In an interview with ThinkProgress, Ali laughed off Gaffney’s accusations. “I can promise him that neither I nor anyone else is trying to kill him,” said Ali. “However we do seek to get him some urgent psychological care.” Ali added, “The voices in his head seem to be getting a tad unruly.”

Ali is also concerned that several of the major speakers have a history of bigotry. “At this conference, one of the speakers, Robert Stacy McCain has repeatedly referred to gay people as ‘Faggots’ and Mexicans as ‘Beaners,’” Ali notes. “That is highly offensive to me.”

Gaffney, one of the leading anti-Muslim misinformation experts profiled in the Center for American Progress’ recent report on Islamophobia in America, has spent years fighting what he sees as “creeping Sharia” in the United States. His efforts culminated in the release of a report last year entitled “Sharia: The Threat To America.”

In an effort to whip up support for his anti-Sharia campaign, the Center for Security Policy president released the “Twelve for ’12” policy platform earlier this month, which implores candidates to, among other things, “preserve and protect the Constitution” by “repudiat[ing]” Sharia:

It’s understandable that even presidential candidates as extreme as Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum don’t want to associate themselves with Gaffney. Beyond his absurd notion that Sharia law is a threat to the United States, Gaffney has made a name for himself with one outlandish claim after the next. He has accused Gen. David Petraeus of “submission” to Sharia law, claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood has “infiltrated” the federal government, and even argued that the government’s Missile Defense logo is further evidence of creeping Sharia law.

Though anti-Sharia sentiment had been fairly common in recent Republican rhetoric, the public outcry against presidential candidate Herman Cain’s declaration that he will not appoint Muslims in his administration was deafening. Cain’s campaign was dogged by the story for months until July when the candidate met with Muslim leaders outside Washington, DC and issued a public apology to all Muslim-Americans. Cain’s newfound tolerance did no harm to his standing among Republican primary voters; this past weekend, the former pizza executive enjoyed an overwhelming victory in Florida’s presidential straw poll.

Republican presidential candidates like Cain have clearly concluded that Gaffney’s anti-Sharia pledge is a political loser. Even a pledge stipulating that black families were better off during slavery than today earned signatures from Bachmann and Santorum. Gaffney’s flop is further evidence of Islamophobia’s waning influence in politics.

For more about Gaffney and other anti-Muslim, check out the Center for American Progress’ recent report: “Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America.”

Gaffney has made a name for himself — and an annual salary of at least $300,000 — by propagating the baseless threat of a “creeping Sharia.” (For a primer of what Sharia is, see this report.)

Gaffney authored a report last year titled “Sharia: The Threat To America.” He conceded that he did not consult any Muslims in the process of writing that report. “I don’t hold myself out as an expert on Sharia Law,” Gaffney has said. “But I have talked a lot about that as a threat.”

As we note in “Fear, Inc.,” in the past, Gaffney has accused CIA Director David Petraeus of submitting to Sharia and alleged that the design of a missile defense logo was proof of Obama’s submission to Sharia. Now, he wants every Republican candidate to join his conspiracy.

Elizabeth Varet and Nina Rosenwald

The Varet family helps fund: Steve Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism ($10,000); Counterterrorism & Security Education and Research Foundation ($15,000); Daniel Pipes’ Middle East Forum ($2,320,229.33); Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy ($437,000); the Clarion Fund ($25,000); David Horowitz’s Freedom Center ($11,000) and Brigitte Gabriel’s American Congress for Truth ($125,000).

David Steinmann — also a director at American Securities Management, a trustee for the Anchorage Charitable Fund and president of the William Rosenwald Family Fund, sits as a board member at Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy.

Nina Rosenwald, co-chair of the board at American Securities Management and a vice-president at the William Rosenwald Family Fund, is: chairwoman of of the board at the Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI); vice president of the Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs (JINSA) and sits on the board of the Hudson Institute. She also serves on the board at the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC); Human Rights in China, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) and served as a delegate at the 1996 Democratic National Convention.

According to a 2007 New York Jewish Week article, Elizabeth Varet, who chairs the Anchorage Charitable Fund and serves as vice-president at the William Rosenwald Family Fund, gained inspiration for her philanthropy from her father, William Rosenwald, who she says:

…was driven by an empathy for people at risk — people who were suffering — “and a feeling of ‘there but for the grace of God go I.’ And he believed in acting on it.”

Indeed, the Anchorage Fund engages in a broad array of philanthropy to various right-wing institutions such as the: Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD); Hoover Institution; Hudson Institute, America Enterprise Institute; and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.

Additional board members of the Anchorage Charitable Fund include Michael A. Varet, Sarah R. Varet, David R. Varet, and Joseph R. Varet.

In the 2008 tax year, the Anchorage Fund “suffered a complete loss of its investment through PJ Administrator LLC,” according to its 2008 tax filings. PJ Administrator was a client of Bernie Madoff, whose Ponzi scheme collapsed in 2008.

Charitable activity from both Varet related foundations has significantly decreased since 2008 but it’s safe to say that the Islamophobia network described in Fear Inc., wouldn’t have become such a formidable force without the deep-pocketed support of family foundations like the ones operated by the heirs to Julius Rosenwald’s Sears Roebuck fortune.

Frank Gaffney and Pamela Geller

The report’s authors have appeared on CNN.com, Al Jazeera English, Current TV, Guardian.co.uk and numerous radio interviews. Print media outlet such as The Jewish Daily Forward, The Atlantic, Salon.com, The Washington Post and The Nation have all run articles discussing the report’s findings.

Unfortunately, that accuracy and thorougness has proven a challenge for many of the Islamophobes mentioned in the report. With no serious factual errors with which to attack the authors, they’ve fallen back on attacking straw men and offering vitriolic, if at times colorful, ad hominem attacks.

Here’s the top ten list of right-wing responses to “Fear, Inc.”

10.) Townhall.com columnist Karen Lugo concludes that the report’s authors are “the real cowards” and claims “it was the authors of this 138-page report that demonstrated a real phobia when they evaded the urgent question: Does America have a reason to fear Muslims?” (Actually, that was a major part of the report.)

9.) Writing on David Horowitz’s FrontPageMag, Daniel Greenfield runs with the new meme that the report blames Jews for Islamophobia. He writes, “Any report on Islamophobia that scapegoats Jews is not a report on bigotry, it is an act of bigotry.”

8.) Ed Lasky, writing on The American Thinker, inaccurately claims that the report pins blame on Jews, arguing, “…this ‘report’ relies on the conspiracy and age-old anti-Semitic trope that Jews fan prejudice towards others and promotes divisions for their own nefarious purposes (to support Israel in this case). This mindset is straight out of Mein Kampf.”

7.) Adrian Morgan, editor of Family Security Matters, takes issue with report author Wajahat Ali, writing, “Ali is said to be a ‘humorist’ but there is pitiably little that appears in his blog ‘Goatmilk’ that displays this purported sense of humor.” Morgan also identifies a typo in the report and ponders “Was there no money left for a proof-reader, to here strike out the superfluous word, ‘he’?”

6.) Middle East Forum’s Daniel Pipes told The Washington Post’s Michelle Boorstein that, “I am not against the religion of Islam but am very much against the political ideology of Islamism, which I see as the third great totalitarian movement after fascism and communism. This lack of distinction points to the intellectually shoddy premise of the report.”

5.) Jihad Watch’s Robert Spencer wrote on Human Events that the report’s authors are assisting jihadists because “Fear, Inc.”, “ignores jihad activity altogether, portraying Muslims as victims and demonizing all who stand in the way of the misogynistic and unjust agenda of the Islamic jihad, whether advanced by violent or nonviolent means. It thus reveals itself to be just another tool of those same jihadists.”

4.) Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney bizarrely, and we might add inaccurately, describes the report as CAP’s “…latest ‘copy and paste’ effort [duplicating] large sections of five nearly identical ‘investigations’ just this year, complaining that millions of concerned Americans are Islamophobes.” Gaffney, in what might be an editorial misstep, proceeds to interview himself, writing, “Frank J. Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, noted that ‘The ‘Shariah Defense Lobby’ is in a race against time to hide the grim reality of Shariah law as it is actually enforced…’”

3.) Daniel Pipes’ PipeLineNews.org observed that the report “neatly falls into lockstep with the efforts being exerted by Muslim Brotherhood front groups to incrementally Islamize the West.”

2.) Blogger Pamela Geller calls the report “a predictable misfired missile by Islamic supremacists and leftist useful idiots” and “a pile of dung masquerading as research” that “reads more like a Mein Kampf treatise.” She encourages her readers to “watch [the authors] choke on their own vomit” and concludes “they will never defeat me.”

1.) Fox Business Network’s Eric Bolling, inaccurately attributed an outlandishly anti-Semitic quote to the report, saying, “I’m reading directly from this report: ‘The Obama-allied Center for American Progress has released a report that blames Islamophobia in America on a small group of Jews and Israel supporters in America, whose views are being backed by millions of dollars.’

To be clear, neither that quote nor anything resembling it, appears in our report. Please email Brian Lewis, VP for Corporate Communications at Fox Business (brian.lewis@foxnews.com), and tell him that Bolling’s wildly inaccurate reporting on “Fear Inc.” requires an on-air correction.

Gaffney, who runs a well-funded Islamophobic operation, celebrated the House Un-American Activities Committee — the Cold War-era investigative committee that epitomized the overblown “red scare” of a Communist takeover of the U.S. — before calling for a new similar committee. The new “House Anti-American Activities Committee would look into American-Muslims, who Gaffney thinks are criminally “seditious” for observing their faith, and their witting and unwitting allies:

Back in the Cold War as we talked about in our first program we wrestled with another totalitarian ideology that was determined to destroy us back when the McCarren Act was enacted, we had what was then called the House Un-American Activities Committee to explore what was going on, who was doing it, who was helping them do it, what the implications would be if it weren’t stopped. I think we need at the very least a new House Anti-American Activities Committee.

Watch the video:

The new “green scare” committee came up as Gaffney and the host, Christian right figure Rick Joyner, discussed prosecuting Americans for simply not reporting “treasonous” acts — known as “misprision of treason” — by American Muslims. Gaffney has previously accused Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) of this crime, which carries a seven-year sentence, for appointing a Muslim to a judgeship in New Jersey. Gaffney considers adherence to Muslim religious law to be “seditious“:

A mosque that is used to promote a seditious program, which is what Sharia is…that is not a protected religious practice, that is in fact sedition.

While many regard the “red scare” and the McCarthyism associated with it as a less than savory period in American history, Gaffney seems to whole-heartedly approve of the program and calls for its revival — but targeted at religious beliefs instead of a political views. Some might argue that taking away the freedom of speech and religion are themselves “un-American” acts. (HT: Right Wing Watch)

The Bradley Foundation has a reputation as a supporter of right-wing causes and its philanthropy is intended to “support limited, competent government; a dynamic marketplace for economic, intellectual and cultural activity; and a vigorous defense, at home and abroad, of American ideas and institutes,” according to the foundation’s website.

But the Bradley Foundation’s idea of defending “American ideas and institutes” has meant funding Islamophobes within the U.S. and promoting the militant foreign policy which left the U.S. military overextended in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As a key funder in the Islamophobia network, the Bradley Foundation contributed $4.25 million to the David Horowitz Freedom Center, $815,000 to Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy and $305,000 to Daniel Pipes’s Middle East Forum.

When not funding some of the key groups responsible for propagating misinformation about Muslim-Americans, the Bradley Foundation uses its financial resources to promote a militarist foreign policy, most notably through their $1.2 million in support for the Project for the New American Century, a highly influential group which helped promote a neoconservative foreign policy during the Bush administration.

Indeed, the Bradley Foundation has played an instrumental role in bringing neoconservatives into the halls of power in Washington. Irving Kristol, one of the movement’s key intellectuals, commented that AEI’s efforts to recruit neoconservatives in the 1970s and 1980s was “facilitated by the appearance on the scene of a rejuvenated Bradley Foundation and John M. Olin Foundation.”

The foundation also generously supports various right-wing institutions such as the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the American Enterprise Institute, the Federalist Society, the Hoover Institution, the Institute for American Values and the Hudson Institute.

While both Lynde and Harry Bradley are deceased, the foundation is run by a board comprising an influential list of American conservatives.

Board members include: columnist George Will; Terry Considine, Chief executive of AIMCO Apartment Homes, who serves as the foundation’s chairman; David V. Uihlein, president of Uihlein-Wilson Architects; Michael W. Grebe, the foundation’s president and chief executive officer; Princeton University Professor Robert P. George, whom the New York Times describes as “his country’s most influential Christian thinker; Marshall & Ilsey Corporation Chairman Dennis J. Kuester; Wasau-Mosinee Paper Corporation Chairman San W. Orr Jr.; attorney Thomas L. Smallwood; and the president of Milwaukee’s Messmer Catholic Schools, Brother Bob Smith.

With a staggering $622,913,819 in assets at the end of the 2009 tax year, it’s safe to assume the Bradley Foundation will have a lasting impact on the American political debate for years, if not decades, in the future.

Richard Scaife

Scaife has become a reliable funder of right-wing causes and, as the principal heir to the Mellon family banking, oil and aluminum fortune, he has $1.2 billion at his disposal for influencing the U.S. political and cultural landscape.

Serving as the vice chairman of the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank (Heritage president Edwin Feulner serves as a trustee for the Sarah Scaife Foundation), Scaife has positioned himself as a central figure in conservative politics.

A closer examination of his philanthropy reveals that, in 2009 alone, the Sarah Scaife Foundation supported neoconservative mainstays such as the American Enterprise Institute ($550,000), the American Foreign Policy Council ($125,000), and Commentary magazine ($40,000).

Scaife has a nearly 50-year history in philanthropy and has left his mark by staying focused on specific ideological objectives. In 2009, the National Journal reported:

The intellectual flowering of the conservative movement at AEI, Heritage, and elsewhere was possible not only because a few visionaries distilled a movement’s discontent but also because a handful of deep-pocketed, committed, and unusually patient wealthy benefactors such as John M. Olin, Richard Scaife, and foundations affiliated with them were willing to underwrite the broad ideological movement.

Indeed, Scaife has shown himself to be one of the more strategic right-wing philanthropists, more interested in influencing the political and cultural discourse than investing directly in electoral outcomes.

His ownership of the Pittburgh Tribune-Review proved valuable in the campaign to attack then-president Bill Clinton as the small publication emerged as the chief source for editorials claiming that Clinton was responsible for the death of Deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster.

Finding relative success in keeping the Vince Foster conspiracy theories alive, Scaife has since expanded his media holdings to include a 42 percent share in NewsMax, a conservative online news outlet that regularly gives a platform to Islamophobes.

The Scaife Foundation’s support of the Islamophobia network is a fraction of Scaife’s overall philanthropy, but it falls in line with his long-history of both creating right-wing echo chambers while, at the same time, funding the “experts” who feed it with soundbite fodder. To our knowledge, Scaife hasn’t publicly commented on whether he supports the anti-Muslim ravings of the people he funds.

Soon after the horrific terror act in Norway last month, it was revealed that the killer was neither a jihadist nor Muslim, but rather a right-wing Christian Norwegian named Anders Breivik.

Breivik’s 12-minute video manifesto outlined the killer’s conservative beliefs, including that President Obama is a Marxist and that “Christian soldiers” and “cultural conservatives” should rise up against “multiculturalism” and Muslims. ThinkProgress examined the sources Breivik used in his manifesto and found, unsurprisingly, a glut of Islamophobic bloggers and pundits among the citations.

ThinkProgress spoke with one of the conservative figures Breivik cited, Frank Gaffney, during the Western Conservative Summit last weekend. We asked Gaffney if it was concerning that his rhetoric was being used for violent ends.

Rather than reconsidering his outlandish views, Gaffney eschewed Occam’s Razor and took a far different view: Breivik’s manifesto may actually be a hoax planted by the Muslim Brotherhood. The Center for Security Policy president called for a “thorough investigation as to whether it was in fact an authentic piece of his own creation, whether it’s a false flag operation, whether it actually was meant to do anything other than to contribute to Sharia’s efforts to suppress criticism and awareness of its agenda.” He closed by noting he could “absolutely” see the Muslim Brotherhood perpetrating this kind of fraud.

THINKPROGRESS: Obviously we saw some horrific acts in Norway. I read in news reports that you yourself and the CSP had been mentioned seven separate times. Is that concerning that some people are using your rhetoric for violent ends?

GAFFNEY: I think there’s a lot yet to be determined about who this individual was and what exactly his agenda was. What’s very peculiar to me is the nature of this so-called manifesto, which seems about as unrelated to anything having to do with Norway or Norwegian nationalism as you can imagine. It’s basically entirely made up of, it’s a pastiche, a very eclectic pastiche at that, of American writers and some non-American writers but of a similar mind. It cries out for a thorough investigation as to whether it was in fact an authentic piece of his own creation, whether it’s a false flag operation, whether it actually was meant to do anything other than to contribute to Sharia’s efforts to suppress criticism and awareness of its agenda. Until we know the answers to some of those questions, I’m not going to go too far down the road of saying what its consequences might be.

Watch it:

For those keeping score at home, Gaffney’s list of those influenced or infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood now includes:

- Anders Breivik
- Herman Cain
- CPAC
- Grover Norquist
- David Petraeus
- President Obama
- The federal government
- Elena Kagan
- James Clapper
- Janet Napolitano
- The Pentagon’s missile defense logo
- The conservative movement

]]> http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/08/03/285796/frank-gaffney-norwegian-terrorists-manifesto-sharia/feed/ 0 http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/08/02/284104/frank-gaffney-herman-cain-muslim-brotherhood/ http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/08/02/284104/frank-gaffney-herman-cain-muslim-brotherhood/#comments Tue, 02 Aug 2011 15:31:31 +0000 Scott Keyes http://thinkprogress.org/?p=284104 ThinkProgress filed this report from the Western Conservative Summit in Denver, CO.

Last week, Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain met with Muslim leaders outside Washington, DC in a laudable attempt to make amends for the Islamophobic positions that had come to characterize his candidacy. Cain had previously declared he will not appoint Muslims in his administration — he later backtracked and said he would only require a special loyalty oath from Muslim appointees — and argued that Americans have the right to ban mosques.

However, not everyone was pleased with the former pizza executive’s recent move.

Last weekend, ThinkProgress spoke with Frank Gaffney, a conservative conspiracy theorist who nevertheless enjoys outsized influence on the right. The Center for Security Policy president had a unique take on the matter: Herman Cain had actually been meeting with the Muslim Brotherhood.

According to Gaffney, the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) Center, where Cain met with Muslim leaders last Wednesday, is “a prominent Muslim Brotherhood apparatus in Washington DC.” The Center’s Imam, Mohamed Magid, is actually, says Gaffney, “the president of the largest Muslim Brotherhood front in the United States”:

KEYES: Where would you say Herman Cain’s at now?

GAFFNEY: I only saw one press report of it, and it sounded as if some of what you just described was said by people, Muslim Brotherhood people frankly, with whom he was meeting rather than the candidate himself. [...]

KEYES: Those were Muslim Brotherhood people that he was meeting with?

GAFFNEY: Oh yeah. The ADAMS Center is a prominent Muslim Brotherhood apparatus in Washington DC. It’s one of the most aggressive proponents of its agenda in the city. [...] Specifically, meeting with Mohamed Magid who is the president of the largest Muslim Brotherhood front in the United States, who happens also to be the Imam at the ADAMS Center. It’s one of those things, it’s a very problematic departure from what I think had been a generally sensible… I don’t agree everything he has said and some of the positions he has taken, but I think generally speaking he’s been forthright in raising a concern that I think is warranted. And if in fact he’s now changed his position in ways that are being reported, that’s even more troubling than if he was spending time with Muslim Brothers.

Watch it:

Such a charge would be shocking, were it not made by a man who says the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the federal government and CIA chief David Petraeus is submissive to Sharia law.

Cain joins a long list of prominent figures that Gaffney accuses of working with the Muslim Brotherhood, including CPAC, Grover Norquist, David Petraeus, the federal government, and Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan.

Despite Gaffney’s outlandish beliefs, he remains an extraordinarily influential figure on the right. Members of Congress regularly appear on his radio show, Secure Freedom Radio. He is an advisor and close friend to Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), a leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. And along with a small group of like-minded conservatives, Gaffney has turned Islamophobia into an industry.

With his latest accusation against Herman Cain, Gaffney is well on his way to becoming the 2011 version of Rudy Giuliani. Gaffney’s every utterance now boils down to “a noun, a verb, and ‘Muslim Brotherhood.’”

]]> http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/08/02/284104/frank-gaffney-herman-cain-muslim-brotherhood/feed/ 0 http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/08/01/284500/gaffney-bachmann-muslim-brotherhood/ http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/08/01/284500/gaffney-bachmann-muslim-brotherhood/#comments Mon, 01 Aug 2011 18:54:38 +0000 Ali Gharib http://thinkprogress.org/?p=284500 ThinkProgress filed this report from the Western Conservative Summit in Denver, CO.

Last week, journalist Eli Lake reported that, in order to glean a perspective on Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann’s prospective foreign policy, sources repeatedly told him he “should talk to Frank Gaffney.”

Gaffney told Lake that his work and that of the neoconservative think-tank he runs, the Center for Security Policy, were “a resource she has tapped.” Gaffney described Bachmann as a “friend” with whom he’d shared his Team B II report alleging that the Obama administration has been infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood (in fairness to the Obama administration, Gaffney accuses just about everyone he disagrees with — including the organizers of the conservative CPAC conference — of being part of the Islamist group).

In an exclusive interview with ThinkProgress at the Western Conservative Conference in Denver, CO, Gaffney again described Bachmann as a friend and said he hadn’t been officially advising her since she declared her run for the GOP nomination. But he did say he could count on Bachmann to work at cleansing the country of the pernicious influence of the Muslim Brotherhood:

GAFFNEY: As worrying as the violent jihad is, there is at least as much to be concerned about with respect to the stealth jihad. And you need to understand who’s engaged in pursuing that and the techniques that they’re using and the progress that they’re making. [...]

THINKPROGRESS: Do you think [Bachmann] takes the threat seriously and understands the gravity?

GAFFNEY: I think she does, yeah. I think there are less candidates that seem less seized with it or at least acquainted with the problem. But I’m hoping that in the course of this campaign it will be something that is really a clarifying time [...]

THINKPROGRESS: She might be able to uproot some of this Brotherhood infiltration that we’ve seen?

GAFFNEY: If she were elected president she probably could. If she’s not and she’s an effective candidate she can. I think the point is to have as many other candidates become knowledgable and conversant and using their time on the campaign trail to educate people.

Watch the video:

You can almost hear Members of Congress now, with President Bachmann’s blessing, hauling Americans into hearings to ask: “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Muslim Brotherhood of the United States?”

So which other of Gaffney’s conspiracy theories can we expect to see a President Michele Bachmann pursue? His flirtation with birtherism? His contention that Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan will impose Shariah law on the U.S.? Or that now-C.I.A. chief Gen. David Petraeus is submitting to Shariah?

]]> http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/08/01/284500/gaffney-bachmann-muslim-brotherhood/feed/ 0 http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/07/29/283215/gaffney-bachmann-foreign-policy/ http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/07/29/283215/gaffney-bachmann-foreign-policy/#comments Fri, 29 Jul 2011 18:04:03 +0000 Ben Armbruster http://thinkprogress.org/?p=283215 The New Republic yesterday published a lengthy piece by Washington Times reporter Eli Lake highlighting how the “Republican foreign policy consensus has collapsed” and that the GOP contenders for the 2012 presidential nomination are, as the article’s title says, “all over the map.” Lake notes that there’s an internal strife within the GOP over whether Muslims pose a threat to America — with some neocons and conservatives like Grover Norquist embracing mainstream Islam and others, led by Islamophobic conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney, believing that, as Gaffney often says, the nation is close to instituting Sharia law.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is running for president and she is currently surging in polls. However, Bachmann isn’t exactly a foreign policy aficionado and she doesn’t talk too much about her views on international relations. Lake writes that when he started asking around about where she stands, he repeatedly was told to “talk to Frank Gaffney“:

Gaffney himself stressed that he had no formal relationship with Bachmann as an adviser. But he did say that he had contact with several of the GOP candidates. And, of Bachmann, he said this: “She is a friend and a person I admire. I hope she is getting the best counsel she can.” He added, “We are a resource she has tapped, I’m assuming among many others.” When I asked him whether Bachmann had been briefed on the Team B II Report, he replied, “We’ve spent hours, over several days with her. I think she’s got the bulk of what we would tell her in one of the more formal presentations.”

So it’s safe to assume that Bachmann is getting a regular dose of Gaffney’s crazy anti-Muslim conspiracy theories. Gaffney’s Islamophobia is well-documented. Last year he released a report purporting to document the threat posed by Islamic law in the U.S. (no Muslims actually contributed to the report). Among the report’s wild accusations, one was that members of the Obama administration are part of the “Iran lobby.” Gaffney thinks the Muslim Brotherhood is trying to infiltrate the American conservative movement. Before her confirmation to the Supreme Court, Gaffney claimed Elana Kagan would impose Sharia law on America. He even accused Gen. David Petraeus of “submission” to Sharia and thinks the president is secretly Muslim.

But Gaffney’s baseless far-right views aren’t limited to his Islamophobia. In addition to flirting with birtherism, as late as 2009, he claimed to have evidence of al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq “collaborating on all kinds of things.” He has even said Iraq was complicit in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Gaffney also once said that repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell would lead to reinstating the draft (hasn’t so far) and he claimed the DADT repeal would force some “radical” LGBT “agenda” on the U.S. military.

More recently, Gaffney said Obama’s policy on Israel (which is basically the same as all of his predecessors) will “catalyze the next Middle East war.” He even said Obama might order a military attack on Israel.

This is Frank Gaffney, currently Michele Bachmann’s primary foreign policy adviser.

]]> http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/07/29/283215/gaffney-bachmann-foreign-policy/feed/ 0 http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/07/26/279093/anders-breivik-recommended-popular-anti-muslim-documentary-obsession-for-further-study/ http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/07/26/279093/anders-breivik-recommended-popular-anti-muslim-documentary-obsession-for-further-study/#comments Tue, 26 Jul 2011 17:28:32 +0000 Eli Clifton http://thinkprogress.org/?p=279093
Norwegian gunman Anders Breivik’s manifesto is littered with references and citations to key players in the American Islamophobia industry. Bloggers like Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer and terror “experts” like Steven Emerson, Daniel Pipes and Walid Shoebat all appear to have played a role in influencing Breivik’s murderous rampage on Friday. But buried on page 762 of his 1,518-page manifesto is a list of sources Breivik recommended for “further study.” The list includes links to all ten parts of the Islamophobic documentary Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against The West.

The documentary made headlines in the U.S. after the Clarion Fund — the film’s producer and distributor — staged a masssive distribution of the film as inserts in swing state newspapers in September 2008 before the presidential election. The distribution hinged on the giveaway of 28 million DVDs of the film, costing nearly $19 million, and Chicago businessman Barre Seid paid for it.

The distribution was widely interpreted as an attempt to mobilize anti-Muslim sentiments before the election and to scare voters into going to the polls. The messages contained in the film summarize some of the core beliefs of “counterjihad” bloggers and pundits. The documentary, bolstered by a stable of right wing talking heads, makes the case that:

Today, we find ourselves confronted by a new enemy, also engaged in a violent struggle to transform our world. As we sleep in the comfort of our homes, a new evil rises against us. A new menace is threatening, with all the means at its disposal, to bow Western Civilization under the yoke of its values. That enemy is Radical Islam.

An abridged version of the film can be viewed here:

Obsession was widely promoted on right-wing and “counterjihad” blogs, and the documentary’s interviewees frequently appear as anti-Muslim panelists on cable news shows. Breivik’s manifesto cited seven of the film’s 17 interviewees: Steven Emerson, Brigitte Gabriel, Caroline Glick, Salim Mansur, Daniel Pipes, Walid Shoebat, and Khaled Abu Toameh.

The Clarion Fund has since gone on to produce two additional films: The Third Jihad, which claims to outline a Muslim conspiracy to “weaken America from within;” and Iranium, offering a sinister portrayal of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as hellbent on unleashing nuclear weapons on Israel and the West. Iranium also makes the case for keeping “the military option” on the table as a means to delay or destroy Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions.

The right-wing and anti-Muslim pundits desperately trying to distance themselves from Breivik’s violence are claiming that they should not be held responsible if one disturbed individual misinterprets their message and engages in terrorism. But Obsession‘s message — which was repeated across the anti-Muslim punditry — is that Muslims are inspired to commit terrorism by a culture influenced by an Arab media and radical Imams. Now that the tables are turned, these same individuals are claiming no responsibility for seeming to influence the worst act of violence in Norway since World War II.

]]> http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/07/26/279093/anders-breivik-recommended-popular-anti-muslim-documentary-obsession-for-further-study/feed/ 0 http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/07/25/277612/cravaack-frank-gaffney/ http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/07/25/277612/cravaack-frank-gaffney/#comments Mon, 25 Jul 2011 16:36:13 +0000 Lee Fang http://thinkprogress.org/?p=277612

Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN)

Freshman Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN) caused a stir earlier this year when he referred to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a civil rights group for Muslim Americans, as “basically…a terrorist organization.” He made the comment during a hearing with Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca.

Although Cravaack has neglected to develop any legislative achievements, he has nurtured a reputation as one of several vocal Muslim bashers in Congress. A new profile of the congressman by Jeremy Herb in the Star Tribune notes that Cravaack keeps “Sharia: The Threat to America,” a report published by anti-Muslim hate activist Frank Gaffney, on his office desk:

One of Cravaack’s biggest moments in the D.C. spotlight occurred when he accused the Los Angeles County sheriff of “dealing with a terrorist organization” for his work with the Council on Islamic-American Relations. Cravaack’s comments led to a Washington Post columnist writing that the ghost of Joe McCarthy “found a host” in Cravaack. [...] From his statements on CAIR and Cirrus to his warnings about the danger of foreign-owned debt, Cravaack has developed a pointed interest in guarding against foreign threats. He has two books about Islam and terrorism at his desk: “Sharia: The Threat to America” and “The Terrorist Next Door.”

Gaffney, the head of a group called Center for Security Policy, has made a name for himself spreading insane conspiracy theories about Muslims. When he is not arguing that President Obama is a secret agent of the Muslim Brotherhood or claiming that radical Muslims have infiltrated the top levels of American government, he is calling for people who practice Islam to be prosecuted under sedition laws. While Gaffney’s views may seem absurd, he is incredibly influential. He regularly appears on Fox News, major conservative conferences, and his writing is referenced in the manifesto by the alleged Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik. Moreover, Gaffney was a pivotal figure in organizing the hysterical protests against a planned Muslim American community center in lower Manhattan.

When Cravaak made his disparaging remarks to CAIR, he justified himself by claiming, “I did my homework.” Apparently he was referring to folks like Gaffney.

]]> http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/07/25/277612/cravaack-frank-gaffney/feed/ 0 http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/06/04/236585/gaffney-for-president/ http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/06/04/236585/gaffney-for-president/#comments Sat, 04 Jun 2011 21:57:48 +0000 Alex Seitz-Wald http://thinkprogress.org/?p=236585 At a panel on the threats facing Israel at the Faith and Freedom Conference in Washington Saturday, an attendee took the microphone to urge former Reagan defense official Frank Gaffney to run for president. Gaffney — who has made a career out of cooking up John Birch-like theories about Muslim infiltration — responded by saying that while has no plans to run, he wouldn’t rule out the possibility by making a “Shermanesque statement.” Watch it:

Gaffney’s thinly-veiled Islamophobia and penchant for accusing conservative bigwigs of being agents of the Muslim Brotherhood have earned him scorn from some fellow conservatives, including fellow members of the panels Gaffney sat on during the conference. At a panel Friday about Sharia law — Gaffney’s favorite topic — he faced off against Marshall Breger, a former Bush security official who has been publicly critical of Gaffney’s delusions, calling out the emptiness of the Sharia threat and warning that Gaffney’s brand of Islamoparanoid militarism would alienate American-Muslims. As Religion Dispatchs’ Sarah Posner reported, things got heated:

The moderator, neo-conservative conspiracy theorist Kenneth Timmerman, cut Breger off when he tried to defend himself against Gaffney. Gaffney, who insisted that even conservatives fail to understand the threat of a political, legal, and military takeover by shari’ah, at one point shouted “Rubbish!” in reaction to Breger. Gaffney’s fear-mongering knows no bounds, as he asserted that “if we don’t wake up, we will soon be like Britain . . . or even Saudi Arabia.” He had support on the panel, too, with the Christian Broadcasting Network’s Erik Stakelback calling him “the Paul Revere of calling out the Muslim Brotherhood.”

The crowd was clearly on Gaffney’s side, giving cheers and even a standing ovation when he would castigate Berger. Indeed, he seemed to be warmly welcomed at the event. As Gaffney wondered the halls of the conference area, he was often stopped by activists interested in taking a picture of getting an autograph, and he signed books for several minutes outside the Israel conference, staying longer to chat with admirers.

But his attacks, most notably on influential anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, got him barred from participating in any official capacity at the much bigger Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) two years ago. “[H]e has become personally and tiresomely obsessed with his weird belief that anyone who doesn’t agree with him on everything all the time or treat him with the respect and deference he believes is his due, must be either ignorant of the dangers we face or, in extreme case, dupes of the nation’s enemies,” then-CPAC Chairman David Keene told ThinkProgress earlier this year.

But apparently, for some religious conservatives at the Faith and Freedom Conference, Gaffney is a reasonable choice for president.

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