"Why Us?" Ask Local Muslim Leaders

The Orange County Register has a warm and fuzzy, politically-correct article on its front page today concerning the local Muslim community's divided response to President Obama's Countering Violent Extremism program being piloted in LA, Minneapolis and Boston.

“But we have to ask the question: Why only the Muslim community? Is the government working with all communities that face the challenge of violence and extremism?”

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/community-663933-muslim-extremism.html

In response to the above quote, what other community sees its members going off to join ISIS or al Shabaab? Of course, Hussam Ayloush, the CEO of CAIR in Southern California, raised my eyebrows a few months ago when he asked why no programs were directed at the "thousands of young American Jewish men going off to join the Israeli Defense Forces killing the people of Gaza".

I see Shakeel Syed is mentioned in the article. This is the guy who was front and center at the trial of the so-called Irvine 11, the students who disrupted the speech of Israeli ambassador Michael Oren at UC Irvine in 2010. Syed showed up at the trial with duct tape over his mouth.



On another occasion a couple of years ago, Syed showed up at UCI during a speaking event by Hatem Bazian of UC Berkeley. On that occasion, he asked a planted question from the audience referring to Israel as a "racist, genocidal, apartheid state" (I was there.) In 2012, I met Syed at Loyola Marymount University in LA during another sharia town hall. We had to ask him repeatedly when the audience could ask questions of the speakers. Syed was also one of the sponsors of that infamous charity dinner in Yorba Linda in 2011 that featured "noted humanitarians" Amir Abdel Malik Ali and Siraj Wahhaj as speakers.

And Michael Downing? I met him in 2012 at the Garden Grove mosque during a sharia town hall event held to convince the public that Sharia law was compatible with US law and our Constitution (which is clearly is not). Downing was on that panel and echoed that same sentiment. After the event, I spoke to him and told him that in 1992, Muzammil Siddiqi, the head imam at the GG mosque, had hosted the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel Rahman ( now serving life in prison for the 1993 NY terror plot), at the mosque and translated  his words on jihad for the congregation. Downing's response?

"Well, you know Gary, some people change over time."

To sum up, nobody wants to paint all Muslims as terrorists or terrorist sympathizers, but don't insult our intelligence by asking, "Why our community?"