How About a New Front for the War on Terror

When Buford Furrow, a white supremacist who had incubated his hatred among like-minded souls at the Aryan Nations compound in Hayden, Idaho, attacked a Jewish daycare center in Los Angeles, no one doubted his motive. After Naveed Afzal Haq was arrested and charged with killing one woman and wounding 5 others at the Seattle Jewish Federation, Seattle’s sensitivity trained police and media were reluctant to call it a hate crime.
According to news reports, Seattle police declined to discuss possible motives for the attack. "We believe ... it's a lone individual acting out his antagonism," said David Gomez, an FBI assistant special agent in charge of counterterrorism in Seattle.
Antagonism? You mean this isn’t a hate crime? It’s an antagonism crime?
Even the suspect’s own words don’t seem to be tipping anyone off on the west side. “I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel,” he was quoted as saying before opening fire. Even so, the Los Angeles Times managed this headline in Sunday’s paper: “Jewish Center Shooter’s Motive is a Mystery.”
There exists a curious reluctance to remark the obvious in these cases. And this squeamishness is not unique to Seattle. A few years back, Hesham Mohamed Hadayet walked up to the El Al (Israeli) airline ticket window at the Los Angeles International Airport drew a handgun and started blazing away, killing two and wounding four. The police scratched their heads in puzzlement at that shooter’s motives in that case as well. When a bomb plot and a conspiracy to behead Canada’s prime minister were uncovered in Toronto, police wondered what might have tied the plotters together. Every effort was made to treat the fact that all attended the same mosque as an inconsequential coincidence.
Why our self-anointed finger pointers can so easily sniff out the faintest aroma of hate from one group and yet neither hear, see, nor speak evil elsewhere is very likely a symptom of what author Shelby Steele has labeled, “white guilt.” Nevertheless, were we to get serious about attacking hate wherever it arises with the same vigor with which we pursue white supremacists, we might see some progress.
Six years ago, northwesterners were ready to hold parades for Morris Dees. Morris Dees is the founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center and a pioneer in the legal strategy that held hate groups responsible for the crimes committed by their members. In two notable cases, Dees was able to put neo-Nazis out of business by winning enormous monetary judgments against hate groups by proving in court that the violent criminal behavior of its members was encouraged by those organization’s teachings.
In Northern Idaho, Dees represented a woman and child who were fired upon by Aryan Nations members. Dees convinced a jury that the crimes were inspired by the teachings of the Aryan Nations’ high priest, Richard Butler. He won a judgment that bankrupted the “church” and forced the sale of the Aryan Nations compound. The suddenly uprooted Nazis dispersed hither and yon by the gentlest currents.
Now, I am not a lawyer, and I don’t plan to play one in this corner, but it would seem to me that we have quite a number of hate groups in this country masquerading as religious organizations whose members commit violent hate crimes against others on the basis of race, color or creed. While I will grant that most American Muslims are non-violent and that most mosques refrain from preaching madrassas hatred, the fact remains that there are a significant number of mosques that preach a hatred that would bring joy to the heart of Richard Butler’s lost acolytes.
So, where is Morris Dees?
Okay, we know where Morris Dees is. He is very selective about the hate he hears or sees.
But, if the Aryan Nations could not hide their hateful intentions behind the First Amendment protections of freedom of religion, then there is no reason why mosques where crimes of hate are encouraged should not be vulnerable to the same legal harassment and destruction as was the Aryan Nations.
Now, I don’t know what was preached in Naveed Afzal Haq’s mosque in the Tri-Cities prior to the commission of his alleged crimes. But if the teaching there resembled the racist effluvium we often hear from too many imams and ayatollahs, then it needs to be held to the same standard as the Aryan Nations.
Woudn't it be something if lawyers could actually be useful for a change?