With Huma Abedin, an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the wife of former Congressman Anthony Weiner, in the crosshairs of the loony right, fake “ex-terrorist” Walid Shoebat is turning the crazy up to 11 by showing how one false premise can lead to two ridiculous conclusions.
It is extremely rare to have Muslim women marry non-Muslims, much less to have conservative Muslims look the other way, unless Huma has a “higher calling” and a unique exception was made for her, since she is an ear into top U.S. sensitive information, or Anthony Weiner has converted to Islam or even both.
Or maybe, just maybe, not all Muslims think alike. Just like Christians and Jews, some are going to be extremely traditional and eschew interreligious marriage, while others are going to be more modern and moderate and be fine with it. I know many Muslims who have married outside their faith; they are obviously not part of the more fundamentalist forms of Islam, as Abedin clearly is not as well. But such people simply do not exist to demagogues like Shoebat, whose only selling points are fear and paranoia.
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grumpyoldfart
July 30, 2012 at 9:13 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
But they’re usually not prepared to speak against the extremists. They’d rather see shit happen than acknowledge a split in the ranks.
matty1
July 30, 2012 at 9:25 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@1 Do you have specific examples in mind? It’s hard to say how common criticizing extremists would have to be to count as ‘usually’ for you but there are certainly cases of it happening. If anything what seems to happen is that media outlets fail to cover statements by moderate Muslims and then give space to those pushing the idea that all Muslims hold identical views.
sambarge
July 30, 2012 at 9:29 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Abedin clearly isn’t a conservative Muslim – or, for that matter, a conservative.
dingojack
July 30, 2012 at 9:32 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Grumpyoldfart – you posted:
{sentence #1] “But they’re usually not prepared to speak against the extremists“.
[Sentence #2, 1st clause) "They’d rather see shit happen..."
{Sentence #2, 2nd clause] “… than acknowledge a split in the ranks“.
While sentence #1 might be somewhat true, is there enough (or any) evidence to even allow a ballpark estimate of the probability that sentence #2′s first clause is even vaguely true(ish), and that sentence #2′s second clause is even a motivating factor behind the first clause of this sentence (assuming it is true, of course)?
Dingo
dingojack
July 30, 2012 at 9:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I meant, of course, that sentence #1 is true in general. Few Sicilians spoke out against the Mafia, few (who know) speak against the guys cooking up meth in the garage next door, few report the cop who beats the shit outta his wife on Friday nights. Few of us speak out.
Dingo
dingojack
July 30, 2012 at 9:45 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Kengi
July 30, 2012 at 9:48 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It’s extremely rare for a radical terrorist to switch sides and help the very people he was fighting against. Unless he actually wants to get closer to people in power and gain their trust.
Gitmo is the only safe place for such people.
Modusoperandi
July 30, 2012 at 10:23 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Our two selling points are fear and paranoia…and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope! Our three…
timgueguen
July 30, 2012 at 10:26 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I wonder if he’s heard that Canada’s Defence Minister, Peter McKay, is married to an Iranian born woman, Nazanin Afshin-Jam. She was raised Catholic, but no doubt that’s simply a ruse so she can pollute America’s precious bodily fluids, or something.
cheryl
July 30, 2012 at 11:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I want to answer, but I can’t get my head around the idea that they’re still trying to associate Obama with Islam when he’s pro gay marriage. Does not compute.
stevebowen
July 30, 2012 at 12:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@Cheryl
Because they don’t believe he really is pro gay marriage. It’s all part of his Muslim conspiracy They know that if America gets “teh gay” the Islamists will take over. Or something stupid like that…
reverendrodney
July 30, 2012 at 12:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I nominate “Shoebat” as a synonym for “Bullshit”. That should be his everlasting legacy.
lofgren
July 30, 2012 at 1:38 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well he does say that it’s rare for conservative muslims to keep mute, not that all muslims think alike.
Still, this implies a level of organization and communication that would have allowed the terrorists to take over the world long ago. If the fundamentalists were a highly efficient tightly integrated machine instead of a scattered bunch of loosely affiliated and often adversarial disorganized bands, they could take over this country before Obama could even convene the non-partisan Presidential Wardrobe Committee to Get the President’s Pants On. Of course if they were that efficient they would be better off forming a consulting company and making themselves filthy rich by improving corporate organizations and hierarchies.
Area Man
July 30, 2012 at 2:33 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Wait, can we be sure that this isn’t a radical Israeli plot to infiltrate the State Department? Because the evidence is the exact same.
Robert M.
July 30, 2012 at 4:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
We need a new phrase to replace “turns it up to eleven” if someone is building a crazier conspiracy on something Bachmann started.
DrVanNostrand
July 30, 2012 at 6:24 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@Area Man
In grand conspiracy theory style, I suggest that the Jews and Muslims are conspiring together. Their intense hatred is just a ruse to distract us from their real goal: preventing the return of Jesus.