The World According To Missygirl

Trooper Joe Kluczynski, who conducted the training, said he got his training materials from the DHS. Many will recall back in 2011, the DHS released the controversial publications, “Domestic Terrorism and Homegrown Violent Extremism Lexicon” and “Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Training Guidance and Best Practices.” Both documents provided the impetus for the type of training tools government agencies across the country are using.

Todd Starnes, writing for Fox News, reports that during a U.S. Army training event, an Army instructor cited Evangelical Christianity and Catholicism as examples of religious extremism—along with Al Qaeda and Hamas.

Not only was it implied that Evangelical Christianity is as dangerous as a terrorist organization, but it was at the top of the list of threats.

 And, here is that list:

Evangelical Christianity

Muslim Brotherhood

Ultra-Orthodox Jews

Christian Identity

Al Qaeda

Hamas

Abu Sayyam

Ku Klux Klan

Sri Ram Sene

Catholicism

Kamane Movement / Kach

Army of God

Sunni Muslims

Nation of Islam

Jewish Defense League

Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

Hutaree

“Islamophobia” was also listed as a form of religious extremism.”

“We find this offensive to have Evangelical Christians and the Catholic Church to be listed among known terrorist groups,” Ron Crews, executive director of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, said. “It is dishonorable for any U.S. military entity to allow this type of wrongheaded characterization.”

Army spokesman George Wright told Fox News that the presentation of the extremist threats list was an “isolated incident not condoned by the Dept. of the Army.” Wright said that the, “slide was not produced by the Army and certainly does not reflect our policy or doctrine.” He added that, “it was produced by an individual without anyone in the chain of command’s knowledge or permission.”

But, the incident was made public by a soldier who had attended the briefing. He requested copies of the presentation which he subsequently sent to the Chaplain Alliance. “He considers himself an evangelical Christian and did not appreciate being classified with terrorists,” Crews explained to Fox News. “There was a pervasive attitude in the presentation that anything associated with religion is an extremist.”

The Archdiocese for the Military Services was stunned upon learning that the Army considers Catholicism to be an example of extremism: “The Archdiocese is astounded that Catholics were listed alongside groups that are, by their very mission and nature, violent and extremist.”

Wright had the opportunity to speak with the officer who did the presentation and she told him that she got her information from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). To this Crews responded with: “Why is there such dependence upon the work of the SPLC to determine hate groups and extremist groups.” He added that, “it appears that some military entities are using definitions of ‘hate’ and ‘extreme’ from the lists of anti-Christian political organizations. That violates the apolitical stance appropriate for the military.”

According to Mark Potok, Senior Fellow & Editor-in-Chief at the SPLC, the SPLC has never labeled Evangelical Christianity or Catholicism as extremist groups. But, they have labeled a number of conservative Christian organizations as “hate groups” due to the organizations’ stance on homosexuality.

A handful of domestic Muslim hate groups, such as the As-Sabiqun movement were not tallied by the SPLC, even though disapproval of homosexuals is prevalent among Muslims. Jonathan Brown, an Assistant Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle, writing for Patheos reports that while a group of liberal Muslims in the West argue that homosexuality is in fact allowed in Sharia law, almost all traditional Muslim scholars reject this argument. But, the SPLC chose to zero in on Christians instead of Muslims.

The SPLC does have a ‘General Hate’ category into which people like Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller are placed. Accusing Spencer and Geller of ‘anti-Muslim’ sentiment would be inaccurate because much of the material produced by the two is in defense of Muslims (i.e. women and children) who are oppressed by other Muslims. In as much as the SPLC claims to be monitoring hate, there are no ‘Muslim Fundamentalist’, ‘Jihadist’, or ‘Anti-Christian’ hate groups listed.

Both the SPLC & federal government agencies such as the DHS and FBI harbor an interest bordering on obsession with Christians and “right wing extremists” while ignoring the following findings from a U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee report titled “Terrorist Arrests and Plots Stopped in the United States 2009-2012″:

Ninety-eight terror suspects/defendants from the 2009-2012 time period revealed 17 who were not Muslim and not connected to Islamic terror plots.

Nearly 83% of the terror suspects involved in U.S. terror plots from 2009-2012 were Muslim

A report issued by the Department of Justice in 2011 relating to “National Security Division Statistics on Unsealed International Terrorism and Terrorism – Related Convictions 9/11/01 – 3/ 18/10″ identified, after analysis, more than 80% of all such convictions tied to international terrorist groups and homegrown terrorism involved defendants driven by a radical Islamist agenda.

The Senate Intelligence Committee report, that overlaps by 2009 and early 2010 with the noted DOJ statistical conviction report, clearly validates and continues the 80+% finding related to the post-9/11 case conviction analysis.

These reports confirm that while the vast majority of Muslims in America are not terrorists, the clear and significant majority of terrorist plots and cases identified within the United States involve radicalize Muslims.

(Via The Investigative Project on Terrorism)

To be sure, government agencies need to be vigilant in regard to all terrorist threats. But, as is the case with the politically motivated SPLC, the DHS and FBI appears to be not as focused on the groups representing 83% of domestic terrorist plots as they are on groups far less likely to present a threat. In both the case of the law enforcement training in Colorado and the Army training, uneasiness with viewpoints deemed to be outside of the mainstream was evident. Entire groups of people are being singled out for having ideologies that some find offensive. It would behoove those offended to read the First Amendment of the U.S. •