02/19/15 – Yasmine Taeb – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, you guys, welcome back.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is my show, The Scott Horton Show.
Our next guest is Yasmin Tayb.
I hope I'm saying that right.
Hi, Yasmin.
Welcome to the show.
Hi, Scott.
It's good to be here.
Thank you for having me.
Did I say your last name right?
Yep, that's correct.
Okay, good.
So just like the B and the E, we're in different order there.
Tayb.
Okay.
I'll remember that for later, I hope.
Hey, so you're at the Center for American Progress, correct?
That's correct.
Okay, great.
And you've got part of the byline on this new report.
It's part two, years later now, part two of Fear, Inc., about the Islamophobia industry in America.
It's interesting how people go back and look at the early polls when Bush told the American people, oh, no, this isn't about Islam.
It's just one very small group of weirdo, evil killer guys that we've got to take care of.
But it's not Muslims in general.
They accepted that and said, yeah, of course.
But things have really changed since then, really especially since Bush left office and a secret Kenyan Muslim usurper stole John McCain's rightful throne away, and kind of the lid has come off of Islamophobia in America.
It was kind of politically incorrect, but now it's just unleashed, I think, since Obama's come to power.
So it's such important work.
I'm so grateful that you guys are doing this to expose the very special interests behind pushing this kind of fear on the American people.
And first and foremost among them, just like in your study here, is Frank Gaffney from the Center for Security Policy.
Could you please tell us about him?
Sure.
So Frank Gaffney is actually a prominent figure in this network that we highlighted not only in our most recent report, but also in our 2011 report, Fear Inc.
So Frank Gaffney and his organization, Center for Security Policy, he is one of the lead engineers of the anti-Sharia movement that we see spreading across our country.
And when I say anti-Sharia movement, basically what we've been seeing is more than, right now currently, more than 30 states have introduced some form of anti-foreign law slash anti-Sharia legislation in the country.
So a total of over 100 bills have been introduced in state legislatures across America basically about this supposed manufactured threat of Sharia to the U.S.
Basically him and his colleagues, especially David Yershami, who was the author of the model anti-Sharia legislation in the U.S., they've been basically promoting this narrative that Muslims are trying to co-opt the government and to replace it with Sharia, which is what they say is a totalitarian ideology of hate that's committed to replacing the U.S. Constitution with a radical Islamist caliphate, which obviously is insane.
I mean, there is no real threat of Sharia to our country.
But him and his colleagues at CSB have been trying to push this anti-Muslim hysteria.
The reason why we say he's one of the lead figures and misinformation experts is because if you look at our interactive, he's connected to more groups, more donors, more activists in the network than anyone else that we've featured.
He used to be a prominent member in the Reagan administration, but after identifying him in Fear, Inc., in our 2011 report, luckily he's been marginalized a bit in the conservative movement.
He once had accused two board members of KPAC of being affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, which basically earned him the condemnation of the American Conservative Union.
So luckily with individuals such as himself, we've seen him marginalized a bit, but unfortunately he still is invited to give testimony on Capitol Hill.
He still is prominently featured as a speaker at a number of conservative think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, etc.
Yeah, it seems like, especially when you talk about the bills that they're pushing there, it's brilliant propaganda.
They know that there's no Islamic takeover of 50 state houses and 10,000 judgeships in this country.
What in the world are they talking about?
But they know that when people hear, well, there's a real effort to limit the Sharia law, then they fill in the rest themselves.
There must be a real reason to do so.
Otherwise, what's necessitating a push against it if it's not pushing in the first place?
And so even without any information at all, it's just such a great way to form assumptions in people's mind about the society that they live in.
And I guess what is going on down at the state capitol?
I don't know, you know?
So it's great that you mention that because David Yershami, who I mentioned, is essentially the author of the model anti-Sharia bills.
He made it very clear in an interview he did with the New York Times that his whole mission, his motive, it wasn't to get these bills passed, but he said the whole point was actually to have people asking, what is Sharia?
Because even though there's been more than 100 anti-Sharia bills introduced, we've seen about eight states that have passed it.
But the fact that they're pushing this, and again, like you mentioned, they know it's not a real threat.
But what they're doing is they push these very just hateful language bills to try to marginalize an entire community of 3 million Muslims.
So that's the effect that it's having.
And you've probably seen the protests in Texas with the whole state representative Molly White's comments about it requiring Muslims to give some sort of loyalty oath.
And then there was a protest that happened later that day against just an event that a local Muslim civil rights organization was having about Muslims meeting their elected officials.
It was a civic engagement event.
And they basically, these protesters, hijacked it.
And they're doing the same thing now later this month in Oklahoma.
But again, this is as a direct result of these hateful anti-Sharia bills, what we call anti-Sharia mapping, that this network is pushing.
Oh, yeah.
And all that came to a head at the Texas Capitol recently, where it's just another, in context, it's just another field trip by some group to the Texas Capitol, right?
Only this is like Muslims come to the Texas State Capitol to visit day or whatever.
So there were some different Muslim groups that were there.
And the hecklers and the anti-Islam industry showed up and tried to turn it into a, see, they're trying to take control of the Capitol type of a spectacle.
And it's like that old saying that you can fool some of the people all of the time and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.
And so that's just what they're doing is they know they have the perfect audience for this in talk radio.
And as you say in your report in among fundamentalist Christians who are just primed to receive this message.
And so here's this nice lady in a headscarf saying, we're so happy to be Texans, to live here.
We love this place and thank you for loving us.
It's so important to us to feel like we belong here.
And we finally do.
Thanks.
You know, we like being part of this community and society with you.
And then here comes the lunatic to come and grab the microphone and say, you'll never conquer us.
And and the people in talk radio land go, wow.
Yeah, good.
Stand up to the evil tyrant lady in the headscarf.
Yeah, it's really unfortunate.
It's terrible.
And now I talked all the way through that part of the segment and we have to take this break.
But please stay with us.
There's Yasmin Tabe has a lot of important things to say.
It's a very important report by the Center for American Progress.
Fear, Inc.
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OK, guys.
Welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Yasmin Tabe about the catastrophe.
Of modern American Islamophobia.
And really this excellent study that they've done at the Center for American Progress.
It's Fear, Inc.
2.0.
They did another one back in 2011 about this.
And there's so many things to go over here.
But I guess sort of something from before the break was it's important for Frank Gaffney and his comrades here to aim down at the talk radio audience that can't read and doesn't know any better to tell them these things.
To pick on Muslims who don't have a voice, really to fight back against him, at least not anywhere where he's accusing them.
But then he took on Grover Norquist and he also took on, as you say in here, Huma Abedin, Hillary's aide, a long time, years long, best friend and aide kind of lady to Hillary.
I guess I don't know that much about her, but I think very close aide to her.
And that's what really got him in trouble was he was picking a fight with somebody who has powerful friends and can push back.
And it was so obviously ridiculous that Grover Norquist is some kind of traitor to America.
I mean, I guess maybe if you're a tax and spend Democrat, but for the rest of us, no, not so much.
Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous.
Yeah.
So but can you tell us a little bit of that story and what it was that that he was supposedly guilty of doing?
He married into the Muslim Brotherhood.
Is that it?
So, I mean, Frank Gaffney had claimed that basically Islamists have infiltrated the conservative movement.
He accused Grover Norquist and also a good friend of mine, Sohail Khan, of being agents of the Muslim Brotherhood.
And like you mentioned, he clearly didn't understand just like the amount of influence and power Grover and Sohail had in the Republican Party.
It's CPAC because they I mean, the way the pushback by CPAC, their colleagues was phenomenal.
I mean, they passed a resolution.
This is back in 2011, basically condemning Gaffney.
They banned him from coming to their events.
And of course, like what Gaffney ended up doing was.
So now like every year when the CPAC conference happens, he hosts his own uninvited conference, what he calls the National Security Action Summit every year, essentially for folks that have been banned from CPAC for being crazy.
So he brings like he brings Louie Gohmert, Senator Ted Cruz, Pamela Geller, a number of other folks that are that are profiled prominently in Fearing.
And now you say that his organization, the Center for Security Policy.
And by the way, I'm under the impression that Gaffney has always been sort of the lowest level of the neoconservative movement.
And and, you know, like I don't I don't think they invite him over to the Wolfowitz's for dinner kind of thing, but I'm not exactly sure how they rank.
But he always seemed like the pretty whack and that they kind of have distanced themselves from him.
But you say here that his his Center for Security Policy makes a lot of money.
Where are they getting their money from?
They they make a lot of money.
And he himself, I mean, I think we've mentioned this, but his annual salary is is close to three hundred thousand just from CSP alone.
But, I mean, the groups that that fund are, I mean, some of some of the largest donors to to this network and what he actually has ended up doing.
Just to give you let's say just to give you an example of the foundations, like the Scaife Foundations is one of his largest donors and they've given him over three million dollars.
And then there are a couple of other foundations that we highlighted and interactive.
But the other thing that I noticed during the research that I was doing for the money trail for this report is that I was really shocked to find out that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld through the Joyce and Donald Rumsfeld Foundation between 2007 and 2012 has given him nearly forty thousand dollars.
I mean, obviously, that's very low compared to the millions he's gotten from some of these these donors.
But that to me was outrageous.
I mean, a former cabinet member in, you know, in our government that the minute he left his post, he started the Joyce and Donald Rumsfeld Foundation.
And I mean, he he started donating in 2007.
So I don't know if he had any connections to Gaffney while he was still in office.
But to see someone so prominent, a politician elected official connected to anti-Muslim, anti-Islam activists that's promoting these discriminatory policies to me, that was that was that was really shocking.
Maybe not surprising, but shocking.
It is.
Hey, we should not let ourselves get desensitized to things just because there are lots of outrageous.
They're still as outrageous as they are.
But now.
So let me ask you this.
And I'm afraid I didn't get to finish.
And I want to get to the cops if we have time.
Speaking of aiming down at impressionable minds.
But it seems very important to me that and I deliberately watch Fox News all day because I want the worst of it, you know, straight from the Pentagon and straight from the neocons, if I can get it their way.
And they have a brand new re-again branding push for radical Islam.
Why won't Obama?
That's the talking point.
Why won't Obama just call the enemy what it is?
Radical Islam.
That's the problem.
It's Islamic terrorism.
Why won't he say the word Islamic?
Islamic terrorism.
And it seems pretty obvious to me.
And what happened was I sent out a tweet that said, look, all that's going on here is there's a new push by Israel and their allies to conflate the caliph Ibrahim with the Ayatollah Khomeini, even though they're deadly enemies because they're trying to undermine the Iran nuclear deal.
And that's why they're this brand new push for this glittering generality of Islamic radicalism.
And that way you don't ask, well, who's who and who's on whose side and whose side are we on?
We're on the Ayatollah side in Iraq, but we're on Al-Qaeda side in Syria.
What's up with that?
They don't want that conversation.
So it's radical Islam, radical Islam.
And right after I finished.
I mean, it was I'm not I wasn't stating a fact.
I was saying, in my opinion, that's what looks like going on here.
And then immediately right after that, like two minutes later, Benjamin Netanyahu put out a tweet saying it's all radical Islam.
There's no difference between the Islamic state and the Islamic Republic.
It's all the same.
Stop the nuclear deal.
I mean, today, bang the gong.
That's what's going on here is it's the Israel lobby and their fifth column in our country that are behind this hate and fear Muslims movement.
Am I wrong?
Um, so I mean, what we noticed in the research is that a lot of these I mean, the largest donors foundations to this network are very much aligned with.
I mean, with some of these kind of right wing extremist.
I don't I don't know how to explain it like not not just pro Israel, but very extreme groups.
That are trying, like you said, to derail the negotiations.
That's obviously not an angle that we focused on in the report.
But if you look through some of the donors, you'll see that, you know, the other organizations that they donate to.
And we did highlight we did highlight some of them.
So like, a number of these donors give to ZOA to memory to a number to a number of other like minded groups.
But you've I mean, but you made a very great point.
And that's, I mean, there, there obviously is a correlation.
And I think for them to see the negotiations, you know, derail, I think, to them, that would that would be their their ultimate goal.
Yep, sure looks like it to me.
All right.
And now I'm sorry, we got to skip the part mostly about the religious right and and the heretic, Mike Huckabee, and all of this.
But I need to let you tell us for a minute or so minute and a half or two, if you could about their efforts to brainwash the local and state cops across this country with this stuff.
You mean, sure.
And you mean law enforcement?
You're right.
Yeah.
Sure, sure.
So unfortunately, what we noticed is that a number of the activists in this network are aligned and connected to local, state and federal law enforcement.
So we did an entire chapter about the, you know, the FBI's counterterrorism initiatives, specifically the anti Muslim training manuals.
We also highlighted some of the activists that are that have in the past and are currently being employed by local, state and federal agency as counterterrorism trainers.
And one of them was Waleed Shobat, very, you know, notorious anti Muslim, just conspiracy theorist, crazy nut who gets paid to basically go around giving counterterrorism trainings.
And that to us, obviously, is incredibly dangerous because it's just not only destroying the relationship between the community and law enforcement that, you know, the law enforcement is tasked to protect the American Muslim community.
But it's just it's dangerous and that it's just misinformation and lies that these these trainers are giving.
Yeah.
And along the lines, I'm sorry, I'm keeping you just a minute over here, but along the lines of pretty much all these people are guilty of something, suspect them.
Sure.
The harder they believe in their religion, the more likely they are to blow themselves up near you and this kind of nonsense.
Correct.
And that was I mean, that was from literally in the FBI's training manual that the more devout a Muslim is, the more dangerous he is.
Yeah.
And this is really the big lie.
And it's it's amazing the way there's kind of this big confluence this week where you have they're actually given laser designators out to the moderate jihadists fighting in Syria.
At the same time that the former number one champion of that policy, Robert Ford, is now turning on the policy.
At the same time, they're hosting a symposium at the White House to get to the root of the problem of Islamic extremism, terrorism.
And yet it's the Democrats argument as opposed to the Republican one.
And so they're they're trying to deny the whole kind of Gaffney line here that, oh, it's Islam makes them do it.
But they don't have another plausible answer because they can't say that really it was George Bush Senior and Bill Clinton and George W.
Bush and Barack Obama that are the cause of terrorism in the world because they occupy and bomb and kill and occupy and support dictators and support Israel and kill people some more.
And they're the reason.
And in fact, in the case of Obama, even support the Mujahideen in two recent wars in Libya and in Syria.
And so they can't say that.
Well, you know, it's intervention that causes it.
And they don't want to agree with the right wing that, yeah, it's Islam that causes it.
And so their answer is basically a bunch of nothing.
And so we just continue on down the same path.
Well, maybe they need better jobs.
Well, maybe if they didn't live in a military dictatorship that we had overthrow the democratically elected one like in Egypt in the last couple of years.
And so there's no one.
In other words, there's no one really in politics who's actually being honest about the situation we're in or proposing any kind of reasonable solution to it.
Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's a difficult situation that we're in.
And I'm I'm sure you've seen a lot of the critics of the administration CVE summit from from the last three days.
But, yeah, it's I mean, it's it's unfortunately difficult times that we live in.
So.
All right.
Well, thanks very much for coming on the show, Yasmin.
Thanks for this great work.
It's really important.
Of course.
Thank you so much for having me.
All right.
So that's Yasmin Tabe.
She's at the Center for American Progress.
And this great study is called Fear Inc.
2.0.
It's just twenty five dollars a year for the print edition.
Fifteen per year to read it online.
That's FFF dot org slash subscribe and Tom Scott sent you.
Hey, I'll Scott here.
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