Speaker warns of radical Islam — Muslim group rips terror expert's remarks
Terrorism expert Steven Emerson warned a luncheon audience in Genoa Township on Monday that militant Muslims are using "strategic deception" to enter the mainstream political debate in America and advance their terrorist agenda.
But his comments drew denials and denouncement from a local Muslim group.
Talking as a part of Cleary University's Livingston Economic Club Speaker Series, Emerson said groups with harmless-sounding names like the Benevolence International Foundation or the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, are really front groups for Islamic fundamentalists and terrorists.
"That's probably the most vexing problem we face," he said.
Speaking of CAIR, Emerson said the group was an "ideological front for terrorists and their apologists. They have defended, championed and rationalized" terrorism.
"If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it is a duck. But it's treated as an innocent group," Emerson said.
He also said moderate Muslims need to step up and condemn terrorism, but they need more help from the government.
He said the government should also stop meeting with and legitimizing the front groups he criticized.
"We need to determine and establish a policy: We are not going to meet with groups that believe in violence as part of the way to carry out a political agenda," Emerson said.
He also took some questions from the audience at Genoa Woods Conference Center near Brighton. The first was on the war in Iraq, and whether it has helped or hurt the war on terror.
Emerson said that in the short term, the war has provided a rallying cry for jihadists, although they "never needed an excuse" to hate America.
In the long term, however, "I don't believe the war in Iraq provided any more of an external excuse for jihadists to attack us," he said.
Plus, he added, al-Qaida would quickly fill the vacuum if American troops were withdrawn too soon.
Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of CAIR, was not present at the speech but responded by blasting Emerson as having an anti-Islam agenda: "He has a crusader mentality. ... He's not an unbiased analyst."
"With all the scrutiny Muslim organizations have been under since 9/11, if there was even a shred of validity to the charges of Mr. Emerson, we would have been closed down a long time ago," Walid added.
He said Emerson's casting suspicion on mainstream Muslim groups "clearly increases Islamophobia."
Emerson was the latest speaker in Cleary University's Livingston Economic Club series that will include controversial conservative commentator and columnist Ann Coulter in October.
Walid criticized the university for not inviting anyone to debate Emerson's claims.
"We should have the opportunity also to present who the American Muslims are and what our organization truly is about," he said. "If it is interested in dialogue and academic discourse, it would bring in an opposing view. That's called being fair."
Audience members had a more positive reaction.
Steven Emerson, expert on terrorism and national security, addresses the Livingston Economic Club on Monday at Genoa Woods Executive Conference and Banquet Center in Genoa Township.
Gayle Jacobs of the Michigan Homeland Security Consortium, a nonprofit group pushing the homeland security industry in Michigan, said she was surprised at Emerson's statement that the suspects in the alleged plot recently uncovered at Fort Dix in New Jersey had been in the country illegally for 23 years.
"That was really alarming," she said.
Howell Police Chief George Basar said he appreciated Emer-son's insight: "I hadn't heard it articulated quite the same way."
After his speech, Emerson said he has been called a racist in the past, but emphasized that he doesn't generalize about all Muslims.
"I don't assume anybody I meet is a terrorist," he said.
He put the blame on radical Muslims for blurring the distinction between mainstream and fundamentalist Islam. He said being suspicious of mainstream Muslim groups versus taking what they say at face value when he suspects they are actually radicals is "the lesser of two evils."
Cleary and the speaker series have been criticized for bringing in Coulter — her upcoming talk has drawn protests over her use of a slur against homosexuals and whether her invitation furthers the image of Livingston County as an intolerant place. But when Cleary President Tom Sullivan merely mentioned Coulter's name at Monday's lunch, the audience broke out into applause.
The Daily Press & Argus is a sponsor of the Economic Club series.
Contact Daily Press & Argus reporter Dan Meisler at 
(517) 552-2857
or at dmeisler@gannett.com.
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