Ten term Congressional Representative Peter King (R-NY) became the House Chairman Homeland Security Committee in December 2010. He brought to that position his fear and distrust of all things not white and Christian. Under the guise of finding the root cause of, and eradicating, extremism among American Muslims, King is holding hearings this week on “The Radicalization of Muslim Americans”. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), has King’s back, “The purpose [of the hearing] is, if you ask Chairman King, to try and assess how we can better work with the Muslim community in America to stop the spread of radical Islam”
Representative King has a history of painting Islamic-Americans with broad strokes of a very unfriendly brush. In an interview broadcast on February 9, 2004 on Sean Hannity’s radio show, he claimed that “no American Muslim leaders are cooperating in the war on terror,” and further claimed that up to 85% of American Mosques are “ruled by the extremists”. More recent statements leading up to the hearings seem to indicate that his opinion has not mellowed in the last seven years. When asked if he would consider broadening the inquiry to all extremism leading to domestic terrorism by American citizens, Rep. King stated, “It would diffuse and water down the hearings”. He added, “The hearings are aimed at protecting Muslims from being pressured to commit terrorist acts.”
Besides his zeal being a moderating influence on our Muslim brothers, Patriotic American Peter King is well known for his very public support for the Irish Republican Army. When recently asked to justify this, he coyly dodged by saying, “The fact is, the IRA never attacked the United States. And my loyalty is to the United States,” A pretty weak defense as the IRA is known to have killed at least one American citizen in a terrorist attack. His statement becomes even more absurd when you remember who was donating weapons to the IRA in the 1970’s; none other than Muammar Gaddafi, Muslim Extremist and Dictator Extraordinaire. If Peter King wants to see what a supporter of terrorism looks like, he should look in a mirror.
My thoughts are that I believe we could improve Islamic relations in the U.S. by letting folks build community centers and not burning down their places of worship. If they weren’t spending all the community’s time defending themselves, both rhetorically and physically, Muslim-Americans could direct their energies to engaging with the public and answering questions, and, ideally, be freed of the stigma of “Otherness”. If the extreme right in the U.S. was more inclined to allow Muslim-Americans their right to be seen and heard freely, without constantly being required to account for themselves, King might not have to ask why Muslims don’t speak up or speak out against violence.
(via: AP, Bloomberg, Washington Post – PostPartisan, Voices – Washington Post, White House Image)
