From Chris Rodda (author of Liars for Jesus exposing the “Christian nation” moosechunder being pushed on history classrooms, and research director for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation):
[A] ‘chemical irritant’ was sprayed through a window of the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, where 300 people were gathered for a Ramadan prayer service. The room that the chemical was sprayed into was the room where babies and children were being kept while their mothers were engaged in prayers.
As I understand it, no one was badly hurt. However, Rodda quotes an email she received from a friend of one of the victimized families:
“She tells me that her daughters slept with her last night, the little one in her arms and sobbing throughout the night. She tells me she is afraid, and will never return to the mosque, and I wonder what kind of country is this where people have to fear attending their place of worship?
“The children come into the room, and tell me they want to leave America and return to Syria, where they had fled to from Iraq. They say they like me, … , and other American friends — but they are too afraid and want to leave. Should a 6 and 7 year old even have to contemplate the safety of their living situation?
The incident coincided with:
This week, 28 million copies of a right-wing, terror propaganda DVD are being mailed and bundled in newspaper deliveries to voters in swing states. The 60-minute DVDs, titled Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West, are landing on doorsteps in a campaign coinciding with the 7th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Funding is coming from a New York-based group called the Clarion Fund, a shadowy outfit whose financial backers are unclear.
Rodda notes:
The presidential campaign edition of the Obsession DVD, currently being distributed by the Clarion Fund, carries the endorsement of the chair of the counter-terrorism department of the U.S. Naval War College, using the name and authority of an official U.S. military institution not only to validate an attack the religion of Islam, but to influence a political campaign. For these reasons, this endorsement has been included in MRFF’s second lawsuit against the Department of Defense, which was filed on September 25 in the Federal District Court in Kansas.
The incident took place on Friday; Rodda’s post was promoted to the front page of DailyKos on Sunday; there has at the time of this post still been almost no media coverage of this outside of the local Dayton paper.
Of course there has been no coverage.
Terrorism only makes the nooz when it can be attributed to brown skinned people.
Looks like I am going to spend the rest of the year being appalled.
One wearies.
The terrorists have won. The home-grown, American-born, domestic terrorists.
Sigh.
“So far there is no indication that the incident was the result of a hate crime, according to Dayton police.”
That’s what the Dayton Daily News is saying. Maybe we should wait before jumping to conclusions.
I’m concluding that both incidents mentioned by Plover are reprehensible, as is the fact that they are being ignored.
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That’s what the Dayton Daily News is saying. Maybe we should wait before jumping to conclusions.
Annie, That would be nice, but imagine it was a Christian church school, and then say that again – and try to keep a straight face. This act is a shame, but had it been a Christian school, it would have been covered as a tragedy. The facts are up in the air, sure, but the inequality of the coverage is what is clear.
the endorsement of the chair of the counter-terrorism department of the U.S. Naval War College
My cousin is the senior NCO at the Naval War College. I’ll ask him about this over a Red Stripe.
I’m not saying it’s not bad, it’s horrible that people were scared and breathing in God konws what, but to automatically tie it in with it being a hate crime before the police have finished investigating is hasty.
What if it was a Jewish temple school? A Hindu temple school? A Universalist whatever school? A Mormon temple school?
When the facts are up in the air, what is there really to cover? Speculation? What does speculation add to discourse?
If it were any other school of any religion, it would immediately be suspected as a hate crime.
I suppose it could be an irritant leak. I wonder if the pepper spray line goes under than building?
Although in possible fairness, I’d guess I’d like to know more.
Anytime something happens at any place of worship, it was a place of worship, correct? Not a school? It was a room in the place of worship as far as I can tell. Anytime something like this happens anywhere people are going to suspect stuff.
I mean really, you all are suspecting, so I guess your angry the media ISN’T? And you claim it’s because they’re Muslim. And therefore brown. And therefore of course white homegrown terrorists must be to blame. And you want the media to take up this chant without proof of ay of it?
That’s ridiculous. To demand the media speculate is ridiculous.
“So far there is no indication that the incident was the result of a hate crime,” shows that it is indeed being looked into, that it has indeed been suspected of a hate crime, even though it was a Mosque and not a Church, imagine that, but as of now there is no indication it was.
Idle speculation leads to hate. After the OK bombings people were all over blaming it on Muslims, turns out they were wrong, right? Bet you were flipping out on people who you heard doing that……right?
Coverage in a sense equals speculation. Why would any particular even be covered in the media?
They are already positing some speculation whether voiced or not in terms of covering the event.
It is true that there are anti-room based terrorist cells. And anti-whatever day it happened cells. And anti-daytime. And the school is in the Northern Hemisphere so there could be a geographical angle.
Crazies were talking about that OK city could be Muslims but that didn’t make any sense, ever. Their blind spot was to ignore/deny the militia phenomenon. Additionally, noting the increase in hate crimes against those of Middle Eastern descent after 9/11 is acknowledging that xenophobic rhetoric has its consequences. Since virulent anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric is being spewed non-stop, it is not irresponsible to speculate that someone spraying something into a window of a Mosque could have some sort of religious motive. The crime itself is enough to speculate as to motive. Alternatively it could be a Law and Order:CI type deal where one of the kids was a target and the attack is just misdirection. Or maybe one of the moms in the class has Munchausen by Proxy syndrome. Who knows!
It wasn’t a school! The mothers were gone praying, right? Why do you keep saying school and class? They were young children and babies. At my Church we called it Nursery.
Does it matter if it didn’t make any sense about Muslims and OK? Nope, but it sure caused an increase in fear and hatred of Muslims.
Ideally, the point of press coverage is not to speculate, but to, well, investigate and report.
This seems like the kind of situation where you want a fair amount of press sniffing around trying to get their own story in order to spur the police to get the right answer first.
For one, the atmosphere in this country makes “hate crime” look more plausible than say “absent-minded pest control guy” — though not necessarily more than “greedy developer trying to use the atmosphere of terror to get them to sell the building”. (And consider that I can’t even write that previous sentence without taking into account that “vermin” rhetoric has been used against Muslims.) Taking the possibility seriously is not “jumping to conclusions” — even the author of the email Rodda quoted is not jumping to conclusions.
The “no evidence of hate crime” article is somewhat weird. The headline and quotes within the article say “no evidence” while the lede states that Police Chief says it “was not” a hate crime — though this is seems most likely to be sloppy editing.
When the chief is quoted, he says: “‘The men didn’t say anything to her (before she was sprayed),’ Biehl said. ‘There was nothing left at the scene or anything that makes us believe this is a biased crime.’”
How often do people who just decide to go do something like this, as opposed to this who are part of some hate group, leave something behind? Nothing in any of the accounts indicates whether the men did see, or would have been likely to see the girl who was sprayed in the face. How open was the window? Was there glare on it? More information about what his judgment is based would be nice.
I can imagine answers to my questions that would make the chief’s statement plausible, and answers that would make it dodgy. I have no idea which are the case.
It is worth noting that one of the Islamic Society board members said, “We are not linking the two at all” (meaning the incident and the DVD).
The strangest paragraph of the article though seems to be this one:
“Biehl said the incident will be assigned to a detective today, Sept. 30, since it happened over the weekend. The detective will determine if a crime was committed. The police report of the incident was filed Monday afternoon. He said a detective was at the scene Friday.”
Doesn’t sound like they’re treating this very urgently, does it? Dayton is an actual city, and presumably doesn’t have a one-horse PD. Would they be acting the same way if a “dark-skinned man” was seen doing the same thing at a Christian church?
One reason you want the press involved is to make sure there’s no coverup if the person who did this turns out to be the brother/son/drinking buddy of one of the cops (or the mayor). Or the police chief is a racist. Or whatever. There are myriad local details that go into this stuff. Since I’m just throwing out random possibilities, anything I say will sound like conspiracy theorizing, but local reporters presumably know what’s going on. The point is, when things work correctly, it tends to make things look more above board. As it stands, we’re left wondering.
I’ve noticed in the past that for local stories like this that Google News usually turns up links to stories on the web sites for the local TV stations. There is no such link for this story, though there is one for a story from a couple of weeks ago about the Islamic Society getting the go ahead for another mosque in a township outside Dayton. I mean, kids getting gassed, whether or not it’s a hate crime or even if it’s just an accident, would normally be super-potent catnip for local TV news teams. But… what? Not if the kids are Muslim? I don’t get this one.
The web site for that local TV station does however currently carry a story headlined “Bradford Area Man Injured Falling From Tree”.
Why do trees hate Area man???
Dayton is an actual city, and presumably doesn’t have a one-horse PD. Would they be acting the same way if a “dark-skinned man” was seen doing the same thing at a Christian church?
No, because it’s Southwest Ohio. Neigbor to Jean Schmidt in OH-02.
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annie, I’m only insisting the media speculates as much when it’s a Mosque as when it’s a Cathedral. So far that’s not the case.
You shouldn’t insist the media speculate at all, troll boy.
My speculation, or at least, insinuation: The country is littered with local law enforcement officers who don’t, as individuals, believe there are such things as “hate crimes,” and are very reluctant to name bias crimes even when they’ve clearly happened…
Or, for that matter, calling a plan to assassinate Barack Obama if he’s elected a terrorist act.
Those tweakers certainly aren’t racists. No sir.
I bet right-wingers think this puts the left in a double-bind. “You’re all for the 1st Amendment when it’s giving porn to little kids, but pass around a few DVDs you don’t agree with and you want it censored!”
I bet because I’ve heard that argument… *sigh*
“Is it irresponsible to speculate? It would be irresponsible not to!”
That is, when we’re not fantasizing about dolphins.