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May 10, 2007
Anti-war Activist/Computer Expert's Naive Association With Muslim Community Results In Post 7/7 'Awakening'
"Where else can you sit down in a single evening and listen to senior people from Hamas, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, people from the revolutionary left and the antiwar movement from around the globe?" - British Trotskyite John Rees at the Cairo Anti-War Conference, April 2007Via who uploaded the video on YouTube (hat tip - LGF), this video shows anti-war activist Martin Gilbertson - thinking he had associated himself with like minds, explaining that he produced anti-western propaganda videos, secured websites and encrypted emails for Muslims who were involved in an Islamic bookshop and a youth center attended by bombers Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer. He was also employed to establish firewalls that would safeguard both places from outside interference:
Over two years, he was commissioned to make "presentations" in the back rooms of the Iqra bookshop, and at Hamara Youth Access Point, established later and visited regularly by Khan, a youth worker, and Tanweer. Khan and Tanweer were also, says Mr Gilbertson, involved in the Mullah Crew, a local gang which used to train at what was known as the "al-Qaida gym". Mr Gilbertson says the gym, which he visited, was linked to the bookshop, a few metres away.The video clearly shows an example of how the Left associates with Islamic extremists, sometimes naively, as in the case of anti-war activist Martin Gilbertson, and how disastrous events can be the result. Gilbertson apparently tried to notify the police but never heard back from them until it was too late.
In a NY Sun article yesterday titled, "Islamist-Left Alliance A Growing Force," we learn of more examples of how anti-war activists and the anti-global left in general , some perhaps well-meaning like Martin Gilbertson, have found common ground with Islamists.
The issues include countering the international boycott of Hamas, calling for the boycott of Israel, supporting Iran against the threat of a U.S. attack (as well as supporting its "right" to develop nuclear weapons), supporting avowedly anti-American countries such as Cuba and Venezuela, and, above all, opposing the war in Iraq:
... Many leftist blogs and Web sites monitored by MEMRI have been increasingly open to working with Islamist groups on the goals they both share -- most notably the desire for America to leave Iraq. British Trotskyite John Rees, a regular at the Cairo conference since it started in 2002, told Al-Ahram in April that at this year's gathering he had discussed in particular the "ongoing dynamic between the anti-war movement and Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood." Mr. Rees also believes that the Islamist-Left coalition is gaining strength, while what is known as the "coalition of the willing" has faltered.More ...
... In addition, MEMRI researchers monitoring jihadi Web sites have recently found Islamists trying to influence American anti-war efforts. On the Islamist Al-Mohajroon Web site, someone with the username Al-Wathiq Billah instructs readers on how to infiltrate popular American Internet forums to distribute jihadist films and spread disinformation about the war.
... "There is no doubt, my brothers, that raiding American forums is among the most important means of obtaining victory in the fierce media war ... and of influencing the views of the weak-minded American who pays his taxes so they will go to the infidel American army. This American is an idiot and does not know where Iraq is ... Every electronic mujahid" must engage in this raiding, Mr. Billah writes.
... Mr. Billah advises his jihadist readers to "register yourself using a purely American name" and to "invent stories about American soldiers you have personally known (as classmates... or members in a club who played baseball and tennis with you) who were drafted to Iraq and then committed suicide while in service by hanging or shooting themselves." The writing should, he says, provoke "frustration and anger towards their government, which will ... render them hostile to Bush ... and his Republican Party, and make them feel they must vote to bring the troops back from Iraq as soon as possible."
Posted by Abdul at May 10, 2007 2:25 PM
