The Issue Regarding Daniel Pipes
Updated:
September 22, 2007
In the Fall of 2006, I caught wind
of an article that mentioned our MSA. While it is always nice
to be mentioned elsewhere other than the school, this article
had a malicious intent. In an article published by Laura Mansfield
and Joe Kaufman, entitled “Paintballing
for Allah,” they instigate:
When the MSA at Embry-Riddle
Aeronautical University, a school that teaches students how to
fly planes, conducts frequent paintball outings, as they have,
this must be questioned. When the
Muslim Paintball Games of Kentucky lists as one of its competitors
a name containing the term “Al-Mujahid” [The Holy
Warrior], this must be questioned... Are these groups out to have
fun, or is it something else?
Before I continue, it is good practice to research
the authors of the article. Well, I don’t want to state
any of my opinions - I’ll just let the tone of their articles
speak for themselves. You can find articles written by Kaufman
here,
and you can find articles by Mansfield here.
I’ve found a good article about these type of people here.
After all, these people must be professionals. They only needed
to look at one photograph to accuse the MSA of “questionable”
acts.
By the way, Embry-Riddle is not only a college that,
“teaches people how to fly planes.” It has the number
one ranked Aerospace Engineering degree program in the U.S. In
fact, the majority of the people in the MSA are studying engineering
or business. I suppose obfuscation is powerful tool in propaganda.
So, how does Daniel Pipes fit in to this whole charade?
Well, simply, he linked his site to the article above. But more
than that, he has a running list of organizations, Muslim organizations,
that conduct paintball and paintball related activities. No joke,
click
here. However, the implications of being associated with such
a list are very grave. Pipes has nothing positive to say about
Muslims and he spreads his negative propaganda wildly. His reputation
speaks for himself and if you do a search on him, you’ll
find all the information you need. Here is a nice, little treatise
on him. A comment from his site:
I have a 16-year-old son who
plays paintball semiprofessionally. What are the odds of him meeting
up with groups of these kinds at tournaments? Do they keep to
themselves, or do they attend regular paintball events?
Look what the heck are our leaders
waiting for? islam is out to get us plain and simple, ya I know
not all muslims are out to get us, but about a 100 million of
them are !!! Now if those numbers don’t alarm you then your
probably not worth saving in the first place !!!! Who’s
crazier them or us, I wonder!!! why? Because were letting these
lunatics train right here in our own backyard, now if that’s
not crazy I don’t know what is…….The muslims
find themselves in the position their in for one reason and one
reason only, their religion…
Perhaps this is good tagline to describe how Americans
feel about Islam in this day in age, “Islam is out to get
us plain and simple…”
However, in such a bleak world shines a glimmer
of hope. Maybe people are tired of all the hatred and propaganda.
Here are some more comments on the site:
I am not Muslim, and I do not have many Muslim friends, but
the few I have are very respectable people who have never caused
any harm or inconvenience to anyone. I find it saddening to
see that they must be targeted for their recreational activities.
However, it is also striking to learn that a handful of Muslims
claim to use paintball as a means of jihad training, and I do
understand your point that it may become necessary to keep an
eye out for such organizations.
It is alarming, though, that you should mention the Muslim
Student Association at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
on this site. It is one thing to call for a need to be careful
of Muslim organizations who engage in paintball tournaments,
but a completely wrongful accusation to single out a student
organization at a university without any kind of hard evidence.
I firmly believe that such accusation should be taken down from
this site, until you have invested more time to further investigate
into this matter.
To which Pipes passes blame:
I merely cited information in
“Paintballing for Allah” at FrontPageMag.com; your
issue is with the authors of that article. If they agree they
made a mistake, I will note that on my blog.
Since we have examined that article already, we
know the authors did very little research to find out the veracity
of their accusations. I have been the representative of the MSA
for a while now, and I did not receive a phone call from them
(lol). If “Paintballing for Allah,” is the kind of
fodder that Pipes conducts his research with, then what does that
say about all of his other articles?
Anyway, back to the comments. Another person wrote:
I find Paintball to seem like
a fun sport, like ultimate Lazer Tag (though admittedly more intense),
and it seems like something done for sport. Now granted, there
are those people who might use it for their own purposes, but
honestly, profiling Muslims in paintball just seems wrong. I was
wondering what your take on this. Now, I have never played paintball
because of the fear that some Government official trying to keep
his numbers up would just grab me at random because I’m
Muslim and playing paintball trying to have a good time.
Sad, fear of racial profiling (which the gov’t
says doesn’t exist). We all have it.
Pipes says:
Clearly, Muslims can play paintball
as innocently as everyone else. But also, clearly, Islamists are
using paintball to prepare for jihad. This means that there must
be additional scrutiny of Muslims playing paintball, however inconvenient
that is for the many innocents so engaged.
Wow. For the rebuttal, someone replies:
Your …views are unfounded, irresponsible, and contrary
to everything that this country stands for. Perhaps there should
be additional scrutiny of Muslims who lift weights. They must
be doing it to train for jihad. Maybe Muslims are using video
games to train for jihad too. Violent video games must not be
sold to Muslims, their intentions must be called into question.
It is you whose motives must
be called into question. A man of your experience must know that
such outlandish statements are grounded in no truth, and serve
no good purpose. What they do accomplish is create an atmosphere
of suspicion and violence towards Muslims who are just as American
as you or I, and based on what they do for their community, more
of an American than you…
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Note
that all of these comments can be found on Pipes’ blog article
pertaining to the paintballing - and the comments section is moderated.
A former president of the MSA first found the blog entry and responded:
Mr. Pipes,
As the former MSA President of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University,
I organized the Embry-Riddle MSA paintball trips which you and
Front Page Magazine refer to.
I am shocked and appalled that you consider this suspicious
or somehow related to terrorism.
The Embry-Riddle MSA is not affiliated with ANY terrorist organization
and does not support or engage in ANY terrorist activity, period.
Our MSA paintball trips, as with all of the recreational activities
we host (BBQ, soccer, beach trips, go-karting, etc.) are EXCLUSIVELY
FOR THE PURPOSE OF FUN.
Our MSA Islamic Awareness events are for the purpose of Islamic
education, interfaith dialogue, and mutual understanding.
Any claims that our MSA sponsors paintball trips for the purpose
of “Jihad training” is categorically false, and
quite frankly, absurd.
In order to cut down on the growing Islamophobia in this country
and increase interfaith tolerance and respect, I ask that you
please do not single out our MSA for innocent recreational activities
that many other campus clubs engage in.
It took about a month for that response to be posted
on Pipes’ site (because it’s moderated). Pipes initially
attached a reply stating:
I merely cited information in
“Paintballing for Allah” at FrontPageMag.com; your
issue is with the authors of that article. If they agree they
made a mistake, I will note that on my blog.
But a month or two later he decided to get personal:
But it may be of interest to
my readers that [former president] started a common interest group
on Facebook called “Supporters of Shariah Law and the Restoration
of the Caliphate.” It is supported by 165 members and its
description is as follows…
Perhaps we, the MSA, are blowing this whole thing
out of proportion. But to falsely accuse us of “questionable”
acts and defame one of our members is just plain wrong. People
need to wake up and stop listening to people like Pipes, Mansfield,
and Kaufman.
I am glad to say that people are getting the message.
At Embry-Riddle, which is primarily a conservative college, our
MSA events are met with much interest. Over the last few events,
more and more people attend to learn the true message of Islam.
One by one we are undoing the damage caused by these people, whether
they like it or not (they probably don’t).
Update:
A comment was posted on the message board recently:
Submitted by J., Mar 24, 2007 at 11:53
And this is exactly it. [Former President] and his fellow Muslims
will deny what the are up to right until the moment they yell
Allahu Akbar and pull the trigger or push the detonator. You
see it time and again. Hizb-ut-Tahrir says the reject violence
and they disown all former members who are implicated, whilst
cheering in the back ground. All the neighbors of the Madrid
bombers siad they were lovely boys, just lovely. Couldn't have
been up to anything.
WHY ARE THEY ALLOWED TO LEARN HOW TO FLY PLANES?!?!?!?
Especially with this facebook group being in evidence?
For the record, an email was sent to one of the writers who wrote
the article:
Dear Ms. Mansfield,
I am with the Muslim Students Association of Embry-Riddle in
Daytona Beach and I have a question about the article, "Paintballing
for Allah," which was posted at frontpagemag.com on September
22 (http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=24536).
I see from the article that you have found an old website of
ours containing pictures of our members.
My question is how did you and your colleague reason that our
MSA may be participating in potential "jihadist" or
"Islamist" training. Surely a photo was not the only
journalistic item you used. And surely you did not assume that
all of the members of the MSA were studying to be pilots because
Embry-Riddle is an "aviation" school. If you had made
the effort to contact us, you would have found out that the
majority of our members are in the engineering program. In fact,
there are no students studying aeronautical science affiliated
with our MSA. But that is besides the point. I am sorry, but
I cannot make a connection between a photo and the idea that
our MSA conducts "jihadist" training - without jumping
to conclusions, of course.
I am eagerly awaiting your response.
Predictably, there has been no
response. |
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