Excuses excuses:

Last week I missed out on seeing a crucial game in the ALCS (baseball playoffs for anyone unfamiliar with the abbreiviation), and it was all because of this concert I went to. I could blame the concert venue for scheduling the show on a night so important to baseball fans everywhere, I could blame the concert performer for agreeing to do a show on the night of a playoff game. Hell, I could even blame the friends who I went with for bringing the event to my attention and giving me a reason not to watch the baseball game. I could blame a lo of things, a lot of causes, a lot of other people for preventing me from enjoying the playoff game that night, but anyone with a working synapse would see right through this. No, I chose to go to the concert and to miss the game as a result.

This post, however, is not about my baseball woes. It is about silly excuses made to justify idiotic action or to shift blame from the choices leading to said action onto something else entirely.

In discussing the 2002 terrorist attack against a popular nightclub in Bali, Muhammed Khozin, the eldest brother of three of those responsible for the 2002 attacks, claimed that 'bikinis and booze' were to blame for the Islamists' rage.

In this artice Khozin states that Westerners behavior in Indonesia, with the world's largest Muslim population, even in such tourist areas as Bali is responsible for the 2002 attacks. "Alcohol, bikinis, that kind of thing makes Muslims angry. Don't do that when visiting a country with a Muslim majority," said Khozin. According to the article, Khozin also claims that "the behaviour of Westerners in his country was to blame for the radicalism adopted by his brothers."

Now, at first glance these statements don't sound all that outrageous, and indeed could make sense. Upon any further consideration, however, one must realize that such statements are being used to justify terrorism and murder. True, it would be better if peoples of the world could respect the cultural differences that exist between them, but I think any conversation about morality must take place on non-violent grounds. To suggest that disrespect for traditional Islamic modesty (which, as all religions must cope with, is not universally practiced even amongst Muslims) is grounds for killing people is beyond ridiculous. Were this perception of disregard for Islamic principles to be proven as shared by the majority of Bali and, on a larger scale, Indonesia, there are ways to change things without resorting to explosive belts. Law making comes to mind as a reasonable, acceptable means of forcibly preventing Western freedom from 'infecting' or 'infiltrating' and Islamic country. This could be done by ending the legal practice of those things which draws tourism, and the economic benefits of it, such as liquor sales and other Western practices.

Now, for the moment I want to set aside the fact that these statements are being used to justify terrorism andtake a look at a similar attitude commonly expressed on the other side of the world in the USA. Yes, even here in the land of the free there are those who believe that somehow Islam is so special an entity that it can and should be placed above all other considerations.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has a long track record in the media of whitewashing Islamist activities. For some potent examples see here, here, here, and here. In each case, CAIR makes arguments and statements that attempt to frame the US war on terrorism as a Muslim witch hunt. For example, in an article entitled How CAIR put my life in peril Khalid Durán states that "CAIR has attempted to build a wider following by "defending" Islam and Muslims against perceived acts of misrepresentation, defamation, and discrimination. American Muslims are rightly sensitive to manifestations of prejudice, and have every right to protest them. But CAIR goes further: it denounces offenses against Islam where there are none, and it demonizes moderate Muslims who criticize Islamist distortions."

Again, on the surface CAIR's statements and claims appear to be legitimate defense of a religious minority. However, when one looks closely at CAIR's statements and steps back to observe a wider picture, a pattern emerges.

For one, as discussed in Islam's flawed Spokesman CAIR has a habbit of deflecting criticism of Islamist radicalism exemplified by Nihad Awad's statement regarding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that"there is ample evidence indicating that both the Mossad and the Egyptian Intelligence played a role in the explosion." Rather than accept the fact that Islamist terrorists were behind the attack, CAIR seeks to blame others.

According to an article titled Americans: Be CAIR-ful makes the claim that CAIR is part of an 'Islamic Disinformation Lobby', and that CAIR is working to "obstruct the war on terror with Orwellian semantics".

Further evidence of Islamist attempts to blame external entities or factors for self-induced problems stems from CAIR's repeated attempts to portray US counter terrorism efforts as a war against Islam.

On the CAIR website CAIR Board Chairman Parvez Ahmed, in outlining CAIR's various activities, states that "DEFENDING YOUR RELIGIOUS AND CIVIL RIGHTS - Whether its fighting for religious accommodation in the workplace or schools, challenging unconstitutional provisions of the USA Patriot Act, working with local and national authorities, or exposing anti-Muslim hate crimes, CAIR is at the forefront of the struggle to maintain your rights and enhance understanding of Islam."

But CAIR has a history of reporting 'hate crimes' that either don't exist, or were staged (see here for more).

In the case of the Seattle man who torched his own place, CAIR cried hate crime, and stated that national leaders should address what CAIR called "rising level of anti-Muslim prejudice in America." But, as Daniel Pipes understates in "Islamophobic Prejudice" and CAIR, this case deomnstrates "the unreliability and poor judgment of the Council on American-Islamic Relations."

But you need not take my word for it. In his prepared statement for the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Government Information titled Foreign Terrorists in America: Five Years ater the World Trade Center Bombging (submitted February 1998) terrorism expert Steven Emerson states that "CAIR disseminates disinformation by denying the ideological basis of terrorist actions, and the reality of Islamic extremism. - CAIR denies that Islam includes a concept of holy war and that Islamic extremists advocate violence."

So as not to make the situation out to be hopeless, there are what appears to be the beginning of change. Note the recent column written by a Bahraini journalist titled Not Since the Nazi Era Has There Been Anything Like Al-Qaeda's Declaration of War on the Shi'ites in Iraq, which shows that there are some Arab/Muslim voices not willing to simply blame others.

However, the threat of militant, violent religious radicalism is real, in many forms, but most clearly amid Islam. When one reads about a Muhammed Khozin, it would be wise to remember that Khozin's scapegoating does not occur in a vacuum, nor is it a foreign concept. It is alive and well even in the United States, and that is scary.