Real Blog War: CAIR Goes After Robert Spencer

From Roger Simon:

Robert Spencer, the publisher of Jihad Watch, has been a controversial figure in the blogosphere for some time now. Some liberal bloggers love to bash him, considering him racist against Muslims or Arabs.

Of course, almost none of those bloggers actually speak Arabic or know much of the intricacies of Islam and sharia law, all of which Robert does. Nor are they particularly interested in the ideas involved. Sharia may be one of the most misogynistic and homophobic legal systems ever invented, it may be at its essence antithetical to the separation of church and state and to everything we stand for, proselytizing the world while specifically subjugating all other religious groups and individuals who do not convert, but Spencer’s critics don’t seem to care. This isn’t about knowledge or truth. It’s about anger, envy, the need to be “right,” and all the rest of those “attractive” traits that motivate so many of us.

Indeed, what fascinates me about the current controversy surrounding the World Trade Center mosque is how little most of the mosque’s defenders actually seem to know about sharia. It’s amusing to watch their blank stares on television when questioned about the the subject by Sean Hannity, himself not particularly a scholar, as we know.

It reminds me a great deal of the old debate about legalizing the Communist Party back in the fifties. Should the CP be legal when communism calls for the violent overthrow of the U.S. government? Sharia, similarly, calls for a world united under the caliphate, with those of us who do not accept Islam subject to dhimmi law or worse, depending on our status. Essentially, it’s the end of Western civilization. Is this grounds for outlawing sharia? It’s an interesting and complex free speech/civil rights question, but only if you know what sharia is and have some idea what it intends. Most — including, I am almost certain, NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg — do not.

But back to Robert Spencer. Speaking personally, I have always learned from Robert, whom I know slightly, and never found him to be racist or anything close, even though his style and mine are far from the same. To some I may seem confrontational, but compared to Spencer, I’m a shrinking violet. He is one of the ideological point men in the global war on terror. He keeps telling us what a lot of us — including me — don’t always want to hear, reminding us that there are real issues at stake. Is he always right? I don’t know. Is anybody?

But I am hardly surprised to hear he is the subject of a new campaign from CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations. CAIR is evidently tremendously upset that a few weeks ago Spencer gave a lecture on jihadism to the FBI’s Tidewater Joint Terrorism Task Force, a group the brings FBI agents together with local law enforcement officials.

Frankly, I was pleased to hear the FBI was welcoming the likes of Spencer, especially since our Department of Justice (as has been reported at PJM and elsewhere) has gone out of its way to ignore radical Islam as a motivation for terrorism even when it couldn’t be more obviously so. From Ft. Hood to Times Square, it hasn’t been just the thousand pound gorilla in the room, it has been every gorilla in every room from here to Beijing and back.
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