the
Sun
Sopris Carbondale’s
weekly, non-profit newspaper
Volume 2, Number 39 | November 18, 2010
Explaining stealth jihad By Terray Sylvester Sopris Sun Staff Writer
The Roaring Fork Cultural Council wrapped up its three-speaker series on Islam and the West with journalist Steven Emerson on Saturday night at the Thunder River Theatre. Emerson has been investigating Muslim radicals in the U.S. since the early 1990s and has testified before Congress on the topic. Photo by Lynn Burton
S
tealth jihad. As journalist Steven Emerson sees it, that’s what’s happening in the United States. To Emerson, who has devoted most of his career to investigating Muslim radicals, the United States is being weakened from within by government officials and politicians who prefer to be politically correct than to speak out against Islamic fundamentalism, which he asserts lies behind much of the terrorist threat the country faces today. And as Emerson explains it, that threat lurks surprisingly close to home.
On Saturday night in front of a mostly packed house at the Thunder River Theatre, Emerson said the U.S. is riddled with Islamic radicals. He described an America in which many apparently moderate Muslim organizations enjoy tax-exempt status as charities or civil rights groups while they use their presence in the U.S. to train militants, spread propaganda and raise money for terrorist groups such as Hamas, Al Qaeda and Islamic Jihad. Emerson asserted that the U.S. is so thoroughly infiltrated by extremists that Muslim clerics with ties to terrorist groups have
presented prayers before Congress. That description of the United States would probably surprise many Americans, but that’s part of the reason Emerson was invited to Carbondale in the first place. His visit was organized by the Roaring Fork Cultural Council as part of its speaker series, which in the past has featured such luminaries as Oceanographer Sylvia Earle, Biblical scholar Elaine Pagels and former U.S. Ambassador Henry E. Catto. Emerson’s visit was the last of three speakers who have offered perspectives on Islam
and the West, said Craig Rathbun, co-chairman of the Cultural Council. In February the Council hosted Dr. Nabil Echchaibi, a Muslim scholar at the University of Colorado at Boulder who asserted that the vast majority of Muslims condemn violence, though their voices and the voices of their leaders are largely ignored by the media. After that, Bo Persiko a professor of religion at Colorado Mountain College, offered an interpretation of why conflicts exist between violent Jihadists and Western society. STEALTH JIHAD page 3
Town considering caregivers
VCR review continues
Fork roars again
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