Using materials obtained from whistleblowers, an astonishing investigative piece from Wired Magazine indicates that FBI training sessions on Islam teaches agents that being a devout Muslim is itself an sign of terrorist activity.
The FBI is teaching its counterterrorism agents that “main stream” [sic] American Muslims are likely to be terrorist sympathizers; that the Prophet Mohammed was a “cult leader”; and that the Islamic practice of giving charity is no more than a “funding mechanism for combat.”
At the Bureau’s training ground in Quantico, Virginia, agents are shown a chart contending that the more “devout” a Muslim, the more likely he is to be “violent.” …
These are excerpts from dozens of pages of recent FBI training material on Islam that Danger Room has acquired. In them, the Constitutionally protected religious faith of millions of Americans is portrayed as an indicator of terrorist activity.
For 10 years, American administrations have struggled to combat the notion that we are at war with Islam, a misperception that is a central propaganda point of al-Qaida, as Spencer Ackerman's piece points out. Both Presidents Bush and Obama have taken every opportunity to deny this charge to the world, and for good reason. Islam is not a threat to peace. Nor is adherence to that faith in any way incompatible with American values and freedoms. Millions of peaceful, devout Muslim-Americans prove that every single day.
The cause of peace and the interests of our nation then are done no favors when agencies like the FBI – or, as we have seen, the New York Police Department or a congressional committee – undermine that message with tactics of stereotype and suspicion that send the exact opposite signal.
The Constitution's guarantee of religious liberty for all really does mean that – for all. The spirit of that guarantee is demeaned, and its protections diminished, when law enforcement uses its authority to hold an entire religion under suspicion.
Read the whole piece. Some of the graphics used in training simply have to be seen to be believed.
[UPDATE: The FBI has announced that they halted these training sessions soon after they began. The answer to the title question of this post would seem to be: not any more.]
