Never Mind the Terrorist in the Room, Let's Focus on the Blogger!

The local Dalton news is just noticing that aljazeerah has ceased publication. They claim to have e-mailed me, but I didn't get anything. It might have got stuck in my spam filter, though. The story ignores all of what El-Najjar has published over the years in support of terrorists and others currently killing American soldiers, but it does focus on why bloggers are not reliable sources.

Ignore the terrorist supporter in the room, let's pick on the blogger.

Dalton Daily Citizen [Emphasis mine]:

Hassan El-Najjar, an associate professor of sociology at Dalton State College, has closed www.aljazeerah.info, a site he says is “to promote cross-cultural understanding between people all over the world,” apparently as the result of a campaign undertaken by a person who operates a Web log called The Jawa Report (http://mypetjawa.mu.nu).

Credit duly taken, but are you kidding me about al Jazeerah promoting "cross-cultural understanding"?. It goes on:

From the perspective of El-Najjar, who says he is a native of Gaza, Palestine, Israeli Jews took control of Muslim holy land in an “occupation,” and are proponents of Zionism. Similarly, the U.S. presence in Iraq is an occupation of Arab land, and those fighting against this “Imperialism” are “resistance fighters,” rather than “terrorists.”

What's so incredible is that they don't take the time to look through aljazeerah's archives where El-Najjar openly supports known terrorists. These aren't people that I "think" are "terrorists". El-Najjar can call them whatever he wants. They are people that the American government calls "terrorists".

Like most stupid media stories, they treat this as a dispute between two equally credible sources. Now, I'm not saying that The Jawa Report is all that credible, but it certainly is a whole lot more credible than a website which claims that dead terrorists are "martyrs", that 9/11 was an inside job, and that Muslim-on-Muslim violence in Iraq is really just part of an elaborate conspiracy.

I am not "claiming" these things, they are fact. A quick check of Internet Archives' cache for al Jazeerah would confirm this. For instance, the most recent cache declares the dead founders of the Popular Front for the Liberation if Palestine (PFLP) and Hamas, both designated foreign terrorist entities by the U.S. State Department, "martyrs".

This Google cache also shows that on the same day, El-Najjar wrote this bizarre, yet widely believed, conspiracy theory:

It is inaccurate to describe the war in Iraq as if it is fought between Muslim Shi'is and Muslim Sunnis, as the US and other Western corporate media have been trying hard to do.

It is more accurate to describe it as fought between US-led forces and Iraqi resistance fighters. Even killing civilians is part of the war, as the evidence earlier demonstrated that Interior Ministry death squads and British soldiers were caught either targeting or attempting to target civilians to make the war appear as if it is between Shi'is and Sunnis....

Moreover, on September 19, 2005, two British soldiers were arrested by Iraqi police for driving a car bomb in a Basra street. They were freed by British forces before being interrogated by Iraqi police. This incident sheds some light on who might be behind car bomb explosions in Iraq.

The Daily Citizen article continues, but instead of focusing on El Najjar, his antisemetism, his support of known terrorists, or his support of "resistance fighters" who are killing his fellow Americans who do you think they focus on? Why, your's truly:

The blogger who runs the site calls himself Dr. Rusty Shackleford from Texas — a “professor of know-it-allogy” and “Editor-in-Chief, Sith Master, Admiral and Pimptastik Blog Overlord.”

“At least one site seems to have honed in on this, and some contacts were made. I know Dr. Burran has gotten some calls from the system office,” John Hutcheson, Dalton State’s vice president for academic affairs, said Friday. “I ‘Googled’ Rusty Shackleford, but it’s not very intelligible. This is one of the things the Web has brought us to; it’s a situation where anybody can say anything. The impact is immediate and can generate strong response — far faster than print or broadcast media.”

According to www.wikipedia.com, the name “Rusty Shackleford” is apparently borrowed from the TV cartoon “King of the Hill,” in which a character called Mr. Dribble uses it as a pseudonym.

So apparently somebody knows how to Google "Rusty Shackleford" and the wikipidia entry on where I took my pseudonym from merits a paragraph. And two more paragraphs are spent attacking my credibility and the credibility of blogs in general. But they don't know how to use Google cache or the Internet Archive to see whether El-Najjar's website is really about "promot[ing] cross-cultural understanding between people all over the world"?

How does the paper deal with El-Najjar?

“I want to tell the people of Dalton that I am a citizen of the United States, I love this country and that’s why I’m here,” El-Najjar told The Daily Citizen then.

He loves his country so much that he chooses to support our enemies in Iraq who are killing Americans. That's real love you got there El-Najjar.

And Dalton State, true to form, denies that anything is wrong with one of their professors encouraging terrorism.

Hutcheson said El-Najjar’s Web site is in no way connected to the college.

“He did that of his own volition. He doesn’t use any college facilities, and we don’t have the right to ask him to drop it,” Hutcheson said. “He previously complied when we asked him to eliminate any links from the college Web site. He’s an American citizen and has the same rights of free speech as anyone else, unless he’s advocating something illegal.”

Something illegal? You mean like giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States during a time of war? I think its called treason, but apparently 'free speech' trumps 'treason' in modern America. And "academic freedom' is more cherished than seditious words which encourage the killing of American troops.

What Hutcheson, the Dalton State representative interviewed, also does not tell you is that El-Najjar encourages his students to read his website. What Hutcheson doesn't tell you is that El-Najjar's conspiracy book is being hawked using the credibility of Dalton State to as a way to bolster his own claims.

Imagine if a Nazi sympathizer had encouraged students to read a book praising Adolph Hitler during WWII. Imagine if a Nazi sympathizer had written that book, had used his title of professor to improve the credibility of the claims that Germany should win the war, and then had other professors at the university who are also pro-Nazi review the book. Would any college administrator have made the First Amendment argument under those conditions?

Those are the very conditions we are facing now. American troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. A college professor openly supports our enemies--those killing the military men and women of the nation he claims to love. He uses his position as a professor to legitimize his claims and sell his book. He encourages students to read literature which supports our enemies.

But, no, let's ignore El-Najjar's treason, sedition, antisemitism and odd conspiracy theories. Instead, let's focus on the credibility of the pseudonymous blogger making the "accusations". As if it's simply my opinion that El-Najjar is a terrorist sympathizer.

Typical of general media laziness. Instead of doing actual research, the article becomes a series of quotes. My word against the word of El-Najjar and Dalton State. And since I somehow missed the request for an interview, there is no one to refute El-Najjar's claims about his "patriotism". A Wikipedia article and quick Google search suffices to impeach my "version of the story", but no effort is attempted at seeing what El-Najjar says on his own website--when he is not under public scrutiny.

Typical of the way the media treats bloggers.

Unfortunately, far too typical of the way the media treats terrorist and their supporters.

Thanks to Herb for the hat tip.

Posted by: Rusty at 10:02 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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