More spin on Abukar Arman

Here’s more spin on the Abukar Arman “clearing” from Progress Ohio:

Abukar Arman of Hilliard isn’t a terrorist after all.

He’s a father, a volunteer at Habitat for Humanity and a victim.

In our nation’s effort to insure security, we’ve become insecure, paranoid and hateful. Mr. Arman is exhibit A.

Can a photo of Mr. Arman hugging kittens be far behind? Of course the title of the piece, “He wasn’t a terrorist after all. Oops,” is effectively a lie because the charge against Abukar Arman was not that he is a terrorist, but that he sympathizes with terrorist Islamist groups. Read my post from earlier today here.

Brian at Plunderbund is also happy to see Abukar Arman cleared of charges he wasn’t accused of:

In today’s Dispatch, we learned that Arman lost his job and resigned from a board because of the allegations leveled by Mr. Poole. A background check by the county has shown no terrorist ties. Essentially, Mr. Poole wants Arman on a terror watch list because he’s Muslim, and has opinions different than Mr. Poole about how to achieve peace.

One opinion that Arman and Poole probably don’t share is Mr. Arman’s opinion that a victory for HAMAS is a victory for peace. Brian doesn’t point out that Arman lost his job because he “failed to recertify his state credentials and, meanwhile, the schools lost a grant for his position as an adult-education instructor” according to a district spokesman in the Dispatch, or that he resigned from the board which in part oversees Franklin County homeland security issues because he’s not a US citizen, as board members are required to be.

Here’s Buckeye State Blog too, which I linked and responded to earlier.

None of these three comes out and says that it was a good thing that Arman was on that Franklin County board. Would any of them prefer that he be on it today?

Trackback | Posted by Brian | Aug 6, 2007 7:04 pm | Permalink | Bookmark
Categories: National, Blogs, Columbus, Ohio, Politics, News

Posted by Brian | Aug 6, 2007 9:16 pm

I was very careful in my language not to accuse Poole of saying something he didn’t say. He very much did say that Arman “supports terrorism”, and that he should be on a terror watch list. I spent a good deal of time today reading Arman’s writings, and the charge that he “supports terrorism” is weak. Very very weak.

This reeks of racism and anti-Islam fervor, and I’m not afraid to stand by that particular allegation.

I didn’t bother to address the specifics of Arman losing his job or resigning from the board position because the reasons for either of those were not a part of Poole’s allegations. Those oversights came to light because of Poole’s allegations; fixing the “glitch” I have no problem with, but I do have a problem with the source of the light.

As for the HAMAS election win, I happen to be of the opinion that participation in the democratic process tends to moderate radicals. We have plenty of historical examples; the hope is the same thing happens in Palestine. I’m no fan of religious fundamentalism, be it Christianist or Islamist. But it’s definitely unfair (and that’s being generous to Poole) to label clearly moderate Muslims like Arman as “pro-terror”.

Posted by Brian | Aug 6, 2007 11:19 pm

Arman verbally and rhetorically supports Islamist terrorist groups, such as HAMAS. I don’t think that can be disputed. This is not to say that he “supports terrorism” financially or through his actions. Maybe Arman, in his own mind, can comfortably separate HAMAS from their terrorist activities. I don’t know.

The idea that HAMAS’s election win is good because it will moderate them, and that therefore it’s appropriate to delight in their victory (and I don’t think I’m overstating the tone of Arman’s post on that matter) is a bit too slick. Maybe it will moderate them eventually- though there’s little evidence of that so far- but it’s not exactly something anyone should be glad about. It’s more like a desperate hope. And anyway there are many examples of extremists becoming more extreme after being elected.

Posted by Columbuser.com » Franklin County Commission stonewalls | Aug 8, 2007 2:41 pm

[…] previous Arman post, and Al-Akhras post.) Bookmark | Trackback URI Posted by Brian | Aug 8, 2007 2:41 pm | […]

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