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This pro­gram ana­lyzes the con­tro­ver­sies sur­round­ing the acqui­si­tion of an impor­tant seaport-management com­pany by a Dubai firm and the pub­li­ca­tion by a Dan­ish news­pa­per of car­toons por­tray­ing the Prophet Mohammed. (In Islam, it is sac­ri­le­gious to craft an image of the prophet Mohammed.) Both issues have focused atten­tion on the ques­tion of real or alleged dis­crim­i­na­tion against Mus­lims. In fact, there is much more to the issues than has been pop­u­larly rep­re­sented. Dubai (and the United Arab Emi­rates of which it is a part) have been pro­foundly asso­ci­ated with Osama bin Laden and his milieu, in addi­tion to being the pri­mary port of tran­sit for the A.Q. Khan nuclear smug­gling net­work. The fun­da­men­tal issue in the Dubai Ports World con­tro­versy is one of national secu­rity ver­sus the dic­tates of eco­nomic glob­al­iza­tion. As was the case with the Axis pow­ers of World War II, the very real malev­o­lence of the Islam­o­fas­cists toward the United States is viewed by the US cor­po­rate elite as sec­ondary in impor­tance to the eco­nomic ties between the Arab oil-producing nations and the Amer­i­can firms that ben­e­fit from con­tracts in this coun­try and the Mid­dle East.

The core issue in the Dubai ports con­tro­versy is sim­i­lar to that in the Ptech inves­ti­ga­tion. The hunger on the part of the heavily-indebted US pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors for invest­ment by the petrodollar-gorged Arab economies has led to the for­ma­tion of deadly rela­tion­ships. Ptech is a soft­ware firm that devel­oped the threat-assessment soft­ware archi­tec­ture for the Air Force and Depart­ment of Defense. Ptech is a com­pany that, for all intents and pur­poses is run by the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, al Qaeda and the peo­ple and insti­tu­tions at the core of the Islamist financ­ing appa­ra­tus. The anom­alous per­for­mance of air-defense units on 9/11/2001 is almost cer­tainly due to Ptech’s efforts. Nonethe­less, because of the eco­nomic rela­tion­ships between rich Arab oil pro­duc­ers and capital-hungry insti­tu­tions in the U.S., the Ptech case and Oper­a­tion Green Quest inves­ti­ga­tions have lan­guished. The “Car­toon­gate” imbroglio has also been mis­rep­re­sented. The avail­able evi­dence sug­gests that ele­ments asso­ci­ated with the Islam­o­fas­cist Mus­lim Broth­er­hood delib­er­ately dis­torted the issue in order to inflame Mus­lim pub­lic opin­ion. An impor­tant ques­tion is whether, per­haps, the inci­dent was designed to fur­ther the Islam­o­fas­cist agenda endorsed by the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood as out­lined in FTR#537.) It is note­wor­thy that Euro­pean neo-fascist ele­ments that exploited the Car­toon­gate con­tro­versy in order to exac­er­bate anti-Muslim xeno­pho­bia in Europe have main­tained pro­fes­sional asso­ci­a­tions with the Islam­o­fas­cist Mus­lim Broth­er­hood ele­ments that have fanned the flames of opin­ion on the other side of the issue.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: The extra­or­di­nary secrecy sur­round­ing the Dubai Ports World deal; Dubai’s sup­port for the Tal­iban while they were shel­ter­ing Osama bin Laden; the UAE’s role in laun­der­ing money for the 9/11 attacks; Dubai’s cen­tral posi­tion in the smug­gling of nuclear tech­nol­ogy; con­nec­tions between the lead­ers of the UAE and Osama bin Laden; the issue of the effect of the Dubai port con­tro­versy on global cap­i­tal flows; Dan­ish Mus­lim leader Abu-Laban’s prob­a­ble mem­ber­ship in the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood; Abu-Laban’s dis­tri­b­u­tion of delib­er­ate lies about Den­mark; Abu-Laban’s dis­tri­b­u­tion of provoca­tive car­toons of Muham­mad that were not pub­lished in the Dan­ish news­pa­per; the neo-Nazi Repub­li­can party’s exploita­tion of the Car­toon­gate con­tro­versy; the asso­ci­a­tion between Repub­li­can party leader (and SS offi­cer) Franz Schon­hu­ber and Bank Al Taqwa direc­tor Achmed Huber; the links between Huber and Holo­caust denier David Irv­ing; neo-fascist and Islam­o­fas­cist pro­mo­tion of the “Father­land” con­cept; an Iran­ian paper’s Holo­caust denial car­toon contest.

1. In the con­tro­versy sur­round­ing the Dubai Ports World acqui­si­tion of port man­ag­ing com­pany P&O, many have over­looked the fact that P&O is in charge of the con­tain­ers that pass into the United States. Those con­tain­ers would make an ideal ship­ping vehi­cle for the entry into the U.S. of a weapon of mass destruc­tion. Although other aspects of sea­port secu­rity would con­tinue to be han­dled by U.S. insti­tu­tions, only a very small per­cent­age of con­tain­ers enter­ing into the United States are inspected. With the expe­ri­ence of Ptech behind us (see above), allow­ing a Dubai com­pany to han­dle such a sen­si­tive role is very unwise. As will be seen below, Dubai has been a less than reli­able ally with regard to ter­ror­ism and related mat­ters. “ . . . P&O’s role is to man­age dock­side ter­mi­nals, usu­ally along­side rival oper­a­tors such as Maersk. This gives the com­pany con­trol over the con­tain­ers that pass through its facil­i­ties but all cargo is sub­ject to secu­rity checks by the U.S. Coast Guard and Cus­toms. . . .”
(“Calmer Voices Drowned Out by Rhetoric on Secu­rity Threat” by Andrew Ward, Stephanie Kirch­gaess­ner and Edward Alden; The Finan­cial Times; 2/13/2006; p.4.)

2. Exem­pli­fy­ing the con­flict between the dic­tates of eco­nomic glob­al­iza­tion and the need for secu­rity, the deal with Dubai Ports World would afford that com­pany an extra­or­di­nary degree of secrecy and free­dom from scrutiny by Amer­i­can offi­cials. “With the Bush admin­is­tra­tion, it’s impor­tant to have in mind the old car­ni­val con­game. Keep your eye on the shell with the pea under it. Among the many curi­ous aspects of the administration’s approval of the Dubai Ports World takeover of oper­a­tions at six major ports (and as many as 21) is this exemp­tion from nor­mally rou­tine restric­tions. The agree­ment does not require DP World to keep copies of its busi­ness records on U.S. soil, which would place them within the juris­dic­tion of Amer­i­can courts. Nor does it require the com­pany to des­ig­nate an Amer­i­can cit­i­zen to accom­mo­date requests by the gov­ern­ment. [Empha­sis added.] So what’s that about? . . . .”
(“A Flood of Busi­ness Exemp­tions” by Molly Ivins: San Fran­cisco Chron­i­cle; 3/2/2006; p. B9.)

3. In addi­tion to the extra­or­di­nary degree of secrecy afforded Dubai Ports World in the agree­ment, the actual nego­ti­at­ing process itself was con­ducted largely in secret. Again, the fun­da­men­tal con­flict between the need for national secu­rity and the dic­tates of eco­nomic glob­al­iza­tion are at the core of the debate about Dubai Ports World. “ . . . Most Amer­i­cans had no idea that our government’s process of approv­ing for­eign takeovers of Amer­i­can com­pa­nies through the Com­mit­tee on For­eign Invest­ment in the United States was entirely secret. When Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y., asked Home­land Secu­rity Sec­re­tary Michael Chertoff about the Dubai Ports deal at a hear­ing on Feb. 15, Chertoff declined to answer because the committee’s work was ‘clas­si­fied.’ Trea­sury Sec­re­tary John Snow told another con­gres­sional com­mit­tee that he was not per­mit­ted to dis­cuss spe­cific trans­ac­tions con­sid­ered by the for­eign invest­ment panel. . . .”
(“Sea Change in Bush Cred­i­bil­ity” by E.J. Dionne, Jr.; San Fran­cisco Chron­i­cle; 2/24/2006; p. B11.)

4. Among the details that emerged in the con­tro­versy was the fact that the U.S. Coast Guard had pro­found reser­va­tions about the wis­dom of the deal. There is abun­dant rea­son for that, as will be seen below. “The U.S. Coast Guard, in charge of review­ing secu­rity at ports oper­ated by a Dubai mar­itime com­pany, warned the Bush admin­is­tra­tion it could not rule out that the company’s assets could be used for ter­ror­ist oper­a­tions, accord­ing to a doc­u­ment released Mon­day by a Sen­ate com­mit­tee. Dubai Ports World plans to com­plete its takeover of London-based Penin­su­lar and Ori­en­tal Steam Nav­i­ga­tion Co. (P&O) on Thurs­day, assum­ing own­er­ship of oper­a­tions at six major U.S. ports even as it pledges to hold off on assert­ing con­trol while the Bush admin­is­tra­tion reviews the national secu­rity impli­ca­tions of the deal. The White House has strongly argued that a pre­lim­i­nary review showed that the sale would pose no threat to national secu­rity.” House has strongly argued that a pre­lim­i­nary review showed that the sale would pose no threat to national security.”

(“Coast Guard Issued Warn­ing on Dubai Firm” by Jonathan Weis­man [Wash­ing­ton Post]; San Fran­cisco Chron­i­cle; 2/28/2006; p. A3.)

5. The “gaps” the Coast Guard feared are note­wor­thy, in light of the Islamist rela­tion­ship to ele­ments of the Dubai power elite and the ship­ping secrecy with which Dubai prides itself. “ . . . But in a Dec. 13 intel­li­gence assess­ment of the com­pany and its own­ers in the United Arab Emi­rates, the Coast Guard warned: ‘There are many intel­li­gence gaps, con­cern­ing the poten­tial for DPW or P&O assets to sup­port ter­ror­ist oper­a­tions, that pre­clude’ the com­ple­tion of a thor­ough threat assess­ment of the merger. ‘The breadth of the intel­li­gence gaps also infer poten­tial unknown threats against a large num­ber of poten­tial vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties,’ says the doc­u­ment, released by the Sen­ate Home­land Secu­rity and Gov­ern­men­tal Affairs Com­mit­tee. . . .” (Idem.)

6. Next, the pro­gram sets forth the numer­ous rea­sons why the Dubai Ports World deal was a really, really BAD idea—a bad idea sup­ported enthu­si­as­ti­cally by George Bush. We should not fail to take note of the fact that Bush has numer­ous and pro­found con­nec­tions to the world of big Arab cap­i­tal. Dubai backed the Tal­iban while they were shel­ter­ing Osama bin Laden. “ . . . Yeah, I know, to be the least bit queasy about turn­ing over our ports to guys who sup­ported the Tal­iban when that bunch of reli­gious mani­acs were har­bor­ing bin Laden is, as the Bush apol­o­gists tell us, just xeno­pho­bic. Dubai was not alone, Saudi Ara­bia and Pak­istan, did the same, and they are now trusted allies. These are crazy times, and there are some unnerv­ing odd­i­ties in Bush’s for­eign pol­icy, but don’t worry. As soon as Hus­sein is tried and hanged, democ­racy will flower in the Arab world and the war on ter­ror­ism will be over. . . .”
(“Dubi­ous Dubai Deal” by Robert Scheer; San Fran­cisco Chron­i­cle; 3/1/2006; p. B11.)

7. Dubai was also a major trans­ship­ment point for Al Qaeda heroin ship­ments leav­ing Afghanistan. As we will see below, the stun­ningly loose reg­u­la­tions on the des­ti­na­tions of cargo going through Dubai ports facil­i­tated this kind of illicit traf­fic. “ . . . Cargo planes fly twice a week between the south­ern Afghan city of Kan­da­har and Dubai, one of the United Arab Emi­rates (UAE). Accord­ing to the Boston Globe, 3/26/2001; these planes fly south with drugs. The Finan­cial Times, 3/24/2001; reported a claim ‘that, at least up until six months ago, two flights a week were trav­el­ing from Dubai to Kan­da­har, Mr. bin Laden’s Afghan base, with boxes of dol­lar bills. . . .”
(“Al-Qaeda, the Tal­iban, the North­ern Alliance, and Drug-Trafficking” by Peter Dale Scott)

8. In addi­tion to the fact that UAE lead­ers were asso­ci­at­ing with bin Laden as recently as 1999, that asso­ci­a­tion appears to have played a role in frus­trat­ing a cruise mis­sile strike against bin Laden. “The United States raised con­cerns with the United Arab Emi­rates seven years ago about pos­si­ble ties between offi­cials in that coun­try and Osama bin Laden, accord­ing to a sec­tion of the Sept. 11 commission’s report that details a pos­si­ble missed oppor­tu­nity to kill the al Qaeda leader. The commission’s report released last year also raised con­cerns UAE offi­cials were directly asso­ci­at­ing with bin Laden as recently as 1999. The report states U.S. intel­li­gence believed that bin Laden was vis­it­ing an area in the Afghan desert in Feb­ru­ary 1999 near a hunt­ing camp used by UAE offi­cials, and that the U.S. mil­i­tary planned a mis­sile strike. Intel­li­gence from local tribal sources indi­cated that ‘bin Laden reg­u­larly went from his adja­cent camp to the larger camp where he vis­ited the Emi­ratis,’ the report said.”
(“Sep­tem­ber 11 Report Ties Bin Laden to U.A.E.” by Eliz­a­beth White [AP]; San Fran­cisco Chron­i­cle; 2/24/2006; p. A4.)

9. “The mis­sile attack was never launched, and bin Laden moved on, the report said. A month later, top White House coun­tert­er­ror­ism offi­cial Richard Clarke ‘called a UAE offi­cial to express his con­cerns about pos­si­ble asso­ci­a­tions between Emi­rati offi­cials and bin Laden,’ the report said. At a hear­ing of the Sen­ate Armed Ser­vices Com­mit­tee on Thurs­day, Sen. Carl Levin, the rank­ing Demo­c­rat, asked Deputy Trea­sury Sec­re­tary Robert Kim­mitt if he was aware of the 9/11 commission’s asser­tion that the United Arab Emi­rates rep­re­sents ‘a per­sis­tent coun­tert­er­ror­ism prob­lem for the United States.’ Kim­mitt replied that admin­is­tra­tion fig­ures involved in the deci­sion to approve the deal ‘looked very care­fully’ at infor­ma­tion from the intel­li­gence com­mu­nity. ‘Just raise your hand if any­body talked to the 9/11 com­mis­sion,’ Levin told the admin­is­tra­tion rep­re­sen­ta­tives at the wit­ness table. Nobody raised a hand.” (Idem.)

10. Not only did some of the money laun­dered to finance the 9/11 attacks pass through Dubai, but that coun­try was the con­duit for much of the nuclear tech­nol­ogy that was traf­ficked by the A.Q. Khan net­work. “ . . . What kind of empire are we if we have to out­source our coast­line to a group of sheiks who don’t rec­og­nize Israel, in a coun­try where money was laun­dered for the 9/11 attacks? And that let A.Q. Khan, the Pak­istani nuclear sci­en­tist, smug­gle nuclear com­po­nents through its port to Libya, North Korea and Iran? It’s mind-boggling that Pres­i­dent Bush ever agreed to let an alliance of seven emirs be in charge of six of our ports. Although, as usual, Incu­ri­ous George didn’t even know about it until after the fact. (Nei­ther did Rummy, even though he heads one of the agen­cies that green-lighted the deal.) . . . .”
(“G.O.P. to W.: You’re Nuts!” by Mau­reen Dowd; The New York Times; 2/22/2006; p. A23.)

11. The lax­ity of the Dubai reg­u­la­tions on ship­ping and export­ing are stun­ning! Bear in mind that the mate­r­ial shipped in this case was nuclear con­tra­band!! (For more about the A.Q. Khan net­work, see—among other programs—FTR#395, 450, 524.) “. . . Why ship through Dubai? Because it may be the eas­i­est place in the world to mask the real des­ti­na­tion of cargo. Con­sider how the Malaysian gov­ern­ment is mak­ing the case for the inno­cence of its man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pany. ‘No doc­u­ment was traced that proved’ the com­pany ‘deliv­ered or exported the said com­po­nents to Libya,’ accord­ing to the country’s inspec­tor gen­eral of police. The real des­ti­na­tion, he said, ‘was out­side the knowl­edge’ of the pro­ducer. One can be cer­tain that if the Khan ring’s Euro­pean sup­pli­ers are ever tracked down, they will offer a sim­i­lar expla­na­tion. Dubai pro­vides com­pa­nies and gov­ern­ments a vital asset: auto­matic deni­a­bil­ity. Its cus­toms agency even brags that its pol­icy on re-exporting ‘enables traders to tran­sit their ship­ments through Dubai with­out any has­sles.’ Next to Dubai’s main port is the Jebel Ali free trade zone, a haven for free­wheel­ing inter­na­tional com­pa­nies. . . .”
(“Nukes ‘R’ Us” by Gary Mil­hollin and Kelly Motz; The New York Times; 3/4/2004; p. 2.)

12. Address­ing the core con­sid­er­a­tion with regard to the Dubai Ports World deal, Trea­sury Sec­re­tary John Snow noted the fact that the deal might very well hurt the US econ­omy by slow­ing or inter­dict­ing the flow of recy­cled petrodol­lars back into the [oth­er­wise bank­rupt] US econ­omy. As noted above, this crit­i­cal aspect of eco­nomic glob­al­iza­tion places the US between a rock and a hard place—between ter­ror and eco­nomic destruc­tion. “A rejec­tion by law­mak­ers of Dubai Ports World’s agreed acqui­si­tion of US con­tainer ter­mi­nals would send a sig­nal that for­eign invest­ments ‘from cer­tain parts of the world aren’t wel­come,’ John Snow, the Trea­sury sec­re­tary yes­ter­day. . . .Wash­ing­ton insid­ers were left to guess yes­ter­day whether the White House or some of the most promi­nent law­mak­ers in Con­gress, includ­ing top Repub­li­cans in the House and Sen­ate, would be the first to com­pro­mise on the issue after Pres­i­dent George W. Bush warned on Tues­day that he would veto any leg­isla­tive effort to block the deal. In the mean­time, DP World has been buy­ing shares in P&O heav­ily this week as a show of con­fi­dence that the deal will not be derailed despite prob­lems in Wash­ing­ton and the strong like­li­hood that the deal will face a series of local bat­tles with port author­i­ties. An agree­ment to com­plete the trans­ac­tion is due to be approved by a Lon­don court on Mon­day. . . .”
(“Dubai Back­lash ‘Will Deter For­eign Investors” by Stephanie Kirch­gaess­ner, Holly Yea­ger and Robin Wright; The Finan­cial Times; 2/23/2006; p. 4.)

13. Arabs have been rat­tling eco­nomic sabres over the rejec­tion of the Dubai Ports World deal. In addi­tion to the threat of reduc­ing the rein­vest­ment of petrodol­lars into the US econ­omy, the Arabs have sug­gested that US busi­ness inter­ests might not get con­tracts for the bur­geon­ing infra­struc­ture expan­sion being dri­ven by the rise in oil prices. “ . . . David Hamod, NUSACC’s pres­i­dent, said the DP World saga had inter­vened just as Arab inter­est in the US mar­ket was pick­ing up again and stu­dents and busi­ness­men, deterred by visa restric­tions against Arab nation­als after the 2001 attacks on Wash­ing­ton and New York, had begun return­ing in greater num­bers. US com­pa­nies in the region are also wor­ried they may be penal­ized at a time that Arab states, flush with petrodol­lars, have ini­ti­ated huge infra­struc­ture projects. A group of US busi­nesses from the Gulf took out an adver­tise­ment in the Capi­tol Hill news­pa­per Roll Call this week express­ing sol­i­dar­ity with DP World. ‘My con­cern is that US com­pa­nies may not be invited to bid or if they are invited they will be dealt with more skep­ti­cally than in the past,’ with Mr. Hamod. That con­cern seems to have some foun­da­tion, with gov­ern­ment offi­cials in the region indig­nant that DP World has been sin­gled out for scrutiny because of its Arab ori­gins. One senior offi­cial in Qatar, which like the UAE is a strong ally of the US, said the back­lash in Congress’had raised a lot of ques­tions.’ These include the pos­si­bil­ity that Amer­i­can com­pa­nies invest­ing in the region might race the same kind of scrutiny as DP World in the US. Naguib Sawiris, chair­man of Egypt’s tele­coms multi­na­tional Oras­com, said ‘This could hin­der US firms who want to do acqui­si­tions in the Mid­dle East. You know, if you don’t allow us, we won’t allow you.’”
(“Ports Back­lash Makes Arab Investors Wary” by William Wal­lis; The Finan­cial Times; 3/2/2006; p. 6.)

14. One of the more dis­gust­ingly pre­dictable deriv­a­tives of the Ports World scan­dal is the litany com­ing out of cer­tain Arab cir­cles that the rejec­tion of the deal rep­re­sents big­otry against Arabs. Not want­ing to be killed does not rep­re­sent big­otry! Those who resort to this shal­low rhetor­i­cal gam­bit are over­look­ing the dis­turb­ing evi­dence about the Dubai/Islamist ter­ror con­nec­tion dis­cussed above. “The polit­i­cal furor over the Bush administration’s plan to have an Arab com­pany take over oper­a­tions in sev­eral U.S. ports has frus­trated Arab and Mus­lim Amer­i­cans, who fear the oppo­si­tion is fueled by racism and big­otry. ‘We’re very con­cerned about the level of rhetoric and the way that there seems to be the assump­tion that because a com­pany is Arab it can’t be trusted with our secu­rity,’ said Kather­ine Abbadi, head of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Com­mit­tee of New York. . . .”
(“Arabs, Mus­lims Sense Big­otry in Port Dis­pute” by Deepti Hajela [AP]; San Fran­cisco Chron­i­cle; 2/24/2006; p. A5.)

15. Mak­ing a tran­si­tion to dis­cus­sion of the con­tro­versy sur­round­ing the pub­li­ca­tion of car­toons of the prophet Muham­mad by a Dan­ish news­pa­per, the broad­cast cites a Lon­don Times edi­to­r­ial not­ing the politi­ciza­tion of Islam. “It looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and flies like a duck. And yet it insists that it is not a duck. This is the image that comes to mind when watch­ing those anti-cartoon marches in west­ern cap­i­tals, includ­ing Lon­don, in the name of Islam. Isn’t Islam sup­posed to be a reli­gion? Shouldn’t it be con­cerned with the broader issues of human exis­tence rather than with a set of car­toons, a Dutch tele­vi­sion doc­u­men­tary, the head-covers of French school­girls or a novel by a British-Indian author? Today the vis­i­ble Islam, the loud­est Islam, is a polit­i­cal move­ment mas­querad­ing as a reli­gion. Many mosques in this coun­try have been trans­formed into polit­i­cal clubs where Kash­mir, Iraq and Pales­tine and ‘the mis­deeds of Anglo-Saxon impe­ri­al­ism’ have replaced issues of reli­gious faith as the prin­ci­pal theme. . . .”
(“Focus: ‘We Don’t Do God, We Do Pales­tine and Iraq’” Amir Taheri; Lon­don Times; 2/12/2006.)

16. A Wall Street Jour­nal arti­cle sets forth the fun­da­men­tals of the “Car­toon­gate” scan­dal. “ . . . The car­toon uproar has fed on wider racial and eco­nomic ten­sion in Europe between Mus­lim immi­grants and native cit­i­zens. Also at play is America’s pol­icy of pro­mot­ing democ­racy, which has helped unleash a strug­gle within the Arab world between largely sec­u­lar regimes and increas­ingly pow­er­ful Islamist groups. In this volatile envi­ron­ment, a group of Dan­ish Islamic cler­ics angered by the car­toons suc­ceeded in enlist­ing help from Egypt’s sec­u­lar gov­ern­ment, which has been strug­gling to con­tain a potent Islamist oppo­si­tion. Sec­u­lar forces in the Arab world, eager to bur­nish their image as defend­ers of Islam, pro­vided an impor­tant ini­tial impe­tus for the protests, but now are scram­bling to con­trol the fury. From his office at the Islamic Faith Soci­ety in Copen­hagen, Ahmed Abu-Laban, a fun­da­men­tal­ist Pales­tin­ian cleric, has been at the fore­front of a cam­paign to force an apol­ogy from the paper. ‘This was the last drop in a cup of resent­ment, dis­ap­point­ment and exploita­tion,’ he says.”

(“How Mus­lim Cler­ics Stirred Arab World Against Den­mark” by Andrew Hig­gins; The Wall Street Jour­nal; 2/7/2006; p. A1.)

17. “Jyllands-Posten, a center-right news­pa­per, first waded into these treach­er­ous waters last fall. Mr. Rose, alarmed by what he con­sid­ered a rise in self-censorship relat­ing to Islamic issues, invited Dan­ish car­toon­ists to ‘draw Muham­mad the way that they see him.’ Twelve sub­mit­ted draw­ings. One mocked a far-right Dan­ish leader, putting her in a police line-up with a tur­ban, and another ridiculed Mr. Rose and his news­pa­per, label­ing it a ‘reac­tionary provo­ca­teur.’ Oth­ers, though, poked fun at Islam. One depicted Muham­mad in a tur­ban shaped like a bomb. Another showed a tur­baned fig­ure in heaven telling ascend­ing sui­cide bombers to stop because ‘we’ve run out of vir­gins,’ a ref­er­ence to a reward said to await Islamic mar­tyrs. The car­toons were pub­lished Sept. 30, which Mr. Rose and his col­leagues were unaware coin­cided with the start of the Mus­lim holy month of Ramadan. Soon after the angry news­pa­per ven­dor called, a second-generation immi­grant phoned the paper to make threats against the car­toon­ists. The caller, who was quickly found by police, turned out to be men­tally ill. After a few days, Mr. Rose though the worst was over. Then cler­ics in Copen­hagen and else­where used their ser­mons to denounce the paper. Ambas­sadors from Egypt, Saudi Ara­bia and nine other Islamic coun­tries requested a meet­ing with Denmark’s center-right prime min­is­ter, Anders Fogh Ras­mussen. Mr. Ras­mussen declined, say­ing the state had no right to inter­fere with the country’s free press. Angry local Mus­lim lead­ers orga­nized ral­lies demand­ing an apol­ogy. The paper refused. . . .” (Idem.)

18. A brief bio­graph­i­cal sketch of Mr. Abu-Laban sug­gests the dis­tinct pos­si­bil­ity that he is a mem­ber of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood. Note that he invited Sheikh Rah­man to speak at an event in Den­mark, plac­ing Abu Laban in the Al Qaeda milieu. “ . . . Mr. Abu-Laban, who grew up in Egypt and was arrested there in the early 1980’s after being expelled from the United Arab Emi­rates for his preach­ing, took charge of writ­ing state­ments for the group and com­mu­ni­cat­ing with Mus­lim ambas­sadors. He denies hold­ing extrem­ist views, but acknowl­edges host­ing vis­its to Den­mark by Omar Abdel Rah­man, before his arrest in New York, where the blind sheik now is serv­ing a life sen­tence in con­nec­tion with the 1993 World Trade Cen­ter bomb­ing. [Empha­sis added.]. . .” (Idem.)

19. A crit­i­cal detail of “Car­toon­gate” con­cerns the fact that the car­toons and text cir­cu­lated in the [largely illit­er­ate] Mus­lim World were inac­cu­rate. Many of the car­toons of Muham­mad were delib­er­ately insult­ing and provoca­tive and were NOT pub­lished in Mr. Rose’s paper. Some of the car­toons may have been sent by white suprema­cists and neo-Nazis to delib­er­ately inflame ten­sions. As will be seen below, there are oper­a­tional links between ele­ments of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and Euro­pean Nazi and fas­cist ele­ments. “ . . . From sev­eral sources, we now know that word of the car­toons was then car­ried sys­tem­at­i­cally through the Mus­lim world—to prin­ci­pal mosques, madras­sahs, and gov­ern­ment offices start­ing in Egypt. This was done by del­e­ga­tions sent by Ahmed Abu-Laban, the Saudi-supported Imam of Copen­hagen. And in addi­tion to the dozen car­toons that had actu­ally appeared in that obscure provin­cial newspaper—most fairly inno­cent, and one actu­ally sat­i­riz­ing oppo­si­tion to Islam—the del­e­ga­tions’ ‘media kits’ included as many as 30 graph­ics that had never appeared, and by their nature would never appear, in a West­ern main­stream news­pa­per. For instance, a photo of a man dressed as a pig, over the cap­tion, ‘This is the real Moham­mad.’ The fake pic­tures not only out­num­bered the real ones, they were much nas­tier. Many were in the style of anti-Semitic car­toons that appear fre­quently in Arab papers, but turned around to tar­get Mus­lims instead of Jews. And the cov­er­ing let­ter, which I have read in trans­la­tion, was full of out­ra­geous lies about events in Den­mark, and mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions of what had been said by Dan­ish jour­nal­ists and politi­cians. [Empha­sis added.]”
(“Orga­nized Apoplexy” by David War­ren; Ottawa Cit­i­zen; 2/8/2006.)

20. “It is this doc­u­ment, and not any copy of Jyllands-Posten from Sept. 30th 2005, that is at the root of the Mus­lim riots, the Saudi-sponsored p[an-Arab boy­cott of Dan­ish goods, and var­i­ous fat­was and other acts that put Danes and other Euro­peans, who had never pre­vi­ously hears of Jyllands-Posten, in peril for their lives. . . .” (Idem.)

21. “ . . . For the whole point of this exer­cise is to enhance the power and pres­tige of rad­i­cal Islam, over the great num­ber of Mus­lims who have not been look­ing for trou­ble. Sim­ply by rec­og­niz­ing the least rea­son­able Mus­lim voices as the legit­i­mate rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Islam, ter­ri­ble dam­age is done to mod­er­ate inter­ests. It is utterly wrong to appease an Abu-Laban. Here is a man who gave an inter­view on Dan­ish tele­vi­sion, pre­tend­ing great dis­tress, and con­demn­ing the excesses of the inter­na­tional cam­paign against Dan­ish per­sons, prop­erty, and prod­ucts. But he also gave an inter­view to Al-Jazeera, in Ara­bic, cheer­fully con­grat­u­lat­ing the world’s Mus­lims on putting a scare into the Danes, and gloat­ing over the suc­cess of the boy­cott. Alas for him, the Dan­ish tele­vi­sion net­work, DR, has now shown excerpts from the Al-Jazeera inter­view, trans­lated into Dan­ish. This has to be spelled out very plainly to peo­ple in the West who don’t get it, includ­ing igno­rant scribes in the U.S. State Depart­ment, the British For­eign Office, and the Vat­i­can, who have added their offi­cial voices in con­dem­na­tion of those irrel­e­vant Dan­ish car­toons. Every time we refuse a rad­i­cal Mus­lim demand, by stick­ing to our sound West­ern prin­ci­ples, we strengthen rea­son­able Mus­lims against the fanat­ics. Every time we relent, we strengthen the fanat­ics.” (Idem.)

22. A very sage obser­va­tion indeed was made by a Pak­istani man—the father of an op-ed colum­nist in The New York Times. The extrem­ists on both sides of the Muham­mad car­toons issue should not be seen as con­sti­tut­ing the pri­mary ele­ment of their respec­tive social groups. As we will see, the two extremes are work­ing together! “ . . . ‘Lis­ten,’ said my father. ‘The most impor­tant thing here is not to con­fuse a group within an entity for the entity itself. Euro­peans, Mus­lims, Euro­pean Muslims—most peo­ple just want to live in peace. For us to start believ­ing Europe is rep­re­sented by its right-wing fanat­ics would be as wrong as for them to believe Islam is rep­re­sented by our right-wing fanat­ics.’ . . .”
(“Agent Provo­ca­teur’ by Kamila Sham­sie; The New York Times; 2/15/2006; p. A23.)

23. The Ger­man Repub­likaner Partei, headed up by SS offi­cer Franz Schon­hu­ber, exploited the Car­toon­gate affair to pro­mote racism and xeno­pho­bia. “ . . . High­light­ing the risk of esca­la­tion, the Ger­man extreme-right Repub­li­can Party said in a state­ment yes­ter­day that the out­rage marked ‘the begin­ning of open war between cul­tures in Europe,’ adding: ‘the door is now open for black­mail by the Mohammedans.’ . . .”
(“Mus­lim Out­rage Gath­ers Pace” by Bertrand Benoit and FT Reporters; The Finan­cial Times; 2/3/2006.)

24. Next, the pro­gram revis­its a point of infor­ma­tion dis­cussed in—among other programs—FTRs 378, 456. In the spring of 2002, bank Al Taqwa direc­tor (“Report on Islamists, The Far Right, and Al Taqwa” by Kevin Coogan; pp. 14–15.)

25. Inter­est­ingly, Huber main­tains close rela­tions with Holo­caust deniers like David Irv­ing, recently con­victed of Holo­caust denial in Europe. “ . . . In Ger­many, he [Huber] speaks often at events hosted by the neo-Nazi National Demo­c­ra­tic Party, which pub­licly wel­comed the Sept. 11 ter­ror­ist attacks. Huber also befriended British author David Irv­ing and other Holo­caust deniers while fre­quent­ing ‘Revi­sion­ist’ con­claves. . . .”
(“The Swastika & the Cres­cent” by Mar­tin A. Lee; Intel­li­gence Report; Spring 2002 [#105]; Pub­lished by the South­ern Poverty Law Center.)

26. A telling out­growth of the Car­toon­gate affair was an Iran­ian newspaper’s spon­sor­ship of a car­toon con­test lam­poon­ing the Holo­caust. That this would be seen as an appro­pri­ate response to the pub­li­ca­tion of images of Mohammed is sig­nif­i­cant. With the Iran­ian pres­i­dent him­self hav­ing called the Holo­caust a myth, the Iran­ian response is strongly sug­ges­tive of the notion that Jews dom­i­nate and secretly run West­ern soci­ety. This belief is very wide­spread in the Mus­lim world. In this con­text, one should also note that Huber is very close to the Iran­ian regime. “An Iran­ian newspaper’s con­test for Holocaust-related car­toons has drawn entries from 200 peo­ple, with some draw­ings mock­ing the World War II slaugh­ter: One entry shows Jews going into a gas pipeline. Most con­test entrants are Iran­ian, but six are Amer­i­cans and a few car­toons have been sub­mit­ted from such places as Indone­sia and Brazil, accord­ing to the Hamshahri news­pa­per. A few of the draw­ings have been posted online. Hamshahri began the con­test last month as a test of the West’s readi­ness to print car­toons about the Nazi killing of 6 mil­lion Jews in World War II. The con­test, which runs through May 15, comes in response to car­i­ca­tures of the prophet Muham­mad that sparked protests across much of the Mus­lim world. . . .”
(“Holo­caust Car­toon Con­test Draws 200” by Nasser Karimi [AP]; The San Fran­cisco Chron­i­cle; 3/14/2006; p. A7.)