Announcer: The David Pakman Show at www.DavidPakman.com.
David: So we've heard a lot about Congressman Peter King's American Muslim hearings, and
we heard a lot of the complaints about why we shouldn't be having them. In the meantime,
we've had multiple of these, quote, "isolated incidents" we hear so much about. They never
seem to have anything to do with Muslims, they seem to have to do with white Americans,
Christian Americans, and they barely ever even get into the news. And here to talk about
it is Alyona Minkovski of RT's "The Alyona Show". Alyona, first of all, why do you think
that such clear instances of what is domestic terrorism just aren't being talked about?
Alyona Minkovski: Well, I think that there are... this is a multi-pronged problem here.
If you talk about specifically Peter King and his hearings or even if you look at stations
like Fox News, I mean, these people have an agenda, right? Peter King is trying to prove
that radicalization is only happening within the Muslim community in America, so he easily
turns a blind eye to everything that doesn't fit into the neat little box of the story
that he's trying to sell.
I think at the same time, if you look at the media, I mean, we always talk about how the
media in our country unfortunately has quite a bit of a short attention span. And you know,
another topic that I talk about all the time on our program is police brutality. We see
these botched night raids, and they're always treated the exact same way, as an isolated
incident, and because I don't know if the media just is too lazy, if they have this,
you know, like I said, short attention span where they can't put two and two together,
but there never seems to be any effort to really go back, do a little-- you know, digging
a little deeper and realize that there is a systemic problem here.
And you know, thirdly, I think that, of course, it's always easier, and especially for people
like Peter King, to, you know, paint "the other" as the badguy, especially if you talk
about the media. It's just not sexy to say that some white Christian guy went out there
and perhaps threw a bomb through a Planned Parenthood window, it's much better if it's
a crazed Muslim, right, because it all depends on the way that we choose to define terrorism
in this country.
David: That's right. I mean, the latest one is this Donny Eugene Mower, who firebombed,
allegedly, we have to say allegedly, of course, we have to overuse that just in the abundance
of caution, a Planned Parenthood center, vandalizing a mosque as well, molotov cocktails are involved,
middle of the night. I mean, and he left a note, also, that was very, very anti-abortion.
The thing that I... I know people's palms start getting sweaty just in mentioning it,
but that seems to be at least in the background here, is if we are going to have the same
type of discussion about this as we do about Muslims, the word Christian inevitably has
to be in there, right? And I think there's a lot of people who are very scared, one one
side scared, and on the other side, would absolutely eat alive and jump on the "war
on Christmas" type stuff if this were to be brought out into the open.
Minkovski: Well, absolutely. You're totally right there. I mean, we can't possibly just,
you know, look at one portion of Americans, right? Oh, wait, that's what we're doing right
now with these Muslim-American radicalization hearings, but it's always easier to pick on
a part of the population that's much smaller. If you talk about Christianity, A, that is
just sacred, it's completely taboo, you can't touch that in America. We have, you know,
the House right now voting on making "In God We Trust" the official motto of the United
States. That's something that you can't suss out and, you know, try to separate from America
in itself.
So Christianity is supposed to, you know, symbolize America and America's beginnings,
I guess as you could say, and at least that's the way that a lot of pundits, a lot of religious
people, a lot of politicians out there would like to say it. Then we can't look at Christianity
as part of the problem, but we know that it is part of the problem. We know that there
have been reports coming out, a terrorism statistics report earlier this year that said
that there were actually more cases of terror plots since 9/11 by right-wing radicals than
there were by Muslims.
David: Well, but you know that facts can't get in the way of the media reporting the
narrative they've predetermined is what they're going to be reporting, you know? That...
Minkovski: Absolutely not. Who needs facts?
David: Give me a sense of what, when you hear the Peter King hearings, now we've gotten
a little bit past them, will anything actually come of that? Is it just grandstanding? Is
it so that later people can point and say hey, we had the hearings, for whatever reason,
for future political posturing? I mean, I complained and was angry about the hearings
to my audience when they were happening, but now in retrospect, I mean, what will they
be used for? I don't even get it.
Minkovski: I'm completely with you there that I don't even get it. I think that these hearings
were a horrible idea. I think that it's, you know, quite embarrassing, really, for America
to be having these types of hearings, to be singling out American citizens, entire communities.
But I think that if there is something that's going to come of them, it's only going to
be negative, right? A large part of these hearings was supposedly to increase cooperation
between the Muslim-American community and between law enforcement, but I think it's
going to do quite the opposite. It's only going to breed a lot more mistrust. Why would
the American Muslim community now want to work with law enforcement if they feel like
they're always being singled out, always being looked at as the badguy? And so I just definitely
don't think that it's going to do us any favors, and I hope that it will be looked back upon
as this horrible idea, as it is, and as another dark time in history. But then, of course,
hey, we already had McCarthyism too, why do we keep repeating these things?
David: Yeah, I agree with you. The only thing I'm concerned about is that not only will
we look back at it as something that was just handled wrong, but what if we are actually,
because of our focus on Peter King's American Muslim hearings, are actually missing real
and legitimate threats that could end up harming the United States in a real way? That's...
it might not just be all politics, looking back.
Minkovski: I think that's a very valid concern, too. Tonight on our program, we're actually
going to be speaking with a journalist who did a deep look at the way that our local
police officers are trained now in counterterrorism, right? This is a new initiative after 9/11,
suddenly we have millions, perhaps billions, there isn't a full figure out there, of federal
dollars flowing towards these programs to train local police in counterterrorism efforts.
But these people that are training them are not experts by any means. The majority of
them have no background in Islam, you know, they don't know anything about the religion,
they don't have any type of background in counterterrorism policies, and they go out
there and they tell our police that this is a civilizational war, that this is black and
white, that all Muslims want to take over America. And you know, if that's what you're
teaching your law enforcement, then I feel like that is going to take the eye off of
real, credible threats that are out there.
You know, these people, these supposed experts are saying that you can tell a Jihadi terrorist
versus a peaceful Muslim just by looking at the way that his beard is shaved, and I think
that that's the last thing that our law enforcement communities need to be focusing on, and I
also think it's something that should be handled on a higher level than just local police.
David: Yeah, if we're looking at beards, if beards are the focus, then we're in trouble.
Alyona Minkovski, RT's "The Alyona Show". We'll be watching tonight, and I'll be on
your show tomorrow, so I'm excited. Thanks again for coming on.
Minkovski: That's right. I'm looking forward to seeing you tomorrow. Thanks so much, David.
David: OK, bye.
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