Steven Emerson directs the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), a group dedicated to exposing the dangers of Islamist infiltration in America through investigative journalism. But his career, as discussed in CAP’s new report “Fear, Inc.,” is marked by shoddy reporting and suspicious financial arrangements [...]]]>
Steven Emerson directs the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), a group dedicated to exposing the dangers of Islamist infiltration in America through investigative journalism. But his career, as discussed in CAP’s new report “Fear, Inc.,” is marked by shoddy reporting and suspicious financial arrangements between private companies, in some cases listing him as the sole employee, and the nonprofit foundations which collect tax-exempt contributions to support his work.
Emerson got his start as an investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1976 to 1982 and, after serving as an executive assistant to Sen. Frank Church (D-ID), left public service in 1986 to join U.S. News & World Report. In 1990, he joined CNN as an investigative correspondent where he reported on terrorism. In 1995, Emerson left journalism and founded the Investigative Project on Terrorism, which claims to be “one of the world’s largest storehouses of archival data and intelligence on Islamic and Middle Eastern terrorist groups.”
But Emerson’s supposed expertise in researching terrorist networks have frequently been questioned due to his propensity for making false accusations against Muslims and his sloppy approach to investigative reporting. Most notably, in 1995, Emerson claimed that the Oklahoma City bombing showed “a Middle East trait” because it “was done with the intent to inflict as many casualties as possible.” And in 1998, Emerson was tied to a false report that Pakistan was planning a nuclear first strike on India.
Emerson’s weak credibility hasn’t stopped him from building a mini-empire from his offices at the well-funded IPT. But his penchant for secrecy — his office location is secret, employees refer to it as “the bat cave,” and journalists who visit it have been blindfolded en route — has raised serious questions about management of IPT’s finances.
As reported first by The Tennessean, IPT helps fund Emerson’s for-profit company, SAE Productions. IPT paid SAE Productions $3.33 million to “study alleged ties between American Muslims and overseas.” SAE Productions is a private company so no data is available on how the money was spent but Emerson’s role as SAE’s sole employee raises serious ethical questions.
Emerson’s finances took an even more bizarre turn when grants directed to the “Investigative Project” or “IPT” were contributed care of the Counterterrorism & Security Education and Research Foundation (CTSERF). A LobeLog investigation into CTSERF’s tax filings revealed that, much like the Investigative Project, all grant revenue was transferred to a private, for-profit entity.
When asked about the IPT-CTSERF relationship, Ray Locker, the Investigative Project’s then-managing director acknowledged to LobeLog that a relationship “exists” but would not elaborate further on how or why IPT donors send funds care of CTSERF.
“Fear Inc.” examines Emerson’s role as a a key “expert” in the Islamophobia network and tracks over $5 million in grants to CTSERF and IPT.
IPT donors include: the Donors Capital Fund ($400,000); the Russell Berrie Foundation ($100,000); the Anchorage Charitable and William Rosenwald funds ($10,000); the Fairbrook Foundation ($25,000); and the Newton and Rochelle Becker affiliated foundations ($25,000).
Donors to CTSERF include: the Richard Scaife foundations ($1.575 million); the Russell Berrie Foundation ($2.736 million); The Anchorage Charitable and William Rosenwald fund ($15,000); and Newton and Rochelle Becker affiliated foundations ($4.526 million).
]]>Responding to CAP’s Islamophobia report, anti-Muslim activists David Horowitz called it “fascistic” and Robert Spencer deemed it the “agenda of the Islamic jihad.” Determined to one-up her Islamophobia network colleagues, Pamela Geller took to her blog on Friday evening to unleash a fiery tirade [...]]]>
Responding to CAP’s Islamophobia report, anti-Muslim activists David Horowitz called it “fascistic” and Robert Spencer deemed it the “agenda of the Islamic jihad.” Determined to one-up her Islamophobia network colleagues, Pamela Geller took to her blog on Friday evening to unleash a fiery tirade against the new report “Fear, Inc.”
Geller piles baseless, if at times colorful, allegations on the report’s authors. Including:
It reads more like a Mein Kampf treatise. The funding section of the report is outrageous. I have not seen one dime from any those donors, though they name me as a recipient. Lies. [...]
[MediaMatters and the Center for American Progress] mean to destroy this country, and they will crush anyone who gets in their way. [...]
This “report on Islamophobia” is Goebbels attacking the Jew. I wear it as a badge of honor. These quislings are the enemy. They fear my work, and that is good. They fear my book, Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. [...]
Watch them choke on their own vomit.
Geller’s only factual issue with the report is that “I have not received one cent from any of these funders they attempt to tie me to.” But the report never claims that Geller receives any money from the seven funders who contributed $42.6 million to the Islamophobia network. Indeed, Geller is probably one of the few individuals who requires little money from outside donors. Last year, The New York Times reported:
Geller, much like her colleagues Robert Spencer and David Horowitz, uses the report as an opportunity to solicit readers for contributions while never meaningfully challenging the factual accuracy of the 130-page report on Geller and her anti-Muslim allies. While unsurprising and certainly not out of the norm for Geller, her response to the report underlines the bigotry, hatred and intolerance exhibited by many member of the Islamophobia network.
UPDATE: Last night, ThinkProgress editor-in-chief Faiz Shakir discussed the Islamophobia network with Keith Olbermann:
]]>A new, must-read report by the Center for American Progress titled “Fear, Inc.: The Roots of Islamophobia in America,” exposes the Islam-bashing network in America which has considerable reach in the U.S. news media and has an audience among some well-known politicians such as Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann.
The report includes detailed information about the more than $42 million that has flowed from seven key foundations to the network over 10 years, as well as the key “misinformation experts” who generate the false facts and materials which are then regurgitated by the media and certain politicians and grass-root groups.
Islamophobic misinformation is not only harmful for Muslims inside the U.S. and abroad who continue to be persecuted and isolated for crimes committed in the name of Islam even as the vast majority of Muslims denounce them. If accepted unchallenged, these claims can also lead to misguided and harmful U.S. domestic and foreign policy decisions which can further exacerbate national security threats.
Click here to read the report in full. Jim’s IPS article on the report can be found here.
]]>Then, on New Year’s Eve Day, the Post came [...]]]>
Then, on New Year’s Eve Day, the Post came out with a long feature article on “Parazit,” the news satire show on Voice of America‘s Farsi-language network. “Parazit” is a comedy show like “The Daily Show,” where real news items are used to poke fun at Iranian politics. It’s beamed by satellite into Iran, where many Iranians watch it with illegal dishes affixed to their roofs. At the Post, Tara Bahrampour writes:
Operating out of Voice of America’s Persian News Network, Kambiz Hosseini and Saman Arbabi have started a weekly program, “Parazit,” that has drawn comparisons to Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” for its satiric take on Iran’s news of the day.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a favorite target.
The name of the show means “static,” which is what happens when the Iranian government tries to jam the VOA signal. The fact that the piece neglects to explore the impetus for this signal blocking is indicative of a minor shortcoming in the Post article.
VOA is not looked upon kindly by the Iranian government. That’s because the group is funded by the U.S. government. But the Post goes on for more than twenty paragraphs before mentioning this — and the phrasing is limited to merely that VOA “is funded by the U.S. government.”
This makes it sound a bit like the outlet is just like NPR or PBS. Really, VOA has a very different past, and a very different present. For one, it was formed by the U.S. Information Agency (USIA), a propaganda outfit run by the executive branch. According to a preserved website of the now-defunct agency, “USIA explains and supports American foreign policy and promotes U.S. national interests through a wide range of overseas information programs.”
When the USIA closed its doors in 1999, VOA moved under the control of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). VOA, so far as I can tell, is fully funded by the U.S. government. (I queried VOA, and will update if I hear anything.)
Though VOA seems to me to be a decent news source, one can’t deny that it carries a special bent not shared by more independent outlets. Although USIA’s mission statement stopped being relevant over a decade ago, VOA‘s charter from 1960 is still in place:
The long-range interests of the United States are served by communicating directly with the peoples of the world by radio.
The Post article, though, acknowledges that “Parazit” is unlike anything else on VOA‘s Farsi service:
Most Persian News Network programming is made up of straight news and commentary. The hosts are older than Hosseini and Arbabi and generally don’t go on camera in Sex Pistols T-shirts, nose rings, and green-and-black-painted fingernails. “I don’t know if VOA has ever done anything like this,” said [VOA executive editor Steve] Redisch, who has been thrilled with the results.
I’m not sure why the Post overlooks the essential nature of VOA and its history. For example, the domestic distribution of VOA content is prohibited by anti-propaganda laws. In the kicker of the piece, an Iranian official says that the hosts are “spies.” Though it’s dismissed as a laughable quote (I assume rightfully), it would have been a good opportunity to better explain VOA to the Post audience. Let’s not pretend that there aren’t some issues with the outlet’s government funding in pursuit of its own interests, especially in a tense relationship like the one between the U.S. and Iran.
In a video that appears with the story on the Post‘s website, one of the show’s hosts comments that the show is non-partisan, and that if Mir Hossein Moussavi “was in charge, we’d go after him.” But he’s not, and I don’t know if they do.
While freedom of expression should by no means be stifled, a U.S. government-funded partisan political show being illegally broadcast into Iran raises some questions in my mind. In the U.S., even overt foreign campaign donations are frowned upon and frequently returned or rejected.
Seemingly, none of these concerns should overshadow the talent behind the show or, more importantly, the apparent popularity of the show in Iran: the Post reports that the hosts are overjoyed that “paraziti” has become something of a catchphrase in the Islamic Republic. If you say something stupid, your friends might comment that it’s “paraziti,” as in worthy of a mention on the satire show.
The questions raised by the involvement of VOA in “Parazit” might be cast aside in favor of pragmatism: How else would Iranians living in Iran get to see it? The Center for American Progress blogger and Middle East analyst Matt Duss put it concisely when I raised the issue in a conversation with him:
“Ideally, it would be independently supported,” he told me. “But if the choice is ‘Parazit’ on VOA or no Parazit, I’ll take the former.”
]]>Jim Lobe and I wrote an IPS article last week challenging the right-wing talking points that the WikiLeaks cables were a nail in the coffin for those in the Obama administration who believe, as does the military’s top leadership, that linkage is an important concept if the U.S. is going to contain Iran and withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Basically, the “linkage” argument holds that continued irresolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict hinders America’s ability to achieve its national security goals in the region, both by serving as a driver of extremism and a source of anti-American sentiment. Critics of the argument contend that the significance of the conflict has been vastly overblown, and that “the Palestinian issue” is simply an excuse used by violent extremists and lacking genuine salience among Arabs, despite what they may say in public.
Duss reviews the many WikiLeaks cables in which Arab diplomats endorse the concept of linkage and the countless op-eds from Iran hawks claiming that WikiLeaks shows that Arab leaders don’t care about Palestinians or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
He writes:
All of this would seem to demonstrate the bankruptcy of the linkage argument. In reality, what it demonstrates is the willingness of some analysts to ignore evidence.
But, despite the overwhelming evidence in the cables, hawkish groups such as the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) have shown a shocking willingness to misrepresent and twist the words of Arab leaders and the Foreign Service Officers who wrote the cables.
Duss concludes:
It is of course true that hostility toward Israel and its U.S. patron will not simply dissipate upon the end of Israel’s occupation and the creation of a Palestinian state — the completeness of that de-occupation, and the contours of that state, matter greatly. There are also problems and pathologies in the Middle East that have nothing to do with Israelis or Palestinians. Securing a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will, however, make addressing some of those problems easier, by sealing up one well of resentment from which demagogues and extremists have for decades drawn freely and profitably.
Indeed, the WikiLeaks cables provide abundant evidence that Arab leaders collectively agree that containing Iran–and in the process weakening Hezbollah and Hamas–requires removing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the lightening rod for anti-West, anti-Israel and anti-U.S. sentiments in the Middle East.
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