Alleged Oslo terrorist Anders Breivik's 1,500-page manifesto contained a number of recommendations to readers for where to go to get the truth about those barbaric Muslims. The scary part is that the FBI's 2009 Islam 101 briefing recommends some of the same books, Spencer Ackerman reports:
Among the most provocative aspects of the presentation is its recommended reading list. One book offered is The Truth About Mohammed: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion, by Robert Spencer. Spencer is one of the ringleaders of the protest against the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” and the co-founder of Stop the Islamicization of America, which “promotes a conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda,” in the view of the Anti-Defamation League. A manifesto written by the Norwegian terror suspect Anders Behring Breivik cited Spencer 64 times.
Another book cited is The Arab Mind, by Raphael Patai. The volume was briefly infamous in 2004, after Seymour Hersh reported its influence among certain Iraq war hawks in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal. According to Hersh, the takeaway of Patai's book is that “Arabs only understand force” and are susceptible to “shame and humiliation.”
“It's like asking law enforcement to learn ‘the facts' about the African American experience by reading a book by the grand wizard of the KKK,” says Khera. “It is deplorable and offensive that the nation's top law enforcement agency would promote such hateful so-called ‘experts' on Islam.”
How's this for fearful symmetry: The FBI briefing and the Breivik manifesto also begin with the same quote from conservative anti-slavery philosopher Edmund Burke, "All that is required for evil to triumph is for a few good men to do nothing." He deserves better than that.
According to the FBI, the briefing is no longer in use.
