Nick Sementelli flags the testimony of Peter Neumann, director of the International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence at King's College in London, to Representative Sue Myrick's subcommittee hearing on domestic radicalization in the U.S. Myrick, as Sementelli points out, is a big believer in the stealth jihad conspiracy theory, so imagine her disappointment when Neumann said this:
I've always thought that this idea of a "stealth jihad" and of a campaign to introduce sharia law in the United States of America was quite contrived. The people who argue that case believe that this conspiracy has been operating since 1962. Now, if there is a conspiracy -- and I don't believe there is one -- if there is a conspiracy it must be one of the least effective conspiracies modern history. 99% of the US population are not Muslim, of the remaining .8% the vast majority are totally committed to the U.S. Constitution. So the chance, the odds, of the remaining...6 people to overthrow the Constitution are, I believe, quite low. There is a threat from homegrown terrorism as we've seen in the data. I believe that is the threat we should be concentrating on rather than stamping an entire community as potential terrorists.
New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie also smacked down the stealth jihad types last week, after they protested his appointment of a Muslim attorney to the state bench. It's amazing how flimsy this stuff is when you think about it, and how little that seems to matter.
