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TWO years ago, John O. Brennan, President Obama's top adviser on counterterrorism, spoke to members of a Muslim student group in a packed auditorium at the law school where I teach, offering his audience the White House's position about what jihad does and does not mean.

Later that year, on a panel with me in that same auditorium, a commentator, Haroon Moghul, drew attention to efforts by American officials to build global networks of “acceptable” Muslim leaders.

There are other examples like these around the country. The Ohio Department of Public Safety has produced and distributed literature that declares, “When extremists attack and kill in the name of jihad, mainstream Muslims consider such acts as a total deviation from the true religion of Islam.”

Homeland Security officials were signed up for a 2010 conference in which one topic was “Seeking a Counter-Reformation in Islam.” In 2004, an inspector general criticized the Bureau of Prisons because it failed to “examine the doctrinal beliefs of applicants for religious service positions to determine whether those beliefs are inconsistent with B.O.P. security policies.”

The FBI has removed hundreds of counterterrorism training documents after a months-long review found inaccuracies and other problems in their description of Muslims.

The review was triggered after a September blog in Wired magazine revealed training documents that reportedly called the Prophet Muhammad a "cult leader," claimed "devout" Muslims have been generally violent for hundreds of years and made other controversial statements.

The FBI did not get into details about which documents were taken out, but a law enforcement source confirmed to Fox News on Tuesday that hundreds were removed because they were deemed "not consistent with the highest professional standards and the FBI's core values."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02 ... z1o7Vnr5PN

In 2004, The Center for Islamic Pluralism was started in Washington, D.C. Described on its website as "a think tank that challenges the dominance of American Muslim life by militant Islamist groups". The center considers itself the voice of moderate Islam.

"For us, 'moderate Islam' means Islam as a religion that is like other religions," says Executive Director Stephen Suleyman Schwartz. "Of course, as Muslims we believe our religion is the best, but that does not mean, for a moderate Muslim, that one has contempt for other religions — or one has feelings of aggression or gets involved in violent activities toward other religions."

Schwartz claims organizations like the Islamic Society of North America, the Islamic Circle of North America and the Council on American-Islamic Relations are receiving funds directly from violent jihadi groups in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt and that his organization is attempting to counter their influence.

"We're trying to educate the Muslim public, and the non-Muslim public, on the nature of radical Islam," Schwartz says. "We believe that, in the history of Islam, you can see a range between radical views and moderate views. And we represent moderate Islam, we represent an Islam that is not jihadist, that does not believe that jihad is a legitimate form of affirmation or struggle today."

Schwartz says the center's work is not only focused on the United States. He says there is a network of scholars and other individuals attempting to spread the organizations message in about 28 different countries.

In addition to working to counter what it considers "radical" Islam, the Center for Islamic Pluralism also tries to encourage Muslim immigrants to abide by the laws of the country of immigration.

"That is traditional Islamic guidance," he says.

There are critics of the center's mission who say it simply labels those who don't agree with it as radicals.

Prominent Muslim scholar Louay Safi, who has held several different roles at the Islamic Society of North American, wrote in 2005 that Schwartz's organization was creating an idea of moderate Islam that fit into the world view of America's religious right.

And the center does link to a number of reports coming from conservative or neoconservative think tanks and media outlets.

Schwartz says the center only labels groups extremist or radical if they don't fall in line with traditional Islamic doctrine.

"The whole problem that is facing the world now, that most people are baffled by, is the internal crisis in Islam," he says. "It's a crisis based on the challenge of deciding whether Islam is going to continue to go, as it did historically, in a moderate direction or if it is going to go in one of basically several radical directions toward what we could call a reactionary utopia.

"That is an Islam that looks to the past and tries to recreate the past in the present, rather than practicing an Islam that is relevant to the present."

You can read up on the Center for Islamic Pluralism, as well as some of the reports it's issued, at its website www.islamicpluralism.org.

grandpakhalif wrote:the us government can go fuck itself.

grandpakhalif wrote:the us government can go fuck itself.

AwdalPrince wrote:

grandpakhalif wrote:the us government can go fuck itself.

Grandpa how's the punk man? Is it quality or baarixi? Who is you local dealer?

grandpakhalif wrote: Sxb my weed is medical, I have slight anger problem.

AwdalPrince wrote:Schwartz is a Sufi. That is the Islam that the U.S is promoting. They are stopping at nothing. Soon Islam will be banned in America as a whole perhaps.

I don't call myself American anymore. My country has betrayed me, they degraded my religion and my honour.

If it wasn't for the fact that their policies forced me out I would never have left. I love America (the land), but hate the government.

grandpakhalif wrote:the us government can go fuck itself.

union wrote:

grandpakhalif wrote:the us government can go fuck itself.

What will the Saud family do then? Who will be their patron and protector?

union wrote:

The U.S government is constitutionally bound not to prevent the establishment of any religion. Islam can be practiced freely and without fear in these borders so long as the constitution is in force. However, sir, whatever deviant and satanic violent ideology you are inspired by is not Islam and will be stomped out.

grandpakhalif wrote:

union wrote:

grandpakhalif wrote:the us government can go fuck itself.

What will the Saud family do then? Who will be their patron and protector?

you are weird guy, US government is great in terms of aid with ksa but it should not attempt to export sufi islam. leave spreading islam to the muslims. okay bro?