Training For Hate

By AM Tuesday, May 24, 2011

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Despite their different backgrounds, the counterterrorism trainers we interviewed have a remarkably similar worldview. It is one of total, civilizational war—a conflict against Islam that involves everyone, without distinction between combatant and noncombatant, law enforcement and military - Meg Stalcup and Joshua Craze

The Macpherson Inquiry into the police handling of the 1993 murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence in England concluded that there was an institutionalised racism within the Metropolitan Police. All being equal before the law was immediately devalued when the first point of contact with the law was the police. Whatever happened after that was compromised. With police fingerprints all over the initial investigation anything subsequent was a question of where the loaded dice might fall. It seems that something similar can be said of US police and that institutional bias is being deliberately fostered at management level.

An article by Meg Stalcup and Joshua Craze titled ‘How We Train Our Cops to Fear Islam’ might seem a bit OTT although the objection from Congressman Peter King is likely to be that the article should be called ‘How We Must Train Our Cops To Fear Islam. Cops have their fears. And what people fear they tend to hate. Anyone who has faced the RUC at protests or republican funerals knows that much as they were forced to peer into hate contorted faces, their bearers itching to baton, beat or fire a plastic bullet at a child from a nationalist family. But to state that stoking fear of a law abiding community is part of their police training sounds a bit much. It seems counterproductive and sort of gives the game away before the first foul tackle goes in. Normally, we expect the human rights discourse to be in play. It acts as the alibi when accusations of abuse emerge: ‘not us, Joe Public, look at our human rights ethos.’

The Stalcup and Craze article detailed training being given out to US beat-cops by people who pass themselves off as "terrorism experts". Despite the global recession there is no shortage of work in the terrorism industry. It has been constant since 9/11: ‘rivers of federal training dollars are already flowing, many of them straight into the pockets of instructors like Sam Kharoba.’

At a college in Florida in January 2010 Sam Kharoba, an independent consultant in the industry, took his place in front of a class of 60 cops. He promised to teach his students over the course of three days the fundamentals of Islam. One ‘myth’ he set out to explode was that Islam was a peaceful religion. He told his class that since 9/11 there had been ‘over thirteen thousand attacks.’ Extremist Muslims could, he assured his listeners, be spotted as easily as members of the numerous street gangs with their colours that flourish in many US cities.

“When you see a bunch of guys in red, what do you know?” Kharoba asked.
“They are Bloods,” responded the audience, many of whom deal with gangs regularly.
“When you have a Muslim that wears a headband, regardless of color or insignia, basically what that is telling you is ‘I am willing to be a martyr. … The first thing is facial hair … Do you see how the moustache is trimmed, and the beard is in a cone shape? It is very common to have this beard, and the moustache will always be the same, just like Muhammad.”

This type of thing obviously had an effect. According to the authors of the article, Meg Stalcup and Joshua Craze:

When we spoke to students from Kharoba’s class in Florida, many were enthusiastic. Olga Gonzalez, who is a TSA officer in Miami, told us she had taken several of Kharoba’s courses. “This guy is brilliant,” she said. “I can’t believe it: just like gang affiliations, you can distinguish between secular and jihadist Muslims.”

Kharoba, who argues that ‘the best way to handle these people is what I call legal harassment’ seeks to ensure that cops don’t discriminate between good and bad Muslims. ‘Islam is a highly violent radical religion that mandates that all of the earth must be Muslim.’

While there is plenty of room for discussion about the type of religion Islam is and how it might compare against other global religions, hate mongering has no place in rational discussion.

During his classes Kharoba would refer to the infamous Alligator Ally incident where three Muslims in a car were pulled over by the police and detained after a woman diner eavesdropping on their conversation picked up the words ‘bring it down.’

Using this to set the scene Kharoba would project a picture of Ayman Gheith, one of the arrested men, onto the screen and tell his audience:

the first thing is facial hair … do you see how the moustache is trimmed, and the beard is in a cone shape? It is very common to have this beard, and the moustache will always be the same, just like Muhammad

But as the article points out:

There is only one problem with the Alligator Alley case—a problem Kharoba never mentioned to the class. The incident was a false alarm. The “terrorists” turned out to be medical students on their way to a conference in Miami. They were innocent. After thirteen hours of interrogation, the police released them. Kharoba, however, taught the class that Ayman Gheith was a “textbook case” of Islamic fanaticism.

Stalcup and Craze proceed to warn that:

Time is of the essence. Within the next year, the Department of Justice plans to implement the Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative nationwide, and this will amplify the effects of the bad training being provided—unless the system is reformed quickly … But instead of a broader discussion, what we have now is a system that fails to police the ranks of those who train our frontline officers, while no one is paying attention. Apart, that is, from the police.

With Peter King was reported in the New Yorker singing the praises of torture in the wake of the Bin Laden assassination it was evident that the scene is being increasingly set for an ever more violent policing of a demonised community. Because of a law enforcement agency disinclination to differentiate largely because of training by tutors like Kharaba little benefit in terms of security and wellbeing for US citizens is likely to accrue.