Secrecy Surrounds Conference to Train Cops on ‘Political Violence’
Activists in Tennessee are asking about a taxpayer-sponsored terror training conference scheduled for later this month, as federal and state agencies have enacted a high level of secrecy regarding the two-day event and its scheduled speakers.
The terrorism conference is being sponsored by the Middle Tennessee U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Nashville Joint Terrorism Task Force, and is being held at the offices of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation on February 27 and 28. Additional partners include the FBI’s Continuing Education and Professional Development Unit, the Tennessee Office of Homeland Security, the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, and the American Muslim Advisory Council.
According to a flyer sent to federal and state law enforcement agencies:
Topics include: Introduction to Political Violence, Origins of Islam, Frameworks for Understanding Global Jihad, Radicalization, Regional Hot spots, Domestic Case Studies, Countering Violent Extremism, The Internet, Social Media, and Investigations Online.
Despite inquiries by PJ Media in recent weeks, the conference organizers have refused to provide any details about who will be instructing law enforcement officials on these issues.
Last week I requested a copy of the agenda and speakers for the conference from the U.S. Attorney’s contact listed on the conference flyer. This past Monday I received a response from David Boling, the U.S. Attorney’s public information officer:
Your request for the documents referenced below was forwarded to me for disposition. This training conference is not open to the public, therefore you would need to file a FOIA request for this information.
It is unclear what the event being closed to the public has anything to do with providing the information I requested, especially since it appears that two private outside organizations will be directly involved in providing the training.
Perhaps the presence and agendas of these outside organizations are why these government agencies are stonewalling requests for information. Mystery surrounds one of the private partner organizations for the terrorism training — the American Muslim Advisory Council — which is listed on the event flyer as a partner in the conference.
I asked Jennifer Donnals, communications director for the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security, for information related to the American Muslim Advisory Council. She replied:
The American Muslim Advisory Council is a private organization. You will need to contact the organization to get the names of its members.
However, the Tennessee Secretary of State’s office has no registration information for any such organization. Whey I asked for a contact for the organization, Ms. Donnals provided a cell phone number and no contact name.
So: none of the federal or state agencies are willing to provide any information about an organization that has partnered with these agencies for the upcoming conference, and presumably will be helping to provide some of the training.
One reason that local activists are concerned about who will be brought in to train law enforcement officials is the ongoing practice of federal and state agencies partnering with organizations and individuals that have been identified by federal prosecutors as conspiring to support overseas terrorist organizations. The federal judge who presided over the Holy Land Foundation trial — the largest terrorism financing trial in American history — expounded in a sealed court filing about such terror support activity by some of the most prominent Islamic organizations in the country. Some of the same organizations have been advising the White House, the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security on their policies for addressing “violent extremism”.
As I reported exclusively here at PJ Media back in November, Congress included language in the most recent budget continuing resolution to require the FBI to report ongoing contacts with such organizations in an effort to force the FBI to follow its own announced policies in this regard.
However, that hasn’t stopped the White House from pushing ongoing engagement with some of these same organizations, despite criticism directed at similar state-appointed Muslim advisory councils for including leaders of terror-tied organizations.
If anything, the shroud of secrecy that Tennessee officials are exhibiting with respect to this upcoming terrorism conference is raising questions that need to be answered.
About the American Muslim Advisory Council I found this link
http://www.illinois.gov/pressreleases/ShowPressRelease.cfm?SubjectID=3&RecNum=9697
It is from the Governor of Illinois’ page and the Council lists the usual suspects (CAIR, ISNA, etc.)
Well of course the best source of information/intelligence about enemy plans and operations is the enemy itself. The difficulty most often encountered in relation to this, however, is that most enemies are unwilling to provide such cooperation. Obviously the Tennessee Gubment has found a way to convince the enemy to voluntarily spill the beans, quite an achievement for the Tennies. Hats off to them. No doubt the Tennies want all this kept a secret because they are afraid publicity may upset the road-apple cart.
snark aler./
Oh, sorry, don’t know what a road-apple is? It is horsesxxt.
Here’s a little preview of what will likely be on the agenda.
http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/cve-training-guidance.pdf
This is classic … we not only have MB members active in the WH, we now have given them protection from anyone that might question why in the world they need to be present at such a meeting. Heh!!
FOIA – Chapter 5, section 3, Paragraph #10 – Need to know basis!!!
I guess I would feel a little safer if they also dealt with the topic of “How we would deal with a nuclear or dirty bomb going off in the United States?” Do we have the resources to take care of this, could we survive it, how many casualties would we sustain, and, most important, would we have enough civil and military assets to get to the people who were directly impacted by these events? The Army’s pathetic response to Hurricane Katrina didn’t really inspire me with a lot of confidence. And we actually KNEW the hurricane was coming and had some time to prepare for it. What would have happened if that was a nuclear blast instead of a hurricane? If it was a large dirty bomb, would we have had the assets in place to deal with an event like that? We seem to be spending a lot of time going over ways to prevent terrorism, but not a lot of time on dealing with it if we fail. And in the world of terrorism, we ALWAYS have to be right. The terrorists only have to be succeed once to bring a massive disaster on to our shores. 9/11 proved that.
“The Army’s pathetic response to Hurricane Katrina didn’t really inspire me with a lot of confidence.”
Good thing it’s not the Army’s responsibility to be first-line disaster response.
BTW — have you ever educated yourself on the differences in the Katrina aftermath in Mississippi and Alabama vs. Louisiana?
Hey, if I was a Governor, Bg. Gen. Honore would be my first choice as my Adjutant General; he stepped up and kicked a** and took names – once the military was legally able to operate in the Sovereign State of Louisiana. There’s this little relic of Reconstruction called posse comitatus that says that the US military cannot come in to a State without the Governor’s invitation.
GWB saw the handwriting on the wall and made a federal disaster declaration even before the State asked for it, but he was at the mercy of the school marm governor and the jive-a** mayor asking for help unless he was prepared to declare a state of insurrection beyond the capability of local authorities existed in the state with the female governor and the city with the black mayor. The wymyn and the poverty pimps would have had fun with that one. As it was when the military finally did come in you know Jackson, Sharpton, et al., were just praying some trained killer in ACU would shoot some poor Black man running down the street with a plasma TV to feed his starving family.
To the rest of you point, a nuclear incident used to be FEMA’s real purpose. With the end of the Cold War and Slick Willie’s discovery of all that cool money FEMA had, FEMA and it’s state analogs have simply become the ATM for the federal government and Demorats can find a disaster anywhere a Demorat might be running for offfice and need some money. But are we prepared for a biological, dirty bomb, or EMP attack, unequivocally NO. Every thinking American should be prepared to live totally by their own means and be able to protect themselves without any governmental assistance for at least two weeks. If the situation starts to get seriously tense, preparation for a much longer time is the best idea.
Honore is a 3-star (LGEN), not a Brig Gen
I been saying that for a long time ever since the slime media tried to put all the blame on Bush. I remember Blanco ( the dim bulb who happened to be governor at the time) not requesting help from the feds and I certainly remember the crook (His Honor the mayor) not doing a thing to help the people of New Orleans. And I specifically pointed to the fact that such widespread damage was not present in Mississippi or Alabama, where they actually had professionals running the state. If you think Miss. didn’t get as hard as New Orleans, you should have seen the picture of the huge floating casino off the Mississippi coast that was deposited on the coast beyond the coastal highway that runs through there, an incredible display of power.
The New Orleans mayor Nagin and the Louisana governor Blanco (both crooked Democrats) did all they could to block Bush (R) from doing anything. The “Help us” letter did not specify what help was needed, and so the fedgov could do nothing without breaking the law. In any event, FEMA comes right out and says that local areas are on their own for up to two weeks. The news media came out and lied about several things, like claiming violence in the Super Dome.
First response is local. Always. The news media made it sound like the fedgov was supposed to be first, and immediate, response. Impossible, even if the fedgov had dictatorial powers.
This is ludicrous.
They know that if they release the names of those who will be “briefing” them, and apparently throwing around the old Muslim dog treats of Takiyya and Kitman to be eagerly eaten by a whole bunch of deliberately, willfully ignorant, scared “officials,” who are trying desperately to deny the reality of the threat from Islam and Muslims, they will be exposed as gullible fools and dupes of not only Muslims but of political correctness. Thus, the secrecy.
Meh.
We know they’re going to say the most dangerous group in the country are the “sovereign citizens” movement. Why, in the last three years, across the entire country, they’ve been involved in 36 criminal acts!
Mr. Poole appears to argue that right-thinking Americans should never engage with the Muslim community unless they meet his standards of anti-Islamism. Sorry, this is just another “be scared of the Muslims!” piece.
Read the Koran and Hadiths and then lets see what you say. Words mean things.
Next month they will have an FBI seminar on identifying and preventing drug smuggling and gun violence. They’ll be assisted in the training by members of the sinaloa mexican drug cartel (Holder has a couple contacts he put together in fast & furious that owe him a favor).
Stupid is as stupid does. And this bunch is stupider than the last.
To be fair, if I were an American Muslim participating in this conference I would not want my name in the newspaper either.
Yes there are American Muslims who want to help and detest terrorism. I do not know if these are or what will be presented but there is a lot of knee jerk hysteria going on here based on little information.
Well, there may or may not be “hysteria” and hyperventilating going on here, but such supposed reactions can be expected given the total lack of “transparency” here and the fact that, in many cases in the past, when some agency of the the government meets with Muslim groups, it always turns out that they are meeting with Muslim groups like un-indicted co-conspirator CAIR and its ilk, who mean no good to the U.S. or to us “unbeliever” citizens.
Most training offered to federal and state or local employees is worthless and principally functions to give the employees time off and government paid travel to some big city, often at a time convenient to some major sporting or entertainment event. There is not roll taken, no testing, no grading, no accountability at all and usually after everyone shows up for the always free “continental breakfast,” the attrition is dramatic through the day as shopping, golfing, a ball game, or whatever interferes with attendance. If it is about something that some considerable sum of money might be spent on, the hallways and bars are filled with lobbyists who just happen to have tickets to fashionable events, are ever eager to pick up the tab, and just happen to know that pretty lady over there.
Much of the training in addition to being worthless functions as a money laundry to get tax dollars into the hands of Democrat front companies that exist to provide such training – with the understanding that some significant portion of the usually quite large fees will find its way back to the Party.
One of the more noxious training scams in the union states is so-called interest based bargaining. It is a program that was developed by Hahvud which should be titled: How a Democrat Administration Can Work With the Unions to More Thoroughly Screw the Taxpayers. If you’re far enough up the organization you go to Hahvud to get enlightenment straight from the horse’s mouth, well some part of the horse anyway. It’s a weeklong thing that costs a small fortune and you learn all the magical techniques and vocabulary to identify commonalities of interest between the employer and the union so that you can come up with a labor agreement that serves the interests of both the employer and the union. For anybody who actually knows anything about collective bargaining, it is utter horses$%t.
But the insiduous part is when the “trained” person comes back. Then the almost always Democrat (some Republicans are dumb enough to fall for it) government agrees with the union to used “interest based bargaining.” Of course they make a big joint press release and it sounds so good to the stupid. Then, of course, both the employer and union bargaining teams all have to be trained in the spells and incantations so they’re all speaking the same language and thinking of things in the same way. Then they hire somebody with that Hahvud certificate to train the teams. It’s almost always some former union representative, often a retired business agent, sometimes a regular Party hack with a teaching credential. They pay them tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars to train the teams and facillitate the negotiations, of course with the understanding that a third or even a half of the fee has to come back to the Party or candidates.
How about we prosecute them people based upon what they actually do?
Never mind customs. Never mind theologies, social behavior in a Mosque –I really don’t care and I don’t see any reason to care.
At the end of the day a cop doesn’t have to understand. He or she only has to observe behavior to see that it conforms with the laws of this land –not make social excuses for cultural ignorance.
Stop this cultural sensitivity nonsense. If they want to preach hate, let them preach hate. But if they act on any of this, arrest them and prosecute.
It really can be that simple. We just have to stop trying to be sensitive.
I think it is good for them to know about the nature of Islam, not for cultural sensitivity though. Because once you know about Islam you know there is nothing we can do but accept it is a war of ideas being fought against Western Civilization (values based on Judaism and Christianity)and those of the oppressive powers lead by Islam and Communism.
Willful ignorance of Islam is the scariest of all … this meeting is not “stupid”
it’s by design. How is it any different than La Raza being invited to advise the president? How is refusing FOIA requests any different to “by-passing congress”? How is this any different to deliberate extra-constitutional activity? This administration is orchestrating chaos in America … lawlessness is lawlessness.
It’s not about trying to stop being sensitive … it’s about recognizing leftist and totalitarian radicals; their ideology and their intentions for the rest of us. Islam and the radical left are joined at the hip …. …
Well, if you don’t have anything to hide, they why not release the info? This is just another instance of the O regime stonewalling info. Geeze, he makes the Nixon admin. look like a bunch of pikers! Wouldn’t surprise me if at one time Osama bin Laden himself was advising the FBI, CIA & Homeland Security. With idiots like this running things, who needs enemies? Talk about handing the keys of the hen house to the foxes! Bottomline: O could care less. He loves muslims & blacks while he hates Christians, whites & Jews.
When the government seeks to hide what they are doing it’s because they know what they are doing is very WRONG and very bad. America has never been in so much danger as she is now. The enemy is inside the gates.
American Muslim Advisory Council [AMAC]? Just what we need is another Muslim organization to add to the alphabet soup that seems to grow longer by the day. AMAC, ACMCU, AIC, AMF, ASMA, CAIR, FOSNA, IAK, ICNA, IIIT, ISA, ISNA, MAS, MAYA, MB, MCA, MPAC, MSA, NAIT, NAIC, NICS, OIC. Most ethnic/religious groups in this country have maybe one or two social organizations and a function hall, that’s about it. These guys represent maybe one percent of the population yet they are overwhelming us with their acronym army. If it wasn’t so serious it would be comical.
If you look at the documents seized by the FBI and entered into evidence–without defense objections as to their provenance or contents, I might add–by Federal prosecutors in the Holy Land Terrorism Funding Trial, in which CAIR and other Muslim organizations were “un-indicted co-conspirators” you will see a Muslim Brotherhood(the Ikhwan)/HAMAS strategy document in which they laid out their strategy for settling members in the U.S. and creating a myriad of apparently peaceful Muslim front organizations in order to carry out their objective, which that document stated succinctly was:
“The process of settlement is a “Civilization-Jihadist Process” with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
Recently the Vice President made the unbelievable statement that the Taliban were not our enemy.
The Vice President made it clear that the Taliban are NOT the enemy of the Obama administration. However, for the rest of us, the Taliban are indeed our enemy. A major and very frightening problem for America and the Free World is that the U.S. government (and some other Western leaders), don’t regard Muslim terrorists whose goal is world conquest and the imposition of cruel Islamic sharia law, as the enemy.
Who does the government regard as the enemy?
In 2009, Homeland Security declared the people to watch out for were veterans returning from the wars, pro-lifers and Tea Party attendees. In 2011, Homeland Security put out a video portraying white people as the most likely terrorists.
Google: Concentration camps in America
There are many. They are NOT intended for Muslim terrorists. People in Germany thought the murder of millions of innocents could never happen there. But it did.
The “Civilizational Jihad” that the Ikhwan strategy document I quoted from above talked about is much more about deception and subversion, about knowledge, perceptions, and spirit than it is about guns and bombs, for as Muhammad said [The essence of] “warfare is deception.”
This fundamental aspect of Jihad is about controlling, constricting, and shaping our perceptions, our knowledge about, our image and understanding of Islamic ideology, the world view and goals of Islam, the tactics of Islam and Muslims, and the true nature of the actual “situation on the ground.”
Islam and Muslims are counting on us defeating ourselves, through our confusion and willful ignorance, our passivity and invariable retreat in the face of the seemingly inexorable advance of Islam and Muslim’s stealth/creeping Jihad–their constantly escalating, strident demands for ever more “accommodations” to Islam’s Shari’a law and customs in an ever enlarging portion of American life–through our denial, our fearfulness and lack of knowledge, our timidity and hesitation in defending ourselves and our civilization and its values, our religions, laws, customs and ways of behavior, and institutions. And that, through infiltration, subversion, stridency, and steady pressure (with violence by Muslims who don’t get the “accommodations” they demand, always lurking in the background) they will, in the end, be able to totally deceive, confuse, demoralize, and wear us down, to practically just walk in and take over (and that, in that end, we will have been so propagandized, intimidated, mislead, and beaten down that we will submissively just hand over the keys to the store to them), without the necessity of an actual war and military conquest—and so far it looks as if this strategy of Islam and Muslims is succeeding very handily.
Islam and Muslim’s strategy is to confuse and mislead us about what Islam is and what its intentions and ultimate goals are, to play on our anxieties and our fears, to nurture, increase, and keep in place our denial about Islam and the Jihad Islam has thrust upon us, to sap our spirit, and to convince us that any defense by us of our civilization, our religions, our laws, culture, and customs is somehow racist, discriminatory, and illegitimate, and to demonize any critic of Islam as an “Islamophobe” and a “racist” (as if Islam or Muslims are a single race), as a way to shut down any further actual inquiry or discussion.
The best defense—read the Qur’an, Hadiths, and the Sira, find out how to interpret them and what they actually say and mean (here’s a good place to start, http://www.cspipublishing.com/Primary_Doctrine_Books.htm), investigate the history of Islam’s actions toward all “unbelievers” these last 1,400 years–and note the body count on our side, look at MEMRI on the Internet to see translated official documents, speeches, statements, sermons, TV programs, and videos showing what Muslim media, leaders and governments, organizations, and Imams actually say, carefully follow current news, and then decide what Islam and Muslims are really all about, what their ultimate goals are, and act accordingly.
My guess is that this conference is another one of those standard Muslim exercises in the Muslim’s religiously sanctioned “Holy Deceptions,” of Takiyya (lying) and Kitman (withholding key parts of the truth)–that attempt to tell and inform us (i.e. to deceive, propagandize, indoctrinate, and instruct us) unbelievers that any investigations of or objections to the ideology of, the statements, or actions of Islam, or of Muslims are shameful exercises in ignorance, prejudice, and paranoia, and that what is needed is for Muslim organizations and their leaders and spokesmen to come in and tell us ignorant, prejudiced unbelievers what the truth really is, and what we should—as rational, civilized, cosmopolitan, unprejudiced, and peaceful, well-meaning people—believe, and how we should behave with regards to Islam and Muslims, and their demands, statements, actions, and wishes.
Hey, wasn’t it the muzzies got their knickers all knotted tight a week or so ago when NYC were showing the film Third Jihad as part of their cops’ training for this same sort of thing? They made such a devilish howl NYPD ceased using that accurate documentary film. It was deemed “too incendiary and biased”. Funny thing, that film was written and directed by a former moslem who saw the light, converted to christianity, and now speaks out on the moslem thraat and their corrupt methods. Can anyone say “double standard”? Is anyone surprised? The only thing surprised me is that so few in government have a high enough IQ to see through the charade and call it what it is.
FBI OPEN TO US MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD GROUPS “ESTABLISHING A COMMITTEE TO REVIEW MATERIALS USED IN FBI ANTI-TERRORISM TRAINING”
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2012/02/fbi-open-to-us-muslim-brotherhood-groups-establishing-a-committee-to-review-materials-used-in-fbi-an.html