Defending Robert Spencer

Via a link from Instapundit, I find a post titled "Tiananmen, Uzbekistan?" from Bidisha Banerjee, which a Slate roundup of today's blog news with the inspired title of "today's blogs: The latest chatter in cyberspace."

Uzbekistan has been in crisis since protestors raided a prison and government offices over the arrest of 23 men in Andijan, and the government apparently responded with Stalinist tactics, shooting hundred of people, seemingly at random according to some reports. If you noticed, I've provided very few links, as truly credible information is very, very difficult to come by due to a near press blackout.

Among the bloggers mentioned in the report is Robert Spencer, a Muslim scholar and founder of Jihadwatch.org, a site dedicated to:

...bringing public attention to the role that jihad theology and ideology play in the modern world and to correcting popular misconceptions about the role of jihad and religion in modern-day conflicts. By shedding as much light as possible on these matters, we hope to alert people of good will to the true nature of the present global conflict.

Robert gets ripped by blogger Serdar Kaya at Socioeconomics for this post, in which Mr. Spencer opines:

Learned analysts have long insisted that Uzbekistan was a bastion of Islamic moderation. I have responded the way I always do: by asking how these moderates counter jihadist recruitment. The response: silence or abuse. But it looks as if the answer these learned analysts did not want to give was: they don't, and they can't -- except by force of arms.

Kaya states:

Robert Spencer (of Jihadwatch.com), who devoted his site to the loathing of Muslims in every possible way, preferred to call this a 'Muslim riot'.

Because, to him, a Muslim, first of all, is a Muslim; and Muslims are people who do only wrong; and if a Muslim is involved in a violent incident, then he must definitely be the one who is responsible for it - since Muslims never suffer; they exist only to make others suffer.

This is quite an analogy to run a web site.

It would be... if Kaya's description of Spencer or Jihadwatch was true. But these descriptions are false, verging on outright lies.

I've been a reader and commenter of Jihadwatch for over a year, and Kaya's heavily-biased description of Mr. Spencer could not be further from the truth. Robert Spencer, and by extension, Jihadwatch, are dedicated to counterbalancing the Muslim holy war doctrine known as jihad.

Jihad takes many forms. On a personal level, jihad is a struggle within the self to live a devout Muslim life, and is in many ways analogous to the personal struggle within many faiths to lead a more pure life. The another type of jihad has become synonymous with the word "jihad" in western eyes, and that is the militant struggle for Islamic domination of the world at the expense of all other world religions and secular governments.

This theofascist jihad is Spencer's chief complaint, which has been thoroughly documented in a substantial body of articles and books in addition to his web site that would , if Kaya took the time to read them, clearly show Spencer is against the radical Islam of terrorists and tyrants, and clearly for an Islamic moderate Reformation.

Spencer has not "devoted his site to the loathing of Muslims in every possible way;" quite the contrary, Spencer's family has roots in Islamic countries, and Spencer's first book Islam Unveiled was written to counter some of the misconceptions about the religion after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on America.

Does Spencer hate Islam, as Kaya intones? Spencer's FAQ answers that question directly:

Q: Do you hate Muslims? A: Of course not. Islam is not a monolith, and never have I said or written anything that characterizes all Muslims as terrorist or given to violence. I am only calling attention to the roots and goals of jihad violence. Any Muslim who renounces violent jihad and dhimmitude is welcome to join in our anti-jihadist efforts. Any hate in my books comes from Muslim sources I quote, not from me. Cries of "hatred" and "bigotry" are effectively used by American Muslim advocacy groups to try to stifle the debate about the terrorist threat. But there is no substance to them. It is not an act of hatred against Muslims to point out the depredations of jihad ideology. It is a peculiar species of displacement and projection to accuse someone who exposes the hatred of one group of hatred himself: I believe in the equality of rights and dignity of all people, and that is why I oppose the global jihad. And I think that those who make the charge know better in any case: they use the charge as a tool to frighten the credulous and politically correct away from the truth.

Q: Do you think all Muslims are terrorists? A: See above.

Q: Are you trying to incite anti-Muslim hatred? A: Certainly not. I am trying to point out the depth and extent of the hatred that is directed against the United States, because I believe that the efforts to downplay its depth and extent leave us less equipped to defend ourselves. As I said above, the focus here is on jihad; any Muslim who renounces the ideologies of jihad and dhimmitude is most welcome to join forces with us.

Spencer's comment in the disputed article, is entirely correct, in context:

Learned analysts have long insisted that Uzbekistan was a bastion of Islamic moderation. I have responded the way I always do: by asking how these moderates counter jihadist recruitment. The response: silence or abuse. But it looks as if the answer these learned analysts did not want to give was: they don't, and they can't -- except by force of arms.

But Kaya prefers to take Spencer's statement out of context in order to practice a bit of taqiya.

Spencer does clarify his point in an update:

The presence of jihadists in Uzbekistan, which is still disputed by some, does not justify the brutal and bloody response of the Karimov regime. Uzbeks are between a rock and a hard place. My condolences to the victims.

Perhaps Spencer is unclear and imprecise in his skepticism towards a situation with decidedly uncertain facts and unclear press coverage, but for Kaya to says Spencer, "looks quite OK with the Muslims being indiscriminately killed when all they want is a better life," is not only intellectually dishonest, but a full and willing misrepresentation of Spenser's body of work and the educational goals of Jihadwatch.org.

Note: I'd further add that Mr. Spencer's educated hunch about a militant Islamic jihad arising in Uzbekistan appears to be correct on some level.

Update: Serdar Kaya has now linked in with a response (via trackback) on his/her blog that is anything but an actual targeted response to the points I made in this article about his criticism of Spencer, specifically refusing to support Kaya's five contentions that:

• Spencer devoted his site to the loathing of Muslims in every possible way;
• Spencer thinks Muslims are people who do only wrong;
• Spencer thinks if a Muslim is involved in a violent incident, he triggered it;
• Spencer thinks that Muslims exist only to make others suffer;
• Spencer is okay with Muslims being killed when all tehy want is a better life.
  

These were all Kaya's constructs, not mine, and once again he refuses to make a case for any of his arguments, though his refusal is rather long-winded, off-topic, and tedious.

Kaya's defense for his apparent libel of Spencer is a series of emails he says he sent to Spencer--though he never explains why his opinion of Spencer, expressed to Spencer, matters. At best, this would establish a nonsensical, "You're guilty becuase I sent you a letter saying your guilty" defense of his accusations.

Kaya never establishes any sort of credible defense for any of his five claims.

When someone makes a claim such as those above, he has a duty to provide evidence to support his claim. Kaya provides no factual support of the five key claims he made above.

Period.

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