A foreign policy staff analyst on the Senate Republican Policy Committee (RPC), James George Jatras, has expressed an extraordinary level of anti-Islamic bigotry and hatred, but Senate RPC Chairman Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) has refused to take any action.
Jatras’ extremely anti-Islamic remarks were first made at a conference in May 1998 co-sponsored by the Rockford Institute, a conservative think tank. In an article based on that talk called “The Muslim Advance and American Collaboration” which has been published on the website of a journal called “The Christian Activist,” Jatras spouts a remarkable stream of anti-Islamic slander and defamation.
A small sample of the highly offensive and extremely inaccurate anti-Islamic statements, which, it must be remembered, were written by a man who has a role in shaping foreign policy, include:
“In short, Islam is a self-evident outgrowth not of the Old and New Covenants but of the darkness of heathen Araby.”
“…Islam’s fraudulent self-depiction as a pacific creed. Islam was born in violence, from Muhammad’s sanction of raids of pillage and plunder (starting with attacks against his own Quraysh tribe, which initially rejected his revelation) to his savage execution of hundreds of men of the Qurayzah clan (which professed Judaism) and the enslavement and forced concubinage of their women and children. (Muhammad himself took as his unwilling consort the Jewish 17-year-old Safiya on the very day of the murder of her menfolk.) From its inception, first within Arabia and then against all unbelievers, Islam has been unthinkable without its mandate for violence, war, terror – in a word, jihad – itself codified in Muhammad’s Qur’an (notably Sura 9:29).”
“I will leave it to the specialists to calculate which – Islam or communism – can claim the greater achievement as gigantic Christian-killing machines.”
“It is hardly a surprise that business executives who would sell their grandmothers to Abdul Abulbul Amir for oil drilling rights would see the world as a reflection of their balance sheets.”
“There is little doubt that Islam’s ‘God’ is none other than the former chief deity of the polytheistic Arab pantheon – a variation on the moon god common throughout the ancient Middle East, among the Babylonians known as Sin (the Sinai peninsula is probably named after him) and among the Sumerians as Nanna – stripped of his consorts and offspring. Among the pagan Arabs he was usually called simply ‘the god,’ al-ilah: Allah.”
“It is beyond me what spiritual values any Christian has in common with someone whose idea of beatific bliss is boinking an endless parade of the well-rounded houris said to inhabit the Muslim paradise.”
In response to complaints about such hateful and harmful remarks by his RPC staffer, Sen. Craig said that “the exchange of opinions and ideas . . .that some might find disagreeable is an important part of the workings of free society.” Craig said that Jatras was merely raising “complex questions of history and international events that are legitimate subjects for study and commentary” and that it did not suggest “hostility against any individual or group of individuals.” Craig added that to dismiss Jatras “would not constitute the censuring of bigotry, but its practice.”
While Senator Craig has yet to admit it, the views expressed in this article are clearly those of extreme bias, hatred and bigotry that defame Islam and all Muslims in the most egregious manner. They strongly indicate that Jatras is not an individual who should be involved in formulating foreign policy. Were such remarks directed against almost any other group in the nation, they could never be seen as “legitimate” and be regarded as acceptable. On the contrary, the result would be instant dismissal.
Rep. David E. Bonior (D-Mich.), who condemned Jatras’ bigoted views at ADC’s National Convention over the last weekend, has said that his article “reflects a total ignorance of Islam as a faith and Muslims as human beings. Such extreme, ill-informed, bigoted views should disqualify anyone from a foreign policy position.”
ACTION REQUESTED:
Please contact Senator Craig and let him know no one with such hateful, bigoted views should be a staffer of the RPC in the Senate, least of all on foreign policy issues. Let him know that articles such as this are the most grotesque form of anti-Islamic bigotry and that they certainly express extreme hostility towards Muslims. Let him know that such hatred from government or party officials is totally unacceptable.
Write to :
Senator Larry E. Craig
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Or call his office at
202-224-2752 Or
fax to 202-228-1067 or
202-224-2573 or email
larry_craig@craig.senate.gov
Please CC any communications to ADC.