American Muslims Integrating Well?

An interesting feature story from der Spiegel describes the plight of Muslims in America before and after 9/11. Sure, while many have assimilated into our society, the author is extremely naive about the presence and tactics of certain groups, notably the odious terror con-conspirators from CAIR and the radical group MPAC, or willfully ignorant of the facts.

Six years after Sept. 11, 2001, America and its Muslim immigrants seem to be on surprisingly good terms. They get along, they discover common interests, and it almost seems as if America's latest immigrants want to prove to everyone that they are the better Americans.

Many recent Muslim immigrants arrived in the mid-1970s and came from Southeast Asia, Iran, Afghanistan, the Arab countries, Europe and Africa. They are responsible for making Islam a fixture in "God's own country." There are already an estimated three to seven million American Muslims today. No one knows exactly how many, because the United States has no religious census and church registers are not used in Islam.

OK, we'll go along with that and assume the author is being genuine. But now have have great difficulty swallowing what comes next.

There are already several influential Muslim interest groups in the US today. One is the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which almost always sends one of its representatives to make the rounds of the talk shows whenever a US flag is set on fire somewhere else in the world. Another is the American Muslim Alliance, which aims to send Muslims to the Capitol. The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) is deeply involved in civil rights issues.

Excuse me, but is there a single documented case of anyone from CAIR ever appearing on television to denounce the burning of an American flag?

The only times I ever see someone from CAIR is when they appear on television to play the victim, especially in cases such as the Flying Imams this past year, or most any other case or perceived "Islamophobia," which are usually bogus or blown far out of proportion.

Then there is one Edina Lekovic, who is presented as some noble civil rights crusader.

Edina Lekovic is the communications director for the Los Angeles and Washington-based MPAC. She sits in her office in downtown Los Angeles, facing a wall of brochures. She seems to have answers to all the relevant questions: how to deal with Islamophobia, or how to take advantage of free legal aid. The battles she wages are very much American battles.

Lekovic is a journalist by training and once wanted to be a TV reporter. She was told she would never make it in front of the cameras wearing a headscarf. But she was self-confident and decided to take a media job in the Muslim lobby instead. "If Sept. 11 hadn't happened," says Lekovic, "we wouldn't have this much influence today."

Just one problem with Ms. Lekovic. She's a hardline radical Islamist.

The author of this would have done well to simply enter her name in Google, and he'd find myriad articles from sources such as Jihad Watch here, here and here, exposing her for what she is.

In fact, just this past spring, Lekovic was exposed as a fraud by Counterterrorism Blog.

Lekovic, while a student at UCLA, was Managing Editor of the Muslim Students' Association’s newspaper, al-Talib. In July 1999, under Lekovic’s editorship, the paper published an article entitled, “Jihad in America,” which included the passage:

“When we hear someone refer to the great Mujahid (someone who struggles in Allah’s cause) Osama bin Laden as a ‘terrorist,’ we should defend our brother and refer to him as a freedom fighter, someone who has forsaken wealth and power to fight in Allah’s cause and speak out against oppressors. We take these stances only to please Allah.”

When confronted with this fact, interestingly, Lekovic denied it, claiming that she was merely the editor of UCLA’s mainstream student newspaper, the Daily Bruin – it is true that Lekovic was editor of the Daily Bruin during the 1997-1998 academic year. But as you can see, in July 1999, she is clearly listed as the Managing Editor of al-Talib, in the upper right hand corner. This column was published almost a full year after the Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. At this point, the role of Bin-Laden in these bombings was widely and publicly known.

Read the rest of this nauseating puffpiece...

Curious how this is overlooked when simple research would have exposed this.

UPDATE: An interesting example of how well the integration is going:

Sudden Jihad in Dearborn.