The border patrolling Minuteman are primarily known for their vehement opposition to illegal immigration. But now, amidst the country’s recent anti-mosque fervor, it seems one arm of the group is dabbling in a new kind of campaign — fear-mongering about radical Islam.
In an e-mail last week, the Minuteman PAC used an attack on Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN) to fundraise against his re-election campaign, referring to Carson as an “Islamist” who is “championing Islam, the Ground Zero Mosque and Sharia law in America!”
The release, sent out by political arm of the more-grassroots Minuteman Movement, also accused Carson of being funded by “terror-linked Islamists,” and of having ties to Louis Farrakhan, who the release describes as “an extremist black Muslim who spews vile racial hatred and virulent anti-Semitism whenever he gets the chance!” It requests donations to help Minuteman PAC defeat Carson.
Carson, one of two Muslim representatives currently serving in Congress, has come out strongly in support of the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero, asking: “Are we a country of laws and principles? Or are we a country who will be moved by the winds of emotion each and every time there are issues that come up to divert us from the true meaning and intent of the founding fathers?”
But the Minuteman PAC has also found a way to tie recent wave of Islamophobia to its raison d’être. One of the “projects” featured on its website is called “Third Jihad Watch,” and a post about it describes how “nothing makes the U.S. more vulnerable to another 9-11 attack like open borders.”
“The threat of terrorism has no borders,” it says. “No one is safeguarded against the deadly threat that terrorism poses around the world.”
The post also touts a video series from TheThirdJihad.com, which put out multiple films about radical Islam’s threat to American culture, including those that may have had helped fuel the anti-mosque movement.
“In early 2009,” the post continues, “a television broadcast showed a Kuwaiti professor detailing a simple yet catastrophic attack on the United States. By smuggling only four pounds of anthrax through the Mexican border, America could be targeted like never before. The professor explains that spreading this quantity of anthrax around the White House area like confetti, 330,000 Americans could easily be killed.”
The concept of border-crossing terrorists is nothing new — Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) has also touted the idea that jihadists could use U.S. borders to infiltrate the country, saying she believes Lebanese militant group Hezbollah “is partnering with Mexican drug cartels in the U.S. borderlands and may be planning ‘Israel-like car bombings of Mexican/USA border personnel or National Guard units.'”
Neither Carson nor the Minuteman PAC returned TPM’s request for comment.
