The New York Police Department has used a movie that portrays Muslim-Americans as jihadis hell-bent on destroying the United States from within in its counter-terrorism training for officers.
The Village Voice reports today that the NYPD has shown “The Third Jihad” to officers taking their mandatory counter-terrorism courses.
The department no longer shows the movie.
“It was reviewed and found to be inappropriate,” deputy commissioner Paul Browne told the Voice. “It was not approved for the curriculum. It’s not shown for any purpose now.”
Browne, who called the video “pretty wacky,” told the Voice that the movie had been shown while officers were filling out paperwork, before the actual classes began. But anonymous cops also told the Voice that an instructor showed the movie, warning the officers they might find it offensive.
“The Third Jihad” is a straight-to-DVD movie by the Clarion Fund about the threat of Islam to the U.S. from within — the so-called “stealth jihad” we hear about from people like Robert Spencer and Frank Gaffney. The Clarion Fund is the nonprofit which, in 2008, received a multi-million-dollar anonymous donation to send 30 million copies of their film “Obsession” to swing state voters at the height of the presidential election.
That movie — which, like “The Third Jihad” is made up of clips of anti-America rallies in the Middle East, Muslim men holding assault rifles and neocons discussing the threat of Islam, all over ominous music — partially fueled the anti-mosque, anti-Muslim fervor that exploded this summer.
The Clarion Fund did not respond to calls for comment.
The NYPD’s international counterterrorism force — which uses innovative tactics such as employing the services of 600 linguists and civilian experts in Islam and Middle East politics — is considered one of the best in the world.
