Muslim supposedly placed unjustly on No-Fly List belonged there after all.
November 25, 2015
Saadiq Long was framed, I tell ya. Set up by The Man for the crime of being Muslim. Back in 2012 and 2013, the Leftist/Islamic supremacist axis was working hard, wanting you to weep for Saadiq Long. MSNBC's Chris Hayes, hard-Left activist Glenn Greenwald, and the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) all pitched in to make Long a martyr of "Islamophobia" and howling at the injustice done to him. But they aren't howling so loud now - now that Saadiq Long has been arrested by Turkish authorities for trying to join ISIS.
Greenwald laid out the case for lionizing Long with the most conviction and righteous indignation. "US Muslim placed on no-fly list is unable to see his ailing mother," he wept in the Guardian. Greenwald contended that Long, who lived in Qatar and wanted to return to Oklahoma to visit his poor mom, was placed on the No-Fly List for reasons unknown to him, and that he was unable to find out or challenge. "Long has now spent the last six months trying to find out why he was placed on this list and what he can do to get off of it. He has had no success, unable to obtain even the most basic information about what caused his own government to deprive him of this right to travel. He has no idea when he was put on this list, who decided to put him on it, or the reasons for his inclusion."
In Greenwald's piece, Long was a sainted martyr, a victim of U.S. government's paranoid Islamophobia: "What is most mystifying to him is that he has spent the last decade living and working, usually teaching English, in three countries that have been very close and compliant US allies: Egypt, United Arab Emirates, and now Qatar.... Long's case is both typical yet particularly compelling. Strictly on humanitarian grounds, it is outright cruel to deny a person who has been convicted of no crime the ability to see his ailing mother."
The problem, said Greenwald, was the No-Fly List itself, and the Obama Administration's misuse of it: "Like so many post-9/11 civil liberties abridgments aimed primarily at Muslims, this no-fly-list abuse has worsened considerably during the Obama presidency." Greenwald quoted Gadeir Abbas, a lawyer for Hamas-linked CAIR: "What is happening to Saadiq happens to American Muslims with alarming regularity. Every few weeks I hear of another Muslim citizen who cannot return to the country of which he is a citizen. It is as if the US has created a system of secret law whereby certain behaviors - being Muslim seems to be one of them - trigger one's placement on government watch lists that separate people from their families, end careers, and poison personal relationships. All of this done without any due process....It makes my stomach churn what the US does to American Muslims while they travel."
Hayes interviewed Long on MSNBC. Mother Jones got in the act. The Left argued fervently that counter-terror efforts such as the No-Fly List unfairly targeted Muslims and should be discarded. Eventually U.S. officials bowed to all this pressure and let Long return to the country to see his mother - but then banned him from flying back to Qatar. Greenwald wept anew. "The personal cost to this injustice is obvious and substantial," he howled, fulminating against the "humiliation and outrage" and terming the government's treatment of Long "infuriating."
Long, who eventually traveled to Mexico and returned to Qatar from there, might have been on track for a lucrative career as a professional victim, traveling around the CAIR circuit in the U.S. and moving audiences to tears over the injustice of "Islamophobia" and counter-terror efforts, but he had another career path in mind: being a warrior for the Islamic State (ISIS).
Investigative journalist Patrick Poole reported Monday that Long and several members of his family were "arrested earlier this month near the Turkey-Syria border as members of an ISIS cell....U.S. and Turkish officials confirmed Long's arrest to PJ Media, saying that he was arrested along with eight others operating along the Turkish-Syrian border. So far, no U.S. media outlet has reported on his arrest."
Will they? Will Glenn Greenwald and Chris Hayes and Hamas-linked CAIR take to the Leftist publications and airwaves to admit that they were wrong all along, and that the U.S. government obviously had very good reasons for keeping Long on the No-Fly List? Or will they denounce the "Islamophobic" Turkish government for having the temerity to arrest a man simply for the crime of trying to join the Islamic State? Oh, the Islamophobia! How much can one poor victim take? How often must Saadiq Long suffer at the hands of The Man?
Come on, Glenn, Chris - let's see you two start a Free Saadiq campaign to pressure the Turkish government into letting Saadiq Long out of prison and allowing him to return to the U.S. Once he is here, he could bunk in Hayes' house until he gets on his feet. What do you say? Solidarity with the oppressed, right? The U.S. government is at fault, right, and Saadiq Long is a sainted victim, right? Let's see you follow through on that, and back up your claims with action. The time is now. Power to the people!