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Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 14:54:01 -0800
From: radtimes <resist@best.com>
Subject: Weapons of Mass Insurrection
Weapons of Mass Insurrection
<http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2002/12-02-2002/vo18no24_insurrection.htm>
Vol. 18, No. 24
December 2, 2002
by William Norman Grigg
Revolutionary zeal unites Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam with urban
street gangs and
radical Muslim regimes, creating a serious threat to America's internal
security.
'^A'I am God," taunted the D.C. sniper in a message left
for police during the rampage that killed 10 American
citizens. This profane boast led many commentators
to conclude that a Muslim extremist probably did not
commit the murders, since devoted practitioners of
Islam would recoil from such blasphemy. But
suspected sniper John Allen Muhammad is a convert
to Islam who reportedly changed his name following
9-11 as a gesture of solidarity with Osama bin
Laden's terrorist cadres. Assuming that no pious
Muslim would refer to himself as deity, and that
Muhammad did commit the crimes, how do we
account for this apparent contradiction?
One important clue is that Muhammad is not an
orthodox Muslim, but rather an adherent of the
Chicago-based Nation of Islam (NOI). While
professing a belief in the Koran, the NOI preaches a
bizarre amalgam of mysticism, science fiction, and
warped theology, wrapped up in race war rhetoric.
Though no evidence has emerged that any NOI
member apart from Muhammad was involved in the
sniper killings, this connection presents the troubling
possibility that the terror war's next battlefield may be
America's cities with street gangs allied to the
international terrorist network providing the foot
soldiers.
The Bush administration continues to speak
ominously of the potential threat of "weapons of mass
destruction" in Iraq, and preparations are underway for
American soldiers to conduct "urban warfare" in
Baghdad. But if the terror network succeeds in turning
our nation's street gangs into a "weapon of mass
insurrection," urban warfare on the home front will
become a horrifying reality.
The Farrakhan Factor
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan burst onto the
national scene as a "black leader" when he conducted
his so-called "Million Man March" in 1995. A few
months later, Farrakhan embarked on a "World
Friendship Tour," visiting radical Muslim regimes in
Iran, Nigeria, Sudan, Libya, Iraq, and Syria.
Farrakhan, while in Teheran, laid a wreath at the tomb
of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who could be
regarded as the Lenin of modern radical Islam. Farrakhan expressed his love
and
respect for Khomeini, and warned: "We will use American Muslim unity as a
lever of
pressure against the arrogant policies of the United States." In a separate
public
address, Farrakhan praised Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution while a crowd of
tens of
thousands chanted "death to America!"
While in Tripoli, Farrakhan was warmly received by terrorist dictator Muammar
Qaddafi, who reportedly promised a large cash donation to help the Nation
of Islam
"mobilize oppressed minorities to play a significant role in American
political life."
According to Qaddafi, "Our confrontations with America used to be like
confronting a
fortress from outside. Today, we have found a loophole to enter the
fortress and
confront it within." Alluding to a decades-old, Soviet-inspired black
separatist vision,
Qaddafi told Farrakhan that "American blacks could set up their own state
within the
United States with the largest black army in the world."
This wasn't the first time Farrakhan had brokered a deal between Qaddafi
and urban
street gangs. Consider Jeff Fort, leader of the Black P Stone Nation gang
(sometimes
known as El Rukn, Arabic for "The Foundation"). He is now serving an
effective life
prison sentence for a 1986 conspiracy to organize terrorist acts on behalf
of Libya. In
the late 1960s, when the gang was known as the Blackstone Rangers, Fort took
control of the outfit and "formed a ^A'nation' consisting of many street
gangs," notes a
1995 Chicago Crime Commission report. That "nation" is active in "narcotic
sales,
drive-by shootings, battery, assault, extortion, intimidation, and murder."
But the "nation" has always been more than just a criminal syndicate. Lance
Williams
of the University of Illinois-Chicago School of Public Health points out
that "the
Blackstones were the only [street] organization that had a main pillar of
politics of the
Black Power movement from their inception." But more importantly, the
Rangers also
benefited from federal largesse under the rubric of the "War on Poverty."
In 1966, as a
reward for arranging a gang truce with the Eastside Disciples, the Rangers
were
provided with a $972,000 federal grant for "job training" programs through
the (now
defunct) Office of Economic Opportunity.
This was the first of many such disbursements of federal aid to Fort and
his comrades
including a young race hustler-turned-minister named Jesse Jackson. As
Kenneth
Timmerman documents in his study Shakedown: Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson,
Jackson frequently conscripted Fort's gangbangers to picket businesses
targeted for
"donations." Jackson claims to have baptized Fort, although the latter's
conversion
appears less than genuine. After being convicted for cocaine trafficking,
Fort converted
to the Black Nationalist variant of Islam in prison.
In his new Islamic guise, Fort took the name "Malik" and tried to have the
gang
recognized as a religious order called the "Moorish Science Temple of
America, El
Rukn tribe." As Timmerman points out, "The advantage of official
recognition was that
they could then hold private ^A'religious' services in prison without
surveillance." On the
pretext of conducting religious business, Fort continued to run his
criminal syndicate
by telephone from behind prison bars. One of his most ambitious schemes was
to turn
El Rukn into an asset of the international terrorist network.
In 1987, while serving a federal prison term in Texas, Fort learned that
"Nation of Islam
leader Louis Farrakhan had received $5 million from the Libyan government,"
notes a
1997 Justice Department report. Accordingly, "Fort developed a plan to
perform acts of
terrorism within the United States in return for an annual payment of $1
million from
Libya. In telephone conversations from inside prison, Fort discussed
destroying a
federal building, blowing up an airplane, killing a Milwaukee alderman, and
committing a
^A'killing here and there' with his fellow gang members. Fort instructed
gang members to
meet with representatives from the Libyan government, which the gang
members did
on two occasions. Fort also instructed the gang members to purchase a
hand-held
rocket launcher, which they also did."
This was more than idle talk. Several El Rukn members "traveled to Libya,
trained for
terrorist operations in abandoned buildings, and sought to arm themselves with
rocket-propelled grenades," wrote crime analyst John P. Sullivan in the
November
1997 issue of Crime & Justice International. After the plot was uncovered,
authorities
charged Fort and several other El Rukn members in a 50-count indictment for
conspiracy to commit terrorist acts. Convicted of the offense, Fort was
sentenced to
an additional 80-year term.
While Fort remains behind bars, his network remains intact. Just as
importantly, the
man who facilitated Fort's liaison with Qaddafi remains at large. "Louis
Farrakhan was
the person who introduced Jeff Fort to the people in Libya," testifies
Lance Williams. "I
happened to be [present] ^Å when Farrakhan had Qaddafi speak via satellite and
brought some of the El Rukns up on the stage and said these are my ^A'angels of
death.'"
Williams recalls that "Farrakhan was afraid that the government was about
to get him
like they got Malcolm [X] and so he used the Blackstone Rangers as a
shield. But they
didn't know what they were getting into." This suggests an interesting
parallel with
accused senior sniper John Allen Muhammad, who told friends in Tacoma,
Washington, that he had helped provide security at the "Million Man March."
The "Five Percenters"
Urban studies author Mark Goldblatt notes that Muhammad may be connected to "a
virulently racist black group called the Five Percent Nation of Gods and
Earths, to
which several of today's most popular rap acts have acknowledged
longstanding ties."
The "Five Percenters," who split off from the Nation of Islam in 1964,
retain the NOI's
belief that black people represent the image of the "original man" "the
fathers and
mothers of civilization." According to the group's creed, "the blackman
[sic] is god and
his proper name is ALLAH...." Men who belong to the movement (which doesn't
call
itself a religion) call themselves "gods," and refer to their wives and
girlfriends as
"earths."
Notes Goldblatt: "One letter from the [D.C.] sniper contained the demand
that police
call the author ^A'God' and a stock Five Percenter phrase, ^A'word is bond,'
along with five
stars, also used by the group." (Urban gangs that use the five-point star,
or some
variation thereof, as a symbol are sometimes called "five-point" gangs.)
The concept
behind the group's name is that 85 percent of the population are hopelessly
ignorant
and exploited by another cunning and evil 10 percent. Only the enlightened
five percent
understand the truth, and they are engaged in a war with the conniving 10
percent for
global control.
Goldblatt points out that this ideology is woven into recordings by "some
of the more
influential hip-hop performers." A number entitled "Can I See You" by the
rap act Sunz
of Man is practically a Five Percenter doxology: "Camouflaged for the
mission; use
your third eye to see the Israelite; detect those who tell lies carry .45s
in these last
days and times I was born to survive a soldier, and I strive, with a duty
to civilize these
85 an original black man with a plan to run these devils off our land; now
listen real
close while I explain the operation." (Punctuation in the original.)
According to Jonathan Moore of the University of Chicago Divinity School,
"the Five
Percenters were founded by Clarence 13X, who broke away from the Nation of
Islam
in 1964.... In 1967 Clarence 13X opened the ^A'Allah School in Mecca,' and
this Harlem
institution still serves as the headquarters for the Five Percenters."
Above the
headquarters entrance is inscribed the legend: "The Black Man is God."
As with the Blackstone Rangers/El Rukn, the Five Percenters benefited from
Establishment generosity in the 1960s. The Harlem property serving as the
movement's headquarters was provided to them by New York City "thanks to
Clarence
13X's close relationship with Mayor John Lindsey," according to crime
reporter Alex
Todorovic.
The movement also has schools in major cities coast to coast. Predictably,
the Five
Percenters are well represented in the prison system. The group's violent
tendencies
led prison officials in South Carolina to place 70 members of the group in
solitary
confinement in 1995, offering to release them if they signed a pledge to
disaffiliate from
the movement. Federal Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Fay Pollard describes the
Five Percenters not as a conventional gang, but as a "security-threat group."
The group poses a potential threat outside prison walls as well. "If
they're calling
themselves a ^A'five-point nation' and aligning themselves with the other
five-point gangs,
that's really frightening," a former Chicago street gang leader told THE NEW
AMERICAN. The individual, who defected from his gang and became a grand jury
witness in his early 20s, observed that a coalition of "five-point gangs"
would "be a very
powerful network, like an army occupying our major cities."
How big would that "army" be? The Chicago Crime Commission, citing FBI
estimates,
reports that as of 1995 there were nearly a half million gang members
active in 700
cities nationwide.
Building the Urban "Army"
According to transnational crime analyst John P. Sullivan, "Gangs operating
in urban
areas have gone through three generational changes from traditional turf
gangs, to
market-oriented drug gangs, to a new generation that may mix political and
mercenary
elements." Such third-generation gangs of which the Blackstone Rangers/El
Rukn
would be representative are not only "politicized," but also
"internationalized."
Subsequent to Farrakhan's 1996 trip to Libya, the Nation of Islam and its
offshoots
began intense efforts to mold disparate street gangs into an
internationalized,
third-generation urban army.
In April 1996, about 500 representatives of black and Mexican gangs met in
the Watts
section of Los Angeles for the fourth annual LA Gang Truce Rally a
celebration of
Mexican and black gang unity. Gang colors and "Black Power" symbols were
displayed
alongside symbols of the "Aztlan Nation" (the mythical Chicano homeland in our
Southwest). The featured speaker at that event was Tony Muhammad, the West
Coast representative of the Nation of Islam. Speaking on Farrakhan's
behalf, Tony
Muhammad retailed the same message that Qaddafi had given to Farrakhan gang
bangers should unite in an armed struggle against bourgeois society:
When we come together as one army, we can take Watts, we can take
South-Central,
we can take Los Angeles and then the West Coast, because God is going to
send the
Original Man. And when I say the Original Man that includes Mexicans that
includes
La Raza that includes the Brown, that includes the Yellow. God is going to
bring us
together, and from that he is going to raise a mighty army that's ready to
move for God.
So I'm not telling you to give up your weapons. I'm just telling you to
turn them
somewhere else.
The late Khalid Abdul Muhammad, a former Nation of Islam spokesman, lent
critical aid
to another element of that "mighty army" the New Black Panther Party.
Organized in
1989 by Dallas native Aaron Michaels, the New Black Panthers claim 26 chapters
across the country and in Europe.
In a June 16th interview with Black World, New Black Panther national
chairman Malik
Zulu Shabazz declared: "Black people are in desperate need of an army to
organize for
our aims and interests." According to Shabazz, black street gangs will play an
important role in the army his group is assembling: "We have Crips, Bloods and
Blackstone Rangers in the New Black Panthers and we have alliances with
various
street organizations." The group is also reaching out to "our brown
brothers and
sisters, so-called Latinos and Hispanics. We have alliances with the red
community,
indigenous community. We have a general policy of alliances with peoples of
color."
He also boasts, "I can pick up the phone and contact Reverend Al Sharpton,
Mr. Kweisi
Mfume and any leader in the Pan African and [Black] nationalist community."
Ideology, Not Theology
To what end are these alliances being forged? In a 1996 interview conducted
in Dallas,
THE NEW AMERICAN posed this question to New Black Panther Party founder Aaron
Michaels. "We are seeing the beginnings of a new civil war," he replied,
explaining that
while the initial spark would come from conflict between races, the
conflagration would
eventually become a full-blown, Marxist-inspired class war:
The next civil war that will be fought in the United States will not be a
civil war between
black and white. It will be between the haves and the have-nots. It's
already happening.
You see white people, poor white people, fighting against the
government.... We have a
low-intensity war that is being fought right now. On the front lines,
you'll see more of
the race hate groups coming up. And you'll see escalation between civil rights
organizations and race hate groups. It began in the late 1980s, and it's on
a peak now
with the resurgence of the Black Power movements nationally and
internationally.
It is this revolutionary aspiration, rather than the religious vision
expressed in the
Koran, that unites Farrakhan with the likes of Qaddafi and Khomeini. And it
is this
same commitment to revolution that binds Farrakhan's aberrant cult with
radical
groups and street gangs within our own borders.
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