GS Don Morris, Ph.D.

June 4, 2009-Cairo

“That is what I will try to do – to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us…and he used truth as an underlying theme throughout his speech repeating it a half a dozen times. I guess what is one man’s truth is another man’s deception and if you didn’t know better you believed every point he made.

A person, including a President, can avoid the truth by intentionally misrepresenting facts and/or by omitting other points of information and by refusing to provide the necessary context for any given event, circumstance or situation. One does so in order to paint a particular word picture for the listeners. These techniques have misdirection and sleight of hand have been with us for hundreds and hundreds of years.

Mr. Obama’s speech was ostensibly for the Muslim world; yet, let us be perfectly clear it was designed for Western consumption as well. Listening to his speech you walk away thinking that the religion of Islam is monolithic-it is not and for almost its entire history has not been. He said he was “a student of history” and I question whose history he was taught? At best, it must have been either selective or “overstated” history as he failed to provide proper context and facts for most of what he said. He never differentiated among the divisions within Islam and many times grouped together all Muslims. Those who practice Islam know this fact and Mr. Obama knows this as well. However, he is counting on the general public not to know it and thus he can paint a picture of peace and tolerance. Notice he went out of his way to indicate that it was a “tiny minority” who were extremists indicating to an unknowing public that really we have nothing to worry about, the over 1 billion Muslims around the world are truly your friends. The most efficient manner to dispel the truth is to misrepresent the description of who individuals are and what they stand for. The next step in this strategy is you denigrate anyone who dares challenge of question your position. This is followed by nuisance lawsuits. All of this and more are occurring in the USA today.

To ensure that a population, ignorant of the facts, assumes that Islam has become a major part of your world is to speak as though certain facts are simply known. It is what I call the “everyone knows …” technique and if you are one who does not know, chances are you do not want to be identified as a “non-knower”. So, you accept the “facts” as delivered and depending upon who is giving you the data, you accept as “gospel” the information provided. Now, if the President of the USA is the agent of information, well…enough said!

The difficulty with this approach is profound. First, one who wants to manipulate, counts upon you being easily manipulated and does indeed with hold salient information. You are left alone to make your own decisions. Without complete and adequate information, one tends to make incorrect and improper assessments that can lead to poor judgments concluding with great liabilities for all.

Case in point: You are lead to believe that Islam has “exploded” in America-after all there is a mosque in “every state” and over 1200 mosques in the USA. Once again critical information was with held from the audience. Do you know who has funded and built these USA mosques? Yes, “Of the more than 1,200 mosques in America, more than 80 percent have been built within the last 20 years – thanks in large part to Saudi money, according to Reza F. Safa, author of "Inside Islam."¹"Saudi Arabia alone has spent $87 billion since 1973 to spread Islam throughout the United States and the Western hemisphere," Safa said.

To suggest that this has been an internal American movement is only sharing apart of the story and thus the President’s representation of a “large Muslim” religion in the USA is not only inflated but also misleading. King Fahd of Saudi pledged as much as $8 million to build a new mosque at the site of the Masjid Bilal Islamic Center, the large black mosque in South Central Los Angeles. Last year, Saudi's Islamic Development Bank committed an additional $295,000 for the construction of the Bilal Islamic Primary and Secondary School. Without this money and without the hundreds of imans Saudi Arabia has sent to the USA to convert specific populations to Islam, the religion would not have the numbers it does today.

The President spoke about truth but “forgot” to tell his audience some critical information. Not only has Saudi money built the mosques, sent imams to spread the word, it has also funded school curricula and created pro-Islam groups that move about the country ”teaching about the misconceptions” of Islam (Wahhabi ideology). However, the most disturbing information is “Over 80 percent of the mosques in the United States "have been radicalized by Saudi money and influence," Barsky said.”²Contrary to what the President inferred last week, “"These [immigrants] were not interested in this [Wahhabi] ideology, and suddenly they have a Saudi imam coming in and telling them they're not praying properly and not practicing Shari'a [Islamic law] properly." This Saudi strategy was being carried out "all over the world, from America to Bangladesh," with the Saudis investing $70-80 billion in the endeavor over three decades.²

Were you told last week the following: “Barsky, who heads the AJC's Division on Middle East and International Terrorism and is the executive editor of Counterterrorism Watch, said this means that "the people now in control of teaching religion [to American Muslims] are extremists.” No, as a matter of fact you heard just the opposite.³

Numbers are used to persuade, educate and indoctrinate groups of people. If you are attempting to suggest that a particular group abounds a coutry, use inflated numbers-never mind they have never been validated. Remember, it is the messenger who creates the credibility, not the actual “facts.” A couple days before the speech, Obama’s “people” spoke about the 2-3 million USA Muslims. I think he must have received a call from CAIR because in his speech the number more than doubled-7 million he said (the number used by CAIR operatives)-just coincidental I am sure. How many Muslims live in the United States? Until now, basically, no one has had any idea. By law, the U.S. Census cannot ask questions about religion. Groups like The American Religious Identification Survey 2001, American Jewish Committee, The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and The American Muslim Council (AMC) offer wide ranges of population variations.⁴ The numbers range from 2-8 million-quite a dispersion would you not say? The Muslim group reports more may indeed be correct, but are not supported by empirical data.

So, what number does Obama choose to use? That’s correct, an uncorroborated “guess estimate” as it supports his theme outlined in his speech. The technique is to throw a large number he thinks you will perceive as huge. He indicated earlier that the USA has one of the largest Muslim populations in the world (simply not true) and collectively these two statements only a couple days apart would lead most Americans to believe, “it must be so”.

Have you examined the numbers? If you use Obama’s uncorroborated figure, the Muslim population makes up but 2.6% of the population in the USA. If you use a research study’s numbers of around 2.5million, far less than .01% of the population is Muslim. Minimally Obama gravely exaggerated the numbers and drew erroneous conclusions that seemingly are driving policy decisions. However, given he is an intelligent man, not only his people tell us this on a regular basis, he has declared himself a student of history, I can only interpret his number use and conclusions are intentional and he is doing his best to mislead American citizens. If true, I find this shameful-how about you?