long charmin of washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture earlier this week we told you about the islamophobia posters new york city subway stations unfortunately that's not just an isolated incident all across america islamophobia is rearing its ugly head from burning down mosques to fire bombing homes but who and what are at

the root of all the anti muslim summit in america and what can we do to stop it that and more in tonight's bigger picture discussion islamophobia in america also as the eurozone nations continue to collapse under failed us therapy economic policies republican leaders in washington are saying hey let's try that here tomorrow why are republicans still stuck on austerity that and more into nights big picture rumble and republicans trying to destroy the obama presidency with fast and furious and they failed so the president obama is reelected how republicans try to sabotage a second term i'll tell you that i still retain. today we have a special bigger picture discussion on islamophobia in the united states in two thousand and ten there were one hundred sixty anti muslim hate crimes in america and between twenty one in two thousand and eleven twenty seven two thousand and

eleven the rate of growth of anti muslim hate groups tripled and since july nineteenth of this year the beginning of the muslim holy month of ramadan there have been ten reported anti muslim hate crimes ranging from graffiti on muslim graves to a mosque in joplin missouri being burned to the ground these sober in statistics make one thing very clear islamophobia has unfortunately become an epidemic in the united states from staten island new york to panama city florida ontario california islamophobia has reared its ugly head but who and what are the roots of islamophobia in our country and what can we do as a nation and as americans to root out the ignorance and intolerance and to embrace muslims as americans and embrace islam as another mainstream religion for bring in tonight's panel i want to start with the story of a muslim american who is an experienced firsthand the horrifying effects of islamophobia just days after the attacks on nine eleven america was filled with feelings sadness disbelief or but also running deep in the minds of some americans

was hatred hatred for anyone who looked like a muslim in the days following nine eleven muslim americans became targets of intolerance and bigotry and even violence one man who knows all about this is race . a muslim american who was the victim of a hate crime just ten days after nine eleven joining me now to talk more about his harrowing story is race billy on race welcome to the program welcome thank you very much for having me thank you in fact i should say welcome back tell us your story and what happened to you just days after nine eleven. well i moved from new york city in two thousand and one in the month of may and me and one of my senior firm from my high school we opened a gas station. in dallas and after nine eleven it was september twenty first two thousand and one i was working in that gas station it was friday around twelve thirty pm

a customer walked inside the gas station wearing bandanas sunglasses baseball cap and holding a double barrel shotgun so from a previous robbery experience i thought better be on the robbery but once he came inside he was not looking at the cash which are all for and he was looking at me and then he asked me what are you from i was very scared and i could feel a cold air flow through my spine that he is not here for the money and i was confused why he was asking me what i was from so i said excuse me and as soon as i spoke i still the sensation of millions of the sting in my face and then i hire an explosion i wasn't sure he shot me i thought i hung up i heard something outside and then i looked at the floor i saw blood was pouring like an open faucet from the right side of my head then i realized he shot me in the face matter of fact he shot me from four to five feet away with

a double barrel shotgun and i feel that i'm dog was dying that the i kept praying to god it was a crime and i thought on our best there's the end of my life so i thought i had to do something so that he doesn't shoot me again and so i jumped on the floor and i pretend i was dying and after a few seconds the gun of this storm. and this is mark stroman right. the gunman is mark stroman yes and. why was executing marc strawman the wrong salute not the right solution the wrong solution. well others a very good christian after it was shot i went to a lot of disaster in my life a lot of painful situations and of the same time i also went through a healing process where i grew mentally psychologically spiritually and by seeing lot of hate crimes and killing all over the world based on race religion skin color

sexual orientation our mission ali did it help me to realize that hate and killing is not a solution hate only cause more pain and suffering so the way i was raised by my parents and my son it fred talk me that forgiveness is the best policy and islam doesn't allow for hate and clearly that is the same message triggered by moses be upon him jesus christ has to be upon him mohammed peace be upon him by all of the messengers of god so that helped me to come to this idea that killing is not a solution here at the same time the effort to save the life of mark stroman was based on the hope that people can or will take a new narrative a narrative of compassion forgiveness and healing in this world and to work for a world without hate violence killing and its terrible ramifications so i thought killing is not a solution here if you kill him if you execute him we will lose simply a human being with the dealing with that would cause which is hate and violence but

if we could keep him alive he might become a changed person he might become a spokesperson and raising awareness of head crimes and that will help our society and who could talk better than mark stroman the person who kill innocent people out of his hate and out of his ignorance so it would be very powerful if you could keep him alive and keep him behind bars so that he can talk to people outside and educate them not to follow his pap. rays thanks so much her sharing your story with a side and joining us. while you're welcome thank you very much now i want to turn things over to the is. mama phobia in america handle on the panel tonight are corey saylor legislative director of the council on american islamic relations saying the director of law and policy at the american sea coalition and dr michael scheuer professor at georgetown university's center for peace and security studies and former cia analyst and former guest on my radio show yes summer times over the

years thank you and you say you've been on the program before if you're new to us thank you for joining us you've been here that with you ok and thank you very much let's let's first i want to start out with a clip from a major motion picture that glenn beck is making the i think kind of sets the stage for this this is from a movie that he's called the project based on the muslim brotherhood taking over the u.s. . the project is a document that was recovered after nine eleven the project a plan to infiltrate and defeat the west this is happened in history in fact it's happened in recent history justice for maist a debug mental official is branded a common is by an american jury. today it has happened again the united states government has been infiltrated as the project is implemented. they use political influence operations they use propaganda he said at one phase we're supposed to be

nice about a second phase we might be different but in the third phase all out war is necessary at the core of the project is civilization jihad. so. this this rhetoric first of all corey thoughts on the reality of this i mean is this this just a fantasy or is there something nasty going it's an unfortunate rebirth of a movement that's old to the united states if you went back a few years it was the catholics that were conducting operations to take over the united states before that japanese americans mormons have been accused of it it just happens to be that we're the hated minority of the day and therefore now the allegations are going to fall but the reality in all these cases in the past just like it is today is an absolutely false allegation. michael scheuer you've been involved in confronting there were muslims who attacked the united states do you

see any reality in this i mean is this or is this. what's your sense of what's called the one thing you can't explain away are the documents the muslim brotherhood is indeed like the saudi government. and offensive in imperialist system it does indeed see the muslim world eventually becoming or the entire world eventually becoming muslim i'm not sure violently or through conversion so does the pope well yes i mean for the record while sure i'm a roman catholic and we were discriminated in this country for ever that said that the main engine of islamophobia are the two political parties and the the israeli pro israeli community in the united states you know in this for political gain i mean well you know trying to scare the american people you know we're at war with an increasing segment of the muslim world because of our policies. and we consistently are told by president obama by just in the last two weeks president

bush senator mccain hillary clinton that it has nothing to do with our. foreign policy it has everything to do with muslims hate freedom they hate liberty which is nonsense but they have breeds fear in the american people. what what it how has this i mean the sikh community is not a muslim community how has this impacted the sikh community well there's no question that in the post nine eleven environment six have been targeted for hate crimes and other forms of discrimination because the prevailing stereotype is that if somebody wears a turban they're associated with al qaeda or other forms of extremism but i agree with corey this is islamophobia and he muslim bigotry is the latest manifestation of a problem that's been with us for centuries which is fear of the other xenophobia six have been in this country for more than a century and as early as one thousand and seven were targeted for violence and

other forms of discrimination because of who they were are there and if any of you want to take a shot at this sir or maybe this is just the over the top. i live in germany for a year back in the eighty's i read the rise and fall of the third reich by sure with great fascination and i actually knew people who had been hitler's army and. the early the early thirty's that anti-semitism was going on there i'm i think i'm hearing echoes in some of this islamophobia anybody want to. thoughts on well i think that out of such as to what a bridge too far you know the attempts to smear minorities and inspired fear. the greater public of a minority is nothing new it wasn't the nazis that only did it it's all throughout history so the kind of tactics are well known the current manifestation is. really looking to take advantage of the attacks that followed from nine eleven you know

horrific awful terrorist attacks and find a enemy to replace the soviet union and in this case it is muslims and what they do is they cherry pick the worst images they can find and attempt to portray those as the overall most of the community but when you look at the statistics the reality is here in the united states in particular the muslim community is very well off is very well integrated and is frequently involved in helping to catch people who are in the let's get to more of that in just a moment more of tonight's bigger picture discussion of islamophobia in america after the break. here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that many americans call i don't know. i'm sorry i'm just a guy who cares an awful lot of what he's sorry are you know what that is my i

don't care so you know what he was saying to feature race and liberal chris. because you're really just. going to look for you to distract us from what you and i should care about because there are profit driven industry that's facials that garbage because that breaking news i'm having martin and we're going to break that it's. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know. welcome to the big picture. a

. coup irwin. the a . welcome back to the bigger picture discussion on islamophobia in the united states our panel tonight is corey saylor legislative director for the council on american islamic relations sing director of law and policy at the american sick coalition and dr michael scheuer adjunct professor at georgetown university's center for peace and security studies and

a former cia analyst and corey just before we went to the break you were talking about the profile the nature of the islamic community the united states not just summarize the sure essentially when you remove the fear factor and look at the facts the american muslim community is well integrated and cooperating with law enforcement in many investigations against people who would commit violent acts against the united states in simple form its is what you know. you were mentioning in a survey of two thousand and six you say certain surveys of american attitudes towards muslims do you can you know we visit community actually or in solidarity with muslim community because we face many of the same issues and we look to attitudes popular attitudes about muslims as kind of a bellwether to see whether our communities in danger and in two thousand and six gallup conducted some surveys and one of the most frightening statistics that came out of those surveys was that about forty percent of respondents would favor

measures that would require american muslims to carry special i.d. cards naming their religion forty percent so it wasn't sort of a fringe minority of respondents in that survey who supported those kinds of measures and that's very troubling to us in the post nine eleven environment given that six often are targeted as a result of a people still bigotry and michael you made the point that are you know it's it's not that they hate our religions or our freedoms or whatever the people of muslims outside the united states who are who are angry with us or. even have attacked us it's that they hate our foreign policy it's very much the case tom you know that even the young american muslims who go to fight overseas. are not driven because they hate american culture or american society they're driven to respond to our activities in somalia for example in iraq as another example we have never

arrested anyone in this country from the muslim community who is a planning an attack on the united states who claim to be attacking us because they hated women in the workplace or elections in iowa it always has to do with our support for israel these are very substantive things but barack obama. mr romney mr bush and senator kerry senator mccain have lied to the american people and convince the american people that the muslim community in the united states is is hateful toward our culture and there are certainly things that in our culture aren't going to work for islam the paganism of our entertainment system it doesn't work for some catholics but the idea that muslims are just crazy people. and are going to blow things up because they don't like the fact that my daughter goes to university is nots but that's what you get from the presidents of both parties from the congress for much of the media and certainly from the jewish american

community that supports israel and makes a very important point there when he talks about the substance you know one of the deep things behind what's going on unfortunately the conversation of the united states too often doesn't look at those things it goes for caricature so right now we see rioting in spain and greece and you don't see the pundits on t.v. going these people it is just that's just how they are they're savages people say there are reasons behind this writing the economic difficulties but in all the situation that we saw recently the muslim countries many people just brushed it off as well they saw filled. got offended and that was what was behind the riots it may have been a spark but there were certainly other more salient factors like what michael described behind the continuation of the rest of the middle east. do you think that if we had if there if we had taken the side of taiwan or no in some sort of hostility with china in the in the recent past and we've. arguably that's

a possible scenario and then it had turned into an issue of race and confucianism or buddhism or something like that that we could you know it that we could just substitute asians for for. for muslims or arabs or people of wearing turbans or red darker skin or fill in the blank and. i hope no answer i hope not but is that not the history of this something always back to the roman empire even as we speak i mean this isn't islamophobia anti muslim bigotry doesn't sort of exist in a vacuum we're we're living in an environment that's been tainted by seeing a phobia anti immigrant rhetoric homophobic rhetoric racist rhetoric and i think that mexican anti hispanic neighborhood maybe your minority i mean there are plenty of groups out there that can be scapegoated very easily and fortunately muslims are under the gun right now i want to bring up a graphic here this is the islamophobia megaphone. network of anti muslim anti

islam nations. are spreading misinformation the did they have these misinformation experts and there's this list of a relatively small number of donors and over the last ten years forty two point six million dollars relatively small amount of money and then you know they they've follows through the experts who end up on the media talking about this stuff principally is the main supposed mainstream media would be fox news and then that echo chamber then echoes into the religious right and this is michael you mentioned . you know jewish americans this sport is realize that protestants as well they have some of that huge i mean is a major thing it's actually two groups of americans who put every every country but there is first right but here's the islamophobia echo chamber and you've got the religious right pat robertson john ag ralph reed franklin graham etc you've got the media fox news channel the top of that and then the list goes on down to the right wingers the political players the small handful of members of congress including

king and west and bachmann brown and the grassroots organizations and some of which probably most people never heard of like it's out of the freedom coalition and then others the american family association the people are more more familiar with they amplify this into the public into the public sphere cory how do you how do you deal with this how do american muslims deal with this how do they respond to this it's not an american muslim problem anymore so david your show me one of the people on the list came up with a bill that essentially targets islamic practices to be treated differently under the law than others and the last two years we've seen seventy eight and bills introduced in thirty one states in the u.s. congress eighty five percent of those are the ones pushed by david you show me another reason that i say this is no longer just a muslim problem because this is clearly on its face

a violation of the first amendment because you have the government targeting a particular faith for particular shot sanctions so we're no longer in a discussion about you know forgive me for putting it this way but mere discrimination we are now talking about changing the conversation to undermining the constitution because of the fear pushed by the people in this megaphone that you're talking about so how do we deal with it we fall back on the bill of rights and we go to court and we push back in that fashion and so far we have been successful but you can't just have a conversation in courts you have to have people of goodwill standing up and recognize. isn't that what was done to the japanese after world war two putting women in term in camps was wrong and passing laws to target any religion in the united states is wrong and just as we got rid of the the camps for the japanese we have to get rid of laws and things like those. be the one of the big talking points of this right wing machine is shari'a law and there are observant jews who want

more clothing made out of two different kinds of fabric because it's outlawed in deuteronomy and shellfish to keep kosher or kosher. is i'm saying it correctly you know has an association with turbans and beer and i mean there are rules religions have rules. at what point. by singling out a particular one in this case shari'a which in most versions as played out in the united states and in most european countries is not jihad or craziness it's simply rules for life at what point is it does that become what korea was talking about the singling out of an individual religion and thus dangerous to other religions like you well surely a lot of debate which is unfolding in several american courts is a red herring i mean that's a straw man we've got a supremacy clause in the constitution which affirms that us law is supreme no other law can supersede american law and crackdowns on the right of muslims to

practice their religion affects six effect observant jews have been measures in recent years and a couple states to prohibit people from war and head coverings and driver's license photos and although that's been targeted at most close by and large six stand to lose observant jews and others stand to lose if those laws are of help and so michael from. the me you were there early on at the cia as as nine eleven was happening and here we are now what is what is the arc that you see unfolding. this is going and what should we be doing about. the there that's unfolding is that the war is going to spread if you took a map and don't war it's a war against the islamic militancy is going to spread because there is an unenviable reservoir of people who are willing to defend their faith against what they what they truly believe are the. imperial. activities of the

united states and its allies and the american people have not been acquainted with that because our president mr obama more than anyone has a lie about that what people are motivated by when they're attacking us those people that killed our ambassador in benghazi they weren't attacking us because they hated freedom they were attacking us because those people were symbols of the united states government which is regarded in the muslim world as an aggressive islamic force or at least in that part in the last of the islamic world tom if you look at the polls seventy five to eighty percent regard us foreign policy as an attempt to destroy islam or to harm islam there's a great difference in the muslim world although the many of our politicians speak as if muslims are too dumb to be able to draw the line between americans as people in the u.s. government when you travel in the muslim world an american person is generally

treated with great cordiality but the destroy this taste and distrust for our government is very great and i would say one thing for cory byrd suggest one thing i think this is directly in the hands of the muslim community i thought it was a travesty when the leaders of the muslim community did not go up to those hearings that mr king congressman king had and explain very clearly on television into the media that the problem that the muslim community has in how it's youngsters are influenced is your foreign policy so we have just twenty seconds. are your thoughts on if you watched the first hearing that peter king called the day before we were on c.-span essentially doing many of the things that you're talking about mark and i know peter king saw it because he attacked my organization throughout the first year so there was definitely a counterweight to what mr king was saying unfortunately however during a congressional hearing he has the bullhorn we don't yet and he definitely did

gentlemen thank you all for thank yous are an important conversation. just to see this conversation or or more of our conversation is great minds check out our website conversations great minds dot com coming up after the break while president obama has been soaring in polls nationwide net romney has been having an awful few weeks first it was his libya speech then his forty seven percent comments and now his soon to be infamous harvesting comments surely this election has to be over right all that and more and that as big picture rubble.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so. you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else here sees some other part of it and realize that everything is ok. i'm tom harvey welcome to the big picture.