Robert Spencer

Robert Spencer, author of several books on Islam and owner of jihadwatch.org, is seen by quite a few as an important figure fighting radical Islam. The following facts should, however, be known about him before anyone unfamiliar with him lends him his support or view him as a defender of freedom.

He joined a Facebook group that

. Advocate the total Reconquest and complete reassymilation of the Anatolia penninsular, eastern Thrace, northern Cyprus, Greater Armenia, The Pontus and Antiochia through the medium of Greek, Armenian, Cypriot, Byzantine, Pontic and Syriac National Sovereignty and on an unconditional basis.

. The complete unilateral and unnegotiable permanent ethnic transformation of theses territories in order to coopt the first aim.

And the establishment of a National coalitionary Greater European confederative super state in order to secure the first two aims, with guaranteed sovereign borders, fixed permanent garrisons and the necessary military means to ensure alien repatriation with a view to permanent long term resettlement.

* This group entirely understands and accepts that this project will require the displacement of up to 150 million persons, …

Spencer claims that he joined the group unawares but then proceeds to accuse the tipper together with his long-standing internet nemesis Charles Johnson of lgf of setting him up, and of being hoaxers:

But in this case I have fallen victim to an Internet prank. Johnson’s response to my joining this group was so swift that I suspect that the group itself, and its invitation that I join it, was a hoax and a setup, but in any case I freely acknowledge my mistake: I was working through a number of such requests hurriedly, and joined the group without looking further at what it was all about. I didn’t read any of the material the group had posted, which Johnson says advocates genocide and ethnic cleansing and even links to the Aryan Nations. [Note Spencer's evasion of the actual content of the group's mission statement, which by that time, given his temporary connection with it, he should have studied more carefully by that time.]

He updates the post saying he will have the tipper removed from Facebook. He has of this now not shown any signs of revulsion at the group’s content, nor has he asked Facebook to have the group’s content or the group itself removed. In other words, his anger is directed at the person most people in this kind of situation would have regarded with gratitude, while the source of his embarrasment, the noxious group, deserves no condemnation at all. He further insists at the hotair site in the comments section that the whole incident was and is a setup, without any proof to back up his claim.

UPDATE: I’ve been informed that this use of Facebook material for defamation and libel by Facebook user “Cato the Elder” is in violation of Facebook rules. I’ve accordingly written to Facebook asking that his account there be revoked.

He threatens to sue Charles Johnson for libel

SECOND UPDATE: I’d also like to remind Charles Johnson publicly that accusing someone of supporting genocide who doesn’t support genocide is actionable libel. I don’t have the time to waste suing this noxious individual, but anyone who continues to take him seriously as a public figure with something to contribute to public discussion should be advised that his attachment to the truth is tenuous at best.

If you re-examine Johnson’s post you’ll see that Johnson never did anything of the sort. Which is why you’ll never see any suit coming from Spencer over this issue this side of Kingdom Come.

Spencer’s friend James George Jatras was a witness for the defence in the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, where Jatras spouted conspiracy theories to the effect that the Clinton administration colluded with the Iranian regime to smuggle arms into Bosnia and Kosovo during the war to further the spread of radical Islam.

By including James Jatras, former American Republican Party analyst and adviser, in his witness list, Slobodan Milosevic wanted to prove his argument on the collusion between Bill Clinton’s Democrat administration and radical Islamic elements, first in Bosnia and then in Kosovo.

(Jatras also seems to be on Putin’s payroll.)

The reason for the enmity between Johnson and Spencer goes back to the Vlaams Belang controversy and Spencer’s unwillingness to dissociate himself from sites like Gates of Vienna, The Brussels Journal and writers like Fjordman. (Spencer’s last exchanges at lgf can be read here; Fjordman is still referred to as “the great European essayist Fjordman”.)

Spencer has written countless times something along the lines of this:

As far as fascism goes, I oppose all authoritarian governments, and believe in the freedom of speech and other freedoms that historically have never thrived in fascist settings. The jihadists want to impose a totalitarian order that crushes all dissent and enforces social conformity at the point of a sword — that is fascist. A genuine alternative is the Western idea of a free and pluralistic society in which people who differ on core issues in good conscience respect one another enough to refrain from trying to gain dominance over the others or asserting any supremacist agenda. But that is in its essence non-fascist and, indeed, anti-fascist.

And yet he lends explicit, unqualified support to sites such as Gates of Vienna, The Brussels Journal by still linking to them from jihadwatch, sites that openly try to push the boundaries of what is conceivable in order to solve the “Islamic Question in Europe”. Spencer claims that he is “sifting the evidence” with regards to Vlaams Belang. If he does, the sieve he uses needs smaller holes. While at the same time he writes:

You may have not seen this short email exchange between Mr. Spencer and myself a number of months ago. The Lizards here can back me up that these are for real…

“Robert, can you answer one simple question for me. This would help a lot in deciding what is really going on here. Which European political parties do you UNCONDITIONALLY condemn because of their proven ties to racist nationalism?” (Walter L. Newton email to Robert Spencer sent on Friday, November 07, 2008 1:16 PM)

And his answer…

“Actually, I am fighting jihad, and have no interest in or intention to investigate these groups. Insofar as they are fighting jihad, I applaud them. Insofar as they are doing anything else, my endorsement is not implied.” [My bold. A contradictory statement in view of his earlier "I oppose all authoritarian governments".] (Robert Spencer email answer to Walter L. Newton sent on Sat 11/8/2008 10:39 AM)

So, a picture emerges of a man who plays on many levels, making strong efforts to keep them separated, at least for the various audiences he is trying to reach.

Here is Spencer’s view on race:

And I think that a race-based approach is wrong in a number of ways. To repeat:

1. It’s the wrong way to fight the global jihad. The jihad is not a race, Islam is not a race, Muslims are not all of one race. Those who are threatened by the jihadists are not all of one race. The issues between the Islamic world and non-Muslims are not racial. They are about religious supremacism. Bringing in race just confuses the issue, and allows jihadists and their de facto allies among the Eurabian elites to claim that this whole thing is about racism.

2. To form one group for indigenous Europeans, as has been done in several countries, reduces virtually every issue to the one non-negotiable issue of race and ethnicity, discourages cooperation, and thus encourages Balkanization, works against the idea of representative government, and obscures the common values of Judeo-Christian civilization that are shared by people of many races and ethnicities.

3. This approach hamstrings and marginalizes the anti-jihad movement. Many people who oppose the Islamization of Europe will never join with a race-based party to do so. As I said above, Hugh Fitzgerald and I have often commented here over the years about the tragedy in Europe: the mainstream political parties have completely abdicated any responsibility to deal with the Islamization of Europe, thus leaving the field open to groups that obscure the issue with racial politics.

4. Many, many people have written here, and will no doubt write again in response to this post, that the parties that speak of race are the only ones in Europe that are doing anything to resist Islamization, and thus they deserve the support of all those who believe there is something worth defending in Western non-Muslim civilization. I don’t think that is any sounder an argument than the claim that we must support Hizballah because it builds schools and runs charities when not lobbing rockets at Israeli civilians.

Spencer forgets to state the obvious: That the view that man is born with certain innate qualities based on a predominance of some specific set of chemicals in the parents is false and that it has led to immeasurable suffering through the millenia of man’s history. That should in fact be enough to reject that kind of view of man entirely. Spencer’s approach is rather tactical:

This approach hamstrings and marginalizes the anti-jihad movement. Many people who oppose the Islamization of Europe will never join with a race-based party

It’s the wrong way to fight the global jihad. The jihad is not a race, Islam is not a race, Muslims are not all of one race.

To form one group for indigenous Europeans, as has been done in several countries, reduces virtually every issue to the one non-negotiable issue of race and ethnicity, discourages cooperation, and thus encourages Balkanization, works against the idea of representative government, and obscures the common values of Judeo-Christian civilization that are shared by people of many races and ethnicities

In fact, he ends this reasoning with the following:

But while culture has a racial component, culture and race are not identical.

If Spencer would care to explain how “culture”, which, let us say, is the intellectual achievements of a society within a certain geographic area, has a “racial”, that is, innate component, he is invited to do so. Until then, we will have to draw our own conclusions.

In summary, Spencer finds himself in the embarrasing situation of having joined a Facebook group with a revolting cause. Rather than quickly withdraw and condemn the group, he pours vitriol and strange conspiratorical “insights” on his helpers, he tries to bully Charles Johnson of lgf with the threat of a libel suit but fails for the obvious reason that Johnson’s post merely contains facts, he holds the contradictory positions of condemning racism and fascism, supporting racists and linking to racist/fascist leaning sites, while at the same time professing indifference to ideology altogether, and while seemingly seeing racism as an “impractical” approach to resisting jihad, and holding a view of man, that on the face of it, is at least partially racist. On considering the evidence, the inevitable conclusion is that Spencer is not a reliable ally in the defence of freedom, to put it conservatively.

I was asked in the comments section at jihadwatch if I thought Spencer was a crypto-fascist and in the heat of the moment I replied ‘yes’. On second thought I find that the point is moot: Spencer is, with all his contradictions, his bullying manners, his actions (regardless of the motives behind them) enabling racists and fascists who try to exploit resistance to Islamic jihad for their own purposes.

Added 4.07 pm, Feb 15: There is a common methodology shared by Spencer, his friend Jatras and the notorious Fjordman: their propensity to resort to conspiracy theories to “explain” events around them. Fjordman swallowed the idea of Eurabia, the idea that a small clandestine but extremely powerful department within the EU is working for the Islamification of the European Union, hook, line and sinker. This is certainly not reassuring and only adds to the “bad” side of the scales for their part.

Added 3.22 pm, Feb 27: Kejda Gjermani exposes the ties between Spencer and Trifkovic.

Added 9.02 pm, Nov 5: Littlegreenfootballs has of late veered sharply to the left. In its present state that blog has increasingly less of value to communicate. I will stay convinced, however, that my conclusions regarding Spencer, Vlaams Belang, etc., were correct, until shown otherwise.