Surprise! Voice of America Has a Literal Jihadist Propagandist on Its Staff, Used Him to Attack Trump Over So-Called "Muslim Travel Ban"

Daniel Greenfield:

In 2017, the Voice of America attacked President Trump's travel ban on Muslim terrorist countries. What the VOA did not tell viewers was that its 'reporter' was a former Jihadist.

In the 1980s, Masood Farivar, an Afghan Muslim, now a senior analyst at the government's Voice of America media organization, had joined Jihadist groups in Afghanistan whose members included Taliban leaders and which had worked with Al Qaeda. Farivar's Jihadi comrades included Awal Gul: the Taliban commander locked up in Gitmo after being paid $100,000 by Bin Laden to help him escape.

Farivar has since mourned Awal Gul wondering "how many other Awalguls languish in Gitmo."

But over the last eight years, Farivar had a new enemy, cranking out dozens of articles for the VOA with titles like, "Can Trump Be Indicted for Obstruction of Justice?", "Has Trump Done Enough to Fence Off His Business Interests?" and "Hush Money Troubles for Trump?"

The only thing more troubling than the VOA, which operates under the U.S. government, waging a sustained campaign against the president was the man whose name appeared on its articles.

In his memoir, 'Confessions of a Mullah Warrior', Farivar described being inspired by Yunus Khalis, Osama bin Laden's mentor, known as the Al Qaeda leader's 'Father Sheikh', who welcomed him to Afghanistan, and whose Hezb-i Islami Khalis would fight alongside Al Qaeda against American forces in Afghanistan after the Muslim terrorist attacks of September 11.

The Voice of America senior analyst described the Al Qaeda ally as "deeply pious" with a "wry sense of humor" to whom "Jihad was a means to liberate Afghanistan" whose "message while simple and straightforward reasoned with me deeply." Before long, Farivar was fighting for the Jihadist group in Afghanistan alongside "Arab volunteers" shouting "Allahu Akbar".

How did a former Jihadist go from the battlefields of Afghanistan to Washington D.C. and a bedroom community in Fairfax County filled with mosques and government employees, and from admiring Osama bin Laden's mentor to working for a government media agency?

The answer lies in an old USAID-funded program that was supposed to train Jihadis in Afghanistan to become reporters. Instead it embedded the Jihadis into the media. Masood Farivar was one of a number of ex-Jihadis who went to work for the global media. Farivar's presence at VOA is part of the larger story of another USAID project backfiring badly.

Rather than propagandizing in Afghanistan, Jihadi reporters spread propaganda in America.

When a Muslim terrorist drove a truck into a French crowd on Bastille Day, killing 86 and wounding over 400, Farivar responded with an article titled, 'Learn to Live With Terrorism' Strikes Some as Good Advice". When Front Page Magazine covered the Hamas Oct 7 attacks, he wrote an article smearing us as an "anti-Muslim" hate group for telling the truth about Jihad.

In VOA articles, he contended that demographic replacement by Muslims was a "right-wing conspiracy theory" and that racists were responsible for most domestic terrorism. A VOA segment credited to Farivar included the claim that, "the level of involvement in violent extremism by Muslims in the United States is still quite low.

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Salam Watandar, the Afghan radio network Farivar ran, operated under the umbrella of the Internews Network, an European nonprofit media group funded by everyone from Bill Gates to USAID. From there, Farivar moved to the Voice of America where he transitioned from covering Afghanistan to covering the FBI and the Justice Department.

An European nonprofit? Where do you come down on this? I think the rule is that you use "an" before a vowel sound. And "Europe" begins with a y-vowel sound. Y is a vowel in some cases but not others. I think in this case it's a consonant sound.

Anyway: Read the whole thing.

Bonus:

posted by Ace at 06:50 PM

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