I sent this out several months ago; it is timely to send out again.

Civil Litigation: A Weapon in Jihad?

By Laura Mansfield

www.lauramansfield.com

This
weekend, I was catching up on my reading. My choice of books was Dr.
Walid Phares' "Future Jihad, a book I highly recommend to all who
truly want to understand jihad, In the book, Dr. Phares related a
common Arabic saying: "Darabani wa baka sabaqani wa ishtaka". This
phrase translates roughly to "he hits me and cries, then beats me to
the court to sue me".

This reminded me of a similar saying that I heard often while
I was living in Cairo that appears to be the Egyptian version of the
saying Dr. Phares quoted: "He beats me, then calls the police when I
hit back."

Parents of small children are familiar with this behavior
too. Little Johnny hit Little Billy, and when Little Billy hits back,
Little Johnny runs to Mom screaming "Mom, Billy hit me". If allowed to
continue, it quickly deterioriates into cries of "Mommy, Billy is
thinking about hitting me. Make him stop."

This is exactly what is happening in this country today in
the explosion of civil lawsuits against so-called discriminatory
actions.

But is there more to these lawsuits than simply individuals
seeking recourse against perceived injustices in the court system of
this country?

Is our civil court system being used as an offensive weapon in the Global Jihad?

Let's take a look at a few of these lawsuits.

Six
Muslim imams are removed from a flight from Minneapolis to Phoenix as a
result of complaints by passengers that they are behaving suspiciously.
They file a lawsuit against the airline, and file "John Doe" lawsuits
against the passengers who reported their behavior, claiming that the
reports were based on passenger bias against Muslims.

A former CIA official and counterterrorism and intelligence
advisor to the NYPD is sued by a Muslim undercover cop in the New York
Police Department for emails the cop claims Tefft distributed that
created a ""culture of discrimination" has left the man "depressed and
demoralized." One of the emails the police officer complained about was
titled "Al-Qaida Recruits Through the Internet.". Al Qaeda recruiting
through the internet? Tell me it isn't so!�

Another lawsuit was filed in 2005 on behalf of "five Muslim
Americans who, along with dozens of others, were detained for six and a
half hours, interrogated, fingerprinted, and photographed at the
Canadian border crossing to Buffalo as they returned home from an
annual Islamic conference in Toronto."

These are just three of a veritable plethora of lawsuits
filed against American citizens and government agencies. It's reached
the point where businesses and law enforcement agencies in many cases
must walk on eggshells if they want to avoid being sued.

It's not just in the US either. In the UK, law enforcement
must provide mosques advance notice in some cases when they plan terror
raids.

When used as an intimidation tactic, civil litigation can be
quite effective as a weapon in the Global Jihad. It can effectively
stifle free speech by making the speaker reluctant to speak out because
of fear of being sued.

In the US criminal court system, those accused of a crime are
entitled to a court appointed attorney if the accused cannot afford to
retain an attorney. However, the American civil court system provides
no similar provision for appointment of counsel.

Thus in order to yourself from a civil lawsuit, you must
retain your own attorney, which can easily cost many thousands of
dollars. The alternative is to act as your own attorney, with little
likelihood of success outside of the Small Claims Court systems, or
simply ignore the lawsuit and allow a default judgment to be entered
against you.

And although in the US, a person cannot be imprisoned as a
result of such a default judgment, it is certainly possible that a
person can face financial ruin.

Nuisance lawsuits have long been a problem in many other
areas, especially in the personal injury and medical malpractice
fields, where insurance companies routinely settle claims which have
little or no chance of prevailing in a court of law simply because it
is much cheaper to settle than to defend against the claim.

In addition to the cost of defending against a lawsuit, there is the publicity
aspect.

The
media attention attracted by such a filing can cause damage to the
reputation of businesses and individuals, and this can translate into
financial loss quickly. After all, what airline wants to be seen as
being prejudiced against a religious or ethnic group? What government
agency wants to be accused of racial or religious bias?

Often the simple threat of such a lawsuit provides sufficient intimidation to
quash opposing viewpoints.

It's
important that the civil court system learn to recognize those lawsuits
which are in fact nuisance suits, designed to muzzle dissent, and to
handle them accordingly.

Until that happens, one of the most powerful weapons of Jihad in America will
remain the American Civil Court system.

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