No good deed goes unpunished if you happen to be a Muslim

by Sheila Musaji

Updates at bottom of page

Last week Brigid Schulte published an article in The Washington Post about the owner of a Ford truck bearing the license plate 14CV88, whose plate was revoked by the Virginia DMV. The article lays out the basic story

photo of the truck hit the Web a few days ago, went viral on car and other blogs and finally came to the attention of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy group for American Muslims. On Wednesday morning, the group complained to the DMV that the plate contained a white supremacist and neo-Nazi statement.

A few hours later, the DMV agreed that the plate contains a coded message: The number 88 stands for the eighth letter of the alphabet, H, doubled to signify “Heil Hitler,” said CAIR’s Ibrahim Hooper. “CV” stands for “Confederate veteran”—the plate was a special model embossed with a Confederate flag, which Virginia makes available for a $10 fee to card-carrying members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. And 14 is code for imprisoned white supremacist David Lane’s 14-word motto: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”

 
Jewish World News notes that “AOL News also reported, “It was the fifth complaint the DMV had received about the ‘14CV88’ plates since they were registered in 2005, according to DMV spokeswoman Melanie Stokes. In accordance with the agency’s rigorous policies on issuing and revoking personalized plates, they had been under DMV review since the initial complaint. The agency decided to recall them even before receiving the latest complaint.” 

It seems that CAIR as well as other concerned citizens noticed something that might be white supremacist, racist, or neo-Nazi symbolism on a license plate, and asked the DMV to check it out.  The DMV did so, and the plate was withdrawn.

The fact that the vehicle in question had a confederate flag in the back window as well as other symbols on the truck, and it is possible to see how a reasonable doubt about the meaning is raised.  You can see a photo of the truck here.  CAIR raised such a reasonable doubt question with the DMV after receiving complaints. 

CAIR did issue a request to the Virginia DMV.

“In a letter sent today to Virginia DMV Commissioner Richard D. Holcomb, CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper supported the decision to recall the license plate when he wrote in part:

“No state-authorized sign should be permitted to promote neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideology.

“I therefore respectfully request that this license plate be investigated to determine whether it violates state policy against socially and racially disparaging content.

“If it is determined that the license plate contains coded racist terms, I would ask that it be recalled immediately by the DMV.”

Was CAIR simply making an accusation that any random numbers on a personalized license plate might have some significance that only they were aware of?  Not really.

According to the ADL the number 88 is a neo-Nazi symbol.  “The eighth letter of the alphabet is “H.” Eight two times signifies “HH, ” shorthand for the Nazi greeting, “Heil Hitler.” 88 is often found on hate group flyers, in both the greetings and closing comments of letters written by neo-Nazis, and in e-mail addresses.”  Also according to the ADL the number 14 is a white supremacist symbol.  “This numeral represents the phrase “14 words,” the number of words in an expression that has become the battle cry and rallying slogan for the white supremacist movement: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” This expression was coined by white supremacist David Lane while in prison serving essentially a life sentence for his role in The Order, a 1980s white supremacist terrorist group that conducted armed robberies, bombings, and assassinations. Lane died in prison in 2007.” 

Once CAIR had made a request to the DMV to check out the license plate, and the DMV revoked the plate, the anti-Muslim blogsphere went info full out Islamophobic hysteria.

Warner Todd Huston was beside himself that CAIR was even mentioned in an AP story about the incident.  In an article titled AP Pushes Muslims Into Story Where They Don’t Belong he said

“Um, why did the AP feel it necessary to add that CAIR was happy that the Nazi influenced vanity plate was pulled? What do Muslims have to do with opposing anti-Jewish sentiment? In fact, isn’t it rather the opposite more often than not? More outrageously, Islamism was an offshoot of Nazism as Hitler’s Nazi system served as the model for radical Islam as practiced today. Yet the AP is allowing radical Islamists to claim the mantle of anti-racists?”

Yes, here is the AP giving CAIR, a Muslim group connected to extremist, anti-Semitic, radical Islamists, the cover of appearing as if they cared that a vanity license plate in Virginia was denied because it might have anti-Jewish sentiment buried in its numbers. Here is the AP giving this radical hate group an assist for its propaganda so that it can fool Americans into thinking they are “reasonable” and against racism!

Will the AP miss no opportunity to further CAIR’s pro-Islamist propaganda?  Way to go Dhimmi AP!”

Matthew Balan on Newsbusters called this a “publicity stunt” by CAIR in his article Oops:// CNN, WaPo Jumped on CAIR’s License Plate ‘Hate’ Theory, Now Disproved.  And the proof that this was a false story?  The driver of the vehicle with the questionable license plate said that it wasn’t racist.

Another anti-Muslim site posted an article with a page heading that reads “All Muslims are your enemy!  They attacked America 9/11/01.  They rape little girls!  They kill all non Muslims!  Get Them Before They Get You.”  This article includes the statement “A photo of the truck hit the Web a few days ago, went viral on car and other blogs and finally came to the attention of the Council on Arrogant-Islamic Retards, an advocacy group for American terrorist Muslims. On Wednesday morning, the group cried a river to the DMV that the plate contained a white supremacist and neo-Nazi statement.”

Robert Spencer (who likes to claim that he is not an Islamophobe) joined this merry band of bigots and posted an article, Hamas-linked CAIR smears anti-jihad Virginia driver as neo-Nazi.  In that article he said

“Speaking of lies and smears, a story went out last week about a Virginia driver with an anti-jihad sign on the back of his truck, who was made to change his license plate number after CAIR complained that his existing plate number contained coded neo-Nazi slogans. The implication of the story, of course, was that anti-jihadists are neo-Nazis—which, despite the febrile fantasies of libelblogger Charles Johnson and his cohort, CAIR’s amiable stomach-stapled beekeeper Honest Ibe Hooper, flies in the face of the facts: Muslims generally allied with the Nazis during World War II (and Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, was a major player in the planning of the Holocaust), and actual neo-Nazi groups like the Aryan Nations are pro-Muslim.

And now it turns out that CAIR’s whole story was false in the first place: the driver in question, Douglas Story, is not a neo-Nazi at all, but a racing fan. The alleged code numbers for neo-Nazi slogans were actually favorite race car drivers’ numbers.

Will Honest Ibe Hooper apologize to Douglas Story? Come on, Ibe! It would be the decent thing to do!”

  Spencer often complains about ad hominem and tu quoque arguments that he believes others have used (and uses the Latin and Greek terms often, possibly to prove that he is actually a scholar), but he seems to be fond of using them himself, as well as most of the other logical fallacies, e.g. guilt by association, non sequitur, oversimplification, etc. 

Fortunately for all concerned in any way with the truth, there are some out there who made extra efforts to get to the bottom of this story. 

This site has screen captures of some of the facebook pages of the driver of the vehicle.  They note that

The public Facebook page for a Doug Story from the same city with the same job as the truck owner begs to differ. Doug Story’s favorite book? “My Awakening” by former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke about racial separation. His bio?  “100% WHITE MAN, 100% ARYAN, 100% PRO-LIFE (Children are innocent), 100% PRO DEATH PENALTY (Criminal Scum aren’t innocent). Over the past 28 years; I, like David Duke, have had an Awakening.”

Contradicting his assertion he wants nothing to do with Nazis, the link at the bottom of his Facebook page is to a membership profile on the white-separatist social media site NewSaxon, an “online community for whites by whites.” The site features numerous swastikas and references and links to the National Socialist (Neo-Nazi) Movement.

Raw Story published an article Exposed:// ‘Hate plates’ driver denying anti-Semitism believes Jew-run media invented ‘HOLOHOAX’ which notes a number of internet postings by Story that are just as questionable.  The article notes that “If the profile was somehow hacked, there’s little chance that countless comments by Story at Facebook and at linked sites that contain racial slurs and attack Jews, which go back years, were also faked.”

Another site quotes Douglas Story as follows “He says he doesn’t know who took the photo of his truck, in a handicapped parking spot, that became a viral sensation on the Web. “Probably someone who obviously has a soft spot for Islam,” he said, pronouncing the word “I-slam,” “because if you pronounce it ‘Ih-slahm,’ it’s not disparaging enough.”

Adam Weinstein on Mother Jones said

“He’s a fan of the controversial Facebook group with the horribly misspelled title “DEAR LORD, THIS YEAR YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTOR, PATRICK SWAYZIE. YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTRESS, FARAH FAWCETT. YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE SINGER, MICHAEL JACKSON. I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW, MY FAVORITE PRESIDENT IS BARACK OBAMA. AMEN.”

Most concerning of all, though, is the link he includes as his personal website: He is known as “Confederado” on the site newsaxon.org, which bills itself as “An online community for whites by whites.” It also includes banner ads for the National Socialist Movement—that is to say, the Nazis—whose website, nsm88.com, apparently includes a shout-out to Dale Jr. Or, Hitler!

Generally speaking, it’s not a standard journalistic practice, for a lot of reasons, to make hay about an individual private citizen and his political activities. But in seeking out a public news forum—and working for the state of Virginia—Story submitted himself to public scrutiny, all the more so because his personal beliefs appear not to square with the persona he sought to project in the Post. And the contents of those beliefs are in the public interest—wishing physical ill on the president, who happens to be multiracial, which happens to offend the sensibilities of David Duke and neo-Nazis, who happen to figure prominently in Story’s apparent worldview, which is a worldview widely seen as invalid and threatening to American social and political life.

Story’s entitled to any belief; he’s also entitled to freedom from harassment. (So please don’t go after him.) But in what’s been a banner year for nativism, racism, and uncivility in American political life, Story also should be willing to account for those beliefs, and all the baggage that they carry.”

Brigid Schulte has also published an update to her original article.  In this update she notes that

“When I called Story to ask about the Facebook page, he continued to maintain that his license plate message had nothing to with racism. He stuck by his NASCAR story. “Southern white men. Southern white sport. What else needs to be said?” he said.

Story acknowledged that he thinks of himself as 100 percent Aryan. “Aryan is a Sanskrit word that means noble,” he said, “no matter what spin the liberal media tries to put on it as being a racist, hate word.”

He said he is an admirer of David Duke, who, he said was “reamed by the media because of his Klan affiliations.” “I am a white nationalist,” Story said. “I am in favor of the whites having their own homeland.” When I asked him where that homeland would be, he said he didn’t know. “The Pacific Northwest maybe. Alaska. Denmark. Greenland. Iceland.”

I asked if he really thought that the Holocaust was a hoax. “I don’t know what to think,” he said.”

This is just one more example of how the rabid Islamophobia prevalent in some circles can so blind people to reality that they are willing to defend white supremacists and neo-Nazis.  It should also be a cautionary tale to those who don’t want to be caught red handed in their Islamophobia to do a little fact checking before they publish articles on current events.

UPDATE 6/2/2012

Douglas Story has been arrested by the Joint Terrorism Task Force on gun charges.

Garibaldi of Loonwatch reports

In May of 2010, Douglas Story‘s vehicle was photographed containing anti-Islam slogans and neo-Nazi symbols:

Is this the back of some neo-nazi's truck, or the cover of Robert Spencer's next book?

...  Spencer never apologized for being so horribly wrong about his “anti-Jihadist” buddy being a White Supremacist. Instead he posted a one sentence update saying, “The Washington Post has uncovered evidence that Douglas Story is indeed a white supremacist racist. In that case, he deserves whatever he gets from the DMV.”

In a new twist to this story, yesterday, Douglas Story was arrested by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force “after allegedly receiving a fully automatic AK-47 from an undercover agent.”

A Manassas man accused of being a white supremacist was arrested Wednesday by members of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force after allegedly receiving a fully automatic AK-47 from an undercover agent.

Court records show Douglas Howard Story, 48, of the Manassas area, allegedly provided a semi-automatic AK-47, along with $120, to an undercover law enforcement agent with the intent that it be modified to become fully automatic. He then allegedly received the modified weapon from an undercover agent and was subsequently arrested, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Neil H. MacBride and FBI  Assistant Director for the Washington Field Office announced Story’s arrest Wednesday.  He has been charged with a violation of the National Firearms Act – a charge that carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

Manassas Patch, 30 May 2012

See also Inside NoVa, 31 May 2012

I’m not a fan of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, as they have been deeply involved in abusing constitutional rights, through profiling, secret surveillance and entrapment activities. Story’s arrest however does, once again, bring to surface the fact that the so-called “anti-Jihad/counter-jihad” movement is filled with neo-Nazis, fascists, and racists of one stripe or another.

It is also another opportunity to point out Spencer’s hypocrisy. He asked Ibrahim Hooper to apologize for “defaming” Douglas Story, but cannot and will not bring himself to apologize for supporting a “White supremacist” and defaming Ibrahim Hooper.

Robert Spencer will you finally apologize for defending a neo-Nazi “White Supremacist” even after the above image of his car, replete with neo-Nazi symbolism, the Confederate flag, and anti-Islam propaganda were evident? Do you, Spencer, agree with the neo-Nazi Story that “all we need to know about Islam we learned on 9/11?”

Something tells me Spencer’s apologies and answer will not be forthcoming.

The ADL has applauded Story’s arrest.