"Obsession" Stars Have Lectured at U.S. Military Colleges; U.S. Navy Uses Film

[Shallah Kali]

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/9/17/15847/7077

Please go to the above link to get the entire article including links to sources of info cited.

Just as appalling and outrageous as Gabriel's JFSC lecture was the February 2008 appearance of the "3 ex-terrorists" at the U.S. Air Force Academy. The three members of this traveling anti-Muslim sideshow, paid $13,000 to speak at the 50th Annual Academy Assembly on the topic "Dismantling Terrorism: Developing Actionable Solutions for Today's Plague of Violence," are Walid Shoebat, Zachariah Anani, and and Kamal Saleem. Shoebat, who appears in Obsession and sells the film on his website, has also spoken at Tim LaHaye's Pre-Trib (Pre-Tribulation) Research Center conferences and John Hagee's Christians United for Israel (CUFI) events. Zachariah Anani is a Lebanese-born Canadian citizen who claims to have killed 223 people while a Muslim terrorist. Kamal Saleem, who, under his real name, Khodor Shami, worked for Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network for sixteen years, was hired by James Dobson's Focus on the Family in 2003, and founded Koome Ministries in 2006 to "expose the true agenda of who would deceive our nation and the free nations of the world."

The claims of the 3 ex-terrorists about their exploits as Muslim terrorists have long been questioned by academics and terrorism experts who have found a plethora of unlikelihoods and outright impossibilities in their stories. The most obvious question, of course, is why, if their stories are true, haven't these three self-proclaimed terrorists, who have been traveling the country for years admitting to numerous killings and other terrorist acts, not been deported or jailed. Well, apparently, even our government's terrorist hunters don't believe these guys. According to a New York Times article about the trio's appearance at the Air Force Academy, "A spokesman for the F.B.I. said there were no warrants for their arrest."

After demands by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) for equal time to counter the anti-Muslim screed of the 3 ex-terrorists, the Air Force Academy eventually allowed MRFF founder and president, and Academy graduate, Mikey Weinstein, and two MRFF Advisory Board members, Islam expert Reza Aslan and former Ambassador Joe Wilson, to speak to (deprogram) the cadets.

In addition to Obsession cast members Brigitte Gabriel and Walid Shoebat speaking at U.S. military colleges, Gregory Ross, the film's co-writer and director, stated in an interview that the film is being used by the U.S. Navy. According to Ross, who is also Communications Director for Clarion Fund, the organization that produced the film and is now funding the DVD newspaper insert scheme, "I know that the U.S. Department of the Navy uses the film and that it has also been shown on Capitol Hill on many occasions in order to education politicians."