Wikipedia

Steven Emerson

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by SlimVirgin (talk | contribs) at 09:45, 2 January 2005 (Added reference; and story about death of researcher). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Steven Emerson is an American print and television investigative journalist, terrorism and national security expert. He is a terrorism analyst for NBC and is widely regarded as one of the world's leading authorities on Islamist financial networks and operational structures. He is known for having predicted, before September 11, 2001, that Islamists would launch a major terrorist attack on U.S. soil, and for having warned the U.S. Congress in 1998 about the dangers posed by Osama bin Laden.

File:Emerson Steve.jpg

Emerson is the author of five books on terrorism and national security, and has devoted years to the study of Islamist terrorism and to cataloguing the presence of international terrorists in the U.S. and Canada, work that has made him the victim of a sustained campaign of criticism from some Islamic and Islamist organizations, which has included at least one death threat.

He is also the founder and executive director of the Investigative Project, one of the world's largest intelligence archives on Islamist and Middle Eastern terrorist and militant groups. [1] He started the Project in 1995, after the broadcast on the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service of his documentary Jihad in America, which exposed the clandestine operations of Islamist groups in the U.S., and for which he received the George Polk Award for best television documentary, and the top prize for best investigative report from the Investigative Reporters and Editors Organization (IRE). Nearly all the U.S.-based Islamist militants Emerson identified in 1994 have been indicted, prosecuted or deported since the September 11, 2001 attacks. [2]

Since September 2001, Emerson has testified before Congress dozens of times on terrorist funding and on the operational structures of al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.

Richard Clarke, the former head of counter-terrorism for the National Security Council, said of Emerson: "I think of Steve as the Paul Revere of terrorism . . . We'd always learn things [from him] we weren’t hearing from the FBI or CIA, things which almost always proved to be true," (Brown Alumni Magazine, November-December 2002).

Because of the possibility of reprisals from Islamist groups, Emerson now lives undercover in the United States.

Criticism of Emerson

A number of groups have been critical of the way Emerson gathers and uses information. In a 1999 article for Extra!, which is published by Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) [3], a progressive media watchdog, John F. Sugg of the Tampa Bay newspaper Weekly Planet charges that Emerson's priority is "not so much news as it is an unrelenting attack against Arabs and Muslims. [4]

Sugg claims that Emerson was behind a story in The Observer on June 28, 1998 headlined "Pakistan was planning nuclear first strike against India." The source for the story, Sugg writes, was interviewed by U.S. nuclear physicists and turned out to be a fraud, yet Emerson had telephoned a number of news outlets to alert them to the story, says Sugg, which gave it an authority it did not deserve.

Sugg also claims Emerson may have taken some sections of his 1990 book, The Fall of Pan Am 103 from reports that had previously appeared in the Post-Standard newspaper of Syracuse, New York. Sugg quotes a New York Times review of Emerson's 1991 book Terrorist saying it was "marred by factual errors . . . and by a pervasive anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian bias." Emerson's documentary "Jihad in America" was, writes Suggs, "faulted for bigotry and misrepresentations," including by reporter Robert Friedman in The Nation which, on May 15, 1995, accused Emerson of "creating mass hysteria against American Arabs."

Emerson's "most notorious gaffe," writes Suggs, was his claim on CBS News that the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing showed "a Middle Eastern trait" because it was carried out "with the intent to inflict as many casualties as possible." Afterwards, Emerson's CBS contract expired and wasn't renewed, says Sugg. Emerson himself has written that CBS blacklisted him for five years. [http://iona.ghandchi.com/emerson.htm'

Sugg also quotes New York Times investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, who says of Emerson, "He's poison."

In response to Sugg's article, the Journal of Counterterrorism and Security International, a publication Emerson has written for, issued a press release stating that it had "uncovered evidence that Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) together with Tampa Weekly Planet editor John Sugg and a radical Islamic group called the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) [5] have collectively fabricated evidence in manufacturing a conspiracy against investigative journalist and terrorism expert Steven Emerson." The press release described FAIR as "an ultra-left wing group that has defended Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, supported Islamic and Middle Eastern terrorists, and even promoted a known anti-Semite." The press release accused Sugg of having "falsely attributed quotes to people who never spoke to him," and of having "twisted the comments of the sources he claims to have interviewed." Sugg denied the charges. [6]

Emerson can be "his own worst enemy," according to journalist John Mintz. Mintz writes that: "Miami Herald reporter Martin Merzer once called [Emerson] for comment on a case involving alleged terrorist sympathizers in Florida, and said he had written an earlier piece on the controversy. He said Emerson replied: "What perspective did you take, that this is a brutal Zionist plot against the weak, underprivileged Arab minority?" After sensing the new piece would be unflattering, Emerson sent a nasty letter about Merzer to his editor and local Jewish leaders.

"In 1998, Emerson heard a Muslim activist planned to leaflet against him at a New York speech of his. He dashed off a withering seven-page response, which included the false assertion that in the 1960s one of his critics, California journalist Reese Erlich, "was charged with conspiracy to carry out violence in support of the Black Panthers." Emerson apologized and paid Erlich $3,000," (Washington Post, November 14, 2001).

Jason Korsower, 29, a researcher for Emerson's Investigative Project, died — apparently in his sleep — in his Washington apartment on November 26, 2004. A graduate of Yeshiva University, Korsower had served in the Israeli army and had previously worked for the U.S.-based Jewish Telegraphic Agency, who described him as "an expert on Muslim extremism who worked at a think tank researching terrorism." The FBI has refused to say whether they are investigating Korsower's death. [7]

References

File:Americanjihad.jpg
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Steven_Emerson&oldid=9056504"