A packed crowed of over 150 people came out to the VFW Hall in Alberston last Wednesday to hear speeches from controversial Islam critic Pamela Geller and Greg Buckley Sr., father of a Marine slain in Afghanistan, and discuss their opinions on radical Islam and its relationship with America.
“The objective was to increase public awareness of the greatest threat this nation faces” and for the audience to go out and “learn everything,” Geller said following the event.
The speech, hosted by the Nassau County Federation for Republican Women, came less than three weeks after Geller’s speech at Chabad of Great Neck, which sparked a war of words between her supporters and interfaith advocates who accused Geller of fostering bigotry and Islamophobia.
Geller, who has been described as an anti-Islamic bigot by the Anti-Defamation League, spoke at length about her opinion that government and media in this country appease radical Islam and ignore its international influence.
When discussing the alleged lack of coverage about the 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis, which ended in the deaths of hundreds of civilians when Russian forces retook the school from Chechen militants, Geller said, “The media is aligned with the jihad force.”
“Any time American law and Islamic law conflict it’s American law that has to give way,” said Geller. When asked where she sees this conflict, Geller replied, “I see it in the schools, the workplace and in restrictions on free speech.”
She went on to discuss numerous terrorist attacks and “jihads” around the world while also mentioning the controversy she stirred with the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ ad campaign to provide a closer definition of how Muslims use the word jihad: to struggle. In response to CAIR’s campaign, Geller created her own ads with quotes using the extremist definition of jihad from terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden.
Before Geller spoke, Greg Buckley Sr. and his son Ted criticized the Pentagon for failing to explain the circumstances of 21-year-old Greg Buckley Jr.’s death last August in Afghanistan during what is termed a “green on blue” attack – one in which Afghan security forces that are being trained by NATO coalition members turn their weapons on coalition soldiers. According to a Pentagon report, there were 37 green on blue attacks in 2012 resulting in 52 coalition deaths.
“We have yet to receive anything in writing from Washington stating exactly what happened that day,” Ted. said.
Buckley recalled a month before his death, speaking with his son on the phone in the middle of the night when his son said, “I know they’re gonna murder me here, I can feel it.”
“If my son would have died on the battlefield I would accept it, deal with it, move on with my life,” Buckley said fighting back tears. “I cannot move on with my life and look at his two little brothers and just walk away and accept this. It’s hard, it’s hard for me.”
E-mail lists of U.S. congressmen were passed throughout the crowd, and Buckley urged people to send out a letter and ask for answers for the murder of his son.
“All I’m asking is for this country to turn around and give justice,” he said.
After their speeches the panel answered a few questions from the crowd.
Karen Seligson of Franklin Square asked about Newsday omitting part of a quote from Zubeidat Tsarnaev, the mother of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects. She asked, “What can we do as average citizens?”
Geller told her to cancel her subscription to Newsday and to “be your own media.”
“There are blogs, Web sites that I know that I can trust… you control the media you send out,” said Geller.
When asked about specific sources of information, Geller gave the names of writers such as Robert Spencer and Ibn Warraq.
“The New York Times is the No. 1 destructive force” Geller said. “The media is the No. 1 enemy to the American people.”
Seligson spoke about gathering and disseminating news on the Internet, which she used to find out about Geller’s speech.
“I was doing a lot of postings on Facebook and I’ve lost friends, people who didn’t agree with me,” said Seligson. “I would never un-friend somebody for speaking their beliefs, I’d like to have a dialogue with people.”
Seligson also lamented about the abundant disinformation that can be found on the Internet.
“It’s difficult to even find the truth, but that’s the most important thing,” Seligson said.
