Thread by @FriedrichPieter

@mrubin1971, best known for agitating for war in Iraq, spews forth another screed attacking me for standing up against fascist religious nationalism of #RSS-#BJP. He's angry I expose RSS-BJP linked politicians in US like Sonal Shah.

Here's my response.

pieterjfriedrich.medium.com/former-iraq-wa…

Here is Rubin's "article."

https://twitter.com/mrubin1971/status/1521155994193215489?s=20&t=7VTwYrJTgzqey8M72szl0Q

Conspicuously absent from Rubin’s article, however, is any mention of the RSS-BJP — or the HSS, OFBJP, etc. These are all names of Hindu nationalist outfits which I incessantly and invariably raise in my writings and speeches.

Yet Rubin is apparently afraid to name any actual names when it comes to these groups. He mentions several of the political figures I have exposed, but conveniently — and, it would seem, quite intentionally — leaves out any mention of why I am exposing them.

If, after all, my criticism of them were rooted in something as reprehensible as attacking them for their ethnicity or religion, wouldn’t the attacks be easily brushed off? What is it about my journalism which has been so effective that Rubin feels compelled to respond?

Rubin can’t mention RSS-BJP because the moment he grapples with the facts of my journalism, his argument against me — his attack on me — falls apart.

He mentions, for instance, Sonal Shah. He implies that my coverage of Shah is “based not on substance but instead on multiple degrees of separation and insinuation.”

He suggests that I am an “anti-Hindu bigot” who believes that “two figures present at a common event where hundreds of others were also present” constitutes “definitive proof of intricate links and cooperation.”

Notably, he doesn’t bother linking to any of my writings about Shah so that a concerned reader of his article, interested to see my supposed “bigotry” in action, might actually view it, be repulsed by it, and become fully convinced....

... that I’m a journalist deserving of the condemnation Rubin calls for.

Rubin doesn’t want his reader to know, for instance, that my “definitive proof” of Shah’s links to the web of Hindu nationalist networks includes that she’s the daughter — how’s that for “multiple degrees of separation” — of a man who has spent at least 20 years leading....

.... (as, variously, president and vice-president) the OFBJP. A man who hosted current BJP Prime Minister Narendra Modi in their US home in the 1990s. A man who traveled to India in 2014 to campaign for the BJP’s election in person.

Nor does Rubin want to deal with the reality that the RSS-BJP are the leading organizations in a family of Hindu nationalist groups known as the “Sangh Parivar.”

The Sangh includes the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), typically considered the “religious wing” of the RSS paramilitary, which was declared by the CIA in 2018 as a “religious militant” outfit.

Just as the RSS has a US wing in the HSS-USA and the BJP has a US wing in the OFJBP-USA, the VHP has a US wing in the VHP-America. And not only is Sonal Shah the daughter of a long-time OFBJP leader, but she herself actually spent years as a leader in the VHPA.

Acknowledging that is a much different accusation than saying, for instance, that Shah was one of the people “present at a common event where hundreds of others were also present.” But Rubin apparently doesn’t want to directly deal with the hard facts that I invoke.

Similarly, Rubin names Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi as another politician whom I’ve criticized. Indeed, I have. But Rubin doesn’t want to grapple with the host of facts I’ve documented concerning Krishnamoorthi’s heavy funding by leaders in RSS-BJP affiliates in the US or....

.... his repeated presence at American Hindu nationalist events. For instance, he — oddly — has no interest in dealing with how I’ve criticized Krishnamoorthi for keynoting an HSS-hosted celebration of the founding of the RSS.

Nor does Rubin mention that my criticism of Krishnamoorthi speaking at said HSS event particularly focuses on how the event featured a garlanded picture of MS Golwalkar, the....

... longest-serving and most influential leader of the RSS who also happens to be — as the paramilitary’s ideological North Star — one of the reasons that I frequently refer to the RSS as a Nazi-inspired paramilitary.

I’ve extensively covered this in other articles, so suffice it to say here that Golwalkar, in 1939, applauded Nazi Germany for “purging the country of the Semitic races — the Jews” and described it as a good model for the RSS to adopt towards minorities in India.

The minorities whom Golwalkar particularly hated and wanted to eliminate from the country were both Christians and Muslims. The RSS today — in coordination with the BJP, the VHP, and other Sangh entities — is working on doing exactly that.

The Hindu nationalist movement in India is working so hard to eliminate Indian minorities, in fact, that experts in America are warning the situation in India is one of impending genocide.

Most recently, there was Dr. Ellen Kennedy of World Without Genocide. “I speak to you as a Jew,” said Dr. Kennedy in April 2022. “We must pay attention to what is happening to Muslims in India today because it is beginning to echo what happened to Europe’s Jews 80 years ago.”

She concluded, “Violence against Muslims in India has escalated to the point that the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ranks India second in the world in this year’s Early Warning statistical risk assessment.”

This impending genocide, which is beginning to echo the outset of the Holocaust, is sponsored by the RSS-BJP.

Meanwhile, the US support base for the RSS-BJP happens to have a handful — thank God, only a handful — of political figures with a past (or even present) of operating within its orbit. What’s the common link between them all?

Frequent participation in HSS, VHPA, and/or OFBJP events (sometimes even as leaders or organizers for those groups), heavy and apparently coordinated campaign financing from the small but deep-pocketed network of leaders in those groups, and....

.... a track record of pushing policies which either directly support the Hindu nationalist agenda in India, offer apologetics for it, or seek to preempt any criticism of it.

There are — again, thank God — not many of these political figures at present.

Rubin names only seven that I’ve exposed: former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, Saratoga City Councillor and congressional candidate Rishi Kumar, Ohio State Senator Niraj Antani, Michigan State Representative Padma Kuppa, Department of....

.... Homeland Security Advisor Sonal Shah, and former Ambassador Atul Keshap.

There are a few others. Rubin doesn’t name them, so I will. There is also congressional candidate Ritesh Tandon (Republican), congressional candidate Manga Anantatmula (Republican), and failed congressional candidate Sri Preston Kulkarni (Democrat).

That makes for ten political figures in total. Let’s put that number in context.

In 2018, there were reportedly almost 100 Indian-Americans running for election across the country. At present, there are — according to Indian-American Impact’s current list — approximately 200 or so elected officials of Indian origin at the city, county, state, & federal level.

Most of these appear to be Hindu, as one would expect considering that Hindus are nearly 80 percent of India’s population and approximately 50 percent of the Indian-American population.

Of these perhaps 200 elected officials, I’ve exposed ten individuals — several of whom, as failed candidates, never even made it to that list of 200. That’s less than five percent.

It’s confirmation, indeed, of my frequent argument that Hindu nationalism is not Hinduism and that Hindu nationalist adherents (and/or fellow travelers) in the US constitute....

.... a tiny segment of the broader Hindu-American population — though, nevertheless, one of the most vocal and organized segments.

Nonetheless, Rubin projects my journalism regarding the indisputable ties of these handful of candidates and elected officials to the RSS-BJP as a....

.... baseless attack on “a host” of politicians “across the political spectrum” who “face slander that they harbor extremist links rooted in dual loyalty.”

In his interpretation, criticizing a few people — who, let it not go unsaid, are seeking political power — for their ties to a fascist, Hindu nationalist movement that is, among many other things, guilty of....

.... defaming the true beauty of the Hindu religion, constitutes “manufactured controversy” which “throw[s] Hindus under the bus.”