Igor Yopsvoyomatsky, editor-in-chief of paranoiaisfact.com,
answers readers’ questions.

Dear Igor,

When the upcoming terrorist trials were announced my husband Todd rented a back hoe and started digging an underground bunker in our front yard. He’s down there now, about sixty feet underground, and won’t even come up for cuddles. Todd says the trials are the first step in the terrorist takeover of our country. That Obama is a sleeper agent of Al Qaeda, charged with sowing discord and confusion and leading to the dismantling of democratic institutions in the name of security, forcing conversion to Islam and imposition of Sharia on the US. Is this paranoia or fact?

Sara P.
Anchorage, Alaska.

Dear Sara,

This is paranoia with a germ of fact. Obama is not an agent of Al Qaeda. But he is a dupe. The naivete of his administration is matched only by its serene self-assurance. They are like the chess player who makes a move without considering his opponent’s response.

Look for three unintended consequences of the trials.

1. SECURITY. The NYPD will establish a security perimeter around the courthouse. Within this perimeter it will be discovered that there are hundreds of Arab, South Asian and African Muslims selling halal food, souvenirs and clothing. Millions of man hours and hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent vetting each of these individuals and a number of them will be questioned because of association with mosques, imams and/or organizations on the watch list. There will be an outcry from the Muslim community. Ethnic profiling will be alleged, lawsuits commenced, predictable positions taken on both sides of the issue. In the end the US will be made to look like the polarized polity that it is fast becoming.

All employees of the NYPD, Corrections Department and Federal Marshall service will be checked. Muslim officers will object, saying they are being singled out, their loyalty questioned. In addition the net will drag up compromising information on all employees. Harassment and invasion of privacy will be alleged. Unions will threaten job actions and litigation.

2. THE JURY. It will not be possible for these men to tried by a “jury of their peers.” No normal person would expose him/herself to the inconvenient and perhaps hazardous interruption of their life for months. Not to mention the danger it might pose to their families when (not if, because it will happen) their identities are revealed. Only those with a secret agenda will vie to be accepted—zealots of both persuasions, publicity seekers who will try to profit from their jury service and, last but most troubling, possible terrorist moles. It would only take one recalcitrant juror to force a mistrial, which would be a huge propaganda victory for the enemy. The prosecution, fully aware of this, will try to impanel a foolproof jury. Everybody in the pool will be secretly vetted by the FBI. When (not if, because it will happen) this is disclosed there will be the inevitable reaction. The eventual jury, no matter how diverse, will be labeled as “stacked.” Its decision, no matter how carefully deliberated, will be seen as “fixed” by most of the world. Obama’s intention to show that the US is a nation of laws will backfire.

3. A SENSATIONAL OUTBURST. Terrorists are master manipulators of the media. This trial will give them the opportunity to take the world stage. Condemning the US is old news. They know they’ll need something sensational to dominate the news cycle. Look for one of the defendants, maybe KSM himself, to rise in open court and declare:

“I must clear my conscience. I was recruited, paid and trained by the CIA and Mossad to carry out this operation. The intent was to cause world outrage and justify launching the war against Islam and the invasion of Iraq. I was never waterboarded or tortured in any way. On the contrary I have lived in luxury since my alleged arrest and have been told that the CIA and Mossad will provide plastic surgery, millions of dollars and a new identity for me once this travesty is over.”

This cynical confession will ignite an explosion of controversy. There will be violent protests against the US, Israel and the so-called moderate Arab nations that will be seen to have been complicit. Tens of thousands of demonstrators will descend upon the Federal Court Building. New York will suffer paralytic gridlock.

The terrorists know that the first blow is the one that impacts global consciousness. Neither the US nor Israel nor the Saudis will be able to successfully disprove this lie. Tens of millions will be added to the millions who already believe that 9/11 was a US-Israeli plot.

Todd is right, Sara. An ordeal lies ahead. My advice is to keep a low profile. Do not say or do anything to draw attention to yourself. Stay in Anchorage where you’ll be safe.

Your friend,
Igor

Igor Yopsvoyomatsky, Editor-in-Chief of ParanoiaisFact.com
Answers readers’ questions.

Dear Igor,

My cousin Fred says the mosque will be a headquarters for the sharia takeover of America. That the Muslims have mind-control techniques that turn weak-minded people like me into suicide bombers and assassins, just like that Major in Texas. He’s like, “all they have to do is play that snake-charming music and you’ll get all hypnotized and walk around like a zombie going ‘alahu akhbar.”” He’s all, “don’t be surprised if you wake up one morning with a towel wrapped around your head and a bomb strapped to your chest and the S.W.A.T team snipers have to take you down in the 7-11 parking lot.” He’s got me so crazy it takes hours for the Ativan to kick in. Is this paranoia or fact?

Scared,

Megiddo, Ohio.

Dear Scared,

It is paranoia. The mosque is a plot, but not against America. It is a desperate attempt by two struggling New York real estate hustlers to scam billions out of the doddering Wahabists who rule Saudi Arabia. They are wrapping themselves in the Koran and the Constitution at the same time. They face Mecca and rattle the rhetorical sabers against the West, while preaching “interfaith dialogue” and the First Amendment in New York. They were close to cashing in when the vengeful God of the Internet, Google be praised, rose against them.

Mosque leader Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf might be the first Sufi slumlord in the history of Islam. He’s the prodigal son of an Imam who raised millions thirty years ago to build the Islamic Cultural Center on Upper East Side of Manhattan. The business model was simple: promise to spread Islam or “Dawa” and the money would roll in. But Rauf eschewed the family trade, getting a physics degree from Columbia, teaching high school, selling insurance and real estate with little success, before declaring himself an “Imam.” He developed a profitable line in the American-Muslim “outreach” and “reconciliation” business. Became an Ambassador of Good Will for the State Department, lecturing, writing–explaining us to them and them to us. The few anti-American remarks he made in the aftermath of 9/11 were understood as a way to maintain his street cred with “them” so he could convince them to like “us.”

Like any ambitious immigrant Rauf speculated in real estate. He bought “affordable housing”, formerly known as “tenements”, at bargain prices. He used his political connections in New Jersey to get “Section 8″ status where the federal government subsidized a portion of the rent, thereby guaranteeing him an income on a minimal investment.

But Rauf failed to maintain his buildings. Tenants complained of rats, bedbugs, vermin, heating and electrical problems, hazardous structural defects. One tenant accused him of being “greedy and only caring about the money.” Another told the Sunday Record that Rauf “doesn’t respect us because we’re non-Muslim.”

Defending lawsuits and bringing tenements up to Code is an expensive proposition. Imam Rauf was stuck with a lot of real estate he couldn’t even sell at a loss.

Enter Sharif el Gamal. Son of an Egyptian immigrant, el Gamal is what New Yorkers call a “knockaround guy.” He knocked around the East Side bar scene in his early life, waiting tables at hot spots, Michael Jordan’s and Serafina, picking up arrests for disorderly conduct and petit larceny until he and his brother Sami discovered the real estate grift. They rented apartments they didn’t represent, collecting deposits they never returned. There were complaints, but the mill of justice ground exceeding slow, giving them time to go to Florida and pick up more residential properties with the help of silent partner, Nour Moussa, nephew of Amr Moussa, Secretary-General of the Arab League. There they continued their thuggish ways, facing court actions for tax delinquency, non-payment of loans and assaulting a tenant.

Back in New York, el Gamal amassed what the Huffington Post called a “modest” real estate portfolio worth over $50 million. When a distressed widow put up 51 Park Place for sale he snapped it up at the bargain price of $4.6 million.

El Gamal told the seller he was thinking about renovating and putting in condos. But that would require millions of up front investment and in the volatile real estate market might take years to show a profit.

A mosque would be an instant windfall. The location, so close to Ground Zero, would be very compelling to orthodox Muslims who wanted to, in the words of Imam Rauf, send out a “call to prayer from the world trade center rubble.” It would have non-profit , tax-exempt status. Money could be raised from donations or from a technique of Sharia banking whereby a bank buys a building for cash and then sells it back in installments to the original seller. Imam Rauf and el Gamal would control $100 million with no oversight from donors. They could take a fee out of every construction contract. They could form companies to do the renovation themselves. The profit potential is dazzling.

Now protests and publicity have put their plans on hold. The NY Post reports that el Gamal owes $229,000 in taxes on the building and faces foreclosure if he doesn’t pay.

Yes, there is an Islamic plot to “enter the crumbling house of the West and hasten its destruction.” But there was also a Communist plot to infiltrate the American government and cause its downfall. And a John Birch plot to take control of the Republican Party. And a behavioral economist plot to prod and coax and nudge you into doing what some academic careerist thinks is best for you.

You should be concerned about the plot by Mega Capital to control your economic life and thus your mind and eventually your spirit. The lords of finance and their Washington lackeys have rigged the system to reduce you to a state of slavering subservience, working for starvation wages, lining up for government handouts. They have made it impossible for you borrow to start a business, get a mortgage to buy property, even have a savings account that pays a paltry 4% a year. In their zeal for “productivity” they have shrunk the labor market through outsourcing and automation. If you’re not working you’re counting the weeks until your unemployment runs out as you despair of ever finding a job again. If you have a job you are probably working twelve hours a day with no overtime just to keep it. You’re afraid to take sick days or ask for a raise or better conditions. You can be fired on a whim.

Turn off that talk radio, Scared. Flush your meds. Join with your brothers and sisters to overthrow the theocrats and plutocrats, the technocrats and bureaucrats who are plotting against you.

But first, throw your cousin Fred out of the house.

Your friend,

Igor

NEXT: DRAFTED: THE PHYSICAL

Dear Igor,

When the upcoming terrorist trials were announced my husband Todd rented a back hoe and started digging an underground bunker in our front yard. He’s down there now, about sixty feet underground, and won’t even come up for cuddles. Todd says the trials are the first step in the terrorist takeover of our country. That Obama is a sleeper agent of Al Qaeda, charged with sowing discord and confusion and leading to the dismantling of democratic institutions in the name of security, forced conversion to Islam and imposition of Sharia on the US. Is this paranoia or fact?

Sara P.
Anchorage, Alaska.

Dear Sara,

This is paranoia with a germ of fact. Obama is not an agent of Al Qaeda. But he is a dupe. The naivete of his administration is matched only by its serene self-assurance. They are like the chess player who makes a move without considering his opponent’s response.

Look for three unintended consequences of the trials.

1. SECURITY. The NYPD will establish a security perimeter around the courthouse. Within this perimeter it will be discovered that there are hundreds of Arab, South Asian and African Muslims selling halal food, souvenirs and clothing. Millions of man hours and hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent vetting each of these individuals and a number of them will be questioned because of association with mosques, imams and/or organizations on the watch list. There will be an outcry from the Muslim community. Ethnic profiling will be alleged, lawsuits commenced, predictable positions taken on both sides of the issue. In the end the US will be made to look like the polarized polity that it is fast becoming.

All employees of the NYPD, Corrections Department and Federal Marshall service will be checked. Muslim officers will object, saying they are being singled out, their loyalty questioned. In addition the net will drag up compromising information on all employees. Harassment and invasion of privacy will be alleged. Unions will threaten job actions and litigation.

2. THE JURY. It will not be possible for these men to tried by a “jury of their peers.” No normal person would expose him/herself to the inconvenient and perhaps hazardous interruption of their life for months. Not to mention the danger it might pose to their families when (not if, because it will happen) their identities are revealed. Only those with a secret agenda will vie to be accepted—zealots of both persuasions, publicity seekers who will try to profit from their jury service and, last but most troubling, possible terrorist moles. It would only take one recalcitrant juror to force a mistrial, which would be a huge propaganda victory for the enemy. The prosecution, fully aware of this, will try to impanel a foolproof jury. Everybody in the pool will be secretly vetted by the FBI. When (not if, because it will happen) this is disclosed there will be the inevitable reaction. The eventual jury, no matter how diverse, will be labeled as “stacked.” Its decision, no matter how carefully deliberated, will be seen as “fixed” by most of the world. Obama’s intention to show that the US is a nation of laws will backfire.

3. A SENSATIONAL OUTBURST. Terrorists are master manipulators of the media. This trial will give them the opportunity to take the world stage. Condemning the US is old news. They know they’ll need something sensational to dominate the news cycle. Look for one of the defendants, maybe KSM himself, to rise in open court and declare:

“I must clear my conscience. I was recruited, paid and trained by the CIA and Mossad to carry out this operation. The intent was to cause world outrage and justify launching the war against Islam and the invasion of Iraq. I was never waterboarded or tortured in any way. On the contrary I have lived in luxury since my alleged arrest and have been told that the CIA and Mossad will provide plastic surgery, millions of dollars and a new identity for me once this travesty is over.”

This cynical confession will ignite an explosion of controversy. There will be violent protests against the US, Israel and the so-called moderate Arab nations that will be seen to have been complicit. Tens of thousands of demonstrators will descend upon the Federal Court Building. New York will suffer paralytic gridlock.

The terrorists know that the first blow is the one that impacts global consciousness. Neither the US nor Israel nor the Saudis will be able to successfully disprove this lie. Tens of millions will be added to the millions who already believe that 9/11 was a US-Israeli plot.

Todd is right, Sara. An ordeal lies ahead. My advice is to keep a low profile. Do not say or do anything to draw attention to yourself. Stay in Anchorage where you’ll be safe.

Your friend,
Igor

Dear Igor,

Ahmed, my IT consultant, tells me that Jewish settlers are sending herds of wild pigs into Muslim East Jerusalem to terrorize the population and drive them from their homes. Is this Paranoia or Fact?
Arthur Treifler
Jambonia, Ohio

Dear Mr. Treifler,

This is fact.

But first a little background. The pig is an unclean animal to both Hebrews and Muslims, and has thus been a potent psychological weapon in their millennial struggle for control of Jerusalem. As far back as 586 BC it was a tradition for every conqueror of Jerusalem to let pigs rut among the sacred scrolls and artifacts of Solomon’s Temple. In 170 BC when the Seleucid King Antiochus Epiphanes put down the revolt of the Maccabees, he slaughtered a wild boar on the altar of the temple and demanded that the Hebrew soldiers eat it. They refused to do so without duck sauce and he had their hands, feet and tongues chopped off; then he scalped them and burnt them alive. In 70 AD, Roman soldiers besieging the fort of Masada during The Second Jewish Revolt roasted pigs on the backs of their catapults in history’s first recorded tailgate party. Driven mad by the smell of forbidden barbecue the starving Zealots committed mass suicide.

Muslims, too, have been victimized by what is known by scholars as The Porcine Paradox. The Koran states that Shaidi (jihadi martyrs) will ascend to paradise as soon as they have completed their task. But no Muslim who has any contact with a pig will be allowed through the gates of heaven.

As the ultimate insult, Russian troops wrapped the bodies of the Chechen rebels slain in the 2004 Beslan hostage crisis in pig skins.

In 1911, American General John “Black Jack” Pershing was fighting a force of juramentados or Moro Muslim rebels in the Phillippines. Informed of their pig taboo, he buried their dead in mass graves next to the carcasses of slaughtered pigs. Then, he beheaded the Moro leaders and wrapped the severed heads in pig skins, which he displayed on pikes outside his headquarters. Fearing for their souls many of the juramentados withdrew from the battle. But they were speedily replaced by a force known as amucks who didn’t care what happened to them as long as they killed some Yanquis.

Pig references abound in contemporary Muslim journalism. In an instructional DVD that has just gone platinum in the Arab world Jews are referred to a “sons of pigs and monkeys.”

Jews are also forbidden to have any contact with pigs. But an obscure cult known as the Chazerim has received a Kabbalistic dispensation from Madonna and Posh Spice, and has begun sneaking pigs into East Jerusalem.

They arrive early in the morning with the pigs hidden in minivans. With their long black coats, sidelocks and high fur hats they blend in easily with the Arab population. At nightfall they open their tailgates and the pigs running squealing down the narrow, winding streets, desecrating everything they touch. The residents must perform complicated rituals to cleanse themselves and their possessions.

Because of the prohibition against contact with pigs the East Jerusalemites have been unable to retaliate in kind against the equally porcinophobic Jews. Instead, they have sent crazed bulldozer drivers and female suicide bombers into West Jerusalem to terrorize the population and drive them from their homes.