All Hat and No Cattle

I see where a Dearborn attorney, Majed Moughni, who is Muslim, has written a letter to the Press & Guide criticizing CAIR-MI’s recent federal lawsuit over a woman being ordered by a Wayne County judge to remove her headscarf in court as “frivolous.” (“Disappointed with CAIR”).

According to Moughni, the judge, William Callahan, “is one of the most respected, knowledgeable, and fairest judges,” and “has never shown any discrimination and he has never requested that any Muslim women remove their hijab.”

Further, Moughni described the woman’s, Raneen Albaghdady’s, overall dress as “not the religious hijab” but “more of a fashion statement.”

From the video, it appeared most of Mrs. Albagdady’s hair was exposed. She had a scarf placed on top of her well-styled hairdo. This is not hijab in any way, shape or form. Hijab is the covering of body parts, (including the hair, neck, arms, legs, and private parts) so as not to attract the attention of men.Mrs. Albagdady’s dress is in contradiction to hijab as it attracts attention and is more of a fashion statement as opposed to a religious garb.

Moughini, who describes CAIR as an organization of “high caliber,” (Eek!), thinks this whole thing makes the Muslim community look bad.

Dawud Walid, CAIR-MI’s fearless leader, responded with a letter of his own (“CAIR-MI director rejects label of 'frivolous' in regard to suit over hijab”), saying that Moughini isn’t the “hijab police.”

Besides, writes Dawud, how can you call this lawsuit “frivolous” when “Michigan Civil Rights Commissioner Attorney Nabih Ayad” is the one who filed it? You may remember Ayad as one of the lawyers who sued to keep the government from wiretapping international calls from terrorists.

It doesn’t matter. This lawsuit was DOA as soon as Ayad filed it. Ms. Albagdady willingly removed her headscarf when ordered to by Judge Callahan, stating “OK, it doesn't matter.” Callahan's office quite reasonably claimed he had no idea there was any religious purpose in the headscarf.

Not that this stopped Ms. Albagdady, who came to America from Saddam’s Iraq, from declaring a few weeks later that the whole experience left her “terrified” and “humiliated.”

She told a news conference in August “she was intimidated by Callahan and feared she would be arrested if she refused to remove her hijab. 'I come from a country where you can't say no to a judge in a courtroom,' she said. "

Moughni says Ms. Albagdady didn’t look so intimidated later in the hearing when she was arguing with the judge about the cost of filing her case. (“Dearborn attorney backs judge in woman's suit over hijab”)

Nor is it a sign of intimidation to drop a lawsuit on the circuit court judge you claim to be so scared of.

I don’t know if it’s the leopard print hair wrap or the Mediterranean cougar ‘tude but I know I'd think twice about cutting off this lady’s cart at Wal-Mart.

Ayad practically admitted that this whole thing is just for show, anyway, a tactic in a battle to force the Michigan Supreme Court to relent on its ruling that allows judges to order women to remove face veils in court.

Albaghdady appeared before Callahan the day before the state Supreme Court approved the rule. Her lawsuit does not challenge it or address the issue of face veils, said her attorney, Nabih Ayad.

"That's for a later case," he said.

Right.

America Calls Retreat

Steven Emerson gave a chilling interview to Bill Bennett this past week about the unraveling of eight years of the American war against radical Islamic jihad.

You can listen to it here.

FBI Takes One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

From the Investigative Project on Terrorism:

FBI Replaces Brotherhood-Tainted Liaison with Brotherhood-Tainted Liaison

IPT News
June 25, 2009

A top FBI official met Wednesday with the vice president of the Islamic Society of North America, a move which followed the Bureau's decision "to use ISNA as their official point of contact with the American Muslim community," an email from an intelligence community veteran that was widely distributed Wednesday said.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) has previously reported on the depth of ISNA's Muslim Brotherhood ties.

The FBI has not yet commented on the claim. But the IPT has confirmed that the meeting did take place at FBI headquarters. The decision to make ISNA the FBI's contact point came over the objections of case agents and supervisors investigating Muslim Brotherhood activity in the U.S.

Last year, the FBI cut off outreach communication with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), after evidence in the Hamas-support trial against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) raised questions "whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS." The FBI's case agent testified that CAIR was a Hamas front.

Like CAIR, ISNA was an unindicted co-conspirator in the HLF trial. It is listed among "who are and/or were members of the US Muslim Brotherhood." Jamal Badawi, an ISNA board member, also was named as an unindicted co-conspirator, listed among people who raised money for HLF.

The evidence involving ISNA, however, was not as deep as it was with CAIR. In CAIR's case, its founders are included on a telephone list for members of a secret Hamas support network in the U.S. created by the Muslim Brotherhood. And they participated in a 1993 meeting of Hamas members and supporters called to discuss ways to thwart U.S.-led peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians.

In that weekend-long meeting, CAIR co-founder Omar Ahmad discussed ways to mislead Americans about their goals and ideology. Executive Director Nihad Awad discussed media strategies to help the cause.

In the evidence admitted by the court, ISNA officials were not named among members of the Hamas support network, called the Palestine Committee. But FBI investigative records show it held a significant role in the Brotherhood's U.S. activities. According to an FBI memorandum from the 1980s obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, past "ISNA conferences provided opportunities for the extreme fundamentalist Muslims to meet with their supporters ... The annual conferences are used for both religious and political purposes. The political purpose is to further the Islamic Revolution, which includes providing anti-U.S. and Israel publications and publications that support the war effort of Iran in the Iran-Iraq war."

The Brotherhood is an 80-year-old Egyptian movement which seeks to spread the rule of Shariah, or Islamic law, throughout the world. But some top FBI officials are not convinced the Brotherhood is a problem, a law enforcement source said Thursday. This, despite the fact that FBI investigation has uncovered documents showing the U.S. Brotherhood's goal is "a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

The problem, the source said, is too many FBI officials have developed friendly individual relationships with the leadership of groups like ISNA. "As an FBI agent, we use facts and evidence and truth to base our decisions and not because we went to dinner with someone."

ISNA's roots in the Brotherhood are clearly established. Internal Muslim Brotherhood records in evidence the HLF trial show ISNA was created by Muslim Brotherhood members in the U.S. who had been leaders of the Muslim Students Association. In addition, the Chicago Tribune and federal prosecutors in Dallas have documented the link.

"Numerous exhibits were entered into evidence establishing both ISNA's and NAIT's [the North American Islamic Trust, an ISNA subsidiary] intimate relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestine Committee, and the defendants in this case," prosecutors wrote in July 2008.

Sami Al-Arian, an admitted Palestinian Islamic Jihad supporter, acknowledged in an affidavit that he was directly involved with the Brotherhood in 1981, the year he claims to have been among ISNA's founders.

ISNA has never come clean on its Brotherhood connection. In a statement issued in the fall of 2007, it ignored the documents in evidence and claimed it "never was, and is not now, affiliated with or influenced by any international organizations including the Muslim Brotherhood."

In its service, ISNA rallied to the defense of Hamas political leader Mousa Abu Marzook following his arrest by U.S. authorities pending an Israeli warrant. After he was deported to Jordan, Marzook included ISNA among those he thanked for supporting him through his "ordeal." Marzook wrote that ISNA's efforts had "consoled" him.

Meanwhile, ISNA's annual convention is scheduled to begin July 2 in Washington, D.C. This year's conference could have the largest representation of government agencies in the group's history. The FBI and the departments of Justice, State and Homeland Security all are sponsoring information booths and may have speakers in formal programs.

The conference also will feature speakers from other groups rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood. Among them, CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad, spokesman Ibrahim Hooper and former Muslim American Society (MAS) President Esam Omeish and MAS-Freedom Director Mahdi Bray.

The depth of this outreach, especially the FBI's decision to make ISNA its contact to American Muslims, raises a host of troubling questions. ISNA's denials of its Brotherhood roots ring hollow in the face of the public record.

In light of these documented connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and recent controversial statements, the FBI should explain publicly why it is embracing ISNA.

Big Government, Big Health, Big Spending—Why Not Big Muslim?

The president said the United States and other parts of the Western world “have to educate ourselves more effectively on Islam.”

“And one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we’d be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world,” Mr. Obama said. “And so there’s got to be a better dialogue and a better understanding between the two peoples.” (“Obama Says U.S. Could Be Seen as a Muslim Country,Too”)

President Obama could do well by educating himself a bit more effectively about Islam, starting with something easy like getting his numbers straight.

Andy McCarthy takes a closer look at the president's “largest Muslim countries” claim:

Mind you, the total number of Muslims in the U.S. is a subject of intense debate (CAIR, for example, argues for a figure above 6 million because it wants the Muslim population to be thought greater than the Jewish population). The probability, though, is that there are no more than about 3 million Muslims living in the U.S. (See, e.g., this entry from Wikipedia (collecting varying estimates), and this one from Daniel Pipes in 2001, observing that the credible estimates put the figure back then at somewhere between 1.8 and — an unlikely high of — 2.8 million). This, it should be noted, does not translate into 3 million American Muslims, for many Muslims in the United States are are nationals of other countries (although, I suppose, by Justice Department standards, it would translate into approximately 6 million Muslim voters.)

By contrast, of the approximately 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, there are about 200 million Muslims in Indonesia, 196 million in India, 165 million in Pakistan, 132 million in Bangladesh, 75 million in Egypt, 64 million in Iran, 33 million in Morocco, 32 million in Algeria, 31 million in Afghanistan, 26 million in Iraq, 25 million in Ethiopia, 24 million in Saudi Arabia, 20 million in China, and 15 million in Russia, to name just a few countries. In fact, there are 2 to 3 times as many Muslims in Burkina Faso (approx. 7.5 million) as there are in America. So obviously, one can see why the president would say the United States is "one of the largest Muslim countries in
the world."

CAIR-FBI Breakup Leading to Some Hard Feelings

From the looks of it, the FBI’s breakup with CAIR is leading to some sour grapes.

Last month, 10 U.S. Muslim organizations in California, including CAIR and the Muslim Students Association, “threatened . . . to cease working with the FBI, citing ‘McCarthy-era tactics’ by the agency, including efforts to covertly infiltrate California mosques.”

The issue was the arrest and indictment of Afghan native, Ahmadullah Niazi, who was arrested during a raid in February, and supposedly offered a chance by an FBI agent to become an informant. Niazi refused, and now says his arrest was retaliation for his refusal to cooperate.

According to the CNN report, “FBI planting spies in U.S. mosques, Muslim groups say”:

Niazi, 34, was indicted last month on charges of perjury, procuring naturalization unlawfully, using a passport procured by fraud and making false statements. A search warrant for Niazi's Tustin, California, home said Niazi became a naturalized citizen in 2004 and made false statements about his past aliases and international travel.

He also made false statements about contact with his brother-in-law Amin ul-Haq, the indictment said. Ul-Haq is said to be Osama bin Laden's security coordinator and has been labeled a "specially designated global terrorist" by the U.S. government, the indictment said.

An FBI agent said in open court that Niazi also had discussed terrorist plots with an undercover informant, according to media reports. Niazi has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

CAIR's problems with the FBI began before Niazi's arrest. Last year, the FBI discontinued its "formal contact" with CAIR.

By the way, these are the ten signatories:

• American Muslim Alliance
• American Muslims for Palestine
• Council on American-Islamic Relations
• Islamic Educational Center of Orange County
• Islamic Circle of North America
• Muslim Alliance in North America
• MAS Freedom
• Muslim Student Association-National
• Muslim Ummah of North America
• United Muslims of America

Then more recently, some Michigan Muslim groups have been singing from the same hymnbook. According to an AP story from last week, (“Mich. Muslim group says FBI asking people to spy”):

A Michigan Muslim organization said . . . it has asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate complaints that the FBI is asking followers of the faith to spy on Islamic leaders and worshippers.

The Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan sent a letter last week to Holder after mosques and other groups reported members of the community have been approached to monitor people coming to mosques and donations they make.

. . . .Former FBI agents and federal prosecutors have said spying on mosques is one of the government's best weapons to thwart terrorists, but agents need to have credible and specific information before sending in a plant.

And a local spokesman for the FBI has denied that the agency is involved in any “fishing expeditions.” In this case, I'm inclined to believe the FBI.

For comments the AP turned to Dawud Walid, executive director of Michigan CAIR. Walid thinks there's no basis for suspicion by the FBI. And he assures all of us that "Community members would be the first people to report to federal law enforcement if such things were being said."

Then CAIR in Minnesota has been giving the FBI flak for talking to Somali students in their investigation of the missing Somali men--suspected of being recruited and sent off to do jihad in the Middle East. (“Somalis, FBI in other U.S. cities on alert for terrorist recruiting”).

Two of the missing Somalis were students at the University of Minnesota, so, not surprising, agents have been talking to local high school and university students who may have some knowledge about the missing men. No one involved suggests that these interviews are anything but voluntary.

But, in response, “[t]he Council on American-Islamic Relations is calling on colleges to provide more legal help for students and also says students have been approached by the FBI while walking to class and in the library. Students have also received calls from investigators.” (“FBI continues questioning U students”).

As is apparent from this, none of these stories describe anything unlawful by the FBI. What the stories reflect are attempts by CAIR and their compatriots to scare the FBI into backing off on investigations from fear of negative publicity.

American Muslims Congratulate FBI for Ditching CAIR

We’re gratified to see reported at the Investigative Project on Terrorism that a coalition of American Muslims has shown support, by means of an ad in the Weekly Standard, for the FBI’s recent decision to discontinue CAIR’s favored status with the government’s leading domestic counter-terrorism agency . (“Muslim Coalition Supports FBI Freeze of CAIR”).

After stating that they “have long known the true character of CAIR and its allies,” the Center for Islamic Pluralism’s ad makes the following points about CAIR:

• We observe that they denounce “terrorism” in general terms but not the specific actions of Islamist groups like Hamas or Hezbollah. They denounce violence but not the ideologies behind it.

• We observe their commitment to radical aims, their attempts to chill free speech by calling critics of radical Islam “Islamophobes,” and their false, ugly accusations against moderate American Muslims who disagree with their agenda.

• We reject any claim that CAIR and its supporters are legitimate civil liberties advocates or appropriate partners between the U.S. government and American Muslims.

• We congratulate the FBI for adopting a firmer attitude toward CAIR, as a defense of Americans of all faiths from the menace of radical Islam, including Muslims of all backgrounds—Sunni, Shia, Sufi, secular, etc.

• We call on the U.S. Department of Justice to affirm and continue this decision.

• We call on the entire United States government to follow suit in rejecting relations with the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Read the rest, and find a link to the ad, here.

FBI Finally Wakes Up and Smells the Coffee About CAIR

We've been talking about this for a while. ("FBI Stops Returning CAIR's Phone Calls. Finally"). But here are some good points from Andrew McCarthy at NRO Online:

CAIR’s Well-Deserved Expulsion

Terrorism is only one expression of jihad — there are others as dangerous.

By Andrew C. McCarthy

A week ago, the FBI officially announced that it has cut ties with the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The self-styled civil-rights organization is characteristically squawking, but the FBI’s move was patently overdue — so much so that we ought to be asking: Why on earth did the FBI have ties with CAIR in the first place?

While we should applaud the government for finally doing the right thing, we also must seize this moment to consider why this action was necessary, and what it says about the threat we are up against.

That threat is not, essentially, about terrorism. Given the life-and-death stakes involved, it is understandable that government is preoccupied by terrorism (or what Obama’s homeland-security secretary, Janet Napolitano, absurdly calls “man-caused disasters”). But jihadist terror is merely the means to a specific end: the installation of sharia, the Islamic legal code, which Muslim fundamentalists regard as the necessary precondition for the achievement of Islam’s universalist ambitions.

Sharia should be of grave concern to us because it is antithetical to the U.S. Constitution and to our way of life. It rejects several core American propositions: that liberty cannot co-exist with an established state religion, that free people have a right to govern themselves irrespective of any religious code’s dictates, that
there should be freedom of conscience (sharia holds that apostasy from Islam is not merely a crime but a capital offense), sexual liberty (homosexuality is also a death-penalty offense), and equal protection under the law (sharia privileges Muslims over non-Muslims and men over women). Sharia, furthermore, is the rationale commonly trotted out by militants to justify the use of force (whether we call it “terrorism” or employ such sophistries as “resistance” or “man-caused disasters”) for resolving policy disputes — under the rationale that policies that do not privilege Islam constitute an attack on Islam and therefore justify jihadist violence.

Incrementally establishing sharia is the central imperative of CAIR and several other organizations to which our government has recklessly been reaching out for years, since long before the 9/11 attacks. In sum, administrations of both parties, and executive branch agencies including the FBI, have taken the position that government’s only legitimate concern is the comparatively tiny cohort of terrorists who construe Islamic scriptures to command mass-murder attacks.

Not only have we averted our eyes from the ideology that motivates jihadism. We have affirmatively anointed as Muslim “moderates” the purveyors of this ideology, who are anything but moderate.

Worse, the effect has been to empower anti-American elements at the expense of authentic Muslim moderates and reformers who crave liberty.

CAIR is an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egyptian organization founded in 1928 that today boasts divisions throughout the world. The Brotherhood has been operating in the United States since the 1960s in a manner fully consistent with its motto: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Quran is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” Its website makes no bones about the fact that it seeks “the introduction of the Islamic Shariah as the basis for controlling the affairs of state and society.”

Last year, the government won convictions in a terrorism-financing trial that targeted an ostensible Islamic charity, the Holy Land Foundation, along with several of its top operatives. CAIR has complained long and loud because prosecutors identified it as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case. Its argument that this was a smear is specious. The issue is not whether the government named CAIR on a list disseminated pretrial; what’s germane is the basis for that listing. The government richly supported its assertion with evidence, and no citizen or organization has a right to expunge that which is proved in the public’s courts.

At trial, the jury was treated to a 1991 Brotherhood memorandum that described the organization’s “work in America” as “a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers, so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” CAIR has been the linchpin of that strategy.

Some history is in order. In 1987, the Brotherhood had established Hamas (or “the Islamic Resistance Movement,” as it describes itself). As its charter professes, Hamas is one of the wings of Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine. Muslim Brotherhood Movement is a universal organization which constitutes the largest Islamic movement in modern times. It is characterized by its deep understanding, accurate comprehension and its complete embrace of all Islamic concepts of all aspects of life, culture, creed, politics, economics, education, society, justice and judgment, the spreading of Islam, education, art, information, science of the occult and conversion to Islam.

In a memorandum filed in a Texas federal court, prosecutors further elaborated that, through the early 1990s, “the Muslim Brotherhood was controlled by Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood members, and the leader of the U.S.-Muslim Brotherhood was Mousa Abu Marzook, who in 1989 was selected to be the leader of HAMAS, a position that he held while residing in the United States and controlling the U.S.-Muslim Brotherhood.” To support Hamas, the Brotherhood established a “Palestine Committee” in the United States.

Marzook (deported in 1995, he is currently wanted on a U.S. terrorism indictment in Chicago) led the Palestine Committee. One of its most important members was Omar Ahmad, who became president of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), which Marzook had formed years earlier. In 1993, the Palestine Committee convened a meeting in Philadelphia to plot a strategy for destroying the Oslo Accords’ vision of a two-state solution — Palestine peacefully co-existing with Israel, which Hamas
is pledged to destroy. The meeting was secretly surveilled by the FBI, which caught Ahmad conversing with Nihad Awad, the IAP’s public-relations director, about strategies for deceiving Americans about their true intentions.

Less than a year later, Ahmad and Awad formed CAIR. The Holy Land Foundation, which was ultimately shuttered by the government and finally convicted for providing millions of dollars to Hamas, contributed part of the seed money. To serve as CAIR’s communications director, Ahmad and Awad tapped Ibrahim Hooper, another IAP veteran who has publicly acknowledged that his purpose is to establish sharia as the law of the United States.

Since its founding, several CAIR officials have been convicted or deported for terrorism-related activities and for other criminal offenses. CAIR, meanwhile, has sought to undermine national security — and the FBI specifically — at every turn: frequently mounting public-relations campaigns for indicted terror suspects, vigorously opposing the Patriot Act and the surveillance of suspected al-Qaeda communications, and even distributing a “Muslim community safety kit” that discourages cooperation with the FBI.

Despite that sordid record, government officials regarded CAIR as a representative and leader of American Muslims. Our law-enforcement and national-security agencies consulted with it closely and even permitted it to indoctrinate our agents during compulsory “sensitivity training” lectures. Doing so, they raised its profile, facilitated its radical, anti-American agenda, and dispirited our allies in the Muslim community, many of whom are in the United States precisely because they don’t
want to live in the totalitarian misery the Muslim Brotherhood and its satellites would impose.

The major threat we face today is not what al-Qaeda may do to the grand structures that house our government and our institutions. It is what radical Islam is accomplishing inside those structures. Thankfully, the FBI has shown CAIR the door. But that only begins to address the problem.


— National Review’s Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute and the author of Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad (Encounter Books, 2008).

CAIR Wants Rid of a Troublesome Priest

My eye happened to fall on this little story by Detroit News Muslim Affairs Correspondent, Gregg Krupa in the back of Section A this morning. (“Broadcast angers Muslims/Leaders want radio station to stop airing comments by priest they say defame Muhammad.”).

By the way, just for fun I Googled “angers” and “Muslims” together last night to see how many hits I’d get. When it stops counting I’ll let you all know.

But I digress. Krupa’s article describes how:

Muslims and interfaith leaders in Metro Detroit are asking a local radio station owner to discontinue broadcasts in which, they say, a Coptic priest has repeatedly defamed the Prophet Muhammad over the past
year.

In an Arabic-language broadcast Wednesday on WNZK 680/690 AM,the Rev. Zakariah Boutros said the Muslim prophet Muhammad had engaged in necrophilia and gay sex, according to the Council on American Islamic Relations.

(Oh, who else but CAIR?). The priest is Father Zakaria Botros, a Coptic (an ancient Egyptian Christian church). CAIR's Dawud Walid says the claim about Mohammed is false. But then Amani Mostafa, the host of the program that aired the discussion, “Questions About Faith,” responded this way:

. . .Boutros was "reading from an Islamic text" when he said, over the air, that the Prophet Muhammad slept in the grave of a dead woman and allowed a man to kiss and caress his chest.

“I am a former Muslim,” said Mostafa, who is now Christian. “I know exactly what I am talking about. These are the things we were taught as children. We are quoting the Quran and the Hadiths, and if the Muslims have a problem with that then they have a problem with their own book.”

I have to confess to being unfamiliar with Fr. Botros before today. I checked him out and he turns out to be quite a guy. He broadcasts in Arabic on the Arabic channel al-Hayat (i.e., “Life TV”). He knows his Islamic sources backwards and forwards, and has managed to earn the title “Public Enemy #1” by Arabic newspaper, al-Insan al-Jadid. Plus, CAIR wants him off the air.

World Magazine gave Fr. Botros their “Daniel” award in 2008. Last March Raymond Ibrahim, editor of The Al-Qaeda Reader had this to say about Fr. Botros:

Botros is an unusual figure onscreen: robed, with a huge cross around his neck, he sits with both the Koran and the Bible in easy reach. Egypt’s Copts — members of one of the oldest Christian communities in the Middle East — have in many respects come to personify the demeaning Islamic institution of “dhimmitude” (which demands submissiveness from non-Muslims, in accordance with Koran 9:29). But the fiery Botros does not submit, and minces no words. He has famously made of Islam “ten demands” whose radical nature he uses to highlight Islam’s own radical demands on non-Muslims.

The result? Mass conversions to Christianity — if clandestine ones. The very public conversion of high-profile Italian journalist Magdi Allam — who was baptized by Pope Benedict in Rome on Saturday — is only the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, Islamic cleric Ahmad al-Qatani stated on al-Jazeera TV a while back that some six million Muslims convert to Christianity annually, many of them persuaded by Botros’s public ministry. More recently, al-Jazeera noted Life TV’s “unprecedented evangelical raid” on the Muslim world. (“Islam’s ‘Public Enemy #1’/Coptic priest Zakaria Botros fights fire with fire.”)

Fr. Botros challenges his listeners by presenting an Islamic teaching in the form of a question, which he then establishes by citations to the Koran and hadiths: (e.g., “Is jihad an obligation for all Muslims?”; “Are women inferior to men in Islam?”; “Did Mohammed say that adulterous female monkeys should be stoned?” “Is drinking the urine of prophets salutary according to sharia?”).

Ibrahim describes how the priest spent three years “bringing to broad public attention a scandalous — and authentic — hadith stating that women should “breastfeed” strange men with whom they must spend any amount of time. . . . by being ‘breastfed,’ the men become like ‘sons’ to the women and therefore can no longer have sexual designs on them”.

Fr. Botros then leaves the questions open for his Muslim audience, inviting anyone who cares to to call in and point out where his understanding of the sources is incorrect.

He does demand, however, that their response be based on “al-dalil we al-burhan,” — "evidence and proof,” one of his frequent refrains — not shout-downs or sophistry.

More often than not, the response from the ulema is deafening silence — which has only made Botros and Life TV more enticing to Muslim viewers. The ulema who have publicly addressed Botros’s conclusions often find themselves forced to agree with him — which has led to some amusing (and embarrassing) moments on live Arabic TV.

Which is kind of funny, in view of how this current story turns out. Krupa reports that “in an interview with The Detroit News last summer Birach promised to end the broadcasts, upon the request of interfaith Muslim, Jewish and Christian groups in Metro Detroit.” A promise made during an interview? But who makes promises to reporters during an interview? Sounds more like a negotiation.

This is where it gets funny, on several levels, though I don’t think Krupa meant it that way. The italics are mine:

Birach went so far as to put people associated with Boutros's broadcasts on conference calls with this reporter, while he berated them for allowing what some consider hate speech. "It's not right," Birach said at the time. "It's not fair to use some fake or stupid books to accuse someone's religion. Do you hear me?" But on Thursday, Birach said he had since heard from "several prominent people in the community," that what Boutros stated in the broadcasts is true. "Maybe we need to have more meetings," Birach said, referring to members of the Muslim and interfaith communities.

Maybe so. Krupa will be happy to arrange them. Better bring a radio.

FBI Stops Returning CAIR's Phone Calls. Finally.

The following story from the Investigative Project on Terrorism is welcome news, long, long, long overdue.

I wouldn’t say the FBI seeing the light about CAIR exactly proves there is a God; but it does prove that repetition of simple, glaring facts, over long periods of time, does actually get exceptionally slow (and reluctant) learners to grasp new and exciting concepts. Eventually. Sometimes.

FBI Cuts Off CAIR Over Hamas Questions

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has cut off contacts with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) amid mounting concern about the Muslim advocacy group's roots in a Hamas-support network, the Investigative Project on Terrorism has learned.

The decision to end contacts with CAIR was made quietly last summer as federal prosecutors prepared for a second trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), an Islamic charity accused of providing money and political support to the terrorist group Hamas, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

CAIR and its chairman emeritus, Omar Ahmad, were named un-indicted co-conspirators in the HLF case. Both Ahmad and CAIR's current national executive director, Nihad Awad, were revealed on government wiretaps as having been active participants in early Hamas-related organizational meetings in the United States. During testimony, FBI agent Lara Burns described CAIR as a front organization.

Hamas is a US-designated foreign terrorist organization, and it's been illegal since 1995 to provide support to it within the United States.

The decision to end contacts with CAIR is a significant policy change for the FBI. For years, the FBI worked with the national organization and its state chapters to address Muslim community concerns about the potential for hate crimes and other civil liberty violations in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist
attacks.

But critics said the FBI improperly conferred legitimacy on CAIR by meeting with its officials, even as its own investigative files contained evidence of CAIR leaders' ties to Hamas.

Please read this important article in its entirety.

We've been tracking this problem a long time, such as here, here, here, and here. The feds have been as stubborn as they can be. In fact, stupidly so. I can only imagine that this present decision, made in the nick of time before the hopeless Eric Holder becomes Attorney General, is an effort to prevent the FBI from being left completely on the outside of whatever domestic counterterrorism efforts will be left during the Obama administration.

It certainly appears that the FBI's decision was made last summer after federal proescutors lost the Holy Land Foundation case the first time. I think the prosecutors desperately tried to explain to the FBI the difficulties of convincing a jury that the bad guys are really so bad, when defendants keep showing jurors their coffee mugs from the nation's premier law enforcement agency with the "Friends Share Everything" motto on it.

I'll bet at least one prosecutor even had to be talked out of naming the FBI as an unindicted co-conspirator.

Islam's Just that Old Time Religion

Thanks to Islam in Action for this story from Broward County, Florida:

Fifty of the county’s 290-bus fleet have been chugging around area streets for the past several weeks with a message that might seem more oblique than inflammatory. Black letters on a white backdrop proclaim, “ISLAM: The Way of Life of Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad.”

The $60,000 ad was paid for by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Joe Kaufman is a writer for FrontPage Magazine and spokesperson for Americans Against Hate, who lives in Coral Springs, FL, and is trying to get the ads pulled down. “The group says the ad is misleading because it implies that Abraham, Moses and Jesus were Muslim.”

The ad certainly does imply that. And I couldn’t disbelieve it more. There’s no way that Jesus of Nazareth was a Muslim. Nor Abraham, nor Moses.

But I don’t agree that it’s misleading, necesssarily. Islam does teach that all human beings are born Muslim:

The Prophet Muhammad said, “No babe is born but upon Fitra (as a Muslim). It is his parents who make him a Jew or a Christian or a Polytheist.” (Sahih Muslim, Book 033, Number 6426).

Which proves not only that Mohammed was Allah’s Prophet, but that he was the inspiration behind the National Education Association, which also believes that every child’s worst influence is its parents.

But to return to my point, as a religious claim, even though I consider the statement about Abraham and Jesus untrue, I don’t think it’s misleading. It doesn’t misstate what Islam actually teaches, exactly. (Okay, it's somewhat misleading, but I'm trying to make a point here).

On the other hand, the truth of the statement: “Islam is a religion of peace,” is another kettle of severed heads all together. That's misleading, and qualifies as the whopper of the 21st century.

Regardless, as someone who believes that the Constitution forbids the government from weighing in on the truth or falsehood of any religious claims, I’m going to have to say that I don’t think the Broward County Transit people should take down the ads just because Jews or Christians don’t believe the message is true. The government is not in the business, in fact is forbidden, from testing the truth of religious claims.

I also wouldn’t support them pulling down Christian ads saying that Jesus is the Way the Truth, and the Life, just because Jews and Muslims don’t accept that as true, or because others find it deeply hurtful, like all those delicate suburban ACLU contributors who find it physically upsetting to think there’s a bus rolling around the inner city somewhere with a message on it that excludes them.

I’m with Kaufman all the way in wanting people reminded that CAIR is a terrorist-supporting organization, and an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case of sending millions on charity donations to Hamas. CAIR’s response to Kaufman's charge on that is typical:

“As to CAIR's alleged ties to Hamas, Ali said: ‘There is no credible evidence that that is true. Unindicted means unindicted.’”

Ooh, well played, Ali. Oh, and wouldn't “co-conspirators in contributing to Hamas” also mean “co-conspirators in contributing to Hamas”?

But I digress. The issue is religious bus advertising. And I think Kaufman is a bit off-base to rally to “send a message right to the commission that it’s not right to legitimize this organization.”

Because in this context "legitimize" only means to sell ad space for a religious message. Now, naturally, the commission is going to try to wimp out and ban all religious advertising:

"We have restrictions on cigarettes and adult entertainment, and we should eliminate religious ads hereafter,” County Commissioner Suzanne Gunzburger said at Tuesday's commission meeting. Or at least print a health warning!

My suspicion is that CAIR, as crafty as they are cagey, are placing the ads to exploit the serious--and tragic-- confusion in many black Christian communities about the relationship between Islam and the Christian gospel (namely, that they are mutually exclusive).

Many black clerics have taken to conflating disparate religions, religions that can’t rationally be admixed together, in order to increase the reach of their own private huckstering operations. (I’m not picking on blacks, nor all black clerics, many of whom are straight down the line. I simply haven’t seen anything like this among white evangelicals. When white evangelicals go off the rails, they usually rocket directly into the New Age clouds).

The usual recipe in the black religious community is a spoonful of Christianity, a few pinches of Islam, and 3 quarts of radical Democratic politics, maybe with some black liberation theology thrown in. This syncretic approach is why Baptist ministers can say that it’s time to “move beyond theology and embrace” people like Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Moving beyond theology is the only way a Baptist can embrace Farrakhan. The problem is that once a Baptist has moved beyond theology, all he has to teach his flock is a lot of incoherent gibberish.

One of my favorites examples of men of the cloth “moving beyond theology” is the Rev. William Revely. I wrote about him in December 2007:

Sure enough, he calls himself “a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement with Dr. King.” He is pastor of Holy Hope Heritage Baptist Church in Detroit, But though a Baptist he somehow straddles Christianity and radical Islam as an active supporter of the public antics of Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan.

(If you're a Christian and you think that’s not possible, Rev. Revely also supports Rev. Moon’s Unification Church, as revealed in his testimony at a Moon event last January, where “He commented that Jesus himself was not a Christian and that it is Rev. Moon’s movement that is truly bringing all peoples of faith together.”)

See what I mean? I noted the same problem here: Detroit Clergy Look Forward to Ecumaniacal Embrace of Nation of Islam and here: When it Comes to Role Models, Allah Knows Best.

Personally, I’m not sure which of the false gospel being peddled to the literacy-challenged residents of Broward County is more upsetting: the one that says Jesus was a Muslim, or the one that say Obama is the Messiah.

Dearborn's Specialty Wal-Mart Paid Back With $12M Bias Lawsuit

What is this mystical connection between Muslims and Wal-Mart? We just saw how the University of South Florida terrorists used Wal-Mart as a place to buy remote-control toy cars to turn into detonators, and Wal-Mart again as an excuse (shopping for cheap gas) to hang around US military installations. ("U of South Florida Jihadist Sentenced").

Now we see where a Dearborn man is suing Wal-Mart for $12 million for anti-Arab, anti-Muslim bias. ("Dearborn man alleges bias in Wal-Mart suit'). The man, Louay N. Kezy, worked in the stock department at the Dearborn Wal-Mart on Ford Road. The Wal-Mart that caters, oddly enough, to Dearborn's Middle Eastern community. ('Round-Up in Aisle 3').

Kezy, who describes himself in his complaint as a "Muslim Arab American," claims that he was being tormented by his fellow non-Muslim Arab American stock coworkers, causing him a hostile work environment. When he complained to management, he was first mistreated, and then fired.

This is one of those stories that will be followed up several months from now, (that is, if there's any room left by then in Detroit's much-reduced newspapers), with a 25-word news brief stating that the case was dismissed. I don't know what Wal-Mart pays their stock employees, but loss of a stock department career at Wal-Mart doesn't add up to $12 million in lost wages.

I spent several years working in employment-related discrimination law, and if there was one thing I learned it's that for every 100 people convinced they're suffering workplace discrimination, there is one genuine cases of employment discrimination. And unless you're earning a Fortune 500 salary, your prospective wage losses aren't going to be anywhere near $12 million.

I imagine Kezy's lawyer, Nabih Ayad, is just going for the big splash, and the quick touch, à la Geoff Fieger. But these days corporations are fighting back against frivolous lawsuits, and I don't think Ayad will find this so easy.

But then no less of an authority than Dawud Walid, executive director of The Council on American-Islamic Relations, phoned this in about the Wal-Mart case:

"Unfortunately, this kind of thing is not as rare as the general public might think. There is quite a bit of discrimination against Arabs and Muslims in Dearborn, even though there is a large population there."

Ho-hum.

U of South Florida Jihadist Sentenced

One of the two Egyptian students of University of South Florida, arrested in Charleston, SC in August 2007 after being pulled over with explosives in the trunk, has been sentenced by a federal judge to 15 years on Thursday, "for making a YouTube video showing would-be terrorists how to turn a remote-control toy into a bomb detonator."

U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday said the public needed to be protected from 27-year-old Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, who made the video "to empower others through his teaching to deliver death, destruction and, at the very least, panic." ("Egyptian student gets 15 years in Fla. terror case").

During the senencing hearing Prosecutor Robert Monk described the Egyptian, Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed "as a radical Muslim who hates America and 'embraces a violent and extreme ideology.'"

In the YouTube video,

Mohamed demonstrates how to convert a remote-controlled car from Wal-Mart into a bomb detonator. He speaks in Arabic, saying he wants to teach "martyrdoms" and "suiciders" how to save themselves so they can continue to fight invaders, including U.S. soldiers.

"Instead of the brethren going to, to carry out martyrdom operations, no, may God bless him, he can use the explosion tools from a distance and preserve his life ... for the real battles," he says, according to a translation in the plea agreement.

Mohamed's co-jihadist, Egyptian student Youssef Samir Megahed is awaiting trial on charges of transporting explosives and possessing a destructive device. During the traffic stop Megahed tried to explain the explosives as homemade "fireworks," and their proximity to a naval weapons station as "looking for cheap gas at a Wal-Mart station." Deputies also found the laptop containing Mohamed's video "and other files containing videos of rockets and exploding American military vehicles."

The arrests perpetuated the University of South Florida's reputation as "Jihad U," a nickname coined after an Egyptian professor, Sami Al-Arian, was charged with raising money for terrorist attacks by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. He ended up pleading guilty to one count of aiding terrorists and agreed to deportation.

Credit to Islam in Action for the story.

CAIR and Woe

Speaking of CAIR, Frank Gaffney Jr. at NRO has a few points to make about how bad things are going for that bunch right now:

The allegations about CAIR’s conduct in the Days’ affair and the guilty verdict rendered against its co-conspirators in the Holy Land case point up a central reality: In the words of a wise lawyer, shady organizations, even stealth ones, invariably engage in culpable conduct no matter how sophisticated they are because there are too many loose ends and you cannot control all of them. It appears that that is what happened with respect to the Muslim Brotherhood’s stealth jihad operatives at CAIR.

Read the rest of it here.

Dawud Walid Deals His Own Race Card

Our favorite CAIR spokesman, Dawud Walid, has written a letter to the Detroit News explaining that Ayman Al-Zawahiri’s recent speech insulting Obama as a “house slave” doesn’t “speak for Muslims.” Rather, writes Walid, “From Senegal to Indonesia, Muslims have celebrated Obama’s victory,” and view his election “as a clear sign that America has taken a big step toward the fulfillment of its principle of racial equality.” (“Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader doesn't speak for Muslims”).

As Walid explains the feelings of the world’s Muslims--the majority of whom will not be eligible for Obama’s promised middle-class tax cuts nor his health care plan--the reason they’re all so geeked about Obama is that it proves America isn’t a “racist imperial power” after all. (In retrospect, that must explain what all those riots and beheadings were about!)

Now after days of holiday overeating I can’t see grabbing hold of that old tar baby about who does or doesn’t speak for Muslims, especially to take issue with Walid, who, to hear him tell it, does speak for all Muslims.

Frankly, I don’t really care if Zawahiri or bin Laden want to say our new president (by the way, Democrats, see how easy it is to say “our new president”?) is a house negro, or want to make any other provocative racial comments about Westerners they don’t like. It’s not these guys’ racial theories that earned them a spot on our Most Wanted List. What did that would be their religious theories, according to which murdering innocent Westerners gets them in really good with their deity.

And I’m pretty sure that the election of Obama notwithstanding, that religious point of view still is a big motivator for Muslims out there. Otherwise, to take a recent example (and when it comes to Islamic rerror, there is always a recent example), the Bombay jihadists would have been searching for tourists holding racist imperialist ideas, rather than only tourists with British and American passports. (“Terrorists said `Put your hand up if you're British or American'”)

Apparently, what’s been causing all the tension between the Islamic world and the rest of us all these centuries has been our stubborn refusal to embrace the enlightened racial teachings of Islam. Enlightened teachings that right now aren’t, curiously, offering much comfort to the millions of African Muslims in Sudan who are being systematically slaughtered by their Muslim Arab brothers in Darfur. “Darfur: the genocide is Islamic racism” ” Or the Jews who were specifically targeted, (again, to take only the most recent example) by the Bombay murderers simply because they were Jewish.

The overreaction to Zawahiri’s racial comments was ludicrous, as if a fugitive terrorist “playing the race card” somehow compounds the evil of using hijacked airliners to destroy American office towers and murder thousands of innocent people. Walid may think that he can use this phony race issue to distance CAIR and its radical Islamic mission from that of al Qaeda, and to falsely paint CAIR as a civil rights group when it actually is a jihadist front, but it won’t work.

Osama bin Laden declared religious war on the USA in 1996 because he saw us as infidel crusaders, who needed our civilization destroyed and replaced with Islam.

The Pew Poll in 2006 showed there was still huge support for that amongst the world’s Muslims.

Support for terrorism: All the Muslim populations polled display a solid majority of support for Osama bin Laden. Asked whether they have confidence in him, Muslims replied positively, ranging between 8% (in Turkey) and 72% (in Nigeria). Likewise, suicide bombing is popular. Muslims who call it justified range from 13% (in Germany) to 69% (in Nigeria). These appalling numbers suggest that terrorism by Muslims has deep roots and will remain a danger for years to come. (“[Pew Poll on] How Muslims Think”).

Dawud Walid's CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood, (one and the same) have a mission in America, and it isn’t to foster our principle of racial equality. It is to further their anti-Western “’Civilization-Jihadist process... eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

Since they share bin Laden's and Zawahiri's jihadist goals of destroying America and imposing Islam, what difference does it make if Walid tries to take the high ground over this silly race-card flap?

CAIR Takes Stand Against Consciousnessness-Raising

As we noted briefly a couple weeks ago ("All One Community?"), there has been a minor kerfuffle about the distribution, as a free DVD in newspaper ad inserts, of the documentary "Obsession," a 2006 film that attempts to illustrate, according to filmmaker Raphael Shore, that "there is a war being waged against America by radical Islamic extremists."

Now the kerfuffle has become local, thought not losing its kerfuffle scale. According to Detroit News Islamic Affairs Correspondent Gregg Krupa, the DVD, "mailed to tens of thousands of households in Macomb and Oakland counties and distributed as advertising in local newspapers is being decried as bigotry by some Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders, who say it portrays radical Islam as a demonic force bent on world domination." ("Interfaith leaders call 'Obsession' DVD hateful").

Disclaimer: I haven’t managed to see this documentary, and I didn’t get the insert, because we get the Detroit News at our house. As seen in the article, both the Detroit News and Free Press decided not to distribute this piece of advertising for unstated reasons. (I’ll state them. They're afraid of being mau-maued by Dawud Walid, CAIR, and the ADC--probably with unannounced drop-in visits right before lunchtime). But I know the documentary was shown on both CNN and Fox News Channel in prime time, and I have no reason to doubt that the documentary is an informative and accurate piece of work. And my opinion includes Krupa's article, which nowhere calls into question the factual accuracy of "Obsession." [TR].

One Dearborn doctor complains about the documentary this way:

"What the movie is doing is trying to label all Muslims as supporting terrorists," said Mir Asghar of Dearborn, a doctor and a Muslim. "There is a small group of extremists, like al-Qaida and the Taliban, and we are 100 percent against them and behind all efforts against them. But we are 1.2 billion Muslims worldwide and we are a voice of moderation."

And the "interfaith" angle of the opposition sounds something like this:

Robert Bruttell, an adjunct professor of religion at the University of Detroit and a member of Interfaith Scholars, which is part of the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity & Inclusion, said, "The movie is appalling, a piece of the most blatant sort of pernicious propaganda. We have formed a task force to see what we can do to countervail against it."

Cool! A task force!

Task Force Agenda:

Idea Number One: Employ censorship tactics to countervail against Islamo-critical information.

Idea Number Two: Create a countervailing documentary, (e.g., "Islam Means 'Peace'"), richly illustrated with example after example of the numerous, unequivocal, public, denunications of Islamist terrorism by Islamic political, religious, and cultural leaders, and examples of the uniform condemnation of violent Islamist attacks from within the greater Muslim community across the globe. . . .what's that? We don't? There aren't? We can't??

OK. Then as I was saying, returning to Idea Number One. . . .

Among the "distortions" the documentary is alleged to be spreading is that "[t]he sacred Islamic principle of jihad -- a personal or community struggle against evil -- is misidentified as a commandment to Muslims to make war against the United States and Europe."

But the most interesting bit to me is this:

The Council on American Islamic Relations has asked the Federal Election Commission to investigate whether the nonprofit group that distributed it is a "front" for pro-Israel groups aiming to affect the presidential election. A liberal Jewish organization, Tikun Olam, has asked the Internal Revenue Service to review the tax-free status of the Clarion Fund, questioning whether it is independent and nonpartisan, as required of nonprofits. . . .

. . . Muslims and others point to the targeting of swing states like Michigan, Virginia and Missouri and areas like Macomb and Oakland counties by the Clarion Fund. Those critics say it is an attempt to influence the election by scaring the electorate, so voters are more likely to vote for the candidate they think will best defend national security.

Let’s think about this, because I think this is what's really going on here. The objection to “Obsession” by “Muslims and others” is that it might scare voters into voting “for the candidate they think will best defend national security.” But isn’t it a good thing to select the candidate who will better defend national security? And don’t Obama, and McCain both claim to be the better candidate to defend national security?

What’s really going on here is that the DVD--which mentions neither McCain nor Obama, Democrats nor Republicans--and which was made long before anyone knew who the party nominees would be--really is effective at raising “awareness of the threat of radical jihadism.” And on that issue there really has been a distinctive difference between the two parties on this issue both before and after 9/11, but especially after.

Which leaves this question:

Why do CAIR and the ADC care so much that voters select the president in November with a lower awareness of that threat?

Bridge to Muslims, or Bridge Club Meeting?

On last Tuesday Obama sent a couple of his staffers to Southfield, to meet with Arab Americans “to shore up support from a pivotal community in a key swing state.” (“Obama campaign meets with Arab Americans”).

But he didn’t show up himself. Never does. Obama so far hasn’t shown up to meet with a group of Michigan’s Arabs yet in person. Last year, he sent only an adviser to a conference in Dearborn of the Arab American Institute. ("The Arab American Institute's Hezbollah Shish Kebabs").

Then, when Obama addressed 20,000 supporters at Joe Louis this June, he pointedly failed to meet with local Muslims leaders. ("Obama addresses diverse Detroit crowd").

He did meet with Hezbollah-supporter Imam Qazwini of the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, but he did so secretly, miles outside of Dearborn, and well under the radar, which was easy because local media kept radar turned off anyway.

So how many Arab Americans showed up in Southfield to meet with Obama’s “high-level campaign figures” last week?

Thirty.

In southeastern Michigan. In the the Muslim capital of North America. In a banquet hall that can hold ten times that number.

Thirty. A far cry from Berlin’s 200,000 Obama-Jugend, or even the 84,000 shoehorned into Invesco Field for Barack’s coronation.

According to my calculations, the Southfield turnout makes about 15 Arab Americans per high-level campaign figure.

Looks like Obama’s bridge to the Muslim community is turning out to be a real, (sorry), bridge to nowhere.

At least the Alaskan bridge to nowhere was aimed at an island with at least 50 people on it.

According to the Arab American News, “The meeting was cut short after a limited number of questions from the group because of time constraints as [Obama foreign policy advisor] Rice scrambled to squeeze in time with women's groups during her trip to Michigan.”

Translation: the crickets were chirping at this bomb. So foreign policy advisor Ms. Rice slung her oversized purse and said, “Thanks for coming out everyone! Gotta go talk about abortion now with the real voters!”

Four years ago, when ripping out the American eagle carpet from the Oval Office was still just a glint in Michelle Obama’s eye, Barack said this during his keynote address to the Democratic National Convention:

"If there's an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It's that fundamental belief - I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper - that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. 'E pluribus unum.' Out of many, one."

The bit about the Arab roundup was pure Obama-brand horsehit, we all know. The operative word in that first-line’s bad knockoff of Henry Fonda in The Grapes of Wrath was that little preposition, “if.” As in, “if there's an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process.”

As a longtime resident of Dearborn who comes and goes to work each day through the heart of Arab East Dearborn, I am extremely touchy at casual charges that the streets of our fair city are blocked night and day with black Marias hauling off entire extended families to incognito detention, NKVD-style.

But, at least in 2004, Obama was willing to lie to get the Muslim voters to turn out for John Kerry. Media fact-checking of keynote convention speeches of non-candidates is much slacker, and Obama knew it.

Now they do check every fact, and Obama no longer has a thing to say about whole families being muscled into paddy wagons and disappeared. I wonder why?

He’s still willing to fib, that hasn’t changed. But the level of scrutiny of what he says has been heightened exponentially. He can’t just say anything now, because folks are going to check it out.

And he definitely can’t come to the capital of Muslim America, Dearborn, and makes statements about Arab American families being rounded up without attorneys or due process, because he’s talking about something that doesn’t happen, and never happened here.

Never.

And if he ever dared to say those things were happening, especially if he said it to media cameras arm in arm with Imam Qazwini or Dawud Walid, the stink wouldn’t clear up until the media---even Barack’s own private media at MSNBC and the New York Times--had finally gotten to the bottom of the whole Islamophobic “siege” myth once and for all--even if they didn’t want to get to the bottom of it.

That’s just what happens during presidential campaigns. Nowadays, when fights get picked over alleged facts, those fights don’t end till some actual facts coms out and somebody says “uncle.”

That’s why Dan Rather’s gone. That’s why John Kerry, in spite of the still continuing slander of the facts brought out by the Swift Boat Veterans, was shown up in 2004 as the opportunistic chickenshit that he was. That’s why Sarah Palin is no longer being accused of being the grandmother of her own baby, Trig.

And Obama doesn’t want the truth about the disappearing Arab families to come out, either, for the bald reason that there are no disappearing Arab American families.

But there are a lot of lying Islamic leaders who keep telling their constituents that there are.

And you know who else doesn’t want the truth of that coming out? CAIR, or the ADC, or Osama Siblani at the Arab American News.

None of them wants CNN or Frontline to do a documentary entitled “Islamophobia: Fact or Fiction?” because even two days of serious investigation, by even the most partisan reporters, will reveal what all of us in Dearborn have known all along--that the whole Islamophobic-siege thing is nothing more than a wicked slander meant to silence criticism of jihadism in America, and to intimidate law enforcement from pursuing evidence of terrorist links wherever it leads.

CAIR would be finished without the myth of Islamophobia and American Muslims under “siege,” but they need it to remain a low, throbbing drumbeat that keeps people on edge, not a splashy front-page exposé. It has to work almost unrecognized in the back of the head, without ever quite making people stop to find out where the sound is coming from. Unexamined, it keeps lots of half-informed Americans convinced they’ve actually witnessed “Islamophobia,” when they’re actually only showing symptoms of having the term repeated into their subconscious thousands of times. (The same subliminal technique has convinced 45 million Americans that they personally heard Bush say Iraq was an “imminent threat,” and makes them swear they watched the speech where he said he was deposing Saddam’s regime because “God told me to.”).

Once anyone actually examines the issue of the siege on Muslims in America, they find there’s nothing to it. So CAIR doesn’t want it examined. And as for Obama, he just doesn’t want to get busted repeating unsubstantiated CAIR talking points.

Because Obama’s under the bright lights now, he can no longer afford to say the ridiculous things he could say to the Democrat faithful in 2004. He can no longer compare himself, Tom Joad-like, with disappeared Arab American families buried deep in the Bush/Cheney gulag, because there is no gulag, and there’s no family in there to find. And he knows it. He always knew it.

And that's why his current "fact sheet,' the one that even his Arab supporters rely on, doesn’t mention a word about Islamophobia, families being rounded up, or even Arab Americans.

Instead, it cites some statistics about arrest rates for blacks and Hispanics, and prattles about another racial myth, Jena, and recaps the history of the black civil rights movement. It doesn’t even pretend to address Islamophobia, because it can’t seriously do so, and still stand up to scrutiny as a fact sheet.

So both parties have a problem. Obama can’t give CAIR and Qazwini and the other Islamist leaders what they want, which is a platform for their accusations of Islamophobia, nor will he risk his campaign to promise them that, if elected, he'll bestow on their kind law enforcement immunity under an Obama Justice Department. In return, Obama can’t see hazarding his fragile campaign for the sake of winning Arab American voters.

CAIR Tutoring of Feds Called Into Question

Feel free to bang your head against any flat surface.

From the Congressional Quarterly:

Experts Debate Efficacy of FBI Outreach to CAIR

By Rob Margetta, CQ Staff

The FBI’s outreach efforts to the Council on American-Islamic Relations have been counterproductive, according to an expert at a Senate hearing on countering violent Islamism who called the group an extension of the extremist Muslim Brotherhood.

Although other witnesses told the Senate Homeland Security panel that communication with CAIR is beneficial, Zeyno Baran, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank, said its relationship with the FBI leaves agents ill-prepared to work with the American Muslim community.

“For months now, FBI agents have been trained by CAIR to be sensitive to Muslims,” she said. “This is completely self-defeating.”

Baran said she believes CAIR was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood to influence U.S. officials, and works not as a faith group but as one with a political agenda of Islamism, a philosophy that treats Islam as a political ideology.

Furthermore, she said, the group was among those named as unindicted co-conspirators in a recent federal case that charged the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development with providing millions of dollars and logistical support to the militant group Hamas.

Baran questioned how CAIR is defining proper respect for Muslims when it advises the FBI.

“The agents are going to be misinformed and they will be overly sensitive and they will not ask certain questions,” she said. Later in the hearing, she said CAIR “does not reflect the Muslim community as a faith community, but as a political group.”

Senate Homeland ranking Republican Susan Collins of Maine said Baran’s comments conflicted with the committee’s understanding of the FBI’s outreach activities.

“In previous hearings, witnesses have generally pointed to the FBI effort as the model of outreach to the Muslim community,” she said.

When Collins asked who the FBI could work with, Baran suggested women’s groups and those “not organized based on an Islamist political issue.” But, she said, such groups have only recently emerged in Europe after “home-grown” terrorism attacks there. “We don’t have that in America at this point,” she said.

Other Viewpoints

Support for Baran’s position came from Steven Emerson, executive director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, whom the committee considered as a potential witness, although he ultimately did not appear.

In a written statement he had prepared, Emerson called the federal government’s relationship with CAIR “an almost comical situation,” considering the Department of Justice’s dealings with it in the Holy Land Foundation case.

Other radicalization experts who testified at the hearing took issue with Baran’s characterization of CAIR.

Peter P. Mandaville, associate professor of government and politics at George Mason University, said he is not familiar with the specifics of the FBI program, but the picture Baran painted of CAIR did not sound right.

“I don’t share the view that CAIR as an organization is best understood primarily as a front for the Muslim Brotherhood,” he said. “I do believe there are individuals associated with that movement who hold those views, but I think it wrong to characterize the organization in its entirety” in relation to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Fathali M. Moghaddam, professor of psychology at Georgetown University agreed, with Mandaville and added that “The FBI agents that I know . . . I don’t think they would have a problem cross-examining Muslims in any way.”

In a phone interview, CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper defended his organization’s record.

“CAIR is one of the most respected mainstream organizations in the Muslim American community,” he said. “We build bridges between the Muslim community and the law enforcement community, public officials, elected officials.”

Hooper called Baran’s comments part of a “politically motivated smear campaign” designed to hurt relations with the Muslim community and that “I have a feeling that [Baran] wouldn’t want the FBI talking to any Muslim group.”

‘Full-Spectrum’ Outreach

At a second panel in the hearing, Collins asked the person in charge of providing the situational awareness the FBI uses to do outreach, National Counterrorism Center Director Michael E. Leiter, for his opinion on the relationship with CAIR.

“I think that both outreach by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security . . . is critical,” he responded. “Understanding that there are certain groups that might have individuals with whom the U.S. government might not want to associate does not and cannot stop this government from doing the outreach that it has to do.”

Leiter pointed out that cutting back on outreach could lead to disenfranchisement of Muslims, something other witnesses had testified could actually stimulate radicalization. Federal agencies have to adapt a “full-spectrum” outreach strategy that engages with groups that disagree with U.S. policy, he said.

However, he said, the hard line is “if a group espouses violence, it’s quite clear that the U.S. government should not be associated with it.”

Rob Margetta can be reached at rmargetta@cq.com.

Sending the FBI Back to High School

Last October we mentioned a Saudi-funded K-12 school in Virgina, the Islamic Saudi Academy, whose curriculum was so radical that the school was recommended for closure by a congressional panel. ("Saudi School in Fairfax, VA Recommended for Shut Down for Possibly Teaching Jihad").

On Thursday, Erick Stakelbeck, Terror Analyst at CBNNews had these updates:

As I reported back in June 2006, this K thru 12 school--which is owned and operated by the Saudi government and sits just 14 miles from the White House--has used textbooks that vilify Jews and Christians and promote a radical Wahhabi strain of Islam. The Academy is basically an American-based extension of Saudi Arabia's educational system. No wonder, then, that The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a panel formed by Congress, last year recommended that the school be closed. That didn't happen. In fact, Fairfax County (VA) renewed the Academy's lease just last month. They can't be too happy, then, about this new report:

A federal investigation released Wednesday reveals that some Islamic textbooks are teaching kids it's okay to kill adulterers and converts from Islam.

The books have been used by the Islamic Saudi Academy, which teaches 900 students in grades K-12 at two campuses in Alexandria and Fairfax. The school receives much of its funding from the Saudi government.

Passages in their textbooks state that "the Jews conspired against Islam and its people" and that Muslims are permitted to take the lives and property of those deemed "polytheists."
The academy has come under scrutiny from critics who allege that it is teaching an intolerant brand of Islam.

Last year, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a panel formed by Congress, recommended the school be shut down out of concern it promoted violence.

"We feel more confident that the potential problems we flagged before really are there," said the commission's spokeswoman, Judith Ingram, after the content of textbooks were reviewed

In the review, the panel recommended that the school make all of its textbooks available to the State Department so changes can be made before the next school year.

School officials acknowledged that some of the Saudi textbooks contain harsh language. They say the texts have improved and are revised as needed by the academy before being distributed to students.

The commission said the texts did appear to contain numerous revisions, including pages that were removed or passages that were whited out. But numerous troubling passages remained, the panel said. Some of those passages include:

- The authors of a 12th-grade text on Koranic interpretation state that apostates (those who convert from Islam), adulterers and people who murder Muslims can be permissibly killed.

- The authors of a 12th-grade text on monotheism write that "(m)ajor polytheism makes blood and wealth permissible," meaning that a Muslim can take with impunity the life and property of someone believed guilty of polytheism. According to the panel, the strict Saudi interpretation of polytheism includes Shiite and Sufi Muslims as well as Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists.

- A social studies text offers the view that Jews were responsible for the split between Sunni and Shiite Muslims: "The cause of the discord: The Jews conspired against Islam and its people. A sly, wicked person who sinfully and deceitfully professed Islam infiltrated (the Muslims)."

More generally, the panel found that the academy textbooks hold the view that the Muslim world was strong when united under a single caliph, the Arabic language, and the Sunni creed.

The textbooks also hold that Muslims have grown weak because of foreign influence and internal divisions.
("Islamic Textbook Teaches It's OK to Kill").
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In its Report, the Religious Freedom Commission also noted other disturbing textbook passages they though needed clarification, such as:

the following explication of the Koranic phrase, “Respond to God and His Messenger when He calls you to that which will give you life.” (Q 8:24)

Although this Koranic passage does not in itself invoke the term jihad, the Saudi textbook authors write:

“In these verses is a call for jihad, which is the pinnacle of Islam. In (jihad) is life for the body; thus it is one of the most important causes of outward life. Only through force and victory over the enemies is there security and repose. Within martyrdom in the path of God (exalted and glorified is He) is a type of noble life-force that is not diminished by fear or poverty.” (Tafsir, Arabic/Sharia, 68) While there are various meanings of the term jihad, including an internal struggle of the soul, none are given in this brief discussion, which also includes an emphasis on the importance of power or force over one’s enemies and discusses “martyrdom” with approval. Such an ambiguous interpretation can be perceived as giving the verse a militant connotation, potentially justifying acts of violence, which should not be left without elucidation in a textbook that is aimed at children who are still learning the main tenets of religion.

For years US officials have tried in vain to prevail on the Saudis to moderate or reform the radical materials they've been disseminating in the the United States.

Since I'm not bound by protocols of diplomacy, I can say bluntly what our officials cannot: the Saudis don't give a damn what we ask them to do in this regard, and intend to keep pumping this stuff into their mosques and academies in America at the maximum flow we're willing to tolerate it. If Saudi oil flowed our way as fast as their jihadist hate literature, you'd be paying $1.25 for gas.

Yet, between Saudi persistence in spreading Wahhabism, and American officials fears of being accused of Islamophobia, the prospects for stopping this don't look good.

According to Counterterrorism Blog, when the Fairfax, VA Board of Supervisors voted to renew the ISA's lease last month (in spite of the Religious Freedom Commission's strong urgings to shut it down), the Supervisors said they were "satisfied that the textbooks were changed - "apparently," that is, because it commissioned a report to translate the newest version of the textbooks, but the Board refuses to release the report." ("Secret Report on Saudi School in Virginia Must Be Released").

Ye gods. Yes, I'm cynical, but to think that any aspect of American national security rests in the graft-stained hands of elected multi-culti, PC county officials!

This is not a First Amendment, freedom of religious expression issue. These schools are Saudi owned, and Saudi controlled. The Wahhabist doctrine the Saudis are planting on U.S. soil is directly linked to the Death-to-America, violent anti-Western jihadism that is our primary enemy in what we all know as the War on Terror.

We already have seen that at least one of ISA's graduates--American-born--was sufficiently influenced by this indoctrination that he dedicated himself to becoming a jihadist: "ISA's 1999 valedictorian was Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who was convicted and sentenced to prison for joining Al Qaeda and plotting to assassinate President Bush." ("Islamic Saudi Academy in Virginia: Case Study in Homegrown Radicalization")

So when I read about Fairfax County supervisors renewing the ISA's lease because it's the political path of least resistance, I can either let my blood pressure keep going up, or I can make a practical suggestion.

Here it is. If, (or since), we lack the political will, from the county level right on up to Congress and the State Department, to put our foot down and and stop this kind of thing outright, then let's at least get the full educational advantage of it.

If we can't stop the distribution of radical Wahhabist instructional materials into American mosques and Muslim academies, then let's demand that American non-Muslims, all those people being forced to endure diversity training and lectures about Muslim feelings and sensitivities, should be instructed with the same materials.

You may remember how earlier this month the head of the local CAIR chapter for Washington State was suggesting that, "Most police officers don't have a basic grounding in Islam, so before you teach them about Islam, how can you teach them about radical Islam?" ("CAIR Keeps Showing Up").

There's no arguing with that logic. If you can't get accurate instruction on Islam from textbook Saudi Arabia's religious leaders have created for their own high-schoolers (and future martyrs), then where are you going to get it? From blogs like this one? Don't make us laugh!

I have in mind that the FBI, Homeland Security, Immigration, and countless local law-enforcement agencies--all mandated to be "educated" on the true teachings of Islam--would especially benefit from reading these materials.

I'm confident that if our FBI agents had to get through the ISA's 12th grade social studies textbook, we'd suddenly be seeing successful terrorist investigations going right through the roof.