Posted on 05/29/2002 4:48:58 AM PDT by kattracks
You might think there's no shortage of Muslims in America, but the State Department is squandering $500,000 in taxpayer money to import foreign Islamic "clerics." Experts on the Middle East worry that terrorists will exploit the program.
The scheme will also send American clerics to Muslim areas abroad. The whiz kids in the mind-numbing bowels of Foggy Bottom will award grants to groups establishing programs that supposedly "enhance understanding about the place of Islam in American society."
"The new program comes at a time when anti-U.S. sentiment appears high in Muslim countries and officials fear future terrorist attacks from Muslim extremists," the Washington Post noted today.
Daniel Pipes, director of Middle East Forum, pointed to Muslim extremist groups that have used educational organizations and "charities" as fronts for money laundering and other crimes.
"There is a real danger that this will fall in the wrong hands, and the State Department will give this program to the same sort of people that the government has turned to over and over again - people in the Muslim leadership who are more on bin Laden's side than ours," Pipes said.
Hedieh Mirahmadi of Islamic Supreme Council of America said her group was interested in the program, but even it had worries.
"If we want them to come and enjoy the American experience, we have to be careful about who is bringing them and what they are learning," Mirahmadi told the Post.
However, the State Department, as usual, seems more interested in political correctness than preventing terrorism.
"We've found in the past that this type of exchange can be very effective in breaking down stereotypes," gushed Stephen Hart, deputy assistant secretary for professional exchanges in State's Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Sorry that your Bosnian friends are suffering because of the hatefulness of Wahabbist Islamics, but America simply does not have the time -- nor the inclination, right now -- to seperate the 'good' muslims from the other 80%.
Aren't those really Albanians?
No calls for any heads? Maybe we don't deserve to prevail.
To put a twist on Wayne LaPierre's words: " It's almost as if the State Department wants to further terrorism in the U.S. for its own political gains. "
My thoughts exactly.
It's more than a danger -- it's a certainty. The State Department is already coordinating its efforts on a multi-million dollar "PR campaign" to improve America's image in Muslim countries -- with the terrorism-supporting CAIR. They will probably wind up re-importing the Imam from the D.C. Mosque who condemned America after 9/11, and then fled to Saudi Arabia.
I think we should change the "war on terror" to the "war on America -- by America."
"...The scheme will also send American clerics to Muslim areas abroad...:"********************
If so, it won't be Christian clerics, it will be American Moslem clerics.
No Moslem country would give official blessing to a visit by Christian clerics.
Does anyone else besides me think this is treason ( I mean objectively without a declaration of war it can't be treason under the constitution)?- weikel********************
See my Post #33.
# 34 by The Ghost of Richard Nixon
Rregardless of any Declaration of War, the militant Moslems are self-proclaimed enemies of the United States. To offer aid in helping Americans "understand" why we deserve to be hated could qualify as treason. To risk allowing not just terrorists, but terrorist leaders (clerics), into the country makes no sense.
I doubt it would stand up in court, but:
Article 3, Section 3, Clause 1:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
In mid-2000 a friend of mine compared this possible scenario to the Peter Seller's movie Being There.
I hadn't thought of the comparison in quite a while, but your reference to feeling trapped in a movie jarred loose my memory of his comparison. I think his comparison stands as apt.
If you haven't read them yet, you might enjoy freeper RLK's political commentaries available at this link. One of the prevailing themes in his work deals with how our world today resembles what would have been a dsytopian nightmare to any sane U.S. citizen of 40 years ago.
It already has.
The State Department.
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