Posted on 07/29/2007 8:22:43 AM PDT by jazusamo
Sunday, July 29, 2007
FBI agents and other federal, state and local law enforcement officials gathered this past week to mark the end of Robert Jordan's 27-year career in the FBI.
Since 2003, he's been the special agent in charge of the FBI's Portland office. It's not an easy job in the best circumstances, and post-9/11 Portland is not the best of circumstances. By almost all accounts, however, Jordan handled the post with exceptional skill, commitment and success.
But that certainly wasn't the view of one individual whose parting shot at Jordan received far more notice than Jordan's retirement-lunch testimonials. Shahriar Ahmed is the president of the Beaverton's Bilal Mosque. Here's what he told The Oregonian last month after Jordan announced he was retiring:
"What I find missing is an outreach, an honest outreach to the general Muslim community so that there is a genuine feeling of being involved and being consulted and being trusted to be the additional eyes and ears that are out there looking for issues."
I don't think this a fair criticism. Jordan saw to it that he or his second-in-command attended the regular meetings between Oregon's law enforcement and Arab-Muslim community. In fact, he also invited Muslim groups that had not previously attended to join the Arab Muslim Police Advisory Committee (AMPAC). He offered to speak at any Oregon mosque that would have him and spoke at Portland's Riswan Mosque several times and Bilal twice. But it hardly matters whether Ahmed's criticism is fair or foul. Why? Because it's impossible to get beyond the man who had the gall to lodge this criticism of Jordan.
Ahmed isn't exactly the go-to guy on trust, honesty and genuine consultation between the law enforcement and the Islamic community. And we know this because of the investigative work of Robert Jordan.
I wrote about the strange case of Shahriar Ahmed and his son Shehab in November 2005 (A copy is at http://blog.oregonlive.com/oregonianopinion/). In March of that year, the pair hit a few local television stations to express their outrage that Shehab supposedly had been mistreated by an airline. Shehab had been trying to come home from UCLA for spring break but was not allowed on a flight because, they claimed, he was on an FBI terror watch list. "To know that the government puts me on the list as bin Laden and whatnot . . . that's scary," Shehab told a KGW television reporter.
Dad was more upset. He fumed about "this atmosphere that you can do anything to Muslims and nothing's going to happen." He then took his complaint before AMPAC, storming out after abusing a Transportation Security Administration official.
Jordan had sought him out when he arrived to head the FBI here, because Shahriar Ahmed was known as a moderate Muslim and bridge builder. So Jordan immediately tried to find out what had happened to Shahriar's son at the Los Angeles airport.
What really happened was this: Ahmed arrived late for his flight. When he tried to book another flight, there was a momentary problem. Shehab's name matched a name on the terror list. The ticket agent asked for ID, and the kid was allowed on the next flight home. That's it. He wasn't on any terror watch list. He wasn't kept off any plane.
There was no government report of the incident, because no government agency got involved. The only incident reports were on Shehab's blog. One, titled "Apparently I'm on the FBI Watchlist," described his late arrival at LAX and the ensuing problem: "Once everything had worked out, I called my dad to inform him . . . what went on. Instead of getting the expected response of 'what? Seriously? Are you OK? What happened? Etc.' My dad was like 'great, I'll call my contacts at Channel 8 and 6 and see what we can get.' Once I finally arrived in Portland . . . Channel 8 had come to interview me on my harrowing tale of adversity and victimization.
"To my surprise, my pathetic terrorist story was the Top Story on Channel 8 on Wednesday, this just shows how absolutely pathetic the news in Oregon is . . . ."
Jordan was not amused. This wasn't his idea of honest dialogue between a member the Islamic community and law enforcement. He confronted Shahriar Ahmed with the facts and Shehab's blog postings. He asked the Bilal Mosque president to fix this with the media and AMPAC.
Shahriar Ahmed did nothing for months. Only when I rang him up did he rouse himself to action. He hustled down to The Oregonian to offer a less than compelling explanation and say he wanted to make amends.
"It would be easy -- even tempting -- to write this up as the tale of a victimization hustler exposed, a Muslim American Al Sharpton," I wrote last November. "But I can't do that."
I wonder now if I was just one more journalist taken in by Shahriar Ahmed's charm and patter. I'm told his follow-up before AMPAC was halfhearted at best. And then, he took the occasion of Jordan's retirement to trash the departing agent's "commitment to honest outreach to the Muslim community" and bemoan a perceived lack of "trust" on Jordan's part.
Literally unbelievable.
Given his own well-documented antics, Shahriar Ahmed should be embarrassed to comment on anyone's honesty and trust. Much less Robert Jordan's.
Not really. People like Shahriar Ahmed are not interested in honesty and trust with the infidel, anyway. The want advantage.
They want advantage.
(sorry)
Yes, they are on the alert for any incident they think they can use to their advantage, just as Jackson and Sharpton do.
Exactly. Plus one has to wonder if they want to make it easier and flights more accessible for terrorists the next time they strike.
Agreed and I believe that may be happening in many areas.
They’re living in an alternate reality out there.
darn!
I was just getting the hang of “the want advantage”, as a concept, and come to find out it’s just a tack in the sail.
Please, continue.
We allow our enemies to hit below the belt, just as some of our enemies live inside the belt.
We should treat them all the same. No means no.
No lying. No stealing. No convenient killings. No large-scale shoe-polishing corporate cover-ups.
The importance of being able to distinguish right from wrong, good from evil, is a highly valued commodity, likely due to it's scarcity.
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