Posted on 09/16/2002 10:03:20 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
It´s fair to say that most Americans were shocked to learn that five American-born Muslims were arrested in Lackawanna, New York, accused of aiding and abetting al Qaeda. They are alleged to have traveled to Afghanistan to train in one of Osama bin Laden´s camps and are said to have actually heard him address his terror troops.
The lesson here is that, for "true believers", Islam demands total allegiance to the exclusion of all other loyalties. This is why a meeting of Muslims in England last week to celebrate 9-11 included remarks to the effect that they want to see Great Britain become an Islamic state. On the face of it, that seems idiotic, but not to the Muslim whose life is dedicated to the spread of Islam. The discord between Muslim populations residing in largely non-Muslim nations can be traced to the intent that Islam come to rule those nations.
It is too early to know any but the few facts provided in the Federal Bureau of Investigation indictment. The five men have pleaded not guilty, but there are three other unnamed defendants and it is likely that they are cooperating with the FBI. Thus, we are going to learn much more as the process of the trial proceeds. The investigation, which reportedly began before 9-11, had to have been extremely thorough given the fact that the full protection of the US Constitution will be extended these five men.
Curiously, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was silent following the arrest of the Lackawanna Five. Regarding the September 15 incident involving Miami-bound Islamic-Americans that tied up traffic on a major highway, Executive Director Altaf Ali was quick to protest, saying that the rising tide of anti-Muslim rhetoric in our society can trigger discrimination by a bigoted minority. However, after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, CAIR characterized the trial and conviction of bombing mastermind, Sheik Omar Abdul-Rahman as an "incident of bias and violence" against Muslims. Suffice it to say, so far as CAIR is concerned, no Muslim is even capable of terrorist acts and any criticism of Muslims is bigotry.
There are an estimated 2.8 million Muslims residing in the US. Their spiritual needs are ministered to in 2,000 mosques. Barely a handful of these mosques have an American born imam. The US Muslim community claims its population is six million.
It is likely that the parents of the five defendants were among the first wave of Muslims to arrive after 1965 when the barriers to immigration were dropped against those from the Middle East. Since then, as we have come to learn, it has been an easy matter for anyone from Middle Eastern or heavily Muslim Asian nations to gain access to the United States as tourists, students, businessmen or as someone seeking naturalization.
There is yet another lesson to be gained at this point. Indications are that fellow members of the US-Yemeni population in Lackawanna tipped off the FBI. While all Muslims in America are now under intense scrutiny, some are loyal to this nation.
Let us also not forget that there are upwards of eleven million illegal immigrants loose in this nation and how many of them are Muslims is anyone´s guess. In the six months following the 9-11 attack, more than 50,000 new tourist, business, and student visas were issued to non-Israeli visitors from the Middle East. In the last five years, nearly 1.5 million visitors and immigrants from fifteen nations where al Qaeda operates have been welcomed to the United States.
So, the final lesson of this latest arrest for terrorist activities is that, while we awaken to the prospect of Muslim US citizens plotting against their own nation, there are countless thousands of other Muslims here "temporarily" as students, businessmen, and tourists. Who are they? Where are they? Don´t ask the Immigration and Naturalization Service. They have no idea. And therein lies a threat that is not going to go away for a long time.
I hope we have learned, though I doubt it, to keep a watchful eye out for those that wish us harm, and take notice of those that do us, and themselves , well.
Geez, another shot at Presedente Fox. Sure, the Mexican border in porous. Sure, 200 tons of dope crosses every year. Sure, almost a million law breakers pass into our country every year without our knowledge or permission. Sure, some of those folks carry weapons and material to distroy us. So what?
Mexicans in the US send back 8.9 billion dollars a year. The cut of this that Fox and Mexican politicians get for their personal use probably equals the amounts that they get for the dope. What do they care about gringos or their well being? Gringos are wealthy because they stole it and Mexico should have NO qualms about any evil that befalls the US.
Security on the southern border would negatively effect the wealth and revenue streams of Fox, the crooked PANistas and all the drug lords with whom they share profits.
Curiously, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was silent following the arrest of the Lackawanna Five. Regarding the September 15 incident involving Miami-bound Islamic-Americans that tied up traffic on a major highway, Executive Director Altaf Ali was quick to protest, saying that the rising tide of anti-Muslim rhetoric in our society can trigger discrimination by a bigoted minority. However, after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, CAIR characterized the trial and conviction of bombing mastermind, Sheik Omar Abdul-Rahman as an "incident of bias and violence" against Muslims. Suffice it to say, so far as CAIR is concerned, no Muslim is even capable of terrorist acts and any criticism of Muslims is bigotry.
Very well said Joe - Thought you'd be interested in the information below from "American Jihad".
Below is the excerpt from Steven Emerson's book, "AMERICAN JIHAD" regarding CAIR.
Appendix C
THE TERRORISTS' SUPPORT NETWORKS
The Sea in Which the Fish Swim
CAIR is the most prominent of the Muslim organizations concerned with "civil rights." In its charter, CAIR stated it would "promote interest and understanding among the general public with regards to Islam and Muslims in North America and conduct educational services in the fields of religion, culture, education, society and history concerning Islamic issues both in the United States and abroad." The organization generally purports to represent the Muslim viewpoint in America. Founded in 1994, CAIR is an outgrowth of the Islamic Association of Palestine. In 1994, then-IAP president Omar Ahmad approached Nihad Awad, IAP's public relations director, and suggested that they leave the IAP and concentrate on combating anti-Muslim discrimination nationwide. When the organization was incorporated, the three individuals involved were Awad, Ahmad, and Rafiq Jaber who served as Ahmad's successor to the position of president of the IAP CAIR takes the public position that it condemns terror. Shortly after the events of September 11, 2001, the organization took out a full-page advertisement in The Washington Post stating: We at the Council on American Islamic Relations, along with the entire American Muslim Community, are deeply saddened by the massive loss of life resulting from the tragic events of September 11th. American Muslims unequivocally condemn these vicious and cowardly acts of terrorism.... We join all Americans in calling for the swift apprehension and punishment of the perpetrators of these crimes.
On its Web site, the statement appears as an adjunct to a section labeled "Passenger Profiling," in which American Muslims are invited to submit complaints if you or someone you know has been a victim. Another subsection titled "Help for Victims" asks, "What you can do for the victims of the WTC and Pentagon attacks" and allows contributions through both the Red Cross and the Holy Land Foundation.
In fact CAIR has often served as an ideological support group for militants. On May 24,1998, for example, CAIR cosponsored an incendiary rally at Brooklyn College that featured speakers spouting anti-Jewish rhetoric. One speaker was Wagdy Ghuneim, a radical cleric from Egypt. He told listeners, "Allah says he who equips a warrior of jihad is like the one makes jihad himself." He led the audience in a song with the lyrics: No to the Jews, descendants of the apes. On October 28, 1998, CAIR's Southern California branch issued a press release to protest the existence of billboards in the Los Angeles area that depicted the visage of Osama bin Laden with the headline "the sworn enemy." The billboards had been sponsored by the Los Angeles-based KCOP Television, Inc., and were intended "to take recognizable characters and situations that affect people's lives because they are in the news" (as CAIR put it). The CAIR statement claimed that the billboard was an insult to the hundreds of thousands of Muslims who live in Southern California. CAIR has even refused to condemn the Taliban. A conference in Columbus, Ohio, entitled "Leadership Ambassadors, Making a Difference," featured a seminar led by CAIR's Director of Communications, Ibrahim Hooper. There, Hooper explained how he preferred to contextualize the regime: [O]ften I'm dealing with very sensitive controversial issues, and I don't want to be quoted about the Taliban, you know, but I want to put the Taliban into context for a reporter. So I'll say well, you know, CAIR doesn't comment on international issues where there is not an American component so we just don't have any comment. But, can we go off the record, and then I'll go off the record in trying to explain what is going on so that they don't just go away with a stereotypical, one dimensional portrayal ....
CAIR's executive director, Nihad Awad, explained his views regarding the Palestinian situation in a speech delivered in 1994 at Barry University in Florida: "After I researched the situation inside and outside Palestine, I am in support of the Hamas movement. . . ." In 2000 Awad appeared at a rally in front of the White House in Washington, D.C., and rejected any peaceful settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians: "they [the Jews] have been saying 'Next year in Jerusalemwe say 'Next year to all Palestine' He also stated that Hollywood had distorted its treatment of groups engaged in violence in the Middle East by referring to them as terrorists: Hollywood is not our friend. Hollywood has distorted the facts. Hollywood has shown freedom fighters as terrorists. Hollywood has done the work that Zionists cannot done [sic].
CAIR officials have defended the action of suicide bombers. On the one hand, Awad told CNN's "Crossfire" that Suicide is an act of disbelief, because we Muslims believe that God is only in charge of life and death. And to take one's life or other people's life is an act of disbelief and it goes in sharp contradiction with Islamic teachings. On the other hand, at a conference of the Islamic Association for Palestine held a week later, Omar Ahmad, chairman of CAIR's board of directors, told a youth session: Someone in Islam is allowed to fight.... Fighting for freedom, fighting for Islamthat is not suicide. They kill themselves for Islam.
Much of CAIRs time is spent trying to persuade the press not to "overreact" to acts of Muslim terror and trying to prove that Muslims themselves are victims of discrimination and prejudice. A year after the bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 that killed 224 people, Jeff Jacoby of The Boston Globe wrote: "On that occasion, prominent Islamic voices in the United States did speak out. But their chief message was not one of horrified sympathy for the victims and their families or of shame that anyone calling himself a Muslim could perpetrate such an atrocity. Nowhat [these] Muslim leaders were eager to communicate was a warning to the media not to speculate about a possible Islamic connection to the slaughter.
Exercise Restraint in Reporting on Embassy Bombings, ran the headline. At the time, despite the ferocity of those bombings, America's major Islamic groups made no move to distance themselves from bin Ladenor even to label him a terrorist. A release issued by the Council on American-Islamic Rela tions was typical: 'American Muslims Ask Journalists to CAIR has several ties to the Hamas-connected organizations and individuals discussed in Chapter 5. At its founding, CAIR received funding of $5,000 from the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. According to annual reports filed in the state of Illinois, Mohammad Nimer, the director of CAIRs Research Center, was on the Board of Directors of the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR). After September 11, 2001, and up until the U.S. government froze the assets of the Holy Land Foundation in December, CAIRs Web site included a feature, "What you can do for the victims of the WTC and Pentagon attacks" with a link to the Web site of HLF ("Donate through the Holy Land Foundation").
When Federal Judge Kevin Duffy ordered the extradition of Hamas leader Mousa abu Marzook in 1996, CAIR coordinated a press conference on May 10 to protest the decision. CAIR also signed a letter, printed in a June 1996 "Newsletter of the Marzuk [sic] Legal Fund," arguing that the extradition order was anti-Islamic and anti-American. Steve Pomerantz, former chief of the Counterterrorism Section of the FBI and former assistant director of the FBI, says: CAIR has defended individuals involved in terrorist violence, including Hamas leader Musa abu Marzook.... The modus operandi has been to falsely tar as 'anti-Muslim' the U.S. government, counter-terrorist officials, writers, journalists and others who have investigated or exposed the threat of Middle East-based terrorism.... Unfortunately, CAIR is but one of the new generation of new groups in the United States that hide under a veneer of 'civil rights' or 'academic' status but in fact are tethered to a platform that supports terrorism.
Seif Ashmawy, former publisher of Voice of Peace, wrote: It is a known fact that both the AMC and CAIR have defended, apologized for and rationalized the actions of extremist groups and leaders such as convicted World Trade Center conspirator Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, Egyptian extremists, Hassan al-Turabi, the Sudanese National Islamic Front, and extremist parliamentarians from the Jordanian Islamic Action Front and others who called for the overthrow of the Egyptian government. . . . As a proud American Muslim . . . I bow to no one on my defense of Muslim civil rights, but CAIR . . . champion[s] extremists whose views do not represent Islam.
Nope, not surprised one little bit.
Nope, not surprised one little bit.
Ditto.
I read Emerson's book "American Jihad" and its a total eye-opener. The first page and a half of the book blew me away. From that book I learned that CAIR is a supporter of Islamo-fascist terrorism and that everytime I see Ibraham Hooper on PMSNBC I have to realize he is full of $hit.
Right on KC. The book should be mandatory reading in all of our public schools.
BS! They just threw us a bone to attempt to show they are harmless. If they were in the majority in this country, all our rights and freedoms would be right out the window.
Speak for yourself, and for the rest of the Islamispeace suckers. I didn't feel a twinge. How is it that after years of aggression people still don't take the "we will rule zee world!" tribe seriously? "Oh, those wacky muslims, they're just kidding...." What does it take?? Never mind, I don't want to know.
Muslims consider their 7th century arabian culture to be superior to all other cultures (absurd eh?). And they will quietly populate a nation until they have sufficient numbers to start terrorizing and taking over. They have threatened to do just that in England -- yet those dumb english let them make these violent inciteful threats with impunity! I think the religion of islam should be outlawed! After all, satanic sacrifices are not legal in this country and are not protected by the 1st amendment, neither are religions that incite people to mass murder -- like islam. It's time for arabs and muslims to join the 21st century as peaceful members of the planet - or go down in flames.
Really? What major religions would that be? If you are talking about Christianity (e.g. Crusades, colonialism, counter-reformation, etc.), let me point out a simple fact to you. When muslims rape and pillage and force conversions, they are following the fundamental tenets of their founder and their Koran. When so-called Christians do this, they are going directly against the teachings of their founder, Jesus Christ. See the difference?
Of course I see the difference, and have pointed it out many times. But for some reason, theology never seems to stop bullies and tyrants. When you get down to the bottom line, what matters is how cultures handle their bullies.
Look at the track record. Muhammad killed many and made the first Jihads. Jesus killed no one and in fact healed a few. I wonder if there are any healings in the Koran by Mohammed. I'll bet not! Mad Mo' was too busy making wars and looking for child brides.
It has nothing to do with theology and everything to do with sinful depraved men (anyone who murders and forces conversions) and false gods (Allah).
Agreed, but you and I will have to stand outside the school and pass them out. They sure as he!! won't get it from the NEA!
It is a stretch to find support for this kind of behavior in the teachings of Jesus, but it has been done. I've heard people within the last week on television say that war can be justified by Jesus' driving the moneychangers out of the temple. I find this a stretch.
I say every time I get the opportunity that goodness and evil are properties of individuals rather than ideas. Of course cultures that have stupid beliefs are more susceptible to being led by evil people. that is why we say "those who believe absurdities will commit atrocities."
The reason why they don't have American names is simply because they live in America, but do not love America. Ever notice that hispanic immigrants fly the mexican flag on their homes? They are mexicans first and foremost. Same with muslims. I have a question for our leaders in Washington and elsewhere? Why do we let people into this country who do not embrace our ideals, who do not embrace our heroes, and who reject our culture? That is national suicide?
Jesus' action at the temple has nothing to do with what we are discussing. However, Jesus said, "all authority on heaven and earth has been given to me" - on that basis -- the basis that He is God in human flesh -- He has the authority to judge people. That being said, he did not kill them did He (even though He was justified in doing so since the money changers were ripping people off in the name of God!!). His anger was a RIGHTEOUS anger. Whoever told you this is an example of violence has a horrendous understanding of the New Testament.
Now that your single objection has been dispensed with, please tell me -- where in the New Testament (the single authority for Christ's teachings) does it teach us to murder and kill in the name of God. If you can't produce it, then perhaps you should change your opinion to correspond with the truth? If you refuse to do that, then I must assume you are operating on uninformed bias.
This statment you made makes no sense. If evil is not real, what standard are you using when a person commits an evil act? If evil and goodness are not objectively real, then there can be no standard with which to judge an evil act. In fact, there can be no such thing as evil unless you are calling it evil as measured against a standard of goodness
I never said such a justification existed. I said people have murdered and killed in the name of Christianity. And as a matter of fact, they have done so for more centuries than not. If you're being murdered, it doesn't help if your killer has his theology wrong. Religions are embodied in people, institutions like churches, and governments. If the people running things are evil, the words mean nothing.
The book should be mandatory reading in all of our public schools.
Agreed, but you and I will have to stand outside the school and pass them out. They sure as he!! won't get it from the NEA!
Right - any idea on how to get it around to the kids - Internet?
vaudine
That day will come, and we will submit, or die. (Actually, we'll be dead, but our children will pay the price.)

You still need to explain how people can be evil if the "idea" of evil doesn't exist.
You ignore the difference between the people who kill in the name of Christianity (which is against the teachings of Christ), and those who kill for Islam (perfectly in line with the teachings of Mohammed and the Koran).
I do not ignore the difference. But the majority of people in the world -- Christian, Jew, Muslim, whatever, have never killed anyone. People who enjoy killing will find a justification in their religion. This is a historic fact. It seems to be easier in Islam because church and state are the same, and because Muslims believe it is their duty to convert the world.
But to an individual who is being forcably converted, it makes no difference whether the force is justified by some abstract idea in a book.
Nope, not surprised one little bit.
Ditto.
It was an American born Møøse Limb who complained when I put a Flag in my cubicle, 9/12/01...
People kill for all sorts of reasons. But they also commit adultery for all sorts of reasons, lie for all sorts of reasons, steal for all sorts of reasons, etc. etc. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. It boils down to the fact that people are sinful and fallen beings in need of a Savior. Even you are in that category friend. Isn't it true you have broken the 10 commandments in your lifetime? Have you ever lied - even once? The bible says if you offend in one point of the law, you are guilty of all. Without a Savior, you or I will surely be judged for our actions and will spend eternity separated from God in hell.
I'm sure you are correct about the teachings of Jesus, but that hasn't prevented Christianity, as embodied in the Church, from committing murder, and in fact doing so for centuries at a time.
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