Why the Bush Administration Has Lost My Support, And Democrats Have Gained It
UPDATE I: Others reporting on this treason:
Power Line's Scott Johnson: Sleepers Awake
Little Green Footballs' Charles Johnson: Outrage of the Day
Hot Air's AllahPundit: TSA Shows Off Its Official CAIR Seal of Approval
By reprinting a CAIR press release on its own website. That's not standard operating procedure, either: a quick tour through the 2006 archives reveals that the releases are otherwise all agency announcements.
I hate to post stuff that's already been pushed by mega-bloggers (i.e., the boss and LGF), but Andy McCarthy's column at NRO is a must-link if only for the recitation of CAIR's many, many ties to extremism. I scoffed a few weeks ago when someone at the Strib speculated CAIR might be using the flying imams incident to boost anti-profiling legislation because after all, I countered, Bush would surely veto it.
Would he, though? If he's willing to cuddle with CAIR, why wouldn't he sign an anti-profiling bill? Or is kissing the occasional interest-group ass at home just his way of buying political cover for fighting jihad abroad, especially with a surge coming in Iraq?
Whatever. Like McCarthy says, if some Democrat wants to seize this as a Sister Souljah moment, more power to him. Or rather, her: it'd be awkward for obvious reasons for Obama to come out in favor of airport profiling (although all the more impressive if he did so), but it's tailor made for Hillary. We'll probably have to wait until after the primaries, but if she squeaks through, it'll be Souljahmania.
*****
Very simple: the Bush Administration is committing treason, and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) is taking steps to lead the Democrats in the right direction.
If you have not heard about the utterly treasonous actions of the Bush Administration with regards to the terrorist front group calling itself the Council on American-Islamic Relations (C.A.I.R.), I suggest you read up. It is because of this, that the Bush Administration has lost all my support and I will not be voting GOP in 2008 unless the candidate comes out in full opposition to C.A.I.R.
Plain and simple, this is treason, as the Administration is putting political correctness above National Security interests.
Start here with Scott Johnson at Power Line: Sensitive to CAIR
Yesterday John noted the Newsweek story by Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball reporting that Barbara Boxer has awakened to CAIR's terrorist connections and rescinded an award granted by her office to a CAIR terrorist official. It is striking how unfamiliar Newsweek and its reporters seem to be with CAIR's genesis out of a Hamas front group, with CAIR executive director Nihad Awad's support for Hamas or with the damning conviction of high-ranking CAIR officer Randall ("Ismail") Royer on terrorism-related charges. As for CAIR executive director Awad:
• Nihad Awad publicly declared his enthusiasm for Hamas at Barry University in Florida in 1994: "I'm in support of Hamas movement more than the PLO."
• This same year, according to the Weekly Standard, when Mike Wallace of CBS's "60 Minutes" asked Awad if he supports the "military undertakings of Hamas," Awad stood up for the terrorist group and told him, "The United Nations Charter grants people who are under occupation [the right] to defend themselves against illegal occupation."
• In an August 19, 2006 interview on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, Awad rationalized suicide terrorism by suggesting it's really about fighting injustice. He refers to the writing of author Robert Pape on the subject: "He found out that it [suicide terrorism] has more to do with occupations and fighting injustice than religion. It really responds to the myth and the known notion now that has been used by several commentators and some politicians as a cliché because it sounds maybe dramatically well but factually it is not."
• Shortly after September 11, 2001, Awad and CAIR placed on their website a picture of the World Trade Center in flames and under it a call for donations. It read, "What you can do for the victims of the WTC and Pentagon attacks," and by clicking on "Donate to the NY/DC Emergency Relief Fund" one was unsuspectingly sent directly to the website of the Holy Land Foundation. A week later, the wording of the site was changed, as visitors to the site were directly told to "Donate through the Holy Land Foundation." The link was on CAIR's website until early December 2001, when the information mysteriously disappeared.
• On December 4, 2001, the reason for the disappearance was apparent, as the Holy Land Foundation's assets were blocked by the United States government for funneling money to Hamas. According to the White House website, "The U.S.-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development [provided] millions of dollars each year that [was] used by HAMAS."
• On Sept. 16, 2000, at a Washington rally sponsored by CAIR, AMC, and MPAC, Awad declared: "They [the Jews] have been saying 'next year to Jerusalem,' we say 'next year to all of Palestine!'"
Awad is a former official of the Islamic Association of Palestine, which was a front group for Hamas. As one can infer from the items above, Awad and CAIR appear to act as voices of the "Wahhabi lobby" and as a front for supporters of Islamist terrorism. Below is a photo of Awad speaking on April 20, 2002 in Washington, D.C. on a stage bearing the flag of Hezbollah.
CAIR's chairman is Parvez Ahmed. Who is Parvez Ahmed? Ahmed was a prominent supporter of Sami Al-Arian, the convicted terrorist financier and head of the North American branch of the terrorist Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Ahmed called for Al-Arian's release before he pleaded guilty to terrorism-related charges, admitting that the government's allegation that he was the head of the North American branch of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. (For more, see the invaluable essay by Daniel Pipes and Sharon Chadha: "CAIR: Islamists fooling the establishment.")
All honor to Senator Boxer, not only for awakening to CAIR's terrorist connections and CAIR's tropism to terrorists, but also to Newsweek for eliciting this revealing non-response from Awad:
CAIR Executive Director Awad refuses to say whether he would also condemn Hamas [in addition to a terrorist attack perpetrated by Islamic Jihad] -- which has taken credit for similar attacks in Israel -- as a group or even whether he considers it a terrorist organization like the U.S. State Department does. "We condemn these groups when they committed acts of terrorism," he says. "But I'm not going to play the game of the pro-Israel lobby just so they can put words in our mouth. Our position is very clear.
"The entire issue is going back to Israel," Awad adds. "If you love Israel, you're OK. If you question Israel, you're not. If that is the litmus test, no American Muslim and no freedom-loving person is going to pass that test."
By contrast with Senator Boxer and Newsweek, the Transportation Security Administration is a victim of narcolepsy. Yesterday at NRO's Corner Andrew McCarthy noted CAIR's press release announcing that TSA has provided special sensitivity training to its employees on Muslims traveling to Mecca for Hajj. Andy linked to the report on the briefing posted by the State Department. The sensitivity training responds to CAIR's call in the wake of the case of the flying imams. The report states:
The training comes just one month after Department of Homeland Security personnel came under criticism for removing six imams from a domestic flight for what one passenger considered suspicious behavior.
As a matter of fact, every responsible authority familiar with the behavior -- including the flight crew and other US Airways employees -- considered the flying imams' behavior suspicious. The motives for the behavior remain unclear; at the least it was intended to provoke, as it did.
In response to Jonah Goldberg's comment on his post on the TSA Hajj sensitivity training, McCarthy laid out the case for prosecuting the flying imams under federal law for their behavior. I think it's a great idea, evn though the Justice Department would never do it. It would give authorities the opportunity to plea bargain with the imams in exchange for their testifying to what is in my view the likely role of Minnesota Rep.-elect Keith Ellison and of CAIR itself in the incident.
The Bush Administration is putting our enemies in charge of our National Security. That is absolutely unforgiveable and there should be loud cries of OUTRAGE all across the nation.
If the above did not anger you yet, be sure to read Andy McCarthy's column today at National Review: Singing CAIR's Tune, On Your Dime. Michelle Malkin has a good summary of it: Monday Morning Blood-Boiler: Bush Kowtows to CAIR
Andy McCarthy rightly excoriates the dhimmis in the Bush administration for pandering to CAIR:
On a weekend when the Bush administration achieved a new CAIR-friendly low, a prominent Democrat, following the lead of other prominent Democrats, distanced herself very publicly from the unsavory Council on American-Islamic Relations.
The Transportation Security Administration is the executive agency created after 9/11 to protect American travelers. Yet, Americans viewing its website this weekend could not have felt very protected. Aghast, instead, would have been the proper response to this posting. As if snuggling up to CAIR, coercing our law-enforcement and intelligence professionals to endure CAIR's Islamic "sensitivity training," and inviting CAIR to weigh in on our nation's foreign policy were not enough, we now have a Bush-administration agency publishing an unedited CAIR press release on publicly subsidized, official government Internet space.
In this instance, right under TSA's emblem and a memorial banner depicting the late President Gerald R. Ford, Americans were treated to a news announcement beneath the big blue headline, "CAIR Welcomes TSA Hajj Sensitivity Training." If you have the stomach for it, compare this TSA posting to the official CAIR press release from which it cribbed. They are identical.
While the Bush administration ignores the long trail of CAIR's terror ties and sharia sympathizing, Democrats seem to be waking up:
While the Bush administration continues to enrage its supporters by romancing this besotted organization, top Democrats -- having just run rings around GOP strategists in the midterm elections -- are mobilizing in a different direction with the 2008 campaign already in swing.
Newsweek reports that, in California, Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer has just rescinded the "certificate of accomplishment" her office awarded (she says, without her knowledge) to Basim Elkarra. Why? Because of Elkarra's close association with CAIR, for whose Sacramento office he is executive director. According to Newsweek, Boxer's press spokeswoman said the senator "'expressed concern' about some past statements and actions by the group, as well as assertions by some law enforcement officials that it 'gives aid to international terrorist groups[.]'"
Boxer indicated that she had been "influenced by previous critical statements about CAIR made by her Democratic colleagues Sens. Richard Durbin of Illinois and Charles Schumer of New York." She's right. As Pipes notes, "Senator Charles Schumer ... describes [CAIR] as an organization 'which we know has ties to terrorism.'... Senator Dick Durbin ... observes that CAIR is 'unusual in its extreme rhetoric and its associations with groups that are suspect.'"
The more the American people learn about CAIR, the more odious they are going to find it, and the more outraged they are going to be that the Bush administration -- which for now embodies the Republican party in the public mind -- has cozied up to it.
None of this is a surprise to those of us who have watched and warned of the GOP's dangerous liaisons with jihadi-coddling interest groups. Maybe people will pay more attention now.
***Previous:
al Jazeera's pet State Department mouthpiece
The State Department strikes again
State Department weasel apologizes
State Department's bright idea: Spa days for terrorists!
Is CAIR designing US foreign policy now?
Sami al Arian on trial--and a few words about the GOP
What say you know, Grover Norquist?
Alec Baldwin's new best friend
posted by D. Maria @ 4:59 AM
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