Recent Appearances...

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Hello !
Recent Appearances...

Sami Al-Arian	Sami Al-Arian	World and Islam Studies Enterprises	Home Front			20020824
	Sami Al-Arian	Palestinian Islamic Jihad	Home Front: WoT	Palestinian-American	In Jug	20030220
		charged with racketeering, conspiracy, and providing material support to a terrorist organization.
	Sami Al-Arian	World and Islam Studies Enterprise	Fifth Column	Palestinian	In Jug	20050723
	Sami Al-Arian	Islamic Committee for Palestine	Fifth Column	Palestinian	In Jug	20020208
	Sami Al-Arian	Islamic Jihad	Israel-Palestine			20031009

Home Front: Politix

Former Biden DOJ Official Prosecuting Trump Received Thousands Of Dollars From DNC

2024-05-07

[DC] Could this get any worse for Bragg?
The lead prosecutor for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Donald Trump received thousands of dollars from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in 2018, Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show.

Matthew Colangelo, who was President Joe Biden’s acting associate attorney general and spent two years in the current president’s Department of Justice (DOJ), joined the Manhattan District Attorney’s office as senior counsel in December 2022. The lawyer received $12,000 from the DNC in 2018 for "political consulting" in two payments of $6,000 on Jan. 31 of that year, FEC records show. (RELATED: Judge Imposing Double Standard By Gagging Trump But Giving Michael Cohen Free Rein, Legal Experts Say)

Fox News Digital first reported the payments to Colangelo from the DNC.

Reports say Matthew Colangelo received $12,000 from the DNC for "political consulting" in 2018.

Colangelo delivered the opening statement for the prosecution in the Trump hush money case.

Yet Trump can't talk about this due to his unconstitutional gag order.
— Daniel Baldwin (@baldwin_daniel_) May 6, 2024

Trump is unable to speak about Colangelo as Judge Juan Merchan imposed a gag order on him that prevents the former president from speaking about prosecutors on the case besides Bragg.

Colangelo was appointed in 2022 while Bragg was still investigating Trump in relation to a $130,000 payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her silent regarding an alleged affair. He delivered opening statements for the prosecution in April, arguing that Trump falsified business documents corresponding to the payment as part of a broader initiative to "corrupt the 2016 election."

"It was election fraud, pure and simple," Colangelo said.

Trump has consistently characterized the case as "election interference," referencing it as a "Biden witch hunt" and the "Biden Case."

House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan sent a letter Tuesday to Attorney General Merrick Garland regarding Colangelo, requesting documents and communications from his tenure at the DOJ. Jordan demanded personnel files pertaining to Colangelo’s hiring, employment and termination at the DOJ, as well as records and correspondences related to Trump or his organization.

“Bragg is engaged in one such politicized prosecution, which is being led in part by Matthew B. Colangelo, a former senior Justice Department official. Accordingly, given the perception that the Justice Department is assisting in Bragg’s politicized prosecution, we write to request information and documents related to Mr. Colangelo’s employment,” Jordan wrote.

While at the New York District Attorney’s office, Colangelo led the probe into the Trump Foundation, which resulted in its dissolution, as well as leading the investigation that eventually became Trump’s civil fraud case, according to The New York Times.

The DNC and Bragg did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

Link

-Great Cultural Revolution

Columbia hires, and claims to fire, professor who voiced support for Hamas post-Oct. 7

2024-05-03

[IsraelTimes] University’s president said Mohamed Abdou had been terminated but he claims his contract ends May 30, after he posted on October 11 that he was ’with the resistance’

Amid fierce criticism of Columbia University’s management of weeks of anti-Israel demonstrations, the prestigious New York institution has come under fire for hiring a Modern Arab Studies professor who voiced support for Hamas
Hamas

...not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
and other terror groups.

Hired as the Arcapita visiting professor in Modern Arab Studies on January 16, Mohammed Abdou had lauded the Paleostinian terror group’s October 7 massacre in southern Israel days after the onslaught.

In an October 11 post on Facebook, Abdou wrote, "I’m with the muqawamah (the resistance) be it Hamas and Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah
...
but up to a point — given ultimate differences over our ethical political commitments; that’s the difference between a strategy and tactic too," according to the UK’s Daily Mail.

In a podcast interview on January 5, a week before he began his temporary role at Columbia, Abdou commented as part of a discussion about homophobia in Islam that he was "with Hamas" and supports "the resistance, absolutely."

When questioned at a Congressional hearing on antisemitism in mid-April about hiring the professor, Columbia University president Nemat (Minouche) Shafik said that Abdou had been terminated.

"He will never work at Columbia again," she stated in response to a question from Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik.

Four other professors were also mentioned during the nearly four-hour-long hearing, including Prof. Joseph Massad, who called Hamas’s brutal October 7 onslaught "awesome" and "astounding." Shafik stated that Massad was "under investigation" and no longer held his role as chair of the academic review committee.

But the details of Abdou’s supposed termination were unclear, with Shai Davidai, an assistant professor at the Columbia University Business School and an outspoken advocate for Jewish and Israeli students at Columbia since October 7, claiming that Shafik made several false statements during her testimony.

Approached by The Times of Israel after the congressional hearing, Davidai claimed that Shafik had "lied about Prof. Abdou being terminated — he’s still on the Columbia website."

Abdou appeared to confirm the allegations in an interview posted by The Electronic Intifada, a US-based Paleostinian publication, on April 27, saying, "I am not terminated. My contract is coming to an end on May 30."

Posts on social media since also appear to show Abdou walking freely around campus, with one photo posted on Wednesday apparently showing the professor entering a Columbia building with a security guard standing watch, while videos from the previous week show him walking around the protest encampment unimpeded by campus security.

The wave of anti-Israel protests has sent shockwaves through college campuses across the US and elsewhere, with hundreds of arrests and student suspensions in recent weeks.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams
...Hizonner da Mare of Noo Yawk. As a Manchurian candidate, Hizonner was all in favor of law and order and that kind of stuff. Once in office, a few of his friends found cushy jobs with the city, the windows kept getting broken, and Soros-funded DA Alvin Bragg remained right where he was. Most people comfort themselves with the thought that he's not Bill di Blasio but that's pretty small comfort with kids who actually go to school getting bumped off while standing in front of them. But he's a Dem, so the rubes will vote for him next election too, so he's what they deserve...
said on Wednesday that some 300 people had been arrested after police entered Columbia’s campus Tuesday to clear a tent encampment on the school’s grounds.

Police also cleared Hamilton Hall, with a stream of officers using a ladder to climb through a second-floor window. Protesters had seized the hall at the Ivy League school about 20 hours earlier.

Link

-Great Cultural Revolution

TRAGEDY: AOC Announces She Was Killed During NYPD Raid At Columbia And Is Dead Again

2024-05-03

[Bee] NEW YORK — Congressional Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was tragically killed Tuesday night during a police raid at Columbia University in which hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested.

"They came at me with tear gas and racism," Ocasio-Cortez told reporters. "I am now literally dead."

According to sources, Ocasio-Cortez was in Washington, D.C. at the time.

"They kept shouting, 'Where is she!? Where is she!? I need to kill her with guns!'" she continued. "I hid under a table, but wood can't protect you from the Jew police state."

Experts confirm that if Israel were not trying to defend itself from attacks from Hamas, protestors would never have taken over Columbia University, the police would never have raided the campus, and Ocasio-Cortez would still be alive. The New York representative is now reportedly seeing a psychotherapist to help her cope with her own death.

Ocasio-Cortez is survived by her fiancé Riley Roberts and a French bulldog named Deco.

Link

-Great Cultural Revolution

September 11 event to feature speakers affiliated with terrorists

2021-09-11

[Jpost] A 9/11 event sponsored by Rutgers University and San Francisco State University academic departments will feature speakers affiliated with terrorists or who have otherwise supported terrorism.

Speakers with terrorist affiliations or those who have expressed support for terrorism will be featured at a 9/11 event sponsored by Rutgers University and San Francisco State University on Saturday.

The panel, "Whose Narrative? 20 Years since September 11, 2001," will serve as a launching point for a semsester-long event that will explore, among other topics, challenging the "exceptionalization of 9/11/2001" and "legitimization of 'war on terror.'"

Speakers on Saturday will include Dr. Sami Al-Arian and Dr. Rabab Abulhadi, academics who have in the past courted controversy in their engagement with terrorists and terrorist organizations.

According to the event landing page, sponsors include SFSU’s Arab and Muslim Ethnicity and Diaspora Studies (AMED Studies) program, Rutgers' Center for Security, Race and Rights, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, two Jewish Voice for Peace Chapters, the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) and America Muslims for Palestine (AMP).

The International Legal Forum, an Israel-based NGO with a global network of over 3,500 lawyers and civil society activists in over 40 countries, uncovered the panel and has sent letters to the administrations of Rutgers and SFSU demanding the event be canceled.

"Robust free speech and academic freedom might be sacrosanct, but it is a red line and simply inexcusable for public institutions, such as SFSU and Rutgers, to sponsor and endorse this event, which effectively glorifies terror and the use of violence, by providing a platform to convicted terrorists, conspiracy theorists and purveyors of hate," Arsen Ostrovsky, Chair and CEO of The International Forum, told The Jerusalem Post. "The International Legal Forum calls upon SFSU and Rutgers to immediately and unequivocally withdraw their association with this event, which furthermore, may be in breach of US anti-terror legislation.”

Al-Arian, the director of CIGA at the Istanbul Zaim University, was indicted and struck a plea deal in 2003 over his alleged affiliation with Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

PIJ is designated by the US State Department as a "Foreign Terrorist Organization."

According to the Tampa Bay Times, Al-Arian admitted to conspiracy to aid a relative with PIJ links to obtain immigration benefits.

In 2006, Al-Arian refused to testify on his ties to a charity suspected of terrorism financing, the Washington Post reported at the time. Due to his civil contempt and the terms of his plea deal he was deported to Turkey in 2015.

CAIR has defended Al-Arian and characterized legal proceedings against him as "politically" motivated.

"Al-Arian has been targeted by the government for his political activity for more than a decade," CAIR said in a 2014 political statement.

Abulhadi, the senior scholar of SFSU’s AMED Studies, previously organized two panels featuring Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist Leila Khaled. Leila Khaled's infamy comes from her hijacking of airplanes and holding passengers hostage.

The September 11 terrorist attacks were conducted using hijacked airplanes to ram the World Trade Center.

Like PIJ, PFLP is a US State Department-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.

In April, the SFSU panel "Whose Narratives? What Free Speech for Palestine?" was removed from Zoom and Youtube due to their policies on support for and promotion of terrorism.

"San Francisco State University seems to be a repeat offender when it comes to giving platforms to terrorists, a year ago having sponsored an event with notorious Palestinian hijacker Leila Khaled and now outrageously sponsoring an event marking the 20th anniversary of September 11, with speakers who have inextricable ties to terrorist organizations that have carried out attacks against American citizens and civilians around the world, including Israel," Ostrovsky told the Post.

Another speaker, Hatem Bazian of the University of California, Berkeley, and according to ILF the co-founder of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and AMP, has previously publicly called for an Intifada in the United States.

The leadership of PYM, a self-described "transnational, independent, grassroots movement of young Palestinians" and one of the event sponsors, has also called for Intifadas at a NSJP conference. PYM leaders have also called slain Hamas and PFLP fighters "martyrs" and have otherwise called for political violence.

CIGA previously held a conference with Hamas-affiliated organizations and individuals in attendance in June.

In a letter to Rutgers and SFSU, ILF refers to has argued that the event "may be in breach of United States anti-terror laws."

ILF notes that 18 U.S.C.§2339B states that it is criminal for one to "knowingly provides material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization, or attempts or conspires to do so," and that according to 18 U.S.C. §2339A “material support or resources” is defined as “[A]ny property, tangible or intangible, or service, including currency or monetary instruments or financial securities, financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safehouses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel.]”

Link

Home Front: WoT

Election Supervisor Brenda Snipes may not be Florida's only problem

2018-11-12

A reminder from 2016.

[Tampa Bay Times] Prominent terror cases with ties to Florida

Sept. 11, 2001: A South Florida man known as Adnan El Shukrijumah

...known formally as Adnan Gulshair Muhammad El Shukrijumah alias Abu Arif, alias Jafar Al-Tayar, alias Javier Robles. He was a Saudi computer engineer whose Wahhabi missionary father moved the family to Guyana when he was very young. He was a very bad man indeed, until he was (or perhaps was not) killed in Pakistan in 2014...

was wanted by the FBI as a suspected al-Qaida combatant due to his possible connection with the Sept. 11 hijackers. He also was under indictment for planning a suicide bomb attack in 2009 in the New York City subway system. Family members said El Shukrijumah went to Trinidad in 2001, but formerly studied computer engineering at Broward Community College. He sometimes prayed at Al-Iman mosque in Fort Lauderdale and Darul Uloom in Pembroke Pines.

...the latter being a madrassah notorious for the number of jihadis connected to it including “Dirty Bomber” Jose Padilla. Head cleric Maulana Shafayat Mohamed nonetheless poses as moderate...

He was reported killed during a raid in northwest Pakistan on Dec. 6, 2014.

Sept. 11, 2001: Suicide hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi trained at a flight school in Venice, and their accomplice Ziad Jarrah took lessons a block away from the school. Atta and al-Shehhi were responsible for the jets that flew into the World Trade Center, and Jarrah controlled the plane that crashed in rural Pennsylvania. Reports say that at least 14 out of the 19 terrorists responsible for Sept. 11 spent time in South Florida, with at least 12 of them in Palm Beach County.

Sept. 11, 2001: A Saudi family that left their Sarasota home weeks before Sept. 11 had ties to those associated with the terrorist attacks, according to FBI reports. Three of the family members were tied to the Venice flight school where two suicide hijackers from Sept. 11 were trained. The names of the three individuals were blanked out from official documents, but the home in Sarasota was that of Abdulaziz al-Hijji.

Feb. 20, 2003: Former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian was indicted, alleged to be a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and complicit in the murder of civilians. He was arrested in his Tampa home. Years later, Al-Arian ended up taking a plea deal on greatly reduced charges. He was deported to Turkey on Feb. 5, 2015.

Nov. 22, 2005: Former South Florida resident Jose Padilla was indicted on charges of conspiring to commit terrorist acts. He lived in Fort Lauderdale for an unspecified time where he prayed at Al-Iman mosque. He was transferred to Miami's federal detention facility after the indictment. Before the indictment, Padilla was held as an "enemy combatant" in U.S. Defense Department custody. He was previously arrested in 2002 for allegedly attempting to detonate a "dirty bomb" in the United States.
And on and on it goes.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Palestinian activist/ prof. deported to Turkey years after terror trial plea

2015-02-08

[FoxNews] A Paleostinian activist who was a target of the Justice Department for more than a decade has been deported from the U.S. to Turkey.

Sami Al-Arian (see here for some of his connections) is a former University of South Florida professor tossed in the calaboose
Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please!
in 2003 on charges of playing a leadership role in the terrorist group Paleostinian Jihad. He pleaded guilty in 2006 to reduced charges of conspiracy to provide, make or receive funds, goods or services for the benefit of a terrorist organization.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement says Al-Arian left the U.S. on a commercial flight Wednesday night.

After his release from prison in 2008, Al-Arian expected to be deported but was charged with criminal contempt for refusing to testify in another case in Virginia. That case was dropped last summer, setting up his deportation.

Link

Fifth Column

Who Is White House Visitor Hisham Altalib?

2012-09-28

On Friday, March 30, 2012, Hisham Y. Altalib visited the White House. According to visitor logs, Altalib was received by Joshua DuBois, the director of President Obama's Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Four days later, White House officials welcomed a foreign delegation of the radical Sharia-enforcing Muslim Brotherhood from Egypt.

The White House meeting with overseas Muslim Brotherhood leaders was reported in April by a few mainstream journalists and questioned loudly by conservative media. But the White House confab in March with U.S.-based Altalib -- which appears to be a prep session with the global Muslim Brotherhood's American advance team -- has received no attention until now.

So, who is Hisham Yahya Altalib? What is his agenda?

And why exactly did the Obama administration conduct domestic "faith-based" outreach in Virginia with this Muslim Brotherhood figure who just happens to be 1) tied to bloody jihad and 2) a major contributor to the left-wing Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the group of jihadi-sympathizing lawyers who helped spring suspected Benghazi terror plotter Abu Sufian bin Qumu from Gitmo?

Altalib is an Iraqi-born Muslim identified by the FBI as a Muslim Brotherhood operative before he moved to America in the 1970s to earn an advanced electrical-engineering degree from Purdue University in Indiana. By his own account, Altalib "soon became active in Islamic work in North America, which continues to this day."

He was the "first full-time director of the Leadership Training Department of the Muslim Students Association of the United States and Canada (MSA)" -- a longtime Muslim Brotherhood front group whose explicit goal is to "conquer" America through Islamic propagandizing.

Altalib is also a founding member of the SAAR Foundation and the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). Last year, his online biography proudly notes, he was "awarded the ISNA (Islamic Society of North America) Community Service Award." The Saudi-subsidized ISNA is regarded as the primary U.S. umbrella group for Muslim Brotherhood fronts and was named specifically by the global MB godfathers as a key player in their "Grand Jihad" strategy of infiltration from within.

SAAR was founded in Herndon, Va., in 1983 as part of a radical Islamic charity front, called the SAFA Group, for Saudi financiers. The feds raided SAAR's offices in 2002 as part of Operation Green Quest. Investigators confiscated 500 boxes and seven trucks' worth of documents illuminating the network's terror ties to the Al Taqwa Bank (a Swiss-based Muslim bank suspected of funding the 9/11 plot) and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Altalib worked for one of Al Taqwa Bank's main owners, Youssef Nada. Altalib's more prominent Muslim Brotherhood partner, Jamal Barzinji (one of the champions of the Ground Zero mosque), also worked for Nada. FBI and Customs officials believe SAAR/SAFA laundered money for a plethora of violent Muslim terrorist groups, from Hamas and Hezbollah to al-Qaida and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Along with several other leaders of the "Ikhwan" (brothers), Altalib and Barzinji established the International Institute of Islamic Thought in Herndon, Va., in 1985. Global Muslim Brotherhood thug Yusuf al-Qaradawi -- the fire-breathing, fatwa-issuing Jew-hater and violent-jihad proselytizer -- inspired IIIT's mission: the "Islamization of social sciences."

According to Steven Merley of the Hudson Institute's Center on Islam, Democracy, and the Future of the Muslim World, IIIT has 14 affiliated offices across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, who put 1993 World Trade Center bombing mastermind Omar Abdel Rahman behind bars, notes that IIIT was a demonstrated unindicted co-conspirator in the feds' Holy Land Foundation terror financing case. IIIT supported convicted terror aides Sami Al-Arian and Abdel Rahman Alamoudi.

Altalib, Barzinji, and IIIT were also all listed in funding statements from the Center for Constitutional Rights as major donors giving in the $25,00-to-$49,000 range.

CCR is the umbrella group that provides more than 500 pro bono lawyers to Gitmo detainees. They have regularly dismissed national-security concerns about Gitmo recidivism as "irresponsible ... scare stories." That's exactly what they did after one of CCR's clients, Libyan terror leader Abu Sufian bin Qumu, was sprung in 2007.

Fast-forward five short years. Qumu is now the lead suspect in the 9/11/12 attack on our U.S. consulate in Benghazi that resulted in the murders of U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens, consular official Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs/private security contractors Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods. In the wake of this month's terrorist attacks on our Egyptian embassy, Libyan consulate, and Afghan air base, the jihad helpers at CCR are stone silent.

This administration's idea of domestic "faith-based outreach" is tea with Muslim Brotherhood community organizers who have embedded themselves in American life for four decades with the express intent of "eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within." Meanwhile, our commander in chief is squawking to the world about YouTube videos. The Ikhwan are laughing their bloodstained robes off.

Link

Home Front: Politix

Chris Christie's Islam Problem

2012-05-01

A Quinnipiac poll in April showed Chris Christie the most popular potential Republican vice-presidential candidate, thanks to his budget cuts and standing up to government employee unions. But the governor of New Jersey has a problem, specifically an Islam problem, in the way of his possible ascent to higher office. We regret to report that, time and again, he has sided with Islamist forces against those safeguarding American security and civilization.

Some examples:

2008: When serving as U.S. attorney for New Jersey, Christie embraced and kissed Mohammed Qatanani, imam of the Islamic Center of Passaic County, and praised him as "a man of great goodwill." He did this after Qatanani had publicly ranted against Jews and in support of funding Hamas, a U.S. governmentdesignated terror organization, and on the eve of his deportation hearing for hiding an Israeli conviction for membership in Hamas. In addition, Christie designated a top aide, Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles McKenna, to testify as a character witness for Qatanani.

2010: After Derek Fenton burned three pages of a Koran at a 9/11 memorial ceremony, his employer, New Jersey Transit, got Christie's approval to fire him. Christie vocally endorsed Fenton's termination, even though this meant protecting Islam at the expense of Fenton's constitutional right to free speech, declaring, "I don't have any problem with him being fired." The American Civil Liberties Union successfully represented Fenton to get his job back.

2011: Christie appointed an Islamist, Sohail Mohammed, to the New Jersey state superior court. Mohammed's record includes serving as general counsel to the American Muslim Union (which has stated that a "Zionist Commando Orchestrated The 9-11 Terrorist Attacks"), acting as spokesman for Muslim prisoners who went on a hunger strike due to being jailed during Ramadan, defending Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative Sami Al-Arian (whose indictment, Mohammed said, was "nothing but a witch-hunt"), and helping Qatanani's legal defense. Mohammed is not a lawyer for Islamists but one of them.

When members of New Jersey's Senate Judiciary Committee asked Mohammed appropriately tough questions about his enthusiasm for Islam's archaic law code, the Shari'a, Christie ridiculed the lawmakers: "Shari'a law has nothing to do with this [appointment of Mohammed] at all. It's crazy. It's crazy. So, this Shari'a law business is crap. It's just crazy. And I'm tired of dealing with the crazies. I mean, you know, it's just unnecessary to be accusing this guy of things just because of his religious background." Delighted by this outburst, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) thanked and applauded Christie.

2012: Revelations that the New York Police Department had conducted surveillance of Islamists in the New Jersey towns of Newark and New Brunswick prompted not gratitude but outrage from Christie, who termed the action arrogant and paranoid while mocking NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly as "all knowing, all seeing."

In short, Christie has hugged a terrorist organization member, abridged free-speech rights, scorned concern over Islamization, and opposed law enforcement counterterrorism efforts. Whenever an issue touching on Islam arises, Christie takes the Islamist side against those the DHS, state senators, the NYPD, even the ACLU who worry about lawful Islamism eroding the fabric of American life.

Link

Home Front: Politix

Letter on Muslim radical roils GOP Senate race in CA

2010-03-09

Terrorism and the Middle East are continuing to roil the Republican Senate contest after a letter written by former congressman Tom Campbell emerged that appeared to contradict statements Campbell and his aides had made about his dealings with a radical Muslim professor.

The professor, Sami Al-Arian, contributed to Campbell's unsuccessful campaign in 2000 for the U.S. Senate. On Sept. 26, 2001, when he was teaching at the University of South Florida, Al-Arian gave an interview to Fox TV host Bill O'Reilly in which he conceded that he had said, "Jihad is our path. Victory to Islam. Death to Israel. Revolution. Revolution until victory. Rolling to Jerusalem."

Those statements quickly generated a furor and the university moved to discipline Al-Arian. Campbell, by then a law professor at Stanford University, wrote a letter to Judy Genshaft, the president of the University of South Florida, protesting any punishment.

Campbell had previously conceded that he wrote a letter on Al-Arian's behalf, but had said during a candidates' debate Friday that he did so before Al-Arian's interview with O'Reilly. His campaign's website also said the letter was written before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

The text of the letter showed otherwise. Dated Jan. 21, 2002, it said, " . . . I respectfully wish to convey my sincere alarm that Professor Al-Arian may be treated harshly because of the substance of his views."

Campbell went on to write that "I have formed this fear because of the paucity of evidence supporting the purported reasons for this discipline against him. I read a transcript of the 'O'Reilly Factor' interview last autumn, and I did not see anything whereby Professor Al-Arian attempted to claim he was representing the views of the University of South Florida."

Carly Fiorina, one of Campbell's opponents in the primary race, called on him to release the letter last week. The text of the letter was first disclosed by the website of the Investigative Project on Terrorism. Campbell's aides, who had said the candidate no longer had a copy of the original letter, then posted a link to it on the campaign website.

On Monday, Campbell said in an interview that despite the language of his letter, he had never read the full transcript of the O'Reilly interview, specifically the "Death to Israel" language. If he had seen it, he said, he never would have written the letter.

Link

Home Front: Politix

Islam envoy retreats on terror talk

2010-02-20

President Barack Obama's new Islamic envoy, Rashad Hussain, changed course Friday admitting he made sharply critical statements about a U.S. terror prosecution against a Muslim professor after initially saying he had no recollection of making such comments. I made statements on that panel that I now recognize were ill-conceived or not well-formulated,' Hussain said, referring to a 2004 conference where he discussed the case.

Hussain's reversal came after POLITICO obtained a recording of his presentation to a Muslim students' conference in Chicago, where he can be heard portraying the government's cases towards professor Sami Al-Arian, as well as other Muslim terrorism suspects, as politically motivated persecutions.' Al-Arian later pled guilty to aiding terrorists. The comments touched off criticism from conservative commentators, who questioned whether someone who held those views should represent the United States in the Muslim world.

Initially, Hussain, 31, said through a White House spokesman that he didn't recall making the statements. Hussain also suggested that another speaker on the panel, Al-Arian's daughter Laila, made the comments about her father. But after POLITICO provided the quotes and others from the recording to the White House Friday, Hussain said in a statement: As a law student six years ago, I spoke on the topic of civil liberties on a panel during which I responded to comments made about the al-Arian case by Laila al-Arian who was visibly saddened by charges against her father. I made clear at the time that I was not commenting on the allegations themselves. The judicial process has now concluded, and I have full faith in its outcome.'

The White House declined to say Friday whether the statements or the controversy affected Obama's confidence in Hussain.

Hussain also answered another question surrounding his comments why they were removed from the website of a magazine on Middle East issues that published a brief account of the panel back in 2004, attributing the statement about politically motivated persecutions' to Hussain. It was Hussain himself, he said Friday, who contacted the publication to complain about the story. When I saw the article that attributed comments to me without context, leaving a misimpression, I contacted the publication to raise concerns about it. Eventually, of their own accord, they modified the article,' Hussain said of the article in the Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs.

During the panel discussion on civil rights at a Muslim Students Association conference in Chicago, Hussain asserted that Al-Arian's prosecution involved significant abuses. The case that Laila just reminded us of is truly a sad commentary on our legal system. It is a travesty of justice, not just from the perspective of the allegations that are made against Dr. Al-Arian. Without passing any comment on those specific allegations or the statements [that] have been made against him, the process that has been used has been atrocious,' Hussain said, according to the recording.

In his presentation, Hussain, then a student at Yale Law School, was careful to insist that he was not offering a view on Al-Arian's innocence or guilt on charges that he served as a top leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the U.S. But Hussain said the treatment of Al-Arian fit a common pattern.of politically-motivated prosecutions where you have huge Justice Department press conferences announcing that a certain person is a grave threat to American security.'

In the recording, Hussain's indictment of the government's legal practices toward Muslims goes further than Al-Arian's case, leveling a detailed critique of more than a half-dozen prominent anti-terrorism cases and several key provisions of the Patriot Act. Hussain refers to some provisions of the Patriot Act as horrible' and called dangerous' an aspect of that law that allows intelligence-related surveillance to be used in criminal cases. Most lawmakers, including many Democrats critical of the Patriot Act, have said the provision has proven valuable, because it removed a wall that made it difficult for those pursuing investigations of international terror or spying operations to share information with criminal investigators. Hussain did express support for other aspects of the law, including a provision permitting so-called roving wiretaps.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Take a look at Hasan's old mosque

2009-11-07

What interpretation of Islam influenced Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan? As often before, the trail leads to the official sect of Saudi Arabia -- known as Wahhabism to most of us of who denounce it. Confronting the role of radical Islam here is not Islamophobic, but common sense -- and the first response moderate Muslims themselves will have.

Hasan, though born in America, refused to have his picture taken with women -- an attitude distinct to fundamentalist radicalism among Muslims. The Prophet Mohammed cautioned his followers that when they go to live in non-Muslim lands they must accept the laws and customs of their new home. Millions of American Muslims get their picture taken with women, even ones not their wives, and don't worry about it. To refuse such an elementary and even trivial act of courtesy sets Muslims apart -- and that is the aim of radicals.

We've also learned that, before his transfer to Ft. Hood last year, Hasan served as a psychiatrist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, and regularly attended Friday prayer at the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring, Md. The Silver Spring clerics have issued formal statements condemning the carnage at Ft. Hood. But Imam Faizul Khan, long the main prayer leader at the mosque and a friend of Hasan, said he never believed Hasan capable of such an act. Yet what docrines did Hasan absorb at the mosque? While he was a communicant, it hosted at least four talks by Enver Masud, the founder of The Wisdom Fund, the main Muslim "truther" group in America.

And Khan is a leading board member of the Islamic Society of North America -- the main Wahhabi-lobby group in the United States, established by Saudi Arabia to impose extremism on American Muslims. ISNA has a long and disgraceful record of promoting radical Islam. On the roster of the ISNA board (listed on its Web site), the Silver Spring center's Imam Faizul Khan is the fourth member under its president.

But the mosque has worse associations. On its own Web site, it promotes a Sharia-based financial product -- the Amana Mutual Fund, put together by the Wahhabis at the International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT), in northern Virginia. Federal antiterrorism agents raided IIIT in the Operation GreenQuest raids of 2002. That operation remains an ongoing inquiry; IIIT and the Amana fund are still under investigation. Convicted Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami Al-Arian is still in US federal custody because of his refusal to give evidence about the Virginia Wahhabi ring caught in GreenQuest.

Most interesting of all: The button on the MCC's Web site titled "Islam" takes you to a pamphlet titled "Islam Is . . ." by a person calling himself "Pete Seda." Seda is an Iranian also known as Pirouz Sedaghaty and Abu Yunus. He was one of three officers of the US branch of a Saudi-based "charity," the Al-Haramain Foundation -- until being indicted by the Justice Department for terror financing and tax fraud. Seda and his companions still await trial.

From a ghastly act to a Saudi-backed fundamentalist imam to a Saudi-run designated terror-financing "charity" is not a long trail. It is a small coil of associations that exists in too many US mosques. American Muslims must drive these elements out of their community. The problem's not traumatic stress, much less Islam. It's the ideology, the money and the interests of the Saudi hardliners.

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Home Front: WoT

Fair jury hard to find for ~~sugar rocket smuggler~~ terror suspect

2009-03-16

Youssef Megahed is not charged with terrorism. But whether the Egyptian citizen was a potential terrorist or just an innocent college student has been a central question since his arrest in South Carolina in 2007, when deputies said he and Ahmed Mohamed had pipe bombs in the trunk of their car.

What's 'innocent' about a pipe bomb?

Today, a federal judge will begin seating a jury to decide whether Megahed, a 23-year-old former University of South Florida student, is guilty of transporting explosives and possession of a destructive device.

Although passions have subsided since the Sept. 11 attacks, experts say it will still be a challenge to find a jury that can fairly judge a Muslim defendant. "There is so much prejudice toward Muslims still," said Neil Vidmar, a Duke Law School professor who served as a defense jury expert in the case of former USF professor Sami Al-Arian, who was accused of leading a U.S. cell of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

And the prejudice towards people with pipe bombs is really amazing ...

"Ever since Al-Arian, I would never say you can't get a fair jury in Tampa Bay because we did," said Kevin Beck, who represented an Al-Arian codefendant in their 2005 trial, which ended with acquittals on numerous charges and deadlocked jurors on others but no convictions. (Al-Arian later pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiring to help terrorists.) But Beck said he's concerned it may be more difficult for Megahed's defense to find an impartial jury because the jury selection process won't be as thorough as it was in Al-Arian's case. "I feel that they should be afforded a greater opportunity to question potential jurors than they'll necessarily get," he said.

You're not entitled to a jury that is most favorably predisposed towards you; you're entitled to a fair jury, and a good judge can settle that in a non-capital case in a day.

In Al-Arian's case, potential jurors were given detailed questionnaires probing opinions about the case, the Middle East and religion. Candidates were then questioned in small groups by the judge and attorneys. U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday has denied defense motions for questionnaires in the Megahed case and may conduct all or most of the questioning himself with larger groups.

Good for him. That's just what a judge is supposed to do.

"I think jurors tend to cower to a degree when a judge is doing the questioning," Beck said. "I think there is a significant group of people that will try to please the judge." Prejudice is "a heavy hurdle to overcome," said Edward J. Bronson, a retired law professor and jury expert. "It's not that people don't honestly think they can be fair and impartial, and really believe they can be fair and impartial. ... It's just the way people are."

So we should just let the pipe-bombers go ...

Some of the potential jurors discarded in the Al-Arian case expressed extreme hatred toward Muslims in their questionnaires, Bronson noted. A few said they were afraid to serve because they worried terrorists might target them if they voted to convict. Defendants can overcome prejudices, "But that's not the way our system's supposed to work," Bronson said. "You shouldn't go into trial having to overcome a story model that prospective jurors have developed that the defendant is guilty and the burden shifts to the defense to prove that he isn't."

Notice that the jurors who were most prejudiced were .. not allowed to serve. Seems to me that the system worked.

Megahed, whose family has lived in the United States for 11 years, was a USF student when he and Mohamed were pulled over in South Carolina in August 2007. Deputies said they found explosives in the car's trunk - PVC pipes stuffed with kitty litter, corn syrup and stump remover. Also in the car were items such as a partially filled can of gasoline, a safety fuse and .22-caliber bullets. The FBI determined the substance in the pipes was a "low explosive" pyrotechnic mixture. Prosecutors contend the devices could have been modified to something more serious.

Sure could have. Sounds like they were experimenting ...

Investigators also found Mohamed's laptop computer and a YouTube video he made showing "martyrs" how to use remote-controlled toys to detonate bombs. Deputies said they saw Megahed, the passenger, disconnect wires from the laptop and throw them into the back seat. Minutes before the stop, someone used the laptop to view a video of rockets being fired.

Mohamed, also an Egyptian studying at USF, said he posted the YouTube video hoping it would help martyrs harm U.S. troops overseas. He pleaded guilty to helping terrorists and is serving 15 years in federal prison. Megahed has not been linked to the YouTube video, although prosecutors have said they want to show it at his trial. Merryday has said he will not allow that.

Megahed's attorneys will fight to keep the specter of terrorism out of the courtroom and to keep jurors focused on deciding whether the trunk's contents meet the legal definition of explosives or destructive devices. Bolstered by the FBI report, the defense maintains the contents could not have exploded and, at worst, could have spewed smoke if ignited.

In the portrait that has emerged from the defense, Megahed and Mohamed were college buddies on a road trip to visit beaches with homemade fireworks, or "sugar rockets," to celebrate Mohamed's birthday. The defense says they were stopped by racist deputies who saw Arabic letters on a book and concluded the men were terrorists. Megahed maintains he was unaware of Mohamed's terrorist support.

"No, no, certainly not!"

The prosecution describes two would-be terrorists who were stopped by quick-thinking deputies. To prove intent, prosecutors want to introduce evidence, including videos on Mohamed's laptop, suggesting Megahed was interested in violence against Americans. They also want to show that someone using the Megahed family computer did online searches, viewing information about improvised explosive devices and car bombs two months before the arrest.

"I think the really interesting thing," Beck said, "is going to be how Judge Merryday necessarily controls ... the government's efforts to turn this into a quasi- or mini-terrorism case.

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