More On CAIR and Their (Ab)Use of the 1st Amendment

[Annie]

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050904/NEWS01/509040496

Muslims aim to challenge critics in America
Convention seminar focuses on best ways for followers to respond when their faith is attacked.

By Robert King
[email protected]
September 4, 2005


ROSEMONT, Ill. -- In the days following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, many American Muslims were fearful about leaving their homes.

Months later, many remained reluctant to respond to critics who made derogatory comments about Islam or Muslim communities.

Now, almost four years after the attacks, American Muslims are being urged by their leaders to answer back.

As the Plainfield-based Islamic Society of North America hosts nearly 40,000 Muslims this weekend near Chicago at its 42nd annual convention, there is plenty of talk here about how Muslims must answer their critics and, if need be, get tough with them.

At a Saturday morning seminar attended by more than 200 people, the discussion included how to apply pressure on politicians who smear the faith, the benefits of corporate boycotts and what constitutes legal grounds for defamation suits.

"The key," Corey P. Saylor, government affairs director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations told the audience, "is to not just sit back and take it."

Aisha El-Amin, who sat in on the lecture, agreed with the need to be proactive. She was especially interested in a Web site that tracks contributions to political candidates.

"We can only fight for ourselves," said El-Amin, a New Orleans resident who was visiting relatives in Chicago when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast.

Already fighting on behalf of American Muslims is the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, as it is commonly known. The organization, playing a prominent role at ISNA's convention, has developed a reputation for being something of a pit bull in protecting the civil rights of Muslims.

CAIR, for example, sued a North Carolina congressman after he accused the organization of acting as a fundraising arm for Hezbollah, a militant Palestinian group. The council also organized a boycott against a radio station until it fired a disc jockey who called Islam a terrorist organization. CAIR also brought considerable pressure on a Colorado lawmaker who asserted that America should take out Islam's holy sites in the event of another terrorist attack.

Arsalan T. Iftikhar, the national legal director for CAIR, said Saturday it was time for everyday Muslims to "defend the image and reputation of the community and Islam in general."

"I am here to teach you how the American Muslim community can legally empower itself to protect itself in the American courts," he said, as he went into the nuances of the limits of the First Amendment.

Sayyid Syeed, the secretary general of ISNA, a group generally less vocal than CAIR, earlier in the weekend said his organization is considering filing defamation lawsuits against some of its sharpest critics.

Although he declined to name the potential targets of such suits, one of the critics most often cited by Muslim leaders is Steven Emerson.

Emerson's 1994 documentary, "Jihad in America," about radical Islamic groups operating in the United States, won a prestigious journalism award. But his credibility suffered after his on-air commentary about the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. He was among the first pundits to say the bombing had the earmarks of Middle Eastern terrorism. It turned out to be the product of homegrown terrorists.

Via phone Saturday, Emerson said ISNA's interest in using defamation law amount to an effort to stifle free speech. "They are apologists for militant Islam," he said.

Iftikhar said such comments are exactly the reason Muslim groups are becoming more vigilant in responding to their critics. "That's his mantra," he said of Emerson. "He used innuendo, conjecture and defamation."

The conference, focused in part on efforts to repair the image of Islam, began Friday with presentations on how Muslims can do more to counter extremists who cite the religion to justify violence and terrorism.

The convention comes little more than a month after U.S. Muslim scholars issued a fatwa, or religious edict, condemning terrorism. The edict came shortly after the London bombings in July.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Canaver tried. America needs to wake up to the non pc truth.

 

[NATO AIR]

Canaver tried. America needs to wake up to the non pc truth.

next year they'll convene and snidely justify political jihad for instances of the faith being criticized....

jesus, this country is fucked with wackos like this able to abuse the constitution for their twisted purposes...

 

[rtwngAvngr]

next year they'll convene and snidely justify political jihad for instances of the faith being criticized....

jesus, this country is fucked with wackos like this able to abuse the constitution for their twisted purposes...

I knew we could agree on something today!

 

[NATO AIR]

I knew we could agree on something today!

absolutely... sometimes it feels like we're part of a tiny minority that knows the terrible truth nobody else wants to admit...

 

[rtwngAvngr]

absolutely... sometimes it feels like we're part of a tiny minority that knows the terrible truth nobody else wants to admit...

So many people still want to maintain reputability in the eyes of liberals, though they are truly The Enemy Within.

 

[NATO AIR]

So many people still want to maintain reputability in the eyes of liberals, though they are truly The Enemy Within.

Yep, oh no, we "can't possibly offend" anyone, why that would be a violation of their human rights!

CAIR, NAACP, all those latino organizations, they're all just destroying this country, the "balkanization" of the nation.

we'll be at each other's throats in a few decades at this rate.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Yep, oh no, we "can't possibly offend" anyone, why that would be a violation of their human rights!

CAIR, NAACP, all those latino organizations, they're all just destroying this country, the "balkanization" of the nation.

we'll be at each other's throats in a few decades at this rate.

Did you see the story about The Nation Of Islam being hired to give sensitivity training to prison guards? It's a freaking openly anti-jewish, anti-white organization. It's just disgusting.

 

[Adam's Apple]

Did you see the story about The Nation Of Islam being hired to give sensitivity training to prison guards?

Good lord, say this isn't so. Wasn't it just recently that we read that our prisons are breeding grounds for jihadists and terrorists? Now we have The Nation of Islam providing the training ("sensitivity")?

As if the libs are not enough to contend with, now comes the Muslims into the fray!

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Good lord, say this isn't so. Wasn't it just recently that we read that our prisons are breeding grounds for jihadists and terrorists? Now we have The Nation of Islam providing the training ("sensitivity")?

As if the libs are not enough to contend with, now comes the Muslims into the fray!

It's true. I think someone posted it somewhere on here.

 

[Annie]

It's true. I think someone posted it somewhere on here.

Not finding it yet, but here's some very interesting stuff:

http://www.usmessageboard.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16879&highlight=cair+prisons

http://www.investigativeproject.org/FCNA-CAIR.html

Backgrounder On the Fiqh Council of North America and the Council on American-Islamic Relations


Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA)

Members of FCNA connected to Islamic extremism and terrorism

Report at site, scroll down for CAIR

http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19030

Saudis' Double-Crossing Games
By Center for Security Policy
CenterForSecurityPolicy.org | August 5, 2005

Within days of the murderous 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush declared before a joint session of Congress: "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."

Unfortunately, under the leadership of King Fahd (actual or nominal), Saudi Arabia demonstrated that it was possible to be with us and with the terrorists. Far from being regarded as a hostile regime, the United States has described the Saudi government as a valued "partner" in the war on terror, notwithstanding abundant evidence that it continues to harbor and support terrorism around the world - including inside the United States.

Indeed, under Fahd, whose death was officially announced on Monday (although he has been effectively incapacitated for years following a severe stroke), the Saudis perfected their double game: simultaneously being considered in Washington a friend of America while behaving all over the world as a supporter and financier of America's enemies.

Friends like These

A recitation of the evidence of Saudi solidarity with the United States usually starts with King Fahd's decision to allow American forces to use his territory to liberate Kuwait in 1991. Typically, it claims Saudi Arabia's cooperation on oil pricing. Some also point to the Saudis' assistance to U.S. intelligence and law enforcement in counterterrorism efforts post-9/11.

In fact, what the deployment of U.S. troops on Saudi soil in Operation Desert Shield amounted to was allowing us to defend them. When it has suited the Saudis to have cheaper oil - notably, when it looked (briefly) as though we might actually get serious about alternative energy sources - they forced prices down. When it has not, the Saudis have been fully prepared to help the OPEC cartel drive them up (including today when a barrel of oil it costs them at most two or three dollars to extract sells for nearly $60).

It is true that the Saudi royal family has lately become more concerned about its hold on power in the face of terror attacks inside the kingdom. Such concerns may produce a greater degree of mutuality of interest with the United States as relates to countering terrorist operations within Saudi Arabia. Even there, however, the transparency has been limited, as with, for example, American access to terror suspects in Saudi custody.

Far more important is the litany of things the Saudis have done - and continue to do - that encourage and enable terrorism against those (Muslim and non-Muslim alike) who do not embrace the ideology of the Saudi Islamofascist cult known as Wahhabism. A short list of these unfriendly activities includes the following:

# Providing financial, organizational, logistical and other support for terrorists like Osama bin Laden. While the Saudi leadership doesn't want al Qaeda to launch any more attacks inside the kingdom, there is reason to believe that at least some among the 5,000 princes think underwriting its attacks elsewhere is the best way to prevent them at home.

# Founding and running Wahhabi Islamofascist hate-factories in mosques and their associated schools (madrassas) all over the world. The Saudi-financed madrassas of Pakistan have been getting a lot of attention after British authorities identified them as places where the Leeds suicide bombers trained.

A superb study released in January by Freedom House documented that the Saudi government is also using American mosques - by some estimates 80% of which have their mortgages held by Saudi Arabian financial institutions - to promote jihad. Materials officially produced and disseminated to such mosques by the kingdom are filled with calls to hate Christians and Jews. Those who fail to conform are threatened with violent punishment as apostates. Saudi-trained and -selected clerics serve as enforcers in our mosques and in our prisons and military as recruiters for a rabidly anti-American Wahhabi creed.

# Since the Saudi-engineered oil price spikes of the 1970s, the Saudis have also spent untold sums (they acknowledge expending some $80 billion in "foreign aid"; the actual total amount is surely far higher) building up a worldwide infrastructure of charities, businesses and front organizations. In the wake of the London bombings, several of these Saudi-backed front organizations have found it necessary to issue fatwas in Britain and the United States that purport to denounce terror.

More Double Games

As noted terrorism expert Stephen Emerson has reported (www.investigativeproject.org/FCNA-CAIR.html), however, some of these groups and individuals associated with them have been prominent supporters of - or, at the very least, apologists for - terrorist organizations. For example, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which organized a press conference to promote the U.S. version of the phony fatwa, has had no fewer than four of its associates convicted of providing financial or other forms of material support to terrorists.

It is no small irony that the new Saudi ambassador to the United States is a man who exemplifies his country's double game on terrorism: Prince Turki al-Faisal. For roughly twenty-five years, Turki was in charge of Saudi Arabia's intelligence operations. In that capacity, he was intimately familiar both with his country's efforts to promote Wahhabism (including supporting bin Laden's operations in Afghanistan) and its counterterrorism cooperation with the United States.

The Bottom Line

King Fahd's death, the mounting evidence of the danger posed by ongoing Saudi support for terror and the assignment to Washington of one of the kingdom's most experienced double-gamers should require Saudi Arabia finally to do what President Bush demanded nearly four years ago: The Saudis can no longer be with us and against us. They must be made to choose.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

http://www.bayoubuzz.com/articles.aspx?aid=4204

NOPD Links To Nation Of Islam Are Disturbing

The security chief for Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan has been hired to provide sensitivity training for the NOPD. Captain Dennis Muhammad has conducted sensitivity training in other cities such as Buffalo and will be paid $15,000 for his services, which NOPD Chief Eddie Compass says are needed in New Orleans. Compass says there are people in New Orleans who have complained about police treatment and are “anti police.” Compass believes that the “members of the Nation of Islam have some type of relationship with these people

Well well. It's in New Orleans.