Some Shady Connections

(All emphases by Always On Watch)

I have previously reported on some of the activities at the Herndon Day Laborer Center. See "The [Muslim?] Origins of Project Hope." Seed money for that facility, when it drew on private funding, came from Project Hope and Harmony, founded by Mukit Hossain.

From a May 17, 2006 article "Kingdom of the Illegals," which appeared in FrontPage Magazine:

"...Lost in all the controvery, however, is the more disturbing fact that the site -- a covered building featuring picnic tables and bathrooms -- was founded by a Muslim charity with ties to suspected Saudi-backed terror front groups. Its town operating permit won't expire until the fall of 2007, allowing the group not only time to aid and abet hundreds more illegal immigrants, but possibly recruit them.

"The hiring center -- called the Herndon Official Workers Center -- is a charitable front for da'awa, or Islamic outreach to non-Muslims. Local law enforcement officials say the Saudis see new Hispanic arrivals to America as particularly ripe for conversion to Islam, and have even added an annex to their madrassa in another Washington suburb to help indoctrinate the beholden immigrants....

The madrassa is the Islamic Saudi Academy, of course--the alma mater of convicted aspiring Presidential assassin Ahmed Abu Ali. I previously reported on the Islamic Saudi Academy in "What about the Islamic Saudi Academy?" With regard to ISA, Mr. Sperry states the following:

"Located in Alexandria, the Islamic Saudi Academy a year after 9/11 helped set up a similar day-care center for Hispanic immigrants on its campus (which used to be the home of Mount Vernon High School before Fairfax County officials, in their infinite wisdom, leased it to the Saudi government). At one corner, day laborers routinely flock to a 'Pollo' chicken takeout. What better way to introduce them to Islam than to open an annex in the old home economics building just yards away?

"A spokeswoman for the little 'Progresso Hispano' school, which she confirms is operated in part by the Saudi academy, provides 'immigrant services' and 'English classes' to local Hispanics. She would not be more specific, and said the annex's website is 'down.'

"But a county notice of the special planning and zoning exception needed for the annex's approval in November 2002 says that Progresso Hispano 'provides ESL classes, job skill training, good parenting classes, citizenship classes and other support services to the Hispanic community.'

Those 'other support services' are what worry law enforcement authorities.

Now, back to Mukit Hossain:

"Stepping in last year to run the government-sanctioned site was an obscure group by the name, Project Hope and Harmony, which landed (in partnership with nonprofit Reston Interfaith) the $200,000 contract. The man behind the project is Muslim activist Mukit Hossain.

"But he's not just any activist. Born in Bangladesh, Hossain also runs a shadowy Muslim charity in Herndon which recently had its accounts closed by Wachovia bank due to suspicious activity related to possible money-laundering. The Foundation for Appropriate and Immediate Temporary Help, or FAITH, received a $150,000 donation last year from a front group run by Saudi bagman M. Yacub Mirza, whose home and offices were raided by federal agents after 9/11. FAITH helped establish the Project Hope and Harmony....

"[R]ecently, FAITH has become unusually interested in helping Hispanic illegal aliens.

"In addition to running their hiring site, FAITH's Hossain has organized feasts for hundreds of illegals during Thanksgiving, rounding them up and feeding them an intentionally nontraditional Middle Eastern dinner of beef kebabs and rice (instead of turkey and dressing) at Zuhair's Cafe in Herndon. He and other FAITH workers also gave away a van full of new winter coats (price tag: $10,000) to the Hispanic workers and their families. They've also raised money to buy them work boots and bicycles....

"Hossain serves as a member of the mosque's board of trustees when he's not working for FAITH and catering to Hispanic illegals. He's also a founder of the Muslim American Political Action Committee, or MAPAC, which he set up to recruit Muslim candidates to run for federal office and work for the 'empowerment of Muslim Americans.'

"What's more, Hossain is active in the Muslim American Society, which investigators say is the U.S. front for the Muslim Brotherhood, a worldwide jihad movement that gave rise to Hamas, PIJ and al-Qaida...."

The aforementioned mosque is the All Dulles Area Muslim Society [ADAMS Center], and Paul Sperry provides some interesting information about the ADAMS Center:

"Despite it claims of being moderate and progressive, ADAMS is a hard-line Wahhabi mosque controlled by the Saudis, investigators say. A Saudi pamphlet, called 'Religious Edicts for the Immigrant Muslim,' was recently found at the mosque. It states that 'it is forbidden for a Muslim to become a citizen of a country (such as the United States) governed by infidels.' Not surprisingly, even some of the mosque's more prominent members, such as Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR, have not hidden their wish to turn America into an Islamic state."

On May 12, 2006, a few days before Mr. Sperry's article was published in FPM and shortly after the election in which the Herndon mayor and two councilmen, all supporters of the taxpayer-funded center for day laborers, were defeated at the voting booth, the Washington Post published a letter from Mukit Hossain:

"Project Hope and Harmony led the effort to create a site at which day laborers could congregate in Herndon. We felt it was a moral imperative to help those who badly needed help and to solve a community problem with the help of members of that community. Sadly, opponents of the site say that it serves illegal immigrants, and they found eager allies for that viewpoint among anti-immigration groups and self-righteous journalists.

"The site has done its intended job; it has ended the chaos on the street corners where laborers assembled in the heat, cold or rain in the hope of getting a job. Often, the day laborers were exploited. But apparently it doesn't matter how well the site works, how much it would cost to expel workers that our economy needs or how inhumane it would be to close the site: Critics still want the day laborer site shut down.

"Some say the public has spoken through the recent election. Some say the laborers would be better served by returning home and perhaps trying to come back as legal immigrants. Some say they don't want the 'illegals' to be put on a path to legalization. But the more I hear these opinions, the more I see them for what they really are: bigotry.

"I once saw a bumper sticker that read, 'Hate is not a family value.' Apparently, in Herndon, it is about to become one unless the decent silent majority reclaims the community."

If Paul Sperry's information is accurate, the above letter from Mukit Hossain takes on a degree of irony. And I keep remembering another uncomforable fact: Islam divides all the world into Muslim and "other."

Finally Paul Sperry's FPM article provides a reminder that illegal immigration can pose a national-security risk:

"Hispanic illegals at a 7-11 in Falls Church turned a quick buck by helping the 9-11 hijackers obtain fake IDs."

Saudi Textbooks

As I mentioned before, I'm overwhelmed right now. In fact, I'm not able even to read the daily paper from cover to cover. But thanks to an email heads-up from one of my homeschool parents, the matter of Saudi textbooks has been brought to my attention.

The following article, "This is a Saudi textbook (After the intolerance was removed.)," appeared in the May 21, 2006 edition of the Washington Post and is reproduced below in its entirety, with links enabled from the Washington Post web site:

Saudi Arabia's public schools have long been cited for demonizing the West as well as Christians, Jews and other "unbelievers." But after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis -- that was all supposed to change.

A 2004 Saudi royal study group recognized the need for reform after finding that the kingdom's religious studies curriculum "encourages violence toward others, and misguides the pupils into believing that in order to safeguard their own religion, they must violently repress and even physically eliminate the 'other.' " Since then, the Saudi government has claimed repeatedly that it has revised its educational texts.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, has worked aggressively to spread this message. "The kingdom has reviewed all of its education practices and materials, and has removed any element that is inconsistent with the needs of a modern education," he said on a recent speaking tour to several U.S. cities. "Not only have we eliminated what might be perceived as intolerance from old textbooks that were in our system, we have implemented a comprehensive internal revision and modernization plan." The Saudi government even took out a full-page ad in the New Republic last December to tout its success at "having modernized our school curricula to better prepare our children for the challenges of tomorrow." A year ago, an embassy spokesman declared: "We have reviewed our educational curriculums. We have removed materials that are inciteful or intolerant towards people of other faiths." The embassy is also distributing a 74-page review on curriculum reform to show that the textbooks have been moderated.

The problem is: These claims are not true.

A review of a sample of official Saudi textbooks for Islamic studies used during the current academic year reveals that, despite the Saudi government's statements to the contrary, an ideology of hatred toward Christians and Jews and Muslims who do not follow Wahhabi doctrine remains in this area of the public school system. The texts teach a dualistic vision, dividing the world into true believers of Islam (the "monotheists") and unbelievers (the "polytheists" and "infidels").

This indoctrination begins in a first-grade text and is reinforced and expanded each year, culminating in a 12th-grade text instructing students that their religious obligation includes waging jihad against the infidel to "spread the faith."

Freedom House knows this because Ali al-Ahmed, a Saudi dissident who runs the Washington-based Institute for Gulf Affairs, gave us a dozen of the current, purportedly cleaned-up Saudi Ministry of Education religion textbooks. The copies he obtained were not provided by the government, but by teachers, administrators and families with children in Saudi schools, who slipped them out one by one.

Some of our sources are Shiites and Sunnis from non-Wahhabi traditions -- people condemned as "polytheistic" or "deviant" or "bad" in these texts -- others are simply frustrated that these books do so little to prepare young students for the modern world.

We then had the texts translated separately by two independent, fluent Arabic speakers.

Religion is the foundation of the Saudi state's political ideology; it is also a key area of Saudi education in which students are taught the interpretation of Islam known as Wahhabism (a movement founded 250 years ago by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab) that is reflected in these textbooks.

Scholars estimate that within the Saudi public school curriculum, Islamic studies make up a quarter to a third of students' weekly classroom hours in lower and middle school, plus several hours each week in high school. Educators who question or dissent from the official interpretation of Islam can face severe reprisals. In November 2005, a Saudi teacher who made positive statements about Jews and the New Testament was fired and sentenced to 750 lashes and a prison term. (He was eventually pardoned after public and international protests.)

The Saudi public school system totals 25,000 schools, educating about 5 million students. In addition, Saudi Arabia runs academies in 19 world capitals, including one outside Washington in Fairfax County, that use some of these same religious texts.

Saudi Arabia also distributes its religion texts worldwide to numerous Islamic schools and madrassas that it does not directly operate. Undeterred by Wahhabism's historically fringe status, Saudi Arabia is trying to assert itself as the world's authoritative voice on Islam -- a sort of "Vatican" for Islam, as several Saudi officials have stated-- and these textbooks are integral to this effort. As the report of the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks observed, "Even in affluent countries, Saudi-funded Wahhabi schools are often the only Islamic schools" available.
Education is at the core of the debate over freedom in the Muslim world. Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden understands this well; in a recent audiotape he railed against those who would "interfere with school curricula."

The passages below -- drawn from the same set of Saudi texts proudly cited in the new 74-page review of curriculum reform now being distributed by the Saudi Embassy -- are shaping the views of the next generation of Saudis and Muslims worldwide. Unchanged, they will only harden and deepen hatred, intolerance and violence toward other faiths and cultures. Is this what Riyadh calls reform?

religion@freedomhouse.org

FIRST GRADE

" Every religion other than Islam is false."

"Fill in the blanks with the appropriate words (Islam, hellfire): Every religion other than ______________ is false. Whoever dies outside of Islam enters ____________."

FOURTH GRADE

"True belief means . . . that you hate the polytheists and infidels but do not treat them unjustly."

FIFTH GRADE

"Whoever obeys the Prophet and accepts the oneness of God cannot maintain a loyal friendship with those who oppose God and His Prophet, even if they are his closest relatives."

"It is forbidden for a Muslim to be a loyal friend to someone who does not believe in God and His Prophet, or someone who fights the religion of Islam."

"A Muslim, even if he lives far away, is your brother in religion. Someone who opposes God, even if he is your brother by family tie, is your enemy in religion."

SIXTH GRADE

"Just as Muslims were successful in the past when they came together in a sincere endeavor to evict the Christian crusaders from Palestine, so will the Arabs and Muslims emerge victorious, God willing, against the Jews and their allies if they stand together and fight a true jihad for God, for this is within God's power."

EIGHTH GRADE

"As cited in Ibn Abbas: The apes are Jews, the people of the Sabbath; while the swine are the Christians, the infidels of the communion of Jesus."

"God told His Prophet, Muhammad, about the Jews, who learned from parts of God's book [the Torah and the Gospels] that God alone is worthy of worship. Despite this, they espouse falsehood through idol-worship, soothsaying, and sorcery. In doing so, they obey the devil. They prefer the people of falsehood to the people of the truth out of envy and hostility. This earns them condemnation and is a warning to us not to do as they did."

"They are the Jews, whom God has cursed and with whom He is so angry that He will never again be satisfied [with them]."

"Some of the people of the Sabbath were punished by being turned into apes and swine. Some of them were made to worship the devil, and not God, through consecration, sacrifice, prayer, appeals for help, and other types of worship. Some of the Jews worship the devil. Likewise, some members of this nation worship the devil, and not God."

"Activity: The student writes a composition on the danger of imitating the infidels."

NINTH GRADE

"The clash between this [Muslim] community (umma) and the Jews and Christians has endured, and it will continue as long as God wills."

"It is part of God's wisdom that the struggle between the Muslim and the Jews should continue until the hour [of judgment]."

"Muslims will triumph because they are right. He who is right is always victorious, even if most people are against him."

TENTH GRADE

The 10th-grade text on jurisprudence teaches that life for non-Muslims (as well as women, and, by implication, slaves) is worth a fraction of that of a "free Muslim male." Blood money is retribution paid to the victim or the victim's heirs for murder or injury:

"Blood money for a free infidel. [Its quantity] is half of the blood money for a male Muslim, whether or not he is 'of the book' or not 'of the book' (such as a pagan, Zoroastrian, etc.).

"Blood money for a woman: Half of the blood money for a man, in accordance with his religion. The blood money for a Muslim woman is half of the blood money for a male Muslim, and the blood money for an infidel woman is half of the blood money for a male infidel."

ELEVENTH GRADE

"The greeting 'Peace be upon you' is specifically for believers. It cannot be said to others."

"If one comes to a place where there is a mixture of Muslims and infidels, one should offer a greeting intended for the Muslims."

"Do not yield to them [Christians and Jews] on a narrow road out of honor and respect."

TWELFTH GRADE

"Jihad in the path of God -- which consists of battling against unbelief, oppression, injustice, and those who perpetrate it -- is the summit of Islam. This religion arose through jihad and through jihad was its banner raised high. It is one of the noblest acts, which brings one closer to God, and one of the most magnificent acts of obedience to God."

Nina Shea is director of the Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House.

Symposium Report: Part Three

(All emphases by Always On Watch)

Islam and the Criminal Mind
Dr. Babu Suseelan, professor in clinical psychology and Director of Addiction Research Institute in Pennsylvania was the second speaker at the April 29, 2006 Symposium and made the following statements early in his presentation:

“The ideology behind terrorism is Islam. Period."

“The whole history of Islam has been death and destruction.”

Those statements got the immediate attention of the listeners. The first third of the presentation included several hot-button statements such as the above, as well as substantiation.

In the middle portion of his speech, Dr. Suseelan drew parallels between the Islamic mind and the criminal mind; he also compared Islamic thinking to that of the alcoholic or drug addict and pointed out that early indoctrination leads to what most of us would describe as twisted thinking—a code which encompasses a violent lifestyle.

The essence of the middle portion of Dr. Suseelan's presentation was similar to the following comment, which Dr. Suseelan made at Front Page Magazine's blog "Go Postal":

“…Jihadi terrorists are irrational, extreme xenophobic, hostile, and blinded by their dogmatic, fundamentalist faith. The basic premise of Jihadi terrorist is that their violent acts stem from feelings of rage and hatred reinforced by their belief system. Jihadis think and behave differently. They are selfish, impulsive, calculating and act out of their own selfish interest with no regard to the responsible members of society. Whatever their ideology, religious sanction, Jihadis are cunning, intelligent, self-seeking, aware of their criminal acts and incapable of guilt and empathy. Several patterns of thinking drive the Jihadis terrorists, including:

• Rationalization
• Indifference
• A sense of entitlement
• Super optimism
• Lack of Guilt
• Shallow emotions
• Lack of remorse
• Egocentricity
• Grandiosity

"Ideas expressed in the Koran provide all the justification necessary for Jihadis to carry out deadly terrorist activities. Jihadi terrorists are primarily afraid of freethinking, liberty, pluralism, secularism, and co-existence. They are defensive, capricious, and conditioned by their outdated irrational fanatic religious dogma…”

Speaking in terms from his area of expertise, Dr. Suseelan pointed out that Islam itself is a closed paradigm which uses force to maintain itself, thereby leading to violence in Islamic societies. Citing Afghanistan as an example, Dr. Suseelan emphasized that merely introducing democracy into this closed paradigm will not succeed in opening the Islamic paradigm and that changing a regime is only a temporary relief from the self-perpetuating a closed dogma disguised in religious garb. Rather, cognitive restructuring is required. He mentioned the following as strategies to use in containing the violence and to promote cognitive restructuring:

• Don’t accept Islam as just another cultural variant.
• Criticize Islam openly, using the Internet and any available media.
• Stop immigration from Muslim nations.
• Emphasize the humanity of those slaughtered by the followers of Islam.
• Disqualify any Islamic theocracy from having a seat at the United Nations.
• Do not permit Muslim proselytizing in prisons.

Dr. Suseelan’s speech was quite lengthy and complex, and some attendees at the Symposium may have had difficulty in following all his rapidly-made points. Also, the sound of English spoken with a soothing and lilting Indian accent can become the focus of the listener. However, Dr. Suseelan began his presentation with attention-getters, did not speak in euphemisms or politically-correct terms, and included a PowerPoint presentation of graphs, maps, and trends. He substantiated much of what he said with a brief history of Islam, particularly with regard to the five-centuries-long “Holocaust in India” (Eleventh-Sixteenth Centuries), in which 80,000,000 were slaughtered by Muslims in the Indian subcontinent, and also mentioned at least one recent statement which he overheard from a Muslim in New York City after the most recent detonation of a bomb in Tel-Aviv, Israel:

“We need more bombs to kill more Jews.”

In other words, he effectively showed that "radical Islam" is not a new development and that jihadism has been characteristic of Islam across the centuries.

In the final portion of his presentation, almost as a musical coda, Dr. Suseelan concluded his speech with visual aids to illustrate how, over the past fourteen centuries, the methods for waging Islamic have progressed from the sword to guns to suicide-bombers to IED’s.

Dr. Suseelan left us with this question: Is the next Jihadist weapon the nuclear bomb?

[Find essays by Dr. Babu Suseelan here.]

Michelle Malkin cites Northern Virginiastan

Michelle Malkin's blog is one of the most popular news commentary and analysis blogs around, right or left. That's why Northern Virginiastan is proud that she cited us in her VIDEO/PHOTO ESSAY: VIVA LA RAZA IN D.C. about last month's immigration rally in DC:

I had to leave before the English-language bloviations began. The Political Pit Bull has C-SPAN segments of illegal alien voter recruitment leader Teddy Kennedy...and one Imam Johari Abdul-Malik.


Background on this imam and his mosque at USNews, The Counterterrorism Blog, Militant Islam Monitor, and Northern Virginiastan.

Jihadists heart open borders!

Quick, someone with Photoshop change "Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center" to "9/11 Mosque."

The Map of Islamic Terrorist Attacks

Before I started the Northern Virginiastan blog, I created and maintained the Islamic Monitor web site. Long before 9/11, I was alarmed at the demands of CAIR and a whole alphabet soup of other Muslim organizations. I never expected 9/11, but I feared the creeping, stealthy Islamicization of American society. This fear, or whatever you call it, was borne out of my experiences with Muslim classmates in graduate school.

I quit updating the Islamic Monitor site, as after 9/11, a whole group of web sites and blogs were doing what I was doing, but a whole lot better. I created the Northern Virginiastan blog with a view to "Think Globally, Act Locally." While the web site stats for Islamic Monitor spiked dramatically after 9/11, I occasionally still get comments about some of my pages, such as Haiqa Khan, nee Jemima Goldsmith, about the (now divorced) wife of Pakistani cricketeer-turned-politician Imran Khan (she has returned to the social whirl in London and rumor has it that Hugh Grant is going to propose to her anyday now) and A Strong Muslim Woman Writes to Islamic Monitor! - I just received a very nice email from a woman in the UK congratulating me for how I responded to the SMW.

Now I've taken up another project. I was inspired by The Bloody Borders Project started by Baron Bodissey of Gates of Vienna. I noted that his data ends on February 22. For a week now, I've been taking the data from The Religion of Peace and tagging them by latitude and longitude through Tagzania to create a map of terrorist attacks in the last week. You may see the results via the Acme GeoRSS viewer or Tagzania.


Map of Islamic Terrorist Attacks Since May 3, 2006

While the results are modest compared to what The Baron has done, this is a worthwhile project and I will continue to update it.

Muslims To Protest Wachovia Bank

From the article "Wachovia Bank Action Riles Muslim Activists," which appeared in the May 6, 2006 edition of the Washington Post:

"Local Muslim activists said yesterday that they will launch a public campaign against Wachovia Corp. to protest its refusal to explain why it closed the bank accounts of a Herndon-based Muslim social service organization....

"'People in this community have a right to know why Wachovia closed this account,' said Mahdi Bray, director of the Muslim American Society's Freedom Foundation....

"The treasurer of the Muslim charity, the Foundation for Appropriate and Immediate Temporary Help, said she suspects that Wachovia closed the accounts because the charity received a donation in April 2005 from a charity run by Muslim businessman M. Yaqub Mirza, whose Northern Virginia home and offices were raided by federal agents in 2002. Mirza has not been charged with a crime.

"The $150,000 donation, intended as an endowment, came from an account at the same Wachovia branch where the Foundation for Appropriate and Immediate Temporary Help had its accounts, said the treasurer, Margaret Farchtchi. The money was then invested in a subsidiary of Sterling Management Group Inc., a company run by Mirza, in an account at the same branch. This provided Wachovia with full transparency on the donation's movements, Farchtchi and another source close to the charity said.

"Although $150,000 was an unusually large amount for the charity's three accounts, which normally held $60,000 to $70,000, the origin and purpose of the money could have been 'easily explained' if bank officials had asked, Farchtchi said....

"Saylor, of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said that last year Wachovia also closed accounts held by five Northern Virginia Muslim organizations that were targeted in U.S. Customs raids in 2002, including Sterling Management. None has been charged with a crime.

"The offices of the Foundation for Appropriate and Immediate Temporary Help were not raided and, as far as it knows, it 'has never been the subject' of a federal investigation, Saylor wrote in an e-mail.

"Formed in 1999, the charity provides aid to needy Northern Virginia residents of all faiths, including crisis counseling; emergency payments for rent, food and utilities; and support for victims of domestic violence.

"In a Jan. 13 letter to a charity official, Jeraldine B. Davis, Wachovia senior vice president and assistant general counsel, denied that the bank 'was motivated by discrimination.' She wrote that certain account activity 'was significantly different from that which Wachovia would expect to see in an account established for a charity.'

"David Caruso, a bank consultant who specializes in efforts to prevent money-laundering, said Wachovia's silence may stem from restrictions imposed by Congress after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Besides being required to report suspicious financial activities to the U.S. Treasury, banks are barred by law from telling anyone that they have made such reports.

"Banks are not required to close accounts that raise suspicions, but monitoring them can become costly, Caruso said. As a result, he said, banks may 'make a business decision' that keeping the account is not worth the cost."

Following the money trail is an important part of protecting our national security. And using charity organizations is one way to launder money.

Another one for the Wahhabi corridor

It's been months since I've seen a copy of the Muslim Link, the newspaper serving the Muslim community in the DC metro area - because the ethnic market where I occasionally shop no longer stocks it. However, I ate dinner at the Afghan Restaurant on Highway 1, where I found a stack of Muslim Link newspapers lying by the door.

The Wahhabi Corridor is the nickname given to Leesburg Pike, AKA Route 7, on account of the Muslim organizations and businesses located near Rout 7. The Muslim Link had a full-page advertisement for a fund-raising dinner for the Islamic Heritage Center, which plans to build a mosque right on Leesburg Pike, near the intersection with Baron Cameron Avenue. The address is 10602 Leesburg Pike, Vienna, VA.

Is there anyone who can do the legwork to investigate the Islamic Heritage Center in the way that Paul Sperry investigate another local mosque? (Scroll down to the bottom of the linked page)

Symposium Report: Part Two

Brigitte Gabriel

At the April 29, 2006 America's Truth Forum, the first speaker (online bio) was Brigitte Gabriel, a tiny woman who spoke with convincing passion. She brought the attendees to tears as she spoke of her experiences during the Islamic revolution in her native land of Lebanon. Ms. Gabriel maintained that the worldwide Islamic revolution began in Lebanon, some four years before the 1979 revolution in Iran.

Before the takeover, sometimes referred to as a civil war, Lebanon was a republic, often referred to as "the Paris of the Middle East," and a nation of multiculturalism and diversity. Multicultural and diverse — Sound familiar?

In 1970, Lebanon took in various Muslim refugees. These welcomed refugees, who never intended to assimilate and who had another agenda, became a majority, and in Ms. Gabriel's words,

“Outside and inside Muslims put their heads together."

Ms. Gabriel went through her 9/11 when she was ten years old:

"I knew I was wanted dead because I was born a Christian."

From the ages of ten through seventeen, she and her family lived in an eight-by-ten bomb shelter underground—no bathrooms, no light—and ate grass to stay alive; to bring water back to the shelter where she and her parents were hiding, Ms. Gabriel, just a child, had to crawl under snipers’ bullets. In the middle of the night, Israelis would come to bring real food and to minister medical aid; Ms. Gabriel believes that if not for these Israelis she and her family would have perished in that hole in the ground.

Many of the monstrosities committed during Lebanon's takeover were never reported by the media. For example, the revolutionists would capture a family with a small baby and kill them in a horrifying manner: one of a baby’s legs tied to the father and the other leg to the mother, then the parents forced apart, thereby pulling apart their own child and watching themselves kill their baby.

When Ms. Gabriel was thirteen years old, shortly after they took shelter in their hole in the ground, her family got word that they would most likely die the next day. In preparation for her death and burial, and so as to look good for her own funeral, the young girl dressed in her best dress—her Easter dress, blue with white flowers—and her mother put a matching ribbon in her hair. The family waited to die. The attack didn’t come, and in 1982, Israelis entered Lebanon and rescued Brigitte Gabriel.

Excerpt from Ms. Gabriel's web site:

"We are facing an enemy that uses children as human bombs, mothers as suicide bombers, and men driven by the glory of death and the promise of eternal sexual bliss in heaven. We are fighting an enemy that loves death more than we love life....So many times in history in the last 100 years, citizens have stood by and done nothing allowing evil to prevail...[N]ow it is time to stand up against the terror of religious bigotry and intolerance."

Read more about Brigitte Gabriel at American Congress for Truth.

And if you ever have the opportunity to hear this lady speak in person, go! Ms. Gabriel speaks with passion and, as a survivor of Islamic terrorism, gives unique and unforgettable insights.

Addendum: Watch the video interview of Brigitte Gabriel. It is available at the bottom of the left sidebar here.

The same geopolitical ideology which led to what Ms. Gabriel described has a strong base in today's Western world. The followers of Allah really believe that they have the religious duty to bring about the establishment of the worldwide caliphate, Islamic utopia. In that regard, radicals and "moderates" have the same goal.

CAIR Feels Insulted

"CAIR Asks Why No Muslim Groups To Speak At Darfur Rally: Lack of Muslim speakers calls into question rally's 'true agenda'":

"(WASHINGTON, DC, 4/30/2006) - The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today questioned why no representatives of major American Muslim groups are listed as speakers at the Save Darfur Coalition 'Rally to Stop Genocide' this afternoon in Washington, D.C.

"CAIR and other American Muslim groups, including the Islamic Society of North America, the Islamic Circle of North America, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, and the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, are members of the coalition. But no representative from these, or any Muslim coalition member, is listed on the latest rally program...."

Maybe here's why CAIR wasn't invited:

Symposium Report: Part One

(All emphases by Always On Watch)

The information below was the first item on the schedule at today's America's Truth Forum. Excerpt from World Net Daily's article "'American Hiroshima' Linked with Iran Attack: Pakistani journalist who met bin Laden confirms al-Qaida nukes, says they may already be in U.S.":

"Al-Qaida has already obtained nuclear suitcase weapons from the Russian black market, weapons tested in Afghanistan in 2000, and they may have already been forward-deployed inside the U.S., according to the only journalist to interview Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri in the wake of Sept. 11.

"Last week, Hamid Mir's credibility skyrocketed when he accurately predicted in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin and later in WND the imminent release of a new recorded communiqué from bin Laden through al-Jazeera, the Arabic TV network. Two days later, bin Laden's tape was the focus of international news coverage.

"'If you think that my information and analysis about bin Laden's location is correct,' said Hamid Mir, 'then please don't underestimate my analysis about his nuclear threat also.'...

"Mir also maintains that numerous sleeper agents are in place in major cities throughout the United States to prepare for the nuclear holocaust...."

Read the rest here. Mir has already proved himself as a reliable source.

Ahmadinejad of Iran continues his brazen defiance, of which various news reports inform us on a daily basis. And according to this article in the Washington Post,

"PARIS, April 26 -- Escalating the threats between Washington and Tehran, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei [who was exiled as a readical a by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of Iran's revolution in the 1970's!] , warned Wednesday that his country would strike U.S. targets around the world in the event it is attacked over its refusals to curb its nuclear program.

"'If the U.S. ventured into any aggression on Iran, Iran will retaliate by damaging U.S. interests worldwide twice as much as the U.S. may inflict on Iran,' Khamenei said in a speech to a workers' assembly, according to the official news agency IRNA.

"His statement adds to a campaign of defiance by senior Iranian officials in advance of a report expected Friday by the U.N. atomic watchdog agency, which analysts predict will cite Iran for defying U.N. Security Council demands to halt its uranium enrichment program...."

Also mentioned at the symposium were two specific individuals who might have a connection to the above information from World Net Daily. Go here and here to see FBI posters of two men who might be sleeper agents to carry out attacks in the United States; the first man, Adnan el-Shukrijumah, has been termed by the FBI as "the next Mohammed Atta"; the second man, Amer el-Maati, may be one of his cohorts. Whether or not el-Shukrijumah and el-Maati are part of the plot to which World Net Daily alludes, these are dangerous men and need to be taken into custody as soon as possible. Contact America's Most Wanted by emailing to amwcontact@amw.com or by phoning 1-800-CRIMETV, and urge John Walsh to put the pictures of these two men on television so that all of us can watch for them.

The Kennedy Center's planned festival of Arab culture

Always on Watch is more courageous than I - AOW is attending America's Truth Forum, which is being held today in the DC metro area, while I'm too chicken, on account of wanting to hold on to my Federal government job.

I was at Starbuck's this morning (never Caribou Coffee, which is expanding its presence here, including an outlet at Fair Oaks Mall), where I happened to come across a copy of the WaPo's Style section. There was a review of Flight 93 as the major story on the front page of the Style section, and I couldn't help notice the juxtaposition of that with an article on the Kennedy Center's plan to host a festival of Arab Culture in 2009, with assistance from the Arab League, with the vaunted goal of promoting "understanding." Kennedy Center President Michael J. Kaiser said that "the idea starts from my rather naive belief that arts create peace."

Oh brother. Give me a break. On 9/11, nineteen Arab men killed nearly 3,000 people as they went about their business to provide for their families, with the intent of killing thousands more. The passengers of Flight 93 went to their certain deaths, but might have saved many others, by disrupting the plans of Ziad Jarrah and his companions.

Moreover, there is at least ambivalence about the performing arts in the Muslim world (to say nothing about the visual arts), which is why I find the concept of a festival of Arab culture strange. I happen to like "world music" (but not at the expense of dead white man's culture) and have gone to concerts of music from India and Iran. I had gone to a performance on Strings Across Asia at the Smithsonian, featuring music ians from China and Mongolia and Ali Jihad Racy, an Arab musicologist based at UCLA - at one point, he even demonstrated how the Bedouins turned a device used to smash coffee beans (it looked like a butter churn) into a rhythm instrument! One thing that didn't escape my notice is that while the Chinese community was well represented in the audience, there were few Arabs there.

This is one cultural festival we don't need. There have been news reports that terrorists have investigated the use of visas granted for cultural exchange for infiltration. Rather than all these efforts at "understanding", let's stop the jeziya called foreign aid to Arab countries, limit Arab investment in the U.S., limit Arab and Muslim migration to the U.S., and wean ourselves off dependence on Arab oil. The type of outreach that I'd like to see is forceful and effective articulation of our values to the Arab world.

The Moussaoui Trial

Excerpt from Peter Porcupine's blog-article "NOW Do You Believe It?" :

"...The religious zeal of Moussaoui is real, sincere and deadly. If we fail to execute him, it will be percieved [sic] as a signal of our inherent weakness in the Muslim [world], and will ultimately cause the death and destruction of millions...."

Read the full article here.

CAIR And Litigation

(All emphases by Always On Watch)

One of my previous articles reported on the mutually agreeable dismissal of CAIR’s lawsuit against Andrew Whitehead of Anti-Cair. In the April 21, 2006 edition of Front Page Magazine, Daniel Pipes gives additional details as to the sequence leading to the dismissal of CAIR’s case. Excerpt:

"In anticipation of a court hearing regarding discovery, Rubinstein [attorney for Andrew Whitehead of Anti-CAIR] filed papers in the Virginia Circuit Court in October 2005 and December 2005 alleging extensive links between CAIR’s organizers and control group with Hamas and other foreign and domestic Islamists. Among other things, these papers alleged:

• CAIR’s lineage goes back to a key Hamas leader (Musa Abu Marzook), and that CAIR has long been connected with, and 'exploited' the 9/11 attacks to raise money for the Holy Land Foundation, a Hamas front group.

• CAIR is heavily supported, financially and otherwise, by suspect Saudi and UAE-based individuals and groups.

• CAIR states that the U.S. judicial system has been 'kidnapped by Israeli interests,' and claims that anti-terror law enforcement action against the Holy Land Foundation was 'an anti-Muslim witch hunt' promoted by 'the pro-Israel lobby in America.'

"CAIR refused to respond to Anti-CAIR’s discovery requests in its November 2005 response to Rubinstein. For example, it did not admit that Hamas murders innocent civilians, it refused to disclose the identities of its Saudi donors, it declined to answer whether it aims to convert American Christians to Islam, and it avoided questions about the anti-Semitic and anti-American activities of its founder and executive director, Nihad Awad, including his communications with Hamas terrorists, speeches supporting suicide bombings, and advocacy of violence against Jews.

"In March 2006, shortly before a scheduled court hearing to decide on several of Whitehead’s requests (compelling CAIR to disclose its financial data, to answer questions about its relationship with Hamas and other Islamists, and to provide information regarding its leaders’ activities and intentions), the case was settled and then dismissed with prejudice by stipulation (meaning, the plaintiff has agreed to forever drop all of the claims that were in, or could have been in, the complaint).

Here is a list of other litigations initiated by CAIR. The following cases were also dismissed recently — not in the favor of CAIR:

(1) "CAIR vs. Cass Ballenger. Ballenger, a North Carolina Republican congressman, called CAIR 'the fund-raising arm for Hezbollah' and raised the possibility that it would try to blow up the Capitol Building. CAIR responded with a $2 million defamation suit.

"[On April 11, 2006, a] three-judge federal appeals court panel in Washington (made up of David Sentelle, Judith Rogers, and Thomas Griffith) ruled unanimously to uphold Leon's March 2005 decision to dismiss CAIR's case.

(2) "CAIR-Canada vs. CFRA and David Harris. Harris, a former Canadian Security and Intelligence Service agent, mentioned on April 1, 2004, on radio station CFRA's morning show, Madeley in the Morning, that 'there are a number of officials and former officials of CAIR-USA who are now in custody and who are serving sentences on terrorist-related offences, to which. I might add, they have pleased guilty.' Harris called on the Globe and Mail, where Sheema Khan of CAIR's Canadian office writes regular column, 'to at least clarify where exactly CAIR-Canada fits in this larger picture.' On June 24, 2004 CAIR in Canada sued Harris and CFRA for libel.

"[On April 12, 2006 this] case was dismissed…by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice without costs. Harris commented to me that 'CAIR-CAN got no apology, no 'clarification,' and, most certainly, no money.

"He also pointed out that 'CAIR-CAN's rather exaggerated claims of what I said make a nice juxtaposition with its cold dropping of the case. It quite obviously didn't fancy a messy court episode. I asked an important question of public interest, and got a law suit in response. Now, it's time for some answers.'"

These cases — the law suits targeting Andrew Whitehead, Cass Ballenger, and David Harris — seem to indicate that CAIR cannot stand up to scrutiny of its financial ties. Isn’t it time to more fully investigate ties which CAIR appears to desire to avoid discussion of?

Additional information--CAIR's ties to our government--is available here.

Journalistic Standards At Arab Newspapers

(All emphases by Always On Watch)

Recently Fawaz Turki, formerly the senior op-ed columnist for Arab News, an English-language newspaper in Saudi Arabia, was fired from his job because he had criticized various Islamic rulers. His commentary, "How to Lose Your Job at a Saudi Newspaper," appeared in the April 15, 2006 edition of the Washington Post. Fawaz Turki explains why he lost his job:

“…I had committed one of the three cardinal sins an Arab journalist must avoid when working for the Arab press: I criticized the government.

“The other two? Bringing up Islam as an issue and criticizing, by name, political leaders in the Arab or Islamic world for their brazen excesses, dismal failures and blatant abuses.”

As one might expect, much of Fawaz Turki’s commentary chronicles the sequence of stories which led to his dismissal But he also goes a bit deeper to share the underlying causes and the implications of his dismissal:

“...[T]his is not just the story of an Arab journalist losing his job. It is a story with implications for the current American administration's efforts to ‘introduce’ the Arab countries to democracy, of which independent, free media are a major building block….

“Democracy may be a political system, but it is also a social ethos. How responsive can a country be to such an ethos when its people have, for generations, existed with an ethic of fear—fear of originality, fear of innovation, fear of spontaneity, fear of life itself—and have had instilled in them the need to accept orthodoxy, dependence and submission?"

Fawaz Turki’s article concludes with the following two paragraphs:

“In this atmosphere, it is regarded as an example of reportorial acumen to write on the op-ed pages of prominent Arab journals about how the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were the work of Israeli agents, how the death of Princess Diana was the result of some diabolical plot by British intelligence to end her life rather than see her married to an Arab Muslim, how Monica Lewinsky was an agent-in-place, put in the White House by the 'Jewish lobby'—and so on with other infantile whimsies.

“For Arabs, there is still a great divide between word and world. You can embrace conspiracy theories with impressive ease, and be accorded by your editors the right to pontificate about any foolish thing you want, but don't dare write about the malfeasance of political leaders in Egypt and Palestine, or the atrocities of a fellow-Muslim government in East Timor.”

The Arab concept of journalism is far removed from what we Westerners take for granted—logical conclusions based on facts. Under the conditions which Fawaz Turki describes, the proposed propaganda war with the aim of convincing Muslim nations of joining the Twenty-first Century might be a foregone failure—at least in the short term. Even modern Arab newspapers such as Arab News operate on a different journalistic level.

CAIR, Immigration Policy, And Humanitarian Aid

(All emphases by Always On Watch)

The following is from CAIR's web site:

"Action: Support Comprehensive Immigration Reform

"(WASHINGTON, DC, 4/4/2006) - CAIR today called on American Muslims and other people of conscience to urge their elected officials to support humane and comprehensive immigration reform.

"Last year, the U.S. House passed legislation addressing security concerns only. The Senate will be voting on its own version of immigration legislation this week.

"Effective reform will address security concerns while simultaneously reforming our nation's broken immigration system.

"The following reforms should be included in any comprehensive immigration reform legislation:

* A path to citizenship for immigrants earned through working, paying taxes and learning English
* Measures that regulate wages and working conditions to protect workers from being exploited
* A way to keep families intact.
* Security measures that detect and exclude terrorists while respecting basic legal protections such as judicial review and uniform enforcement of laws

"Any measures punishing religious leaders for humanitarian acts toward undocumented workers, such as providing food and water, should be excluded.

"'Anti-immigrant bigotry and xenophobia should not be allowed to dominate this debate,' said CAIR Government Affairs Director Corey Saylor. 'America's laws should reflect our nation's humanitarian ideals and immigrant origins.'"

Contrast the above-bolded text with the following:

"...This approach [relating to Christian missionary work in Muslim nations], even if led by Latinos, still draws skepticism from some Muslims who have seen a variety of methods by Christians seeking the same objective of conversion, said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group in Washington.

Men growing beards. Women wearing head coverings. Bibles placed on wooden stands like Korans. Churches built to resemble mosques.

"'It's a new twist on an old approach,' Hooper said. 'They want to appear as Muslim as possible to kind of blur the lines.'

"Hooper said he doesn't believe humanitarian help from evangelical mission groups is unconditional.

"'If the Bible is handed out with a sack of rice, they're going to take the sack of rice and the Bible if their kids are starving,' he said. 'We have no problem with someone coming to a Muslim and saying, "I think Christianity is better." But we object to going into a vulnerable population with a disproportionate power relationship.'"...

Can Christians in an Islamic country openly go up to Muslims and say that Christianity is better? Might want to check with Saudi Arabia on that last one—just for starters. Abdul Rahman also discovered just how free Afghanistan is under shari'ah law; just having a Bible almost cost him his life. See "Shari'ah Law As Civil Law" for a few details on the Rahman case, which had a good outcome only because of pressure from Western nations.

Fox Guarding The Henhouse?

(All emphases by Always On Watch)

The following information comes from the April 6, 2006 edition of the Washingon Times:

"An Iraqi-born U.S. citizen suspected of being a foreign intelligence agent was employed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to rule on asylum applications, including those from unfriendly Middle Eastern nations, according to documents obtained from Congress by The Washington Times.

"Michael J. Maxwell, the former head of the Office of Security and Investigations at USCIS, is expected to testify about the Iraqi case and other breakdowns at the agency to a House subcommittee today.

" Mr. Maxwell will tell legislators that the immigration system is being used by enemy governments to place agents in the United States.

"The suspected agent, whose name has not been released, judged 180 asylum applications while at USCIS, the agency that also rules on green cards, citizenship and employment authorization. ...

"'The immigration system as a whole is so broken that our adversaries can game it,' Mr. Maxwell told The Times when asked about the documents this week. 'I can assure you they're using it against us; they can with impunity.'

"His testimony comes as the Senate debates whether to enact a guest-worker program that would allow current illegal aliens and future foreign workers a new path to citizenship....

"The man has since left USCIS and the United States so Mr. Maxwell closed his investigation. But Mr. Maxwell said that despite his findings, USCIS doesn't even have the ability to go back and see whether any of the 180 cases the former employee approved should be revoked.

"'With no internal audit function at CIS, we don't know who he let into this country,' Mr. Maxwell said.

Doesn't the above make you feel secure?

Allah Snackbar!

As many commentators have noted, the recent Cartoon Rage has pointed out Islam's main weakness: the total inability of Muslims to tolerate any ridicule of their prophet. That's why I like this cartoon so much: it uses the image of Muhammad with the bomb in his turban from the Danish cartoon and it mocks a cartoon of Ariel Sharon eating babies that was printed in the The Independent (UK), the notorious leftist UK newspaper for which Robert ("Hit Me Again! I Deserve It!") Fisk writes.

I dedicate this cartoon to Rocky Omary, Zaki Al Barzinji, Uzma Unus, Imam Sheikh Rashid Lamptey, Robert Marro, Imam Mohamed Magid, Majdi Omouri, and the Muslims in the DC metro area who were hurt and offended by the Danish cartoons.

BTW The original inspiration was Goya's painting Saturn Devouring His Son:

The Islamist Challenge to the U.S. Constitution - Self-governing enclaves

Courtesy of Jihad Watch, this article The Islamist Challenge to the U.S. Constitution from the spring 2006 issue of Middle East Quarterly focuses on the issue of self-governing Islamic enclaves in the U.S. While I quickly got lost in the discussion of law applying to this issue, I noted this detail in the second paragraph:

The Gwynnoaks Muslim Residential Development group, for example, has established an informal enclave in Baltimore because, according to John Yahya Cason, director of the Islamic Education and Community Development Initiative, a Baltimore-based Muslim advocacy group, "there was no community in the U.S. that showed the totality of the essential components of Muslim social, economic, and political structure."

Are there similar efforts in the Washington, DC metro area?

Update: Borders Books & Music caves into Muslims

Update to Northern Virginiastan: Borders Books & Music caves into Muslims:

LGF notes that its readers have received identical replies from "Dan" or "Chris" or "Scott." I couldn't resist replying with some of the details I mentioned in my previous post.

Nonsense from the WaPo

From Dhimmi Watch, Bruce Bawer fisks the Bandar Beacon aka the Washington Post in a review of his book While Europe Slept on the Islamicization of Europe.

More of the WaPo's nonsense can be found in this article A Historian's Faithful Account about Karen Armstrong, who surely ranks alongside Georgetown's John Esposito as an abject Islamic apologist. No surprise, Armstrong has been a featured speaker at Esposito's so-called Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (now officially called the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, although I'd rather call it Weedy's Dawa-ganda Center :-). The article is by Sally Quinn, Ben Bradlee's squeeze at the WaPo.


Abject apologist for Islam Karen Armstrong (Photo Credit: By Helayne Seidman For The Washington Post)

Armstrong reasserts her claim that Islam is not a violent religion, sweeping aside 9/11, Bali, Madrid, the London Undergrouond bomb blasts, and the most recent spectacle of Cartoon Rage. On the other hand, here is what she says about the religious right in America:

Like most fundamentalists, they have a pernicious, horrible, paranoid view of the 'other' ... It used to be that the Soviet Union was the enemy described in the book of Revelation that would bring about the last days. Now, they've switched to Islam. They had to regroup. But you can't equate true religion with hatred.

Here is what Armstrong says about those who follow the "Left Behind" series:

It's a strange thing in this country that people have this view of the world. If these people went to a psychiatrist, they would be diagnosed with a psychological disorder.

I don't believe in the Rapture (and it's disputed among Christain believers), but that characterization could be better applied to Muslims. Unfortunately, too many people have fallen for Karen Armstrong's dreck, including my own father. He's probably watched too many of her appearances on Bill Moyers's TV shows on PBS.