4/26/2008
CAIR’s hyperbole
This article points out how Ibrahim Hooper over reacted to the publication of the book “Why We Left Islam,” published by WND books. “Why We Left Islam,” tells the stories from a dozen ex-muslims, including Ali Sina and Khaled Waheed. Ibrahim Hooper told New York Daily News that:
“This book is put out by WND Publishing (sic), which promotes hate every day on its extremist anti-Muslim hate site. The editor is a guy who suggested air-dropping pig’s blood over Afghanistan. There are 7 million American Muslims and over a billion worldwide who love Islam and practice it peaceably on a daily basis.”
What is interesting is how the New York Daily News describes CAIR as “moderate”. Now at WND it’s revealed that CAIR admitted in an email that Farah did no such thing; Ibrahim Hooper made it up. Through its corporate counsel, the New York Daily News said they would amend the article, as Farah has never written such silliness.
It should be noted that Ibrahim Hooper represents CAIR, which is by no means a “moderate” group. Their goal is to APPEAR moderate, but they have their roots in Hamas, and numerous employees have been indicted on terrorist-related activities.
“CAIR can always be counted upon to make wildly untruthful and reckless claims about others, while maintaining a hypersensitivity about its own concerns,” said Farah. “Here, for example, Hooper makes this claim that WND promotes anti-Muslim hate on its site every day, offering only one example – and that one is totally untrue. Why other responsible media outlets continue to offer CAIR a platform for making such outrageous statements is beyond me. How many CAIR staffers and officials need to be indicted and convicted before my colleagues recognize these people as the extremists they are?”
From this entry “CAIR’s legal tribulations” compiled by Daniel Pipes we discover Indicted terrorist CAIR representatives (not just members, but employees and spokesmen):
Randall (”Ismail”) Royer, who joined the Pakistani group Lashkar-e-Taiba, traveled to Pakistan, did propaganda work for it, and “fired at Indian positions in Kashmir.” In addition, Royer “possessed in his automobile an AK-47-style rifle and 219 rounds of ammunition” in September 2001, while he was an active employee of CAIR. The grand jury charged that Royer “did unlawfully and knowingly begin, provide for, prepare a means for, and take part in a military expedition and enterprise to be carried on from the United States against the territory and dominion of India, a foreign state with whom the United States was at peace.” Bail was denied, according to The Washington Post, because the judge was “not satisfied with Royer’s explanation of why he had an AK-47-style rifle and more than 200 rounds of ammunition when stopped by Alexandria police” in September 2001. He pled “guilty” in a plea bargain so he wouldn’t spend the rest of his life behind bars.
April 9, 2004: The U.S. Department of Justice announced today Royer’s sentencing:
Royer, 31, pled guilty in January 2004 to a two-count criminal information charging him with aiding and abetting the use and discharge of a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, and with aiding and abetting the carrying of an explosive during the commission of a felony. … Royer was sentenced today to 20 years in prison. Judge [Leonie] Brinkema sentenced him to serve 10 years in prison on both counts, and the sentences are to run consecutively. In addition, he was sentenced to three years of supervised release.
Bassem Khafagi, the former CAIR employee, pled guilty of (1) making “false material statements” on his nonimmigrant visa application on Nov. 8, 2000, in Kuwait City, Kuwait and (2) passing bad checks for thousands of dollars at two U.S. banks in early 2001. Khafagi faces up to a $250,000 fine on the visa fraud conviction and 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine for each of the two counts of bank fraud. His sentencing is scheduled to take place on December 4.
Ghassan Elashi was, according to articles of incorporation filed with the Texas Secretary of State on September 29, 1998, a founding board member of CAIR’s Texas chapter. Then, in December 2002, Elashi and his four brothers were charged with “illegal exports, making false statements on export declarations, dealing in the property of a designated terrorist, conspiracy, and money laundering.”
Rabih Haddad, executive director of the Global Relief Foundation, an effective fundraiser for the mosques in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti and for the Ann Arbor chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Rabih Haddad, 43, a Lebanese citizen who lived in Ann Arbor, was arrested on Dec. 14, 2001, the same day the offices of the charity, the Global Relief Foundation, were raided in the Chicago suburb of Bridgeview, Ill. (He was deported, if I’m not mistaken, in 2003. Not a very smart move on the part of Americans, if you asked me.)
Muthanna Al-Hanooti, 48, the former head of CAIR’s Michigan branch, was arrested in March of 2008 at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport on his return trip from the Middle East. The 14-page indictment presents five counts against him: conspiring to act as an agent of the Iraqi government, violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, and three false statements to the FBI. The indictment also alleges that “on our about December 22, 2002, the Vice President of Iraq directed the Iraqi Ministry of Petroleum to allocate to defendant AL-HANOOTI a quantity of two million barrels of oil” that he could then sell. In brief, he stands accused of being a spy for Saddam Hussein’s government. The trip to Iraq in 2003 by three Congressmen–Jim McDermott, David Bonior, and Mike Thompson–all Saddam Hussein pandering leftist democrats-was funded by Saddam Hussein, using a third party to arrange the financing; Al-Hanooti, through his “Life for Relief Development”.
In this article at Frontpage Magazine, Joe Kaufman shows an extensive web of ties between CAIR on the one hand and Global Relief and another shuttered “Islamic charity,” the Holy Land Foundation. He concludes from these connections that “in late 2001, CAIR appeared to be in violation of United States law, as in regards to the providing of material support to terrorists.”
The Investigative Project on Terrorism has produced a 15-page document on “The Suspect Ties of CAIR Officials, Fundraisers, & Trainers” that more systematically covers much of the ground in this entry.
——————————
CAIR is by no means a “moderate” group; it is tied to not only Hamas, but Saddam’s Iraq, and convicted terrorists who were not merely members, but employees.
