"He complied with Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV’s ruling and did not name the other person, who is Osama bin Ladin." That kind of ruling makes the political slant of this judge highly suspect. By Lee Hammel in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):
BOSTON— A government witness yesterday testified that Care International falls into the pattern of Muslim charities that engage in economic jihad.Matthew Levitt, former Deputy Assistant U.S. Treasury Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis, said economic jihad is practiced by groups who encourage those who cannot fight holy wars themselves to instead make donations enabling others to engage in jihad. He said that Care International’s solicitations aimed at women and children, as well as the organization’s support programs for widows and orphans, do just that.
Mr. Levitt, a former intelligence analyst for the FBI, also told the jury in U.S. District Court that Al-Kifah Refugee Center is another name for Makhtab Al-Khidamat, Arabic for Human Services Office. He testified that MAK was founded by Sheikh Abdullah Azzam “and another person” and provided financing and support to those fighting jihad.
He complied with Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV’s ruling and did not name the other person, who is Osama bin Ladin. The government has been building a case that Care International is an outgrowth or successor organization to Al-Kifah Refugee Center, a contention that the defense says is untrue.
It was damaging testimony from the government’s last witness before resting its case yesterday. Later in the day, in a hearing without the jury, Charles P. McGinty, lawyer for Samir Al-Monla, called for a mistrial to be declared.
He said that with Mr. Levitt’s testimony tying Al-Kifah to Makhtab Al-Khidamat and MAK to fighting jihad the defense’s case had “unraveled.” Mr. McGinty said the testimony violated the judge’s orders on what can be said to the jury.
Judge Saylor, who overruled numerous defense objections to Mr. Levitt’s testimony, denied the motion for a mistrial....
Charity?
One of the uses of Zakat explicitly is the financing of werapons and epenses of those waging jihad.
Another one are expenses to buy support for Islam.
In times of active jihad, those types of uses of zakat take precedence over support of the poor.
Judge Saylor, who overruled numerous defense objections to Mr. Levitt’s testimony, denied the motion for a mistrial....
Well good for Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV. Saylor was appointed by Bush to the District court in 2003. Regardless of popular opinion maybe Bush got something right, in the way of judicial appointments. Had the case gone into the non-vertebrate 9th circuit, the court would have thrown out the government case like they did the flag salute. It is surprising that the court in Mass. has grown a backbone.
Merry Christmas
Osama bin Laden's pronouncements on economic warfare on his tapes have received no attention. Why not? After all, he has succeeded, hasn't he? We have spent, squandered, a trillion dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with more on the way, all in a crazed effort not to split apart or weaken the Camp of Islam, but to bring, at American expense, new schools and roads and hospitals and bridges and all the rest of it, in the belief, an idiotic one, that this somehow will limit the appeal of Islam, or of violent Jihad, which depends not on the economic wellbeing of those being appealed to, but on the level of their commitment to Islam, and to participating directly in violent Jihad rather than doing so indirectly, and supporting the other instruments of Jihad.
The economic jihad is being won by Muslims. It is being won not only, however, by the fantastic sums wasted, tossed about, spread like confetti,m in Iraq. Just how many Iraqis have made out like gang-busters, and have taken billions and billions abroad, where some now live like pashas in Paris, while the American taxpayers who supplied that money, without having a say, are forced to endure, most of them, lives not at all like those led by those American-supported pashas, in Paris or anywhere else.
What is the cost to Infidels of all that Jizyah? Why is it the United States that has supplied Egypt with more than $60 billion in the last few decades, which began as a payoff for "peace" -- wasn't the entire Sinai, with its oil and infrastructure, enough of a payoff? -- to Saint Sadat, and then continued, because the Americans have no idea, none, how to turn off the spigot to Muslim countries once that spigot has been turned on. But Egypt is not, contrary to the epithets helpfully supplied by journalists in The Times and The Bandar Beacon, an "ally" or a "friend." It should be seen clearly: a malign country, that mistreats the Copts. Mubarak, with his family-and-friends plan, siphons off for himself and his cronies much of that disguised Jizyah of foreign aid that provides just that extra bit of cash. A regime corrupt beyond belief ensures that the future belongs to the Ikhwan, the Muslim Brotherhood, which may be less corrupt but is even more malign than Mubarak's pack. Of course the Americans who come to Cairo are always reassured, and soulful looks, terribly sincere, tell them that the Egyptians are doing their best, to "promote peace" between "Israel and the 'Palestinians'" -- when Egypt has for years allowed all kinds of arms to be smuggled into Gaza, has conducted a campaign of incessant vilification of Jews and of Israel, in the Egyptian media, and supports the Slow Jihadists of Fatah over the Fast Jihadists of Hamas, but shares the same goal: to weaken Israel. Egypt does not wish Israel well, but works just like other Muslim Arabs, and possibly more effectively than many, to undremine Israel in every way it can, and it will not stop as long as Muslims rule in Egypt, unless those of the "Egypt-First" school can return the nation to something like what it was before the coup of Nasser and his fellow colonels. Meanwhle, Egypt has been the cleverest supporter of the Khartoum regime, pretending to be horrified by it, but behind the scenes working to stave off any Western intervention or pressure strong enough to make the Sudanese rulers change their behavior. And Egypt continues to threaten Ethiopia over any diversion of the headwaters of the Nile for irrigation purposes.
Suppose the United States had not supplied that $60 billion? Egypt would have been far less able to cause mischief. It might have been much more pliant, less capable of protecting the Sudanese regime, and even possibly seeing its Egypt-First future as requiring it to give up its active support of the Lesser Jihad.
Or another possiblity presents itself. The Saudis and other rich Arabs, undservedly and sickeningly rich Arabs, who have done nothing to merit their wealth, would have been asked by Egypt for aid. Indeed, they should be asked. If anyone is to support Egypt, Jordan, "the Palestinians," Pakistan, and all the other Muslim basket-cases, let it be other Muslims, fellow members of the Umma. Why, for god's sake, should Americans, or any other Infidels, ever be supplying billions to Muslims who do not, and can not, wish them well, and whose lives, if they become improved, will not become one whit less hostile, murderously hostile, to Infidels but, possibly, even more so?
The foolishness of Western transfers of wealth to Muslims, beyond that made necessary by energy needs, is a result of having leaders, of tolerating and even electing leaders, who are unembarrassed in their ignorance of Islam, and make pronouncements about, for example, policy in Iraq that never hint that they might take Islam into account, might start thinking about the belief-system of Islam, and the Camp of Islam, and of how to divide and demoralize that Camp, rather than of how to supply still more money, build still more roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, repair over and over those oilfields and pipelines whenever they are attacked, and all the rest of it that is being done, so expensively, and without making Infidels safer, or weakening that Camp of Islam.
Hugh: You're deeply skeptical of Islam, all of it. I'm deeply skeptical of Islam, all of it. This we have in common unless you wish to maintain otherwise. But here's where we differ I believe: I think supporting some Muslims (e.g., most Kurds in Iraq or the regime in Jordan) against other Mohammedans makes sense for the time being. This doesn't mean I get all gooey about it and think such Muslims are wonderful (though here and there you might find some who really do assert their humanity over their faith, a faith which wants to practice spiritual apartheid to the great detriment of non-believers, dhimmis all), it's rather that I see this as a strategy which is preferable to a united Muslim world against us. If I read you correctly, you would like to tell the whole Islamic world to go to hell and assume that it will fester even more than it has and will then collapse from within. Hmmm. I concede your approach is tempting, very, but I wonder if it's the right one. Not sure. Should we embrace some Muslims against others, distasteful and expensive as that might be at times, or should we take on the entire Muslim world, which would include a nuclear-armed such world, and be done with pussyfooting with Muslims everywhere? Perhaps yours is the better solution, but what if it isn't? What if, as unfortunate and unsavory as our present course is, the alternative is even worse? Well, you know the old line, be careful what you wish for, you might get it.
Two other points: 1) If I've mischaracterized any of your thinking respecting what I've written above, I assure you it has been unintentional and I welcome correction here. 2) You have an extensive knowledge of Islamic history and the Islamic faith, a knowledge which I have come to admire very much. Take care.