Rashad Hussain defended jihad terror leader Sami Al-Arian in the jihad-enabling Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. But when Hussain was appointed Obama's special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, suddenly the evidence of his defense of Al-Arian went down the memory hole. But there was no cover-up! It was all a mistake, you see: according to the Washington Report now, Laila Al-Arian actually said the words that were attributed to Rashad Hussain.
But this doesn't make sense, since the article was altered just to remove the quotes, not to change the name of the person quoted. Also, the author of the original story contradicts the Washington Report's explanation.
Did Obama know about this cover-up?
An update on this story. "Publication Denies Cover-Up on OIC Envoy, Implies Anti-Muslim Bias Lies Behind Story," by Patrick Goodenough for CNS News, February 16:
(CNSNews.com) - A Washington-based publication said Tuesday that it incorrectly quoted President Obama's newly-appointed envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference as saying in 2004 that an American who aided a Palestinian terrorist group was the victim of "politically motivated persecutions."The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA) was responding to queries about why an archived story quoting Rashad Hussain as making the controversial comments was altered years later.
WRMEA news editor and executive director Delinda Hanley denied there was a "cover-up," and implied that anti-Muslim discrimination was behind the fact this was now being raised.
Yeah, it's just "anti-Muslim discrimination" to be concerned about Rashad Hussain's support for Al-Arian, a vicious suicide-bombing supporter who chanted "Death to America" and "Death to Israel" and was a leader of the bloody terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
At the time of the quoted remarks Hussain was a Yale law student. Last year he was appointed White House deputy associate counsel and Obama at the weekend named him as special envoy to the OIC, the 57-member bloc of Islamic states.Cybercast News Service reported earlier that Hussain was quoted in a November 2004 WRMEA article as telling a Muslim students' event in Chicago that the situation facing Sami al-Arian - a university professor then in custody and later convicted and jailed for conspiring to aid a Palestinian terrorist group - was "politically motivated" and a means "to squash dissent."
It was also reported that the WRMEA article was amended - at least three years later, according to an Internet archive site - with the paragraphs quoting Hussain removed. (see the original and revised pages).
Responding to queries first sent on Sunday, Hanley said Tuesday that the comments attributed to Hussain were actually made by another person attending the event in Chicago, Sami al-Arian's daughter, Laila al-Arian.
Hanley said an "intern" who attended the event and wrote the story had made an "error." When this was discovered the quotes were deleted, she said.
But the writer, contacted by email on Tuesday, denied this.
"When I worked as a reporter at WRMEA, I understood how important it was to quote the right person, and accurately," Shereen Kandil said. "I have never mixed my sources and wouldn't have quoted Rashad Hussain if it came from Laila al-Arian."
"If the editors from WRMEA felt they wanted to remove Rashad Hussain from the article, my assumption is that they did it for reasons other than what you're saying," she said. "They never once contacted me about an 'error' they claim I made."...
After looking further into the matter, Hanley said several hours later that the WRMEA web master thought the archived story had been altered on February 5, 2009, although it was also possible that the change had been made "when our Web site began an ongoing redesign."...
Clearly they've been caught, and they're scrambling.
This is an important story.
Please make sure that journalists in the press, radio, and on television are sent the various postings at JW about this, and that the details are used when you call in to talk shows. Don't let it drop.
And do call up or email your Congressmen about this, and refuse to be put off. Be persistent.
Robert --
I don't think the word "leftist" adequately conveys what the Washington Report on the Middle East is about, or who supports it. It's very much in the style of many Saudi-funded publications, such as ARAMCO World, especially in the old days, before articles on dhows and calligraphy offered a sweeter presentation of wonderful, fabulous, simply splendid Saudi Arabia. It's more the magazine for those who promote the general Arab line -- former diplomats to Arab countries, journalists, businessmen with a great interest in the Middle East, that sort of thing. The Arab or Muslim agenda, I'd say, more Arab League than Comintern, wily Muhammad rather than Willy Munzenberg.
More on The Washington Report On The Middle East, a magazine devoted almost entirely to tear-jerkers about the "Palestinian people" (with plenty of books and pamphlets on sale to promote the "construction" of that people in case you had reason to doubt its existence, or weren't quite convinced) and of course to denouncing Israel every which way, from the anti-American leftist letter-writer Rachelle Marshall to the defender-of-Ivan-Demjanjuk Pat Buchanan -- all are welcome, not only "leftists" (such "leftists" as Oriana Fallaci or Pim Fortuyn are the most formidable enemies of the the WRMEA). True believers, that is True Haters of Israel, can join forces with Western hirelings of the Saudis. A Big Tent.
Would bet ten to one there was no mistake earlier and the cover-up is going on now. As for what Obama knows, he's either clueless or complicit. Either way it's not a positive for America.
"he's either clueless or complicit."
Clueless about Islam, wishing-and-hoping, and tiersmondisant to a degree. But these are not alternatives. If you are sufficiently clueless about Islam, then you are much more likely to be, as he has been, alas, till now, naturally complicit. There's still time for him to educate himself, just.
Perhaps BO should put an advertisement in the local paper, something like this:
"White House seeks hafiz with clean slate as emissary to OIC"....
I guess there are a few here on JW who would qualify......
"Naturally complicit" perhaps. Knowingly complicit no, unless more knowledgeable about Islam than most who know Islam think he is (if so then we indeed have a Manchurian President).
"There's still time for him to educate himself, just."
If this magazine may not be accurately pegged as "Leftist", Obama may -- and not "just", but with an astronomical margin of error leaving light years of space before we even get to a Centrist center of the political universe. For the garden-variety Leftist, one may perhaps still squeak by in hoping for an eventual epiphany on the learning curve about the problem of Islam. For one of the most radical Leftists in America -- whose life-and-career (both the same for a self-made Suit who came out of left field with the help of Kennedy-adoring racist-angst-ridden liberals in high places) is littered with friends and associates over the years of not merely radical Leftist sentiments and activism, but some positively revolutionary and terrorist, for God's sake -- however, such an Hughian hope against hope would require a God to save it from being laughable.
Wellington,
Even if Obama were knowingly complicit about this cover-up, it wouldn't necessarily make him a Manchurian Candidate. It could still be salvaged as a sincere, albeit Nixonianly aggressive, attempt at an end-run around the Islamophobes he and his ilk hate and fear as harbingers of fascist demagoguery and racist lynchings unless they continue to be constrained and outwitted by hook or by crook. When one fails to factor in the vast and complex reality of Quantum Ignorance about Islam that continues to hold sway throughout the West -- with Obama still being the norm -- one generates a vacuum, which logic abhors. Then logic has no choice but to consider Obama either strangely naive, or an evil Muslim.
Big Brother IS watching................
Hugh is right, this is important. If we do not contact our reps, this will just slide by. Make noise, a lot of it. Express your rage at this appointment.
Did we elect a terrorist supporting president? If not supporting, certainly "misunderstanding". That is the question the electorate will answer this year and in 2012.
I believe (and hope) we are about to experience a tidal wave of emotion expressing disillusionment with Obama's foreign policy and homeland security attitudes. (The job situation and economy aren't too great either).
Our best hope is to turn around congress, and turn around the White House. Let the shingles fall from their eyes so they may see what they have wrought.
Compare the actions and words of Obama, from the time many years ago when he wrote in his autohagiography The Audacity of Hope that "I will stand by them [i.e., Muslims] should the winds shift in an ugly direction" (i.e., should whites do what they like to do to ethnic peoples -- lynch 'em) -- from that inauspicious moment clear up to all the things he has said (e.g., Cairo) and done (the appointment of Rashad Hussain; the attempt to move the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to New York and thereby grant him not only our legal protections but also a platform to propagandize; the similar endowment of the Christmas Day "Fruit of the Boom" terrorist with our legal protections instead of properly denying them to him as the enemy combatant he is, when before that moment he was giving us valuable intel; and on and on with many other misdeeds and misprisions documented here on Jihad Watch) -- compare that Obysmal and Obaminable record with the black Republican running for Congress in Florida, Colonel Allen West who, in a recent debate, in response to a typically clueless politician who insisted that Muslim terrorists were "twisting" Islam, stood to boldly go where few other men dare to go in our time, and said:
You want to dig up Charles Martel and ask him why him why he was fighting the Muslim army at the Battle of Tours in 732? You want to ask the Venetian fleet at Lepanto why they were fighting a Muslim fleet in 1571? You want to ask ... the Germanic and Austrian knights why they were fighting at the gates of Vienna in 1683? You want to ask people what happened at Constantinople and why today it is called Istanbul because they lost that fight in 1453? ...
Until you get principled leadership in the United States of America that is willing to say that, we will continue to chase our tail, because we will never clearly define who this enemy is, and then understand their goals and objectives--which (are) on any jihadist website--and then come up with the right (and) proper objectives to not only secure our Republic but secure Western civilization.
Can anyone with a right mind here, or anywhere, ever suppose even in their wildest imagination, or have the audacity to hope -- even "just" -- that Obama could ever in a million, billion, trillion, vigintillion years -- even if he Googled Islam for years numbered to googol -- say anything remotely resembling the palest, remotest version of this?
For more information on the first American politician to actually say something that demonstrates knowledge of the problem of Islam, Colonel Allen West, here is a link (not sure why he hasn't been trumpeted loudly here...):
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/015681.html
And another feather in West's cap -- to be contrasted with all the crap we've been getting from Obama (and purt near everydamnbody else) with regard to the problem of Islam -- is that, according to a reader at the above-linked site (who provides a link):
Col. West is the hero who was persecuted and forced to resign from the U.S. Army for his part in a mock-execution done to encourage an Iraqi policeman/terrorist informer to divulge details of a planned attack on his men in 2003. At the time he was famously quoted as saying: "if it's about the lives of my men and their safety, I'd go through hell with a gasoline can."
That single heroic deed of that Colonel is worth more than the sum total of Obama's life.
Colonel Allen West for President in 2016 (if not earlier)! Our second black American President -- who will have finally got it right!
Not necessarily, Hesperado, but possibly and, in any case, it goes back to what I first posted above about cluelessness versus complicity (or as you stated it, "strangely naive or an evil Muslim"). Hugh's term "naturally complicit," as I read it, would mean muddying the waters between these opposites, a distinction that is arguably either subtle or too subtle. For my money, Obama is not wicked or complicit or an "evil Muslim", just in over his head and with little capacity to learn. Hugh is more optimistic, it seems, about this capacity than I am, to wit, "There's still time to educate himself, just." I don't think he ever will.
Here he is, with Willie Clitman's wife, the insufferable Shrillary and the equally revolting OIC Secretary-General Ekmeledin Ihsanoglu:
Clinton introduces new OIC envoy Hussein
http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article18208.ece
C’est officiel. Un grand merci à Robert Spencer , qui m’a accordé l’immense privilège de traduire sa série d’articles intitulée “blogging the Qur’an” en Français. J’ai déjà publié le premier article de la série “bloguer le Coran” sur ce site et chaque Mardi publierai un nouvel article. La tâche est considérable, car il y a plus de 80 articles à traduire, mais c’est avec grande joie que je me lance dans cette aventure, me réjouissant à l’avance de l’impact que cela peut avoir dans le monde francophone. En effet, une fois les articles traduits, je vous invite à les envoyer à vos amis, à les partager sur Digg, Facebook, ou Wikio pour ne citer que quelques sites ( cliquer sur les icones au bas de chaque billet ) ou tout simplement à envoyer le lien par email. Je pense bien sûr en priorité au monde arabo-musulman mais aussi à toute personne francophone qui s’intéresse un tant soit peu à l’Islam. Merci pour tous vos encouragements, je suis conscient que je ne vais pas me faire que des amis mais je suis prêt à prendre ce risque au nom de la liberté d’expression et de la liberté tout court. J’espère que vous serez instruits par ces articles, j’apprends moi-même beaucoup en étudiant l’oeuvre de Robert Spencer. Rendez-vous donc tous les Mardis pour un nouvel article, en attendant, profitez aussi des vidéos disponibles sur ce blog et des nombreux articles, bonne lecture!
Antoine
http://www.avraidire.eu/2010/02/a-vrai-dire-va-traduire-la-serie-blogging-the-quran-de-robert-spencer-en-francais/
I like Col. Allan West.
I like that speech which shows he's been educating himself about the 1400 years' war-of-self-defence against the Jihad. The people on three continents who have had to deal with a neverending onslaught of Mohammedan invaders, raiders, slavers, woman-stealers (and, when the Mohammedans are weak, sneak-thieves, backstabbers and fraudsters)...
Write to him and tell him about some of the others - the Field of Blackbirds, and the various massive run-ins the Russians had with Muslim jihadis on their southern borders down the centuries, and Shivaji in India (there were many Indians, Hindu and Sikh, who put up a magnificent fight against the Muslims), and Jean de Valette and the Knights of St John holding Malta in 1565; and don't forget one particularly redoubtable black King of Abyssinia who famously told a Mamluk caliph that if he, the Caliph, did not at once cease and desist from what was, at that juncture, looking very much like an intent to kill *all* the dhimmi Christians in the Holy Land and destroy their churches, he (the then King of Abyssinia) would kill every last Mohammedan resident in Abyssinia and destroy all the mosques therein...the Caliph backed down. [That last story is reported by James Parkes - I haven't found the original source yet, but I do trust Parkes, he's very erudite].
You better be donating to West's campaign fund!
I say this as an Australian who has been feeling more and more unsafe watching the good ship U.S.A wallowing and floundering with Obama at the helm.
Best-case scenario = 1. A. West becomes President and starts calling it like it is about the Global Jihad (and taking the requisite action to improve homeland security, reducing or stopping Mohammedan immigration-invasion, etc; and turning Iran's nuclear project, or its support systems and supply lines, into a series of smoking holes in the ground...) 2. Geert Wilders becomes President of the Netherlands and starts turning things around there. 3. Somebody like Arieh Eldad becomes Prime Minister of Israel.
There's a black warrior, who fought Muslims, whom A. West might like to know about.
He was recently honoured by a Canadian stamp.
The story, from the Canada Globe and Mail, was posted over at New English Review.
"Canada Post has issued a stamp to commemorate William Neilson Edward Hall who was, according to the article the first Canadian, black man, and member of the Royal Navy to be awarded the VC made me take notice.
"Believed to have been born near Hantsport in 1829, Hall was the son of Jacob and Lucinda, black refugees from the War of 1812. He joined a merchant marine ship at 15, and the Royal Navy at 22.
"Asked why he wanted to enlist, the young Hall told the recruiting office he wanted to pay a debt to the British, *who had rescued his father from a slave ship*.
"Hall was initially attached to HMS Rodney as part of the Channel Fleet and later sailed to join British forces in the Crimean War of 1854, taking part in the siege of Sevastopol and the battle of Inkerman. Afterward, he was posted to the frigate HMS Shannon.
"*The story of Hall's heroics during the siege of Lucknow is extraordinary* {my emphasis - dda}.
.
"In 1857, Indians mutinied against the rule of Britain's East India Company. To help suppress the rebellion, HMS Shannon - Hall was its captain of the foretop - and HMS Pearl were dispatched to Calcutta. The brigade's guns were then towed by steamer to Allahabad, and carted overland to Lucknow.
"By November of that year, the naval brigade and the Seaforth and Sutherland Highlanders - 450 men, six 8-inch guns, two 24-pound howitzers and two field pieces - were parked on the outskirts of Lucknow.
"British forces, and some 1,300 civilians, were trapped inside, in the fourth month of the siege by militants.
"British commander Sir Colin Campbell was eager to avoid a repeat of the massacre that had occurred earlier at Cawnpore.
"There, the colonial administration had surrendered in exchange for safe passage to Allahabad, but for reasons still in dispute { really? seems more like, because of utterly typical Muslim murderousness and Mohammed's malevolent example, we know what Mohammed did to people who surrendered....- dda}, chaos ensued and dozens, including women and children, were hacked to death with cleavers and thrown down a well.
"A major obstacle at Lucknow was the domed Shah Nujeef, *a walled mosque* {my emphasis - dda} close to the residency of British commissioner Sir Henry Lawrence.
"He'd [i.e. Sir Henry] decided to spare Muslim holy places, *but the mosque was heavily fortified with rifles and cannons firing at the naval brigade* {my emphasis - dda}.
"The latter was sustaining heavy losses when volunteers were solicited to move a naval gun next to the walls and blow it [the mosque] down.
"William Hall was among those who volunteered. Each time it [the naval gun] fired, however, it recoiled backward, forcing Hall and Lieutenant Thomas Young, who also was later decorated, to drag it again to the wall under direct fire.
"One by one, the British soldiers fell, until only Hall and a wounded Young remained.
"*With musket balls raining down on them, and flying brick and stone shrapnel, Hall continued firing the remaining gun until the wall was breached and the 93rd Highlanders were able to pour through the hole* {my emphasis - dda}.
"Sir Colin Campbell later called his action "almost unexampled in war."
"Hall received his Victoria Cross (fewer than 1,400 have ever been awarded) on Oct. 28, 1859, aboard HMS Donegal in Queenstown, Ireland, and was later promoted to quartermaster and then petty officer, first class on HMS Peterel. He retired and was discharged in 1876, spurning a desk job at Whitehall to return to Nova Scotia. He died in 1904, unmarried, in Avonport." END OF REPORT.
It's a sweet, sweet thought to think of that *black man* - given that Africans have lost an estimated 120 million people... and still counting, as victims of Jihad mass-murderers and slavers - manning that British naval gun, first with his white British companion and then all alone, firing, firing, firing, hammering relentlessly at the wall of a *mosque* stuffed with murderous Mohammedans, till the hole was made, and the non-Muslim forces could roar in and take the place.
Made me think of that song, 'If I had a hammer'...William Hall had a hammer, his naval gun, and he just kept swinging till the wall of the mosque came down. I don't know how well he, the son of a freed slave, understood that Islam is a system of slavery - slavery for Indians as well as for blacks and everyone else it ensnares - but that mosque richly deserved every cannon ball that Hall could throw at it.
I think Col A West, too, would understand William Hall.
This Colonel Allen West sounds like a great guy to me! And he would be the answer to the emancipation of the black people by electing a "black" president from our freedom-loving side.
What I like to point is that from the position of the Muslims it would not be reprehensible for them to strive for proliferation of their ideas, since they sincerely believe they are from God, the best ideas available, in the long run benefiting mankind the most.
But it is in the way they want to proliferate their ideals. By force, war, subjugation, coercion, deceipt, propaganda, stifling free speech, instead by reason and persuasion. And by checking every 4 years, or sooner, if their ideas are still supported, endorsed by the majority of people.
But nooooo, they must consider the average human incapable of realizing what is best for him/ her, according to them.