Best wishes and keep up the good work!...

Posted by: exsgtbrown at January 29, 2007 5:16 PM

haha I love it how there's only the Amazon link to Spencer's book and not D'Souza's.

Posted by: Charles the Hammer at January 29, 2007 5:27 PM

Charles,

Well, this is my site. I don't expect Dinesh D'Souza to advertise my book on his site, and I am sure he doesn't expect me to advertise his book on mine.

I always provide links to books that I think are worth reading.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch at January 29, 2007 5:35 PM

Good luck indeed. Please be unruffled, with a Buddha-like (or George Washington-like) disinterestedness as you tell your truth, our truth.

Posted by: StillBreathing at January 29, 2007 5:35 PM

So really, it will be a two-against-one, Robert debating the D'Souza/Khan team. Not looking forward to that. D'Souza needs to be moderated, seriously. But I'm always looking forward to the accurate hard-to-argue-with points that Robert makes.

Posted by: Report at January 29, 2007 5:38 PM

The debate title: "Islam: Is Religious Extremism or Secular Extremism the Problem?"

Answer: Neither -- unless one is willing to describe the mainstream texts and traditions of Islam as "extremist".

Posted by: remote_control at January 29, 2007 5:40 PM

Islamic Free Market Institute???

Dear lord you are not just fighting Dinesh D'Souza, Suhail Khan but also Hugh's arch enemy Grover Norquist who founded it. Talk about stacking the deck! Not to worry greatness cannot be contained by stupidity!

Three armies against one. Sun Tzu wants to say something....

"The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy. To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself."

Sun Tzu, Art of War

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at January 29, 2007 5:49 PM

Robert,

Not sure if you will get a fair hearing, but thank you sincerely for accepting.

Fight the good fight.

Posted by: LoneRanger at January 29, 2007 5:51 PM

Suhail Khan of the "Free Market Institute." Soon to be joined, no doubt, by the "Family Values Institute" headed up by one Dinesh D'Souza. Fundraising will be handled by Grover Norquist. I'm sure the Saudi Embassy can, through intermediaries, be counted on to come through.

Posted by: Hugh at January 29, 2007 6:01 PM

Anyone know how the Islamist groups in the country have received D'Souza's ridiculous book? Would they embrace it and blame their best ally? Or just ignore it?

Posted by: Charles the Hammer at January 29, 2007 6:05 PM

Yeah, I see Islam is peace everytime I see another explosion, or when someone has their head chopped off. No, I don't buy stupid books from stupid scholars, so you don't have to worry about me filling my head with garbage !

Posted by: Jeff at January 29, 2007 6:39 PM

Take him down Mr. Spencer! He has virtually no ground to stand upon, his baseless inferences have nothing to do with the truth, to those who look into the truth about Islam.

*Sorry about the whining email, too, Mr. Spencer.*

Posted by: localmalcontent at January 29, 2007 7:10 PM

"How interesting. Suhail Khan was the moderator of the panel the last time I spoke at CPAC, in 2003. He ended the discussion with a long disquisition about how he had read the Qur'an twice and that it taught peace. I was just about to respond when he announced that the session was over."

Don't expect any better treatment this time.

Which translation did Khan read? I'm a third of the way through Yusuf Ali's and I can't find any peace in it anywhere...at least not for me, but I'm an infidel and hate paying taxes.

Posted by: USBeast at January 29, 2007 7:57 PM

Suhail Khan, son of Mahboob Khan. And the whole thing sponsored by CPAC, not all of whose members may be aware of Grover Norquist's many activities on behalf of Islam and of Muslims, and his founding of the Islamic Institute. There's a lot to know about Grover Norquist, and the members of CPAc ought to know it, and act on it -- his continued presence, and the sullying of CPAC's reputation and hence its diminished usefulness (which is now apparent, and will be more so when Karl Rove leaves), should not be tolerated. Not in wartime. And this is wartime, and there must be people connected to CPAC who understand this, or if they don't, are aware that a great many "conservatives" take a very dim view of Grover Norquist, and his companions, and who and what influence him, and who, and what, he influences.

Here's an article on Norquist, which deserves to be read to the end:

A TROUBLING INFLUENCE

by Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.

At a black-tie dinner on November 5th, nearly 300 conservative activists and politicians gathered at Washington's Mayflower Hotel to recognize a prominent fixture in their community: tax-advocate and conservative coalition-builder Grover Norquist.

The talk that evening was of the honoree's tireless efforts to advance his libertarian objective of down-sizing federal, state and local governments by reducing their revenues. He was toasted for organizing nationwide initiatives to memorialize Ronald Reagan, notably with the renaming of the capital's National Airport after the former President.

Most in the audience were surely unaware that the effect of their tribute - if not its organizers' intended purpose - was to provide urgently needed political cover for a man who has been active on another, far less laudable and, in fact, deeply problematic front: enabling a political influence operation to advance the causes of radical Islamists, and targeted most particularly at the Bush Administration. The growing influence of this operation - and the larger Islamist enterprise principally funded by Saudia Arabia - has created a strategic vulnerability for the nation, and a political liability for its President.

The Islamist Connection: Abdurahman Alamoudi
The association between Grover Norquist and Islamists appears to have started about five years ago, in 1998, when he became the founding chairman of an organization called the Islamic Free Market Institute, better known as the Islamic Institute.1 The Institute's stated purpose was to cultivate Muslim-Americans and Arab-Americans whose attachment to conservative family values and capitalism made them potential allies for the Republican Party in advance of the 2000 presidential election.

If successful, such an outreach effort could theoretically produce a windfall in votes and campaign contributions. Consequently, it enjoyed the early support of Karl Rove, when he was then-Governor Bush's political advisor, and who knew Norquist from their days in the College Republicans.

Unfortunately, some associated with the Islamic Institute evidently had another agenda. Abdurahman Alamoudi, for one, a self-described "supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah,"2 the prime-mover behind the American Muslim Council (AMC) and a number of other U.S.-based Islamist-sympathizing/supporting organizations, saw in the Islamic Institute a golden opportunity to hedge his bets.

For years, Alamoudi had cultivated ties with the Democratic Party and its partisans, and contributed significant amounts to its candidates. These donations had given Alamoudi access to the Clinton White House and enabled him and his associates to secure the right to select, train and certify Muslim chaplains for the U.S. military.3

By the end of the 1990s, an AMC spin-off called the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council and a like-minded organization, the Islamic Society of North America, were responsible for selecting all U.S. Muslim chaplains.4 One of these appointees - Army Captain Yousef Yee - has lately been in the news. Yee has been removed from his duties ministering to Taliban and al-Qaeda detainees at Guantanamo pending military judicial proceedings for, among other alleged misconduct, mishandling classified material.

For an Islamist-sympathizer like Alamoudi, the opportunity to determine who would minister to Muslims in the U.S. military was an important strategic prize. It built upon a Saudi-sponsored initiative dating back to the time of Operation Desert Storm to convert members of the American armed forces to Wahhabi Sunnism,5 the religious doctrine of the Islamic radicals. It has been reported that Saudi Arabia provided more than 100 such service personnel 6 - including Captain Yee 7 - with free trips to Mecca to make the hajj. (The nature and implications of these Islamist initiatives are under investigation by the Senate Judiciary Committee's Terrorism Subcommittee, chaired by Senator Jon Kyl, R-AZ, and by the Defense Department's Inspector General.)

In the mid-1990s, Alamoudi also had a hand in the recruitment and placement of another 75-100 so-called "Islamic lay leaders" for the U.S. military. According to the Wall Street Journal, he arranged for "an arm of the Saudi government" called the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Sciences to train "soldiers and civilians to provide spiritual guidance when paid Muslim chaplains aren't available." The Journal also reports that there are signs that "the school... disseminates the intolerant and anti-Western strain of Islam espoused by the [Saudi] kingdom's religious establishment."8

The right to select military chaplains not only offered Alamoudi and his colleagues the chance to recruit still more Islamists with specialized and highly useful skill-sets, it also was an invaluable legitimating credential to be wielded against those who might otherwise regard the American Muslim Council and its leader with suspicion, or worse.

It would, therefore, have been important to retain this role even if the Democratic presidential candidate, Al Gore, were to lose and Republicans come to power. Hence, Abdurahman Alamoudi took an interest in one of the GOP's most assiduous and influential networkers, Grover Norquist.

It seems unlikely that even in Alamoudi's wildest dreams he could have imagined the extent of the access, influence and legitimacy the American Muslim Council and allied Islamist organizations would be able to secure in Republican circles, thanks to the investment they began in 1998 in a relationship with Norquist.

Alamoudi and Norquist

The investment began when Alamoudi wrote two personal checks (a $10,000 loan and what appears to be a $10,000 gift) to help found Norquist's Islamic Institute.9 In addition, Alamoudi made payments in 2000 and 2001 totaling $50,000 to Janus-Merritt Strategies, a lobbying firm with which Norquist was associated at the time.10

Questions about the original source of this seed money would seem to be in order. In particular, it would be instructive to know whether it came from Saudi Arabia or a pedigreed terrorist state like Libya. Last month, Alamoudi was arrested and charged with engaging in illegal financial transactions with the Libyan government. According to an affidavit filed at the time, he admitted to trying to take $340,000 in sequentially numbered $100 bills to Syria, en route to Saudi bank accounts.11 When apprehended, Alamoudi declared that the funds had been delivered to him after extensive interactions with officials of Muammar Qadhafi's government by a man "with a Libyan accent." Its source is alleged to be a charity used by Qadhafi to finance terrorist operations.

According to the affidavit, Alamoudi told authorities in Britain that once the Libyan funds were in Saudi banks, he would then draw upon them in roughly $10,000 increments to defray the expenses of organizations with which he was associated in the United States. He admitted to having undertaken "other, similar transactions involving amounts in the range of $10,000 to $20,000." He also acknowledged that he had first approached representatives of the Libyan government in 1997 - the year before Norquist's Islamic Institute was founded.

It is unclear exactly how much money Alamoudi received from Libya and precisely when, or who were the beneficiaries. What is known, however, according to published tax returns and foundation records, is that the overwhelming majority of the Norquist Institute's funds from its inception have come from Persian Gulf states and their U.S. funding mechanisms, a number of which have been raided by federal anti-terrorism task forces.12

Whatever the provenance of Alamoudi's seed money for the Islamic Institute, an even more significant contribution to its future course came in the form of the placement of his deputy, Khaled Saffuri, as the founding director of Norquist's new organization. This placement is consistent with a practice long employed by Islamist-associated groups in the United States and, for that matter, other tightly controlled and non-transparent enterprises (e.g., the Soviet KGB's operations overseas and Mafia business empires).

This disciplined approach has guided the Saudi-funded global Islamist network, starting back in the 1960s. At that time, the Saudi Ministry of Religious Affairs established the Muslim World League (MWL) - headed by the minister himself - to promote radical Islamist agendas around the globe.

Of particular concern has been the MWL's effort in America where four layers of front organizations have been spawned to recruit, indoctrinate, train and employ new adherents in furtherance of the Islamists' overarching objectives: dominating the Muslim world and, in due course, forcing the non-Muslim world as well to submit to Islamic law.13

A surprisingly small number of trusted individuals run and financially control the roughly 40 groups that make up this radical Islamic front. For years, Abdurahman Alamoudi has been the most prominent leader of this front in America, and is involved in no fewer than 16 Islamist organizations.

As in the case of Grover Norquist's Islamic Institute, control of the operations of these front organizations is usually given to a protegy of one of the godfathers or another trusted cadre member. Funds then flow from the same network.

Hence, in addition to the seed money from Alamoudi, the Islamic Institute has also received funding from organizations described by the Washington Post as a "secretive group of tightly connected Muslim charities, think tanks and businesses based in Northern Virginia [and] used to funnel millions of dollars to terrorists and launder millions more" - a number of whom are currently part of the "largest federal investigation of terrorism financing in the world."14

Point Man: Khaled Saffuri

The founding director of Grover Norquist's Islamic Institute, Khaled Saffuri, is a Muslim Palestinian by birth. Prior to joining Alamoudi's group (where he served for almost three years15), Saffuri was active in Muslim-support operations in Bosnia,16 a hot-bed for Islamic radicals from Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere anxious to establish a beachhead on the continent of Europe. In recent years, he has acknowledged personally supporting the families of suicide bombers - even though, in public settings, he strenuously denies having done so.17 He denounced President Bush for shutting down the Holy Land Foundation, a Saudi charity that the U.S. government determined was funneling American Muslims' donations to terrorist organizations overseas.18

I first had occasion to observe Saffuri in the late 1990s, when I became a regular attendee of Grover Norquist's "Wednesday Group" meetings, weekly gatherings of conservative movement activists and libertarians. Troubled that many of the participants rarely, if ever, addressed national security matters - certainly before 9/11 and, arguably, even afterwards - I viewed these conclaves as an opportunity to promote awareness of and renewed support for robust foreign and defense policies. With a view to doing that on a routine basis, I accepted Norquist's invitation to move my Center for Security Policy into new office space he had acquired. In the summer of 1999, I relocated to the space which was also occupied by his primary organization, Americans for Tax Reform, which also housed the Wednesday Group meetings and the Saffuri-headed Islamic Institute.

Since the Institute was located inside the ATR suite next to ours, we wound up sharing a large conference room, Xerox room, bathrooms, elevator bank and hallway. Consequently, I had a ring-side seat as Saffuri and his colleagues became ever more prominent fixtures at the Wednesday Group meetings, usually underscoring their close relationship with the host by sitting next to Norquist (or near him) in the center of the room.

From time to time, one or another of the Islamic Institute's associates would make a presentation to the generally standing-room-only crowds of influential Washington conservatives, would-be politicians, think-tank denizens, journalists, and an increasing number of lobbyists. Over the years, topics they addressed included: the plight of Palestinians under Israeli occupation; the much-maligned and badly misunderstood Islamist government of Sudan (in fact, a designated state-sponsor of terrorism); the innocent nature of the process whereby Muslim chaplains have been selected for the armed forces; the honored status of women in the Muslim world; and efforts to promote Islamic causes and candidates in Republican circles.

Whenever possible, I tried to interject or make presentations to counter what I considered to be an ill-concealed and ominous influence operation. On one occasion, which occurred a few weeks after 9/11, I made an intervention to decry the fact that Alamoudi's American Muslim Council was among the groups invited to the White House. I observed that on the same day its representatives were meeting with the President and his senior subordinates to talk about how Muslims could help with the war on terror, the AMC's website featured a box headlined "Know Your Rights." A click on the proferred hyperlink took you to a joint statement urging Muslims not to talk to the FBI. The statement was issued in the name of an organization of which the AMC was a member: the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom (NCPPF) - a virtual legal aid office for terrorists. At the time, a South Florida University professor named Sami al-Arian was the NCPPF's president. As will be discussed below, he was also Secretary of the worldwide governing council of a terrorist organization called Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), responsible for 99 suicide-bombing victims.

I suggested to the Wednesday Group that the White House would surely have been astonished to discover that it was dignifying so-called Muslim leaders who were urging their co-religionists not to cooperate with law enforcement. I also pointedly observed - without mentioning names - that those responsible for facilitating the President's Muslim outreach, who profess to support him and wish him success, should take pains to avoid including such groups in the future. I circulated a column I had written making similar points and that had been published the day before in the Washington Times.19

No sooner had I finished speaking than Norquist left his seat to consult with Saffuri's deputy and successor as director of the Islamic Institute, Abdulwahab Alkebsi (another former Deputy Director of Alamoudi's AMC).20 After the consultation, Norquist came over to me and whispered that he had checked and that there was no such box on the AMC website. I, in turn, consulted with one of my colleagues, who produced a copy of the webpage in question and sequential images as it was removed from the site in the wake of my column's publication. (This was not an isolated phenomenon; in fact, in the post-9/11 period, webmasters for a number of pro-Islamist organizations evidently were directed to sanitize their internet sites.)

I reported this to Grover and showed him the original item. Shortly thereafter, I had to leave the meeting. Only later did I discover that he had taken advantage of my absence to disinform the group by announcing that what I had told them about the AMC website was wrong and that it featured no such encouragement to obstruct justice.

Penetrating The Bush Campaign

In 2000, thanks to Grover Norquist's influence with the White House political operation, Khaled Saffuri was named the George W. Bush presidential campaign's National Advisor on Arab and Muslim Affairs.21 Holding out the promise of votes and donations in key battleground states with significant Muslim populations (notably, Michigan, Florida and New Jersey), Saffuri and Norquist were able to persuade the Bush campaign's chief strategist, Karl Rove, essentially to contract-out to them responsibility for identifying the groups and individuals upon whom the Governor should rely to elicit such support. Insight Magazine reported in February 2001:

[In September 2000], on [Karl Rove's] way to the airport to catch his flight back to Texas, Khaled Saffuri, executive director of the Islamic Institute, joined Rove in his car. Saffuri explained to him that the vote of the Arab-American community, which includes both Muslims and Christians, still was up for grabs. The community is prosperous and could be the source of considerable campaign contributions. If Bush would mention in public just a few of the issues that concern Arab-Americans, Saffuri told Rove, he would win their hearts, their minds and their support.22
While the thrust of this report sounds right, the evidence suggests Saffuri's car ride with Rove was by no means the first time such a proposition had been discussed with the Bush campaign. Indeed, the lure of such political dividends induced Governor Bush to hold a meeting in his mansion in Austin on May 1, 2000, not only with Alamoudi and Saffuri, but with other, immoderate Muslims, as well. As the National Journal reported:

It was the summer of 2000, and for George W. Bush, the meeting held the promise of an unusual but important endorsement for his presidential bid. Conservative activist Grover Norquist had persuaded the Republican nominee to sit down with leaders of the Muslim American Political Coordinating Committee, a confederation of four Muslim community groups.23
In addition to Alamoudi's American Muslim Council, the group included the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR's executive director, Nihad Awad is another self-professed Hamas-supporter and, as will be discussed further below, its radical agenda and ties have recently been the focus of sharp, bipartisan criticism in Sen. Kyl's Judiciary subcommittee.

Saffuri had also arranged for the Bush campaign to enlist Sami al-Arian, a well-known Florida-based activist - despite the fact that the professor made little secret of his radical Islamist sympathies - to help engender Muslim support in his state.24 A photograph of Mr. Bush taken with al-Arian in March 2000 subsequently received considerable attention after the professor was arrested last February on 40 terrorism-related counts. Of particular concern are those alleging his functional direction over the past 19 years of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, one of the most murderous terrorist organizations in the Middle East.25

Obstructing Justice

Al-Arian's arrest was made possible by the USA-PATRIOT Act. With this legislation's enactment after 9/11, it became possible for the first time in decades, for U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies, to share sensitive information - such as the voluminous wiretaps of Sami al-Arian coordinating Palestinian Islamic Jihad operations from his professor's office in Tampa.

Not surprisingly, the Islamist front recognizes the threat this and other provisions of the PATRIOT Act represent to their operations in America. They are determined to rescind it and, if possible, remove its principal architect and most effective defender, Attorney General John Ashcroft. Accordingly, they have become an integral part of the left-wing coalition, which includes the ACLU, the pro-Castro National Lawyers Guild and many Islamic "solidarity" groups, in waging a national campaign against the PATRIOT Act. It seems hardly coincidental that the preeminent conservative figure to join the campaign and lead the recruitment of other conservatives is Grover Norquist.

In fact, Norquist was also a prime-mover behind efforts to secure one of the Islamists' top pre-9/11 agenda items: the abolition of a section of the 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act that permits authorities to use what critics call "secret evidence." This is a rarely employed practice whereby prosecutors can withhold classified information from foreign suspects. To do so, however, the authorities must have reason to believe the disclosure of such information could compromise - and, thereby, eliminate - the sensitive intelligence "sources and methods" by which it was obtained.

As it happens, one reason why banning secret evidence was an Islamist priority was that undisclosed classified information linking Sami al-Arian's brother-in-law, Mazen al-Najjar, to terrorist activities was used to detain the latter from 1997 to 2000. Ultimately, that same information was used to deport him.

Thus, secret evidence was a personal priority for one of the Bush campaign's Muslim-outreach operatives - and corrective action became a price of his and other Islamists' support. In the second presidential debate with Al Gore, Governor Bush responded to the demand that, as Saffuri put it, he "mention in public just a few of the issues that concern Arab-Americans." The Republican candidate formally pledged that, if elected, he would prohibit the use of secret evidence.26

In recognition of this stunning exercise in political influence and his instrumental role in achieving it, Grover Norquist was an honoree at an event held by Sami Al-Arian's National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom in July 2001, two months before 9/11. The award was for being a "champion of the abolishment movement against secret evidence." Such recognition was certainly deserved. But for the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that followed, Norquist's efforts would by now almost certainly have denied law enforcement this important anti-terrorism tool.

Ironically, pro-Islamist groups had been scheduled to meet with President Bush on the morning of September 11 to hear what he planned to do to deliver on his secret evidence campaign pledge.27 But that day, the executive mansion complex was shut down, for fear that a fourth hijacked aircraft was headed its way. I watched bemused as Grover Norquist and the White House official responsible for Muslim outreach, Suhail Khan, escorted the displaced Islamists into the conference room we share. (Al-Arian had arranged to participate in the presidential meeting via phone. According to his website, his teaching schedule at the University of South Florida would not allow him to be there in person.)28

Penetrating the White House

Suhail Khan was one of at least three Muslim outreach gatekeepers at the White House with whom Norquist has been associated over the years. I became aware of the intensity of the attachment when Norquist verbally assaulted me one day in the hallway outside our offices with the accusation that I had been calling Khan a terrorist. I assured him that I had done no such thing. Evidently, somebody else, though, had stumbled onto the fact that Khan's late father, Mahboob Khan, was a prominent figure in the Islamist enterprise in America. It turns out that, among other things, he was the founder of a large Wahhabi center, mosque and school in Orange County, California. 29

The New York Times revealed on October 23, 2001, that, in that capacity, Khan Sr. had hosted Ayman al-Zawahiri, reportedly Osama bin Laden's right-hand-man in the al-Qaeda organization - not once, but twice in the 1990s.30 The first time, Zawahiri came under his own name, the second time he used an alias. In the course of his trips, the terrorist chief reportedly not only raised funds for al-Qaeda's operations at Khan's mosque but also purchased satellite communications equipment while in the United States.31

After Khan's family ties to terror became a focus of press attention, Suhail left the White House staff to go to work at the Department of Transportation. Grover Norquist closed a Wednesday Group meeting by tearfully apologizing to Suhail Khan for the injury caused him by "racists and bigots" and, by example, encouraging the assembled company to join him in a standing ovation to Khan. Most hadn't a clue what he was talking about but went along. Mindful that Norquist had me in mind, I sat it out.

If White House security procedures had worked across the board as they were supposed to, it seems unlikely that President Bush and his senior subordinates would ever have met with some of those sponsored by Norquist and Saffuri. Sami al-Arian and Abdurahman Alamoudi, for example, would probably never have gotten inside the White House compound.

What happened at the Wednesday Group meeting after Khan's move to Transportation was unfortunately not an isolated incident, but part of an already established pattern. In July 2001, the Secret Service evicted Sami al-Arian's son, Abdullah, from a meeting in the White House. The President had affably dubbed Abdullah "Big Dude" after first meeting him and his family on the campaign trail in Florida in March 2000.32 Evidently, the Service acted on the basis of the law enforcement community's longstanding suspicion of the father's ties to international terror.

Norquist's friends immediately raised a ruckus. Other participants in the meeting walked out in solidarity. It became a cause celebre, trumpeted as an egregious example of the racial profiling about which the Islamists and their leftwing allies incessantly complained. In short order, the Deputy Director of the Secret Service was obliged to issue a written apology to "Big Dude" al-Arian. And the President himself personally called the evictee's mother to express regret and to assure her that no such thing would be allowed to happen again.

Access to the White House

Notice had been served on the Secret Service and other security-vetters: Their job was to provide for the President's physical security - the threat of would-be assassins - not to protect him from the political embarrassment (or worse) that might result from meetings with terrorist-apologists, or possibly terrorists themselves. If unarmed Islamists were able to secure access to Mr. Bush and his subordinates (e.g., the Secretaries of the Treasury, State and Energy, the Attorney General, the directors of Homeland Security and the FBI), law enforcement and intelligence professionals got the message that they were not to interfere.

Consequently, over the years, and particularly as the Bush Administration's Muslim outreach effort ramped up in the aftermath of 9/11, Grover Norquist was able to gain extraordinarily high-level access for a number of troubling individuals and groups. An undated White House memo, evidently prepared by Suhail Khan in early 2001 and intended to coordinate Muslim and Arab-American public liaison events, shows that Norquist's Islamic Institute was instrumental in establishing Islamist connections with the Bush administration. The Islamic Institute provided the White House with a list of Muslim invitees, with the name, date of birth and Social Security number of each. As the founder of the Islamic Institute, Grover Norquist tops the list.33

A leading Arab-American pollster, John Zogby, told The New Republic, "[Grover]'s played the role of interlocutor. With all respect, many of the leaders are immigrants and don't have years and years of experience. Grover has filled that void." He went on to say that "absolutely, [Grover is] central to the White House outreach."34

Among the dubious characters included in this outreach - in addition to al-Arian, Alamoudi and his deputy, Saffuri - were the following:

Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Awad was among those first introduced by Norquist and Saffuri to Bush during the presidential campaign and his access continued after September 11th. In fact, the front page of the Washington Post featured a photograph of Nihad Awad and Khaled Saffuri flanking Mr. Bush as he toured the Washington Islamic Center.

This public relations coup was an early indication of the strategy Norquist's Islamist friends would follow in the wake of the hijackings: Exploit the President's laudable - and strategically sensible - desire to show that neither he nor the American people would hold all Muslims responsible for the murderous actions of the few. This would be done by proposing that President Bush (or his surrogates) attend events in Washington, Detroit, and other cities with Muslim populations, sponsor meetings, host White House iftar dinners to break the Ramadan fast, and so forth. Evidently Norquist, Saffuri and the gatekeepers they had placed inside the White House would work to ensure that representatives of the pro-Islamist organizations would be invited as the exclusive representatives of the Muslim-American and Arab-American communities and - just as important - that non-Islamist Muslims would be excluded.

In this fashion, improbable though it may seem, the Wahhabi agenda of access, influence and legitimacy could actually be advanced in the post-9/11 environment. That people like Nihad Awad could pull this off is a tribute to the skill of the influence operators. After all, he had personally declared that he was a "supporter of the Hamas movement,"35 and his organization raised money for terrorist fronts (including the Holy Land Foundation, the Benevolence International Foundation, and the Global Relief Fund).36 One month after these organizations were raided by the U.S. government, CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper lamented: "The Holy Land Foundation, Global Relief International, Benevolent International Foundation [sic] - these were our major relief organizations, and they've all been shut down."37

Even more astounding is the fact that Awad and CAIR have continually attacked the President and his Administration. They have even sued Attorney General Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Moeller.38 They have strenuously objected to Bush policies on Homeland Security and the War on Terror. And they have played a leading role in national campaigns aimed at undoing the PATRIOT Act and preventing the liberation of Iraq.

As noted above, CAIR's pro-Islamist sympathies and conduct have been the object of bipartisan criticism from the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism. In the course of the subcommittee's hearing, one of the organization's go-to guys on Capitol Hill, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-IL, observed that the committee should hear from more "mainstream" Muslim groups in the future, since CAIR and its rhetoric were too "extreme" and its associations "suspect."39

Such an assessment has certainly been reinforced by the fact that since September 11, 2001, three CAIR figures have been arrested by U.S. federal authorities on terrorist-related charges:

* In December 2002, Ghassan Elashi, a founding board member of CAIR-Texas, was arrested on a number of charges including export violations, making false statements on export declarations, dealing in the property of designated terrorists, conspiracy and money laundering.40
* Bassem K. Khafagi, the Community Affairs Director for CAIR at the time of his January 2003 arrest,41 pled guilty on September 10, 2003, to charges of bank and visa fraud.42 He remains under investigation for his alleged role in the terrorist funding group Islamic Assembly of North America and is expected to be deported to Egypt.43

* Randall Todd "Ismail" Royer, former communications specialist and civil rights coordinator at CAIR, was arrested in late June 2003 for his alleged involvement in the Pakistani terrorist organization, Lashkar-e-Taiba.44 The Justice Department upgraded Royer's charges in September 2003 to include providing material support to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.45 At the time of his arrest, Royer was spokesman for the National Liberty Fund, a legal defense fund for the PIJ leader Sami al-Arian.

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf. According to the Washington Post, on September 9, 2001, at a rally to support cop-killer and former American Muslim Council executive Jamil Al-Amin (a.k.a. H. Rap Brown), Shaykh Yusuf declared, "This country is facing a terrible fate...This country stands condemned. It stands condemned because of what it did - and lest people forget Europe suffered two world wars after conquering the Muslim lands."46 At this same rally, the Post reported, Shaykh Yusuf lamented that Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric convicted of plotting to bomb Manhattan's Lincoln and Holland tunnels, was "unjustly tried, was condemned against any standards of justice in any legal system."47

The FBI went to interview Yusuf to determine whether this inflammatory statement was indicative of prior knowledge of the attacks that occurred two days later. When agents knocked on the door of his San Francisco home on September 20th, they were incredulous to hear his wife explain that Yusuf was absent because he was meeting with the President.48 Upon checking, the FBI discovered that he had indeed been included in an ecumenical meeting in the Oval Office with then-Cardinal Law and a Jewish rabbi - a meeting that was, according to the Wall Street Journal, arranged by Grover Norquist's White House surrogate, Suhail Khan.49

The website of Yusuf's organization promised to send a percentage of all sales of tapes of his pro-Islamist sermons to Benevolence International Foundation, even after its director was indicted for funneling money to bin Laden and al-Qaeda.50

Muzammil Siddiqi. In September 2001, when Siddiqi met twice with Mr. Bush, he was president of the Board of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). This Saudi-funded organization is, as will be discussed below, used by the Muslim World League (MWL) to finance and exercise control over most of the mosques in the United States. Siddiqi's ties to Saudi Arabia are even deeper.

Before heading up ISNA, Siddiqi was previously a top figure in the MWL itself, whose American headquarters was raided in March 2002 on suspicion of ties to terrorism during the U.S. government's Operation Green Quest.51 He has also served as the Chairman of the Religious Affairs Committee of the Muslim Students Association (see below) in the United States and Canada. In addition, he is a member of the Fiqh Council, another raided entity.52

Despite these troubling connections to Islamist causes and organizations, someone got the White House to call on Siddiqi to represent the Muslim faith in the inter-religious prayer service for the 9/11 victims that was held at the National Cathedral on September 14, 2001. As syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer noted afterwards, Siddiqi could not bring himself to condemn terrorism in remarks delivered to a worldwide audience, as well as four Presidents and hundreds of dignitaries.53

Even after a performance that was, to say the least, disappointing, Siddiqi was allowed to be photographed with President Bush in the Roosevelt Room of the White House and to present him with a Koran.

Agha Saeed, founder and president of the American Muslim Alliance. Saeed was invited to participate in the Bush campaign's Muslim outreach meeting engineered by Norquist and Saffuri at the Governor's mansion in 2000. He also has been given access to the White House since the 9/11 attacks.54

As noted previously, Saeed created an umbrella group, the American Muslim Political Coordination Council (AMPCC), to unite other members of the "Wahhabi Lobby," including the American Muslim Council (AMC), the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC).

Interestingly, in June 2000, Hillary Clinton felt constrained to return $50,000 in AMA checks for her Senatorial campaign because Saeed had spoken in favor of Palestinians' right to "resist by armed force." He had also allegedly served as head of the Pakistani Communist Party.55

AMA's Annual Dinner in April 2002 honored the alleged Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist leader Sami al-Arian, now in federal prison awaiting trial, as a "civil rights" leader, sponsoring a civil rights award in his name.56

Eric Vickers, then-director of Alamoudi's American Muslim Council.57 Vickers is a black radical who converted to the Muslim faith. While many black Muslims follow a divergent strain of Islam, Vickers found a home in the Wahhabi-connected AMC and served as its executive director from June 2002 until February 2003, after he left the American Muslim Alliance. Vickers was also an incorporator and board member of the Islamic African Relief Agency (IARA). The organization had two grants worth $4.2 million revoked by the U.S. Agency for International Development at the State Department's request because of the group's ties with terrorist-sponsoring Sudan (including the alleged provision by IARA officials of intelligence equipment to al-Qaeda).58

Like Nihad Awad, Vickers was a particularly outspoken critic of the Bush Administration and its policies in the War on Terror. He participated prominently in antiwar rallies, was a visible presence in campaigns against the PATRIOT Act and repeatedly assailed President Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft, among others. Vickers made no secret either of his sympathy for Islamists and their organizations. In June 2002, I debated Vickers in an MSNBC "Hardball" program concerning the AMC's pro-Islamist record - and the inappropriateness of FBI Director Robert Mueller addressing its annual convention that year. In the course of the show, Vickers refused to renounce or otherwise to disassociate himself or his organization from Hamas, Hezbollah or even al-Qaeda. When pressed, the most he would say is that al-Qaeda is a "resistance movement."59

Mahdi Bray, executive director, Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation.60 Bray, a former member of the radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), is a leader of several pro-Islamist organizations in this country. His role typically is that of a coordinator for political activism. By mid-October of this year, Bray had overseen the training of nearly 1,000 Islamic activists.61 Bray also served as the political director of another pro-Islamist group based in Los Angeles, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, and as a founding board member of the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom.62 He hosts a radio talk-show sponsored largely by - and reflecting the views of - Wahhabi Saudi Arabia.63

In March 2003, Bray testified at the bond hearing of indicted Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leader Sami al-Arian, claiming responsibility for "mentoring [al-Arian] about the civil rights movement."64 He also claimed that he and al-Arian were "kindred spirits" on the issue of Muslim political activism.65

Through public statements and demonstrations, Bray has vehemently protested Bush administration policies in the War on Terror, claiming that they are injurious to innocent American Muslims. For instance, in May 2003, Bray said:

The recent barbaric and illegal invasion of Iraq has emboldened the Bush administration in its actions to target the Muslim and immigrant community and to violate the rights of Muslims, immigrants, and all Americans with impunity. We must continue to forge a coalition of conscience to resist the Bush administration's belligerent and destructive policy which is the greatest impediment to global peace today.66

The Tulbah Controversy

By 2002, the White House job of coordinating Muslim outreach had apparently fallen to Ali Tulbah, a Muslim-American Norquist protegy who formerly headed the Washington office of the Young Republicans. Tulbah's official position was that of an Associate Director in the White House Office of Cabinet Affairs. In that capacity, he was responsible for liaison with three of the most sensitive federal agencies in the War on Terror: the Departments of State, Defense and Justice.67

An American Muslim Council press release issued on January 17, 2003, explicitly thanked Tulbah for getting representatives of the AMC - and other Islamist organizations, such as CAIR - into the White House to meet with senior Administration officials. As was true of many other such meetings, the Islamist groups used the occasion to mau-mau their interlocutors about perceived government insensitivity to Muslim concerns and to demand that they be afforded opportunities to promote corrective action.

The AMC's January 2003 press release exemplified one further use to which the Islamists' sympathizers usually put such official meetings: They were exploited to validate otherwise debatable claims to be leaders of America's Muslim and Arab populations - as noted above, a key objective of Wahhabis bent on domination of the faithful.

A few days after receiving this press release, I referred to it in the course of a debate at this year's Conservative Political Action Conference. My main point was that the wartime task of striking the right balance between privacy rights on the one hand and national security on the other was made more complicated by the presence in our country of Islamist organizations adept at exploiting our civil liberties and institutions. In particular, I warned that some such groups - notably Alamoudi's American Muslim Council and CAIR - were conducting a worrisome political influence operation against the Bush Administration.

Noting that the two groups had specifically thanked Ali Tulbah for affording them their most recent access to the White House, I observed that his perspective on these matters might have been influenced by an unsettling connection: His father had served as treasurer of a large Wahhabi complex in Texas, the Islamic Society of Greater Houston, which is made up of 29 mosques and related schools. 68 Perhaps, I surmised, Tulbah was accustomed to being in the company of pro-Islamists at home.

The following Wednesday, Norquist arrived in my office brandishing an open letter citing my remarks at CPAC as evidence of "racism and bigotry" that have "no place in the conservative movement." 69 I responded with a lengthy letter of my own,70 describing my concerns about the role Norquist and his Islamic Institute had been playing in enabling and facilitating Islamist political influence activities aimed at the Bush Administration and other Republicans. I urged him to cease and desist, lest he do real damage, not only to the President and the Party, but to the nation's security.

In the days and months that followed, Grover Norquist followed a strategy more typical of the hard-Left than of a fellow conservative. He made repeated ad hominem attacks on Fox TV and elsewhere against me and anyone else (including noted experts like Daniel Pipes and Steve Emerson) who dared to warn about the dangers of Islamism. More often than not, he portrayed such warnings as bigoted, racist denunciations of all Muslims.

This charge is made all the more untenable since I assiduously underscore in every discussion of the Islamist threat the distinction between the intolerant, jihadist, Islamo-fascism they promote and the views of peaceable, law-abiding Muslims. My Center and I espouse making common cause with tolerant Muslims against the Islamists who brand them as "apostates" and threaten them as every bit as much as they do us "infidels."

The Wahhabi Footprint in America

My beef has never been a personal one with Grover Norquist, as should be obvious from the data assembled in this article which comes from many sources, all of them reputable and unchallenged on the facts. Rather, my concern is with a far larger, Islamist enterprise in this country that has achieved, particularly over the past ten years, considerable success in creating the makings of a Saudi-funded Fifth Column in America. This point has been recognized by a number of the most thoughtful and influential conservative commentators of our day, including Cal Thomas, Mona Charen, Michelle Malkin, Kenneth Timmerman, David Frum and David Keene.71

In addition to their penetration of the military chaplain corps and the military ranks, the Wahhabi-connected clergy has been able to penetrate the penal system. Federal and state prisons have been the focus of intensive recruitment by the Islamists. Abdurahman Alamoudi's American Muslim Council spun off an organization called the National Islamic Prison Foundation precisely for the purpose of ministering to incarcerated Muslims and expanding their ranks. As mentioned above, its president, Mahdi Bray, has been among those who have in the past been included in Bush Administration outreach efforts engineered by Khaled Saffuri and Grover Norquist.

While estimates vary widely, it seems safe to say that, over the years, large numbers of felons particularly among the black and Hispanic prison populations have been converted to Wahhabi Islam by these imams. At the very least, this has permitted the identification of individuals who, upon their release from prison, could become foot-soldiers for anti-American jihad. It would appear, for example, that alleged dirty-bomber Jose Padilla may have been recruited in such a manner.72

On another front, the radical Muslim Students Association has established a vast presence on American college and university campuses. According to the group's website, there are today hundreds of MSA chapters in the United States.73 A number of the pro-Islamist leaders Norquist and Saffuri have helped gain access to the Bush Administration cut their political eye-teeth as prominent figures in the MSA. As with other enterprises tied to Wahhabi Islam, the Muslim Students Association is in the business of recruiting and indoctrinating its target audience - young Americans - to join a radical and violent sect. While the most visible activities sponsored by MSA chapters are anti-Bush, anti-war and anti-Israel (e.g., divestment) campaigns, and the suppression of opposing views on campus, there is reason to believe that - on the margins - the organization is encouraging more active involvement in jihad. Not surprisingly, a number of MSA figures have ended up arrested on terrorist related charges or high-profile targets in the War on Terror, including Wael Jelaidan, the co-founder of al-Qaeda.

The Islamists' attempt to dominate the Muslim faith and community is even more evident in the nation's mosques. By some estimates, as many as 70 percent of them are now controlled by Wahhabis, thanks to Saudi-associated organizations holding their mortgages. This is done through the Islamic Society of North America, a spin-off of the Muslim Students Association, and its financial arm, the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT). Yet, as we have seen, ISNA's then-head, Muzammil Siddiqi, was the one of the Islamists most prominently featured in the Bush Administration's post-9/11 Muslim outreach efforts.

Not surprisingly, along with the financing comes control over many, if not all, aspects of the mosque. For example, Saudi/Wahhabi authorities are able to influence the selection of imams, their training, the Korans and other materials they disseminate, their sermons and curricula for madrassas (mosque schools).

No Longer Welcome?

Until recently, ISNA representatives were among the pro-Islamists included in many of the Bush Administration meetings organized or facilitated by Norquist and Saffuri. When some of these self-styled "Muslim community groups" were finally excluded from the White House iftar dinner last month (presumably due to the pall cast by the aforementioned arrests of some of their associates), ISNA joined CAIR, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the Muslim Students Association and several other Wahhabi-backed groups in denouncing such events as devoid of substance, ones in which Muslims were said to be nothing more than props shamelessly used by the Bush Administration. 74

While the exclusion at last of such groups from meetings with the President is heartening, Yahya Basha, the AMC's president, and Saffuri, who now serves as the chairman of the Islamic Institute, were still included as attendees at this year's Iftar dinner.75 The FBI, moreover, has yet to take similar corrective action; its Director and supervisory agents continue to meet with representatives of the AMC, CAIR and ISNA, even though associates of each have been the object of law enforcement action.76 As noted above, the Bureau also uses such groups to provide "sensitivity" instruction at its agent training facility at Quantico, Virginia. In addition, it has been relying on these sorts of pro-Islamist organizations for "community outreach," as well - much to the dismay of several case agents, field operatives and U.S. Attorneys' offices.

Granting pro-Islamists access to senior U.S. officials and government-sponsored activities has one other down-side: Just as they use this sort of access to demonstrate to other Muslims their power and influence, the Islamists' sympathizers exploit their relationships with federal agencies as protection. For example, when a hearing was held to consider whether alleged terrorist operative Sami al-Arian was a flight risk if granted bail, multiple witnesses from the above-mentioned groups pointed to the work they were doing for the FBI, the U.S. military chaplain corps, the White House, in the prison system, etc., to establish their bona fides. Fortunately, notwithstanding such representations, al-Arian remains in custody after being denied bail.77

Norquist's Continuing Role and the Problem It Presents

In this larger context Grover Norquist's highly publicized assault on Attorney General John Ashcroft78 and the USA PATRIOT Act is extremely troubling. The Act's very effectiveness has certainly made it the target of Norquist's Islamist allies, some of whom - as we have seen - are in jail today or under active investigation thanks to its provisions. Grover Norquist's willingness to associate with, and front for, groups like the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom in a joint effort to weaken and if possible repeal the PATRIOT Act, has made him the darling not only of the pro-Islamists but of the radical Left, with whom they make common cause. He was, for example, the featured speaker (one of only two with conservative coloration) at a day-long NCPPF event held outside Washington last month.79

In a scathing report of the proceedings,80 National Review's Byron York described how Norquist joined actor Alec Baldwin and Democratic uber-agitator Ralph Neas.81 According to York, when Neas indulged in a pointed, and factually incorrect, attack on the PATRIOT Act - charging that it authorizes activities not subject to constitutionally necessary judicial oversight - Norquist associated himself completely by saying simply, "Ditto." The immoderate moderator, Alec Baldwin, reportedly then turned to the crowd and enthused, "Can't you feel the love?"

Grover Norquist's efforts to legitimate and open important doors for pro-Islamist organizations in this country must be brought to an immediate halt. They have already created political vulnerabilities for this President and his Administration. But for the influence exerted by Norquist and his friends, President Bush might long ago have reached out to peaceable, tolerant, pro-American Muslims. In particular, the past 26 months could have been spent building up Muslim spokesmen and groups who share this President's vision of a world in which democracy, liberty and freedom of religion prosper - and who could help cultivate those values in Muslim lands and communities overseas.

Instead, the President has been put in the position of repeatedly embracing individuals and organizations who are part of the problem. They have capitalized on their preferred treatment to exclude non-Islamist Muslims from meetings with the Bush team, to secure government contracts and favors, to raise funds and to dominate other Muslim- and Arab-Americans. We have thus been denied allies and strengthened our foes in what the President calls "the Battle of Ideas."

Grover Norquist has been confronted many times over his activities in behalf of the radical Islamic front in this country. He has responded by denouncing his critics as racists and ducking the issue. Even now and despite all the foregoing evidence to the contrary, Norquist insists that he has not helped or in any other way facilitated the Islamists political influence operations. Indeed, he denies that there is such a subset of the Muslim population. And, to this day, he demeans any who challenge him on that score as "racists and bigots." It is evident that Grover Norquist will not voluntarily do the right thing by the President, the movement or the country, which would mean terminating his ties to a network that has shown itself to be dangerous, and by ceasing to work on behalf of the radical Islamic front. Because he will not do this himself, conservatives must act to see that he is politically isolated so that the damage he can do is minimized.

ENDNOTES:

1 Franklin Foer, "Fevered Pitch; Grover Norquist's strange alliance with radical Islam," The New Republic, 12 November 2001; and J. Michael Waller, "D.C. Islamist Agent Carried Libyan Cash," Insight Magazine, 10 November 2003.

2 According to the U.S. Government's "Affidavit in Support of Criminal Complaint," USA v. Abdurahman Alamoudi, Brett Gentrup, a Special Agent with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), acknowledged reviewing "the transcript of a video tape of Alamoudi speaking at a rally in Lafayette Park, Washington, D.C. on October 28, 2000." It was during this rally that Alamoudi proclaimed: "...we are all supporters of Hamas! Allah Akbar. I wish to add here I am also a supporter of Hezbollah." According to this same affidavit, Alamoudi also said in 1996 during the Annual Convention of the Islamic Association of Palestine that, "If we are outside this country we can say, 'Oh, Allah destroy America.' But once we are here, our mission in this country is to change it." (See, http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/terrorism/usalamoudi93003cmp.pdf).

3 Testimony of Dr. J. Michael Waller, Annenberg Professor of International Communication at the Institute of World Politics, before the Senate Judiciary Committee's Terrorism Subcommittee on October 14, 2003. (http://judiciary.senate.gov/testimony.cfm?id=960&wit_id=2719).

4 ibid

5 "Interview with Dr. Bilal Philips, a Jamaican-born Canadian, by Mahmud Khalil in Dubai," Global News Wire ( FBIS/NTIS, U.S. Dept of Commerce). The original source was the London-based Arabic publication Al-Majallah, a Saudi-owned weekly. For additional details, see Waller testimony, op.cit.

6 "Pilgrims from U.S. Military leave for Saudi Arabia," Saudi Arabian Information Resource, March 1, 2001, http://www.saudinf.com/main/y2187.htm.

7 According to an article entitled "Army Chaplain in Detention Sought to Teach About Islam," published in the September 24, 2003 editions of the New York Times, "In 1993... the Saudi Air Force and the Saudi royal family paid for [Yee] and other Americans to make the pilgrimage to Mecca that is known as the hajj, a trip that every Muslim is required to make at least once."

8 Glenn Simpson, "Suspect Lessons: A Muslim School Used by Military Has Troubling Ties," Wall Street Journal, December 3, 2003.

9 The New York Sun reported on October 20, 2003, that Saffuri distanced himself and the Islamic Institute from Alamoudi on the margins of the Arab American Institute "Leadership Conference" in Dearborn last month (Ira Stoll, "Anger over Israel Erupts at Arab American Parley"): "[When] asked about a $10,000 donation from Mr. Alamoudi to the Institute, Mr. Saffuri said, 'We gave the money back about two years ago.' "

10 Janus-Merritt's December 17, 2001 lobbying disclosure form can be accessed at www.sopr.senate.gov. The February 17, 2001 edition of National Journal described Janus-Merritt as a "government relations firm David Safavian founded with Grover Norquist, who is head of Americans for Tax Reform."

11 "Affidavit in support of Criminal Complaint," op.cit.

12 IRS Form 990s filed by foundations supporting charitable organizations can be found on www.guidestar.com.

13 These sentiments are, for example, evident in materials produced by the Saudi Arabian government's Islamic Affairs Department (IAD), some of which appear on the official website of its embassy in the United States. A newly released special report by the respected Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SR2303 notes that, "Officials of the Saudi government working at the IAD in Washington, D.C. and its worldwide offices have been mentioned in media reports in 2002 and 2003 for suspected connections with terrorist activities. During the past week, it was reported that the FBI has subpoenaed records and documents of Saudi government bank accounts in the U.S., including accounts from the IAD."

The MEMRI report goes on to make the following points:

The IAD explains the concepts of Jihad and martyrdom in Islam. Excerpts from the Qur'an and Hadiths are provided as evidence to foster these concepts in the contemporary Muslim world. "The Muslims are Required to Raise the Banner of Jihad in Order to Make the Word of Allah Supreme in this World."
The IAD explains that any system opposed to Islam must be fought by Jihad: "The Muslims are required to raise the banner of Jihad in order to make the Word of Allah supreme in this world, to remove all forms of injustice and oppression, and to defend the Muslims. If Muslims do not take up the sword, the evil tyrants of this earth will be able to continue oppressing the weak and [the] helpless..."

14 Douglas Farah, "Terror Probe Points to VA. Muslims; Local Network Provided Millions in Financing, Agency Charges," Washington Post, 18 October 2003, A6.

15 Note that according to Stoll, op.cit.: "Mr. Saffuri said that, while he had worked for Mr. Alamoudi at the American Muslim Council for a year-and-a-half before starting the Islamic Free Market Institute, he was 'hardly in touch with him' recently." [Emphasis added.]

16 According to the American Task Force for Bosnia, Inc.'s 1997 filing with the Internal Revenue Service (Form 990), Khaled Saffuri was the organization's executive director. For more on the Saudis' Islamist operations in Bosnia, see David Kaplan, "The Saudi Connection: How Billions in Oil Money Spawned a Global Terror Network," U.S. News and World Report, December 15, 2003 (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/031215/usnews/15terror.htm)

17 The Center for Security Policy obtained an affidavit from a former staffer for U.S. Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) in December 2001. It described a conversation she had had with Khaled Saffuri in the Congressman's offices in which he acknowledged "sponsor[ing] the child of a suicide bomber." Redacted excerpts of the affidavit appeared in Insight Magazine (http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm?include=detail&storyid=246199). Shortly thereafter, Rep. Rohrabacher appeared at the Wednesday Group meeting to provide a personal endorsement for Saffuri.

18 According to the affidavit mentioned in Footnote 15, Saffuri vehemently criticized President Bush for his action on the Holy Land Foundation, as well - an organization to which Saffuri said he had also contributed.

19 Frank Gaffney Jr., "A Time to Choose," Washington Times, 2 October 2001, p. A14.

20 According to the Center for the Study of Islam & Democracy, Alkebsi "developed AMC's Legislative Agenda, and AMC's policy position on the Faith-based Initiative." See, http://www.islam-democracy.org/alkebsi_bio.asp.

21 Franklin Foer, Fevered Pitch; Grover Norquist's strange alliance with radical Islam," The New Republic, 12 November 2001.

22 Catherine Edwards, "Arab Americans Rise in Influence," Insight Magazine, 19 February 2001.

23 Shawn Zeller, "Tough Sell," National Journal, 14 December 2002.

24 Saffuri's relationship with al-Arian continued long after the campaign ended. My staff and I were witnesses when, on July 17, 2002, al-Arian spent two-and-one-half hours in the Americans for Tax Reform/Islamic Institute suite. Al-Arian had evidently dropped by after participating in a National Press Club press conference with Abdurahman Alamoudi in which several Islamist groups announced that they were suing the President, Secretary of State Powell, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and others.

As it happened, on my way to the men's room that afternoon, I observed al-Arian standing in the elevator after leaving Norquist's offices. Moments later, I ran into Saffuri, who had seen al-Arian out then proceeded to the bathroom. As we stood at adjacent urinals, I asked him whether that was Sami al-Arian I had just seen getting onto the elevator. He responded by choking. Not having gotten an intelligible answer, I asked again. He then lied, saying, "I don't think so." When subsequently queried about the al-Arian visit by a reporter, he acknowledged that it had occurred, then offered a different falsehood - claiming that the professor had merely stopped by to drop off some literature, an action that generally does not take two-and-a-half hours to perform.

25 Federal Grand Jury Indictment, USA v. Sami al-Arian (http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/flm/pr/022003indict.pdf), February 20, 2000.

26 On October 23, 2000, the American Muslim Political Coordinating Council Political Action Committee (AMPCC-PAC) issued a press release announcing its "endorsement of George W. Bush for president, citing his outreach to the Muslim community and his stand on the issue of secret evidence." It noted that the endorsement was made by the AMPCC-PAC chair, Dr. Agha Saeed, whose pro-Islamist sympathies are discussed below.

27 "Healing the Nation: The Arab American Experience After September 11," The Arab American Institute, http://www.aaiusa.org/PDF/healing_the_nation.pdf.

28 Grace Agostin, "Sept. 11 hurt aliens' rights," USF's The Oracle Newspaper, 9 September 2002, http://www.academicfreespeech.com/fea_oracle_0909.html.

29 http://www.musalman.com/newstrack/biodata.html

30 Susan Sachs and John Kifner, "A Nation Challenged: Bin Laden's Lieutenant; Egyptian Raised Terror Funds in U.S. in 1990's," New York Times, 23 October 2001.

31 ibid.

32 Lynette Clemetson and Keith Naughton, "'Big Dude' Gets Profiled," Newsweek, July 16, 2001, p. 24.

33 J. Michael Waller, "Alamoudi and Those Bags of Libyan Cash," Insight, October 23-November 10, 2003, p. 32.

34 Franklin Foer, "Fevered Pitch; Grover Norquist's strange alliance with radical Islam," the New Republic, 12 November 2001.

35 Nihad Awad speaking to a symposium at Barry University on the topic of "The Road to Peace: The Challenge of the Middle East" on March 22, 1994, as quoted in Stephen F. Hayes, "Uncle Sam's Makeover; The State Department's answer to Osama bin Laden is to 'Redefine America,' " Weekly Standard, June 3, 2002.

36 The New York Daily News reported only weeks after the September 11th attacks that "...CAIR is very specific about how the public should respond to the attacks on America: Send money. It recommends contributing to three organizations - the Red Cross, the Holy Land Foundation and the Global Relief Foundation." (Zev Chafets, "Beware the wolves among us," Daily News, September 28, 2001.

37 Alan Cooperman, "Crisis in Middle East Spurs U.S. Fundraisers; Pleas Include Help For Hospitals," Washington Post, April 6, 2002.

38 See CAIR press release of July 30, 2003 entitled "CAIR Joins First Legal Challenge to Patriot Act."

39 Hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security, "Terrorism Two Years After the 9/11 Attacks," 10 September 2003.

40 CAIR-Texas, Articles of Incorporation, September 15, 1998 obtained from the office of the Texas Secretary of State. See also, "Senior Leader of Hamas and Texas Computer Company Indicted for Conspiracy to Violate U.S. Ban on Financial Dealings with Terrorists,"

U.S. Department of Justice, December 18, 2002, http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2002/December/02_crm_734.htm.

41 Bill Morlin, "Egyptian with UI Ties Held in Probe," Spokesman Review, March 14, 2003.

42 "Former head of Islamic charity accused of terror links pleads guilty to bank, visa fraud," Associated Press, September 10, 2003.

43 "Former head of Islamic charity

Posted by: Hugh at January 29, 2007 8:17 PM

Given the location, I'm sure C-SPAN will be there and many people will see it later, if not live.
This past weekend they showed Jimmy Carter and Alan Dershowitz at Brandeis, but Carter wouldn't debate, so they were individual appearances.
At least Dinesh D'Souza has the courage of his convictions and is willing to debate you.
Maybe he's not all bad.

Posted by: PMK at January 29, 2007 9:27 PM

Did Grover ever admit to being a Muslim? He married a Muslim and infidels can't marry Muslim women without becoming a Muslim themselves. Of course, he may be a Muslim of convenience, but it draws suspicion.

As for reading the Koran twice and found it peaceful, must be the same Koran Tony Blair read and thought was advanced and scientific, or that Bush believes is a great book of a great religion of peace. What copy did they read? The pamphlet version?

Posted by: John Sobieski at January 29, 2007 9:28 PM

How interesting. Suhail Khan was the moderator of the panel the last time I spoke at CPAC, in 2003. He ended the discussion with a long disquisition about how he had read the Qur'an twice and that it taught peace. I was just about to respond when he announced that the session was over. Posted by Robert

You should have insisted on a different moderator - a neutral one.

Posted by: Infidel Pride at January 29, 2007 9:49 PM

Besides Grover Norquist, there is often a significant Muslim presence at the CPAC conferences. A group calling itself "Muslims for America" has had a booth there, and prior to 9-11 (at least), CPAC bigwigs used to assiduously woo the Muslim community through such groups like these. Back in 2000, more American Muslims voted for Bush than for Gore.

At the last CPAC conference, Ann Coulter got into a bit of a spat with the "Muslims for America" folks.

Posted by: Steven L. at January 29, 2007 9:51 PM

Make sure the ground rules are written (and signed by all parties) in advance. Any deviation from the rule (such as interrupting or egging on the audience) should be grounds for termination of the debate.

Posted by: sonomaca at January 30, 2007 12:17 AM

From Hugh's article above:

[Ali Tulbah's] father had served as treasurer of a large Wahhabi complex in Texas, the Islamic Society of Greater Houston, which is made up of 29 mosques and related schools.

Where are the good ol' boys we're always hearing about from proud Americans? Why haven't they been at the very least picketing this complex -- in good ol' Houston, Texas for Criminy sake! -- with daily demonstrations of thousands of protestors? Until such demonstrations occur, at the very least, the chest-puffing claims that "We Americans ain't gonna take no crap from you Muzzies!" sound increasingly hollow and silly and, frankly, pathetic.

Posted by: remote_control at January 30, 2007 12:27 AM

Frank Gaffney, Jr., in his article quoted by Hugh above, writes:

My main point was that the wartime task of striking the right balance between privacy rights on the one hand and national security on the other was made more complicated by the presence in our country of Islamist organizations adept at exploiting our civil liberties and institutions.

How much longer must we tippytoe on scrupulous eggshells "striking the right balance" around this metastasizing Hydra-head of alphabet-soup organizations, any one of which could be (as nearly every other one has been found out to be) fomenting outright treason? Shut down all Muslim organizations, at the very least. No?

Posted by: remote_control at January 30, 2007 12:31 AM

Some increasingly positive things coming out of NR:

The Real Root Cause of Islamic Terrorism [Andy McCarthy]

Retired U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander M. Zhudi Jasser refreshingly writes in NRO today: "To this point, the Muslim community has been able to completely avoid any real debate over Islamism. In fact, we see now a movement in England and the West to blame the West’s foreign policy as a root cause of terror rather than the real root cause — theocratic Islamist ideology."

I wanted to cheer until I realized that Lt. Commander Jasser, a Muslim and the head of an organization called the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, obviously has missed Dinesh D'Souza's explanation that Islamic terror really has nothing to do with Islam — it's all the fault of Lefty permissiveness and those crazy right-wing Islamophobes who upset everyone by suggesting that Islamic terrorism maybe, just maybe, might be caused by Islamic theology. Imagine claiming that scriptural commands to kill the infidels might inspire some believers to think they're supposed to kill the infidels? What a nutty argument!

http://corner.nationalreview.com/

I know that McCarthy is considered the exception and not the rule, but Frum is not far from McCarthy

http://frum.nationalreview.com/

http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=MjlmMTQzN2IxMTFlZTFlNzZiZmEzMjEzY2I2MDkzOWE

Posted by: JSobieski at January 30, 2007 3:51 AM

Suhail Khan ... ended the discussion with a long disquisition about how he had read the Qur'an twice and that it taught peace.

What'd he say next, admit that he was an illiterate? It's all turnspeak.

And kill them wherever you find and catch them. Drive them out from where they have turned you out; for Al-Fitnah (polytheism, disbelief, oppression) is worse than slaughter.
--- God calling for mass murder in Koran 2:191

I will terrorize the unbelievers. Therefore smite them on their necks and every joint and incapacitate them. Strike off their heads and cut off each of their fingers and toes.
--- God calling for mutilation & murder in Koran 8:12

Believers, Allah will make a test for you in the form of a little game in which you reach out for your lances. Any who fails this test will have a grievous punishment.
--- God implying that some Moslems just might be punk bitches who themselves deserve to be murdered in Koran 5:94

Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at January 30, 2007 4:26 AM

Robert has truth on his side, and with his eloquent speech will trample his opponent.

Posted by: ZenaWarriorPrincess at January 30, 2007 6:23 AM

Spencer: "I was just about to respond when he announced that the session was over."

Well Robert, here's a perfect chance to pick up where you left off.

Posted by: sounder at January 30, 2007 9:11 AM

Robert, good luck on your debate (not that you need it). As many have pointed out, the debate moderator is likely to favor your opponent; and therefore you will need to make your arguments very short and to the point. I would suggest that you revert to your unflappable Zen-like state rather than get into one of those scrappy fights in which you trade barbs at each other. Remember that it is not always important to get the last word in. It might be worthwhile disarming your opponent by pointing out that you actually liked Dinesh's earlier books and that you had admired him... up until this latest book, which contradicts all that he wrote earlier. One of the ways to keep Dinesh on the defensive is to ask him pointed questions, such as:

1. Let us take, for argument's sake, that Dinesh's thesis is correct and that the average 'normal' muslim in America is nauseated by the immorality of the West. Is Dinesh saying that our immorality is of such magnitude as to drive these normal muslims into the hands of the jehadists who surely are far more immoral, who don't think twice about decapitating an infidel's head, who believe in enforcing the most abased sharia laws which include (amongst other things) the stoning of women for adultery, who daily go about killing not only Jews and Christians but fellow muslims almost on a daily basis. If so, what does this say about the so-called muslim moderates that they would prefer the immorality of the jehadsts to the so-called immorality of the West. Does it make sense to ally with people with such a viewpoint?

2. What common moral ground does Dinesh expect to find with the muslims? Is he willing to submit to sharia law, which is essentially what all muslims and muslim organizations seem to endorse?

3. If Dinesh brings up the issue that criticizing Islam is counter-productive, point out that it is not you who claim that the Koran is the source of the Islamist mindset, but that this is what the jehadists themselves keep pointing out. Thus, for example, the jehadists openly read out Koranic verses to justify their dark deeds while decapitating their hapless infidel victims. The fact that no 'moderate' muslim can even find verses within the Koran to argue with these jehadists speaks volumes about their religion.

4. If Dinesh brings up the issue of being able to find obscure verses in the Old Testament that justify killing and murder... ask him how many Christians and Jews are presently going about killing in the name of their religion the way the muslims do?

Dinesh's argument that criticizing Islam will not win any converts from the muslim world is plain wrong! Part of the reason why the muslims act with such impunity is the fact that they have been literally given a free pass to do so by the Western World. It is the Western World which keeps acting apologetic and on the defensive when it should be the other way around. There are muslims who are trying to challenge the Islamists, but they receive little or no help from the West who are more keen on building bridges with the Islamists. It is these muslims that we have to join hands with and not the fake 'moderates' that Dinesh wants us to join hands with.

Posted by: Razdan at January 30, 2007 11:03 AM

I may be the last person left in America who hasn't seen or heard the recent (1/29/07) Spencer/D'Souza debate...I've gone to Lores' website numerous times to access the audio of the debate, but there's no link or direction given that I can see. Can somebody help me locate the audio? Maybe post a link to it? Thank you so much.
-James, a Spencerite

Posted by: Crusader at January 30, 2007 2:27 PM

Crusader, the link you are looking for is:
http://justawoman.squarespace.com/lores-rizkallas-official-site/2007/1/28/debate-dsouza-vs-spencer.html

Posted by: Razdan at January 30, 2007 2:58 PM

JSobieski,

I'd like to point out a subtle detail you might have missed in your praise of Lt. Commander Jasser. Here's what he said from your quote:

"To this point, the Muslim community has been able to completely avoid any real debate over Islamism. In fact, we see now a movement in England and the West to blame the West’s foreign policy as a root cause of terror rather than the real root cause — theocratic Islamist ideology."

With a bit of wry sarcasm, you observed:

"I wanted to cheer until I realized that Lt. Commander Jasser, a Muslim and the head of an organization called the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, obviously has missed Dinesh D'Souza's explanation that Islamic terror really has nothing to do with Islam."

However, you missed the loophole that would allow Jasser to agree with D'Souza that the problem has nothing to do with Islam: Jasser nowhere uses the term Islam. He only targets an "Islamism", and a "theocratic Islamist ideology" -- both of which are typical locutions for people who haven't matriculated along the Learning Curve like we Jihad Watchers have. Jasser (like so many others in our time) is denoting "isms" and an "ideology", whose problematic features could easily be imputed to modern geopolitical and cultural factors, unrelated to the Qur'an and Mohammed, factors which allow a minority of "extremists" to try to "hijack" Islam. I'd bet all my money that if you asked Jasser if the Qur'an itself and Mohammed himself were themselves direct and culpable sources of the problem, he would say no. And Jasser's reason for failing to matriculate to the acme of the Learning Curve is different from the limitation that hobbles many Western Infidels (to wit, PC): Jasser's reason is likely that he cannot quite cut the umbilical cord of his Islam and its Qur'an and Prophet.

Posted by: remote_control at January 30, 2007 5:03 PM

Remote Control:

The nuance did not go unnoticed by me. I am focusing on what an engineer would call being "directionally correct." The post was skeptical about (1) D'Souza and (2) the Koran.

The bringing people over is to focus on the Koran. From my own experience "crossing over" and from what other people have said about their Jihad-watch awakenings, the key is the realization that the Koran has a lot of nasty stuff in it.

To use a football analogy, get the first down and keep the ball moving down the field.

Posted by: JSobieski at January 30, 2007 8:43 PM

In my view, the key to the post was the final sentence:

Imagine claiming that scriptural commands to kill the infidels might inspire some believers to think they're supposed to kill the infidels? What a nutty argument!

That the argument was made, and made with such biting sarcasm is a good sign. This type of sarcasm is posted on this site constantly.

Posted by: JSobieski at January 30, 2007 8:46 PM