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More trouble for the unindicted co-conspirators: it has been discovered that they don't really represent much of anyone.
From the Washington Times (thanks to all who sent this in):
Membership in the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has declined more than 90 percent since the 2001 terrorist attacks, Audrey Hudson will report in Tuesday's editions of The Washington Times.According to tax documents obtained by The Times, the number of reported members spiraled down from more than 29,000 in 2000 to less than 1,700 in 2006, a loss of membership that caused the Muslim rights group's annual income from dues to drop from $732,765 in 2000, when yearly dues cost $25, to $58,750 last year, when the group charged $35.
The organization instead is relying on about two dozen individual donors a year to contribute the majority of the money for CAIR's budget, which reached nearly $3 million last year.
Asked about the decline, Parvez Ahmed, CAIR board chairman, pointed to the number of individual donors to the organization.
"We are proud that our grass-roots support in the American Muslim community has allowed CAIR to grow from having eight chapters and offices in 2001 to having 33 today," Mr. Ahmed said....
Critics of the organization say they are not surprised membership is sagging, and that a recent decision by the Justice Department to name CAIR as "unindicted co-conspirators" in a federal case against another foundation charged with providing funds to a terrorist group could discourage new members....
CAIR's declining and minuscule membership is good news, but really, the organization doesn't need members. All it needs is one guy in each chapter, a talking head with a phone in every major city, ready to feed the CAIR line to the local media. And the media types, of course, fall for that line every time.
Posted by Robert at June 11, 2007 6:38 PM
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"The organization instead is relying on about two dozen individual donors a year to contribute the majority of the money for CAIR's budget, which reached nearly $3 million last year."
Two dozen donors? Who are they?
Posted by: Joe Schmoe USA![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at June 11, 2007 6:49 PM
the number of reported members spiraled down from more than 29,000 in 2000 to less than 1,700 in 2006-JW
Great news. Wish the same for the new Boston Mosque in the coming years.
Posted by: MusHuntCowboy at June 11, 2007 6:49 PM
Joe,
"Two dozen donors? Who are they?"
My guess would be the Saudis.
I don't buy the loss of membership routine. I think it's a distraction and there is a purpose behind this method. They were recently named un-indicted co-conspirators. There is a reason why they want to diminish themselves on paper. They also have an interest in trying to divert attention away from them now in the hopes of marketing themselves as an irrelevant group.
at June 11, 2007 6:52 PM
When I read this my first thought was...
5th column copperheads getting off the registry
roles, spreading out, going underground.
I hope I am wrong but... CAIR is now in 33 cities
and still getting a lot of cash.
at June 11, 2007 6:57 PM
I also am suspicious of the loss of membership. The loss of "reported" members might simply reflect a change in the organization from "official" to "unofficial" membership.
It could be seen not as a rebuke of CAIR but as an attempt to remain in the shadows, away from the glare of anti-terrorism lights.
It also might be a way of protecting members from being sued in the event of a terrorist attack. In today's environment being an official member of an organization that sanctions violence could have nasty financial repercussions. No doubt most of the offical membership is immune to such suits, by virtue of its assets being beyond the reach of a US court.
There is less here than meets the eye.
Posted by: PMK at June 11, 2007 7:00 PM
Jawa,
You are soooo right in that CAIR has some people to protect, so they'll dwindle the # of memberships...
What's up w/ that???, as some have suggested after your post...
They ought to be ashamed at themselves, seeing how "ASTUTE" we are!!!(HA, HA, HA!)
at June 11, 2007 7:11 PM
What is up with this?
On their guard
Some Muslims are nervous about taking visible roles in houses of worship.
Some worshippers have asked that their names be removed from membership and mailing lists. Others refuse to write checks -- insisting on making cash contributions or using money orders.
http://www.sacbee.com/107/story/210869.html
Posted by: Joe Schmoe USA at June 11, 2007 7:16 PM
This is another example of how the 'politicians' the 'PC police' and 'media' make a group appear to be bigger and more powerful then they really are.
If you have 1,700 members and you have 300,000,000 Americans then why does the group representing the 1,700 have more pull in Washington then the average American group? Is it the $$'s? Is it popular? Is it PC?
at June 11, 2007 7:21 PM
CAIR has far fewer members than, say, Barbershop Quartet Societies - though I've yet to see anyone build' a capella practice rooms in airports.
Posted by: poetcomic1 at June 11, 2007 8:16 PM
It's not because of being unpopular...it's simply because to do so would mean being on the radar screen, so they're going underground.
No surprise here...
at June 11, 2007 8:26 PM
Grass roots indeed; more like petrodollar payola.
Posted by: sceptico at June 11, 2007 8:29 PM
May CAIR continue to downward spiral and meet a swift and merciless end. When retribution against media outlets who support CAIR becomes commonplace, we will be in good shape.
I wonder how the "flying Imam's" case is going to play out.
Posted by: awake at June 11, 2007 8:34 PM
On the other hand, another pro-Arab (and therefore necessarily an apologist for Islam) front group, the amusingly-named"Council for the National Interest," headed by oe Eugene Bird, who deserves a Congressional investigation all to his very self, on the other hand, managed to buy a full-page anti-Israel ad in The Sunday Times, an ad mocking all of the candidates for presumably being members of something that antisemites like to describe as some kind of all-powerful "Israel Lobby" when anyone who looks at American energy and foreign policy of the last 30 years can see that that that "Israel Lobby" is as nothing compared to the "Saudi/Arab Lobby" which has done terrible damage to American efforts to change energy policy, to get off oil, both for geopolitical reasons and for environmental reasons.
Bird, a former consular official in some Arab country, has been taking in the money. One wonders just how much he has gotten over the past decade or so. Could a Congressional committee find out? And while they are at it, could they find out about his wife, and her take as the head of something to do with "Jerusalem" as a "city of three faiths" which, in her version, becomes a pious little effort of getting three so-called "representative women," an anti-Isral far left Jewish woman, an anti-Israel Arab islamochristian, and an anti-Israel Arab Muslim, to tour campuses and present an "unbiased" view of their "vision of peace" for Jerusalem.
Quite a couple.
But here's the question: who is paying for those expensive CNI ads? Is it just those true-blue Americans who are just as outraged as outraged Eugene Bird, just as horrified by the mighty Israel Lobby, or could some of those involved have addresses, direct or indirect, in Riyadh and Jiddah and possibly the Emirates?
What do you think?
Posted by: Hugh at June 11, 2007 8:55 PM
yeah - a membership list was not/would not be subject to some close scrutiny -so, simple fix - remove the names - it's a ruse
Posted by: TINBH at June 11, 2007 8:56 PM
Baby steps, baby steps. Still, I wonder if Robert and Hugh will invite Daniel Pipes and Steven Emerson for a good old Zionist Jew celebration with a little champagne.
Posted by: wrathofasma at June 11, 2007 10:04 PM
Baby steps, baby steps. Still, I wonder if Robert and Hugh will invite Daniel Pipes and Steven Emerson for a good old Zionist Jew celebration with a little champagne.
Posted by: wrathofasma at June 11, 2007 10:04 PM
Their membership roles may be declining but I have heard that they plan on a bigger, better building than the one that they own just off Capitol Hill. Their short list of donors must have deep pockets.
Posted by: maryrose at June 11, 2007 10:04 PM
Hugh has it right. CAIR is simply splintering into many similar groups in order to hide their intent, their numbers and their benefactors. The are also spread across every state in the U.S. Last I heard CAIR itself has established at least 32 state offices. Pretty good for a group that's supposedly "losing" membership.
Obviously it is Saudis that are providing these groups with the bulk of their money.
Posted by: Foehammer at June 11, 2007 10:34 PM
So CAIR is dwindling? Wait for a new incarnation under a different name, with different principals (so many of these guys were associated with terror and the public found out; the next Muslim Apologists Society will presumably have front-men with squeaky-clean histories). We probably won't know its new identity until it has 20 chapters in various pivotal states.
Does our government track funds coming INTO the country? We could look for checks from Saudi princes in amounts over $5 million...
Posted by: A_Nonny_Mouse at June 11, 2007 10:36 PM
So the ummah in the US is a measly 2.3m, and the CAIR membership is not even 2.3k. How much is that - Tiny Minority of Extremists®!
Posted by: Infidel Pride at June 11, 2007 11:16 PM
So the ummah in the US is a measly 2.3m, and the CAIR membership is not even 2.3k. How much is that - < 0.1%? That would make CAIR even tinier than the Tiny Minority of Extremists®!
Posted by: Infidel Pride at June 11, 2007 11:18 PM
Why is Zuhdi Jasser (in this article) touting the number of 7 million American Muslims when recent estimates have put the number at less than 3 million?
In any case, here was a related article from several months ago, noting the exaggerated membership claims of several prominent Muslim organizations:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=26860
Posted by: Caroline at June 11, 2007 11:47 PM
CAIR and similar organizations splinter into franchises so that their tax footprint is small, and so that they can move funds around. For CAIR the issue is operating funds -- how to disguise the Saudi and Emirate $$$ that cause them so much embarrassment when exposed, even leading them to surrender potentially lucrative antidefamation lawsuits (if they had a chance of winning, that is) do their work quietly in the background.
Right now on their national website CAIR is pushing for donations and new members. They don't wish their membership to look small, but they do wish the amount of foreign dollars they obtain to look small. They have been trying to transmogrify from a fifth column into something that can be sold as a grassroots human rights lobbying organization, and need members for this. But they REALLY don't need to be exposed as a foreign-funded mouthpiece for Salafism.
But don't look to CAIR if you're looking for major Money being moved to the Jihadists overseas. If the Saudis and Emirates wished to fund fighters there are far more efficient ways of doing so than siphoning it through an top-heavy lobbyist group that likes to buy expensive ads in newspapers. The foreign money they receive is to fund their activity here in North America.
I believe CAIR's role is first and foremost to be a distraction; they have secondary roles of running interference, dawa and legal intimidation, but their main role is to draw fire while sister organizations (which you won't find mentioned on their websites except in the most parabolic fashion -- even though it is common for individuals to sit on the boards of directors of both organizations -- it is just not "helpful" for them to draw attention to each other in the wrong contexts).
The jihadist money moves through the quieter organizations, the charity fronts and those with large, but non-vocal membership and leadership. At first I thought MAS and MSA were major players, but now I think there's good reason to believe that ISNA is siphoning off large amounts of North American zakat and muslim estate money to finance overseas militants. They may even be the most significant organization in this role. Watch what comes out in the current case in which both CAIR and ISNA are named as unindicted coconspirators. ISNA has flown under the radar for some time but I think the jig might be up now.
at June 11, 2007 11:59 PM
Naseem? Naseem? DefenderofIslam? Abdullah?? Anyone?
Posted by: Concerned Citizen at June 12, 2007 2:25 AM
CAIR losing members of Muslims....lol.
Who with common sense would believe that. Their members are like pact rats.
We have to be wise and stay a step ahead of them. And watch out for the invisible force.
If it is Islam...it's evil. If its Muslims...its evil. If its the Koran...Satan inspired the writer. Trust them not...they dont give a hoot about any of us.
Posted by: Cher at June 12, 2007 3:56 AM
...Of course the Muslims want their names removed from any CAIR or CAIR related entity...it is becoming easier and easier to connect the dots from them to terrorists....and the future does not look bright for Islam...
Posted by: exsgtbrown at June 12, 2007 5:59 AM
Perhaps potential members know that they will at some point in time be rounded up when America wakes up some more.
Et tu, Ibrahim ?
Posted by: dgene at June 12, 2007 8:38 AM
It would realy be nice to have a cair representative comment on this issue. But than again, as my Mom always said, "don't hold your breath." cair, where are you?
Posted by: mustang65 at June 12, 2007 11:30 AM
Ahhh! 33 new homes to evangelize from (oops, that's christian ain't it) Well, all the closer to their jihadists cells planning our destruction. Now all their faithful suicide bombers have to do is meet at the corner cafe to get their funds for bombs. Their mothers will be so pleased.
Posted by: imamerican at June 12, 2007 10:57 PM
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