U.S. has no strategy for homegrown terror

U.S. has “no strategy” for homegrown terror The National Security Preparedness Group has released a new study (see story below, highlights added) showing the U.S. is unprepared to combat the threat of homegrown terrorism. As one member of the group put it: “The United States has failed to fundamentally understand and prepare for these threats.” Certainly there are a number of reasons for this, but from our perspective one stands out: the failure to link the ideology of Islamism (“radical Islam”) to acts of jihad. Jihadists do what they do because they believe in the call to jihad. This is ideologically driven. The belief that they will “assimilate” or become part of our “melting pot” is wishful thinking. Thus, a national security strategy of “see no jihad, hear no jihad, speak no jihad” is doomed to fail. U.S. Has 'No Strategy' to Confront Homegrown Terror, Security Group Warns Published September 10, 2010 | FoxNews.com The report: http://bipartisanpolicy.org/sites/default/files/Final%20NSPG%20Threat %20Assessment%20Report%20Sept%202010%20report%20w%20cover.pdf The government has failed to anticipate the danger from homegrown terrorists, some of whom immigrated to the United States, and now faces the most complex set of threats since the Sept. 11 attacks, analysts on an organization headed by the two 9/11 Commission co-chairmen warned Friday. Unveiling a new report a day before the nation marks nine years since the 2001 attacks, members of the National Security Preparedness Group said Al Qaeda and other terror groups are increasingly turning to U.S. citizens to carry out attacks on the United States. They cited examples where recruiters went after Somali populations and other groups living in the United States, saying that while the U.S. at one time may have thought its cultural "melting pot" would provide a "firewall" against radicalization from within, that assumption turned out to be false. "The United States has failed to fundamentally understand and prepare for these threats," group member Bruce Hoffman said. "Terrorists may have found our Achilles' heel. We have no strategy to deal with this growing problem and emerging threat." The report said U.S. authorities failed to realize that Somali-American youths traveling from Minnesota to Somalia in 2008 to join extremist Muslim groups was not an isolated event. Instead, the movement was one among several instances of a broader, more diverse threat that has surfaced across the country. As a result, there remains no federal agency specifically charged with identifying radicalization or working to prevent terrorist recruitment of U.S. citizens and residents, said the report. The group, headed by former 9-11 commission leaders Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, laid out a detailed description of domestic terror incidents such as the Fort Hood shooting spree last year in which 13 people died; the attempt to crash an airliner in December as it was landing at Detroit, Michigan; and last May's botched vehicle bombing in New York City's Times Square. Kean told Fox News that Al Qaeda is serious about recruiting U.S. citizens and "non-traditional terrorists" to carry out its attacks. "The threat is real, coordinated. It's something Al Qaeda wants to do now," he said. "They're moving to these smaller attacks. ... Everything becomes more possible if you have an American passport." He said the United States needs to respond better to this evolving threat. "We've got to attack it with the same energy and concerns and verve that we have ... in the past," Kean said. During the past year, terrorism experts and government officials have warned of the threat posed by homegrown radicals, saying terror recruits who go abroad could return to the United States to carry out attacks. But the United States, the report said, should have learned earlier from Britain's experience. Before the 2005 suicide bombings in London's transit system, the British believed that Muslims there were better integrated, educated and wealthier than their counterparts elsewhere. Similarly, U.S. authorities believed that its melting pot of nationalities and religions would protect it from internal radical strife, the report said. The terrorists, it said, may have discovered America's "Achilles' heel in that we currently have no strategy to counter the type of threat posed by homegrown terrorists and other radicalized recruits." U.S. officials have acknowledged the need to address the radicalization problem, and for the first time, the White House added combating homegrown terrorism this year to its national security strategy. The FBI, meanwhile, has worked to reach out to the Somali communities in an effort to counter the radicalization of the youth. The report also points to an "Americanization" of the leadership of Al Qaeda and its allied groups, noting that radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who encouraged the U.S. soldier accused in the Fort Hood shooting and others, grew up in the state of New Mexico. And Chicagoan David Headley played a role in scoping the targets for the Lashkar-e-Taiba attacks on Mumbai in late 2008 that killed more than 160 tourists and others. Abroad, Al Qaeda, its affiliates and other extremist groups have splintered and spread, seeking havens in undergoverned areas of Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and places in North and East Africa. That diversified threat has intensified as militants reached out to potential recruits through the Internet. Assessing future threats, the report lists potential future domestic targets, including passenger jets, Western or American hotel chains, Jewish or Israeli sites and U.S. soldiers, even at their own bases in America. It also warns that it is no longer wise to believe that American extremists will not resort to suicide bombings. They point to Maj. Nidal Hasan's alleged shooting spree at Fort Hood as an example, saying he had written about suicide operations in e-mails, and that his attack appeared to be one. The Associated Press contributed to this report. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/09/10/strategy-confront-homegrown-terror-security- group-warns/

Hezbollah and our southern border

Hezbollah and our southern border Short video asks why Napolitano refuses to act U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick, Co-chair of the House Anti-Terrorism Caucus, penned an op-ed in The Washington Times recently (below) regarding the presence of Hezbollah on our southern border. She also posted a short, 2:30 video that we encourage you to view and forward to your friends and family. Brigitte Gabriel has been warning America for some time now that Hezbollah is infiltrating our southern border and establishing terror cells here in the U.S. The threat of Hezbollah terrorism coming across our southern border continues to grow—while Department of Homeland Security director Janet Napolitano ignores calls for a task force to investigate this threat. MYRICK: Hezbollah car bombs on our border Why isn't Obama's Department of Homeland Security concerned? By Rep. Sue Myrick The Washington Times An indictment was handed down Aug. 30 by the Southern District Court of New York that shows a connection between Hezbollah - the proxy army of Iran and a designated terrorist organization - and the drug cartels that violently plague the U.S.-Mexico border. In short, a well-known international arms dealer was trying to orchestrate an arms-for-drugs deal in which cocaine from FARC - the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which works with Mexican drug cartels to take cocaine into America - would be traded for thousands of weapons housed by a Hezbollah operative in Mexico. This most recent case brings up several questions: Why would a member of Hezbollah be in Mexico? Why would Hezbollah need thousands of weapons in Mexico? Why are members of Hezbollah willing to work with FARC? Perhaps to exchange weapons for drugs? If Hezbollah has guns in Mexico and wants drugs, isn't it logical to assume that it is trading with more accessible Mexican drug cartels? This is just the most recent incident in which it's clear that Hezbollah may have a presence in Mexico and along our southern border. There have been more incidents - which have been ignored by the Obama administration and the Department of Homeland Security. On June 23, I sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano asking her to establish a task force to investigate the presence of Hezbollah along the U.S.-Mexico border. The evidence is there: Hezbollah's cooperation with countries across South America. Highly sophisticated tunnels for transferring drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border, ones very similar to the tunnels dug by Hezbollah into Israel. The close relationship between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the increase in Iranian nationals traveling through Venezuela to receive false documents, which they use to cross into the United States. Mexican officials raising concerns about Hezbollah operatives possibly training Mexican drug cartel enforcers in making car bombs. Michael Braun, a former Drug Enforcement Administration chief of operations, has even been quoted as saying, "Hezbollah relies on the same criminal weapons smugglers, document traffickers and transportation experts as the drug cartels. ... They work together; they rely on the same shadow facilitators. One way or another, they are all connected." Only a few weeks after I sent this letter, it was reported that Jameel Nasr, a Mexican national with ties to Hezbollah in Lebanon, "entrusted with forming a base in South America and the United States to carry out operations against Israeli and Western targets," was arrested by the Mexican government. Days later, a cell-phone-detonated car bomb - the first of its kind reported used by Mexican drug cartels - was deployed just across the U.S.-Mexico border in Juarez. On Aug. 27, another car bomb exploded in a U.S.-Mexico border state. These car bombs show an evolution in the tactics being used by the drug cartels and bear a strong resemblance to those employed by Hezbollah, raising questions as to who trained the cartels. Doesn't the protection of the American public deserve answers? The primary role of the federal government is to protect its citizens. Unfortunately, the administration continues to sit by idly while security threats go uninvestigated. And that's all I'm requesting - an investigation to find out what's going on along our southern border. To date, I have not received a response from the Department of Homeland Security informing me of any decision to investigate. How much more is it going to take?

Your tax dollars building mosques

Your tax dollars building mosques The Ground Zero Mosque controversy continues to stir up new revelations. Now we learn that tax dollars have been used to build mosques around the world (see column below). And yesterday, Fox News reported that the Ground Zero Mosque imam has rejected an offer by New York Governor David Paterson to help move the mosque to another location. What does this tell us about the imam’s alleged commitment to interfaith bridge building? About his “sensitivity”? A CNN poll this week revealed that 68% of American voters now oppose the Ground Zero Mosque! Driven by new revelations and increasing media coverage, this is an increase of nearly 10 points in the past 30 days. For example, since April Brigitte Gabriel has conducted nearly 200 radio and TV interviews about the Ground Zero Mosque! The rising opposition of public opinion certainly contributed to Paterson’s decision to try to mediate a solution and get the mosque moved. You can help fuel this rising opposition by signing our petition if you haven’t yet done so AND forwarding this email to everyone you know! http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/aug/10/tax-dollars-to-build-mosques/ Tax dollars to build mosques U.S. underwrites fundraising tour for Islamic shrine at Ground Zero By THE WASHINGTON TIMES - The Washington Times 7:46 p.m., Tuesday, August 10, 2010    Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, executive director of the Cordoba Initiative, addresses a gathering as groups planning a proposed mosque and cultural center near Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan to be named Cordoba House showed and spoke about their plans for the center at a community board meeting in New York Tuesday, May 25, 2010. Community members both for and against the plan spoke during the meeting. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle) The State Department is sending Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf - the mastermind of the Ground Zero Mosque - on a trip through the Middle East to foster "greater understanding" about Islam and Muslim communities in the United States. However, important questions are being raised about whether this is simply a taxpayer-funded fundraising jaunt to underwrite his reviled project, which is moving ahead in Lower Manhattan. Mr. Rauf is scheduled to go to Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Qatar, the usual stops for Gulf-based fundraising. The State Department defends the five-country tour saying that Mr. Rauf is "a distinguished Muslim cleric," but surely the government could find another such figure in the United States who is not seeking millions of dollars to fund a construction project that has so strongly divided America. By funding the trip so soon after New York City's Landmarks Preservation Commission gave the go-ahead to demolish the building on the proposed mosque site, the State Department is creating the appearance that the U.S. government is facilitating the construction of this shameful structure. It gives Mr. Rauf not only access but imprimatur to gather up foreign cash. And because Mr. Rauf has refused to reveal how he plans to finance his costly venture, the American public is left with the impression it will be a wholly foreign enterprise. This contradicts the argument that a mosque is needed in that part of New York City to provide services for a burgeoning Muslim population. If so many people need the mosque so badly, presumably they could figure out a way to pay for it themselves. Americans also may be surprised to learn that the United States has been an active participant in mosque construction projects overseas. In April, U.S. Ambassador to Tanzania Alfonso E. Lenhardt helped cut the ribbon at the 12th-century Kizimkazi Mosque, which was refurbished with assistance from the United States under a program to preserve culturally significant buildings. The U.S. government also helped save the Amr Ebn El Aas Mosque in Cairo, which dates back to 642. The mosque's namesake was the Muslim conqueror of Christian Egypt, who built the structure on the site where he had pitched his tent before doing battle with the country's Byzantine rulers. For those who think the Ground Zero Mosque is an example of "Muslim triumphalism" glorifying conquest, the Amr Ebn El Aas Mosque is an example of such a monument - and one paid for with U.S. taxpayer funds. The mosques being rebuilt by the United States are used for religious worship, which raises important First Amendment questions. U.S. taxpayer money should not be used to preserve and promote Islam, even abroad. In July 2009, the Office of the Inspector General published an audit of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) faith-based and community initiatives that examined whether government funds were being used for religious activities. The auditors found that while USAID was funding some religious activities, officials were "uncertain of whether such uses of Agency funding violate Agency regulations or the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution" when balanced against foreign-policy objectives. For example, our government rebuilt the Al Shuhada Mosque in Fallujah, Iraq, expecting such benefits as "stimulating the economy, enhancing a sense of pride in the community, reducing opposition to international relief organizations operating in Fallujah, and reducing incentives among young men to participate in violence or insurgent groups." But Section 205.1(d) of title 22 of the Code of Federal Regulations prohibits USAID funds from being used for the rehabilitation of structures to the extent that those structures are used for "inherently religious activities." It is impossible to separate religion from a mosque; any such projects will necessarily support Islam. The State Department is either wittingly or unwittingly using tax money to support Mr. Rauf's efforts to realize his dream of a supersized mosque blocks away from the sacred ground of the former World Trade Center, which was destroyed by Islamic fanaticism. This ill-considered decision will raise the ire of millions of Americans and illustrates the limits of what the denizens of Foggy Bottom know about diplomacy.

Is your local mosque 'moderate'?

Is Your Local Mosque “Moderate”? The Ground Zero Mosque controversy has stirred up a lot of discussion and debate about what is a “moderate” Muslim and whether or not the Ground Zero Mosque imam is a “moderate.” We are convinced he is not, and in the next few days we will email an extensive dossier on Imam Rauf. Below, our friend and colleague Dr. Tawfik Hamid, himself a Muslim, has provided us answers to the question, “what is a moderate Muslim?” Ground Zero Mosque update: Last Saturday we sent out a special email reporting on New York City’s transit authority censoring ads opposing the Ground Zero Mosque. After being threatened with a lawsuit, we’re pleased to report the transit authority has reversed its decision. To read more, click here. To sign our petition opposing the Ground Zero Mosque, click here. Is Your Local Mosque 'Moderate' or 'Radical'? (Please circulate) Ask the Imams of Mosques, the Muslim leaders, and the Islamic organizations in the US and worldwide to sign this declaration (See below) by Tawfik Hamid www.tawfikhamid.com After the problem of Ground Zero Mosque has escalated it becomes an urgent necessity to distinguish 'Moderate' from 'Radical' Islam. Without making such a distinction the US and the rest of the world will remain divided regarding this issue. Debates about the issue can be endless unless we define the words 'radical' and 'moderate'. Mosque leaders, Islamic scholars, and organizations who want to be considered Moderates MUST clearly and unambiguously declare the following declaration in their media outlets and on their websites. I suggest that you send this declaration to Mosque leaders and the Islamic organizations inside the US and worldwide to see if they are ready to accept such a declaration or not. Please feel free to circulate this newsletter so that we can start a process that allows us to distinguish radical from moderate Islam. Declaration of Beliefs of Muslim Moderates - I (We) are Muslims who want contemporary understandings of Islam to replace currently predominant harsh and radical (Salafi/Wahabbi) interpretations of our religion. We therefore declare that: 1-    Redda Law, the Sharia Law that allows the killing of Muslims who convert to other faiths, must be banned in Islamic teachings and in Sharia legal doctrine. Islamic countries that practice Sharia must stop the practice of this law and must admit that Freedom of belief and the right to convert to other faith or believe is a basic right that must be given to all Muslims. 2-    Current mainstream Sharia doctrines justify the use of violence against women. They encourage men to beat their wives to discipline them. They allow women accused of adultery to be stoned to death. These doctrines are barbarically inhumane, non-egalitarian, and teach Muslim children to be violent. These teachings must be ended by reinterpreting the Islamic text that justifies such violence. 3-    Traditional Sharia doctrines teach Muslims that they must engage in war so that Islam will dominate the world. When Islam becomes dominant, Non-Muslims are offered three options: to convert to Islam, to pay Jizzia (a humiliating tax), or to be killed. These doctrines run contrary to modern respect for diversity and for personal freedom of speech and belief. This understanding of Jihad that seeks domination of Islam over other peoples must no longer be regarded as an Islamic value and its teaching as a duty for Muslims must end. The early Islamic wars known as "Futohaat Islameia" were fought to implement this doctrine of Jihad. These wars therefore should now be regarded as un-Islamic and un-justifiable. 4-    Jews are individuals who deserve the same respect accorded to all individuals. They should not be called "pigs and monkeys." The Islamic teaching that Muslims must fight and kill all Jews before the end of days is totally incorrect and unacceptable as it does not exist in the Quran. All teachings that encourage anti-Semitic attitudes, violence or disrespect toward Jews must be declared un-Islamic. 5-    Slavery is a crime against humanity. All Sharia laws that justify slavery in our modern times must not be taught any more. Muslim scholars must have a clear and loud voice against slavery. 6-    Islamic Sharia laws currently permit the killing homosexuals. These laws also are advocating a crime against our fellow human beings. They must be declared un-Islamic and their implementation must be considered criminal. Signed, Dr. Tawfik Hamid Comment: The above violent teachings, which currently are taught in mainstream Islamic books in America, are implemented in countries that allow governance according to Sharia Law. Future Muslim generations must be protected from these destructive doctrines, interpretations and customs. These violent Sharia doctrines must be replaced with clear and unconditional explanations of why they no longer are valid. Anything short of a fully clear and unequivocal stand against these doctrines indicates passive approval. Therefore, all Islamic leaders who genuinely consider themselves to be Muslim moderates must post these principles in English and in Arabic in full public view on their websites and declare them in their media outlets. Failure to publically post and support these principles should be interpreted as clear evidence that a leader's mosque or Islamic organization must be considered radical.

Our 'moderate Muslim' problem

Our “Moderate Muslim” Problem True reformers ignored Bret Stephens’ recent column in The Wall Street Journal (below, highlights added) is a must-read. Thanks to the controversy surrounding the Ground Zero Mosque, more and more Americans, as well as many in the media, are beginning to focus on the threats radical Islam poses to America beyond those who are the actual terrorists. In a recent appearance on the Michael Savage radio program, ACT! for America president Brigitte Gabriel went into great detail about the “moderate Muslim” problem Stephens discusses below. We have seen this “moderate Muslim” song and dance many times before, where government officials ignore the true Muslim reformers while spotlighting the likes of Imam Rauf. Think Abdurahman Alamoudi, touted as a paragon of moderation, feted at the White House—until he was convicted on terrorism related charges. He is now serving a 23 year prison sentence. Here’s a question for those insisting Ground Zero Mosque Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is a “moderate.” Why won’t he sign the “Freedom Pledge” sent to him by Former Muslims United? All it asks is that Muslim leaders oppose retaliation against Muslims who leave Islam. Rauf’s refusal to sign a pledge opposing any kind of retaliation against “apostates” proves that his words about “tolerance” are a sham designed to fool the gullible. There are true Muslim reformers in America. Rauf isn’t one of them. Our 'Moderate Muslim' Problem The Ground Zero mosque imam earns wide congratulations while true reformers go ignored.      •   By BRET STEPHENS Items of interest in the news media's coverage of "moderate Muslims": • The New York Times, Oct. 19, 2001: "Imam Anwar Al-Awlaki, spiritual leader at the Dar al-Hijra mosque in Virginia, one of the nation's largest. . . . is held up as a new generation of Muslim leader capable of merging East and West." • NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, Dec. 9, 2004: "It's the TV industry's newest experiment, 'Bridges TV,' billing itself the 'American-Muslim lifestyle network,' featuring movies, documentaries, cartoons. . . . It's the brainchild of Aasiya Hassan, an architect, and her husband, Muzzamil Hassan, a banker, who are disturbed that negative images of Muslims seem to dominate TV, especially since 9/11." • Boston Globe editorial, Aug. 4, 2010: "The simple fact is there's nothing threatening about the proposed Islamic center, which is being spearheaded by Feisal Abdul Rauf, one of the most respected moderate Muslim leaders in the country." See where this is going? Most readers probably know of Awlaki as the U.S.-born imam who presided over the mosque attended by two of the 9/11 hijackers. Awlaki also served as theological mentor to Fort Hood killer Nidal Malik Hassan, would-be Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad. President Obama has authorized the military to assassinate Awlaki, now thought to be living in Yemen. Associated Press Al Qaeda Imam Anwar al-Awlaki, former poster child of moderate Islam. As for Bridges TV, the saccharine story told by Brian Williams and reporter Ron Allen (complete with scenes of the family's domestic bliss in their modest home in Buffalo, N.Y.), came to an abrupt end in February 2009, when Mr. Hassan beheaded his wife after she had filed for divorce, evicted him from their home, and won an order of protection. Last week, Mr. Hassan's attorney defended her client on the grounds that he was, of all things, a "battered spouse." Now we have the controversy over the Ground Zero mosque, opponents of which are being widely branded as bigots. As, no doubt, some of them are: There are bigots in any crowd. Then again, is it bigoted to oppose bigots? Consider an interesting historical antecedent. In 1993, a controversy similar to the current one unfolded when residents of a Washington, D.C., suburb sought to use zoning laws to shut down the local mosque, ostensibly on grounds that it was a traffic nuisance. "Worshipers of many faiths said closing the popular mosque . . . would amount to discrimination against one of the area's fastest growing religions," the Washington Times reported at the time. The mosque in question? None other than the Dar al-Hijra, later to be known as the "9/11 mosque." So were the petitioners who sought to shut it down bigots? Or is it that they got a whiff of its extremism, and didn't like the smell? "We are appalled at the ill will and friction," the paper quoted one Sylvia Johnson, "who said mosque-goers have yelled at her and blocked her driveway." Here, of course, the argument will be made that, unlike Awlaki, Mr. Rauf really is a moderate. And that might well be so—by the standards of his native Kuwait. But a man who claims to condemn all forms of terrorism yet refuses to call Hamas a terrorist group is not a moderate by American standards, which happen to be the relevant ones when you're trying to build a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero. Mr. Rauf still has a perfect legal right to go ahead with his scheme. But his supporters need to choose between defending him on grounds of his alleged moderation (in which case his views are relevant), or on the principle of religious liberty (in which case they're not). They can't have it both ways. Which brings me to the fundamental problem with too many self-described moderate Muslims. A few years ago, my friend Irshad Manji made the point to me that "moderate Muslims denounce terror that's committed in the name of Islam but they deny that religion has anything to do with it." [Editor’s Note: Exactly what CAIR representatives do.] By contrast, she noted, "reform-minded Muslims denounce terror that's committed in the name of Islam and acknowledge that our religion is used to inspire it." That's a distinction worth pondering. It's also a considerable comfort to know that there are Muslims in the U.S. like Irshad who are working, tirelessly but mainly out of view, toward the cause of reform. They could use more support and recognition. As for the professional charlatans and secret radicals who claim to be moderate, it would be well if their cheerleaders in the media could inspect their credentials a little more carefully before lavishing them with praise. Because, when it comes to heralding the arrival of the long-awaited moderates, there's nothing more embarrassing than a case of premature congratulation.

Which Islam will prevail in America?

“Which Islam Will Prevail in America?” Andrew McCarthy, lead prosecutor in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was one of our featured speakers at the 2010 ACT! for America National Conference and Legislative Briefing. He is the author of the compelling book The Grand Jihad. His recent commentary (below, highlights added) is well worth taking a few minutes to read. Our petition opposing the Ground Zero Mosque now has over 104,000 signers. Have you signed yet? http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/244349/which-islam-will-prevail-america-andrew-c-mccarthy Andrew C. McCarthy Which Islam Will Prevail in America? That is the real question at hand in the Ground Zero mosque debate. The real battle for religious freedom lurks beneath the Ground Zero mosque controversy. It is sadly ironic that our public debate presents the mosque proponents as the partisans of liberty: That includes everyone from imam Feisal Rauf, the project’s sharia-touting sponsor, to President Obama, Mayor Bloomberg, and the rest of the Islamist-smitten Left, to the GOP’s own anti-anti-terrorist wing. Yet, wittingly or not, when they champion this mosque and its sponsors, it is the agenda of an alien and authoritarian Islam that they champion — an Islam against which many American Muslims chafe. When it comes to liberty, no one in this society has been given a wider berth than the Islamists, the purveyors of this authoritarian Islam, which is the mainstream Islam of the Middle East. Their vise grip on the American Muslim community has been cinched for two decades by the government, the media, and the academy. For our post-American ruling class, “Islamic outreach” means prostituting themselves for Saudi largesse; it means putting the “moderate” label on the Muslim Brotherhood — the Saudi-backed saboteurs whose American operatives boldly promise to “eliminate and destroy Western Civilization from within.” The victims of this lethal charade include American Muslims. They, too, crave religious liberty and Western enlightenment. Our elites abandon them to the sharia-mongers. That freedom destroyers have been allowed to pose as freedom defenders ought to tell mosque opponents something: We have done a poor job of explaining the stakes. In 1993, I headed up a prosecution team that was preparing to try the “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel Rahman and eleven other jihadists for conducting a terrorist war against the United States. The case revealed this country’s Muslim divide. On one side were patriotic American Muslims, without whom successful prosecution would have been impossible. Not only did they infiltrate the terror cells, they helped us shape the resulting evidence into a compelling narrative. On the other side were the Muslim Brotherhood’s satellites. These included outfits like CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations), which was formed in 1994 by the Brotherhood’s Hamas-support wing, with seed money from an Islamic “charity” — the Holy Land Foundation — later shut down for financing foreign terrorist organizations. These Brotherhood satellites purport to speak for American Muslims. In fact, they speak for anti-American Muslims, most of whom are outside the United States. They demagogued the case as a phobic criminalization of Islam itself, just as they have libeled America since 9/11 as being “at war with Islam.” Translating evidence into English turned out to be a Herculean challenge during our trial preparation. Most of our evidence was in Arabic, because almost all of our defendants had immigrated here from Egypt and Sudan, hotbeds of anti-American Islam. The resulting mounds of documents, wiretap recordings, and inflammatory sermons overstretched the Justice Department’s thin Arabic-language capacity. To ease the strain, we tried to retain some civilians as private contractors. A number of local Muslims expressed interest, but in the end they turned us down. BROTHERHOOD ISLAM vs. AMERICAN ISLAM Mind you, they wanted to help. They were as offended as anyone by what the terrorists had done. These folks were Americans. They were the kind of Muslims you’re never exposed to, given the media’s preference for jihad apologists who, when not applauding him, claim Osama bin Laden was “made in the U.S.A.” But the would-be translators wanted ironclad assurance that their assistance to the prosecution would be kept confidential. It was an assurance I was not in a position to give, so they politely declined. Here’s the most depressing part: It wasn’t really a matter of safety. There was surely some element of that — it goes with the territory in terrorism cases. But these people were mostly worried that they and their families would be ostracized in their communities as traitors to Islam. In Muslim communities, I learned, many people — especially American Muslims — were supportive of our investigations. Of course they didn’t like the light of suspicion being shined on Muslims, not any more than Italian Americans liked the attention our mafia cases thrust on their communities. Yet they tuned out the CAIR chorus, just as most sensible people tune out the grievance industry. They reserved most of their resentment for the malevolent, anti-American actors in their midst. They understood that public safety is the government’s highest obligation. As long as they could do it quietly, they were willing to help. But doing it quietly was imperative. Most American Muslims are not instinctively different from other Americans. But American Muslim communities are peculiar. In many of them, the leadership of the mosques and Islamic centers is foreign (or at least foreign-influenced). This leadership tends to be anti-Western and arrogant, claiming an Islamic authenticity Americans are said to lack. Many American Muslims are intimidated into silence. They are cowed by the specter of being condemned as too American. In Islam, there is no more grievous offense than causing disunity through infidelity. It is no small thing when community leaders frame a Muslim as insufficiently loyal to the ummah, the notional Islamic nation. American Muslims are also taken aback by the ease with which their community leaders straddle the line between preaching Islam and cheerleading for terrorists. Why, they wonder, does their government, the U.S. government, consistently elevate America-bashing Islamists who can’t give a straight answer when asked about Hamas and Hezbollah? Why not highlight Muslims who are pro-American and unambiguously anti-terrorist — Muslims who desperately need the support? Most of the mosques and Islamic centers in our country are controlled, to a greater or lesser degree, by the Muslim Brotherhood and its satellites. The North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) was established in the early Seventies to buy up property for the establishment of American mosques and “Islamic centers,” the latter being what the Brotherhood calls “the axis” of the Islamist movement in America. The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) supplies literature and vets imams. Both NAIT and ISNA, along with CAIR and other Brotherhood groups, were identified by the Justice Department as unindicted coconspirators in the recent Hamas-financing prosecution against the Holy Land Foundation. These Islamists owe their vision to the Brotherhood. Just as important, they owe their livelihood, influence, and power to moneyed Middle East patrons, particularly the Saudis. The Kingdom and the Brotherhood have combined for a half-century to put American Muslim communities in a stranglehold. They proselytize a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam — an amalgam of Saudi Wahhabism and Brotherhood Salafism — that is virulently anti-Western. Its instruction to Muslims in the United States, Canada, and Europe is voluntary apartheid: Immigrate but don’t integrate, infiltrate but don’t assimilate. SHARIA OR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM? This brand of Islam is designed to create parallel Muslim enclaves, resistant to America’s freedom culture and to Western civilization, just as it created the liberty-killing “no-go zones” now sprouting up throughout Europe. It is designed to snuff out religious freedom, pressuring American Muslims to adopt the Islamists’ social mores, financial practices, and anti-Western outlook. And the authoritarian device it uses to establish and control these enclaves is sharia, Islam’s legal and political framework, which aspires to control of all aspects of life — not just spiritual life, but all of life. It is the Brotherhood’s objective to thread sharia through American law and culture. This mission drives imam Feisal Rauf’s work, as documented by the Center for Security Policy’s Christine Brim in an eye-popping report at Andrew Breitbart’s Big Peace website. Since 2006, Rauf has been developing the “Sharia Index Project.” His partners in this venture include longtime Muslim Brotherhood honcho Jamal Barzinji, a top official at the International Institute of Islamic Thought. The IIIT, a major backer of the convicted terrorist Sami al-Arian, is one of the Brotherhood satellites that republished Rauf’s book, What’s Right with Islam Is What’s Right with America, the book that was released in Malaysia under the more telling title, A Call to Prayer from the World Trade Center Rubble: Islamic Dawa in the Heart of America Post-9/11. (The other Brotherhood organization behind the republication of Rauf’s book was the aforementioned ISNA.) As Ms. Brim explains, the purpose of Rauf’s Sharia Index Project is “to benchmark” every country’s compliance with sharia, with an eye toward pressuring them to adopt and enforce more. The United States is not going to become a sharia state anytime soon. That obvious fact has commentators pooh-poohing the encroaching peril, even as we watch Europe succumb before our eyes, as if no-go zones, honor killings, the Balkanizing of society, and the strangulation of freedom could never happen here. On Tuesday, for example, in an otherwise insightful column on the Left’s incoherence in the mosque controversy, the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto took an offhanded swipe at the “fringe right’s ravings about ‘Shariah.’” But are the concerns really “ravings,” and are they truly confined to a right-wing “fringe”? It so happened that in the same day’s Journal, Bret Stephens penned a sharp essay about Muslim “moderates” who turn out not to be so moderate. As his counterpoint, he offered a courageous, progressive Muslim reformer, Irshad Manji. Rather than pretending that Islamic doctrine has nothing to do with terrorism, Ms. Manji is forthrightly confronting the doctrine and working to change it. What is it that needs change? As illustrated in her spellbinding book, The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim’s Call for Reform in Her Faith, much of what ails Islam is sharia sclerosis. Sharia, she elaborates, represents the legal opinions of classical Muslim jurists, frozen a millennium ago and, ever since, impervious to critical inquiry. Frozen it remains thanks to atavistic zealots, prominent among them the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization founded by fundamentalists in the 1920s and lavishly funded by the Saudis since the 1950s, an outfit Manji correctly describes as “the al-Qaeda of its generation.” These Islamists are the true enemies of religious liberty. It is they who foreclose modern Muslims from the right to reason independently, to evolve. Whether Ground Zero mosque proponents realize it or not, the cause they are advancing — against the will of the American people, and, perversely, under the guise of “religious freedom” — is the Islamist cause. It is the Brotherhood, not American Muslims, insisting that this monument must be imposed on this sacred spot. It is a “considerable comfort,” Mr. Stephens writes, “to know that there are Muslims in the U.S. like Irshad who are working, tirelessly but mainly out of view, toward the cause of reform. They could use more support and recognition.” But, of course, their tireless work must happen “out of view,” because the Islamists have made it too dangerous for them to work openly. And they are denied support and recognition because the post-American ruling class has made its bed with sharia salesmen like Rauf, who blame America for 9/11 and can’t bring themselves to say Hamas is a terrorist organization. By contrast, American Muslims grasp that 9/11 was an attack on their country, too. Their emerging leaders, such as Zuhdi Jasser and Steven Schwartz, have started organizations — respectively, the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and the Center for Islamic Pluralism — that promote freedom and offer Muslims an escape from the Brotherhood’s clutches. As Messrs. Jasser and Schwartz relate, American Muslims understand the significance of Ground Zero to our nation, to the families of those who were slaughtered, and to the enemy against whom we are still fighting. They know that, in contrast to the innate intolerance of sharia states, the United States opens its arms to people of all faiths, including Muslims. Like Ms. Manji, they are struggling, against daunting opposition, to forge an Islam that embraces Western values, that reveres religious faith but denies it temporal authority. The Ground Zero mosque controversy is not about religious liberty for Muslims. It is about which Islam will thrive in the United States: the one that is fighting Americans, or the one American Muslims are fighting for.

Imam issues a not-so-veiled threat

Imam issues a not-so- veiled threat Have you signed our petition? In a series of interviews the past two days, Ground Zero Mosque Imam Feisal Rauf significantly raised the stakes. The self-described “bridge builder” has proven to be anything but, warning America that dire consequences await us if the mosque is not built. In doing so, he described those who oppose the mosque at Ground Zero as “radicals,” a description one Fox News analyst termed “insulting.” In effect, he is asserting that 71% of Americans must yield or we will inflame the Muslim world. Brigitte Gabriel participated in a heated debate with a friend of this imam on Sean Hannity’s radio program yesterday. The imam’s friend went so far as to say that the “smoke” caused by this controversy will cause “fire” against America. Click on this link: “Brigitte Gabriel and Jehan Harney Audio File” to listen to the debate. Imam Rauf’s true colors continue to become more visible to the American people. Recall that he said, shortly after 9/11, that America was an “accessory” to the attack. Now, to argue that America must capitulate or face the consequences, Rauf actually makes the case for ACT! for America’s core mission—rising up against the threat of radical Islam in whatever form that threat takes. We will stand for freedom and our national security. We will not be intimidated.

'L'Shana Tova' from ACT! for America

To our Jewish family and friends from your ACT! for America family.