Tennessee: long a poor black state, RIPE for sharia islum...even more so than detroit/dearborn..


In the past several weeks, attacks on ACT! for America by CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) and apologists for radical Islam have reached the level of hysterical rants.

As Patrick Poole points out in a Pajamas Media column below about today’s congressional hearings on Muslim radicalization (highlights added), we’re in good company. Even reformist Muslim Dr. Zuhdi Jasser has come under attack.

It’s clear that CAIR, a Hamas front, and other Muslim Brotherhood affiliated organizations, are desperate as their plan for sharia law for America is getting exposed.

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Why Do Islamic Groups Fear Hearings on Islamic Radicalization?

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/why-do-islamic-groups-fear-hearings-on-islamic-radicalization/?singlepage=true

Because they are the radicalization problem. (Patrick Poole will be covering Thursday's hearings live on PJTV. And don't miss this PJTV FLASHBACK: "Roger Simon calls for congressional hearing on censorship of Islamic terminology")
March 9, 2011 - by Patrick Poole



The hysterics over Thursday’s hearings on Islamic radicalization by the House Homeland Security Committee has reached epic proportions. Islamic groups have likened the hearings to a new era of McCarthyism; James Zogby of the Arab American Institute wrote in an editorial in a Pakistani newspaper that the hearings were going to result in increased radicalization and that Islamophobia was a bigger threat than al-Qaeda; and at a rally against the hearings in New York City this past weekend Elaine Brower of the Movement for a Democratic Society claimed that Muslims would be murdered as a result of these hearings.

They have even gone as far as attacking one Muslim leader who has agreed to appear, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, an authentic moderate and American patriot who was given the full Media Slanders treatment last week.

So what has the self-appointed representatives of the Muslim community so up in arms? Are Muslims really in danger from Congress asking questions about widespread radicalization inside the Muslim community? Or are these histrionics a continued attempt to silence the growing majority of Americans who are seeing the glaring discrepancies between the rhetoric of the leading Islamic organizations and the reality of a growing homegrown terror threat? Evidence seems clear that it’s the latter.

This feigned outrage exposes their hypocrisy. Where were the cries of Islamophobia from these same groups last March when a House Intelligence subcommittee held similar hearings on radicalization? There were none, because the House Democrats who then controlled the committee ensured that extremists and the useful idiots endorsed by Muslim Brotherhood front groups were allowed to speak. In fact, one of the speakers, Omar Alomari, community engagement officer from the Ohio Department of Public Safety, was fired two months after the hearing for lying about his prior employment with a foreign government during his background investigation.

This time around, looking at the witness list for this week’s hearings, all of the speakers save one (the father of the Little Rock killer, Carlos Bledsoe) have already testified before Congress (two, Keith Ellison and Frank Wolf, are members of Congress). So what is really going on? I suggest there are at least five reasons why Islamic groups and their leftist allies are opposed to the hearings this week.

1) These hearings challenge the Muslim Brotherhood’s political monopoly

Since the 1993 World Trade Center bombings a select group of Muslim organizations, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), have enjoyed a monopoly on political access to Congress and the White House.

But in recent years, legal actions by the FBI and federal prosecutors have revealed the extent that these organizations are controlled by the international Muslim Brotherhood and have an agenda to wage a “civilizational jihad” intending to “destroy Western civilization from within.” An FBI agent even testified during the Holy Land Foundation terrorism finance trial that CAIR is a front for the terrorist group Hamas. As a result of that evidence, the FBI severed ties with CAIR, but they still continue to work with MPAC, ISNA, and other terrorist front groups.

In response to these disclosures, members of Congress have begun to notice and ask questions about the government’s continued association with these Muslim groups and leaders, which poses a direct threat to their political power.

2) Their narrative is at war with reality

CAIR, MPAC, and the other usual suspects repeatedly claim a rise in hate crimes against Muslims, pointing to an increase atmosphere of “Islamophobia.” They blame congressional hearings, opposition to the Ground Zero mosque, counterterrorism training for law enforcement, or Glenn Beck (whatever their particular boogeyman is that day). But data from the FBI show that hate crimes directed at Muslims have been on a sharp decline since 9/11 and are extremely rare — a painfully inconvenient truth.

But you wouldn’t gather that by statements made by Islamic leaders, who repeatedly claim that the U.S. is engaged in a “war against Islam.” And where did they pick up that handy little talking point? Osama bin Laden.

3) Their agenda is increasingly in visible conflict with American values

The offended Islamic groups increasingly ask for special protections and preferences from the government and the public generally that strike at the heart the First Amendment’s protections against establishing religion. Many of these groups have followed their Wahhabi patrons in calling for the criminalization of “defamation of religion,” namely Islam, and seek to undermine the First Amendment right to free speech. Additionally, violent practices justified by Islamic law, such as wife-beating (Surah 4:34), have been cited in criminal cases to excuse such behavior. In one recent New Jersey case, a judge accepted one Muslim man’s explanation that a sexual assault on his wife was justified under Islamic law because she was required to submit (that verdict was overturned on appeal).

The result has been legislative efforts in a number of states to prohibit the use of Islamic law in American courts to exclude violent behavior, such as the anti-shariah state constitutional amendment last November in Oklahoma, which was approved by 70 percent of voters in that election. At least a dozen more states are considering such legislation.

4) Their faux “de-radicalization” efforts are increasingly irrelevant

As we saw in the terror cases of Ahmed Omar Abu Ali and the Pakistan 5 (among many others), it isn’t the marginal figures in the Muslim community that have decided to engage in terrorist acts, but the best and the brightest. Abu Ali, who was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for his role in an al-Qaeda plot to assassinate President Bush, was the valedictorian of his Islamic high school and a youth leader in his local mosque. Minneapolis resident Shirwa Ahmed, who became the first known American to conduct a suicide bombing, came from an upper middle class family and had attended college. If these individuals have proven impervious to “de-radicalization” efforts of these Islamic groups, why should we continue to listen to them at all?

One disturbing element has been the use of known extremists by the government as “de-radicalization experts.” Two examples I’ve already reported on. Yasir “Hoax of the Holocaust” Qadhi, who admitted to being on the terror watch list, was called upon by the National Counterterrorism Center to speak at one of their conferences on the topic of “de-radicalization.” Qadhi didn’t do so well, since would-be underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attended several two-week programs sponsored by Qadhi’s organization, AlMaghrib Institute. Another “expert” regularly called upon by government agencies is Mohamed Elibiary, who, among other things, spoke at a Dec. 2004 conference honoring Ayatollah Khomeini, has publicly praised terrorist leaders, and threatened a reporter for the Dallas Morning News who exposed his extremism.

Which brings me to my final point.

5) These Islamic groups ARE the radicalization problem

It has long been obvious that the Islamic groups and leaders screaming the loudest about the upcoming congressional hearings are not part of the solution of Islamic radicalization, but part of the problem.

Just last week here at Pajamas Media I reported on one of the largest mosques in America, Dar al-Hijrah in the Washington, D.C., area, which has been a virtual terrorist factory. Another prominent Islamic group, the Muslim Students Association (MSA), has been cited in a NYPD radicalization report as a “radicalization incubator,” and in an article published last August I recounted nearly a dozen and a half MSA leaders (not members, but elected leaders of the group) who have been convicted or are currently facing trial on terror charges.

One of the witnesses testifying this week in the radicalization hearings is Rep. Keith Ellison, the first ever Muslim elected to Congress. But his colleagues on the House Homeland Security Committee might want to ask why he allowed the Muslim American Society, which has been cited in court documents by the Department of Justice as “the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America,” to fund his hajj trip to Saudi Arabia in 2008. MAS has frequently been criticized for indoctrinating its members in violent jihadist ideology. At least one MAS member, their former national spokesman Randall Todd “Ismail” Royer, took that ideology seriously and trained in terror camps in Pakistan before 9/11. He is currently serving a 20-year federal prison sentence as part of a jihadist network that intended to launch attacks against American troops.

In conclusion, the most charitable explanation is that these Islamic groups have a pathetic record on combating Islamic radicalism. But the evidence overwhelmingly leads to the conclusion that the Islamic groups so vocally opposed to the congressional hearings are the source of the radicalization problem, not its solution. While their rhetoric claims that they are opposing a “new McCarthyism,” an “anti-Islamic witch hunt,” and/or “a rising tide of Islamophobia,” their opposition is really driven by self-preservation in the face of leading members of Congress and an American public that are no longer willing to buy their excuses and justifications for Islamic extremism.

Patrick Poole is a regular contributor to Pajamas Media, and an anti-terrorism consultant to law enforcement and the military.

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CAIR, allies fight anti-terrorism bill in TN

In Tennessee, a bill that links the sharia doctrine of jihad to material support of terrorism is being fiercely opposed by CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), ISNA (Islamic Society of North America), other Islamist groups, and the ACLU.

The column below, posted on Big Peace, provides excellent insight into not only what the bill will do but why these organizations are opposing it.

When you get right down to it, CAIR continues to reveal its REAL agenda—the advancement of political sharia in America.


In Tennessee, the ‘Red-Green Alliance’ Defends Violent Jihad and Shariah

Posted by Dave Reaboi Mar 3rd 2011 at 5:50 am in Featured Story, Islam, Islamic extremism, Justice/Legal, sharia | Comments (34)

http://bigpeace.com/dreaboi/2011/03/03/in-tennessee-the-red-green-alliance-defends-violent-jihad-and-shariah/


Imagine a bill criminalizing only those individuals who knowingly engage in what has already been defined federally as material support for terrorist activity. Indeed, what if the bill were even more refined and targeted only the material support of jihad terrorist activity. Meanwhile, the bill in no way regulates or affects the peaceful practice of any religion. Who would oppose such a common-sense measure? Recently, in Tennessee, we’ve seen a ‘Red-Green alliance’ between the radical left and Islamists wound into hysteria over this very suggestion—that has, very plainly, revealed them as defenders of the jihad provisions in Shariah.

This crucial piece of legislation to prevent jihadist acts of terror is being considered now in Tennessee. The “Material Support to Designated Entities Act of 2011,” also known as House Bill 1353 and Senate Bill 1028, is on the cutting-edge of anti-terrorism legislation, because it would be the first of its kind to empower local and state law enforcement to deal with the enemy’s stated threat doctrine—the law of jihad, as enunciated in Islamic jurisprudence, or Shariah.



The bill’s sponsor, Senate Republican Caucus Chairman Bill Ketron (R-Murfreesboro), said “this bill does not interfere with the constitutionally protected rights of those who practice Shariah religious law.” Ketron added: “This is not about religious rights or about those who practice Islamic beliefs. It’s about protecting our citizens from acts of terrorism that come from Shariah jihad which is a growing threat in all our states.”

Pressure by a Red-Green alliance (a coalition of ideology and convenience of far-left groups like the ACLU, Soros-funded extremist blogs like Mother Jones and ThinkProgress, and Islamist Muslim Brotherhood-linked pressure groups like the Muslim Public Affairs Council and CAIR) to defeat the bill has been fierce and growing. Willingly influenced by misleading propaganda, the Associated Press ran a headline on the bill, incorrectly reporting it “would make following Shariah a felony.” In the article, AP reporter Lucas L. Johnson II claims the bill’s focus on the Shariah law of jihad “represents the boldest legislative attempt yet to limit how Muslims worship.”

Amplified by the far-left, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC)—unindicted co-conspirators in the largest terrorist funding trial in US history—have launched a media campaign to distort the law and defame its author, Center for Security Policy General Counsel David Yerushalmi.

These groups have lied, squealing that the Tennessee bill “would jail Shariah followers” and make it a crime to practice Islam peacefully in the state. For example, from the AP report: “Muslim groups fear the measure would outlaw central tenets of Islam, such as praying five times a day toward Mecca, abstaining from alcohol or fasting for Ramadan.” The piece continued, quoting Remziya Suleyman, policy coordinator for the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition: “This is an anti-Muslim bill that makes it illegal to be a Muslim in the state of Tennessee.”

In an interview with Mother Jones, CAIR staff attorney Gadeir Abbas said, “essentially the bill is trying to separate the ‘good Muslims’ from the ‘bad Muslims.’” In a sense, Abbas is correct: The Tennessee bill is an attempt to cleave Shariah’s law of jihad (‘bad’) from peaceful practice (‘good’)—and it’s being fought relentlessly, and with much flailing.

That Muslim pressure groups like CAIR and MPAC are mischaracterizing this bill so aggressively tells us something profound about their intentions. Despite the bill’s very clear wording on protecting citizens’ First Amendment rights to peacefully practice their religion—including, of course, Islam—these Muslim groups are making two very clear statements: (1) they are drawing a line in support of the law of jihad in Shariah, and (2) are affirming that, as books like Shariah: The Threat to America have argued, Shariah is a unified theological, political, military and legal code.

The proposed law is pretty straightforward, and is based almost precisely on the federal material support of terrorism statute upheld recently by the US Supreme Court. The Court found that Americans found to be providing “training,” “expert advice or assistance,” “service,” and “personnel” to designated terrorist organizations constitute material support and, thus, would be in violation of the law.

If this seems a no-brainer—consider the effect of this ruling (and, by extension, the proposed Tennessee law) on some of the favorite causes of both the radical left and the Islamists in Muslim Brotherhood front groups, like CAIR and the Muslim Public Affairs Council. The federal law stands in the way of providing material support to the genocidal Hamas or Hezb’allah, leftist enviro-terrorists or FARC—all pet causes of the Red-Green alliance.

In its biased coverage of the Tennessee bill, and its commonsense and non-intrusive national security provisions, the media has completely ignored the bill itself. It’s useful to better understand the bill, and what has its critics so upset. From this standpoint, we can see the truly profound statement groups like CAIR are making by opposing it.

The bill’s first section includes legislative findings that conclude that authoritative Shariah is the basis for jihad both around the globe and domestically. The legislative findings make clear that the law refers to the objectively knowable Shariah that that calls for violent jihad against the West and is the law of the land in many foreign countries, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Gaza, Sudan, Somalia, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and Pakistan, and parts of Muslim-controlled Nigeria, Indonesia and even the Philippines. In other words, the bill identifies Shariah’s brutal practices and dictates as they occur in the real world (rather than in an imaginary Shariah of one’s own interpretation).

The second section of the bill, the legislative intent, states clearly that the target is a violent jihad-driven Shariah, not any peaceful Islamic religious practice. This peaceful religious practice even includes the so-called non-violent definition of jihad—the personal struggle or striving to better ones’ self (which, as many know, is based on a ‘weak’ or unreliable hadith). So what’s the problem?

Since September 11, 2001, we have heard CAIR, MPAC, ISNA, and the other Muslim Brotherhood pressure groups condemn what they describe as “terrorism in the name of Islam”; why can’t they support criminalizing organizations that clearly promote what they’ve called, “perversions of Islam”? The media should ask them.

In the third section of the law, the Attorney General would have the authority to designate a Shariah organization but ONLY if that organization is advancing the violent Shariah AND either actually engaging in terrorism OR retains the capability to engage in terrorism AND intends to engage in terrorism. Once designated, the Shariah organization can have its financial assets frozen. These provisions track almost precisely the federal material support of terrorism statute upheld recently by the US Supreme Court. The final section is the criminal section, which makes it a crime to provide such a terrorist organization with material support, again tracking the federal material support statute.

Despite all the hyperventilating by the Red-Green alliance, the Tennessee bill does not impact the peaceful worship by law-abiding Muslims. If you are not advocating violent Shariah and if you are not engaged or planning to engage in terrorism, the law simply does not apply.

Is it fair to say that the law discriminates against Shariah advocates and devotees of terrorism by criminalizing any material support of their terrorist organizations? Yes, as well it should. The same way the federal discriminates against any foreign terrorist organization.

The howls of Islamophobia and bigotry from the now-familiar quarters of the far-left and Islamist pressure groups—the ‘Red-Green alliance—tell us more about their respective agendas than we’ve seen previously. For the far left, they oppose even any reasonable counter-terrorism measure that would make America more secure by addressing actual threats. Groups like CAIR, ISNA, and MPAC have shown their intention of protecting the principles of jihad and Shariah. It shouldn’t shock that, for both, these agendas come at the expense of the truth.

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