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| Feds raid Islamists around Washington |
| 2002-03-23 |
Oh? This is news... Looks like it may be major. The raids are being carried out by a treasury department task force created after the Sept 11 attacks to check and stop the flow of money to Al Qaeda and other organizations deemed by the US to be terrorist. Muslim groups have protested against the raids and denied any links of the organizations searched to terrorist funding. Oh, well in that case we won't bother looking. It's not like anybody'd lie about being associated with an international terrorist organization or two. At a news conference held at the offices of the Council of American Islamic Relations, the groups said an Islamic think tank in Herndon, Virginia, was searched for 12 hours on Wednesday and its staff questioned. In a raid on a house, agents reportedly broke in at gunpoint and held a woman and her daughter in handcuffs. Council of American Islamic Relations? Oh, yeah. CAIR. Spokesman is Ibrahim Hooper, the guy who wears a brassiere cup on his head. Wonder if we ever did anything about their demand we stop bombing Afghanistan? The fact that they're involved doesn't mean anything went on, only that there was a television camera there. Search warrants are said to pertain to financial records linked to Al Qaeda and other groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and concentrate on discovering evidence of international money transfers. Yes, that's something we'd want to target as a matter of national self-preservation. Presumably the search warrants were properly drawn and executed. A WaPo article on the same event sez that, "Affidavits giving the reasons for the searches were sealed and were not provided to those who were searched." This would tell me the tipoff came from intel sources and not because somebody at FBI didn't like people named Ibrahim. Raids on Thursday targetted two houses of directors of the International Institute of Islamic Thought, a spokesman for the American Muslim Council told Dawn on Friday. He said the houses of almost all the institute's directors had been searched. One of the directors said mailing lists, directories, staff lists and financial documents had been seized. The institute, according to press reports, was listed as a major donor to the now defunct World and Islamic Studies Enterprise, based in Tampa, Florida, which was investigated in 1995 and allegedly raised money for Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Oh, now we're getting back to Dr. Sami al-Arian and his associates, one of whom is his brother-in-law, Ramadan Abdallah, the head of Islamic Jihad. Prior to assuming his present executive position, Abdallah was head of WISE. WaPo sez "Until the mid-1990s, the World Islamic Studies Enterprise was an academic institute affiliated with the University of South Florida. Federal agents searched its office in 1995 and eventually froze its assets." At the Muslim organizations' press conference, victims of the raids spoke of being humiliated, and termed the treatment meted out to them as inhumane and un-American. They said the law enforcement raiding teams included agents from Customs, the Secret Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the FBI and the Immigration and Naturalization Service. It was claimed the agents confiscated personal items from the homes and took away even family photographs, passports, driver licences, computers, and, in one case, the wedding card of a Muslim girl who got married last week. My sympathy meter reading is still at zero. CAIR specializes in the Parade of Pathetic Victims. "Inhumane and un-American" would involve making the women wear burquas and the men grow their beards to the span of a fist and beating them if they don't. Searching the premises and confiscating what could be evidence isn't. It's just not pleasant. Last I checked there was a difference. Some participants also accused the justice department of using tactics reminiscent of the anti-communist McCarthy era witch-hunt. How predictable. The new first refuge of the scoundrel. The organizations urged the attorney-general to conduct an investigation into the raids. American Muslim organizations feel particularly upset because most of them had backed and openly campaigned for the Republican ticket during the 2000 presidential election and were effusive in President George Bush's praise till Sept 11 brought Muslims into the political and law-enforcement focus and led to numerous instances of racial profiling. Backing a political party or a politician isn't supposed to buy a blind eye to illegal activities. And the profiling isn't racial or even religious, it's cultural. There's this vicious, bloodthirsty, back-stabbing culture that's inimical to everything this country stands for, and Bush wants to stop it from destroying us. Bill O'Reilly interviewed one of the busted groups' spokesmen last night and it was a classic case of O'Reilly giving the man enough rope to hang himself. After listening to all the complaints about Treasury thuggery, O'Reilly asked if the group had ever given money to al-Arian. No real answer came out. Then O'Reilly asked if the group voluntarily cooperated with the Treasury in handing over the records. No? If you don't have anything to hide, then why not? The usual "rights" argument was profferred, but O'Reilly brushed it asides and said that "we've got a war going on and your own advertising said you were giving funds to terrorist groups. I'm glad the US is investigating you right now, but thanks for being honest about your opinions..." I heard that one, too. It was classic O'Reilly, and I was saying, "Damn straight! You tell 'em, Bill." |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |