Traitor Muslim Politicians

Muslim Congressmen Want To Block ‘Islamophobic’ Dutch Lawmaker Geert Wilders From Entering US
      
DailyCaller
Chuck Ross
April 28, 2015

The two Muslim members of Congress have called on two U.S. Cabinet members to block Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders from entering the U.S. because they believe he is “Islamophobic.”

Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison and Indiana Democratic Rep. Andre Carson penned a joint letter to Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson last Thursday. Foreign Policy reported it on Tuesday.

“We write to raise our deep concern regarding the visit of Mr. Geert Wilders, a Dutch lawmaker known for perpetuating Islamophobia,” the Democratic lawmakers wrote, citing a 1998 law, the International Religious Freedom Act. The law allows the State Department to deny foreign leaders guilty of “severe violations of religious freedom” from entering the U.S.

The law has only been enforced once before, in 2005, to ban Narendra Modi, India’s current prime minister. He was accused of failing to protect Muslims during riots in 2002 in which more than 1,000 people died.

Wilders, the leader of the Party for Freedom, is slated to appear at several events during his trip to the U.S. On Wednesday, he will appear at two events in Washington D.C. at the invitation of Iowa U.S. Rep. Steve King. One is hosted by the Conservative Opportunity Society. Texas U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert has also helped facilitate Wilders’ appearences.

“I feel deeply honored by the invitations. In my speeches I will warn my American colleagues of the dangers of Islamization,” Wilders stated on his personal website earlier this month.

On Sunday, Wilders travels to Garland, Tex. where he will give a speech at the American Freedom Defense Initiative, an event hosted by Pamela Geller. That group will hold its inaugural “Muhammad Art Exhibit” and will award a $10,000 prize for the best cartoon depiction of Muhammad. The contest was created in response to the Islamist massacre at the Paris headquarters of Charlie Hebdo earlier this year.

But Ellison and Carson believe that Wilders’ past criticism of Islam — and he has indeed been critical — is hate speech and that it warrants him being kept out of the U.S.

“We respectfully request that the U.S. government deny Mr. Wilders’s entry due to his participation in inciting anti-Muslim aggression and violence,” wrote Ellison and Carson, the first and second Muslims to be elected to national public office, respectively. “Mr. Wilders’s policy agenda is centered on the principle that Christian culture is superior to other cultures.”

The lawmakers point out that in 2010 and 2011 Wilders was brought up on formal charges of inciting hatred and discrimination. He is also currently facing charges because of a recent speech in which he called for fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands, they point out.

“Mr. Wilders’ policy agenda is centered on the principle that Christian culture is superior to other cultures,” the joint letter states, citing Wilders’ comment that “Islam is not a religion, it’s an ideology, the ideology of a retarded culture.”

“We should not be importing hate speech.”

While noting that freedom of speech is “a bedrock principle” that distinguishes free societies from oppressive regimes, “free speech…is not absolute,” the letter reads.

Geller called Ellison’s and Carson’s  evidence of “sharia,” or Islamic law.

“It is revealing that these Muslim congressmen would show themselves to be enemies of free speech and free discourse,” Geller told The Daily Caller. “They cannot refute Wilders and don’t dare debate him. All these little authoritarians can do is try to prevent people from hearing his message.”

Council worker, 48, jailed after being found with hate rants by convicted terrorist and footage of beheadings on 352 discs

•    Khalid Baqa was found with 352 computer disks of terrorist material
•    He worked for Hackney Council for more than 20 years
•    He used council computers to view the footage and documents
•    Contained videos of executions, beheadings and the 9/11 attacks
•    Also had texts written by hate preacher Anwar al-Awlaki

By JAYMI MCCANN
PUBLISHED: 13:08 EST, 26 April 2013

A council worker who was found with 352 computer discs containing terrorist material, including footage of executions and the 9/11 attacks, was today jailed for two years.

London Borough of Hackney revenue officer Khalid Baqa, 48, also used his work computer to watch the footage and trawl Islamic websites.

He stashed the discs - which contained 26 hours of speeches by the hate preacher Anwar al-Awlaki - in his car and his children’s bedroom.

One disk was found inside a laptop provided for him by the council, where he worked for 22 years before being sacked after his arrest.

Baqa, who work colleagues said underwent a transformation in 1996 by growing a long beard, wearing traditional Muslim dress and shunning everyone, said he was storing the discs for someone else.

London’s Old Bailey today heard the material contained footage of beheadings and executions, the explosions of improvised explosive devices, the last will and testament of one of the London bombers, footage of the 9/11 attacks and jihadi fighters in combat.

Sentencing Baqa, from Barking, east London, Judge Christopher Moss QC said: ‘It is quite clear to me - and you accept - that you well knew the generality of what these discs contained, namely encouragement of, and indeed instruction in, violent acts of terrorism.

‘It is from such material that those who are already radicalised or about to become so derive their knowledge, instruction and involvement in the ways of violent terrorism.

‘That is why it is so dangerous and that is why the courts must deal with it so severely.’

The father-of-six had pleaded guilty to two offences of disseminating terrorist publications earlier this month.

A further seven offences of having material likely to be useful in terrorism were ordered to lie on file.

His activities will be monitored for ten years and his stash is to be destroyed.

The discs also included five issues of al Qaida’s Inspire magazine, 39 Ways to Support and Participate in Jihad and 44 Ways to Support Jihad, by al-Awlaki, the leader of al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and who was killed by an American drone in September 2011.

Baqa’s home was raided by police in the early hours of July 5 last year.

Mark Dennis QC, prosecuting, said the recovered discs were entitled Awakening and Pure Intentions.

Baqa’s basis of plea was that he did not intend to distribute the discs but acknowledged that by giving them back to their owner, the messages of hate would be passed on and potentially radicalise Muslims.

The contents also showed how to plan and implement attacks.

It is not known who made and copied the discs, which were also found at Baqa’s work.

Investigations showed that Baqa, who was born in Lahore, Pakistan, had viewed them on a work laptop and used an office computer to make 'frequent' visits to extremist websites.

Police searching his house also discovered a number of extremist books such as Virtues of Jihad, and a sweep of his car located bandanas, flags and material bearing the message: 'There is only one God, Muhammad.'

Mr Dennis said all the materials 'It was in effect a library of material relating to the promotion of extremist Islamic beliefs and violent jihad. It demonstrated a complete intolerance of other religious views.'

Baqa, the son of an English professor, came to the UK when he was two-years-old and holds both British and Pakistani passports.

He has four children with his first wife who died in a car crash in 2007, and two more children with his second wife.

The prosecutor said Baqa’s work colleagues noticed a big change in him around 1996.

'In work appraisals he was noted as somebody who kept himself to himself at all times and who didn’t engage others unless absolutely necessary,' said Mr Dennis.

'His manager said he would sit in a corner creating a physical barrier between him and everyone else.

'His work performance was assessed as average.

'In 1996/7 he grew a beard and started wearing traditional Muslim dress, became reclusive and wouldn’t speak to anybody in the office.

'He developed a deep faith in Islamic religion and promotion of it.'

Andrew Hall QC, defending, said much of the material was available freely on the internet.

He said Baqa, who remarried after his first wife was killed in a car crash in 2007, gave much of his earnings to charity before he lost his job.

‘But for his involvement in religious matters and then being drawn into politics in the way we’ve heard described his life would be praiseworthy indeed.’

His previous convictions date back to the 1980s and include theft, fraud and handling stolen goods.

He also received a short jail term in 1986 for unlawful assembly.

Some Muslims Attending Capitol Hill Prayer Group Have Terror Ties, Probe Reveals

By Jana Winter

Published November 11, 2010

FoxNews.com

An Al Qaeda leader, the head of a designated terror organization and a confessed jihadist-in-training are among a "Who's Who" of controversial figures who have participated in weekly prayer sessions on Capitol Hill since the 2001 terror attacks, an investigation by FoxNews.com reveals.

The Congressional Muslim Staff Association (CMSA) has held weekly Friday Jummah prayers for more than a decade, and guest preachers are often invited to lead the service. The group held prayers informally for about eight years before gaining official status in 2006 under the sponsorship of Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., one of two Muslims currently serving in Congress. The second Muslim congressman, Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., joined as co-sponsor after he was elected in 2008. 

Among those who FoxNews.com determined have attended the prayer services during the Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama administrations are:

— Anwar al-Awlaki, the notorious Al Qaeda cleric believed to be hiding in Yemen and the lone American on the U.S. government’s capture or kill list, who conducted a prayer service on Capitol Hill shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.  

— Randall “Ismail” Royer, a former communications associate for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), who confessed in 2004 to receiving jihadist training in Pakistan. He is serving a 20-year prison term.

— Anwar Hajjaj, former president of Taibah International Aid Association, which was designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and U.N. in 2004.

— Esam Omeish, the former president of the Muslim American Society, who was forced to resign from the Virginia Commission on Immigration in 2007 after calling for "the jihad way," among other remarks.

— Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, who was forced to step down from a national terrorism committee post in 1999 for pro-terrorist comments.

— Nihad Awad, CAIR executive director, who attended a Hamas meeting in Philadelphia in 1993 that was wiretapped by the FBI.

— Johari Abdul Malik, Dar al-Hijrah imam, who made statements in support of convicted and suspected terrorists who attended his mosque.

— Tariq Ramadan, a Muslim scholar banned from the U.S. for six years beginning in 2004 for his alleged ties and donations to terror groups. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lifted Ramadan's ban in January.  

—  Abdulaziz Othman Al-Twaijri, the head of a division of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, considered a foreign agent by the U.S.

It is unclear who else has attended these services, because there appears to be no public record of those CMSA has invited to Capitol Hill. The group’s website, included in the official congressional staff associations directory, displays an error message. And out of the more than 25 people associated with CMSA whom FoxNews.com contacted for this article — members, participants, guests, listed officers, congressional sponsors and Muslim advocacy groups — only one person was willing to speak. 

“The U.S. Capitol ought to be one of the most transparent and public bodies, yet they get some public criticism about who they’re bringing in and they pull down their website," said Patrick Poole, an anti-terrorism consultant to law enforcement and the U.S. military who has written about CMSA for the conservative blog Pajamas Media.

"That’s not behavior conducive to people drawing public salaries and working in the halls of Congress,” Poole said.

But a portrait of the Jummah prayer meetings can be gleaned through video footage, news reports, court records and social media posts. And what emerges is a "Who’s Who" of controversial characters cycling through the doors of the Capitol on the invite of CMSA.

“There is a pattern of seriously bad actors not just being involved with, but leading this organization,” Poole said.  

“There really needs to be some kind of investigation into who else CMSA is or has been bringing onto the Hill.”

The most notorious of the lot is al-Awlaki, who is seen leading the prayer service on Capitol Hill in video footage included in "MUHAMMAD: Life of a Prophet," a documentary that aired on PBS in 2002. 

In the footage, Jameel Johnson, Rep. Gregory Meeks’ former chief of staff and founder and former president of CMSA, is seen sitting next to Randall “Ismail” Royer, a former communications associate for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) who is now serving a 20-year sentence after pleading guilty in 2004 to helping jihadists from Virginia gain access to a terrorist training camp in Pakistan. That camp was run by Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was designated a terrorist organization by the United States in December 2001. One year before Royer was filmed attending the Awlaki prayer service, he attended jihad training camps in Pakistan, documents show.

Nihad Awad, executive director of CAIR, can also be seen at the Awlaki prayer session. Awad has spoken out in support of Hamas and attended a 1993 Hamas meeting in Philadelphia that was wiretapped by the FBI, according to public record and court documents from the Holy Land Foundation trial. CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial.

Last year, the FBI severed ties with CAIR due to evidence of the group’s ties to networks supporting Hamas, which the State Department has designated as a terrorist group, according to documents obtained by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, a watchdog group.

"The FBI has had to limit its formal contact with CAIR field offices until certain issues are addressed by CAIR's national headquarters," FBI spokesman John Miller told FoxNews.com last year. "CAIR's leadership is aware of this. Beyond that, we have no further comment."

Awad's assistant, Asma Gheyoub, told FoxNews.com that she had passed along FoxNews.com's request for comment and that Awad would be in contact. But Awad has not responded. 

Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR’s national communications director, also appears to have attended the Awlaki prayer service.

When asked by FoxNews.com if he had attended the service on Capitol Hill, Hooper said:

“Do you realize that the prayer services are open to the public, staffers, we have no say in who offers the prayer — or are you just trying to smear Muslims?”

When asked who chooses who offers the prayer, Hooper said, “You’d have to ask the staffers.”

When asked if he is in the video of the service or had attended any service on Capitol Hill led by Awlaki, Hooper said, “I don’t even remember. I don’t have a real big interest in furthering Fox News' anti-Muslim agenda, but thanks for calling.”

Sources told FoxNews.com that CMSA is comprised mostly of young Hill staffers who, for the most part, do not play a role in bringing in speakers; they say organizations like CAIR have a heavy hand in selecting and bringing in outside guests.

Ibrahim Ramey, human and civil rights director at Muslim American Society Freedom, a national Muslim advocacy group with a branch in Washington, told FoxNews.com that CMSA would never support anyone advocating violence against the U.S. Ramey said he's attended numerous CMSA functions and counts some of its members as friends. 

"I do know that Sheikh Awlaki has declared war on America and American civilian targets and that he would not be welcome to participate in any CMSA program on Capitol Hill," Ramey said.  

"He has made very clear statements about killing innocents, but he had been up until years ago, he had been a fairly respected member of the Northern Virginia Muslim community, where he would be now would not be compatible with the work we're doing at CMSA."

But video shot by Roll Call in April 2010 shows another set of controversial figures, including Anwar Hajjaj, who led the prayer.

Hajjaj, tax filings show, was president of Taibah International Aid Association, which was designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2004 for its ties to a network funneling money to Hamas.

Hajjaj and Usama bin Laden’s nephew, Abdullah bin Laden, co-founded World Assembly of Muslim Youth, which the FBI has deemed a “suspected terrorist organization” since 1996, according to a complaint filed in New York federal court on behalf of the families of Sept. 11 victims. The judge refused to dismiss the charges against the World Assembly in September, saying the charges against it were "sufficient to demonstrate that they are knowingly and intentionally providing material support to Al Qaeda."

Hajjaj’s involvement with CMSA dates back at least to 2006, according to reports.

And there are others.

Esam Omeish, former president of the Muslim American Society, has led CMSA prayer services on Capitol Hill. He's called for "the jihad way," supported suicide bombers and advocated for the impeachment of President George W. Bush, according to reports and video.

According to State Department documents, “In 2007, he had to resign from the Virginia Commission on Immigration due to comments he made regarding “Israel’s war machine” during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah conflict. He is also accused of supporting suicide attacks and violence in achieving a Palestinian state.”

Another controversial figure is Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, who spoke at a CMSA forum aired on CSPAN in August of this year. In 1999, Marayati was forced to step down from a national terrorism committee post after some inflammatory statements he'd made became public. 

In a 2003 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Marayati said his organization's members were angry at "the FBI's policy of targeting people because of their race and religion."  

"That's what they've been doing since the attacks, and we don't know of any case that has resulted in the arrest, indictment or prosecution of a terrorist," he said. 

In 2006, at a fundraising dinner for Sami Al-Arian, who pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiring to provide services to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a designated terror group, Marayati said:

"So if we have this case where we are being dictated upon, not only on terminology, but dictated upon on who speaks for us, and our organizations, our charities, are shut down one by one. Therefore, brothers and sisters, there is a storm that is coming. That storm is going to be worse than Japanese internment."

In an interview in 2000, former FBI counterterrorism chief Steven Pomerantz said, “Mr. Marayati has justified and defended the activities of terrorist organizations such as Hamas, which, among other violent activities, has been involved in the murder of American citizens. He has also categorized the Hezbollah terrorist attack, which killed 241 U.S. Marines, as 'a military operation.'" 

But Ramey denied that anyone would knowingly bring supporters of violence onto the Hill, calling the work of CMSA and violent jihadists mutually exclusive. 

"I'm sure that there is no support for anything that is illegal or violent vis-a-vis the United States," he said. 

"We repudiate those things — we believe social change is necessary but something we would want to accomplish legally, with above-board efforts."

The CMSA Twitter feed identifies other guests on Capitol Hill:

— Johari Abdul Malik, the imam of Dar al-Hijrah, the Falls Church, Va., mosque where Awlaki was once imam, has made statements in support of members of his mosque convicted on terror-related charges, according to reports and documents. Among them is Omar Abu Ali, who was convicted in 2005 of providing support to Al Qaeda and plotting to assassinate President George W. Bush.

Malik, who is on a State Department junket in Afghanistan, told FoxNews.com via e-mail that he was heading abroad and wouldn’t be able to comment until mid November. 

— Tariq Ramadan, who was banned from the U.S. for six years for his alleged donations to Hamas, a group since classified by the U.S. Treasury Department as a terrorist organization. In April, CMSA’s Twitter account announced the group as “Honorary Hosts for a Capitol Hill welcome reception this afternoon for Professor Tariq Ramadan! He’s beginning his U.S. speaking tour.”

— Abdulaziz Othman Al-Twaijri, the head of the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, a division of the Organization of Islamic Conference, attended a CMSA briefing in May at the Capitol Visitor Center.

“The Organization of the Islamic Conference — he’s a foreign agent,” Poole said. “That’s like having the Iranian government come in and speak on Capitol Hill.”

The Capitol Hill chaplain, the Rev. Daniel Coughlin, said there are numerous staff organizations on the Hill — the Black Caucus and the Golf Association, for example — but only a few official religious ones. And they, like the non-religious staff associations, are overseen by the Committee on House Administration.  

There are also other ad hoc prayer groups that meet in an unofficial capacity. 

"It's more than prayers," Coughlin said. "Each different religious group has different sessions, maybe they have speakers or a social."

Congressman Ellison Carries the Islamists’ Water

M. Zuhdi Jasser
The Family Security Foundation, Inc.
Date: July 18, 2007

Why is Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim in the U.S. Congress, disgracefully spreading extremist propaganda and aligning himself with controversial Islamist groups?  FSM Contributing Editor Zuhdi Jasser demonstrates why Ellison must be censured by the U.S. Congress. 

Most American Muslim activists this past month were trying to grapple with the reality of the “Doctor Plot” out of the United Kingdom. While most Americans are finally waking up to the fact that radical Islamism and its fascism knows no boundaries to economic or educational status, Congressman Keith Ellison has not found the time to seriously address radical Islamism and the ideology with which we are in conflict.

Now with just over six months in office, the good Congressman has yet to find time to discuss counterterrorism substantively from his congressional office. But, interestingly, he has been able to find time recently to speak to Atheists for Human Rights at a library in Edina, Minnesota.

During his speech, when commenting about 9-11 and the Bush Administration, he stated according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune,

“It's almost like the Reichstag fire, kind of reminds me of that… after the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the Communists for it, and it put the leader [Hitler] of that country in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted…."I'm not saying [Sept. 11] was a [U.S.] plan, or anything like that, because, you know, that's how they put you in the nut-ball box — dismiss you."

Ellison is the first Muslim in the U.S. Congress. With the help of a less than investigative mainstream media he was able to sidestep his more than troublesome past with the Nation of Islam (NOI). He has since denied being a part of NOI other than assisting for 18 months with the million man march. He now describes himself as a sunni Muslim.

Regardless, the facts are out there and since occupying his U.S. Congressional office, he certainly has not been one to hide his Muslim faith. In fact he wears it on his sleeve, whenever it suits him and other Islamist causes around the United States.

Within days of his victory in Minnesota’s 5^th District, he gave a speech at the North American Imams Federation in November 2006 as Congressman-elect Ellison. This is the same federation behind the ridiculous Islamist lawsuit against U.S. Airways and the reporting John Doe passengers. During his campaign he welcomed a fundraiser from Islamists on his behalf on August 25^th, 2006 featuring James Yee and Nihad Awad of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Ellison then traveled to Florida for a fundraiser sponsored also by known CAIR leadership including Parvez Ahmed (CAIR Board Chairman) and Ahmed Bedier (CAIR-FLA executive director).

Then on December 24, 2006, he spoke at the convention of two leading Islamist organizations in Dearborn, Michigan- the Muslim American Society and the Islamic Circle of North America. He told these Islamist groups,

“Muslims you’re up to bat right now...” he said. “How do you know that you were not brought right here to this place to learn how to make this world better? How do you know that Allah, sallalahu aleyhi wasallam,” (meaning peace be upon him) “did not bring you here so that you could understand how to teach people what tolerance was, what justice was? How do you know that you’re not here to teach this country?”

And, just in the past few weeks he has made himself readily available to political Islam in Washington. A few days ago, he spoke to Muslim youth attending a National Muslim American Youth Summit organized by the Muslim Public Affairs Council. Michelle Boorstein reporting for the Washington Post noted representative comments from an attendee, Mohammed Sabur, who also hails from Minnesota and stated, "I'm trying constantly to figure out: How can I be a civically involved Muslim, interact with other Muslims as well as the government while not seeming like a sellout, like my allegiance is in one camp or another?" Boorstein then goes on to report the following:

Young Muslim Americans have a limited number of role models in top-level politics. There are none in top positions in the agencies represented at the conference. The summit met with U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the first Muslim elected to Congress, and the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association, which started about two years ago and estimates there are 25 Muslims working on Capitol Hill. The event comes, not by accident, as attention is turning toward Muslim American youths. A Pew Research Center report released in May found a quarter of American Muslims ages 18 to 29 believe suicide bombings against civilians can sometimes be justified to defend Islam, while only 9 percent older than 30 believe that.

Are we then to assume that the limited role models, like Congressman Ellison, who do exist are teaching an ideology which will prevent the radicalization of youth? With vitriolic speeches like the one he gave to the Atheists for Human Rights on July 8, 2007, what’s to ensure that Congresssman Ellison didn’t spew the same hateful propaganda against the Bush administration to the Muslim youth who emulated him in Washington D.C. on July 13, 2007 just 5 days later?

Until so-called Muslim leaders like Congressman Ellison begin to understand the linkage between political Islam and the radicalization of youth toward terrorism and radical Islamism, we will make no headway in this global war. Our most important tools in deprogramming estranged youth are prominent Muslim leaders ready to counter political Islam and Wahhabism. Cong. Ellison has shown neither the desire nor the inclination to do such a thing. I have yet to see Congressman Ellison on record acknowledging that this is not a crime problem, but rather a global conflict of ideologies between militant Islamism and western pluralism (Americanism).  Muslims like himself who do not shy away from their Muslim identity are being called upon in this time in history to ideologically combat political Islam and relegate the ‘Islamic state’ to the dustbin of history.

But rather, Cong. Ellison is too busy pandering to Atheists groups who would have virtually no rights to become legislators or write laws under a state based on governmental sharia. He squanders his position to pander to Muslim youth, Islamists, and others who believe the Al Jazeera line. He should actually be leading the national Muslim activist community to separate religion and politics in Islam and turn off the political spigot which feeds radical Islam.

Most moral individuals would agree that under Hitler’s Germany, German citizens who fought directly against Adolf Hitler and his Third Reich for their crimes against humanity were heroes, not traitors. It should not be too far removed for Congressman Ellison to comprehend that a young impressionable Muslim mind with violent tendencies may hear the words which Ellison spoke on July 8 and hear his disgraceful and irresponsible comparison of the Bush administration and our military to Hitler’s Germany and feel morally empowered to act upon that. As a Congressman, his words are no longer footnotes for Muslim youth, or just reiterations of Al Jazeera’s background noise. But, rather his words are empowering to Muslim youth in search of role models as the Washington Post intimated only 5 days later. 

With domestic plots of radical Islamists thwarted in Fort Dix and more recently at JFK airport, and then just this month in London and Glasgow, where are Congressman Ellison’s priorities? As an individual who has clearly not shied away from the Islamist collectivization of his politics and the Muslim community (ummah), he thus cannot conveniently separate his stance on Islamism from his politics. He has, in only six months, carried his Muslim identity into CAIR, the Imam Federation of North America, the Muslim American Society, the Islamic Circle of North America, and now MPAC. These are all Islamist manifestations of what are in reality Muslim political parties in the United States.

Whether from ignorance or hateful political hyperbole, Congressman Ellison deserves censure of his colleagues. Some Muslims are working assiduously to depoliticize sermons which contribute to radicalization. Additionally, so too should Muslim politicians de-link their public Islamic identity from their politics. This is especially important when they have the dangerous predilection toward the unsubstantiated dissemination of extreme propaganda like Mr. Ellison exhibited. This is not to devalue their personal faith in inspiring their values.

Since last week, many have repudiated his comments. Katherine Kersten, columnist at the Minneapolis Start Tribune, condemned his speech as reckless commentary. Yet, the Star Tribune editorial board gave him an out and tried to make the Congressman’s point for him. Regardless, the Star Tribune also misses the point.

The primary political concern on the minds of the vast majority of Americans in 2007 is security from terrorism. What has America’s first Muslim congressman brought to the legislative table against radical Islamism and its root cause---political Islam and its deep associations with the extremism of Wahhabism?

London and Glasgow and the frightening ring of Muslim doctors were just discovered a few weeks ago. But, Congressman Ellison still decided to spew this type of nonsense to atheists.  His own congressional website has virtually nothing about counterterrorism, anti-Islamism, or the recent plots, let alone his unique opportunity to be a leader in Muslim anti-Islamism. Despite his agenda mirrored by the Islamist organizations to which he panders, anti-Islamist Muslims will continue working even harder to defeat the ideology of hatred which feeds these constantly regenerating terror cells.

Mr. Ellison, this is not a crime problem. Radical Islamism is an ideological problem being fed globally by Islamists, jihadists, and Wahhabists who continue to exploit our faith for a transnational global political agenda. Your public remarks were irresponsible and deserve the censure of your colleagues in the U.S. Congress. 
 

# #

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor M. Zuhdi Jasser is the founder and Chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy based in Phoenix Arizona. He is a former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander, a physician in private practice, and a community activist.

MAIN INDEX

BIBLE INDEX

HINDU INDEX

MUSLIM INDEX

MORMON INDEX

BUDDHISM INDEX

WORD FAITH INDEX

WATCHTOWER INDEX

MISCELLANEOUS INDEX

CATHOLIC CHURCH INDEX

Theodore Roosevelt's ideas on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN in 1907

“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American... There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag.... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”