Posted on 07/29/2005 12:40:13 AM PDT by ChristianDefender
While refusing to dialogue with his most vocal Islamic critics, U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo met with a select group of Muslims to clarify his remarks about threatening to target holy sites in response to a terrorist nuclear attack.
The Colorado Republican was visited Wednesday by a three-member delegation from the Free Muslims Coalition, a group urging mainstream Muslims to take a stronger stand against terrorists.
The coalition's president, Kamal Nawash, told the Rocky Mountain News after the meeting, "To the extent anyone was insulted by his comments, [Tancredo] said he's sorry about that."
"It confirmed what we always believed. He's a great guy … and he has no animosity toward Muslims," said Nawash, a Republican and former state Senate candidate in Virginia.
Meanwhile, officials for the Council on American-Islamic Relations said Tancredo was making a mistake by not including them in the meeting.
"If they want to talk to mainstream, moderate Muslims, this is the organization to talk to," Corey Saylor, government affairs director for CAIR, told the Denver paper.
"We work regularly with government officials. We've trained FBI members [in sensitivity to Muslims]. I don't think you can get more mainstream than that," Saylor said.
But Tancredo spokesman Will Adams declared CAIR will not be included in any future meetings.
"We don't think they represent moderate Muslims," he said
The Washington, D.C.-based CAIR is a spin-off of a group described by two former FBI counterterrorism chiefs as a "front group" for the terrorist group Hamas in the U.S.
Several CAIR leaders have been convicted on terror-related charges.
As WND reported, CAIR is urging the Republican Party to repudiate Tancredo's remarks.
No new apologies
Adams said the congressman did not offer any new apologies in his meeting with the Free Muslims Coalition but simply reiterated that he had no intent to offend innocent Muslims.
"If they took it as an insult, he's sorry they took it as an insult. He never meant it to be an insult," Adams told the News.
Nawash said he thought Tancredo's comments were taken out of context, but he told the congressman they insulted many Muslims who would agree with him otherwise.
"The criminals and terrorists who we are fighting couldn't care less if Mecca and Medina are bombed," Nawash said. "These terrorists use comments like that as ammunition for their arsenal."
Tancredo, according to Nawash, told the visitors he "should have been a little more careful in answering a hypothetical [question]."
Another representative at the meeting, Sheikh Ahmed Subhy Mansour, said he thinks Tancredo's remarks were motivated by frustration.
"I told him, if I were in his place as a congressman who cares about his people here, innocent people who may be killed by terrorist attack … I'd say the same," said Mansour, a Muslim scholar and imam.
Tancredo's remarks drew criticism from the State Department along with international outcry.
The U.S. Embassy in Bangladesh called his remarks "offensive to the United States government and to the American people."
All of a sudden, we are seeing a rush of "sweet peaceful muslim" articles in the press, and muslims starting to speak out (weakly) against the supposed "hijacking" of their so called religion.
But someone had to raise the issue that sooner or later there will be reprisals, and Tancredo put his career (and life) on the line to do so.
After we get the "sweet peaceful muslims" all denouncing the terrorists, we can pressure them to turn them in, and start editing that book of hate they call a koran.
---"If they want to talk to mainstream, moderate Muslims, this is the organization to talk to," Corey Saylor, government affairs director for CAIR, told the Denver paper. ---
I hate to post the same thing on multiple threads, but here are some quotes from CAIR (moderate???) from an earlier FRhead:
CAIR's (The Council on American-Islamic Relations, Inc.) goals are clear, as indicated by its leaders' sometimes revealing comments:
Ihsan Bagby, a future CAIR board member, stated in the late 1980s that Muslims "can never be full citizens of this country," referring to the United States, "because there is no way we can be fully committed to the institutions and ideologies of this country."
Ibrahim Hooper, the future CAIR spokesman, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune on April 4, 1993: "I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future."
Omar Ahmad, CAIR's chairman, announced in July 1998 that "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran . . . should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth."
That's true. I've only noticed this since Tancredo spoke out on the subject. Seems we could have gotten "peaceful Muslims" to speak out much sooner had we handled it correctly.
I think he understands that.
"We work regularly with government officials. We've trained FBI members [in sensitivity to Muslims]. I don't think you can get more mainstream than that," Saylor said.
Maybe this is why the FBI failed to stop 9/11.
Know what CAIR should stand for?
CAIR-Cover for the Assistance of Islamic Radicals.
"If they want to talk to mainstream, moderate Muslims, this is the organization to talk to," Corey Saylor, government affairs director for CAIR, told the Denver paper.
I am not a fan of Tancredo, especially as it relates to making a distinction between illegal and legal Mexican immigration. However, on the Muslim question, I admire his principled stand and his guts for standing up to the PC forces. We always see Democrats standing up for things the public abhors. It is rare to see a Republican stand up even for the things the public is in favor for (from fear of the "mainstream media"). Refusing to recognize CAIR as a representative is as admirable as refusing to recognize Al Sharpton as representative of all blacks. Good job Tancredo!
Agreed! I emailed him to encourage him to stand firm in face of the criticism he's receiving.
Hey Tom , don't forget Medina .. .. ..
"The US Embassy in Bangladesh called his remarks "offensive to the United States government and to the American people."
Bulls$$t, I am not offended. Since when has the State Department ever called any other remarks from a member of Congress offensive? I thought Rice was going to put some backbone into that organization.
"...the real Islam is not what its philosophers and mystics have inferred but what is in the Quran and that is the Islam of the fundamentalist and the terrorist. The real Islam is the Islam that abuses women, that allows men to beat their wives, that imposes penalty tax on the religious minorities, that wants to dominate the world by subduing all the non-Muslims, that calls for Jihad and killing the non-believers until Islam becomes the only dominant religion of the World*.""The enemy is Islam and that is the target of my attacks. I do that, despite knowing that I have become the magnet of the hatred of fanatical Muslims and my own life could be in danger.
Yet I know that by eradicating Islam we can save the world from the dangers of a catastrophe that otherwise is looming over our heads and could cause more disaster than the 1st and 2nd World Wars combined."
Islamic terror based on Qu’ran: ex-CIA official
"A former top official of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency paints a menacing picture of the relationship between Islam and terrorism.
"Islamic terrorism is based on Islam as revealed through the Qu’ran," keynote speaker Bruce Tefft claimed in a panel discussion at the University of Toronto on jihad and global terrorism.
And, he added, "There is no difference between Islam and Islamic fundamentalism, which is a totalitarian construct..."
According to Tefft, the Qu’ran enjoins Muslims to believe that the whole world should be governed by the principles of Islam*, an expansionist religion that has historically grown through conquest..."
-- Omar Ahmed, Chairman of the Board of CAIR (Council of American Islamic Relations), San Ramon Valley Herald, July 1998
( Should Muslim Quran be USA's top authority? - Paper stands by story citing 'mainstream' leader pushing for Islamic America )
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.