Who's with President Bush?

President Bush has characterized the choice to be made in this war on terror: "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists." The stark clarity of this binary decision has served the United States well in marshaling a large number of nations in the fight against al Qaeda and a smaller, but still ample, number for the next phase of this war: the liberation of Iraq.

Regrettably, in the months since September 11, 2001, people who have made no secret of their sympathy for terrorists, provided them financial support, excused their murderous attacks and/or sought to impede the prosecution of the war against them have repeatedly been put in the company of the President. In other words, individuals and organizations who appear to be "with the terrorists" have time and again been allowed to be with the President in the White House and elsewhere.

For example: o On September 20, 2001 -- just nine days after the deadly attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon -- Shaykh Hamza Yusuf was the Muslim representative in a small ecumenical gathering held in the Oval Office.

At the same time, FBI agents were trying to interview him at his house in California since he had declared two days before the attack: "This country is facing a terrible fate....This country stands condemned. It stands condemned like Europe stood condemned because of what it did -- and lest people forget that Europe suffered two world wars after conquering the Muslim lands." His wife told the incredulous agents Yusuf wasn't home, he was with the President. o Six days later, President Bush met in the Roosevelt Room with a Muslim imam by the name of Muzammil H. Siddiqi. Siddiqi is a long-time board member of several organizations in the United States funded by, and closely tied to, Saudi Arabia's radical state religion known as Wahhabism. Two of these groups, including one where Siddiqi still sits on the board, were raided in March 2002 by Federal authorities in pursuit of terrorist financing.

This presidential meeting was all the more puzzling since the imam had shown his true colors by claiming, at a rally the previous October: "America has to learn...If you remain on the side of injustice, the wrath of God will come.

Please, all Americans. Do you remember that? Allah is watching everyone. God is watching everyone. If you continue doing injustice, and tolerate injustice, the wrath of God will come." o On September 17, 2001, President Bush paid a visit to the mosque in Washington. There he was photographed flanked by Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

CAIR has long been an admirer and public defender of terrorist organizations whose attacks against even innocent women and children it sees as legitimate acts of "liberation." Awad has personally declared, "I am a supporter of the Hamas movement." o Also in the picture with President Bush at the mosque was Khaled Saffuri, currently chairman of an organization called the Islamic Institute, which he co-founded with conservative activist Grover Norquist.

Saffuri previously served as the development director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, a supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organization when it made no bones about using terrorism for political purposes. He went on to become deputy director of the radical American Muslim Council (AMC), under then-director Abduraman Alamoudi -- a publicly declared supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah, whose statements of solidarity with these groups prompted the Bush 2000 campaign to return his contributions. Under Saffuri's leadership, the Islamic Institute has attacked the Bush Administration's investigations of radical Muslim groups and closures of organizations suspected of funding terrorists.

The Institute has been funded by groups raided in the above-mentioned terrorist financing investigations. It lobbied intensively against portions of the USA Patriot Act. And Saffuri has personally denounced the President's listing of the Holy Land Foundation as a charity that supported terrorist organizations. He has acknowledged sponsoring the children of suicide bombers through the Foundation, even after its closure by the government.

In addition to the President, a number of his senior subordinates -- including Cabinet officers -- have met, in some cases more than once, with members of the aforementioned and other organizations with troubling attitudes towards jihadist terrorists. A particularly bizarre instance was FBI Director Robert Mueller’s keynote address last year to the American Muslim Council.

The AMC has a long record of activities hostile to the Bush Administration’s prosecution of the war on terror. It has even urged Muslims not to cooperate with the FBI! Nonetheless, according to a press release dated last Thursday, Mr. Mueller has invited the AMC’s chairman, Dr. Yahya Mossa Basha, to attend an upcoming meeting with him and “leaders of major Muslim and Arab-American organizations.”

It is very much in the President's interest -- and the Nation's -- that moderate, law-abiding, peace-loving and patriotic American Muslims be embraced and empowered by the Bush Administration and all those who support it in waging a war on terror, not on Islam.

To do so, however, the Administration must not allow those who are “with” its enemies in that struggle to continue being with the President and his team.

Todd,

Neither Frank J. Gaffney or the Center for Security Policy are saying that Bush is a traitor.

Read the author's summary:

"It is very much in the President's interest -- and the Nation's -- that moderate, law-abiding, peace-loving and patriotic American Muslims be embraced and empowered by the Bush Administration and all those who support it in waging a war on terror, not on Islam."
"To do so, however, the Administration must not allow those who are “with” its enemies in that struggle to continue being with the President and his team."

In no way is he suggesting that Bush is a traitor. He's suggesting that the White House should not be meeting with these characters. I agree. I also notice that these meetings took place in 2001. Why Gaffney is bringing it up now I have no idea. I think he's criticizing Bush's political team for setting them up to begin with.

Read what the Center for Security Policy suggested Bush say about the war situation:

(Washington, D.C.): President Bush has been getting a lot of free advice lately about what he should say in his State of the Union address tomorrow night. Here is the Center for Security Policy's contribution:
My fellow Americans: Tonight, it is my solemn responsibility to describe for you an unacceptably grave risk to our national security -- and what we are going to do about it.
For seventeen months, we have been waging a war on terror, a defensive response to a scurrilous attack that caused the premeditated death of thousands of our countrymen. We have struck at the al Qaeda network that was most immediately involved in carrying out the September 11th hijackings. All over the world, operatives of this Islamist terror organization are today being sought, apprehended or killed in the hope of preventing further, and possibly far more destructive, attacks upon us, our allies or our vital interests.
Indispensable to that effort has been our campaign to deny al Qaeda the logistical support, training facilities and safe haven they once enjoyed in Afghanistan. In the process, thanks to the skill, courage and sacrifice of our armed forces and intelligence services, we have helped to liberate the Afghan people and to offer them an opportunity rarely known to their long-suffering nation for representative self-governance, political freedom and economic opportunity.
The Iraq Connection
We have reason to believe, however, that another government played an indispensable role in planning, facilitating and executing the September 11th attacks: Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Unfortunately, at the moment the evidence of this involvement is circumstantial and less than clear-cut.
The case for implicating Saddam and his operatives in the latest and most deadly attack upon us is even more compelling, though, when added to evidence that points to his complicity in earlier terrorist acts -- the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the 1996 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Tonight, sitting with the First Lady, are two intrepid women who have done pioneering work ferreting out and calling attention to this evidence: an internationally recognized specialist on Iraq and best-selling author, Dr. Laurie Mylroie, and television-reporter-turned-independent investigator, Jayna Davis of Oklahoma City. I would ask you to join me in saluting them for pursuing leads that neither the federal government, prosecutors or the media have done enough to date to investigate.
My administration is working to correct this shortfall and to learn all we can -- to connect the dots -- between Saddam's sponsorship of terror, his oft-stated desire for revenge and the actions of others, be they followers of a blind sheik, disaffected American "militiamen" or al Qaeda operatives. We will probably not know the full truth about the Iraqi connection, however, until Iraq is liberated as Afghanistan has been, and the secrets of the former's brutal regime are brought to light.
Time is Not on Our Side
What we do know already is that it would be irresponsible to afford Saddam Hussein an opportunity to attack again, either directly or through cut-outs. This is particularly true since the next attack may well involve the use of weapons of mass destruction on our soil or overseas. This danger exists because Saddam has assiduously pursued the production and stockpiling of such weapons and continues to violate international commitments and UN Security Council resolutions requiring him to disarm.
We also know that the only effective way to ensure such disarmament -- and the only hope that it will not be followed by a covert Iraqi rearmament -- is to liberate Iraq from Saddam's brutal misrule. Affording more time for inspections that are not disarming Iraq and that, even if they were, would not in and of themselves preclude Saddam from subsequently rearming, would do nothing to prevent him from engaging in further acts of terror against us. To the contrary, additional weeks or months may well provide just the opportunity he needs to exercise a monstrously lethal strike.
The Bottom Line
In the hope of preventing such a possibility, with the intention of advancing regional and world peace and with a determination to liberate the Iraqi people, I have ordered the United States military at this hour to launch operations aimed at removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. As they do so, they will be accompanied and facilitated in their campaign by a number of other nations' combat units joining ours in operating from foreign bases and, with permission, through foreign airspace.
The speed and cost of this operation will ultimately be decided by the help we receive from those who have at least as much interest as we in ending Saddam's malevolence -- his own people -- as by the skillful employment of our weaponry. It is, in no small measure, in their hands, whether Iraqi weapons of mass destruction are found and neutralized, or employed by the regime's henchmen. The question of whether Saddam Hussein succeeds in destroying Iraq's oil fields and national infrastructure may depend on the swiftness and efficacy of popular resistance. We will work with the opposition to secure these goals and to build a new, free and prosperous Iraq, a model for the region and the world.
My report to you tonight is that we have acted, as we must, to defend our vital interests. We are doing so in a way that will minimize the threats now confronting us, that holds out hope for a more peaceful and secure world and that will enhance the state of our Union. God bless America.
(http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/index.jsp?section=papers&code=03-D_04)

I think your characterization of Gaffney and the Center's opinion on this issue is completely wrong and your accusations that Bush is a traitor is way over the top.

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