A Troubling Influence - An Islamic Fifth Column penetrates the White House

FrontPageMagazine ^ | 12/09/03 | Frank J Gaffney Jr.

[kattracks]

Why We Are Publishing This Article by David Horowitz

The article you are about to read is the most disturbing that we at frontpagemag.com have ever published. As an Internet magazine, with a wide circulation, we have been in the forefront of the effort to expose the radical Fifth Column in this country, whose agendas are at odds with the nation’s security, and whose purposes are hostile to its own. In his first address to Congress after 9/11, the President noted that we are facing the same totalitarian enemies we faced in the preceding century. It is not surprising that their domestic supporters in the American Left should have continued their efforts to weaken this nation and tarnish its image. Just as there was a prominent internal Fifth Column during the Cold War, so there has been a prominent Fifth Column during the war on terror.

By no means do all the opponents of America’s war policies (or even a majority) fit this category. Disagreement among citizens is a core feature of any democracy and respect for that disagreement is a foundational value of our political system. The self-declared enemies of the nation are distinguished by the intemperate nature of their attacks on America and its President – referring to the one as Adolf Hitler, for example, or the other as the world’s “greatest terrorist state.” They are known as well by their political choices and associations. Many leaders of the movement opposing the war in Iraq have worked for half a century with the agents of America’s communist enemies and with totalitarian states like Cuba and the former USSR.

We have had no compunction about identifying these individuals and groups. America is no longer protected by geographical barriers or by its unsurpassed military technologies. Today terrorists who can penetrate our borders with the help of Fifth Column networks will have access to weapons of mass destruction that can cause hundreds of thousands of American deaths.  One slip in our security defenses can result in a catastrophe undreamed of before.

What is particularly disturbing, about the information in this article by former Reagan Defense official, Frank Gaffney, is that it concerns an individual who loves this country and would be the last person to wish it harm, and the first one would expect to defend it. I have known Grover Norquist for almost twenty years as a political ally. Long before I myself was cognizant of the Communist threat – indeed when I was part of one of those Fifth Column networks – Grover Norquist was mobilizing his countrymen to combat it. In the early 1980s, Grover was in the forefront of conservative efforts to get the Reagan Administration to support the liberation struggles of anti-Communists in Central America, Africa and Afghanistan.

It is with a heavy heart therefore, that I am posting this article, which is the most complete documentation extant of Grover Norquist’s activities in behalf of the Islamist Fifth Column. I have confronted Grover about these issues and have talked to others who have done likewise. But it has been left to Frank Gaffney and a few others, including Daniel Pipes and Steven Emerson, to make the case and to suffer the inevitable recriminations that have followed earlier disclosures of some aspects of this story.

Up to now, the controversy over these charges has been dismissed or swept under the rug, as a clash of personalities or the product of one of those intra-bureaucratic feuds so familiar to the Washington scene. Unfortunately, this is wishful thinking. The reality is much more serious. No one reading this document to its bitter end will confuse its claims and confirming evidence with those of a political cat fight. On the basis of the evidence assembled here, it seems beyond dispute that Grover Norquist has formed alliances with prominent Islamic radicals who have ties to the Saudis and to Libya and to Palestine Islamic Jihad, and who are now under indictment by U.S. authorities. Equally troubling is that the arrests of these individuals and their exposure as agents of terrorism have not resulted in noticeable second thoughts on Grover’s part or any meaningful effort to dissociate himself from his unsavory friends.

As Frank Gaffney’s article recounts, Grover’s own Islamic Institute was initially financed by one of the most notorious of these operatives, Abdurahman Alamoudi, a supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah who told the Annual Convention of the Islamic Association of Palestine in 1996, “If we are outside this country we can say ‘Oh, Allah destroy America.’ But once we are here, our mission in this country is to change it.” Grover appointed Alamoudi’s deputy, Khaled Saffuri to head his own organization. Together they gained access to the White House for Alamoudi and Sami al-Arian and others with similar agendas who used their cachet to spread Islamist influence to the American military and the prison system and the universities and the political arena with untold consequences for the nation.

Parts of this story have been published before, but never in such detail and never with the full picture of Islamist influence in view. No doubt, that is partly because of Grover Norquist’s large (and therefore intimidating) presence in the Washington community. Many have been quite simply afraid to raise these issues and thus have allowed Grover to make them seem a matter of individual personality differences. This suits his agendas well, as it does those of his Islamist allies. If matters in dispute reflect personal animosity or “racial” prejudice, as Grover insists, then the true gravity of these charges is obscured. The fact remains that while Grover has denied the charges or sought to dismiss them with such arguments on many occasions, he has never answered them. If he wishes to do so now, the pages of frontpagemag.com are open to him.

Many have been reluctant to support these charges or to make them public because they involve a prominent conservative. I am familiar with these attitudes from my years on the Left. Loyalty is an important political value, but there comes a point where loyalty to friends or to parties comes into conflict with loyalty to fundamental principles and ultimately to one’s country. Grover’s activities have reached that point. E.M. Forster, a weak-spirited liberal, once said that if he had to choose between betraying his country and his friends, he “hoped [he] would have the guts” to betray his country.

No such sentiment motivates this journal. In our war with the Islamo-fascists we are all engaged in a battle with evil on a scale that affects the lives and freedoms of hundreds of millions people outside this nation as well as within it. America is on the front line of this battle and there is no replacement waiting in the wings if it fails, or if its will to fight is sapped from within. This makes our individual battles to keep our country vigilant and strong the most important responsibilities we have. That is why we could not in good conscience do otherwise, than to bring this story to light.

 

[Taxman]

OKEYDOKEY.

[Pelham]

That Reason piece provides no footnotes. There's no way to check the quotes for accuracy or context.

[texasbluebell]

.

[Valentine_W]

The Reason Magazine is a solid read; it's published by a well-established think-tank. I do not think you have any reason to doubt its accuracy or truthfulness.

[Valentine_W]

"The appearence of impropriaty regarding funding should have been enough for him to clean house. Instead Norquist hides behind PC platitudes and race-baiting. What logical reason is there for Norquist not to denounce the AADC CAIR and HLF?"

It is probably very likely that while Norquist is aware of his serious shortcomings, he is too proud to admit his mistakes in a public forum, much less privately even to his peers. Intentions are often hard to decipher.

[Byron_the_Aussie]

...we know that the left will use a single transgressor to smear us all. Thus we have both a moral and tactical reason to expunge those who hurt us...

Forget the Left.

Your kind of 'conservative' does more damage from within than they could dream of.

[rmlew]

What kind of Conservative am I?
What are you?

[rmlew]

I don't hate Paleoconservatives.
Except for foreign policy, I am a paleoconservative.
I am certainly not a Wislonian like the Neocons.
If I hated paleoconservatives, I never would have debated and voted for Pat in 2000.

[meema]

Well, I'm glad to hear this. I wait with bated breath. As I said earlier, I don't agree with all of Frank's views, but why has it taken Grover 2 years to start to clear the air? I have a lot of questions.

[Byron_the_Aussie]

...what kind of Conservative am I? What are you?...

I'm one who's spent his adult lifetime fighting the Left, in all its guises, and I don't have to answer to you, or anybody. I'm a keen observer of American conservatism, who's dismayed by its destructive corollary of never cutting its own side any slack. I condemn those who take pleasure in denouncing, for denouncing's sake. You are not in Norquist's sphere, whatever your pretensions, and you do not have the authority or the evidence to throw around the vicious accusations you are making. The little show trial you have run on this thread could only sway the ignorant or the fearful.

[Pelham]

Actually there seems to be a problem with the Reason article. Olsen has this to say:

So when Exodus 21:15-17 prescribes that cursing or striking a parent is to be punished by execution, that's fine with Gary North. "When people curse their parents, it unquestionably is a capital crime," he writes. "The integrity of the family must be maintained by the threat of death."

In fact North says something quite different. He devotes over 30 pages of his book "Tools of Dominion" to developing this subject, and finally on page 310 you find:

"At the beginning of this chapter, I raised the question of the parents' willingness to take a rebellious son to court. Would they do this if the death penalty were inescapable upon his conviction? Probably not. The key question then is this: Is the death penalty absolutely required by the pleonasm of execution? The point I have tried to make in this exposition is that this pleonasm applies only in cases where the State is authorized to initiate the prosecution., i.e. in cases where there is no earthly victim who can bring charges."

"This is not the situation in cases involving a rebellious son. Parents can and must bring their son before the civil authorities and complain about his conduct. God requires them to bring him to the civil court. Then judges would then enforce a penalty specified by the parents, although they might first recommend an appropriate penalty. The son would obey his parents far more readily in the future, since he would know that the parents could take him back and insist on escalating penalties up to the death penalty if he committed similar infractions again. This fear would reinforce the parents' authority in the home."

North goes on to say

"This law, Rushdoony perceptively argues, is a law against the development of a professional criminal class.

[Fledermaus]

I don't give a flying F about someone's "sterling record over decades of conservative accomplishment" when, as they get older and obviously stupider (like Steve Forbes, Sr. or Barry Goldwater in his twilight) when they are NOW sleeping with our enemies and can't see it.

Norquist is now doing nothing more than using his built-up political clout to help his new buddies that have bamboozled him. I'll take Frank Gaffney's version over Grover's any day.

And by the way, "mate", I've got a firm idea of what I'm talking about regardless of your weanie attacks about anominity. Like I could look up "Byron" online for Australia and your address would pop up.

Some of you down under need to realize most of us don't give a hoot what some Queen loving descendant from a criminal have to say about anything.

[Byron_the_Aussie]

..I don't give a flying F about someone's "sterling record over decades of conservative accomplishment"...

Well, of course you wouldn't.

Norquist's accomplishments only make your inadequacies look even worse. Cheers, By

[Fledermaus]

What inadequecies. You don't know me from Adam and you have no idea of anything I've ever done in my life to work and support conservative causes.

Throw another shrimp on the Barbie and worry about your own. You pitiful little attacks just show your shortcomings, if you get my drift.

[Byron_the_Aussie]

..what inadequecies. You don't know me from Adam...

Puh-leez. Batman pics, on your Freeper page?

The prosecution rests.

[Byron_the_Aussie]

I apologise to you for that last post, which was out of line. This is my last reply to this thoroughly unpleasant thread. Regards, Byron

[Trollstomper]

There is no verifiable evidence that Bush carried the Mulsim vote by anything like 70% (other than Norquist asserting it (w/o footnotes)in the American Spectator and elsewhere. It turns out, by the way, that the only assertion one can find after exhaustive research for this claim came from a "sample" done by Sami Al Arian's Tampa Bay Islamic Center. What a shocker! What IS verifiable is that Bush and the GOP lost in every major state with substantial Arab and or Muslim population concentration (CA, NY., NJ, MI -- the latter being the then-only Arab American Senator, Spencer Abraham, in the state with the largest Arab and Muslim concentration). Florida.....well, we all know .... Hope this answers your question.

[Trollstomper]

Start voting? As with most all immigrant groups, let alone ones from socialist countries, Muslim Americans and Arab Americans have traditionally voted Dem, and their PACs and the 501 c 3, including the ones Grover brought to candidate Bush and to the White House, have and continue to support Dems (including his own cutout, Khaled Saffuri)-- indeed radical ones like Cynthia McKinney, Ms. Jackson-Lee, James Moran and Bonior. Recent polling data by Zogby for some of these same groups has confirmed that this trend continues. You can easily google for these or pick any of the names Gaffney cites and run them on the net and at Opensecrets or FEC and look at the contribution trends.

[Trollstomper]

You say "To hold Norquist to a higher standard than the US Gov is ridiculous."

Actually, that's what we are supposed to do with "leaders" -- self-appointed and otherwise!

As has been mentioned, discernment is the key here. These groups and their leaders' pro-terror and explicitly anti-American positions have been well-known for a long time and easily available on the net. If this were in any other aspect of Norquist's political life, he would have vetted the Hell out of people he came remotely this close to (e.g., primary candidates or candidates for political appointments)-- and certainly anyone he was going to use up big chits for -- namely taking them into private audiences with the GOP candidate for President, and thence to the White House (not something even a Norquist spends lightly) -- let alone before then recklessly attacking people like Gaffney, and other's his senior in the movement, in such rabid and leftist Jesse-Jackson/ Al Sharptonian rhetoric --without first doublechecking!

I'm afraid there is no excuse for this, and certainly not ignorance of these rather notorious people. It is about money -- Norquist'firm was hired by Abdurahman Alamoudi and then Jamal Barzingi, two 20-year Wahhabi agents in the US; and Saffuri (immediately past deputy to Alamoudi) was previously a cutout for Norquist's long time rainmaker Jack Abramoff and even briefly worked at his lobbying firm,Greenberg Traurig, according to federal election records from 2001.

By the way, Norquist gets tons of money from all manner of firms and groups, from Microsoft to Beer wholesalers and Philip Morris and the RNC -- how do you think he does all his magicke? (Way more than Gaffney gets from Boeing, I'd bet a 747!). In Washington, it is all about Money. "The cause" is a mask that Norquist continues to wear to confuse the innocent, apparently with some considerable effect, while raking in the money. Abramoff and Norquist lobby for Indian Tribes (CASINOS) --tens of millions in fees -- all the while pretending it's just about lowering taxes and "privatizing" the reservation. (The WSJ and NYT have both profiled Abramoff and the WSJ cites him talking about how he moves millions through Norquist. To do what, get favors and rents from government. Hello!

[Trollstomper]

Acutally, Norquist sepcifically links his opposition to Patriot (and to Secret Evidenc before that) to his Mulsim activism. And he does so openly and consistently, if not almost exclusively. He speaks at their conferences and events and is rewarded by them for so doing -- he has received the AMC's award and the one Gaffney cited from Al-arian's National Coalition to Protect Political Freedonms. And what is this NCPPF -- legal aid for any and all terrorists groups who have tried to blow upo the US or allied governments in our time --ETA, FALN, IRA & Provos, the Panthers, and Sheik Abdul Rahman (the 'blind sheikh' who brought us the first WTC bombing. and who was and is the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood) -- just to name a few of the NCPPF's roster of clients. Oh, and of course, Samil Al Arian's various Palestinian Islamic Jihad fronts are also members. And there are some fine shooters in the club too, for instance Russel Means, in jail for killing the 2 FBI Agents at Wounded Knee in the early 70's. So why is this the place Grover, before 9/11 and again a month ago, chooses to headline and raise money for while makeing his stand on the Patriot Act. Come on. The Federalist Society maybe, but the NCPPF. Maybe you think Thomas Sowell should go the Panther Headquarters to make his stand on quotas! Grover either is bizzarely incapable of doing the minimum homework (year on year on year), or he did it and decided in some too-clever-for-the-rest-of-us calculus that these are still the best people and groups to make a stand with.

By the way, does it strike anyone as strange that a no-taxes advocate ought to be so engaged, at the expense of such heat, on this issue while the GOP is spending at record reckless rates and the tax cut agenda for the election year is stalled??