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.

 

[Trollstomper]

"I myself might react very badly to charges that I was a knowing accomplice of terrorists."


You might then a) fess up, b) apolgize to people like Gaffney who you slimed and who had tried to warn you and help you find moderate Muslims c) stop calling Cabinet agencies to arrange more such meetings, as he did two weeks ago. d) you might decide to back off things like holding fundraisers at your house for radicals like Nawash who, i.a., defend Al Qaeda terrorist for a living. (see above thread). But then you'd be a better man the Grover Norquist

[Trollstomper]

There are no professional vetters as I have explained about 10 times now. This is a recurrent fiction that should be disposed of. Believe me , if this story is born out and blown out by the Post, or Times or whatever, Rove and a lot of others will be called to account, lambasted from the Hill, and change how they are doing things. People in this town respod to scandals, polls and money.

[Trollstomper]

HAzard of the venue I guess and an inhibiting one I suspect. Well, just watch the facts. I gave you a clue re the Wash Post, that's a start. I really can't and won't need to tell you more about myself, other than perhaps by predictions that come true. I'm happy to let my facts speak, etc..

[Trollstomper]

By the way, you seemed to ignore rather than acknowledge the substantive point/facts. so I repeat them 9re you expressed "fear" of a photo appearing like the JWGacy one (a scenario I alluded to a hundred posts back):

I wrote: << We already have it,. Bush photographed with CAIR's Nihad Awad; Sami Al Arian; A. Alamoudi,M. Siddiqi, Mahdi Bray, etc. All courtesy of Norquist/ Saffuri. That's the point and it is what Gaffney warned Grover of in the fall of 2001. And Rove, who said he saw "no there there" (WSJ- Simpson, Hamburger). We can worry about improving the system later; and some are already doing so. But as Grover is still doing this, and is the primary mover of the above, he needs to be stopped, not coddled to until the last appeal by the movement! >>

[Trollstomper]

Sorry this was to you I think re your "dread" (not "fear," my apologies) The substance of my note was to answer your post. I wrote

[swarthyguy]

Ping. Some discussion here.

[William McKinley]

I don't think the problem here is Gaffney's reporting of that supposed event. Clearly, Al-Arian is saying that such a meeting was scheduled that day.

I am just dubious that what he is saying is the truth.

[Trollstomper]

I'm having cut and past issues! my last two posts, 624 & 5 were to you! sorry

[William McKinley]

And nowhere did I say I was half-troubled. I said troubled.

[diotima]

The fact that this embarassing photo-op has already taken place, might we assume the White House won't let it happen again?

My opinion is that you can rail on Grover all you want, but Grover can be cut off from the White House in one fast motion and the threat is neutralized. Why haven't they done this if there is a threat?

[aristeides]

Here's what Al-Arian is quoted as saying:

"Sept. 11 I was actually on this campus (the civics center). It was 8 o'clock in the morning, and I was extremely upbeat," Al-Arian said. "I was supposed to have an 11 o'clock conference call from a group in Washington D.C. that they were supposed to meet with President Bush."

The topic of discussion, Al-Arian said, was to ensure the benefits of the Immigration and Nationalization Act stood firm. Al-Arian said eight Muslim leaders were meeting with Bush to discuss a bill passed in 2001 that states no alien be denied a benefit under the act based on evidence that is kept secret from the alien.

"For the past four years I was fighting very hard for the outlaw of secret evidence," Al-Arian said. "At 3:30 the president would have announced the end of secret evidence."

Sounds like what was supposed to take place at 11 A.M. on 9/11 was Al-Arian's conference call with the Islamists who were to meet Bush. Since Al-Arian give 3:30 (P.M., I assume) as the time when they were supposed to have the president's assurance, their meeting with Bush was apparently scheduled for the afternoon.

[swarthyguy]

>>Why haven't they done this if there is a threat?

Couple of reasons.

One, they don't acknowledge the threat.

Two, don't want to PO the Saudis.

[Trollstomper]

They don't yet get it; just like many here; and he tells them its all jews and bigots complaining and then hides and lies about the rest, as shown herein; and finally, they need him for taxes, coalitions, money etc. and so until the pain of the downside outwieghs the pleasure of the upside, he will be there. pretty standard stuff really.

[Trollstomper]

EXCELLENT ASSIST. Thanks

[diotima]

Well, this is a serious, serious problem. Apparently Grover isn't going to stop doing what he is accused of doing. Therefore, it seems most important to convince the WH to wake up to the threat.

If half what is suggested here is true, and assume the WH has better intel then the googlers and research on FR, then we are in big trouble.

[Sabertooth]

FYI, the contact information posted at the deleted #631 is publicly available at Gaffney's website...

How to Contact the Center for Security Policy

The Center's hours of operation are: 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday

Mailing Address:
The Center For Security Policy
Suite 210
1920 L Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20036

Phone: (202) 835-9077
Fax: (202) 835-9066
Email: info@centerforsecuritypolicy.org

How to Contact the Center for Security Policy
http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/index.jsp?section=static&page=contactus

[Sabertooth]

Sounds like what was supposed to take place at 11 A.M. on 9/11 was Al-Arian's conference call with the Islamists who were to meet Bush. Since Al-Arian give 3:30 (P.M., I assume) as the time when they were supposed to have the president's assurance, their meeting with Bush was apparently scheduled for the afternoon.

Nice catch at #632, thanks.

[fightu4it]

Grover Norquist: Conservative Exposed as Terrorist Sympathizer/Enabler
There's an incredible story brewing in Washington that is too hot for the networks to touch.

Grover Norquist, whom most conservatives know as Executive Director of the College Republicans, boardmember of the NRA, and head of Americans for Tax Reform, has been exposed as helping Muslim groups and individuals who finance and support Islamic terrorism gain access to the Bush White House.

Norquist has also been exposed as the founder of the Islamic Insitute, a group believed to be funded by foreign governments, Wahhab Islam elements in Saudi Arabia, and U.S. Muslim groups recently raided by a special Treasury Department task force for funding Al Qaeda and Palestinian terrorists. The Islamic Institute's website lists the following goals:

1. Cultivate and expand Muslim activists and mobilize the community at the state and federal levels on issues affecting the American Muslim community.

2. Provide a platform to promote an Islamic perspective on domestic issues (social and fiscal) to help enhance the Muslim community's input in the decision-making process.

3. Run aggressive campaigns at the state and federal levels on issues affecting the American Muslim community.

Wahhabi Islam funding from Saudi Arabia appears to have been instrumental is creating and and sustaining a large number of organizations involved in such troubling activities as:

1. Recruiting felons into Islam in U.S. prisons

2. Recruiting U.S. military personnel

3. Proselytizing on more than 500 college campuses across the United States

4. Covertly raising funds for terrorist groups through U.S.-based Muslim charities

5. Providing financial support - and gaining control - of 70-80 percent of U.S. mosques, and

6. Setting up private Muslim K-12 schools to indoctrinate U.S. Muslims into fundamentalist Islam (We ran an expose on one of these located just a few miles from our HQ which you can find at http://www.citizensoldier.org/madrassa.html.)

Norquist's relationship with Muslim groups that support terrorism became public after Norquist launched an unexpected and inexplicably vitriolic attack against Frank Gaffney, the President of the Center for Security Policy.

During a routine Conservative Political Action Conference meeting in early February, Gaffney participated in a panel discussion about the balance to be struck in time of war between preserving civil liberties and safeguarding American's lives and safety. Gafney expressed concern about one of the most insidious of the Wahhabis' activities, a concerted attempt to penetrate and influence the Executive and Legislative branch of our government.

Gafney noted that groups like the American Muslim Council (AMC) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) have been able to gain access to the White House thanks to the White House's Associate Director of Cabinet Affairs Ali Tulbah, a Muslim, and his predecessor, Suhail Kahn. At the same time, Tulbah and Kahn have excluded moderate American Muslim groups from White House access. Both Tulbah and Kahn have family ties to extremist Wahhabi religious groups. AMC and CAIR have expressed support for Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al Qaeda and are actively campaigning to waterdown immigration controls, law enforcement, and intelligence gathering.

Gaffney's concerns are legitimate, because granting access to Muslim extremists gives them a chance to exercise undue influence over policy - undermining the war on terrorism - and confers a legitimacy that allows them to dominate the U.S. Islamic community.

Norquist responded to Gaffney's comments by calling Gaffney a racist and religious bigot in an appearance on Fox News Channel and in letters sent to the Washington Post and Washington Times and barring Gaffney from attending the most important meeting in Washington, the regular Wednesday meetings of conservative Capitol Hill aides and interest-group representatives held in Norquist's offices.

It is unclear whether the Muslims who have been acting as White House gatekeepers - Ali Tulbah and Suhail Kahn - were actually placed in that position by Grover Norquist's Islamic Institute. Norquist is credited with delivering the Muslim vote for Bush in the 2000 election and has the ear of the most influential man in Washington, Karl Rove, President Bush's political advisor. Rove has been a featured speaker at Norquist's Wednesday meetings.

Although it is not noted on either group's website, Norquist's Islamic Institute actually shares office space and staff with Americans for Tax Reform.

According to news reports, while Norquist served as founding Chairman of the Islamic Institute the group received seed money from Abdurahman Alamoudi, then a member of the left-wing American Muslim Council. MSNBC and Fox News have aired videotapes of Alamoudi standing in front of the White House, declaring his support for Hamas and Hezbollah. Hamas is currently one of the leading groups responsible for Palestinian suicide bombers. Hezbollah, sponsored by the Iranian government, was responsible for the death of 240 Marines in Beirut in the 1980s and is believed to be responsible for the attack on Khobar Towers, a barracks in Saudi Arabia.

Key members of the Islamic Institute have come from Alamoudi's organization. One has acknowledged making contributions to the Holy Land Foundation even after it's U.S. offices were shut down by the U.S. government for funding terrorists.

The AMC and CAIR have been able to get access to senior officials in the Bush Administration nine times since 9/11 despite the fact that CAIR has sued Attorney General Ashcroft and in June 2002 CAIR's executive director Nihad Awad declared that he supported the Hamas movement. Both groups have incessantly attacked President Bush's policies on Iraq, the monitoring of aliens from nations that sponsor terrorism, and the prosecution of suspected terror operatives. After the most recent meeting on January 16th, AMC's leader accused Bush of "calling on God to kill innocent Iraqi children."

Norquist also has ties to Sami Al-Arian, president of the National Committee to Protect Political Freedom (NCPPF). Al-Arian is under investigation by the FBI for being the leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and was recently exposed by Fox's Bill O'Reilly who aired video tapes of Al-Arian raising money for terrorists. Norquist accepted an award from the NCPPF shortly before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack. During the 2000 elections, Norquist introduced Al-Arian to then candidate Bush.

Since 9/11, Norquist has led opposition to domestic anti-terrorism laws and has been quoted in frontpage NY times articles allelging a wholesale loss of faith by conservatives in Attorney General Josh Ashcroft. Norquist has also attacked Daniel Pipes, Steve Emerson, and others who have attempted to alert Americans to the dangers of Islam.

WHAT WE CAN DO:

As Citizen Soldier members, most of you have read Koran and Hadith for yourselves. You know:

1. The god of Islam is not the God of the Bible,

2. That the moral rules of Koran differ significantly from Judeo-Christian moral rules, and since rights flow from the prohibitions of moral rules, Islam is not compatible with the equality, individual liberty, or limited government we enjoy in the U.S.

3. That the cause of Islamic terrorism are the ideas taught in Koran, that Muslim extremist groups like AMC and CAIR consistently try to deny these teachings and exploit the ignorance of moderate Muslims who do not know what Koran actually teaches and Westerners who are equally uninformed.

I would ask you to do these things:

1. Please tell others about this story - we'll leave it on our homepage over the weekend. I believe the reason the networks have not jumped on this story is that understanding what is going on would likely lead to a discussion of what Koran actually teaches, something the networks cannot do since they depend on access to moderate and extremist Muslim countries to produce their news.

2. Please call and send email to the White House, Frank Gaffney, and Grover Norquist, letting them know that you understand the dangers of Islam and are concerned about Norquist's involvement with groups that back terrorists.

The White House: (202) 456-1111 email: president@whitehouse.gov (and also vice.president@whitehouse.gov)

Frank Gaffney: (202) 835-9077 email: info@centerforsecuritypolicy.org

Grover Norquist (202) 785-0266 (the receptionist who answers will also be the Islamic Institute's receptionist) email: friends@atr.org

3. Please contact your congressman and senators about this situation as well, since the Congress is another target for Muslims seeking to weaken U.S. policy. They're number is (202) 224-3121.

4. Please consider writing letters to the editor or contacting your local media outlets to encourage them to spill some ink on this story. The more people who know the truth the better.

5. Last, please add this to your long list of prayer concerns, that is our most effective tool.

Conservatives who have not read Koran are vulnerable to unholy alliances with Muslims because Koran and the Bible do share many moral rules, particularly relating to abortion, homosexuality, gambling, paganism and the occult, and prostitution, all issues that liberals and libertarians are pushing the envelope on today.

Related links:

Story at The Washington Times
Gaffney response to Norquist in the Washington Times
Article on Norquist at the Weekly Standard
Goals of the Islamic Institute
Norquist's bio at Americans for Tax Reform - conspicuously absent is any mention of association with the Islamic Institute which he co-founded and which shares offices and staff with ATR
Statement at CFSP with link to Gaffney's letter to Norquist (this link may expire)
Tracing the History of Grover Norquist's Association with Terror
With the arrest of Grover Norquist's friend and associate Sami Al-Arian as the U.S. head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad the natural question is how long has Norquist known that he was associated with terrorists. Here are some interesting links:

The Clinton administration may have known about Al-Arian as early as 1995. This article from April 2, 2002 (you'll get a page that says the article can't be found, just keep refreshing your browser until the article appears) says Clinton shut down federal investigations into Muslim charities in 1995. This led former federal prosecutor John Loftus to file a private lawsuit against the charities in Florida. The main target was Norquist's friend, Sami Al-Arian.


On June 22, 2000 Norquist received an award from the American Muslim Council in a program at which Sami Al-Arian was the keynote speaker. Al-Arian's topic was stopping the U.S. government from using profiling or intelligence data to catch terrorists.


Norquist's association with terrorist groups was the subject of this November 2001 article at The National Review. The article reveals that Norquist was CC'd on Sami Al-Arian's email to The Wall Street Journal responding to an article linking him to Islamic Jihad. Al-Arian was arrested today for being the North American leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The article also says Norquist placed Suhail Kahn in the Bush Administration as the official responsible for controlling access to the White House for Muslim groups. Suhail Kahn previously served on the board of Norquist's Islamic Institute, a group dedicated to increasing Muslim influence in U.S. policy-making.


This article from April 2002 shows that a primary goal of Muslim political influence in the U.S. is to weaken U.S. support for Israel. It quotes David Bonior (the Democrat congressman who represents the Michigan district with the highest concentration of Muslims in the U.S.) as saying accepting money from anti-Israel terrorist groups is no longer politically damaging and credits Norquist with helping to legitimize radical Muslim groups.


This article from February 20, 2003 denounces Norquist as responsible for introducing radical Muslim groups to the White House, Cabinet Secretaries, and agency heads and fingers Saudi money as the seed capital for Norquist's Islamic Institute (our article below shows how this was funneled through Saudi front groups like the American Muslim Council).

[FreeReign]

Well, just watch the facts. I gave you a clue re the Wash Post, that's a start. I really can't and won't need to tell you more about myself...

Is that the Washington Post know for it's unnamed sources?

You just told me more about yourself...