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.

 

[Sabertooth]

Evidence of what? Where is the demonstrable harm to America's national security?

We're fighting a War on Terror based, in part, on a principle of pre-emption. We aren't going to wait until terrorists or terror states attack, or can threaten us with WMDs, we're taking the fight to them.

Why, then, should we preclude pre-emption with regard to Fifth Columnists in the WoT?

Shouldn't we find them before they do harm our national security?

The illegal transfers to the People's republic of China were proven to my satisfaction and to a Congressional Committee's satisfaction.

Great, let's get a Congressional Committee to investigate the Islamist Fifth Columnists, and those who are aiding them in their efforts.

Right now, there is NO evidence of harm to nationals ecurity or the prosecution of the war. Only very serious charges being laid out.

Thanks for acknowledging the charges are serious.

Unfortunately, you seem, like the Democrats, to want to wait until our national security is actually harmed before you're willing to do anything to prevent it.

And what strikes me as suspicious is that in the ABSENCE of any evidence of a crime on the part of Grover Norquist, you demand a full investigation.

Isn't the purpose of investigations, to gather evidence? What we do have with Norquist is a lot of evidence that he's cozy with terror symps, and has assisted them in penetrating the circles of power in Washington. Maybe he's just an ambitious dupe, and has committed no crime. Maybe some of his associates have committed crimes. Sami Al Arian is under arrest for involvement with Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Abdurahman Alamoudi is under arrest for charges that include financial dealings with al-Qaeda and Hamas. Alamoudi also helped recruit the Islamic chaplain spies at Gitmo. Khaled Saffuri, Ahmoudi's former deputy at the American Muslim Council, and Norquists current partner at the Islamic Institute, whom Norquist calls a "great patriot," gave money to the Holy Land Foundation, now a banned terror organization. Their Islamic Institute has received donations from the Safa Group, an umbrella for a number of terror orgs.

No, nothing to raise suspicions here, no reason to investigate.

Do you know what your position sounds like to me? It sounds like Tom Foley saying that the charges that Reagan-Bush campaign officials met with Iranian officials to sabotage negotiations to release the hostages held by Iran - baseless charges leveled by Carter Administration Gary Sick needed to be investigated BECAUSE there was no evidence of wrongdoing. "We need to investigate for evidence of wrongdoing BECAUSE there is no evidence of wrongdoing."

You sound like John Glenn.

Is providing access to terror symps an example of rightdoing, or wrongdoing?

Where is the evidence of criminal wrongdoing? I have seen NONE.

Where's the evidence that you want to look? And why are you now hedging with "criminal" wrongdoing?

I have seen nothing that indicates that at all. So that leads me to believe this is more about settling some sort of score that some people have with Norquist than it is about national security, and using the same type of smear tactics that were used against George Bush Sr.

How badly will President Bush be smeared if you're wrong?

Tell you what: 90% of the reason I'm voting to re-elect this President is because of the War on Terror. I don't want that war or his re-election hindered because Republicans were unwilling to look squarely at a problem in our own camp in the person of Grover Norquist.

[Doc On The Bay]

GROVER??!!--a TRAITOR??!!

REALLY HARD to believe.

I would be FAR MORE inclined to believe that he "Suckered a few Radical Jerkweeds" in, to later Expose & Eradicate them!

Doc

[rmlew]

No country is simply defined by its laws. Laws do not exist ex nihlio. They are based on beleifs and executed as such. The US was created by former British citizens defending their rights from a King and Parliament which had usurped them. They wrote using political theory from Aristotle to Locke, Polybius to Hume.
The Constitutuion is the primary legal document but was never meant to define this country. The US existed for 12 years before it was written. The States preceeded the consitution, which only defined the federal government.

First and foremost, IMO, are the truths that Jefferson said were self-evident. "All men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." Again, I see nothing there that makes any exception based on the basis of religion or culture.
You don't get it. The concept of individual rights that come from God and not man exist only from a specific tradition: natural law theory from Augustine, Beckett, and Locke.
Today, we have lost this culture. Thus the Constitution is not understood.
Regarding American being a Christian nation, the First Ammendment exists to protect religion from the Federal government. There was no seperation. The Congress that passed teh Bill of Rights, celebrated a religious day of thanksgiving for it!
The First Ammendment was written to prevent a Federal Church and also to protect the arraingments of the states. Thus some had State Churches, others did not.

Even if your leftist revisionist history were correct, it would be irrelevent to the point that Islamists are a threat.

[rmlew]

I'm a Jewish son and grandson of Holocaust victims. The graveyard where my grandfather is buried was recently defaced with graffitti and stones were broken.
I am quite aware of what religious persecution means.
I am sorry that your ancestors were persecuted. (I presume that they were followers of Joseph Smith?)
None of this matters. I am not calling for all Muslims to be expelled or killed. I want openly militant Islamist (Islamist) groups shut down. I want them expelled or detained and I want to re-evaluate our immigratiojn policy based on the threats to national security adn survival.

You are blinded by your resentment for the mistreatment of your relatives. I am well aware of the phenominon. It is the primary reason for the suicidal social leftism of American Jews.
I guess Mormons respond differently.

[rmlew]

American troops are working with the Colombians to reduce drug smuggling. We are training Colombian troops. We are not in combat with FARC.

[hchutch]

Show the evidence that the war effort has been harmed, and that wrongdoing by Norauist was a factor, and I'll discuss it further. But as it stands right now, this sounds less like a serious call for a legitimate investigation and instead it is more along the lines of Gary Sick's wild accusations and Tom Foley's fishing expedition that didn't find anything.

I don't want the war effort or President Bush's re-election harmed, either. The latter is a critical step towards ensuring the war effort succeeds. I do not want that jeopordized because some conservatives decided to make political hay at the expense of Grover Norquist.

So, produce proof that Norquist's outreach and actions harmed the war effort, and then there would be a basis for assuming there is a problem. But there has been no harm to the war effort. You yourself have said it is going well.

I can only conclude that your motives are more about reducing Grover Norquist's influence than they are about a genuine concern for national security and the war effort.

[Sabertooth]

Show the evidence that the war effort has been harmed, and that wrongdoing by Norauist was a factor, and I'll discuss it further.

Quite an unserious proposal. Norquist is up to his ears in terror symps. Why?

Or rather, why don't you want to know why?

[winker]

Those capable of hiding in plain sight or cloaking their activities are deftly capable of fooling the ignorant massess to the point of the ridiculous. These types of TRAITORS are the most deadly. They are percieved and accepted as harmless and un-obtrussive individuals. The vast majority of Americans still wallow in gross ignorance on how to identify the enemy and then fumble the information away unable to capitalize on it and win!

[hchutch]

You presume correctly. But I will state VERY clearly that those persecutions happened here, in the United States of America, DESPITE the the First Amendment. DESPITE the natural rights theory. DESPITE you say you want to protect for America. The culture whose loss you decry did NOT protect my ancestors, instead it failed them and allowed the persecution to continue.

Studyign the persecusion of my ancestors did not blind me, it woke me up. I am suspicious about ANYONE who tries to involve government in cultural issues. There are some issues that have to be dealt with in light of left-wing manipulation, but aside from that, government ought to stay out of those issues. YTo be very blunt, based on the treatment MY ancestors received, I see little reason to trust the government when it comes to cultural issues.

[rmlew]

1. There is a difference between disliking government involvement and not trusting it on the one hand, and refusing to see a self-selecting group that threatens the US on the other.

2. The state is always involved in cultural matters. The only question is which cultural norms are pressed used.

[meema]

bump to read later

[Taxman]

Well, Bob, if, by his actions and contacts, he facilitates Moslem atrocities against US citizens by placing fanatic Moslem jihadists in/near the US government, he is.

Sorry -- that is the way I see it.

I grew up believing, and still believe, that if you sleep with dogs, you will get fleas. IOW, we are known by the company we keep.

Radical Islamacists have no place in the White House or any other government building, IMHO, except, perhaps, Guantanamo or some other Federal lockup.

[hchutch]

You do not have proof of harm to the war effort, do you?

So, let me ask the only logical question: Why are you engaging in the same sort of twisted logic that Tom Foley used to justify a taxpayer-funded fishing expedition over wildly implausible charges from Gary Sick?

[Zionist Conspirator]

I am not saying anything about the relative merits of Christianity vs. Islam. I am saying that at least as I understand it, people in the United States are free to practice whichever one they choose, and I think that perseuction or "holy war" against them because of their choice is WRONG.

Unless you are naive beyond belief, you are well aware that most people do not "choose" their religion but are born into it and taught its absolute truth from their youngest days. Do you really believe most Americans magically "choose" what they believe to be Absolute Truth?

If someone uses ANY religion to justify murder, they need to be prosecuted and put away. I don't care WHAT religion is twisted for that sick purpose.

This as well as your your other statements show you to be an agnostic with no concept of religions claiming to be true. In case you haven't noticed, G-d Himself ordered the extermination of the Amaleqites and the Seven Nations of Canaan in the Torah (which you no doubt regard as a bloodthirsty mythology cooked up by priests to give their own irrational prejudices the sanction of religion). I suppose you would put Joshua on trial for "genocide."

The American/enlightenment view of religion as a subjective feel-good personal moral code (influenced by ethno-culture if by anything) with no absolute or objective truth claims is a historical novelty unknown to anything calling itself "religion" prior to the the past two or three hundred years--not even an eye-blink in human history.

And before you start making negative moral judgments against "atrocities" committed in obedience to G-d, please be aware that I am a Theonomic Positivist to whom good and evil are determined by Divine decree and not by the "progressive development" of the human conscience over the past few centuries.

And before you accuse me of using G-d as an excuse to enforce my own "hang-ups," I wasn't even around 3315-plus years ago. Besides, I notice that someone's "moral hang-ups" always wind up with the force of law anyway. Is it not more logical that the "hang-ups" with the force of law should be those of the Creator of the Universe rather than those of any individual human being or combination of human beings?

And before you say "there's no way to determine what the objectively true religion is," you're wrong, but that's too complicated for this post. Most people have never even heard the case for the true religion (Torah) even though they believe it "used to be" the true religion at one time in the past.

Don't tell me--I'm no different than Osama Bin Laden(mach shemo). Apparently every person who is so backward as to believe that there is a one objectively true religion out there somewhere fits that description for you.

[Zionist Conspirator]

Is there any possibility that Norquist is one of those anti-Israel conservatives? That might have something to do with it, but I simply don't know his history there.

[Sabertooth]

You do not have proof of harm to the war effort, do you?

Read the article.

There's plenty of evidence of attempts to do just that.

Did the espionage of the Moslem chaplains at Gitmo harm the war effort?

We don't even know if the interrogations of many of the Al Qaeda prisoners were translated properly.

So, let me ask the only logical question:

The only logical question is why you're insisting that America be harmed so badly that even you'd have to concede the point before you'd be willing to investigate Grover Norquist's efforts to provide high level access to Islamic Fifth Columnists.

Read the article. It's chock full of specifics about Norquists Islamist ties, with footnotes, not a single one of which you've had the intellectual honesty to address or attempt to rebut.

[hchutch]

1. The distrust I have is strong enough that it is far better for the government to not intervene. There are adequete laws to cover the threat, but the usual safeguards fromt heBill of Rights need to apply.

2. Again, explain to me why I should trust ANY governmental involvement in cultural issues, much less to decide which norms are used. What I see in the plain wording of the Constitution does not favor any religion, nor does it grant any authority for the federal government to be involved in matters of culture.

[habs4ever]

Grover is on the take, and like all too may DC conservatives, on the make.The times require that sort of thing to be checked at the door where national security is involved, and he of all people, should understand that, but he can't grasp that Gaffney's objections are strictly "business".Norquist pimped for Microsoft, but if he is at all supect on continuing Islamist connections, well, screw him.Send him over the gangplank.

He has used that goodwill to spread fear among DC conservatives, but he isn't that important, or needed, when at root, he is a hired gun, no more, no less.He ought to be dumped and if his Muslim block goes with him, so be it.They are too fickle to be counted on if so.

[browardchad]

BUMP

[the invisib1e hand]

I'm thinking that this is an attempt to legitimize the assertion that there are islamic enemies in the white house; an assertion that I reject.