Posted on 12/09/2003 1:37:45 AM PST by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at frontpagemag.com ...
There appears to have been no security losses over these incidents. As Nick Danger pointed out, they instead directed a spotlight on them and the government has been able to ferret out and prosecute them. Kicking Norquist to the curb over it is unfair and unproductive.
There are those who believe that no Muslim can be trusted and that our only solution is to kill them all and let God sort them out. This viewpoint is shortsighted and will only result in failure, not to mention the acrid genocidal aroma. I've seen this same attitude expressed on other other threads that are race based, immigration for instance.
Allowing these attitudes to fester will result in the marginalization of Free Republic and a failure in achieving it's goals.
You warned members of ATR? A lot of prominent conservative groups are concerned about this right now, but are just waiting and watching to see what comes of this situation. Honestly, the evidence seems circumstantial at best. But that doesn't necessarily mean that Norquist isn't guilty, just that we should wait and see what happens, rather than accusing him outright of being a traitor.
I agree with you--in order to win the War on Terror we do need to keep good contact with the few moderate Islamic governments that we do have good relations with. However, I typically think of this as being the role of the State Department or the Executive. I wish we had a T.E. Lawrence around right now, but Norquist clearly isn't it.
Wow. You're deep.
I can see you've carefully examined the issues, before condemning Norquist.
You've got no idea what you're talking about, mate. Your anonymous macho blather on an Internet site, versus Norquist's sterling record over decades of conservative accomplishment? Some of you wankers need to realise your posts add testimony to your own inadequacies.
Is that the best you can do?
What is it about Norquist that is so special to you guys that you cannot believe he would sell out to our enemies?
I once believed George Bush I wouldn't raise taxes. I'm older and wiser now.
ML/NJ
Yes, and why is that? You're the one that's pushing the liberal technique which is parallel to the Norquist case- that a few pedophiles in the church, somehow undoes their exemplary record of goodness. You tell me what this sickness is, in the American conservative fraternity, whereby people like yourself will rush to condemn one of our own, and thereby do the liberals' work for them. Even trying to discount the overwheening arrogance and self-satisfaction that shines from your posts, do you *really* think that someone like Norquist would be enabling a Muslim 'fifth column' in your country? Trying to put one over the President, the FBI? Wake up to yourself, mate. There's a billion Muslims out there, and we are going to have to get along with them when this current madness from a tiny percentage settles down.
I've already given you one example- the way he blindsided the State Department, directly brought the Chissano regime to President Reagan's attention, and set the wheels in motion for UNITA's funding. Are you going to give him any credit for that? Just a simple yes or no- are you prepared to give Mr Norquist credit for his achievements, or are you too far gone even for that?
BTW, let's not even *mention* the Bushes in the same breath as Reagan/Norquist:
"He opposes the nation-state"
Grover is not anarchist. To imply otherwise is paranoia and hysteria.
There is a difference between opposing the nation-state and opposing government. Tranzis support global government, Free-trade, and open immigration. However then support one-world governance through a modified UN. Norquist is no tranzi, but he does not care for the sovereignty of the US because he is a libertarian, not a traditionalist.
"He is ignorant of the charges because he refuses to see them."
Circular logic, begging the question; next.
Not at all; the human ability of self-deception is astounding. Take a look at the spouses of criminals.
Ratner writes that I want to "bring Islamic fundamentalists into the Republican Party without regard to how they feel about terrorism or Americans, let alone Republicans." This is not true. And it is silly. It is, however, a sad lie that a handful of bigots have tried to spread to attack President Bush and others.
A yes "bigots"!
Hiding behind the charge of racism is liberal trait.
"Paleos should disdain the open-border WTO-supporting PC relativistic Norquist. "
America will never abandon free minds and free markets.
The average Paleoconservative has as much disdain for Reason Magazine as they do for the Weekly Standard.
Paleos support tariffs.
You seem rather ignorant of Paleoconservatism. May I suggest that you look up the "Chronicle" symposium on the history and ideological underpinnings of paleoconservatism?
You overuse the Disagreement Is Blindness metaphor. You misspell it on the third use because your hands are as tired of typing it as we are of reading it.
I get tired at 3AM.
"1. Is that Michael or William Lind?"
The particular author has no bearing on the fact of the statement.
1. I do not agree wit the asserted veracity of the statement.
2. Whether the author was a liberal former Neocon or a Paleoconservative does matter.
Michael Lind is a homosexual who makes a living slandering conservatives. William Lind simply dislikes neocons.
Read harder: Lind (objectively) says 1970s. Not 1970 (your strawman).
So we have an unsubstantiated claim of a conspiracy that occured sometime in a decade.
That borders on LaRouches veracity.
No, is it not. None of the "Mulsim forces" have penetrated the government in any way.
HST, if there is a "moderate Muslim community," who are they, where are they and what are they doing to help us preserve the United States of America?
The moderate Muslims you don't see have quietly been working with the government to eradicate the Islamists inside our borders. You don't see them because if it were publically known they were working with us there would be a fatwah on them and their families in about 2 minutes. Don't you think it is strange there have been no significant terrorist attacks on our soil since 911?
Furthermore, has Grover denounced the "moderate Muslims" who have been shown to not be quite so moderate?
Yes. As recently as last night on Hugh Hewitt. The bomb throwers won't give him credit becuase they are more interested in grandstanding on FR than finding the truth.
Anyway, don't worry. Norquist will be making public statements soon and we will have him on RadioFR to make his case and take questions from FReepers.
Has he returned to these "moderate Muslims" all of the money they paid him to gain influence in the Bush administration?
If anything the mod muzzies should ask for their money back since the bad ones are now behind bars.
Enquiring minds want to know.
We aim to please.
A lot of prominent conservative groups are concerned about this right now, but are just waiting and watching to see what comes of this situation.
Their inaction is allowing the damage to spread.
Honestly, the evidence seems circumstantial at best. But that doesn't necessarily mean that Norquist isn't guilty, just that we should wait and see what happens, rather than accusing him outright of being a traitor.
Norquist is a fool or a traitor.
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?
You tell me what this sickness is, in the American conservative fraternity, whereby people like yourself will rush to condemn one of our own, and thereby do the liberals' work for them.
Easy. 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.
Even trying to discount the overwheening arrogance and self-satisfaction that shines from your posts, do you *really* think that someone like Norquist would be enabling a Muslim 'fifth column' in your country?
Pride, self-deception, and failure to account for the future are universal human failings.
Character is shown in how one responds to mistakes. Norquist responded by using PC spin to smear his critics rather than look at his new friends.
Trying to put one over the President, the FBI? Wake up to yourself, mate. There's a billion Muslims out there, and we are going to have to get along with them when this current madness from a tiny percentage settles down.
The road to hell is paved by good intentions.
The reality is that by failing to differentiate between Muslims and Islamists, we are ensuring that Islamism spreads both in this country and around the world.
The fear is self-fulfilling as it radicalizes the Muslims so that reasonable protections are seen as illegitimate attacks.
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