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 nations 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 Americas 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 worlds 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 Americas 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 Norquists 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 Grovers part or any meaningful effort to dissociate himself from his unsavory friends.
As Frank Gaffneys article recounts, Grovers 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 Alamoudis 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 Norquists 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 ones country. Grovers 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 ...
That's right. Nowhere have I claimed to have any facts. Nowhere have I claimed to be defending Grover Norquist. You think I'm trying to debate with you whether he's guilty or not. No. I'm just trying to make sure that I'm not being driven like a head of cattle into some pen. These are serious charges that are being made here.
I'm well aware of how unpopular it is on this forum not to convict people on the basis of accusations. Go into one of our many Kobe Bryant threads and suggest that we might want to have a trial before we hang that guy, and you'll get a ration you won't believe. This place is the home of "Guilty until proven innocent." And sometimes even that won't help. But I'm just one of those obstructionist types who wants to ask a few questions before we get out the rope. Don't take it personally.
Could this a personal feud? Some people say it is. How the hell do I know? You tell me it isn't. But I see personal animosity in your notes. I agree that doesn't mean you're wrong, but it does mean I need to add windage for that.
Is the Compendium of Facts hyperbolic and reminiscent of one of those "The Illuminati Rules the World" tracts? Maybe you don't want to hear this, but yes, it is. There's way too much stretching to reach for mud to throw. There is too much creepy organ music being played around what might be totally innocuous events. I read both of those things as signs that (a) somebody is trying to BS me, and (b) this is a hatchet job. If there are actual damning facts in there, I can't tell, because I don't know any facts. But I do recognize rhetorical trickery, and there is a fair amount. That's an alarm to me.
I'm not a big fan of credentialism. I don't know Frank Gaffney. I don't know you. You bring us this big pile of ugly stuff, and I know I'm supposed to just grab my torch and my pitchfork and go march on Grover Norquist.
And I may well do that. But not on your say-so. Not when it's clear that you don't like the guy, and that your claims are at least somewhat inflated -- and I can't tell by how much. Another generation and we'll have mob rule in this country, and then this will be a lot easier to do. But I will not go quietly into that good night. If the current activities are as you describe, then I will sign on. The current stuff is all you need anyway; the rest of it almost detracts from the case by giving the appearance of piling on.
Secondly, the greatest provision in any of the new laws that I'm most thankful for is allowing people such as yourself to get information from the Internet. I personally don't see why intelligence people weren't using that from the get-go as the Net is the greatest source of study and independent research available.
I don't like some aspects of the PATRIOT Act myself. Recent events show that domestic money laundering is just one of the ways in which a law supposedly intended for "internationl terrorists" wasn't really that way at all from the outset, just like many stated and predicted. There were already enough laws on the books to cover that area of domestic criminality.
Lastly, and belatedly, kudos to all the new work you guys/gals have been doing lately. A little late, but better late than never. A little slow, but the tortoise wins the race in the fable.
P.S. I understand more from your replies the whys and wherefores that I brought up here. I still think it was wrong to allow it to go on as long as it did. They should've been busted long ago! I know, I know...the wall.
I said that about the Compendium of Facts, referring to the Horowitz article. That article contains such things. I'm sorry, but it does. It may well contain useful and damning facts. They would be more apparent if they were not mixed in with what is quite obviously hatchetry.
To tell people that Grover Norquist knows a guy who works at the White House whose father was a terrorist does not pass my test for linking Grover Norquist with terrorists. It passes my test for wondering why the 'national security professionals' would like me to stare at Grover Norquist -- instead of at them -- when I hear that the son of a terrorist was working at the White House. When I ask questions about this, I get answers like, "That's not our department." When I suggest that's a BS, bureaucrat's answer, I get back condescending bureaucratese, and the message that I have not refuted the "facts."
Now get I get a victory dance. I still don't know why that story is in the Horowitz article, other than it is a lame attempt to get people with short attention spans to think they just heard something bad about Grover Norquist, instead of something bad about the people at the White House who do background checks on new hires.
Using flag words like "evidence" and "proposition" to describe a conversation with a campaign manager about how to win votes is rhetorical trickery. That's what I mean by "playing creepy organ music." The stupid people are supposed to think they just heard something damning and horrible, when all they really heard is that some guy was telling Karl Rove how he thinks they could get more votes. Since I don't fall for crap like that, I get to be the unpopular guy who is "defending the traitor."
If this article is a sincere effort to expose the deeds of the misguided and/or traitorous Grover Norquist, why it is peppered throughout with misdirection plays and tricks worthy of a "60 Minutes" hatchet job? That is not an unreasonable question.
Even if I stipulate to Norquist having done some pretty weird things here that do not look good, I'm still left with wondering where this hatchet job is coming from, who is behind that, and why... because the hatchet job is an independent event. It also has perpetrators, and may also be motivated by evil, greed, political agendas, foreign influence, and so on. To say so is not to defend Norquist in any way. It is to open a new file called "political hit jobs by the national security community," which in the long run might be just as scary as anything Norquist did.
One evil at a time, perhaps, and if the current events are as you describe I'll even thank you for warning me about that. But I'll still wonder what else is happening here, because this is a 'hit.' Don't tell me isn't; we see them all the time. Down goes Trent Lott. Down goes Newt Gingrich. Down goes Grover Norquist. And don't come back with some rhetorical BS about how I just equated the evil deeds of Grover Norquist with anything that Trent Lott did. I'm using them as illustrations of media-blitz hit jobs, nothing more. We have one here, and let's recognize that. You're part of it, and you're not a saint in all of this. You are part of a take-down, and you are having entirely too much fun with it to be pure of motive. The glow of petty vindictiveness emanating from your notes is blinding. So whether or not Grover Norquist is a bad guy, I think the Republic might not be entirely safe from you either.
I really have a hard time believing that all this hoopla was the best way to deal with this problem, if, in fact, it's a real problem. And even if all the innuendo and insinuation about Norquist turns out to be 100% true, the undercurrent here seems to be that the problem begins and ends with him, and that therefore he's the only one who should have to face the music, which is just plain old bullshit, IMO. "Groverdunnit" is not an adequate answer to the question of how this happened, in that case, and I for one appreciate the hell out of your efforts to ask hard questions about the apparatus that is ostensibly - but apparently not actually - in place to prevent foreign agents from gaining influence.
Don't miss this thread!
Is that also what you consider a hard question? I sure don't see any easy answers from Nick.
There's two possibilities here. One, they knew who he was, and let him in anyway for reasons currently unknown. Two, they didn't know who he was, in which case, the people whose job it is to know things like that in order to prevent people like that from getting in, have failed. They failed. If Saffuri is such a bad guy, somebody up there was supposed to know about it, and that somebody ain't Grover Norquist.
My point about Saffuri and his access is simply a restatement of some of what Nick's been saying.
If you had high level access to the WH and the POTUS would you personally take it upon yourself to ensure that whoever you brought in for a visit was on the up and up beforehand, no matter if it was supposed to be "someone else's job" or not?
You have the same two options with Grover as with the White House staff - either he knew, or he didn't. If he didn't know, then perhaps he didn't look, or didn't look hard enough, or simply wasn't able to know what we know now - you'll have to ask Grover which was the case. If he knew, then certainly he should have at least given whatever information he had to the people whose job it is to worry about such things. Perhaps he did - we don't know that either.
But no matter what, I'm essentially being asked to believe that Grover Norquist is so powerful and influential that he can bring anyone he likes into the White House without anyone over there even doing a basic background check on who it is he's bringing. And I'm not at all sure I believe that. Grover Norquist is not in charge of White House security or of national security, and if the people that are in charge of those things are doing their jobs under the assumption that everyone is always totally forthcoming about who they are and what they're up to, then we're screwed. Just plain screwed, because that's no way to run those kinds of operations - bad guys will occasionally lie about themselves and their agendas, and any security apparatus that doesn't take that into account is not doing its job.
Then why did they let him in? Does Grover Norquist decide who sees the President? I doubt it - find out who does, and ask them why he was let in. Grover may not have totally clean hands here, but culpability goes way beyond just him if what you say is so.
You don't like the answer you got. Okay.
You fail to understand. I'm not asking about what I'd do, I'm asking what you would do. I know what I'd do. What would YOU do?
Who cares what I would do? Am I Grover Norquist? Am I Karl Rove or GWB? We can spend all day building castles in the air like that, or we can talk about some actual events, and try to figure out what actually happened. And it sure looks like to me that someone dropped the ball up there.
Umm, you know - the White House and its staff? The folks who are supposed to know about terrorists and terrorist sympathizers? How's that for a start?
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