Posted on 06/01/2004 5:38:30 AM PDT by SJackson
The U.S. government wrongly arrested Brandon Mayfield. But did it wrongly note his numerous connections to militant Islam and the global jihad?
The U.S. government wrongly arrested Brandon Mayfield, 37, of Beaverton, Ore. on May 6. A fingerprint sent from Madrid apparently connected him to the March 11 bombings there that killed 191 people and injured 2,000. When the Spanish government two weeks later identified the fingerprint as that of an Algerian, the Department of Justice requested that Mayfield be released, and he was.
Putting aside the technical mistake, the Department of Justice has come under severe criticism for having built its case against Mayfield in part by noting his Islamic affiliations. “I am an American Muslim,” Mayfield declared on release; “I have been singled out and discriminated against, I feel, as a Muslim.” His father Bill concurred: “They picked him out because they wanted someone who fit this profile. This was the closest they had, and he was a Muslim.”
“If you are Muslim you are suspect,” commented Samer Horani of the Islamic Center of Portland. Dave Fidanque of the American Civil Liberties Union piled on: “as far as the Justice Department is concerned, if you’re Muslim and attend particular mosques that are suspect, you’re presumed guilty until you’re proved innocent.” And the New York Times disapprovingly notes that the decision to detain Mayfield “was clearly influenced by his Muslim ties.”
But did U.S. law enforcement err in noting Mayfield’s identity?
No, this was entirely appropriate. It would have been myopic to ignore Mayfield’s many connections to militant Islam and the global jihad.
· He prayed in the same Bilal Mosque as did several individuals (Maher Nawash, Ahmed Ibrahim Bilal, Muhammad Ibrahim Bilal) who pleaded guilty in 2003 to conspiring to help the Taliban. The mosque’s website includes links to militant Islamic organizations, including some “charities” closed down by the U.S. government for funding terrorism. Saudi specialist Stephen Schwartz finds Bilal to be “a fairly typical Wahhabi-controlled mosque.”
· While studying law at Washburn University in Kansas, Mayfield helped organize a branch of the Muslim Student Association, a group described by analyst Jonathan Dowd-Gailey as “an overtly political organization” espousing “Wahhabism, anti-Americanism, and anti-Semitism … and expressing solidarity with militant Islamic ideologies, sometimes with criminal results.”
· In 2002, Mayfield volunteered to represent Jeffrey Leon Battle – who subsequently pleaded guilty to conspiracy to levy war against the United States and was sentenced to 18 years in prison – in a custody dispute over his then-6-year-old son. Strangely (according to Quanell X, national spokesperson for the New Black Panthers and a friend of Battle’s), Mayfield flew to Texas at his own expense for Battle’s sake.
· Someone in Mayfield’s house was in telephone contact with Perouz Sedaghaty (a.k.a. Pete Seda), director of the U.S. office of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, a number of whose foreign branches have been designated as terrorist organizations.
· Mayfield advertised his solo law practice in a “Muslim” yellow pages run by Jerusalem Enterprises Inc., a company owned by Farid Adlouni. Adlouni is a person “directly linked in business dealings” with Wadih El Hage, Osama Bin Laden’s personal secretary in the 1990s and convicted of conspiring to murder U.S. citizens in 2001.
In addition:
· Mayfield’s political profile fits that of many disaffected, U.S.-hating terrorists: he strongly opposes the USA Patriot Act, inveighs against U.S. foreign policy related to Muslim countries, and is “particularly angered,” according to his brother Kent, by close U.S. relations with Israel. Mayfield speculates that the Bush administration knew in advance about 9/11 but chose to let the attacks go ahead so as to justify going to war. And on his release from custody, he compared the U.S. federal government to Nazi Germany.
· In common with many violence-prone Islamists in the United States (including Maher Hawash, Mohammed Ali Alayed, Zacarias Moussaoui, and the “Lackawanna Six”), Mayfield went from being a nominal Muslim to one whose Islamic beliefs “got more and more intense.”
Are government prosecutors, when they have apparently incriminating physical evidence, supposed to shut their eyes and disregard these many connections and patterns? The Department of Justice was simply doing its job in pointing them out.
Even Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations – an Islamist group with multiple connections of its own to violence – admits that “no Muslim is more than six degrees away from terrorism.” Governments worldwide must take this reality into account.
Daniel Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and author of Miniatures (Transaction Publishers).
Islam is a seditious enemy ideology hiding under the cloak of a religion.
American Muslims might be able to get away with the “Woe is me, I’m being persecuted for my faith” if they would get together and actively denounce the terrorism. There are a few individuals, but I have yet to hear of any large Mosque active in the War on Terror.
Well, you can't blame people for feeling this way. After all, it's Muslims attacking the west in the name of Islam. It would be nice to be able to believe the tales we hear about the "religion of peace", but Islamic "peace" seems to be contingent upon everybody being forcibly converted to Islam.
Or to be more accurate, the "correct" form of Islam, since the Islamomaniacs are perfectly willing to massacre other muslims if they are from a different sect.
Right now, it would appear that there are two kinds of Muslims - active terrorists and sleeper cells. And until somebody proves me wrong, I will never trust a Muslim again in my life.
Finally someone points out Brandon Mayfield's past!
Much of the problem is that Islam isn't just a religion, it's just as much or more a political ideology, a form of government. Muslims have no use for the US Constitution and intend to replace it with Sharia law. Should we have let Nazis take over the world and impose their fascism if they would have said they worshipped some kind of god?
I surely hope that the FBI maintains surveillance on this guy. I'll bet the FBI is STILL shaking their head over the fingerprint mismatch coincedince with Mayfield.
Hey Jeremy, here's a newsflash for you - The next time a terrorist attack is launched int he US, a lot of citizens will begin taking the law into their own hands. Do you know who they will come looking for? People with YOUR background.
Get over it. Until I see mass demonstrations by muslims denouncing what the heck is going on, I refuse to have any sympathy or patience for this nonsense.
Words to live by - literally.
As a former ex pat with years of living and working in the ME I congratulate you for say what many of us have been saying for 30 yrs! all the best!
Anyone who dispassionately reviews the current state of affairs in the Islamic world and is in the slightest bit conversant with the tenets of Islam and the Koran can not but help come to the correct conclusion that Islam and American style Democracy, freedom, and a pluralistic society are inherently antithetical and incompatible.
The world has become too small for Jeffersonian Democracy and Islam to peacably co-exist.
One or the other will prevail.
Which among them has ever, EVER proven to be trustworthy?
Just wondering.
Excellent post. I work with a few Muslims here at the office. They are likeable people and I get along with them on an "office-worker" level, but I always keep it in my mind that their religion calls for my death.
Alhumdoolillah! Finally Allah allows the light of logic to penetrate into one of the darker places on the planet: the Muslim mind. Who knows where this seminal event might lead the ROP?
Victory over terrorism, foreign and domestic.
Thanks for the ping ... real nice past Mayfield has there
But it won't stop the liberals from attacking the FBI and Justice department
I agree with you!
How can one openly follow a 'religion' that is anti the beliefs of modern civilization-not to mention normal concepts of humanity- and NOT expect to be 'suspect'?
If I move next door to you and put up signs, wear symbols, and tell you I belong to a cult that teaches you are my enemy and you must live as I do or it is my duty to kill you- is it unreasonable that you would fear and hate me?
Would a black family be expected to be understanding of, and comfortable with, an openly Klan family next door?
Would they be 'unfair' if they didn't smile and wave and invite them over for coffee?
I just love this move to reverse guilt re.Islam.
The 'religion' is not compatible with modern civilization.
Followers of it have declared war on that civilization.
Yet we, the intended victims and 'enemy' are not supposed to 'suspect', hate, or discriminate against adherents of that 'religion'??
MADNESS!
Jesus Loves You. Allah Wants You Dead
Islam is the enemy, and terrorism is its weapon of choice.
I'd give odds that it's 3 or 4 at best.
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