There is little doubt that the notion most Americans have in their heads of neoconservatism has been at least temporarily skewed due to the perceived failures in Iraq. Regardless of the fact that things are actually improving on the ground finally, the bad taste left in many proverbial mouths when uttering the term “neocon” is more than apparent.

Of course, the fact is what the vast majority of people associate with neoconservatism is, in fact, a complete misconception of what it actually means to be a neoconservative. Even Kristol’s article may be only one aspect, one perspective on what it means to be a neocon. Indeed, a whole new generation of neoconservative thinkers is sprouting up, both here in the US and overseas.  Why?  Irving Kristol says it well,

(more…)

In 2004, Scotland Yard detectives slept on the floor of their offices as they gathered evidence that could be used in court against a terrorist network led by Dhiren Barot. The intelligence was overwhelming but it was only in the final moments of the two week time period that they were able to prevent the release of Al Qaeda terrorists onto the streets of London.

As The Telegraph noted: “Two years later, they pleaded guilty to plotting to make a dirty bomb and to kill fellow citizens in huge numbers.”

Many journalists, politicians and bloggers like to make comparisons of Islamic terrorism to the atrocities of the IRA. Former British Prime Minister Sir John Major made the astoundingly naive claim that the United Kingdom had, “faced far more regular - and no less violent - assaults from the IRA”.

(more…)

Mr. Obama is asking something of Americans. He is asking them to believe, to hope, to take a leap of Faith. Indeed, I fear Barack Obama is askign a great deal more of Americans then they realize. The Junior Senator from Illinois has practically no political record by which he can be judged, and whose record so far has been frighteningly liberal; is affiliated with organizations whose political and racial beliefs are extreme to say the least, including Kenyan extremists; has offered up no substantial evidence of his ability to govern; and has replaced practical goals with lofty, slogan-filled, oratorically brilliant rhetoric.

(more…)

CNN today reported that high-level Hamas officials are stating that an imminent cease-fire with Israel is in the works, and could happen within three days.

Now, I’m torn on this.  First of all, we all know that Hamas can use open-roads, and a cease-fire, simply to rearm and regroup forces.  Then again, any move toward peace is a welcom one–if it really is a move toward peace.

Maybe if things with Syria were going better, this news might, just might, be a little more welcome, hopeful, promising.  Olmert, however, has been weakened by scandal, and it seems unlikely that anything done under his ministership will have any lasting value.

Egyptian sources have confirmed that the peace deal is to go into effect Thursday. (more…)

NBC’s Tim Russert died this afternoon of a heart attack.  According to NBC:

Tim Russert, NBC News’ Washington bureau chief and the moderator of “Meet the Press,” died Friday after a sudden heart attack at the bureau, NBC News said Friday. He was 58.

Russert was recording voiceovers for Sunday’s “Meet the Press” program when he collapsed, the network said. He and his family had recently returned from Italy, where they celebrated the graduation of Russert’s son, Luke, from Boston College.

58 years old is way too young to go like this.  It’s terribly sad.

Obama has announced his vision for a new payroll tax on those top 3% of Americans making $250,000 or more.  Currently, social security payroll tax applies only to those making below $102,000. (more…)

Passing along the news to everyone…looks like McCain is going to answer some hard questions.  If I had television I’d watch it, but I guess I’ll have to surf YouTube and the blogs to get my dose of the Straight Talk Express… (more…)

Can Obama win the reddest of Red States, Utah? In this land of conservative Mormon voters, it seems quite unlikely. Still, it looks like the candidate is sending volunteers to woo these unlikely voters…

This on top of the fact that even some Democrats feel that they’re too conservative for Mr. Obama. (more…)

By Ryan P. Christiano

In an address before The House of Commons, on the 1^st of March 1848, Lord Palmerston declared: “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal, and those interests it is our duty to follow”. Which theory or theories of International Relations motivated the Iraq War, and more narrowly, inspired President Bush? The President’s State of The Union Address; four short months after the attacks of September 11^th, declared that a new ‘Axis of Evil’ exists in the world after 9/11. In the 2003 State of The Union Address, the President declared that America and her allies were the only things that stand between a world of peace, and a world of chaos and constant alarm; and that Iraq now threatened the world with chaos and constant alarm.

(more…)

Obama is the consumate flip-flopper–not due, I suspect, to dishonesty, but rather to naivete regarding foreign policy.  He’s just outspoken enough to say something foolish before his advisers can correct him.  Or rather, with his comment of full support for Israel’s claim to an undivided Jerusalem, just foolish enough to say something good and honest and true before his advisers have time to reel him in, like when he said

Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided

(more…)

Nobody says it quite like Meryl Yourish. And by “it” I mean, basically anything regarding Israel. Her candor is enviable, and her wit is razor-sharp. I’ve heaped praise on her before, but this time I just wanted to throw in a quick quotation–a little “rule” of sorts that I think applies here just as well as on her blog. (more…)

The floodgates of the media and blogosphere are about to erupt with a torrent of articles examining exactly why Sen. Hillary Clinton lost the Democratic Party’s nomination to Sen. Barack Obama when a year ago her coronation appeared to be the more likely outcome. All sorts of angles will be covered and there can be little doubt that a variety of things contributed to her narrow defeat. (more…)

~from Churchill’s Parrot

This March 17, while the civilized world dutifully besots itself in taverns the world over, Lefties will be taking their impaired judgment to the streets and parading it about for all the world to see. This March 17, you see, is especially significant to Lefties as it represents the 40th anniversary of the 1967 March on the Pentagon as well as the 4th anniversary of the start of the Iraq war. Massive demonstrations (such as these planned here and here) have thus been organized to commemorate the first and decry the latter: the “criminal invasion of Iraq.”

No doubt among these Lefties are a few who sincerely believe Bushie’s decision to invade Iraq was a something he concocted out of thin air at his ranch in Crawford, or a misguided attempt to avenge the attempted assassination of his father, or the desire to line his cronies’ pockets with oil money, or his unthinking allegiance to those neo-con Jews who just don’t like Arabs and were itching for a fight.

(more…)

There is an absurd notion floating (or perhaps burning wild-fire-like) throughout the anti-war camp that Iraq is some invention of the Bush Administration.  Now, while I have professed many times to having been a critic of our entrance into Iraq due to what I perceived as poor (and avoidable) timing, I take offense at the notion that somehow this is Bush’s war, pawned off on the American public and the US Congress alike in some epic hoodwinking–as though there was no lead-up whatsoever during the Clinton years.

This ignores history, of course, and parces quite selectively the situation in Iraq in ways that are utterly untrue. (more…)

By Julian Krasta

Now that the Democrats have, at long last, selected their nominee, “We” need to remind ourselves of long-standing facts concerning those persons we elected to public office. More importantly, the presidential candidates need to hear from us.

The United States is hovering closer to the thin edge of the wedge, because too large a percentage of the men and women we voted to represent our best interests – and those who will yet finagle to win our votes – are preoccupied in grudge matches for supremacy within their club quarters.

(more…)

In the context of the 2006 stalemate, progress in Iraq post-surge has been a success beyond what even the most optimistic of supporters of the invasion could have expected. The indicators are all pointing in the right direction- violence incidents at a 4 year low, the Iraqi army taking control of Sadr City and Basra, oil production rising, an expansion in Iraqi army and munitions, the flow of refugees reversed and the operational abilities and manpower of al-Qaeda severely damaged.

(more…)

~by Jillian Becker

I am a convinced law-and-order conservative, an eagerly practicing capitalist, an ideological libertarian. I accept enthusiastically the whole package of US Republican Party policy and sentiment - pro-America, pro-victory in Iraq, pro-gun, anti-abortion (with sensible reservations), pro-death penalty, pro-tax cuts, pro-smaller government, pro-spreading democracy and freedom throughout the world, pro-Israel, anti-welfare - all except one of its usual ingredients: belief in God. I do not accept God.

Quite simply, I cannot believe in God. I am old, past my three score years and ten, and decade upon decade I have read and listened, and there cannot be much that is old or new, famous, terse, verbose, smart, innocent, insidious, widely published or commonly uttered, learnedly debated or popularly discussed on the subject of God that I have not read or heard.

(more…)

First there was Rev. Wright with his “God Damn America” speech. Now we have a Catholic Priest, Father Pfleger, which is kind of a fun name to say out loud, mocking Clinton and white people in general.

The Georgetown Blog notes:

During his sermon, Father Pfleger mocked Hillary Clinton’s tears before the New Hampshire primary. He opines that she cried because she felt “entitled” because she is white “and there’s a black man stealing my show.” Father Pfleger apologized late Thursday for the remarks, saying his sermon was “inconsistent with Senator Obama’s life and message.”

Though after now two religious leaders at one very racist Church saying very anti-white things, you start to wonder if Obama’s message isn’t really more along the same lines, just better disguised. Indeed, Obama is a slick character, and who would honestly be surprised if his message wasn’t merely camouflaged beneath his hope & change rhetoric? (more…)

Neoconservatism has become a hot topic nowadays because of the its conflict with the fundamentals of Republican concepts and other polical philosophies. Unilateral use of force, the belief in preventive action to avoid threats, and the proactive dissemination of democracy are the three basis of neoconservatism. These beliefs create a rift with republican concepts which include abstinence from low tax cuts and indulgence to enormous government spending. Factors that will generally help citizens obtain heftier savings accounts and have financial transparency.

Interview: Douglas Murray

Neoconstant is delighted to welcome the leading British Neoconservative political commentator and author, Douglas Murray. In the year 2000, he became the youngest ever published biographer with his widely acclaimed ‘Bosie: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas’. However, it is probably his most recent book ‘Neoconservatism: Why We Need It’ that has seen his reputation and popularity soar. He’s also written articles for numerous newspapers and magazines across the globe including The Sunday Times and The New York Sun whilst his lectures, broadcasts and discussions have been featured on BBC radio and television, Sky and Fox, to name just a few. He is the director of the think-tank The Centre for Social Cohesion.

Mr. Murray, first of all thank you for taking time from your busy schedule to answer some of our questions. Your time and insight are very much appreciated. I’d like this interview to focus on what Neoconservatism really is, with the hope of sparking interest in our reader’s minds to research further and perhaps indeed, purchase your book.

Beaman - I personally had the great pleasure of reading your book on Neoconservatism; however for our readers who have not, would you please give a brief synopsis and your main reasons for writing the book?

Murray - Well it’s really my attempt to provide what I hope is a coherent and unified explanation of how I and other people broadly defined as ‘neoconservatives’ view the world. I give a history of neoconservatism’s origins and antecedents. Then an explanation of how this point of view moved from the academy into politics. This is really the ‘what neoconservatism is’ section.

Then in the second half of the book I try to demonstrate why the neoconservative impulse is vital at this moment in history, concluding with a kind of manifesto for British (and in the US edition American) neoconservatism. That’s the structure. But the drive of the book is really an attempt to put down a marker. Having observed the allegedly ‘anti-war’ left sink into what became in large part a pro-war, but pro-the-other-side-winning stance it seemed to me that a philosophical and practical explanation had to be attempted which identified not only the jihadist enemy, but also the disastrous relativistic bent of our time which has given that enemy some of its oxygen. Relativism has deeply damaged my own generation and greatly hindered our chances of defeating this or any future enemy.

The notion of being open to the idea that you or your society might be wrong seems to have transformed into the notion that we and our society could never be right or that anyone who assaults us must have a point. It seems to me that to deny the obvious supremacy of liberal-democratic values over the morals of, say, the Taliban, is a demonstration not of cultural generosity, but of nihilism. The book is an attempt to hit back at that, and an attempt to show that such nihilism is more than indulgent: it is suicidal.

Beaman - You mention in your book that a room full of Neoconservatives would be as likely to argue amongst each other as agree, except for a few basic but important points. What are these fundamental beliefs of “Neoconservatism”?

Murray - Broadly, neoconservatives would agree on the fact that liberal, democratic values constitute the most desirable end-point of human political striving - that accountability of the government to the people is not a luxury but something to be fought for. Much of this we would share with contemporary liberals. What differentiates the neocon from the modern-day liberal is the unanimously-held neoconservative belief that force can be used for the good, and that force should be used, where appropriate, to stand up for liberal-democratic values. Many conservatives agree with the occasional necessity of the use of force, but don’t agree with neoconservatives on using force to carry out regime-change or intervene in situations where a government is abusing its people. So neoconservatives stand at a curious place in the middle of the political debate – not to the far-sides of it as is often alleged, but rather in the middle, making common cause with lots of people for often differing reasons. The term ‘muscular-liberals’ has a slightly embarrassing and self-aggrandizing quality, but it might sum up the tendency best if we agree on using the term ‘liberal’ in the classical sense.

Beaman - Many people who claim to know what Neoconservatism is have never read the works of the German-born American political philosopher, Leo Strauss. How important is he to understanding what it means to be a Neoconservative?

Murray - Both important and not terribly important. To those of us who like to trace intellectual lineages, Strauss’ impact is fascinating. But I feel sorry for those who think that ‘Natural Right’ or ‘On Tyranny’ constitute some kind of invader’s handbook. Strauss’ writing is enormously esoteric and in my reading has very little in it which can be applied directly by those interested in governance. So on the one hand his impact is obscure. On the other, though, Strauss laid out a quite extraordinarily detailed refutation of twentieth-century relativism and his works stand like monoliths against the worst elements of contemporary philosophy. That was Strauss’ area. Strauss was a philosopher’s philosopher, not some wild Machiavellian (in the vulgar derogatory sense) interested in world domination. As I have often said, his political vision, if he had one, was simply to make the world safe. It is the ultimate expression of his Athenian pre-occupation. If people are interested in his impact then they would be best to go to his disciple (for once the term is apposite) Allen Bloom. Bloom extended the Straussian critique and made it applicable to the academy and indeed – through his teaching and writing – to Washington.

All this is fascinating to me, and I believe helps to explain how one strand of neoconservative thought found intellectual weight. But the reason I say that Strauss is also not terribly important is simply that most people who I would describe as neocon-ish have never read him and didn’t need to in order to arrive at their position. Most neocons arrive at their outlook through a process of being, as Irving Kristol famously put it, ‘mugged by reality’. This is how they will continue to emerge. Neocons will exist as long as people experience Damascene moments when they realize that liberalism as such is not enough, and that liberalism sometimes has to fight to defend itself if it is to be more than a mono-generational phenomenon. I can’t imagine today that many people will come to this point of view because they read Strauss first. For my part, I went to Strauss to find antecedents for views I already intimated.

Beaman - Shadia Drury, the prominent Canadian critic of Leo Strauss, labeled the Straussian ideology as a ‘cult’ and one that needs to be exposed to the world. What are your views on her work and why do those averse to Neoconservatism constantly bring up the ‘noble lie’?

Murray - She is a ludicrous figure, hardly worth the attention. If she didn’t have a chair at a university she would be a Brian Haw-style figure, squatting on some street-corner, wearing sandwich-boards covered with conspiracy theories, selling pencils from a cup. Her fleeting popularity is merely a reminder of the desire of a sadly perennial fringe to identify cliques and cults which run world-affairs from some secret control-room. For Drury it is Straussians who do this. Others follow the Bilderberger angle. Some pursue the lizards line. What they all have in common is an inability to distinguish fact from fantasy. It’s a first attempt by inadequates to imagine how the world works – with sinister and secretive sub-groups fitting in nicely to a world-view so ludicrous that it cannot be disproved to the satisfaction of the holder. As Swift once said, it is useless to attempt to reason someone out of an attitude which they were never reasoned into.

Beaman - I’m sure many readers, including myself, would like to know more about your personal political development. Are you a former “Liberal” ‘mugged by reality’ or have you always been seated in the Conservative camp?

Murray - Well it’s not easy to say. I find it much easier to analyze other peoples’ journeys than I do my own. I’ve never been a party-political man if that’s a key. I’m not tribal as it were. I’d say that I’m both a liberal and a conservative. I’d certainly identify as being on the liberal side of the spectrum in the American culture-wars (ie. pro-abortion, pro-gay-rights etc). But I’m also conservative in small ‘c’ ways. I’m in favour of a very small state, am a low-tax type etc. I suppose the key is that I want government to do very few things, and what I want it to do least is to believe that it can make many choices for me better than I could have made them for myself. However, those things that only the state can do (police, raise armies etc) I think it should be good at.

I think I was on the left for a while, and said it, as well as felt it. But it wasn’t a long-standing menage. I was very much in favour of the intervention in Kosovo whilst I was at university, and remember arguing its merits furiously to slightly bemused friends. I’m almost certain that I had a period before leaving university (and mercifully without going into print on the matter) in which I thought that the International Court and so on could answer most of our problems.

I suppose I do feel like I have been ‘mugged’. And I can identify a number of such muggings – mostly obvious. The first one was the realization that a genocide could go on in mainland Europe in the 1990s and that the world would do nothing to stop it. It was deeply shocking growing up in that period and realizing how hollow ‘never-again’ rang from then on. The inability of European countries to get to grips with the problem and the eventual saving-grace of American hard-power certainly made a great impression on me.

After that the main mugging I experienced was not so much the 9/11 attacks themselves, but the reactions of so-called liberals to those attacks – the desire to reach for justifications which were never asked for and provide excuses which were never requested. That was the period when – like a lot of the people who are now my comrades – I found myself falling out with my ‘liberal’ friends and allies. (Something I don’t mind, by the way. I’d rather not associate with apologists for clerical fascism.)

But perhaps more shocking to me, and genuinely and personally affecting were the twin-murders of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh (in 2002 and 2004 respectively) and the gradual surrender as I see it of a Dutch tolerance which I have much admired and which I think that country will lose. It is from Holland more than any other country that I learnt the sad truth that history can go backwards. Progress does not necessarily possess a pull like gravity.

Beaman - You were born in 1979. Critics could be forgiven for wondering whether your relatively young years might be an indication of youthful political idealism without the weathered experience of reality that older commentators could claim to hold. Could this be true? Have you found that your age has been held against you?

Murray - Yes it has been. But what can I do about it? I’m sure if I were 80 people would find a reason to criticize me as well.

For what it’s worth, far more than the allegation of youthful idealism I am told that I am world-weary, cynical and rather more burnt than 28-year olds are meant to be. I’m certainly fairly pessimistic about certain innate characteristics of human nature which I believe have to be contained. So no, I don’t think I’ve got much of a rose-tint on my spectacles. Of course I think I’m a realist, but then everybody does. And of course on some things I am idealistic. But then what am I idealistic about?

The right of all people – irrespective of race, religion, origin, creed or sex – to have possession of, and a say in the determination of, their own lives? The fact that I hold human-rights and liberal-rights to be universal?  The fact that in a battle between a dark-ages religious barbarism and every attainment of the modern state I don’t mind saying which side I’d like to win? If these things make me an idealist then I’m not sorry to be one.

Beaman - Like yourself, I have been asked about my heritage and religion when it comes to my support of Israel and certain American foreign policy. Plus there have been the slurs about ‘Jewish cabals’ at the heart of the so-called Neocon agenda. Do you think a lot of the hostility to Neoconservatism is connected to anti-Semitism?

Murray - A part of it certainly is. There are some prejudices that seem so able to transmogrify that it makes you fear that they might be perennial. If you’d told me ten years ago that we’d again hear some of the sub-Der Sturmer stuff we’ve heard played in a just slightly different key with a new twist of emphasis these last few years I don’t think I’d have believed you. But there it all is.

Mearshimer-Walt, the New Statesman covers, Independent-newspaper cartoons daily opinion-filth from the Guardian et al. And before you know it, there we are again with perfectly open explanations – in its 60th birthday year – for why the Jewish state won’t long be with us. It’s sickening, but we should call people out on it every time. Relentlessly. And pardon me if I question peoples motives by noticing that of all the injustices in the world somebody decides to single out only those actions which they believe are attributable to the one Jewish state. I know what such double-standards demonstrate. It is not equality: it is prejudice and racism.

Personally I am perfectly pleased when somebody asks if I am Jewish. Not just because I don’t think that it is an insult, but because I know how much more people give away than they mean to when they ask me the question. Many of them just can’t quite believe that anyone who isn’t Jewish would support the state of Israel’s right to exist. That’s their sickness not mine, but it’s interesting who gets more flack for their stance. What it must be like being one of these ‘critics’ of Israel, eternally filling up the acres of newspaper comments-pages with the self-pitying ‘critics of Israel are being silenced’ stuff. Do they have any idea how ridiculous they look? Or how definitively they contradict themselves every time they take to the airwaves or do a book-tour saying that nobody will listen to them. It takes a heart of stone not to laugh.

Beaman - In a recent interview with historian Michael Burleigh, he said “Terrorism as a tactic is, bound to fail.” Do you agree?

Murray - No I don’t. Terrorism is bound to fail when those being subjected to the terrorism are resolute and determined. Terrorism is bound to fail when the terrorists are identified, singled out, isolated and told in no uncertain terms that if they are determined to wage war on us then we will wage it back on them – and they will be the ones who lose. But I don’t think that is happening at the moment. As Jean-Francois Revel, among others, said, liberal democracies are the first societies in human history which, when attacked, ask what they did wrong.

In Britain we have a Home Secretary who has asked us to refer to Islamist terrorism as ‘anti-Islamic’ activity. And across the Western world our leaders, political and spiritual often seem to have spent the last seven years denying the root of the problem more busily than they have been tackling it.

It took one set of bombs to change the government of Spain. When the next big attack happens here in Britain, will the British people turn on their enemies and say: that stops right now, we don’t care for any ifs or buts, that won’t happen here. Will they say that even if, as I do not think is the case, this is all caused by our foreign policy, we will not allow terrorists to dictate our foreign policy?  Or will they decide it was all our fault, that we must have ‘provoked’ them, that it would never have happened if we forced Israel to cede the West Bank or Spain to give its bottom-half away or France to reverse the headscarf ban?  I’m not confident that I know which way we would go.  Terrorists fail when they try lacerating a society which is tough and resolute. But what about when they attack societies so riven with relativism that they’re willing to out-source their self-harm? That’s what worries me most. But it’s something we can sort out. It’s easier to cure ourselves than to get rid of the enemy. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do both.

Beaman - Finally, what does the future hold for neoconservatism in both America and Britain?

Murray - For left and right, neoconservatism has laid down the case which needs answering. Ideologically it has few competitors and there is no school that unifies people from such a wide range of the political spectrum. That said, we might have to avoid flaunting the term around for a while. There’s no doubt that the willful misrepresentations and misunderstanding of what neoconservatism is, as well as the desire to pin the strategic mistakes made in Iraq on the neocons have combined to blacken the term. But it doesn’t really matter what we call it. There’s never much point in arguing over nomenclature. What matters is that the case for democracy and universal rights as well as the refutation of the lies and misunderstandings of our enemies – at home and broad – continues. Most people who engage in this will not call themselves neoconservatives. Many of them will not realize that is what they are. That is fine. What matters is that the case is made – unashamedly, unapologetically and by as many people as possible.

Beaman - Douglas Murray, your expertise is much appreciated. Thank you.

Mr. Murray’s book can be purchased at Amazon.

Mr. Murray’s current commentary can be found at CentreRight.

Edward Beaman also writes at his blog, Beaman’s World.

By Andrew L. Jaffee, netwmd.com

I worked with a Shiite Muslim for seven years, probably one of the best customers I’ve ever had. I avidly follow true moderate Muslim commentators like Fareed Zakaria, [1] Kamal Nawash, [2] Fouad Ajami, [3] and Mansoor Ijaz. [4] I hold democratically-elected Muslim leaders like President Megawati Sukarnoputri of Indonesia with the highest regard. So I find it disturbing that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is a “media darling” claiming “itself as an advocate for Muslims’ civil rights and the spokesman for American Muslims” when it is indeed a Saudi-funded, Islamist front for whitewashing terrorism [7]. CAIR is far from moderate.

Chuck Schumer (D-NY) stated that CAIR’s leaders have “intimate links with Hamas” and that “we know CAIR has ties to terrorism.” [5] [6] [7] [8] [10] Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) called CAIR “unusual in its extreme rhetoric and its associations with groups that are suspect.” [6] [7] [9]

Nihad Awad, CAIR’s executive director and co-founder, [21] stated publicly, “I am in support of the Hamas movement,” [22] a group whose founding charter requires it to destroy Israel, i.e., to commit genocide. [23]

CAIR’s founder, Omar Ahmad, [24] stated publicly in California, “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.” [22] [25]

Randall Todd “Ismail” Royer, who served as CAIR’s communications specialist and civil rights coordinator, pled guilty to involvement with terrorist groups, to explosives and weapons charges, and to helping several people “gain entry to a terrorist training camp in Pakistan.” [7] [11] [12] [13] [14] Royer is now serving 20 years in prison. [7] [11]

CAIR’s Texas chapter founder, Ghassan Elashi, was convicted in July 2004 for illegally transporting computers to Libya and Syria, officially designated as state sponsors of terrorism. [7] [15] He was again “convicted in April 2005 of knowingly doing business with Mousa Abu Marzook, a senior Hamas leader.” [7] [16] Finally, “he was charged in July 2004 with providing more than $12.4 million to Hamas.” [7] [17]

Bassem Khafagi, “CAIR’s onetime community relations director, pleaded guilty in September 2003 to lying on his visa application and passing bad checks for substantial amounts in early 2001, for which he was deported.” [7] [18]

Rabih Haddad, “a CAIR fundraiser, was arrested in December 2001 on terrorism-related charges and deported from the United States.” [7] [19] He was involved in “financing Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.” [7] [19]

A one-time member of CAIR’s advisory board, Siraj Wahhaj, was named in 1995 by U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White “as one of the ‘unindicted persons who may be alleged as co-conspirators’ in the attempt to blow up New York City monuments.” [7] [20]

In one of CAIR’s most recent episodes, in which the group was named an unindicted co-conspirator during federal prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation, “…Documents introduced into evidence indicate both HLF and CAIR were part of a Muslim Brotherhood committee in the U.S. created to help Hamas.” [26]

CAIR has used litigation in an attempt to silence those trying to expose its ties to terrorism. [7] But the group has found the court room to be a double-edged sword. CAIR settled its lawsuit against Andrew Whitehead of Anti-CAIR (http://www.anti-cair-net.org/) [27]. CAIR-CAN dropped a similar suit against David B. Harris, Director of the International and Terrorist Intelligence Program, INSIGNIS Strategic Research Inc. [28] As Daniel Pipes pointed out:

…[CAIR] ran into a litigation buzz-saw, and it seems to have cut and run. CAIR preferred the ignominy of walking away from the case [against Anti-CAIR] it initiated rather than open to public scrutiny its finances, its list of supporters, and the beliefs and intentions of its key leaders. [27]

Unfortunately, there are droves of people who either know nothing of CAIR or, on the other extreme, are eager to tolerate the group merely because the word “Islam” is included in its organization’s name. Are good citizens to sit back while this Islamist front-group runs roughshod over the U.S. Constitution?

I strongly encourage readers to write letters to the editor of their local newspapers whenever CAIR is mentioned, and remind citizens of the group’s scary agenda. Use the references provided here when you speak out.

Think globally, act locally. You may not get published at the Washington Post, but you may be able to expose CAIR on the local level.

Suggested Reading

• *Anti-CAIR* Defending America from the Council on American-Islamic Relations
• CAIR Exposed
• Getting to Know the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)

References

[1] David Kemker, “PEACEMAKER HERO: DR. FAREED ZAKARIA,” The My Hero Project, Laguna Beach, CA, 6/18/2004, http://myhero.com/myhero/hero.asp?hero=Dr._Fareed_Zakaria.

[2] Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism, Washington, DC, info@freemuslims.org, http://freemuslims.org/.

[3] Fouad Ajami, “Iraq and the Arabs’ Future,” Foreign Affairs, Palm Coast, FL, January/February 2003, http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20030101faessay10218/fouad-ajami/iraq-and-the-arabs-future.html.

[4] Mansoor Ijaz, “Islamic truths,” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, CA, February 18, 2006, http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ijaz18feb18,0,6492979.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions.

[5] Ben Johnson, “Tides Foundation and Tides Center - Excerpted from 57 Varieties of Radical Causes,” DiscoverTheNetwork.org, September 2004, http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/articles/Tides%20Foundation%20and%20Tides%20Center1.htm.

[6] Mychal Massie, “We have right to know truth about CAIR,” WorldNetDaily.com, Inc., Grants Pass, OR, August 16, 2005, http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45799.

[7] Daniel Pipes and Sharon Chadha, “CAIR: Islamists Fooling the Establishment,” Middle East Quarterly, PHILADELPHIA, PA, SPRING 2006, VOLUME XIII: NUMBER 2, http://www.meforum.org/article/916.

[8] FDCH Political Transcripts, Sept. 10, 2003.

[9] Evan McCormick, “A Bad Day for CAIR,” FrontPageMagazine.com, Center for the Study of Popular Culture, Los Angeles, California, September 24, 2003, http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=9981.

[10] Christopher Orlet, “The Nation’s Pulse - A Phony Fatwa,” The American Spectator, Salt Lake City, UT, 8/3/2005, http://tas.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=8532.

[11] “RANDALL TODD ROYER AND IBRAHIM AHMED AL-HAMDI SENTENCED FOR PARTICIPATION IN VIRGINIA JIHAD NETWORK,” Press Release, U.S. Department of Justice, WASHINGTON, D.C., APRIL 9, 2004, http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2004/April/04_crm_225.htm.

[12] “Va.-based terror members plead guilty,” USA TODAY, Gannett Co., Inc., McLean, VA, 1/16/2004, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-01-16-terror-group_x.htm.

[13] “Guest CV - Ismail Royer,” Islam Online, Doha, Qatar, http://www.islamonline.net/livedialogue/english/Guestcv.asp?hGuestID=605R88.

[14] “Muslims win rights in MO, VA, NE, and NJ: Store owners apologize to Muslim customer,” Action Alerts, Council on American-Islamic Relations, Washington, DC, 7/17/2001, http://www.cair-net.org/default.asp?Page=articleView&id=89&theType=AA.

[15] “ELASHI BROTHERS CONVICTED,” Press Release, U.S. Department of Justice, DALLAS, TEXAS, JULY 8, 2004, http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/txn/PressRel04/elashi_conv.pdf.

[16] “Brothers Found Guilty of Funding Hamas,” FOXNews.com, FOX News Network, LLC, New York, NY, April 13, 2005, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0%2c2933%2c153402%2c00.html.

[17] “HOLY LAND FOUNDATION, LEADERS, ACCUSED OF PROVIDING MATERIAL SUPPORT TO HAMAS TERRORIST ORGANIZATION, Press Release, U.S. Department of Justice, JULY 27, 2004, http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/txn/PressRel04/HLF_ind_release_doj.pdf.

[18] “PLAINTIFFS’ MORE DEFINITE STATEMENT/ADDITIONAL ALLEGATIONS AS TO DEFENDANT COUNCIL ON AMERICAN-ISLAMIC RELATIONS (CAIR) AND CAIR-CANADA,” UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK, IN RE TERRORIST ATTACKS ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, Civil Action No.: 03 MDL 1570 (RCC), September 30, 2005, http://www.anti-cair-net.org/OneillVsCAIR.pdf.

[19] “FROM THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS: Treasury Department Statement Regarding the Designation of the Global Relief Foundation,” PO-3553, U.S. Department of the Treasury, Washington, DC, October 18, 2002, http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/po3553.htm.

[20] Daniel Pipes, “CAIR: ‘Moderate’ friends of terror,” New York Post, New York, NY, April 22, 2002, http://www.danielpipes.org/article/394.

[21] “Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Board Member: A Short Biography,” Council on American-Islamic Relations, Washington, DC, http://www.cair-net.org/default.asp?Page=Board&person=Nihad.

[22] John Perazzo, “Hamas and Hizzoner,” FrontPageMagazine.com, Center for the Study of Popular Culture, Los Angeles, California, March 5, 2003, http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=6473.

[23] “Hamas, Islamic Jihad: Palestinian Islamists,” Terrorism: Questions and Answers, Council on Foreign Relations, New York, NY, Updated: October 2005, http://cfrterrorism.org/groups/hamas.html.

[24] “Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Board Member: A Short Biography,” Council on American-Islamic Relations, Washington, DC, http://www.cair-net.org/default.asp?Page=Board&person=Omar.

[25] Art Moore, “Should Muslim Quran be USA’s top authority? Paper stands by story citing ‘mainstream’ leader pushing for Islamic America,” WorldNetDaily.com, Inc., Grants Pass, OR, May 1, 2003, http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=32341.

[26] “HLF’s Financial Support of CAIR Garners New Scrutiny,” IPT News, The Investigative Project on Terrorism, October 12, 2007, http://www.investigativeproject.org/article/513.

[27] Daniel Pipes, “CAIR Backs Down from Anti-CAIR,” FrontPageMagazine.com, April 21, 2006, http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3511.

[28] Andrew L. Jaffee, “A Bad Week for CAIR,” netwmd.com, LLC, April 25, 2006, http://netwmd.com/blog/2006/04/25/560.

General Legal Reference

“TEXT FROM LAWSUIT RESPONSE - VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE CITY OF VIRGINIA BEACH,” COUNCIL ON AMERICAN-ISLAMIC RELATIONS, INC.: Plaintiff, v. ANDREW WHITEHEAD: Defendant, Law No. CL04-926, http://anti-cair-net.org/Response.html.

“Trust but verify.” Those were the watchwords of President Ronald Reagan when he embarked upon the historic series of negotiations with the Soviet Union that would culminate with the START I Treaty designed to reduce the numbers of nuclear weapons deployed by the United States and Soviet Union. Today a tempest in a teapot has ensued over President Bush’s remarks before the Israeli Knesset comparing negotiations with hostile foreign dictators as tantamount to Neville Chamberlain’s alleged “appeasement” of Adolph Hitler at Munich in 1938. (more…)