CAIR And Litigation
(All emphases by Always On Watch)
One of my previous articles reported on the mutually-agreeable dismissal of CAIR’s lawsuit against Andrew Whitehead of Anti-Cair. In the April 21, 2006 edition of Front Page Magazine, Daniel Pipes gives additional details as to the sequence leading to the dismissal of CAIR’s case. Excerpt:
"In anticipation of a court hearing regarding discovery, Rubinstein [attorney for Andrew Whitehead of Anti-CAIR] filed papers in the Virginia Circuit Court in October 2005 and December 2005 alleging extensive links between CAIR’s organizers and control group with Hamas and other foreign and domestic Islamists. Among other things, these papers alleged:Here is a rather comprehensive list of other litigations initiated by CAIR. According to the list, the following two cases were also dismissed recently — not in favor of CAIR:• CAIR’s lineage goes back to a key Hamas leader (Musa Abu Marzook), and that CAIR has long been connected with, and 'exploited' the 9/11 attacks to raise money for the Holy Land Foundation, a Hamas front group."CAIR refused to respond to Anti-CAIR’s discovery requests in its November 2005 response to Rubinstein. For example, it did not admit that Hamas murders innocent civilians, it refused to disclose the identities of its Saudi donors, it declined to answer whether it aims to convert American Christians to Islam, and it avoided questions about the anti-Semitic and anti-American activities of its founder and executive director, Nihad Awad, including his communications with Hamas terrorists, speeches supporting suicide bombings, and advocacy of violence against Jews.
• CAIR is heavily supported, financially and otherwise, by suspect Saudi and UAE-based individuals and groups.
• CAIR states that the U.S. judicial system has been 'kidnapped by Israeli interests,' and claims that anti-terror law enforcement action against the Holy Land Foundation was 'an anti-Muslim witch hunt' promoted by 'the pro-Israel lobby in America.'
"In March 2006, shortly before a scheduled court hearing to decide on several of Whitehead’s requests (compelling CAIR to disclose its financial data, to answer questions about its relationship with Hamas and other Islamists, and to provide information regarding its leaders’ activities and intentions), the case was settled and then dismissed with prejudice by stipulation (meaning, the plaintiff has agreed to forever drop all of the claims that were in, or could have been in, the complaint).
(1) "CAIR vs. Cass Ballenger. Ballenger, a North Carolina Republican congressman, called CAIR 'the fund-raising arm for Hezbollah' and raised the possibility that it would try to blow up the Capitol Building. CAIR responded with a $2 million defamation suit.These cases — the law suits targeting Andrew Whitehead, Cass Ballenger, and David Harris — seem to indicate that CAIR cannot stand up to scrutiny of its financial ties. Isn’t it time to more fully investigate ties which CAIR appears to desire to avoid discussion of?
"[On April 11, 2006, a] three-judge federal appeals court panel in Washington (made up of David Sentelle, Judith Rogers, and Thomas Griffith) ruled unanimously to uphold Leon's March 2005 decision to dismiss CAIR's case.
(2) "CAIR-Canada vs. CFRA and David Harris. Harris, a former Canadian Security and Intelligence Service agent, mentioned on April 1, 2004, on radio station CFRA's morning show, Madeley in the Morning, that 'there are a number of officials and former officials of CAIR-USA who are now in custody and who are serving sentences on terrorist-related offences, to which. I might add, they have pleased guilty.' Harris called on the Globe and Mail, where Sheema Khan of CAIR's Canadian office writes regular column, 'to at least clarify where exactly CAIR-Canada fits in this larger picture.' On June 24, 2004 CAIR in Canada sued Harris and CFRA for libel.
"[On April 12, 2006 this] case was dismissed…by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice without costs. Harris commented to me that 'CAIR-CAN got no apology, no 'clarification,' and, most certainly, no money.
"He also pointed out that 'CAIR-CAN's rather exaggerated claims of what I said make a nice juxtaposition with its cold dropping of the case. It quite obviously didn't fancy a messy court episode. I asked an important question of public interest, and got a law suit in response. Now, it's time for some answers.'"
For additional information about CAIR's influence within our government and our society, go here. The dhimmitude is astounding!
Recently,
"The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida has elected the head of CAIR, Parvez Ahmed, to its board. As the CAIR press release explains, 'CAIR and the ACLU have cooperated on a number of issues at the national level.' (March 8, 2006)"According to this April 14, 2006 article in the Buffalo News, the FBI is partnering with CAIR:
"A representative for the Council on American-Islamic Relations - America's largest Islamic civil liberties group - was moderating a town hall meeting with the Federal Bureau of Investigation on a local American Muslim cable network with national reach.In light of the recent dismissals of CAIR's law suits, the FBI and DHS need to investigate what CAIR really stands for and particularly scrutinize CAIR's financial records for ties to terrorist organizations. CAIR's lobbying power should be squashed as well.
"The program represented the first time the FBI appeared in an open question-and-answer segment moderated by a Muslim advocacy group on a domestic, Muslim-themed cable channel....
"Moderator Adnan Mirza, director of CAIR's Ohio chapter,...pointed out that CAIR has had long-standing relationships with the FBI, whose staffers routinely speak at smaller community events that are hosted by the Muslim civil rights group....
"The FBI town hall program will air on Bridges at 8 p.m. May 15. Bridges is available locally on Adelphia for an additional charge. The program will be rebroadcast by the U.S. State Department on U.S. Embassy television stations."
Addendum from CAIR's web site:
"CAIR National Board Member Dr. Ahmad Al-Akhras offered a lecture this week to more than 1000 cadets, staff and faculty at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. The event was part of the academy's "Diversity Lecture Series."
"Dr. Al-Akhras also participated in an evening session at which he was able to answer questions on a variety of issues related to Islam, Muslims and international events...."
posted by Always On Watch @ 4/21/2006 08:55:00 AM
28 comments
28 Comments:
CAIR is bad news. They are just a front and shill for Islam. Tryint to put a pretty face on the veil it wants to spread in the USA. Until President Bush realizes this, we could be in big trouble. Even Lybia's Khadaffi (not spelled right) yesterday said that soon the US and Europe would be governed by Islam... Let's hope he isn't right.
There is absolutely NO reason not to take CAIR to task and go after their funding, their backers and their staff. They want to use the courts to "defend" their indefensive BS? Fine, lets turn that around and file on them.
The US has already reached the apex of its development; like the Roman Empire before us, we are now in a period of decline as a great nation. The forces against us may have originated from outside our borders, but the conquerors of our land will come from among those who are living within our borders. We have no one to blame but ourselves.
Holy Crap. What started out as good news (dismissal of suits) descended into a very depressing picture. We need to stay on this and I didn't expect any better from the ACLU - but WEST POINT??!! The FBI??!!
*sigh* I think I need a drink...
Mustang,
I'm inclined to agree with you.
The minute John Walker Lindh began his regimen of 3 hot meals a day and a place to stay, heavily guarded by armed men entrusted with ensuring his detention is safe from the angry mob rather than that minute being the moment his cold, dead flesh filled a hole in the ground after being executed for treason is the minute I lost faith that anyone is serious about anything.
John Walker Lindh wasn't executed (or even charged) for a clear case of treason, and John Ashcroft is a fascist?
All leftists should have their brains blown out. It's not like they're using them.
the minute I lost faith that anyone is serious about anything.
It certainly does make a mockery of the system.
We allowed people who openly promote destruction of western democracy to run universities (and education in general), public service and justice system.
And they are not even being elected - they have permanent positions for which we (taxpayers) pay.
CAIR might be losing a few court battles but...have a look at this website: http://cyberedtech.fau.edu/mso/events.htm
Missing Link,
That link you provided goes to Florida Atlantic University, where Dr. Walid Phares teaches. A real irony, huh?
GM,
They want to use the courts to "defend" their indefensive BS? Fine, lets turn that around and file on them.
CAIR very much doesn't want certain aspects to come out in open court. Where is an organized group to take them on--a group which won't settle for bucks, but will push the information to the forefront?
Monica R,
What started out as good news (dismissal of suits) descended into a very depressing picture.
The dismissal of the law suits is a good development and exposes CAIR's soft belly. Yet our government goes blindly on and "bonds" with CAIR, which looks more and more like a terrorist organization. Our politicians even attend CAIR's functions. ARRGGHHH!!!
Brooke might be right--time to break out the hard stuff?
Mustang,
I, too, think it's very likely that the United States is on the wane. It doesn't have to be, though. A turn-around requires real guts, and I see that Americans today are soft.
I hope to be gone before the worst sets in, but lately I've been having doubts as to the timing I was hoping for.
Mr. Beamish,
I wish you hadn't brought up John Walker Lindh. Tending to him on the taxpayers' backs makes me furious--even more furious than I ever was about Charles Manson's life sentence.
All leftists should have their brains blown out. It's not like they're using them.
Now, there's something to smile about!
Debbie,
CAIR is bad news. They are just a front and shill for Islam.
And they fund all those "education" programs, which are nothing more than deception.
Thanks for updating this important story.
I wondered what the terms of the settlement might entail and this is certainly VERY INTERESTING!
Hopefully, the outcome of this case, and the interesting questions it raises will inspire others to dig deep.
Though I won't hold my breath until I read about it in the New York Al Queda Times.
Only post-modern America would tolerate a group like CAIR in time of war; can you imagine a German or Japanese rights group performing the antics of CAIR during WWII?
How can we claim to be serious about this war and yet allow our enemies free run of the country?
It doesn't have to be, though. A turn-around requires real guts, and I see that Americans today are soft.
I fear you are correct, AOW!
One of the problems we all have as humans is the inability to perceive building phenomena in their early stages. We can be very well aware of the current we find ourselves in, but not the counter-current building--which will reach a critical mass then overwhelm the current. The cultural decline so obvious in contemporary America looks for all the world like the decline of a great country, headed for extinction. Since the future has neither been written nor foreordained, this is indeed a possbile outcome, and a gloomy one at that. But, humans have free will, volitional consciousnesses, and at least in America the extraordinary capacity for change, as well as a freedom legacy never available prior to the Enlightenment. So, the end of America need not be so.
The counter-current is there, and it is building. Like certain phenomena of the quantum physics world, evidence of it is not easily available. Yet, it is still there. For example, during the Enlightenment, the anti-Enlightenment counter-current operated and eventually snuffed out the Enlightenment as a dominant cultural force. This very day, we are living with the dregs of that anti-Enlightenment counter-current which became the main current and is causing all of what we see as national decline. Take heart, it is on the way out.
The new counter-current is a chip off the old Enlightenment block. Some of the best very recent evidence came in this week as a magazine, The New Individualist. This link can lead anyone to some of that information. I promise: surprise after surprise.
Brooke said...
"*sigh* I think I need a drink..."
Make that a double...
Mr. Beamish the Instablepundit said...
"All leftists should have their brains blown out. It's not like they're using them."
LOVE THAT!
Always On Watch said...
"CAIR very much doesn't want certain aspects to come out in open court."
Hmmm...I have to wonder if that doesn't sound like a plan...
Timothy Birdnow said...
"Only post-modern America would tolerate a group like CAIR in time of war; can you imagine a German or Japanese rights group performing the antics of CAIR during WWII?
How can we claim to be serious about this war. . ."
Timothy,
I think you've nailed it; WWI and WWII were actually wars de jure, where Congress made it official. This so-called "war" is different. Congress has not only not declared war, but our government refused even to name the enemy.
Our refusal to name the enemy and declare war against it is a very strong measure of how seriously we take the whole issue.
A formal declaration of war carries with it significant legal solutions to many of the problems we face here, from "leaks" to the intent to win.
We get discouraged, there's no doubt about it, but I still believe there is a solution. Remember, it only takes the support of 10% of a population to establish a "movement," and frankly, I seriously believe, hidden behind doors and in nooks and crannies, at least 10% of the population has the same concerns that we do.
It may be enough to start a third party movement, since I think we all realize that the current two major parties don't have a clue and won't do anything. If some brave politicians who "get it" (and there actually are some!) will step up to the plate in time, I really think that we could elect one of them to the Oval Office.
Even if that didn't happen, I bet there would be enough of a ripple in the pond to get people to start thinking.
If there are enough of us who are pissed off enough to break away from both Democrats and Republicans, I think it could be done, despite the best efforts of the Republicrats to try to stop it.
When people are pissed, things begin to happen; I can't forget the Ross Perot incident. He might have won if he hadn't withdrawn, and rumors were flying fast and thick that he withdrew "under duress."
My guess is that he suddenly realized he might actually get the job, and so he withdrew.
Anyway, take a look around at the "few good men" who "get it" and who, if we got behind them, might actually get the job of president.
Try not to be discouraged. It ain't over 'til it's over.
Cubed,
You're right: It ain't over 'til it's over.
My previous employer frequently commented on my tenacity: "You're like a dog with a bone. You just worry it and worry it."
I guess that I am indeed bull-headed. But when I see a problem, it's in my nature to try to solve it. As a teacher, I'm of the diagnostic-and-prescriptive type, and I think I'm the same way in the other aspects of my life as well.
It kills my soul to write this, but we need to emulate everything CAIR does, only with the proper orientation for our side. We don't have to struggle to find "the way." CAIR has demonstrated it, and they have become effective because they have learned to play (1.) people's weaknesses, and (2.) non-objective law to their fullest advantage. As a result, the morally uncertain release their bowels and bladder contents when they hear about CAIR coming. Jesse Jackson used to do the same thing until he became a laughing stock. The only positive thing I can say about CAIR is that they have learned how to get their way magnificently. Now, it is our turn!
Being 50 and looking at the difference between the way things were when I was a wee lad and the way they are today, I must confess to the sensation of looking at a whirlwind -- so much change in so few years.
It wasn't all that many decades ago that we(by that, I mean both the American people and our political leadership) referred to our enemies as enemies, period. Law Enforcement and federal security agencies were permitted(hell, expected) to do the job we payed them to do. If they had to be a tad heavy handed in certain extreme cases to protect our country, well...
Somewhere along the line, the left and the trial lawyers that represent them managed to turn our judicial system into a PC circus, a great cartoon that transforms even the worst monsters and enemies of all we as Americans stand for into victims, effectively putting our system on trial in each case as though law abiding, patriotic Americans were the offenders. It's like a game for intellectuals whose outlooks on life are based more in fantasy than in reality, and this madness has become an institution.
Here we now have a marxist-founded organization like the ACLU and a terror-supporting Islamofascist org like CAIR, both Enemies of the State, as it were, being treated with deference by the very institution that's supposed to be protecting us against them, and politicians who definitely have to know the score, given their sources of information, are giving them priority over the wellbeing of the same people who put these parasite politicians in office.
As a Jew, I'm especially appalled at the idea that rabbis are inviting these same enemies of Israel into their synagogues, but I'm not surprised. We are, after all, a religion of intellectuals. The fact that these idiots also advocate taking away our firearms, despite hard experience in places like Warsaw circa 75 years ago and are the first to welcome the enemy into the same houses of worship they want to destroy only reinforces my belief that lemmings will soon become the mascot of my religion, as they seem to have become among the jellyfish on the Hill.
Mustang is right, if our destruction is imminent, it will come from within.
We conservatives hold the majority not only in the House and Senate, but among the population, but our elected officials are off on a tangent that neither considers our interests as Americans nor gives a good g-damn what we think... We seem to be back where we started, in an era of taxation without representation.
You speak to the strengths of our Republic, Seth. Our country tolerates dissent, but it is the responsibility of our people and government to ensure that we uphold our democratic principles. That means we reserve the right to speak out and organize against those who use their rights granted by their citizenship against their own country. We have the same rights that they do. This is a Republic that is ruled by popular consensus and it is up to us to continue that tradition.
The existence of the ACLU and CAIR is a testiment to the fact that our country is not fascist like Leftists accuse. We allow a Marxist-influenced organization to promote its anti-American agenda under the guise of protecting civil liberties.
Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Syria, Baathist Iraq, the Taliban, Iran and all of our enemies would never tolerate such a thing in their countries.
It is posts like yours that remind me of how tolerant we really are and how just our cause is.
Our enemy looks at this situation and sees it as a sign of weakness. I see it as a sign of our strength and many other citizens of the US feel the same way. Therefore we are motivated to serve our Republic on our own freewill.
Seth,
Thank you for stopping by. Your comment makes several important points, but I'll address just one.
Interfaith dialogues among Jews, Christians, and Muslims are doomed to fail, as far as the preservation of the West is concerned. See The Futility of Interfaith Dialogue.
Freedom Now,
We allow a Marxist-influenced organization to promote its anti-American agenda under the guise of protecting civil liberties.
That guise must be torn away if our nation is to survive.
Our present strength: we have a freed press and freedom of speech.
Undermining weakness: the msm have sold out to the left.
Typo!
"freed press" = "free press"
Bloggers many glitches this morning make proofreading so tedious.
George Mason,
It kills my soul to write this, but we need to emulate everything CAIR does, only with the proper orientation for our side....The only positive thing I can say about CAIR is that they have learned how to get their way magnificently. Now, it is our turn!
Time for law suits AGAINST CAIR? And proclamations of certain "phobias" as well, in the name of civil rights?
AOW --
Thanks for the great link.
On your reply to George Mason, why not? It might be nice to be able to accuse CAIR, its supporters and all too many of our own politicians of infidelophobia. :-)
The reason we dont have riots like France, even though the divide is deeper between us and our opposition than it is in France, is because our opposition feel like they have a voice. Many people are familar with the phrase, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer".
However, lawsuits against CAIR would be fair because they rely heavily on legal intimidation themselves. But it doesnt hurt to let the mouse roar. Give them a political voice and they also assume political responsibility for their actions. Something Hamas is having difficulty with at the moment.
Democracy has strengths that fascists like bin Laden cant even comprehend.
The reason we dont have riots like France, even though the divide is deeper between us and our opposition than it is in France, is because our opposition feel like they have a voice. Many people are familar with the phrase, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer".
However, lawsuits against CAIR would be fair because they rely heavily on legal intimidation themselves. But it doesnt hurt to let the mouse roar. Give them a political voice and they also assume political responsibility for their actions. Something Hamas is having difficulty with at the moment.
Democracy has strengths that fascists like bin Laden cant even comprehend.
Freedom Now,
it doesnt hurt to let the mouse roar
To a point. But CAIR intimidates the media and even certain entertainment shows (Remember Fox's 24 and the change in the story line?). Worse, CAIR has a powerful lobby; many politicians, including Senator John Warner of VA, attend their banquets. Also, the White House listens to CAIR and, therefrom, we get the pap from GWB about Islam and hints that we're Islamophobic to recognize the internal threat.
Terror-Free Oil,
Thank you so much for those links. I'll be adding your link to my blogroll.
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