Robert Spencer: Islamic Congressional Candidate in Minnesota has ties to CAIR, Approved of Hamas

By way of Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer's article at Front Page Magazine examines the connection to CAIR, Hamas and terrorism of Minnesota congressional candidate Keith Ellison.

Keith Ellison (D-MN) is shaping up to be the first-ever Muslim member of Congress, and the mainstream media is treating his candidacy as a huge human-interest story and a triumph of multiculturalism.

Of course, not all is rosy: the Monitor notes that “conservative bloggers” and Ellison’s Republican opponent, Alan Fine, have raised questions about Ellison’s alleged ties to the Nation of Islam, as well as about a number of unpaid parking tickets that led to the suspension of his drivers’ license. But the Monitor doesn’t mention the most troubling aspect of Ellison’s record: the support he has received from the Council on American Islamic Relations.

Journalist Joel Mowbray has been virtually the only journalist who has pursued this connection, exploring in a recent column “Mr. Ellison’s seemingly tight connection with Nihad Awad, co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), whom he met almost two decades ago at the University of Minnesota.” Mowbray reports that “Mr. Awad headlined a fundraiser last month that the campaign estimates netted $15,000 to $20,000, and in July, and it appears that CAIR’s co-founder bundled contributions totaling just over $10,000. (The campaign issued a terse denial on the latter point, though it refused to explain away overwhelming evidence to the contrary.)” Faced with this evidence, Ellison’s backers have “attempted to paint attacks on the candidate as overtly partisan or even bigoted. A Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist, for example, recently suggested that Mr. Ellison is under attack solely for being Muslim.”

More dhimmitude from the liberal media. Sigh. If we could only get them to connect the dots:

What is so troubling about Ellison’s connection with Awad and CAIR? Mowbray quotes the assessments of two leading Democrats: Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois has declared that CAIR “is unusual in its extreme rhetoric and its association with groups that are suspect.” New York Senator Charles Schumer, once said that CAIR “has ties to terrorism” and that Ellison’s supporter Awad has “intimate connections with Hamas.” Mowbray establishes the latter point from Awad’s own mouth, quoting his 1994 statement: “I’m in support of the Hamas movement.”

CIAR has a pattern of support for terrorist groups by not condeming them outright:

When did CAIR stop supporting Hamas? On Monday I searched the CAIR website for “Hamas.” There are three possible searches: News Briefs, Action Alerts, and Press Releases. Only News Briefs turned up anything at all: an old article from Haaretz attacking Ariel Sharon.

So if CAIR now condemns Hamas, where is it saying so? Just in the lower paragraphs of articles about other subjects? We can’t even get one press release about it? Not one Action Alert calling on Muslims everywhere to condemn Hamas?

Before Minnesotans elect Keith Ellison to Congress, they need to know the answers to these questions.

Indeed, Robert, we all need to know before we elect ANY muslim to elective office, unless we want to start the not-so-long march down the road to shar'ia and the new caliphate.

Read the complete article here.

Who Should Apologize? Why, Roserferatu!

In an article published Sept. 26, Kirsten A. Powers at the American Prospect says the Pope is the wrong one apologizing for their remarks:

Rosie’s -- and apparently “The View” audiences’ -- fear of “radical Christians” makes clear they understand neither fundamentalist Christianity nor radical Islam. Whatever criticisms one can make of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell -- and there are many -- fundamentalist Christians are not flying planes into buildings in the name of God, nor are they plotting to blow up ten airplanes over the Atlantic Ocean. Radical Muslims are threatening and slaughtering “infidels” around the world. They murdered Theo Van Gogh and drove a member of the Dutch government into exile for their perceived slights against Islam. In Iraq, they recently kidnapped a Catholic priest and tortured him. They kidnapped and beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. It was reported today that Safia Amajan -- a fierce critic of the Taliban's repression of women -- was murdered in the street in Afghanisan. It's believed she was targeted by Taliban militants because of their opposition to women taking part in politics and education.

In just the last few years, Islamic terrorists have targeted and murdered Westerners in the bombing of the Madrid subway; the bombing of the London underground; and the bombing of an Indonesian night club. They murdered almost 3,000 people on 9-11. They killed 240 U.S. Marines in Lebanon in 1983. In 1993, they bombed the World Trade Center, killing 17 and injuring more than a thousand people. In 2000, they bombed the USS Cole, killing 17 Americans.

Rosie’s beef with Christian opponents of gay marriage would presumably pale should she find herself living in many Islamic countries. Perhaps she missed former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami’s speech at Harvard recently saying that, “Homosexuality is a crime in Islam and crimes are punishable. And the fact that a crime could be punished by execution is debatable.” And he’s considered a reformer.

Read the entire article here.

H/T to Texas Hold Em Blogger, who notes:

A side note: according to Allahpundit, the Catholic League requested permission from The American Prospect to republish this piece and was denied.

Guess why?

Kiera McCaffrey, director of communications for the Catholic League, contacted The American Prospect today requesting the right to republish the September 25 article by Kirsten A. Powers, “Who Should Apologize?”, in the November edition of Catalyst, the league’s monthly journal; the Powers piece was printed in the online edition of the magazine. Jahan Salehi, an agent for the publication, spoke to McCaffrey saying he would check out the Catholic League website and get back to her. After perusing our site, he said he would recommend honoring our request, noting, however, that officers at The American Prospect wanted time to consider the matter. Salehi asked if the Catholic League held the same teachings as the Church on issues like abortion, and McCaffrey said yes.

Shortly afterward, Salehi called back to say that our request was denied. He specifically said that it was the Catholic League’s stance on abortion and gay rights that accounted for the rejection.

Nice big tent they have over there at The Prospect. Wonder how this column ever got published in the first place, considering it doesn’t toe the line of dhimmitude.

Amen, brother, a-a-a-a-a-a-men.

WND: 'Suicide bombers follow Quran,' concludes Pentagon briefing

Well, Duh!

Pentagon "Motivations of Muslim Suicide Bombers" briefing reaches the same conclusions as many, many others: They want to kill us because of their religion! Maybe they're finally beginning to connect the dots.

From WorldNetDaily:

With suicide bombings spreading from Iraq to Afghanistan, the Pentagon has tasked intelligence analysts to pinpoint what's driving Muslim after Muslim to do the unthinkable.

Their preliminary finding is politically explosive: it's their "holy book" the Quran after all, according to intelligence briefings obtained by WND.

In public, the U.S. government has made an effort to avoid linking the terrorist threat to Islam and the Quran while dismissing suicide terrorists as crazed heretics who pervert Islamic teachings.

"The terrorists distort the idea of jihad into a call for violence and murder," the White House maintains in its recently released "National Strategy for Combating Terrorism" report.

But internal Pentagon briefings show intelligence analysts have reached a wholly different conclusion after studying Islamic scripture and the backgrounds of suicide terrorists. They've found that most Muslim suicide bombers are in fact students of the Quran who are motivated by its violent commands – making them, as strange as it sounds to the West, "rational actors" on the Islamic stage.

In Islam, it is not how one lives one's life that guarantees spiritual salvation, but how one dies, according to the briefings. There are great advantages to becoming a martyr. Dying while fighting the infidels in the cause of Allah reserves a special place and honor in Paradise. And it earns special favor with Allah.

See the entire article here.

These Pentagon 'experts' could have saved themselves a bunch of time by reading books like "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)" by Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch. Or follow the blogosphere.

Maybe we can start to make some progress now on this 'clash of civilizations.'