Katherine Kersten: Suspicion about imams grows as terror links pile up

Kudos to the Star Tribune's Katherine Kersten for being one of the few journalists who actually passed Journalism 101 by exposing Flying Imam Omar Shahin with his pants down, and by bringing to light tough issues the American public needs to confront CAIR with.

You can read the entire article here. Thanks to Little Green Footballs for bringing it to my attention.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the imams' legal representative,
is an organization that "we know has ties to terrorism," Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said in 2003. And the Muslim American Society, which is also supporting the imams? It's the American arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, according to the Chicago Tribune, which called it "the world's most influential Islamic fundamentalist group."

How about Omar Shahin, the imams' spokesman and also president of the
North American Imams Federation? He is a native of Jordan, who says he became a
U.S. citizen in 2003. From 2000 to 2003, Shahin served as president of Islamic Center of Tucson (ICT), that city's largest mosque.

[...]

The Washington Post described these links in a 2002 article. "Tucson
was one of the first points of contact in the United States for the jihadist
group that evolved into al Qaeda," the Post reported. And the ICT? It held
"basically the first cell of al Qaeda in the United States; that is where it all
started," said Rita Katz, a terrorism expert quoted by the Post.

But wait. Let's give Shahin a chance to defend himself:

Shahin has downplayed the ICT's connections to terrorism. The mosque should
not be held accountable for former members who may have engaged in terrorism
after they left Arizona, he told the Post in 2002. Al-Qaida nests in America?
"All of these, they make it up," he told the Arizona Republic shortly after
9/11.

How ignorant of me. Of course it was the Jews. Why do you think Joe Kaufman (an undercover Mossad... Shh! Don't tell him or he'll have to kill us all!) won't let go of you?! He's afraid you're going to expose the Mossad's role in 9/11. MUHAHAHAHAHA...!

Go shove your filthy anti-Semitic remarks elsewhere. The American people are smarter than to sympathize with the likes of you, let alone believe your wild claims that Muslims didn't commit 9/11.

Like it or not, Muslims committed the 9/11 attacks. Does that mean Islam is a religion of terror? Not if the 'moderates' stand up against this the same way they protested the Pope's remarks, or the Danish cartoons.

Mr. Shahin, can you not at least admit that today's jihadis make use of your holy book to justify their terrorism? Can you not at least promise to tackle these people who are, well, misrepresenting your peaceful faith? Isn't that worth protesting over, as opposed to some silly Danish cartoons? Grow up.

"The mosque should not be held accountable for former members," he says? Let's read on and see:

But dubious activity continued when Shahin became ICT president. For example, the mosque raised thousands of dollars for an Islamic charity called the Holy Land Foundation in 2001, and Shahin served as the charity's Arizona coordinator, according to the Associated Press. Holy Land "collects funds for widows and orphans and needy people," he told the AP.

See? We're Islamophobic! How dare we accuse this gentlemean who wants to fund the poor and needy of terrorism?!

Actually, that's more taqiyya from his part:

In December 2001, the Treasury Department froze Holy Land's assets, citing its funding of the terrorist organization Hamas' efforts to recruit suicide bombers.

Read it all.

Please don't forget to thank Kersten with an e-mail message. You can also comment on her article here.

If CAIR truly does have the American public in its best interest, its members should have no trouble refuting Kersten's article (and other well-documented facts about them) - that is, without resorting to intimidation tactics like, well, waving their Islamophobia cards (ad hominen fallacy), or launching lawsuits against the Star Tribune.

Come on, CAIR. Stop hiding and defend yourselves with logic. Stop your peaceful form of jihad known as dhimmitude. The light of truth is shining, and as much as it hurts the eyes of those who want to stay in the dark, it is still there and it will prevail.

Just you wait.