The enemy among us

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Current News - Homefront Preparations : One Thread

THE ENEMY AMONG US

July 2, 2002 --

Ten months after 9/11, too many officials remain reluctant to address head-on the question of how much support for terrorism exists within the U.S. Muslim community.

Efforts at the worthy goal of reassuring Muslim-Americans that their community isn't being stigmatized have left many government officials suddenly sharing a platform with known supporters of Islamic terrorism.

Last week, for example, FBI Director Robert Mueller shamefully chose to address the American Muslim Council - willfully ignoring that group's well-established links to supporters of anti-U.S. terrorism.

And now it turns out that the spiritual leader of the Islamic community in Albany, New York's state capital, was named by federal prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Moreover, reports the Albany Times-Union, Sheikh Muhammad al-Hanooti is identified in a 49-page FBI memo as "a big supporter of Hamas" who has raised more than $6 million on the blood-soaked group's behalf.

Those are profoundly troubling allegations.

Though he denies the fund-raising charges and insists he has condemned terrorism, there is no denying al-Hanooti's links to the mastermind and perpetrators of the 1993 bombing.

At the time, he was the imam of a Jersey City mosque where the notorious blind cleric, Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, delivered his incendiary sermons and where WTC bomber Mohammed Salameh regularly prayed.

In fact, al-Hanooti at one time wrote a letter of recommendation for Salameh, whom he now calls "naive."

Dale Watson, head of the Counterterrorism Division, wrote the FBI memo. It notes that al-Hanooti "was an active Hamas supporter" who raised significant funds through the Holy Land Foundation - which was recently shut down by the Bush administration as a Hamas front.

He also reportedly was a top official of another alleged Hamas front, the Islamic Association for Palestine.

According to the Times-Union, members of his former mosque in Virginia say that during the Persian Gulf War al-Hanooti delivered disturbing lectures that condemned the United States.

Ironically, his speeches have been featured on the Voice of America network - as an example of Arab moderation.

Al-Hanooti contends that if he'd done anything illegal, he would have been arrested and prosecuted.

Perhaps.

But the fact remains that Islamic terrorism has established a foothold in this country through the support and encouragement of people like Sheikhs Rahman and al-Hanooti.

The threat, unfortunately, has not disappeared since Sept. 11. Which means that this is a subject that can't be relegated to the background for fear of insulting a community.

If this is taken as an attempt to assign guilt by association, so be it.

There's a war on.

-- Anonymous, July 02, 2002

Answers

A war that may have been designed to bring about the Big Brother government to 'save' us.

-- Anonymous, July 02, 2002

Moderation questions? read the FAQ