Monthly Archives: March 2007

6 imams, Aviation Security, CAIR

Shut up or CAIR will sue you into poverty

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On their blog yesterday, USA Today published an editorial deriding the inclusion of “John Doe” as a defendant within the lawsuit filed against US Airways by the 6 flying imams. In part, USA Today wrote (all emphasis added is mine):

“If you see something, say something.” Since the terror attacks of 9/11, that common-sense message has been displayed prominently worldwide for obvious reasons.
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Their lawsuit, filed earlier this month, accused the airline and Metropolitan Airports Commission of anti-Muslim bias. That was expected. What’s unique and especially troubling, though, is the effort to identify an unknown number of passengers and airline employees who reported suspicions so they might also be included as defendants. For example, the imams want to know the names of an elderly couple who turned around “to watch” and then made cellphone calls, presumably to authorities, as the men prayed. This legal tactic seems designed to intimidate passengers willing to do exactly what authorities have requested — say something about suspicious activity.
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It shouldn’t have to come to that, especially if a judge has the wisdom to throw out the complaints against the “John Doe” passengers before they’re identified. As for ethnic profiling — the reprehensible practice of discriminating solely based on ethnicity — this incident doesn’t qualify. The imams were tossed off the plane because of suspicious behavior, which obviously can’t be ignored. Suing passengers who merely report such behavior threatens everyone’s ability to travel securely.

In part, Arsalan Iftikhar, the national legal director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, responded:

The lawsuit by the imams is seeking damages from US Airways for their alleged discrimination. It is not against any passengers who reported “suspicious” activity in good faith, even when that “suspicious” behavior includes religiously mandated prayers.

However, political cherry-pickers insinuate that the lawsuit punishes travelers who report suspicious activity. Nothing could be further from the truth. American Muslims are committed to the security of our nation. The six imams are signatories to an Islamic fatwa (religious decree) that states: “It is the civic and religious duty of Muslims to cooperate with law enforcement authorities to protect the lives of all civilians.”

Reporting suspicious criminal activity to law enforcement authorities does not absolve anyone from the responsibility to be factual. False reporting is criminal. We want to find out whether these “John Does” made other false claims against the imams — not just that they were praying, however ignorant complaining about that might be.

Once allegations are made, it becomes the responsibility of the airline to discern between peaceful prayers and passenger endangerment. Government officials have repeatedly stated that racial profiling is an ineffective law enforcement technique.

As Americans, we deserve security based on intelligence and evidence — not paranoia, false reporting, bigotry and witch hunts at 32,000 feet.

In other words, anytime someone reports suspicious activity that involves a Muslim and authorities do not criminally charge the reporters with filing a false report and publicly identify them, CAIR will promote and bankroll an exploratory lawsuit.

What is odd about CAIR’s response is they forgot to mention that last year CAIR received a $50 million dollar grant from Dubai “to help promote the image of Islam in America.” CAIR missed an opportunity to drive the point home by telling everyone they have all the money they need to sue you into poverty.

Guantanamo, Islamofascists, Lawfare

David Hicks is a terrorist

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Pleads guilty to one count of providing material support to terrorism

‘Australian Taliban’ is a misnomer for David Hicks.

After September 11, David Hicks traveled from Pakistan to Afghanistan with other foreign terrorists and fought US and Northern Alliance forces. It is important to set the record straight, to know what he pled guilty to, past all the misleading statements. For years now, his PR team has proffered up David Hicks’ father who passed his son off as only a misguided youth yet numerous reports and his own father’s statements indicate Hicks dropped out of school at 14, abused drugs, and stole cars before twice volunteering for the jihad. While his lawyers downplayed David Hicks’ role, the evidence shows he trained and fought as a terrorist.

Before September 11, David Hicks met Osama bin Laden at least eight times. Hicks complained to bin Laden that terrorists training manuals were not in English and volunteered to translate them from Arabic. Those translations were intended to train other al Qaeda who only spoke English for the jihad.

While visiting Pakistan, Hicks learned of the September 11 attacks and applauded them. He soon traveled to Afghanistan and fought against US and Northern Alliance alongside other “foreign” fighters for two months until captured.

In 2000, Hicks joined and trained with Lashkar-e Tayyiba or LET (also know as Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Army of the Pure):

“…learning guerrilla warfare, weapons training (including landmines), kidnapping techniques, and assassination methods. In a March 2000 letter, Hicks told his family “don’t ask what’s happened, I can’t be bothered explaining the outcome of these strange events has put me in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir in a training camp. Three months training. After which it is my decision whether to cross the line of control into Indian-occupied Kashmir.” In another letter on August 10, 2000, Hicks wrote from Kashmir, claiming to have been a guest of Pakistan’s army for two weeks at the front in the “controlled war” with India. At the time, Lashkar-e-Toiba was an Islamic fighting group that had widespread support in Pakistan. It had a reputation for being focused on fighting India in Kashmir but was also accused of attacks against Indian civilians. After the September 11, 2001 attacks and its banning as a terrorist group by Pakistan in January 2002, Lashkar-e-Toiba fragmented and branched out into sectarian violence. Lashkar-e-Toiba was banned in Australia in 2003.”

David Hicks also trained and fought in Afghanistan:

“…attended a number of al-Qaeda training courses at various camps around Afghanistan, including an advanced course on surveillance, in which he conducted surveillance of the US and British embassies in Kabul, Afghanistan”. They claim that, on an occasion when al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden visited an Afghan camp, Hicks questioned bin Laden about the lack of English in training material and subsequently “began to translate the training camp materials from Arabic to English”. Hicks wrote home that he’d met Osama bin Laden 20 times, later telling investigators that he’d exaggerated. He’d seen bin Laden about eight times and spoken to him only once. Prosecutors also allege Hicks was interviewed by Muhammad Atef, an al-Qaeda military commander, about his background and “the travel habits of Australians”. The US Department of Defense statement claimed “that after viewing TV news coverage in Pakistan of the Sept 11, 2001, attacks against the United States, [Hicks] returned to Afghanistan to rejoin his al-Qaeda associates to fight against US, British, Canadian, Australian, Afghan, and other coalition force. It is alleged Hicks armed himself with an AK-47 automatic rifle, ammunition, and grenades to fight against coalition forces… Hicks spoke to his parents from just outside the southern Afghan city of Kandahar in November 2001. “He said something about going off to Kabul to defend it against the Northern Alliance,” Terry Hicks said.”

David Hicks pled guilty yesterday. He is not some poor, misguided youth whose only crime was guarding a disabled Taliban tank. The media conned you, his lawyers misled you, and his PR team spun you.

David Hicks is a convicted terrorist.