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February 21, 2007

Gaffney Takes on Norquist's Terrorist Ties Again

Frank Gaffney is going after Grover Norquist again. Back in 2003, Gaffney wrote "A Troubling Influence," in which he documented Grover Norquist’s activities in behalf of the Islamist Fifth Column. His new post looks at Norquist's role in the candidacy of Suhail Khan for a position on the Board of Directors of the American Conservative Union.

The casual observer might think nothing of the candidacy of a fellow named Suhail Khan for election to one of two open seats on the Board of Directors of the American Conservative Union — the political Right's largest and most influential grassroots umbrella organization. Certainly, for most Americans, the man's faith would be of no interest. If the fact that Khan is an adherent to Islam were even known, it probably would be seen as an asset — another Muslim-American seeking to become more involved in the political process just like, for example, Rep. Keith Ellison, the Muslim convert who recently won a Minnesota seat in the House of Representatives.

Something else appears to be at work here, however. The tip-off is the fact that anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, who sits on the ACU Board, is promoting Khan's candidacy. Even that association, however, could be construed as nothing more than a calculated effort by a skillful conservative operative to insinuate a reliable ally into a useful post as the former struggles to overcome the damage done to his reputation and influence — and that of the Republican Party — by his scandalous collaboration with convicted felon Jack Abramoff.

Unfortunately, there seems to be another and more insidious motivation for the Khan candidacy — one of a piece with a longstanding, if largely hidden, Norquist agenda that I first documented in these pages over three years ago.

Gaffney then goes on to examine Suhail Khan's ties to Islamic terrorism:

- Kahn's "father, as head of a Wahabbi mosque in California, had hosted Osama bin Laden's number two man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and raised money for him."

- "[A]s a member of the White House staff — a position Norquist engineered for him — [Kahn] authorized radical Islamists to meet with President Bush."

- Kahn's parents and oldest brother, Suhail "played prominent roles in several organizations associated with the Wahhabi strain of Islamism."

- Kahn's father helped establish the pro-Hamas, pro-terrorism Muslim Student Association, which recruits and indoctrinates college students on American college and university campuses, and served on the governing council of MSA's Islamic Society of North America, which "promotes the Islamist agenda."

- An arm of MSA, the North American Islamic Trust, helped finance a mosque founded by Khan's father in Orange County. "Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman — better known as the Blind Sheikh, who was later convicted in connection with the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993," visited this mosque in December of 2002 to raise funds for the "jihad" against the enemies who had "united themselves against Muslims."

- Khan's father established the Masjid An-Noor Mosque which, according to the FBI, "was the site of two fund-raising trips on behalf of the radical Islamist terror group known as Islamic Jihad. The solicitation was made by the man who is now Osama bin Laden's Number 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri."

- Khan's mother was a Board member of the California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. CAIR was created by a "'high-ranking Hamas operative Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook,' who is wanted on federal terrorism charges. … [F]our of CAIR's executives have been successfully prosecuted on terrorism-related charges." Senator Charles Schumer has said of CAIR, "we know [it] has ties to terrorism."

- Khan has "repeatedly been a featured speaker at … CAIR events, as well as those of other problematic groups, including … the Islamic Institute. … The Islamic Institute was established by Grover Norquist in 1998 with $20,000 in seed money from Abdurahman Alamoudi (who is currently serving a 23-year federal sentence for terrorism-related activities). II is the principal vehicle for the Islamists' influence operation aimed at the Bush Administration and Republican and conservative circles. Norquist was its founding president; Alamoudi's long-time deputy, Khalid Saffuri, was its first executive director; and II's offices continue to be housed in the downtown Washington office suite rented by Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform. … People now serving hard time like Abdurahman Alamoudi and Sami al-Arian were at various points among those Khan, Norquist and Saffuri considered appropriate for courting by the Bush team. Others were individuals, like Jamal Barzinji, a board member of several Islamist-sympathizing organizations that were raided and investigated by the FBI on suspicion of fundraising for terrorists."

It is hard fully to calculate the magnitude of the damage done by the pro-Islamist influence operation run by Grover Norquist and his friends. Law enforcement agencies have been forced to receive "sensitivity training" from the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Norquist has lent conservative political cover to those who would weaken our counter-terrorism authorities and techniques. He has helped place into positions of trust and official responsibility people whose often-undisclosed past associations at least raise questions about their reliability.

In short, thanks in part to the Norquist operation, America's enemies have been emboldened. And the United States is at considerably greater risk.

It is time, once and for all, for conservatives to take a hard look at what Norquist and his associates have been doing in the guise of Muslim "outreach."

Well, I don't know whether there is anything to these terrorist connections, though since Gaffney first exposed them over three years ago, Norquist and Khan have utterly failed to address his concerns. It may be that Gaffney is a racist and it may be that he just holds a grudge against Norquist for some reason. Personally, I think there is a little of that and a lot of reason to be concerned, as well. But if Gaffney's concerns about terrorism get conservatives to finally reconsider their relationship with Norquist, then his calls for scrutiny of Khan's suspicious ties to terrorism are fine by me.

Oh, and speaking of Republican ties to terrorists ...

Posted by Becky at February 21, 2007 10:47 AM