Tag Archives: Osama Bin Laden

Nigeria ablaze

By David McCormack

It was hoped by many that President Bush’s meeting today with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo augurs a stronger relationship between the United States and Africa’s most populous country. The reality, however, is that a situation exists in Nigeria in which threats to U.S. interests are creating tremendous impediments to a viable partnership. If the U.S. does not act quickly, these challenges will become insurmountable.

Religious Strife

Most significantly, Nigeria — home to 60 million Muslims, roughly half the country’s population — has become one of the central battleground of Islamofascism’s war on Africa. Over the course of the last 30 years, foreign sponsors — namely Saudi Arabia, but including Iran and Libya — backed by treasuries overflowing with petrodollars have systematically exported extremist interpretations of Islam to the African subcontinent, significantly corroding the region’s temperate and progressive Islamic traditions.

Nowhere has the impact of this campaign been felt more greatly than in Nigeria. In the shake-up that followed liberation from military rule in 1999, twelve predominantly Muslim states in northern Nigeria took advantage of the central government’s weakened position and adopted legal codes based on full Shari’a. Characteristics of these Shari’a states include the severe marginalization of women and the institutionalization of punishments such as flogging and death by stoning. The new laws, moreover, are often applied regardless of a citizen’s faith and enforced by vigilante organizations modeled on those of Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The impact of the Islamist advance was on display recently (although it was almost entirely missed by the media) when violence ostensibly sparked by the publication of cartoons unflatteringly depicting the Prophet Muhammad claimed more lives in Nigeria than in the rest of the world combined. Sadly, the latest round of Muslim attacks followed by Christian reprisals only mimics on a tiny scale the pattern of violence that has gripped the country since the northern region’s Islamist turn. Most credible studies, in fact, suggest that 6,000 people have been killed in interfaith fighting since 1999.

While Western observers have been slow to recognize the dire implications of Islamofascism’s advance in Nigeria, America’s enemies have not. In a May 2003 tape, Osama bin Laden named Nigeria as one of six states "most eligible for liberation." And perhaps in a sign of times to come, in early 2004 a group of 200 militant Islamists calling themselves the "Taliban" waged a brief insurgency intended to establish an independent Muslim state along Nigeria’s border with Niger Republic. Only after several weeks of murder and conquest was the insurrection put down by the Nigerian army. The thought that U.S. foreign policy might have to contend with an Islamist state sponsor of terrorism based in West Africa is indeed frightening, though not farfetched given the state of affairs in Nigeria.

Ethnic Conflict

Despite the ferocity of religious turmoil in the country, it may not be Nigeria’s most immediate problem. Last month, the Movement for Emancipation of the Niger-Delta (MEND) — an ethnically-based militia operating in Nigeria’s oil-rich southern region — launched "Operation Dark February" (which carried over into March), promising to bring about an "Armageddon in the Nigerian petroleum history".

To make good on that promise, MEND destroyed an offshore loading platform and trunk line of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) and kidnapped nine of the company’s foreign employees (including three Americans). Fearing continued attacks, SPDC announced it was temporarily shutting down operations that will amount to a production loss of 455,000 barrels per day — 19 percent of Nigeria’s output.

Unless competition for oil revenue — which accounts for roughly 20% of GDP, 95% of foreign exchange earnings, and 65% of budgetary revenues — by various ethnic groups can be mitigated, oil-driven attacks on the world’s eighth largest exporter and fifth largest supplier to the United States will likely continue apace, with devastating consequences for the U.S. and global economy. Given the Nigerian government’s abject failure to date to find a resolution, however, there is little reason to be optimistic.

China’s Charge

Absent communal friction, Nigeria’s energy sector would still prove highly problematic for American interests. Communist China’s global drive to dominate strategic energy resources has naturally attracted it to sub-Saharan Africa, from which it currently imports nearly 30 percent of its oil and natural gas. The PRC’s presence, unfortunately, has greatly abetted the scourge of Africa — corruption. As Mustafa Bello, head of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, recently admitted, "The U.S. will talk to you about governance, about efficiency, about security, about the environment….The Chinese just ask, ‘How do we procure this license?’"

Not surprisingly, then, Nigeria has been increasingly receptive to PRC energy forays. For instance, in its first major investment since its failed bid to take over Unocal last year, the Chinese state-controlled oil company CNOOC announced last month it will pay $2.3 billion for a 45 percent stake in a Nigerian oil field. As Iheanyi Ohiaeri, head of business development for Nigeria’s National Petroleum Corporation, explains, "We haven’t been totally invaded by China yet, but it will come."

Political Unrest

If the aforementioned matters weren’t enough to complicate the landscape, the government may face a rebellion in the very near term over an attempt to amend the constitution to permit those brought to power in the democratic elections of 1999 — including President Obasanjo — to serve a third term in office.

This is hardly a trivial development in a country ruled by strongmen throughout its post-colonial history. Mirroring the general understanding of Nigerian public opinion, an editorial in the independent newspaper Vanguard recently claimed officials are "haunted by the fear that a successor…may call them to account like they have done [to] others. The third term promoters would prefer to die in office than quit to face the reckoning of their own conduct in office." Already, public hearings on the constitutional review have sparked demonstrations that in some cities saw as many as 20,000 take to the streets.

To be sure, Obasanjo’s government has, by and large, been an ally of the United States, especially with regard to the war on terror. Nevertheless, the Bush Administration would do well to quietly prod Nigerian leaders to step down at the end of their second term to assuage the Nigerian public’s fear that a strongman will return to rule over them — and perhaps to hedge against that very occurrence.

The Bottom Line

This volatile mix of Islamofascist activity, ethnic division, and natural resources so abundant in Nigeria makes the country America’s greatest strategic concern in Africa. U.S. policy toward Nigeria — and Africa in general — has thus far, unfortunately, been one of general apathy, costing America dearly in terms of its strategic position.

Fortunately, a promising vehicle already exists by which the United States might safeguard its interests along with those of Nigeria and its neighbors. Established last summer, the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Initiative (TSCTI) — partnering the U.S. with nine African countries — brings to bear the resources of the U.S. departments of Defense, State and Treasury along with those of the U.S. Agency for International Development, offering not only services such as expanded joint military training but also developmental assistance aimed at promoting good governance and encouraging the growth of civil society. However, TSCTI’s modest budget of $100 million per year is sure to limit its effectiveness.

Of course, the United States will need to do much more to secure its interests, such as increasing its miniscule public diplomacy budget for the region, and invigorating state-to-state diplomacy to deny foreign states the opportunity to advance harmful agendas. More than anything, America must awake to the fact that Nigeria — along with much of Africa — is an important piece of the international security framework.

What if we lose?

Three years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq swept away the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, eroding public support for the mission – fueled by the persistent negativity of political elites and the mainstream media – is endangering the consolidation of that country’s liberation. As a forceful editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal warns, this pessimism "threatens to become a self-fulfilling prophesy if it goes unchallenged."

If not convinced that things are going well by three successful rounds of democratic elections, an absence of the civil war so often predicted by naysayers, and an increasingly capable Iraqi security force, the Journal asks the American public to consider the implications of a premature withdrawal of U.S. forces that would include:

 

    Broader Middle East instability. Absent America’s deterrent effect, countries of the region would to a much greater degree attempt to establish spheres of influence beyond their own borders, while Iran’s mullahocracy could not be coercively dissuaded from acquiring nuclear weapons.

    The loss of credibility with Muslim reformers. If the Iraqi people’s quest for freedom is betrayed, the United States would permanently lose the support of the majority of Middle Eastern Muslims who favor democratic government.

    More terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. A retreat in Iraq would convince terrorists of the effectiveness of their tactics and of America’s weakness, emboldening them to again strike the U.S. homeland.

The Journal editorial reflects a column in yesterday’s Washington Times by Center for Security Policy President Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., who explained that Iraq is a vital front in the war against Islamofascists "determined to destroy the Free World, whose nations, values and institutions are seen as impediments to the global triumph of the Islamists’ preferred, Taliban-style religious rule." Clearly, there can be no accommodation with this totalitarian ideology, either at home or abroad.

 

What if we lose
Wall Street Journal, 22 March 2006

The third anniversary of U.S. military action to liberate Iraq has brought with it a relentless stream of media and political pessimism that is unwarranted by the facts and threatens to become a self-fulfilling prophesy if it goes unchallenged.

Yes, sectarian tensions are running high and the politicians of Iraq’s newly elected parliament are taking a long time forming a government. But the attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra several weeks back has not provoked the spiral into "civil war" that so many keep predicting. U.S. casualties are down over the past month, in part because Iraqi security forces are performing better all the time.

More fundamentally, the coalition remains solidly allied with the majority of Iraqis who want neither Saddam’s Hussein’s return nor the country’s descent into a Taliban-like hellhole. There is no widespread agitation for U.S. troops to depart, and if anything the Iraqi fear is that we’ll leave too soon.

Yet there’s no denying the polls showing that most Americans are increasingly weary of the daily news of car bombs and Iraqi squabbling and are wishing it would all just go away. Their pessimism is fed by elites who should know better but can’t restrain their domestic political calculations long enough to consider the damage that would accompany U.S. failure. A conventional military defeat is inconceivable in Iraq, but a premature U.S. withdrawal is becoming all too possible.

With that in mind, it’s worth thinking through what would happen if the U.S. does fail in Iraq. By fail, we mean cut and run before giving Iraqis the time and support to establish a stable, democratic government that can stand on its own. Beyond almost certain chaos in Iraq, here are some other likely consequences:

 

  • The U.S. would lose all credibility on weapons proliferation. One doesn’t have to be a dreamy-eyed optimist about democracy to recognize that toppling Saddam Hussein was a milestone in slowing the spread of WMD. Watching the Saddam example, Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi decided he didn’t want to be next. Gadhafi’s "voluntary" disarmament in turn helped uncover the nuclear network run by Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan and Iran’s two decades of deception.

    Now Iran is dangerously close to acquiring nuclear weapons, a prospect that might yet be headed off by the use or threat of force. But if the U.S. retreats from Iraq, Iran’s mullahs will know that we have no stomach to confront them and coercive diplomacy will have no credibility. An Iranian bomb, in turn, would inspire nuclear efforts in other Mideast countries and around the world.

     

  • Broader Mideast instability. No one should underestimate America’s deterrent effect in that unstable region, a benefit that would vanish if we left Iraq precipitously. Iran would feel free to begin unfettered meddling in southern Iraq with the aim of helping young radicals like Moqtada al-Sadr overwhelm moderate clerics like the Grand Ayatollah Sistani.

    Syria would feel free to return to its predations in Lebanon and to unleash Hezbollah on Israel. Even allies like Turkey might feel compelled to take unilateral, albeit counterproductive steps, such as intervening in northern Iraq to protect their interests. Every country in the Middle East would make its own new calculation of how much it could afford to support U.S. interests. Some would make their own private deals with al Qaeda, or at a minimum stop aiding us in our pursuit of Islamists.

     

  • We would lose all credibility with Muslim reformers. The Mideast is now undergoing a political evolution in which the clear majority, even if skeptical of U.S. motives, agrees with the goal of more democracy and accountable government. They have watched as millions of Iraqis have literally risked their lives to vote and otherwise support the project. Having seen those Iraqis later betrayed, other would-be reformers would not gamble their futures on American support. Nothing could be worse in the battle for Muslim "hearts and minds" than to betray our most natural allies.

     

  • We would invite more terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. Osama bin Laden said many times that he saw the weak U.S. response to Somalia and the Khobar Towers and USS Cole bombings as evidence that we lacked the will for a long fight. The forceful response after 9/11 taught al Qaeda otherwise, but a retreat in Iraq would revive that reputation for American weakness. While Western liberals may deny any connection between Iraq and al Qaeda, bin Laden and the rest of the Arab world see it clearly and would advertise a U.S. withdrawal as his victory. Far from leaving us alone, bin Laden would be more emboldened to strike the U.S. homeland with a goal of driving the U.S. entirely out of the Mideast.

    We could go on, but our point is that far more is at stake in Iraq than President Bush’s approval rating or the influence of this or that foreign-policy faction. U.S. credibility and safety are at risk in the most direct way imaginable, far more than they were in Vietnam. In that fight, we could establish a new anti-Communist perimeter elsewhere in Southeast Asia. The poison of radical Islam will spread far and wide across borders if it can make even a plausible claim to being on the ascendancy, and nothing would show that more than the retreat of America from Iraq.

    We still believe victory in Iraq is possible, indeed likely, notwithstanding its costs and difficulties. But the desire among so many of our political elites to repudiate Mr. Bush and his foreign policy is creating a dangerous public pessimism that could yet lead to defeat — a defeat whose price would be paid by all Americans, and for years to come.

    • Too little surveillance?

    Decision Brief                                       No. 06-D 07                               2006-02-06


    (Washington, D.C.): This is being written in a bedroom in Los Angeles once occupied by 2nd Lieutenant J.P. Blecksmith, a 2003 Naval Academy graduate and Marine who died for his country fighting to liberate Fallujah in the Fall of 2004. A larger-than-life picture of this magnificent young American provides both inspiration and a somber reminder of the context for another battle now breaking out in a Senate hearing room far from the fallen hero’s California home, but on the front lines of the War for the Free World.


    At this writing, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is fighting to preserve a national capability whose indispensability those in uniform, like the late Lt. Blecksmith, would appreciate intuitively: the ability to monitor enemy communications with sufficient speed and efficiency so as to be able to act on the intelligence to defeat our foes.


    That the communications in question happen to penetrate our borders underscores an unhappy fact. Our enemies have been able to place operatives – and to develop the infrastructure needed to support them – inside the United States .


    Battlefield Intelligence, by Any Other Name


    The Bush Administration calls this battlefield intelligence collection effort the Terrorism Surveillance Program (TSP). It is the subject of hearings that will likely go on for some time in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Some of the committee’s members – notably its chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter, and its Democratic members led by Sen. Pat Leahy – however, prefer to portray this initiative as the mainstream media typically does, namely as “warrantless domestic spying.”


    The Attorney General’s job in explaining and defending this vital signals intelligence (“sigint”) program is made considerably more difficult by two realities: 1) Despite the unauthorized disclosure of its existence last December by the New York Times, the Terrorism Surveillance Program run by the National Security Agency (NSA) remains highly classified. And 2) the more the enemy knows of about its capabilities, the less useful the TSP will be in detecting and thwarting the attacks here at home that they have told us are in preparation.


    The Law is not the Issue


    As a result, the hearings will presumably largely focus on matters of law – the constitutional authorities of the executive and legislative branches, the relevance of several statutes – including the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the 2001Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) – and various legal precedents. To a layman, a few points seem disposative:


    First, this president, like previous commanders-in-chief, has the constitutional responsibility to conduct battlefield surveillance in time of war. This includes, as the Attorney General put it to the Judiciary Committee “warrantless surveillance aimed at detecting and preventing armed attacks on the United States .” Such inherent authority has been explicitly recognized by, among others, the Clinton Justice Department. (See Andrew McCarthy’s splendid series of articles on the subject and citations at www.nationalreview.com.)


    Second, the Congress effectively amended FISA with its adoption of the Authorization for the Use of Military Force when it authorized the President to “use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks.” Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, whose wisdom on the bench is frequently cited by those now critical of the Terrorist Surveillance Program, ruled for the majority in the 2004 Hamdi vs. Rumsfeld case. She found, among other things, that the AUMF authorized all “traditional incidents of waging war” – including “incidents” like detaining combatants (and intercepting communications), even though they were not explicitly mentioned in the legislation.


    Not Enough Surveillance


    The real question that should be asked at the present Judiciary Committee hearings – and that will surely be posed when there is another attack is: Did the Bush Administration engage in sufficient surveillance, not too much? Was it wise, in a concession to civil libertarians, to restrict the use of the NSA’s “sigint” tools, first, by requiring that one of the parties must be outside the country and, second, that they are tied to al Qaeda or an associated group?


    What if a terror cell is already up-and-running inside the United States and, therefore, both parties are here? The government may not have sufficient evidence to get a warrant to monitor their communications either, just “reasonable grounds” for suspicion. Do we really want to remain ignorant of what might be afoot?


    And what if the cell in question is tied to Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Tabligi Jamaat or Hamas, rather than al Qaeda? Would such Islamofascist organizations be eligible for monitoring, or not deemed sufficiently al Qaeda-associated to qualify? Even operatives working on behalf of al Qaeda may have no clear ties to that increasingly “virtual” network; Osama bin Laden is not known to have issued party cards to members of his terrorist team.


    The Bottom Line


    It may seem expedient at the moment for Senators to posture for the benefit of the New York Times‘ editorial board and to pander to the American Civil Liberties Union. They will be judged by history, though, for whether they asserted authority not theirs and, in so doing, denied the President authority legitimately his under the Constitution and the post-9/11 congressional resolution. Heaven help them if, worse yet, they manage in the process to compromise the sources and methods by which vital battlefield signals intelligence is captured.


    Should that be the case, the legacy will be to set the stage for another, unintercepted attack – and, by popular demand, for vastly greater infringements on civil liberties after it occurs.

    Patriot Act advocates launch TV ad campaign

    The Coalition for Security, Liberty and the Law today unveiled a television issue-advertising campaign in four key states across America and in the District of Columbia . It urges renewal of a strong USA Patriot Act.

    The campaign’s first advertisement is a 60-second spot featuring Debra Burlingame, sister of Capt. Charles "Chic" Burlingame, the American Airlines pilot of flight 77 which was hijacked and then crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 . She notes that, prior to 9/11, our government did not have the tools it needed to prevent that day’s horrific attacks, but that it got them with the adoption of the Patriot Act.

    Now Ms. Burlingame warns:

    "A minority of Senators believe we that can safely weaken the Patriot Act. What if they’re wrong? What are they going to tell their constituents if keeping the Patriot Act strong would have prevented that attack?"

    The Coalition will be broadcasting its ads during, among other news and entertainment programming, the popular Fox show, "24." The drama highlights the difficult challenges those sworn to protect us face in countering determined terrorists operating inside our country. A 30-second version of the ad was first broadcast on "24" on January 30th via WTTG-TV in Washington , D.C.

    The 60-second version will begin appearing in local TV markets on Thursday evening, February 2, 2006 . The initial advertising flight includes: Manchester NH ( Boston MA ) ; Omaha NE; Idaho Falls ID ; Anchorage , AK ; and the Nation’s capital.

    Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., President of the Center for Security Policy which sponsors the Coalition for Security Liberty and the Law, said today:

    Four Republican Senators from conservative states have made possible the filibuster of legislation needed to ensure that key provisions of the Patriot Act do not expire. Senators John Sununu of New Hampshire, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Larry Craig of Idaho and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska are among those who evidently believe the U.S. government should no longer have the latitude to use the legal and intelligence tools that have helped protect us since the Patriot Act was enacted four-and-a-half years ago.

    In so doing, they are gambling that – in the face of fresh threats of terror attacks in this country from Osama bin Laden – we will not be put at greater risk. But what if, as Debra Burlingame asks so trenchantly, they are wrong? Do these Senators’ constituents want their lives to be bet, perhaps literally, in this fashion?

    The Coalition also has sponsored a January 25, 2006 letter from 69 leaders in the national security, law enforcement, intelligence, public policy and academic fields urging prompt renewal of the Patriot Act. 

    The Coalition’s ad was produced by Washington, D.C.-based New Advocacy LLC, a division of Next Generation Advertising.

    BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION ON DEBRA BURLINGAME

    Debra Burlingame is the sister of Captain Charles F. "Chic" Burlingame, III, pilot of American Airlines flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 . She is co-founder of 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America and has testified before the U.S. Congress.

    Ms. Burlingame was formerly a producer at Court TV. Before her career in television, she worked as an attorney in New York City representing foster parents in the family court system who wished to adopt the children in their care.

    Ms. Burlingame has appeared on NBC’s Today Show, Fox’s O’Reilly Factor, Fox & Friends, Your World with Neal Cavuto and Hannity & Combs, CNN’s Larry King Show and Paula Zahn Now, and MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews. She has been profiled in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. She has written several feature articles for the Wall Street Journal. Ms. Burlingame is a member of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation board of directors and lives in Westchester County, New York.

    VIDEO SCRIPT OF AD

    Debra Burlingame:

    My brother was pilot of American Airlines flight 77 which was hijacked by terrorists on September 11 2001 and crashed into the Pentagon.

    I know he fought them in the cockpit, with every last ounce of strength he could muster.

    And unfortunately, we didn’t give our government everything it needed to stop the terrorists who are ruthless. And the Patriot Act does that. The Patriot Act gives them – our government – the tools to stop them from doing this again.

    It’s been four and a half years since 9/11 and we have not been attacked.

    A minority of Senators believe we that can safely weaken the Patriot Act.

    What if they’re wrong? What are they going to tell their constituents if keeping the Patriot Act strong would have prevented that attack?

    We must urge our leaders to do the right thing. And protect us.

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    Patriots must act

    The most consequential part of President Bush’s State of the Union address tonight, at least in the near-term, will be the section he devotes to the need to ensure that the Nation’s law enforcement and intelligence communities have the tools they need to protect us. In particular, he will make a strong case for the Patriot Act – one we can only hope the minority of Senators currently blocking its reenactment will heed.

    Mr. Bush afforded a small group an insight into his thinking on this and related matters, and a sense of the urgency he will attach to the Patriot Act’s renewal, in a meeting last Thursday. Those present included eighteen preeminent national security, intelligence, legal and public policy practitioners – nearly all of whom had previously held senior U.S. government posts and signed a letter to Congress circulated last week by the Coalition for Security, Liberty and the Law.

    In informal remarks and extended, candid give-and-take with the participants, the President communicated the gravity of the peril we face. As Osama bin Laden’s most recent audio tape reminds us, enemies of this country remain intent on hitting us again, and hope to do so with even more devastating effect than on 9/11.

    When Terror Hits Home

    Two of those present knew firsthand the costs of the last attack on our homeland: Former Solicitor General Theodore Olson, who lost his wife, Barbara, on American Airlines Flight 77 when it was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon; and Debra Burlingame, the sister of Capt. Charles "Chic" Burlingame, that doomed aircraft’s pilot.

    In the four-plus years since September 11, 2001, both have selflessly served their country. Mr. Olson was, until recently, the third-ranking official in the Department of Justice and a leader on its counterterrorism litigation and policy-making.

    For her part, Ms. Burlingame has become one of the most visible, and formidable, of the 9/11 family members in championing counterterrorism legislation and policies needed to prevent future terrorist attacks in this country – and opposing initiatives that would undermine America’s ability to do so.

    Such concerns prompted her to write a powerful op.ed. article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal about the need to renew the Patriot Act and to continue presidentially authorized, warrantless "hot pursuit" of enemy communications by the National Security Agency – even when one of the parties is inside the United States and may be an American citizen. Under the headline, "Our Right to Security," she observes:

     

      A minority of senators want to gamble with American lives and ‘fix’ national security laws, which they can’t show are broken. They seek to eliminate or weaken anti-terrorism measures which take into account that the Cold War and its slow-moving, analog world of landlines and stationary targets is gone. The threat we face today is a completely new paradigm of global terrorist networks operating in a high-velocity digital age using the Web and fiber-optic technology.

      After four-and-a-half years without another terrorist attack, these senators think we’re safe enough to cave in to the same civil liberties lobby that supported that deadly Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) "wall" [which, before the Patriot Act, prevented information-sharing between law enforcement and intelligence agencies that might have thwarted the 9/11 attacks] in the first place. What if they…are simply wrong?

    In a television ad produced by the Coalition for Security, Liberty and the Law, Ms. Burlingame asks a further question: "What will [those senators] say to their constituents if another attack occurs that might have been prevented" had key provisions of the Patriot Act not been weakened or allowed to expire?

    These are questions the President himself should pointedly pose during tonight’s address: Does anyone listening – in the House chambers and across this great country – want to bet, in the face of known threats and likely ones, that we can responsibly deny those charged with protecting us the tools they have successfully used since 2001? Are the Patriot Act’s critics really willing to risk the lives of potentially many thousands of Americans on a gamble that we can once again safely accord terrorists more legal protections than we do drug-traffickers, racketeers and other criminals – an anamolous, not to say bizarre, situation corrected by the Patriot Act?

    The Bottom Line

    The truth of the matter is, as Debra Burlingame puts it so well: "Ask the American people what they want. They will say that they want the commander-in-chief to use all reasonable means to catch the people who are trying to rain terror on our cities."

    So tonight, Mr. Bush should – and we are confident, will – make clear that neither he nor the Congress have any duty higher than that of protecting the American people. Adopting the conference report that will extend or make permanent the Patriot Act’s "sunsetted" provisions, and preserve its full usefulness in combating terror at home, is consistent with that duty. Filibustering the conference report – to say nothing of the boast last month by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid that opponents had "killed the Patriot Act" – is not.

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    Our right to security

    One of the most excruciating images of the September 11 attacks is the sight of a man who was trapped in one of the World Trade Center towers. Stripped of his suit jacket and tie and hanging on to what appears to be his office curtains, he is seen trying to lower himself outside a window to the floor immediately below. Frantically kicking his legs in an effort to find a purchase, he loses his grip, and falls.

    That horrific scene and thousands more were the images that awakened a sleeping nation on that long, brutal morning. Instead of overwhelming fear or paralyzing self-doubt, the attacks were met with defiance, unity and a sense of moral purpose. Following the heroic example of ordinary citizens who put their fellow human beings and the public good ahead of themselves, the country’s leaders cast aside politics and personal ambition and enacted the USA Patriot Act just 45 days later.

    A mere four-and-a-half years after victims were forced to choose between being burned alive and jumping from 90 stories, it is frankly shocking that there is anyone in Washington who would politicize the Patriot Act. It is an insult to those who died to tell the American people that the organization posing the greatest threat to their liberty is not al Qaeda but the FBI. Hearing any member of Congress actually crow about "killing" or "playing chicken" with this critical legislation is as disturbing today as it would have been when Ground Zero was still smoldering. Today we know in far greater detail what not having it cost us.

    * * *

    Critics contend that the Patriot Act was rushed into law in a moment of panic. The truth is, the policies and guidelines it corrected had a long, troubled history and everybody who had to deal with them knew it. The "wall" was a tortuous set of rules promulgated by Justice Department lawyers in 1995 and imagined into law by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. Conceived as an added protection for civil liberties provisions already built into the statute, it was the wall and its real-world ramifications that hardened the failure-to-share culture between agencies, allowing early information about 9/11 hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi to fall through the cracks. More perversely, even after the significance of these terrorists and their presence in the country was known by the FBI’s intelligence division, the wall prevented it from talking to its own criminal division in order to hunt them down.

    Furthermore, it was the impenetrable FISA guidelines and fear of provoking the FISA court’s wrath if they were transgressed that discouraged risk-averse FBI supervisors from applying for a FISA search warrant in the Zacarias Moussaoui case. The search, finally conducted on the afternoon of 9/11, produced names and phone numbers of people in the thick of the 9/11 plot, so many fertile clues that investigators believe that at least one airplane, if not all four, could have been saved.

    In 2002, FISA’s appellate level Court of Review examined the entire statutory scheme for issuing warrants in national security investigations and declared the "wall" a nonsensical piece of legal overkill, based neither on express statutory language nor reasonable interpretation of the FISA statute. The lower court’s attempt to micromanage the execution of national security warrants was deemed an assertion of authority which neither Congress or the Constitution granted it. In other words, those lawyers and judges who created, implemented and so assiduously enforced the FISA guidelines were wrong and the American people paid dearly for it.

    Despite this history, some members of Congress contend that this process-heavy court is agile enough to rule on quickly needed National Security Agency (NSA) electronic surveillance warrants. This is a dubious claim. Getting a FISA warrant requires a multistep review involving several lawyers at different offices within the Department of Justice. It can take days, weeks, even months if there is a legal dispute between the principals. "Emergency" 72-hour intercepts require sign-offs by NSA lawyers and pre-approval by the attorney general before surveillance can be initiated. Clearly, this is not conducive to what Gen. Michael Hayden, principal deputy director of national intelligence, calls "hot pursuit" of al Qaeda conversations.

    The Senate will soon convene hearings on renewal of the Patriot Act and the NSA terrorist surveillance program. A minority of senators want to gamble with American lives and "fix" national security laws, which they can’t show are broken. They seek to eliminate or weaken anti-terrorism measures which take into account that the Cold War and its slow-moving, analog world of landlines and stationary targets is gone. The threat we face today is a completely new paradigm of global terrorist networks operating in a high-velocity digital age using the Web and fiber-optic technology. After four-and-a-half years without another terrorist attack, these senators think we’re safe enough to cave in to the same civil liberties lobby that supported that deadly FISA wall in the first place. What if they, like those lawyers and judges, are simply wrong?

    Meanwhile, the media, mouthing phrases like "Article II authority," "separation of powers" and "right to privacy," are presenting the issues as if politics have nothing to do with what is driving the subject matter and its coverage. They want us to forget four years of relentless "connect-the-dots" reporting about the missed chances that "could have prevented 9/11." They have discounted the relevance of references to the two 9/11 hijackers who lived in San Diego. But not too long ago, the media itself reported that phone records revealed that five or six of the hijackers made extensive calls overseas.

    NBC News aired an "exclusive" story in 2004 that dramatically recounted how al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar, the San Diego terrorists who would later hijack American Airlines flight 77 and fly it into the Pentagon, received more than a dozen calls from an al Qaeda "switchboard" inside Yemen where al-Mihdhar’s brother-in-law lived. The house received calls from Osama Bin Laden and relayed them to operatives around the world. Senior correspondent Lisa Myers told the shocking story of how, "The NSA had the actual phone number in the United States that the switchboard was calling, but didn’t deploy that equipment, fearing it would be accused of domestic spying." Back then, the NBC script didn’t describe it as "spying on Americans."

    Instead, it was called one of the "missed opportunities that could have saved 3,000 lives." Another example of opportunistic coverage concerns the Patriot Act’s "library provision." News reports have given plenty of ink and airtime to the ACLU’s unsupported claims that the government has abused this important records provision. But how many Americans know that several of the hijackers repeatedly accessed computers at public libraries in New Jersey and Florida, using personal Internet accounts to carry out the conspiracy? Al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi logged on four times at a college library in New Jersey where they purchased airline tickets for AA 77 and later confirmed their reservations on Aug. 30. In light of this, it is ridiculous to suggest that the Justice Department has the time, resources or interest in "investigating the reading habits of law abiding citizens."

    * * *

    We now have the ability to put remote control cameras on the surface of Mars. Why should we allow enemies to annihilate us simply because we lack the clarity or resolve to strike a reasonable balance between a healthy skepticism of government power and the need to take proactive measures to protect ourselves from such threats? The mantra of civil-liberties hard-liners is to "question authority" — even when it is coming to our rescue — then blame that same authority when, hamstrung by civil liberties laws, it fails to save us. The old laws that would prevent FBI agents from stopping the next al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi were built on the bedrock of a 35-year history of dark, defeating mistrust. More Americans should not die because the peace-at-any-cost fringe and antigovernment paranoids still fighting the ghost of Nixon hate George Bush more than they fear al Qaeda. Ask the American people what they want. They will say that they want the commander in chief to use all reasonable means to catch the people who are trying to rain terror on our cities. Those who cite the soaring principle of individual liberty do not appear to appreciate that our enemies are not seeking to destroy individuals, but whole populations.

    Three weeks before 9/11, an FBI agent with the bin Laden case squad in New York learned that al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi were in this country. He pleaded with the national security gatekeepers in Washington to launch a nationwide manhunt and was summarily told to stand down. When the FISA Court of Review tore down the wall in 2002, it included in its ruling the agent’s Aug. 29, 2001, email to FBI headquarters: "Whatever has happened to this — someday someone will die — and wall or not — the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain problems. Let’s hope the National Security Law Unit will stand behind their decisions then, especially since the biggest threat to us now, [bin Laden], is getting the most ‘protection.’"

    The public has listened to years of stinging revelations detailing how the government tied its own hands in stopping the devastating attacks of September 11. It is an irresponsible violation of the public trust for members of Congress to weaken the Patriot Act or jeopardize the NSA terrorist surveillance program because of the same illusory theories that cost us so dearly before, or worse, for rank partisan advantage. If they do, and our country sustains yet another catastrophic attack that these antiterrorism tools could have prevented, the phrase "connect the dots" will resonate again — but this time it will refer to the trail of innocent American blood which leads directly to the Senate floor.

    Tablighi Jamaat: Jihad’s stealthy legions

    Every fall, over a million almost identically dressed, bearded Muslim men from around the world descend on the small Pakistani town of Raiwind for a three-day celebration of faith. Similar gatherings take place annually outside of Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Bhopal, India. These pilgrims are no ordinary Muslims, though; they belong to a movement called Tablighi Jamaat ("Proselytizing Group"). They are trained missionaries who have dedicated much of their lives to spreading Islam across the globe. The largest group of religious proselytizers of any faith, they are part of the reason for the explosive growth of Islamic religious fervor and conversion.

    Despite its size, worldwide presence, and tremendous importance, Tablighi Jamaat remains largely unknown outside the Muslim community, even to many scholars of Islam. This is no coincidence. Tablighi Jamaat officials work to remain outside of both media and governmental notice. Tablighi Jamaat neither has formal organizational structure nor does it publish details about the scope of its activities, its membership, or its finances. By eschewing open discussion of politics and portraying itself only as a pietistic movement, Tablighi Jamaat works to project a non-threatening image. Because of the movement’s secrecy, scholars often have no choice but to rely on explanations from Tablighi Jamaat acolytes.

    As a result, academics tend to describe the group as an apolitical devotional movement stressing individual faith, introspection, and spiritual development. The austere and egalitarian lifestyle of Tablighi missionaries and their principled stands against social ills leads many outside observers to assume that the group has a positive influence on society. Graham Fuller, a former CIA official and expert on Islam, for example, characterized Tablighi Jamaat as a "peaceful and apolitical preaching-to-the-people movement."[1] Barbara Metcalf, a University of California scholar of South Asian Islam, called Tablighi Jamaat "an apolitical, quietist movement of internal grassroots missionary renewal" and compares its activities to the efforts to reshape individual lives by Alcoholics Anonymous.[2] Olivier Roy, a prominent authority on Islam at Paris’s prestigious Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, described Tablighi Jamaat as "completely apolitical and law abiding."[3] Governments normally intolerant of independent movements often make an exception for Tablighi Jamaat. The Bangladeshi prime minister and top political leadership, many of whom are Islamists, regularly attend their rallies, and Pakistani military officers, many of whom are sympathetic to militant Islam, even allow Tablighi missionaries to preach in the barracks.

    Yet, the Pakistani experience strips the patina from Tablighi Jamaat’s façade. Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif (1990-93; 1997-99), whose father was a prominent Tablighi member and financier, helped Tablighi members take prominent positions.[4] For example, in 1998, Muhammad Rafique Tarar took the ceremonial presidency while, in 1990, Javed Nasir assumed the powerful director-generalship of the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s chief intelligence agency. When Benazir Bhutto, less sympathetic to Islamist causes, returned to the premiership in 1993, Tablighis conspired to overthrow her government. In 1995, the Pakistani army thwarted a coup attempt by several dozen high-ranking military officers and civilians, all of whom were members of the Tablighi Jamaat and some of whom also held membership in Harakat ul-Mujahideen, a U.S. State Department-defined terrorist organization.[5] Some of the confusion over Tablighi Jamaat’s apolitical characterization derives from the fact that the movement does not consider individual states to be legitimate. They may not become actively involved in internal politics or disputes over local issues, but, from a philosophical and transnational perspective, the Tablighi Jamaat’s millenarian philosophy is very political indeed. According to the French Tablighi expert Marc Gaborieau, its ultimate objective is nothing short of a "planned conquest of the world" in the spirit of jihad.[6]

    Origins and Ideology

    The prominent Deobandi cleric and scholar Maulana Muhammad Ilyas Kandhalawi (1885-1944) launched Tablighi Jamaat in 1927 in Mewat, India, not far from Delhi. From its inception, the extremist attitudes that characterize Deobandism permeated Tablighi philosophy. Ilyas’s followers were intolerant of other Muslims and especially Shi‘ites, let alone adherents of other faiths. Indeed, part of Ilyas’s impetus for founding Tablighi Jamaat was to counter the inroads being made by Hindu missionaries. They rejected modernity as antithetical to Islam, excluded women, and preached that Islam must subsume all other religions.[7] The creed grew in importance after Pakistani military dictator Zia ul-Haq encouraged Deobandis to Islamize Pakistan.

    The Tablighi Jamaat canon is bare-boned. Apart from the Qu’ran, the only literature Tablighis are required to read are the Tablighi Nisab, seven essays penned by a companion of Ilyas in the 1920s. Tablighi Jamaat is not a monolith: one subsection believes they should pursue jihad through conscience (jihad bin nafs) while a more radical wing advocates jihad through the sword (jihad bin saif).[8] But, in practice, all Tablighis preach a creed that is hardly distinguishable from the radical Wahhabi-Salafi jihadist ideology that so many terrorists share.

    Part of the reason why the Tablighi Jamaat leadership can maintain such strict secrecy is its dynastic flavor. All Tablighi Jamaat leaders since Ilyas have been related to him by either blood or marriage. Upon Ilyas’ 1944 death, his son, Maulana Muhammad Yusuf (1917-65), assumed leadership of the movement, dramatically expanding its reach and influence. Following the partition of India, Tablighi Jamaat spread rapidly in the new Muslim nation of Pakistan. Yusuf and his successor, Inamul Hassan (1965-95), transformed Tablighi Jamaat into a truly transnational movement with a renewed emphasis targeting conversion of non-Muslims, a mission the movement continues to the present day.

    While few details are known about the group’s structure, at the top sits the emir who, according to some observers, presides over a shura (council), which plays an advisory role. Further down are individual country organizations. By the late 1960s, Tablighi Jamaat had not only established itself in Western Europe and North America but even claimed adherents in countries like Japan, which has no significant Muslim population.

    The movement’s rapid penetration into non-Muslim regions began in the 1970s and coincides with the establishment of a synergistic relationship between Saudi Wahhabis and South Asian Deobandis. While Wahhabis are dismissive of other Islamic schools, they single out Tablighi Jamaat for praise, even if they disagree with some of its practices, such as willingness to pray in mosques housing graves. The late Sheikh ‘Abd al ‘Aziz ibn Baz, perhaps the most influential Wahhabi cleric in the late twentieth century, recognized the Tablighis good work and encouraged his Wahhabi brethren to go on missions with them so that they can "guide and advise them."[9] A practical result of this cooperation has been large-scale Saudi financing of Tablighi Jamaat. While Tablighi Jamaat in theory requires its missionaries to cover their own expenses during their trips, in practice, Saudi money subsidizes transportation costs for thousands of poor missionaries. While Tablighi Jamaat’s financial activities are shrouded in secrecy, there is no doubt that some of the vast sums spent by Saudi organizations such as the World Muslim League on proselytism benefit Tablighi Jamaat. As early as 1978, the World Muslim League subsidized the building of the Tablighi mosque in Dewsbury, England, which has since become the headquarters of Tablighi Jamaat in all of Europe.[10] Wahhabi sources have paid Tablighi missionaries in Africa salaries higher than the European Union pays teachers in Zanzibar.[11] In both Western Europe and the United States, Tablighis operate interchangeably out of Deobandi and Wahhabi controlled mosques and Islamic centers.

    Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

    The West’s misreading of Tablighi Jamaat actions and motives has serious implications for the war on terrorism. Tablighi Jamaat has always adopted an extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam, but in the past two decades, it has radicalized to the point where it is now a driving force of Islamic extremism and a major recruiting agency for terrorist causes worldwide. For a majority of young Muslim extremists, joining Tablighi Jamaat is the first step on the road to extremism. Perhaps 80 percent of the Islamist extremists in France come from Tablighi ranks, prompting French intelligence officers to call Tablighi Jamaat the "antechamber of fundamentalism."[12] U.S. counterterrorism officials are increasingly adopting the same attitude. "We have a significant presence of Tablighi Jamaat in the United States," the deputy chief of the FBI’s international terrorism section said in 2003, "and we have found that Al-Qaeda used them for recruiting now and in the past."[13]

    Recruitment methods for young jihadists are almost identical. After joining Tablighi Jamaat groups at a local mosque or Islamic center and doing a few local dawa (proselytism) missions, Tablighi officials invite star recruits to the Tablighi center in Raiwind, Pakistan, for four months of additional missionary training. Representatives of terrorist organizations approach the students at the Raiwind center and invite them to undertake military training.[14] Most agree to do so.

    Tablighi Jamaat has long been directly involved in the sponsorship of terrorist groups. Pakistani and Indian observers believe, for instance, that Tablighi Jamaat was instrumental in founding Harakat ul-Mujahideen. Founded at Raiwind in 1980, almost all of the Harakat ul-Mujahideen’s original members were Tablighis. Famous for the December 1998 hijacking of an Air India passenger jet and the May 8, 2002 murder of a busload of French engineers in Karachi, Harakat members make no secret of their ties. "The two organizations together make up a truly international network of genuine jihadi Muslims," one senior Harakat ul-Mujahideen official said.[15] More than 6,000 Tablighis have trained in Harakat ul-Mujahideen camps. Many fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s and readily joined Al-Qaeda after the Taliban defeated Afghanistan’s anti-Soviet mujahideen.[16]

    Another violent Tablighi Jamaat spin-off is the Harakat ul-Jihad-i Islami.[17] Founded in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, this group has been active not only in the disputed Indian provinces of Jammu and Kashmir but also in the state of Gujarat, where Tablighi Jamaat extremists have taken over perhaps 80 percent of the mosques previously run by the moderate Barelvi Muslims.[18] The Tablighi movement is also very active in northern Africa where it became one of the four groups that founded the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria. Moroccan authorities are currently prosecuting sixty members of the Moroccan Tablighi offshoot Dawa wa Tabligh in connection with the May 16, 2003 terrorist attack on a Casablanca synagogue.[19] Dutch police are investigating links between the Moroccan cells and the November 2, 2004 murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh.[20]

    There are many other cases of individual Tablighis committing acts of terrorism. French Tablighi members, for example, have helped organize and execute attacks not only in Paris but also at the Hotel Asni in Marrakech in 1994.[21] Kazakh authorities expelled a number of Tablighi missionaries because they had been organizing networks advancing "extremist propaganda and recruitment."[22] Indian investigators suspect influential Tablighi leader, Maulana Umarji, and a group of his followers in the February 27, 2002 fire bombing of a train carrying Hindu nationalists in Gujarat, India. The incident sparked a wave of pogroms victimizing both Muslims and Hindus.[23] More recently, Moroccan authorities sentenced Yusef Fikri, a Tablighi member and leader of the Moroccan terrorist organization At-Takfir wal-Hijrah, to death for his role in masterminding the May 2003 Casablanca terrorist bombings that claimed more than forty lives.[24]

    Tablighi Jamaat has also facilitated other terrorists’ missions. The group has provided logistical support and helped procure travel documents. Many take advantage of Tablighi Jamaat’s benign reputation. Moroccan authorities say that leaflets circulated by the terrorist group Al-Salafiyah al-Jihadiyah urged their members to join Islamic organizations that operate openly, such as Tablighi Jamaat, in order "to hide their identity on the one hand and influence these groups and their policies on the other."[25] In a similar vein, a Pakistani jihadi website commented that Tablighi Jamaat organizational structures can be easily adopted to jihad activities.[26] The Philippine government has accused Tablighi Jamaat, which has an 11,000-member presence in the country, of serving both as a conduit of Saudi money to the Islamic terrorists in the south and as a cover for Pakistani jihad volunteers.[27]

    There is also evidence that Tablighi Jamaat directly recruits for terrorist organizations. As early as the 1980s, the movement sponsored military training for 900 recruits annually in Pakistan and Algeria while, in 1999, Uzbek authorities accused Tablighi Jamaat of sending 400 Uzbeks to terrorist training camps.[28] The West is not immune. British counterterrorism authorities estimate that at least 2,000 British nationals had gone to Pakistan for jihad training by 1998, and the French secret services report that between 80 and 100 French nationals fought for Al-Qaeda.[29]

    A Trojan Horse for Terror in America?

    Within the United States, the cases of American Taliban John Lindh, the "Lackawanna Six," and the Oregon cell that conspired to bomb a synagogue and sought to link up with Al-Qaeda,[30] all involve Tablighi missionaries.[31] Other indicted terrorists, such as "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla, and Lyman Harris, who sought to bomb the Brooklyn Bridge, were all members of Tablighi Jamaat at one time or another.[32] According to Robert Blitzer, head of the FBI’s first Islamic counterterrorism unit, between 1,000 and 2,000 Americans left to join the jihad in the 1990s alone.[33] Pakistani intelligence sources report that 400 American Tablighi recruits received training in Pakistani or Afghan terrorist camps since 1989.[34]

    The Tablighi Jamaat has made inroads among two very different segments of the American Muslim population. Because many American Muslims are immigrants, and a large subsection of these are from South Asia, Deobandi influences have been able to penetrate deeply. Many Tablighi Jamaat missionaries speak Urdu as a first language and so can communicate easily with American Muslims of South Asian origin. The Tablighi headquarters in the United States for the past decade appears to be in the Al-Falah mosque in Queens, New York. Its missionaries—predominantly from South Asia—regularly visit Sunni mosques and Islamic centers across the country.[35] The willingness of Saudi-controlled front organizations and charities, such as the World Muslim League, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), the Haramain Foundation, the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) and others, to spend large amounts of money to co-opt the religious establishment has helped catalyze recruitment. As a result Wahhabi and Deobandi influence dominate American Islam.[36]

    This trend is apparent in the activities of Tanzeem-e Islami. Founded by long-term Tablighi member and passionate Taliban supporter, Israr Ahmed, Tanzeem-e Islami flooded American Muslim organizations with communications accusing Israel of complicity in the 9/11 terror attacks.[37] A frequent featured speaker at Islamic conferences and events in the United States, Ahmed engages in incendiary rhetoric urging his audiences to prepare for "the final showdown between the Muslim world and the non-Muslim world, which has been captured by the Jews."[38] Unfortunately, his conspiracy theories have begun to take hold among growing segments of the American Muslim community. For example, Siraj Wahhaj, among the best known African-American Muslim converts and the first Muslim cleric to lead prayers in the U.S. Congress, is also on record accusing the FBI and the CIA of being the "real terrorists." He has expressed his support for the convicted mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, and advocating the demise of American democracy.[39]

    Tablighi Jamaat has appealed to African American Muslims for other reasons. Founded by Elijah Mohammed in the early 1930s, the Nation of Islam was essentially a charismatic African American separatist organization which had little to do with normative Islam. Many Nation of Islam members found attractive both the Tablighi Jamaat’s anti-state separatist message and its description of American society as racist, decadent, and oppressive. Seeing such fertile ground, Tablighi and Wahhabi missionaries targeted the African American community with great success. One Tablighi sympathizer explained,

    The umma [Muslim community] must remember that winning over the black Muslims is not only a religious obligation but also a selfish necessity. The votes of the black Muslims can give the immigrant Muslims the political clout they need at every stage to protect their vital interests. Likewise, outside Muslim states like Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, and Pakistan need to mobilize their effort, money, and missionary skills to expand and consolidate the black Muslim community in the USA, not only for religious reasons, but also as a farsighted investment in the black Muslims’ immense potential as a credible lobby for Muslim causes, such as Palestine, Bosnia, or Kashmir—offsetting, at least partially, the venal influence of the powerful India-Israel lobby.[40]

    Not only foreign Tablighis but also the movement’s sympathizers within the United States enunciate this goal. The president of the Islamic Research Foundation in Louisville, Kentucky, a strong advocate of Tablighi missionary work, for instance, insists that "if all the Afro-American brothers and sisters become Muslims, we can change the political landscape of America" and "make U.S. foreign policy pro-Islamic and Muslim friendly."[41] As a result of Tablighi and Wahhabi proselytizing, African Americans comprise between 30 and 40 percent of the American Muslim community, and perhaps 85 percent of all American Muslim converts. Much of this success is due to a successful proselytizing drive in the penitentiary system. Prison officials say that by the mid-1990s, between 10 and 20 percent of the nation’s 1.5 million inmates identified themselves as Muslims. Some 30,000 African Americans convert to Islam in prison every year.[42]

    The American political system tolerates all views so long as they adhere to the rule of law. Unfortunately, Tablighi Jamaat missionaries may be encouraging African American recruits to break the law. Harkat ul-Mujahideen has boasted of training dozens of African American jihadists in its military camps. There is evidence that African American jihadists have died in both Afghanistan and Kashmir.[43]

    Tablighi Jamaat: The Future of American Islam?

    Tablighi Jamaat has made unprecedented strides in recent decades. It increasingly relies on local missionaries rather than South Asian Tablighis to recruit in Western countries and often sets up groups which apparently model themselves after Tablighi Jamaat but do not acknowledge links to it.[44]

    In the United States, such a role is apparently played by the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA). Founded in 1968 as an offshoot of the fiercely Islamist Muslim Student Association,[45] ICNA is the only major American Muslim organization that has paid open homage to Tablighi founder Ilyas. The monthly ICNA publication, The Message, has praised Ilyas as one of the four greatest Islamic leaders of the last 100 years.[46] While the relationship between ICNA and Tablighi Jamaat is not clear, the two organizations share a number of similarities. They both embrace the extreme Deobandi and Wahhabi interpretations of Islam. ICNA demonstrates disdain for Western democratic values and opposes virtually all counterterrorism legislation, such as the Patriot Act, while providing moral and financial support to all Muslims implicated in terrorist activities. An editorial in the ICNA organ, The Message International, in September 1989 bemoaned the "uncounted number of Muslims lost to Western values" which was a "major cause for concern."[47] In 2003 and 2004, ICNA has collected money to assist detainees suspected of terrorist activities, participated in pro-terrorist rallies, and mounted campaigns on behalf of indicted Hamas functionary Sami al-Arian.[48] Like Tablighi Jamaat, ICNA initially drew its membership disproportionately from South Asians. As with Tablighi Jamaat, ICNA demands total dedication to missionary work from its members. Because many ICNA members spend at least thirty hours per week on their mission,[49] their ability to independently support themselves is unclear. Many cannot hold full-time jobs. ICNA’s recruitment efforts have borne fruit, though. All ICNA members are organized in small study groups of no more than eight people, called NeighborNets. As in a cult, these cells provide support and reinforcement for new recruits, who may have sought to fill a void in their lives. Its yearly convocations, patterned on the annual Tablighi Jamaat meetings in South Asia, now attract some 15,000 people.[50]

    Conclusion

    The estimated 15,000 Tablighi missionaries reportedly active in the United States present a serious national security problem.[51] At best, they and their proxy groups form a powerful proselytizing movement that preaches extremism and disdain for religious tolerance, democracy, and separation of church and state. At worst, they represent an Islamist fifth column that aids and abets terrorism. Contrary to their benign treatment by scholars and academics, Tablighi Jamaat has more to do with political sedition than with religion.

    U.S. officials should focus on reality rather than rhetoric. Pakistani and Saudi support for Tablighi Jamaat is incompatible with their claims to be key allies in the war on terror. While law enforcement focuses attention on Osama bin Laden, the war on terrorism cannot be won unless al-Qaeda terrorists are understood to be the products of Islamist ideology preached by groups like Tablighi Jamaat. If the West chooses to turn a blind eye to the problem, Tablighi involvement in future terrorist activities at home and abroad is not a matter of conjecture; it is a certainty.

    Alex Alexiev is vice president for research at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C.

    [1] Graham Fuller, "The Future of Political Islam," Foreign Affairs, Mar.-Apr., 2002, p. 49.
    [2] Barbara Metcalf, "Traditionalist Islamic Activism: Deoband, Tablighis and Talibs," Social Service Research Council, Nov. 1, 2004.
    [3] Le Monde Diplomatique (Paris), May 15, 2002.
    [4] B. Raman, "Nawaz in a Whirlpool," South Asia Analysis Group, Oct. 10, 1999.
    [5] The News (Lahore), Feb. 13, 1995.
    [6] Marc Gaborieau, "Transnational Islamic Movements: Tablighi Jamaat in Politics," ISIM Newsletter (International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World), July 1999, p. 21.
    [7] Dietrich Reetz, "Keeping Busy on the Path of Allah: The Self-Organization (intizam) of Tablighi Jamaat," in Daniela Bredi, ed., Islam in Contemporary South Asia (Rome: Oriente Moderno, 2004), pp. 295-305.
    [8] B. Raman, "Dagestan: Focus on Pakistan’s Tablighi Jamaat," South Asia Analysis Group, Sept. 15, 1999.
    [9] "Fatwa of Shaykh ‘Abdul-‘Azeez ibn Baaz regarding the Jamaa’ah at-Tableegh," fatwa-online.com, Safar 11, 1414 (July 31, 1993).
    [10] Financial Times, Apr. 12, 1982.
    [11] Associated Press, Feb. 22, 2004.
    [12] Le Monde (Paris), Jan. 25, 2002.
    [13] The New York Times, July 14, 2003.
    [14] U.S. News and World Report, June 10, 2002.
    [15] Raman, "Dagestan: Focus on Pakistan’s Tablighi Jamaat."
    [16] Ibid.
    [17] The News, Feb. 13, 1995, cited in ibid.
    [18] Frontline, Public Broadcasting Service, Mar. 16-29, 2003.
    [19] Financial Times, Aug. 6, 2003.
    [20] The New York Times, Nov. 25, 2004    .
    [21] Le Monde, Sept. 26, 2001.
    [22] Kazakhstan Today News Service, June 13, 2003.
    [23] India Today (New Delhi), Feb. 24, 2003.
    [24] BBC News, July 12, 2003.
    [25] Asharq al-Awsat (London), May 25, 2003.
    [26] Mufti Khubaib Sahib, "Advantageous Structure for the Jihaad Organisations," 2600 News, Nov. 16, 2004.
    [27] Manila Times, Oct. 12, 2001.
    [28] Surya Gangadharan, "Exploring Jihad: The Case of Algeria," Strategic Affairs (New Delhi), Feb. 1, 2001.
    [29] Ori Golan, "On the Day the Black Flag of Islam will be Flying over Downing Street," The Jerusalem Post, June 26, 2003; Le Parisien, Dec. 26, 2001.
    [30] The Oregonian (Portland), Oct. 11, 2002.
    [31] The New York Times, July 14, 2003.
    [32] Jessica Stern, "The Protean Enemy," Foreign Affairs, July/Aug. 2003.
    [33] U.S. News and World Report, June 10, 2002.
    [34] Ibid.
    [35] The New York Times, July 14, 2003.
    [36] Daniel Pipes, Militant Islam Reaches America (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2003),
    [37] The Independent, Oct. 1, 2001.
    [38] Sept. 11, 1995 ISNA convention, cited in Raman, "Dagestan: Focus on Pakistan’s Tablighi Jamaat."
    [39] The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 24, 2003.
    [40] Dawn (Karachi), Jan. 12, 1996.
    [41] Ibrahim B. Syed, "Juneteenth," Islamic Research Foundation International, Inc., Louisville, Ky., n.d.
    [42] Religion News Service, Jan. 23, 1996.
    [43] U.S. News and World Report, June 10, 2002.
    [44] Ibid.
    [45] Jonathan Dowd-Gailey, "Islamism’s Campus Club: The Muslim Students Association," Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2004, pp. 63-72.
    [46] "Great Leaders of Last 100 Years," The Message International Online (Jamaica, N.Y.), Dec. 22, 2004.
    [47] The Message International, Sept. 1989, p. 6.
    [48] The Washington Post, May 29, 2003.
    [49] "About ICNA," Islamic Circle of North America, Dec. 22, 2004.
    [50] Ibid.
    [51] Aminah Mohammad-Arif, "Ilyas et Mawdudi au Pays des Yankees: La Tablighi Jamaat et la Jamaat Islami aux Etats-Unis," Archive des Sciences Sociales des Religions, Jan.-Mar. 2002.

    Distinguish between enemy and victim

    In a recent posting to her website, Michelle Malkin calls attention to the travesty of the planned memorial for Flight 93 that crashed on September 11 after its passengers heroically thwarted the designs of Islamofascist hijackers by driving the plane into an empty Pennsylvania field, saving the lives of potentially thousands of their fellow citizens on that terrible day.

    The memorial’s design, unveiled last week, is that of a red crescent wrapped around the site of the crash. Despite denials by its architects, the religious overtones of the memorial are unmistakable (the crescent, of course, is a symbol of the Islamic faith). At best, we can hope that this was chosen to symbolically convey peaceful Islam’s solidarity with those slaughtered by jihadists. Even this, however, is offensive to the spirit of those who, just over four years ago, fired the opening shots in the Nation’s counteroffensive against its Islamofascist enemies. A tribute should be made to their determination and sacrifice – not to convince others of a religion’s peaceful nature.

    Across the pond, meanwhile, it appears Islamism has landed on its feet in Britain after initially meeting opposition following the July 7 terrorist bombings in London. In the wake of those attacks, Tony Blair vowed to create a Home Office task force of committees to "tackle extremism."

    Unfortunately, reports Andrew C. McCarthy in a column for National Review Online, the Prime Minister continues to suffer from an inability to distinguish moderates from extremists. McCarthy details how Blair has stocked these committees with known Islamists who have referred to Osama bin Laden as a "freedom fighter" and who have praised jihadists for attacking Americans and Israelis.

    In one of its first steps, this group of advisors is urging Blair to scrap the Jewish Holocaust Memorial Day – calling it offensive to Muslims – and replace it with a Genocide Day that would recognize, in the words of the Times of London, "the mass murder of Muslims in Palestine, Chechnya and Bosnia as well as people of other faiths." In an equally noxious move, these advisors will object to Blair’s proposal to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir – an Islamist organization whose proclaimed goal is jihad against America and the overthrow of existing political regimes and their replacement with a Caliphate.

    If we are to triumph over Islamofascism, we must do a better job of distinguishing between our enemy and our enemy’s past and intended victims.

    Saudi double games

    Within days of the murderous 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush declared before a joint session of Congress: "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."

    Unfortunately, under the leadership of King Fahd (actual or nominal), Saudi Arabia demonstrated that it was possible to be with us and with the terrorists. Far from being regarded as a hostile regime, the United States has described the Saudi government as a valued "partner" in the war on terror, notwithstanding abundant evidence that it continues to harbor and support terrorism around the world – including inside the United States.

    Indeed, under Fahd, whose death was officially announced on Monday (although he has been effectively incapacitated for years following a severe stroke), the Saudis perfected their double game: simultaneously being considered in Washington a friend of America while behaving all over the world as a supporter and financier of America’s enemies.

    Friends like These

    A recitation of the evidence of Saudi solidarity with the United States usually starts with King Fahd’s decision to allow American forces to use his territory to liberate Kuwait in 1991. Typically, it claims Saudi Arabia’s cooperation on oil pricing. Some also point to the Saudis’ assistance to U.S. intelligence and law enforcement in counterterrorism efforts post-9/11.

    In fact, what the deployment of U.S. troops on Saudi soil in Operation Desert Shield amounted to was allowing us to defend them. When it has suited the Saudis to have cheaper oil – notably, when it looked (briefly) as though we might actually get serious about alternative energy sources – they forced prices down. When it has not, the Saudis have been fully prepared to help the OPEC cartel drive them up (including today when a barrel of oil it costs them at most two or three dollars to extract sells for nearly $60).

    It is true that the Saudi royal family has lately become more concerned about its hold on power in the face of terror attacks inside the kingdom. Such concerns may produce a greater degree of mutuality of interest with the United States as relates to countering terrorist operations within Saudi Arabia. Even there, however, the transparency has been limited, as with, for example, American access to terror suspects in Saudi custody.

    Far more important is the litany of things the Saudis have done – and continue to do – that encourage and enable terrorism against those (Muslim and non-Muslim alike) who do not embrace the ideology of the Saudi Islamofascist cult known as Wahhabism. A short list of these unfriendly activities includes the following:

    • Providing financial, organizational, logistical and other support for terrorists like Osama bin Laden. While the Saudi leadership doesn’t want al Qaeda to launch any more attacks inside the kingdom, there is reason to believe that at least some among the 5,000 princes think underwriting its attacks elsewhere is the best way to prevent them at home.
    • Founding and running Wahhabi Islamofascist hate-factories in mosques and their associated schools (madrassas) all over the world. The Saudi-financed madrassas of Pakistan have been getting a lot of attention after British authorities identified them as places where the Leeds suicide bombers trained.

    A superb study released in January by Freedom House documented that the Saudi government is also using American mosques – by some estimates 80% of which have their mortgages held by Saudi Arabian financial institutions – to promote jihad. Materials officially produced and disseminated to such mosques by the kingdom are filled with calls to hate Christians and Jews. Those who fail to conform are threatened with violent punishment as apostates. Saudi-trained and -selected clerics serve as enforcers in our mosques and in our prisons and military as recruiters for a rabidly anti-American Wahhabi creed.

    • Since the Saudi-engineered oil price spikes of the 1970s, the Saudis have also spent untold sums (they acknowledge expending some $80 billion in "foreign aid"; the actual total amount is surely far higher) building up a worldwide infrastructure of charities, businesses and front organizations. In the wake of the London bombings, several of these Saudi-backed front organizations have found it necessary to issue fatwas in Britain and the United States that purport to denounce terror.

    More Double Games

    As noted terrorism expert Stephen Emerson has reported ( www.investigativeproject.org/FCNA-CAIR.html), however, some of these groups and individuals associated with them have been prominent supporters of – or, at the very least, apologists for – terrorist organizations. For example, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which organized a press conference to promote the U.S. version of the phony fatwa, has had no fewer than four of its associates convicted of providing financial or other forms of material support to terrorists.

    It is no small irony that the new Saudi ambassador to the United States is a man who exemplifies his country’s double game on terrorism: Prince Turki al-Faisal. For roughly twenty-five years, Turki was in charge of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence operations. In that capacity, he was intimately familiar both with his country’s efforts to promote Wahhabism (including supporting bin Laden’s operations in Afghanistan) and its counterterrorism cooperation with the United States.

    The Bottom Line

    King Fahd’s death, the mounting evidence of the danger posed by ongoing Saudi support for terror and the assignment to Washington of one of the kingdom’s most experienced double-gamers should require Saudi Arabia finally to do what President Bush demanded nearly four years ago: The Saudis can no longer be with us and against us. They must be made to choose.

     

    A memorial hijacked?

    Decision Brief     No. 05-D 32                                       2005-07-05


    (Washington, D.C.): For many of the families of the 3,000 American citizens who were murdered on September 11, 2001, the worst thing that could happen would be for their loved ones’ sacrifice and loss to be forgotten. To ensure that didn’t happen, federal, state and local authorities have put millions of tax dollars towards a memorial on the site of Ground Zero – the place where the twin towers of the World Trade Center once stood in lower Manhattan.


    It Can Get Worse


    Incredible as it may seem, those charged with translating that laudable commitment into reality have come up with plans that could surpass even the 9/11 families’ worst fears: A scheme for the design and use of the Ground Zero complex that threatens, at best, to obscure and, at worst, to defame the memory of those lost on that day.


    Part of the problem lies with the plan itself. Its centerpiece would not be a September 11th Memorial. Rather, it would be something called the International Freedom Center (IFC). The Memorial would be located in a basement, with only 50,000 square feet assigned to its displays. Such a facility would be unable to display most of the recovered 9/11 artifacts, requiring the rest to be exhibited elsewhere.


    Worse yet, a memorial that size is estimated to be able to accommodate only half the roughly 20,000 visitors expected to come to the site each day. Where, you might ask, would the rest go?


    IFC: Justifying the Attackers?


    It appears that they would have two choices: The first would be the massive, 300,000-square foot, above-ground International Freedom Center that would be built on top of the 9/11 Memorial. A posting on the excellent new website created by 9/11 family members and their supporters, www.TakeBacktheMemorial.org, observes:



    The International Freedom Center is slated to contain a history of mankind’s oppressions and the struggles to end them. [For example, the IFC’s web site declares: “It will tell stories…of Jim Crow segregation – but also [of] Martin Luther King, who helped stamp it out. Inspiring people through these stories to do freedom’s work today is our best long-run defense against more 9/11’s.”]


    It will also host evening-time political debates for ideologues of all ilks. [The IFC’s president, Richard Tofel, wrote in the Wall Street Journal last month, “The International Freedom Center will host debates and note points of view with which you – and I – will disagree.”] The IFC will be right there to take in the overflow (for a fee) and to teach them about all of history’s inhumanities and valiant freedom marches to end them. All of the inhumanities and freedom marches – other than the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the United States’ valiant march to end terrorism, that is.


    The not-so-hidden agenda behind the International Freedom Center can be discerned from the sorts of people involved in its underwriting and/or conceptualizing its displays. These include:



    -Leftist billionaire George Soros, whose declared hostility towards President Bush masks a deeper anti-Americanism, evident in his equating of Abu Ghraib with 9/11;


    –Michael Posner, executive director at Human Rights First and driving force behind a “Stop Torture Now” campaign whose sole object is the U.S. military;


    –Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union who wants the IFC to feature exhibits demonstrating how after 9/11 the Patriot Act and other measures have impinged upon civil liberties in the United States; and


    -two radical-left Columbia professors – Eric Foner, who declared immediately after 9/11, “I am not sure which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White House,” and Nicholas DeGenova who once asserted that, “The only true heroes are those who find ways to defeat the U.S. military.”


    In addition to the problematic exhibits and activities (including the Tribecca Film Festival, which recently featured a “dark comedy” about 9/11) likely to be housed by the International Freedom Center, its designers have also incorporated a “Drawing Center” in the site. According to the Washington Post, the latter recently featured “installations that depicted the well-publicized image of a hooded detainee at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib and linked President Bush to Osama bin Laden.”


    When challenged about the prospect that such facilities would be used for divisive purposes utterly at odds with a solemn memorializing of the dead, New York Governor George Pataki precipitated a First Amendment fight by announcing, “We will not tolerate anything on that site that denigrates America, denigrates New York or freedom or denigrates the sacrifice and courage that the heroes showed on September 11th.” Not surprisingly, neither the left-wing IFC nor the similarly-minded Drawing Center is likely to agree to such constraints.


    Do Your Part for the War Effort: ‘Go Shopping’


    If all else fails, visitors who find themselves unable to do at Ground Zero what they came for – namely, to pay their respects to those lost on 9/11 – and who are repulsed by the IFC’s anti-American propaganda will have another alternative. They can shop. The Port Authority is reportedly trying to jam 600,000 square feet of retail space throughout the site.


    The Bottom Line


    Where, it might be asked is President Bush on all this? The IFC’s wealthy chairman and driving force is Tom Bernstein, one of Mr. Bush’s former business partners and large campaign contributors. Perhaps that’s why White House spokesperson Dana Perino has said only: “We realize how important a matter this is to the people of New York, but it’s a matter the people of New York should decide.”


    Actually, the hijacking of the 9/11 Memorial is something that is important to all Americans, and it is something that we expect our President and legislators to prevent.