Author: Daniel Pipes
Publication: www.danielpipes.org
Date: June 18, 2002
URL: http://www.danielpipes.org/article/423
FBI directors don't make a habit
of breaking bread with organizations their agents may soon be investigating,
perhaps even closing. Robert S. Mueller III, however, is about to make
precisely this blunder: On June 28, he is scheduled to deliver a lunch
talk to the American Muslim Council.
Mueller accepted this invitation,
his spokesman Bill Carter explains, because the FBI regards the AMC as
"the most mainstream Muslim group in the United States."
The AMC does indeed seek to convey
a message of moderation. Its event this month, for example, is reassuringly
titled "American Muslims: Part of America." AMC also boasts of having initiated
"many of the historic events marking the entrance of Muslims into mainstream
American culture and life."
Public relations, however, is not
reality. The FBI may have missed the AMC's true nature because until just
days ago its guidelines prohibited it from collecting general information
on an organization of this sort. To help it catch up, then, here are five
compelling reasons why Director Mueller should break his lunch date:
Apologetics for terrorism: The U.S.
government years ago formally certified Hamas and Hezbollah to be terrorist
groups; AMC sings their praises.
In 2000, Abdurahman Alamoudi, the
group's longtime executive director, exhorted a rally outside the White
House with "We are ALL supporters of Hamas. Allahu Akhbar! . . . I am also
a supporter of Hezbollah." In January, Alamoudi participated - alongside
leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and al Qaeda - in a Beirut
conference whose communique called for a boycott of American products.
The American Muslim Council also
has ties to other terrorists. For example, Jamal Barzinji, whose Virginia
house and business were raided by federal authorities in an anti-terrorism
investigation three months ago, is on the AMC board and will be on the
podium at the forthcoming AMC conference.
In December 2000, AMC's Dallas chapter
gave an award to Ghassan Dahduli. Eleven months later, he was deported
from the United States on account of his connections to al Qaeda and Hamas.
In addition, Alamoudi has vehemently
defended Omar Abdul Rahman, the blind sheikh now imprisoned for his role
in New York-area terrorism. And AMC has both held press conferences supporting
Sudan's National Islamic Front (a Department of State-designated terrorist
group) and, in 1992, hosted the NIS's leader on a visit to the United States.
Helping fund-raise for terrorism:
The Holy Land Foundation is one of the main American conduits of money
to Hamas; not surprisingly, AMC has lavished praise on it, bestowing an
award on it for a "strong global vision." When President Bush closed Holy
Land after 9/11 for collecting money "used to support the Hamas terror
organization," AMC responded by condemning the president's act as "particularly
disturbing . . . unjust and counterproductive."
Run-ins with the law: AMC leaders
have a long and colorful history of legal problems. Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin
(the former H. Rap Brown), a one-time president of AMC's executive board,
has the nearly unique distinction of having been listed not just once but
twice as one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. Oh, and today he is
sitting out a life sentence without parole for murdering a policeman.
Other employees have less horrible
but still troubled resumes. For example, AMC's current director, Eric Vickers,
has been admonished, sanctioned or suspended by courts over a 10- year
period due to his faulty practice of law.
Hostility to law enforcement: Even
after 9/11, AMC's Web site linked to a document, "Know Your Rights" that
advises "Don't Talk to the FBI." Indeed, AMC has fervently opposes successive
administrations' efforts to stave off terrorism.
And Vickers personally has, to put
it delicately, a strained relationship with law enforcement. In his youth,
he admits, he was "against the cops." He remains hostile but expresses
himself more elegantly today, for example, accusing Attorney General John
Ashcroft of "using national security as a pretext" to engage in a pattern
of ethnic and religious discrimination.
Hostility to the United States:
Its apparent patriotism aside, AMC harbors an intense anti- Americanism.
"Let us damn America," Sami Al-Arian, a featured speaker at recent AMC
events, has declaimed.
Alamoudi, the longtime executive
director, has dilated on the agony of living in a country he loathes: "I
think if we are outside this country, we can say oh, Allah, destroy America,
but once we are here, our mission in this country is to change it. There
is no way for Muslims to be violent in America, no way. We have other means
to do it. You can be violent anywhere else but in America."
Far from being "the most mainstream
Muslim group in the United States," the AMC is among their most extreme.
That explains why George W. Bush in 2000 returned a $1,000 donation from
Alamoudi to his campaign.
Rather than endorse AMC by his presence,
Robert Mueller should find other lunch companions next Friday. Then he
should put the organization under surveillance, ascertain its funding sources,
look over its books, and check its staff's visa status.
