Very early in the creation of the Vigilant Freedom/910 Group blog, we posted requirements for joining the 910 Group Blogroll. Little did we realize that that post would become a place where  people seeking to join the blogroll would continue posting. If you have requested to join the blog roll anywhere in our comments, and have not yet been added, please send your request to Kyle@vigilantfreedom.com, and I will immediately begin work. Please include your Blog’s Name, URL, a short description, and the state and country you blog from.

We apologize again for anyone whose been waiting.

Listen to The Gathering Storm Radio Show, which WC and I cohost. The show broadcasts live every Friday for one hour at noon, Pacific Time.

The call-in number is (646) 915-9870.

Callers welcome!

Friday, July 27: Special show! We have two interviewees scheduled this week!

Our first guest, Bob McCarty of Bob McCarty Writes™ will be with us at the top of the hour. According to his bio, his mix of humor, politics, culture and capitalism has earned him guest appearances on a number of radio programs, ranging from the pH pHactor on KFYR-AM in Bismarck, N.D., to Allman in the Morning, Nothing But Truth and The Randy Tobler Show — all on 97.1 FM Talk, the Fox News Radio station in Saint Louis. In addition, he’s appeared as a guest on BBC Worldwide Radio’s World Have Your Say program three times — usually as the lone conservative voice in a crowd of bleeding-heart liberals! All this week, Bob has been following the goings-on at “Muslims Speak Out,” the dialogue at the Washington Post/Newsweek On Faith Forum; WC and I plan to discuss Bob’s observations there.

Our second scheduled guest at the bottom of the hour is Chaim of the Freedom’s Cost blog, which discusses Judaism, its history and how it is being scapegoated by those with a much more nefarious agenda, an agenda that will affect far more than merely the Jews of the West.
If you are unable to listen live to the radio show, you can listen to recordings of the radio broadcasts later by CLICKING HERE.

Frank Gaffney reports from Congress that the conferees did agree to protect “John Does” from harassment lawsuits….exact language to follow…

The Center for Security Policy is gratified that its efforts, those of innumerable bloggers, radio talk show hosts and other public-minded citizens translated into an important legislative victory late last night.  Thanks to the leadership of Sens. Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins, the chairman and ranking minority member, respectively, of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and especially that of Rep. Pete King, Sen. Collins’ counterpart on the House Homeland Security Committee, legislation along the lines of that adopted by an overwhelming bipartisan majority of the House of Representatives last May at Rep. King’s initiative will shortly become law.

The language will provide protection against the sorts of harassment lawsuits filed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) after several unidentified individuals reported six Muslim imams engaged in suspicious – and frightening – behavior prior to boarding a USAir flight in November 2006.  CAIR has been identified as a front organization for the Muslim Brotherhood and is an un-indicted co-conspirator in an alleged terrorism-financing plot.

Center President Frank Gaffney said on learning of this extraordinary development:

Thanks to courageous, principled and tenacious efforts by key legislators like Rep. King and Sens. Lieberman and Collins, the American people are going to be free to do their part in the War for the Free World – serving as indispensable eyes and ears for those trying to protect us against terrorism – without fear that the likes of CAIR will be suing them for doing so.

We are extremely grateful to these lawmakers and also to members of the Democratic leadership who opposed such efforts, but eventually relented in the face of an outpouring of public demands that the King amendment be enacted into law.  We are even more appreciative of the efforts made by all those who helped alert the public to the need to engage so directly and, ultimately, so decisively.

(H/T Hot Air): Hot Air is reporting that we may have found victory on the John Doe Amendment. There’s some question on what the compromise language will say, but legislation sponsor Rep. Peter King seems to accept it. From NY Sun:

The House Republican leader, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, and Rep. Peter King, a Republican of Long Island, said last night that they had reached agreement to include what has become known as the “John Doe” amendment in the final version of a major homeland security bill to implement the recommendations of the commission established to investigate the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

The bill is currently in a House-Senate conference committee, and a deal will be announced today.

Stay tune, we’ll bring you the details of the language as soon as we can get it.

Vigilant Freedom is supporting efforts by Move America Forward, Vets for Freedom, Gathering of Eagles and others over the next month to support US troops and promote the success of the surge strategy in preparation for Gen. Petraeus’ testimony in September.We’re establishing a list of bloggers at the state level who are interested in recieving email updates on major events happening in their area as part of the campaign. If you would be interested in having your blog take part in this important effort and providing an opportunity to your readers unavailable anywhere else, than write to Kyle@vigilantfreedom.com. Please use the Subject Line: “State Bloggers” with your Blog name and URL, the state you are in, and information on other state blogs in your area who you think might be interested.

This August and early September are key to our success in getting Petraeus and our troops the time they need to do their jobs.  Your help could make the difference here in mobilizing public opinion. Please give us a hand.

Starting first with good news from Wake Up America who points to polls indicating an increased support for the war in Iraq from Americans, rising to 42% up from 35% in May, 2007. Says WUP:

Every day now, we are getting good news coming from Iraq, one success at a time, and the American people are beginning to understand that Harry “Baghdad” Reid was wrong, we have NOT lost Iraq and we WILL NOT lose in Iraq.

The bad news stories still are coming out, as they should, but for the first time in YEARS, it is being balanced now, by a reluctant media by the good news that they can no longer ignore and sweep under the rug.

Alot of credit for that needs to go to some of the fine independent journalists that have risked their lives to embed with our troops and bring us the truth.

People like Michael Yon, Bill Roggio just to name two, and the Miliblogs that speak to us from the frontline, but there are many more and they have my and many others THANKS for doing it.

As we head towards September conditions on the ground will hopefully cause that number to continue to trend higher. The other element which I think is behind the rise in numbers is the recognition that Al Qaeda is in Iraq, and the primary enemy, a fact which had been ignored by the traditional media for some time. Which leads me to the second front on which we are seeing some good news. From Front Page (H/T Jihad Watch):

A new Newsweek Poll on American attitudes toward Muslims and Islam has found that 46 percent of Americans believe that the United States is taking in too many Muslim immigrants. 32 percent think that Muslims in America are less loyal to the United States than they are to Islam. 28 percent believe that the Qur’an condones violence, and 41 percent hold that Islamic culture “glorifies suicide.” 54 percent are either “somewhat worried” or “very worried” about Islamic jihadists in this country, and 52 percent support FBI surveillance of mosques, with the same percentage rejecting the claim of American Muslim advocacy groups that Muslims are being singled out by investigators and police.

Of course as Robert Spencer points out, we’ll soon see a CAIR & Co. backlash against the backlash, with still more cries of “Islamophobia” and claims of bigotry, and most people are still failing to make the connection between violence and its koranic justification:

The prevailing view is that the Islamic Faith of today’s terrorists has nothing to do with their actions, and those who suspected otherwise are simply bigots who are drawing an unwarranted connection between Islam and terrorism. But it is some Muslims who are themselves making that connection, as the recent Pew Research Center poll of Muslims in America revealed: twenty-six percent of Muslims between the ages of eighteen and twenty-nine affirmed that there could be justification in some (unspecified) circumstances for suicide bombing, and five percent of all the Muslims surveyed said that they had a favorable view of Al-Qaeda. Given the Pew Center’s estimate of 2.35 million Muslims in America, and the total of thirteen percent that avowed a belief that suicide bombings could ever be justified, that’s over 300,000 supporters of suicide attacks. And 117,500 supporters of Al-Qaeda.

Nevertheless the poll shows us where our strong points will be in reaching out to the majority of Americans, and where we still need work. Given the numbers, it seems likely that most Americans can be persuaded to support efforts to survey and gather information on American mosques as Mapping Shari’a does (since 52 percent support survelliance of mosques) and many will be supportive of projects to like Refugee Resettlement Watch, which is working to track federal resettlement of Refugees (particulary Muslim refugees) often without the knowledge of local elected officials or community members (46 percent saying the US takes too many Muslim immigrants). Of course it also shows where work is still needed especially regarding koranic education.

From Christine via a Vigilant Freedom Alert:

In Washington, a House-Senate conference committee on a homeland security bill is considering whether to include a measure to protect, from lawsuit, Americans who report suspicious behavior. The so-called “John Doe” measure comes in response to a lawsuit by six imams who were booted from a plane that was about to fly from Minneapolis late last year because they were acting very suspiciously, refusing to sit in their assigned seats, asking for metal seat belt extenders, and speaking loudly and disparagingly about the United States. The imams plan to sue not only the airline but the passengers who reported their behavior — a step that, if successful, could have a chilling effect on whether other Americans come forward to report such behavior or whether they decide that doing so isn’t worth the legal fees. Without this protection, Americans would have no reason to follow the motto of law enforcement agencies: “If you see something, say something.”

Separately, the “John Doe” legislation passed both the House and Senate by overwhelming margins. But key Democrats are trying to drop it from the homeland security bill, which would kill it. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson isn’t enthused about it, and Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy spoke against it on the Senate floor. The conference committee is meeting and will make a final decision on this vital legislation in the coming days.

Call or e-mail your own Senator and your House member to let them know your position on the John Doe amendment. You can find all their contact information at http://www.congress.org – just enter your zip code. And after calling or e-mailing your own Senator and House member, contact Congressman Thompson and Senator Leahy. Also contact House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Senate Assistant Majority Leader Richard Durbin.

If you want Congress to know how you feel about “John Doe” the next few hours may be your last chance.

In a snap election, the islamist Turkish AKP, has gained strength over secular parties. from PJ Media:

For one thing, the AKP, which earlier gained about 30 percent of voters support, is now at just under 50 percent. Ironically, the party got a lot more voters but will get fewer seats since both the socialist and nationalist parties qualified, whereas only the former got into parliament last time. A lot of voters backed AKP because they see it as either a conservative party or a relatively honest one. Turks don’t want an Islamist state. Still, they have given AKP a mandate.

Already the narrative is being set in place that the AKP gains were a response to traditional politics, and concerns like corruption, and not an endorsement of Islamism. From American Chronicle:

Vote for Erdogan as reaction against scandals, inconsistencies and inadequacies

You may belong to a Center Right or a Center Left party, but you disagree with traditional and ineffective policies pursued without criticism and without exit for too long. In a case like that of today’s Turkey, you have the possibility to send an alarming warning. Turks seem to be very confident about the durability of the Secular Republic and Ataturk’s legacy, and Erdogan – despite his agenda – seems to be too weak to threaten the State, despite the ominous French and European backing. This could contribute to a risky vote, but Turks are risky.

Vote for Erdogan because of economic achievements

This concerns mainly secular and conservative Turks, who could not be sure that by voting the small secular conservative party (Demokrat Parti) they would secure a continuity for the recent significant achievements in terms of foreign investment, liberalization, and increased income from Tourism. Of course, without the solid foundations set in the 80s and early 90s by Turgut Ozal, nothing would have been achieved, but the overall picture of the Turkish economy led many secular, non practicing Muslims to Erdogan’s AKP.

Of course this is the same narrative we saw in place for the election of Hamas. That the vote had little to do with the ideology and everything to do with the ability to provide standard government services. Notably, the AKP got a congratulatory thumbs up from Hamas.

“The victory by the Justice and Development Party holds signs of people’s trend toward the Islamic project,” said Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Sami Abu Zuhri.

“This is proof that the Muslim people are certain they have no future without the Islamic choice,” added the spokesman whose faction did the same as the Turkish counterpart in Palestinian elections in early 2006.

Also endorsing the AKP is PM Gordon Brown, who is excited about what the election results mean for Turkey’s efforts to join the EU:

“I hope that this will bring Europe and Turkey closer and I hope that the government will be able to continue pursuing its program of reform,” he told reporters.He added of Erdogan: “I’ve already spoken to him, I look forward to meeting him soon, I think the Foreign Secretary (David Miliband) has already sent his good wishes to the new government.”

Fitzgerald at Jihadwatch adds some historical context, coming to the conclusion that the secular Turks relied on the army for too long to serve as a bulwark against Islamist ideology.

The Turkish secularists let the army be their final protection. They accepted Kemalism and the benefits it brought. It made their own existence possible. But they were not grateful enough. They did not continue to work to weaken the power of Islam over the minds of men. They were not sufficiently relentless and ruthless. They did not stress or even make the connection between all the failures of Turkish society and Islam. That includes its political and economic failures: Turkey’s current boom deflects attention from the high permanent unemployment rate, and may also be partly the consequence of the giant sums being expended in Iraq by the Americans, and dislocations in Iraq that redound to Turkish benefit. It also includes its social and intellectual failures: the bookstores of Istiqlal Caddesi are one thing, the Islamic bookstores quite another. Then there are its moral failures: the refusal to discuss the mass-murder of Armenians, or the treatment of the Jewish refugees on the Struma, or the massacres in Smyrna, not to mention the Varlik Vergesi (a special, confiscatory tax imposed during World War II on Jews, Armenians, and Greeks), and the attacks on the Greek community of Istanbul in 1955 (see “The Mechanism of Catastrophe” by Speros Vryonis). All that was part of the continued discrimination and persecution that has helped to reduce the non-Muslim proportion of Istanbul’s population from 50% in 1914 to 1% today.

He adds that Turkish secularists should understand if the EU blocks their admission. Unfortunately I’m not certain that an Islamist Turkey would dissuade the EU bureaucrats’ Eurabian plans.

The July 21,2007 Newsletter is available online:

http://www.vigilantfreedom.org/7_21_07_newsletter.pdf

Last week we brought you a round up of information on the National Iranian-American Council, focusing on their upcoming July 26th “Human Rights” conference at the congressional Rayburn building.

NIAC is opposed to “keeping the military option on the table”, sanctions, or even funding for Iranian democratic activists. All stances which are very agreeable to the Iranian regime. Anything to preserve the status quo and give Ahmadinejad time to consolidate his power. Iranian Scholar Hassan Daioleslam has alleged that the group has regime ties:

 In today’s Frontpage Mag, Kenneth Timmerman takes another shot at NIAC by pointing out just what the Mullahs do with the time NIAC buys them:

If you’ve never witnessed a stoning (and most of us haven’t, I trust), you can get a flavor for the barbarity of this Koranic punishment from a short video clip shot at one of these events.

The fellows in military dress belong to the bassij force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, the thugs and enforcers the regime uses to cow the Iranian population – or, as in this case, to whip up the frenzy of its remaining supporters.

The YouTube version of stoning is mercifully brief. Iranian human rights activist Dr. Manouchehr Ganji sat down with me a few years ago and showed me the full Monty, and it’s not a pretty sight. You see, the rocks have to be just the right size: not too large, so they won’t kill the victim outright, and not too small, as to be harmless.

The video has already been pulled by Dhimmi-tube, but you can get a grasp of the sheer horror of the event just from Timmerman’s description. These are the kinds of human rights violations that NIAC wants to hold as a bargaining chip, to prevent the US from taking ANY action detrimental to the Iranian theocracy.

The goal of the Iranian lobby is “to present human rights as a negotiating item on the engagement table in hopes of getting human rights organizations to argue for Tehran-friendly rapprochement, easing of sanctions and tolerance of a nuclear Iran,” he told me.

“In a nut shell, the lobby’s message is that the more West pressures the regime, the more violent it becomes, hence, lift the pressure.”

There isn’t much time to avert the disgrace NIAC’s human rights farce will bring in the hallowed halls of Congress, but let your representative know how you feel about it.

Bottom Line: As a public education effort, consider asking your Congressman these questions:

Will the Republican Leadership support NIAC’s efforts to book the room on July 26, or encourage Mr. Soros to spring for a room at an actual Motel 6?

Should your congressman be supporting efforts to buy Ahmadinejad more time?

Should we keep his economy chugging along without stronger economic sanctions, lest the Iranian mullahs begin to feel deprived?

If all efforts to assist dissidents and democracy advocates result in their imprisonment, is it NIAC’s position that ineffectual hand-wringing is the only alternative?   

Http://www.congress.org/ to get phone numbers, emails and addresses for your representative.

Follow up to this posting…

To access the On Faith forum in order to post comments or questions, CLICK HERE, then on the name of the person to whom you wish to address the question or comment.

To the credit of the Washington Post, the following article was published in “Outlook,” July 22, 2007 (emphases mine):

Losing My Jihadism

By Mansour al-Nogaidan
Sunday, July 22, 2007; B01

BURAIDAH, Saudi Arabia Islam needs a Reformation. It needs someone with the courage of Martin Luther.

This is the belief I’ve arrived at after a long and painful spiritual journey. It’s not a popular conviction — it has attracted angry criticism, including death threats, from many sides. But it was reinforced by Sept. 11, 2001, and in the years since, I’ve only become more convinced that it is critical to Islam’s future.

Muslims are too rigid in our adherence to old, literal interpretations of the Koran. It’s time for many verses — especially those having to do with relations between Islam and other religions — to be reinterpreted in favor of a more modern Islam. It’s time to accept that God loves the faithful of all religions. It’s time for Muslims to question our leaders and their strict teachings, to reach our own understanding of the prophet’s words and to call for a bold renewal of our faith as a faith of goodwill, of peace and of light.

I didn’t always think this way. Once, I was one of the extremists who clung to literal interpretations of Islam and tried to force them on others. I was a jihadist.

I grew up in Saudi Arabia. When I was 16, I found myself assailed by doubts about the existence of God. I prayed to God to give me the strength to overcome them. I made a deal with Him: I would give up everything, devote myself to Him and live the way the prophet Muhammad and his companions had lived 1,400 years ago if He would rid me of my doubts.

I joined a hard-line Salafi group. I abandoned modern life and lived in a mud hut, apart from my family. Viewing modern education as corrupt and immoral, I joined a circle of scholars who taught the Islamic sciences in the classical way, just as they had been taught 1,200 years ago. My involvement with this group led me to violence, and landed me in prison. In 1991, I took part in firebombing video stores in Riyadh and a women’s center in my home town of Buraidah, seeing them as symbols of sin in a society that was marching rapidly toward modernization.

Yet all the while, my doubts remained. Was the Koran really the word of God? Had it really been revealed to Muhammad, or did he create it himself? But I never shared these doubts with anyone, because doubting Islam or the prophet is not tolerated in the Muslim society of my country.

By the time I turned 26, much of the turmoil in me had abated, and I made my peace with God. At the same time, my eyes were opened to the hypocrisy of so many who held themselves out as Muslim role models. I saw Islamic judges ignoring the marks of torture borne by my prison comrades. I learned of Islamic teachers who molested their students. I heard devout Muslims who never missed the five daily prayers lying with ease to people who did not share their extremist beliefs.

In 1999, when I was working as an imam at a Riyadh mosque, I happened upon two books that had a profound influence on me. One, written by a Palestinian scholar, was about the struggle between those who deal pragmatically with the Koran and those who take it and the hadith literally. The other was a book by a Moroccan philosopher about the formation of the Arab Muslim way of thinking.

The books inspired me to write an article for a Saudi newspaper arguing that Muslims have the right to question and criticize our religious leaders and not to take everything they tell us for granted. We owe it to ourselves, I wrote, to think pragmatically if our religion is to survive and thrive.

That article landed me in the center of a storm. Some men in my mosque refused to greet me. Others would no longer pray behind me. Under this pressure, I left the mosque.

I moved to the southern city of Abha, where I took a job as a writer and editor with a newly established newspaper. I went back to leading prayers at the paper’s small mosque and to writing about my evolving philosophy. After I wrote articles stressing our right as Muslims to question our Saudi clerics and their interpretations and to come up with our own, officials from the kingdom’s powerful religious establishment complained, and I was banned from writing.

The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, gave new life to what I had been saying. I went back to criticizing the rote manner in which we Muslims are fed our religion. I criticized al-Qaeda’s school of thought, which considers everyone who isn’t a Salafi Muslim the enemy. I pointed to examples from Islamic history that stressed the need to get along with other religions. I tried to give a new interpretation to the verses that call for enmity between Muslims and Christians and Jews. I wrote that they do not apply to us today and that Islam calls for friendship among all faiths.

I lost a lot of friends after that. My old companions from the jihad felt obliged to declare themselves either with me or against me. Some preferred to cut their links to me silently, but others fought me publicly, issuing statements filled with curses and lies. Once again, the paper came under great pressure to ban my writing. And I became a favorite target on the Internet, where my writings were lambasted and labeled blasphemous.

Eventually I was fired. But by then, I had started to develop a different relationship with God. I felt that He was moving me toward another kind of belief, where all that matters is that we pray to God from the heart. I continued to pray, but I started to avoid the verses that contain violence or enmity and only used the ones that speak of God’s mercy and grace and greatness. I remembered an incident in the Koran when the prophet told a Bedouin who did not know how to pray to let go of the verses and get closer to God by repeating, “God is good, God is great.” Don’t sweat the details, the prophet said.

I felt at peace, and no longer doubted His existence.

In December 2002, in a Web site interview, I criticized al-Qaeda and declared that some of the Friday sermons were loathsome because of their attacks against non-Muslims. Within days, a fatwa was posted online, calling me an infidel and saying that I should be killed. Once again, I felt despair at the ways of the Muslim world. Two years later, I told al-Arabiya television that I thought God loves all faithful people of different religions. That earned me a fatwa from the mufti of Saudi Arabia declaring my infidelity.

But one evening not long after that, I heard a radio broadcast of the verse of light. Even though I had memorized the Koran at 15, I felt as though I was hearing this verse for the first time. God is light, it says, the universe is illuminated by His light. I felt the verse was speaking directly to me, sending me a message. This God of light, I thought, how could He be against any human? The God of light would not be happy to see people suffer, even if they had sinned and made mistakes along the way.

I had found my Islam. And I believe that others can find it, too. But first we need a Reformation similar to the Protestant Reformation that Martin Luther led against the Roman Catholic Church.

In the late 14th century, Islam had its own sort of Martin Luther. Ibn Taymiyya was an Islamic scholar from a hard-line Salafi sect who went through a spiritual crisis and came to believe that in time, God would close the gates of hell and grant all humans, regardless of their religion, entry to his everlasting paradise. Unlike Luther, however, Ibn Taymiyya never openly declared this revolutionary belief; he shared it only with a small, trusted circle of students.

Nevertheless, I find myself inspired by Luther’s courageous uprising. I see what Islam needs — a strong, charismatic personality who will lead us toward reform, and scholars who can convince Islamic communities of the need for a bold new interpretation of Islamic texts, to reconcile us with the wider world.

Mansour al-Nogaidan writes for the Bahraini newspaper Al-Waqt.

CLICK HERE to view the schedule for and to access the On Faith Forum “Muslims Speak Out.” Here’s our chance to ask pointed questions and to make appropriate comments. I’ve test-posted a comment there, and it went up onto the site.

As far as I can tell, Mansour al-Nogaidan, the author of the above article is not a part of the forum. Comments can be directed to Mansour al-Nogaidan at the Washington Post web site, but you might have to register first. You can address comments to all of the authors in the “Outlook” section HERE.

The powers that be in the UK aren’t just going to sit back and watch as more than a quarter million of their subjects embarass them by questioning the wisdom of the London Mega-Mosque.

More than 270,000 people have signed a petition on the Number 10 website that calls for the scrapping of plans to build Europe’s largest mosque close to the main site of the 2012 Olympics.

Tablighi Jamaat, the Islamic sect behind the mosque, has been accused of having links to Islamist terror groups, prompting a concerted campaign to block the project.

Now the Mainstream Media is seeking to smear the petitions creator, Jill Barham by associating her with the British National Party. 

Ms Barham writes an online blog under the name English Rose, where she has laid claim to being author of the petition. The blog has links to several Right-wing and extremist websites.

Anti-fascist campaigners claim Ms Barham is a close friend of Chris Hill, a notorious BNP activist based in Lancaster.

Except that Ms. Barham is not a close friend of Chris Hill. CVF sources who have spoken to Barham tell us that Hill occassionally commeted on her blog English Rose, but the two were not friends or associates. Not that it matters to the Evening Standard, which makes no reference to even ATTEMPTING to contact the author of the petition as to her thoughts. Her response to the ludicious assertion can be read here. Instead, its a simple matter to play guilt by association, and dismiss the true feeling of a large segment of the British people as a “BNP plot.” 10 Downing Street’s official response to the petition:

Thank you for taking the time to sign this e-petition.

This petition expresses concern about the possibility of planning permission being given for a large mosque in East London on a site near the London 2012 Olympic development in Newham.

Those who have signed the petition and members of the public alike should be aware that Newham Council have confirmed that they have granted no such planning permission or received an application for a mosque as described in this petition.

In addition, there have been no approaches made to the Government in terms of seeking funding, despite the widespread unsubstantiated claim that up to £100 million of taxpayers’ money is being spent on this project.

The Greater London Authority has also made a statement about untrue claims circulating about the Mayor of London’s involvement in this project. This is available at: http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/statement_170707.jsp.

 The response by “Red” Ken Livingstone’s office was as predictable as it was false:

‘These facts have been in the public domain for a considerable period of time. The circulation of these manifestly untrue reports seems to be designed to bring influence to bear on a petition in relation to such a mosque on the No10 Downing Street website.

‘It is quite clear that the circulation of untrue information of this kind can damage good community relations.

Alan Craig, Councillor for Newham, where the Mosque is slated for construction, criticized the government’s rhetoric and willingness to distort and dismiss rather than discuss the troublesome issues involved:

“This public concern shows that this mega-mosque project must be subject to public discussion and scrutiny. The Mayor’s intemperate language is intended simply to vilify the opposition and close down legitimate debate. He will not succeed.

Craig points out that the Mayor’s office still has not addressed any of the public’s concerns:

·Mr Livingstone says in his statement that he does not expect a planning application “in the near future”. But mosque backers Tablighi Jamaat have recently announced new high-profile architects and have made it clear that they will submit their mosque masterplan in the next few months, probably before the end of the year.

·He says suggestions of a link between the proposed mosque and the 2012 Olympics are untrue. But Tablighi Jamaat spokesmen have stated publicly that they would like the mosque to be the hub of an ‘Islamic Quarter’ for the Olympic games. The mosque site is less than a mile from the main Olympics stadium.

·The Mayor claims that public funds will not be used in construction of the mosque. But just 3 miles down the road in Whitechapel, the East London Mosque received significant public money to build its huge London Muslim Centre, opened three years ago. If he willingly approved that, why not this?

278,702 people put their name on a petition to register their concern with their elected officials, and they recieve aspersions in response. Its easier than answering the hard questions.  As more and more people begin to speak out however, it will be increasingly difficult for the media to simply smear everyone who stands up and speaks out.    

From this source:

Bloggers, clear your calendars Sunday, July 22, through Friday, July 27. Some real propaganda bombshells are bound to be dropped, and you’ll want to be there when “several leading Muslim clerics and thinkers from around the globe will participate in an unprecedented online dialogue about their religion, terrorism and human rights.”

The “dialogue,” sponsored by The Washington Post and Newsweek Interactive and presented in conjunction with Georgetown University, has been dubbed “Muslims Speak Out” and will take place at On Faith, a blog operated as a joint effort of the Post and Newsweek.

More at this link.

UPDATE (as of 9:30 p.m., July 19): Susan Collins (R-ME) submitted her “John Doe” passenger protection amendment for a vote in the Senate (S.A. 2340) but the amendment failed just 3 votes shy of the 60 needed to pass. Michelle Malkin has the vote roll of aye’s and nay’s here. No Republican voted against it, but Sam Brownback (R-CAKS) and Obama (D-IL) did not vote.Malkin points out that the final conference report could be a last place to add language protecting passengers who report suspicious behavior from lawsuits - but this is becoming more of a longshot.
So, time to gear up:

— Expect more probes of the 6 Flying Imams variety, especially as we go into the August vacation season.

— Bring a videocamera or video cell phone with you, so you can gather evidence as needed to protect yourself and your fellow passengers, from both terrorism and lawsuits. You can pick one up for less than $100 at Walmart (online price maybe cheaper in the store), Target, or Radioshack.
— It’s time for a Passenger Bill of Rights and Passenger Training. If we have to protect ourselves, so be it. Kyle Shideler did a great post on this on May 3, and I’m reposting it below or link here (A Passenger’s Right To Survive) because it’s even more important now.

Earlier Today: Pete King (R-NY) tried hard but the “John Doe” amendment protecting passengers’ rights to report suspicious behavior without being sued by CAIR in its Saudi-funded lawsuit jihad failed.

According to Audrey Hudson, Washington Times, who has covered this in detail:

“This is a slap in the face of good citizens who do their patriotic duty and come forward, and it caves in to radical Islamists,” said Rep. Peter T. King, New York Republican and ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Republicans wanted the provision included in final legislation, crafted yesterday during a House and Senate conference committee, that will implement final recommendations from the September 11 commission.

Mr. King and Rep. Steve Pearce, New Mexico Republican, sponsored the provision after a group of Muslim imams filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against US Airways and unknown “John Doe” passengers. The imams were removed from US Airways Flight 300 on Nov. 20 after fellow passengers on the Minneapolis-to-Phoenix flight complained about the imams’ suspicious behavior.

On March 27, the House approved the “John Doe” amendment on a 304-121 vote.
“Democrats are trying to find any technical excuse to keep immunity out of the language of the bill to protect citizens, who in good faith, report suspicious activity to police or law enforcement,” Mr. King said. “I don’t see how you can have a homeland security bill without protecting people who come forward to report suspicious activity.”

While the conference is not likely to meet again, Mr. King noted the conference report has not been written and says he will continue discussions with Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent and chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, to insert the “John Doe” language.
Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Republican and ranking member of the committee, announced afterward she will attempt to attach a similar bill to an education measure currently under debate on the Senate floor.

Here’s Kyle’s May 3 Post:

*******************************************************

A Passenger’s Right To Survive

What are your rights as an airline passenger?

Are they just consumer rights - compensation for cancelled flights, overbookings, lost luggage?

Before 9/11, that’s what passenger rights meant. For some post-9/11 Democrats, “a flyers’ bill of rights” still means the simple things - access to food and water and getting off the plane if it’s delayed.

But your right to self-defense is the ultimate passenger right. Passengers need the right to report suspicious behavior that foreshadows a terrorist attack, without being sued by CAIR and other Islamist groups. And Congress tried to give passengers that right last month. A bi-partisan, common-sense coalition of 109 Democrats and 199 Republicans passed a motion to prohibit suits against “John Doe” airlline passengers who report suspicious behavior in good faith.

The legislation was in response to the 6 imams’ suit against U.S. Airways that names “John Does” (passengers, flight attendants, airport personnel). The imams had been removed from a November 20, 2006 flight after carefully presenting behavior known to be associated with taking over a plane. The imams followed a careful script of suspicious behaviors that would require a response from airline personnel; and when that response came, they claimed it was due to their religion. Their script was a set-up to get the End to Racial Profiling Act (ERPA) passed.

But the original ERPA doesn’t threaten civilians with lawsuits. Going after the “John Does” was a new twist. Sure, CAIR amended the lawsuit to threaten only passengers who reported “with the intent to discriminate,” with CAIR acting as the thought-police to discern intent. The chilling effect is unchanged.

CAIR is not going to stop unless we stop them. You will need the bi-partisan John Doe motion to protect your right to self-defense. A month ago it seemed like a sure thing, but now it’s in serious danger.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), who met with the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt last month, has threatened to bar the John Doe motion when the bill it is part of goes to conference with the Senate. Republicans sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) saying “We cannot afford to wait any longer to protect individuals who seek to do the right thing by speaking up to prevent a terrorist attack.”

In answer, Hoyer’s spokeswoman Stacey Bernards said that the motion to protect passengers was in part “a restatement of current law, and some things are just about political point-scoring that does not have any real substance to them.”

Stacey is wrong. Here’s why:

We are told that it is our duty as citizens to be vigilant. Indeed, that very vigilance is expected, included in the government’s own plans for our defense. As evidence by 2005 testimony of Assistant Secretary for the TSA Kip Hawley before the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation:

Then, on the aircraft:

1. Thousands of Federal Air Marshals fly undercover on a very significant number of flights, both domestic and international.
2. Thousands of pilots who undergo special training and become Federal Flight Deck Officers are authorized and ready to protect the cockpit with firearms.
3. Other local, State, and Federal law enforcement officers travel armed as part of their normal duties.
4. Hardened cockpit doors prevent unauthorized access to the flight deck.
5. And, sitting quietly on every airplane, are passengers who remember the courage and commitment of the men and women on United Flight 93.

Passenger, stay alert: the US government is relying on you as the final layer of defense for commerical aviation. And if the John Doe amendment fails, a leg of that security plan will be knocked out. Says Hawley:

The reason is that we have many independent, interlocking layers of security that reinforce each other. Any one of them can be beaten, but together, they are formidable.

To be formidable, America depends on its foundation, where the common sense of its citizens forms the final determinant of their collective security. TSA personnel have a guide that could be a model for citizens to defend themselves - to know the behaviors and signs that give an indication of a terrorist threat: Screening of Passengers by Observation Technique (SPOT)

The SPOT program utilizes behavior observation and analysis techniques to identify potentially high-risk passengers. Individuals that exhibit suspicious behaviors, such as physical and physiological reactions, may be required to undergo additional screening.

The SPOT program serves as additional layer of security and is highly beneficial to all modes of transportation security in that it maximizes the effectiveness of TSOs already deployed, and requires no additional specialized screening equipment.

We need a SPOT for passengers, so we know the real signs of suspicious behavior (and yes, the 6 imams would have fit this profile). So far, I can’t find anything for airline passengers, who are both prime targets and the last layer of security.

I can find detailed, and colorful information, including wallet sized cards, telling you what to do if you are a school bus driver, or motor coach driver, or truck driver. There’s even one on suspicious behavior in purchasers of Rental Trucks. But if you’re an airline passenger, nothing.

We need to fix this fast. We have plenty of experts out there who can prepare a simple checklist for passengers. If training is needed, we can develop that - think how many civilians train for CPR every year through the Red Cross. We don’t need every civilian trained - just enough to make it harder for would-be terrorists to pass undetected.
We need a real Passenger Bill of Rights that includes our right to report suspicious behavior.

And we need the bi-partisan John Doe amendment to pass Congress and protect all passengers from CAIR’s lawsuit jihad against the American public.

URGENT.
URGENT.
URGENT.

From this morning at The Corner.
Please fax or phone your Congressman to let him know your position on the effort by the House Democrats to expose passengers to lawsuits if they profile suspicious behavior in good faith. The incident that gave rise to the threat of those lawsuits was the Flying Six Imams, back in November 2006.

You can find Congressional contact info for phone, fax, and online forms to submit email at http://www.congress.org.

Flying Imams — Are Democrats Trying to Sink Pete King’s Amendment? [Andy McCarthy]

In November 2006, six Islamic leaders were removed from a U.S. Airways flight in Minneapolis after they were observed acting suspiciously-including not sitting in their assigned seats, asking for seatbelt extenders although not needing them, and making anti-American statements.

The men were questioned by authorities and then cleared. However, in March 2007, with the help of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the imams filed suit — not only against the airline but against the heroic “John Doe” passengers who reported their suspicious behavior.

Congressman Pete King (R., NY), the ranking member on the House Homeland Security Committee, sprang quickly into action, concluding that the lawsuits were cheap attempts to intimidate everyday Americans from taking action to help protect our country. Congressman King introduced an amendment to protect passengers and commuters against frivolous lawsuits such as those filed by the imams. The language was overwhelmingly adopted by the House in March, 304-121, as an amendment to H.R. 1401, the Rail and Public Transportation Security Act of 2007.

The House-adopted King language ensures that any person who voluntarily reports suspicious activity in good faith-anything that could be a threat to transportation security-will be granted immunity from civil liability for the disclosure. The amendment is specific to threats to transportation systems, passenger safety or security, or possible acts of terrorism, and also shields transportation systems and employees that take reasonable actions to mitigate perceived threats. The amendment is also retroactive to activities that took place on or after November 20, 2006 - the date of the Minneapolis incident.

I am reliably informed that House Democrats are attempting, under the radar screen, to strip the King Amendment from the legislation based on an alleged technical violation of Byzantine House rules.
As Pete King’s office notes, in a post-9/11 reality, passenger vigilance is essential to our security. Given the variety of threats we face and terrorists’ history of targeting mass transit systems, encouraging passengers to report strange behavior to authorities is really just common sense. Failing to report suspicious behavior could end up costing thousands of lives — and while the “flying imams” don’t seem to understand this, the American people do. We must make certain that brave citizens who stand up and say something are given the protections they deserve. The King amendment does exactly that, and Democrats musn’t be allowed to strip it from the 9/11 conference report on a technicality.

07/19 06:26 AM

This is a critical issue - please let your House Representative know your position. Every second counts.

Frank Gaffney from the Center for Security Policy frames the issues involved:

TO ARMS! KEEP THE KING AMENDMENT, PROTECT ALL OF US ‘JOHN DOES’

Fresh from their all-night effort to force surrender on the U.S. military in Iraq, some Democrats on Capitol Hill appear intent on using the dark-of-night (figuratively, if not literally) to another, grievous misdeed: Trying to eliminate one of the most important anti-terror provisions adopted by Congress since 9/11. This legislation is the so-called “King amendment,” which is designed to ensure that public-spirited citizens are not discouraged, let alone penalized, for doing their civic duty by informing the authorities of activities that could be associated with terrorism.

As the brilliant former counterterrorism prosecutor and legal analyst Andy McCarthy observes in a posting on National Review Online today, the King amendment’s opponents in the congressional leadership understand that the overwhelming, bipartisan support for this legislation in the House and Senate leave them few options.

In fact, as a practical matter, the only way they could dispose of a provision which was initiated by the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Pete King of New York, after the insidious Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) brought suit against several “John Does” and adopted by the House of Representatives by a vote of 304-121 would be to snuff it in a conference committee. Word on the Hill is that it could be attempted TODAY.

Such a gambit should be made more difficult by the inclusion of similar language in the Senate version of what has come to be called the “9/11 Bill,” thanks to strong support in that chamber from, among others, Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and his ranking minority member, Susan Collins of Maine. Still, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her lieutenants are reportedly hoping to use a technicality – the fact that the King amendment was to a railroad security bill rather than the 9/11 bill – to strip it from the conference report. By so doing, the minority of the House that voted against the King amendment and that is made up of most radical left-wing members of their caucus would have the last word, to the delight of their Islamist friends at CAIR.

Making such a point of order would, of course mean that a similar objection could be registered to every other aspect of the railroad legislation – which includes a number of provisions near-and-dear to the hearts of Democrats, as well as Republicans on the conference committee. Unless, that is, no one is paying attention and the dastardly deed can be accomplished behind closed doors and out of the glare the public’s eye.

Thanks to Andy McCarthy for raising the alarm. Every one of us who understands the indispensable role alert private citizens can – and must – play in protecting the American people from future terrorist attacks should immediately contact Speaker Pelosi’s office ), their own congressional representatives and their favorite talk radio show hosts and bloggers. The message should be clear: Enact the King amendment – because our lives, literally, depend upon it.

Listen to The Gathering Storm Radio Show, which WC and I cohost. The show broadcasts live every Friday for one hour at noon, Pacific Time. 

The call-in number is (646) 915-9870

Callers welcome!

Friday, July 13: Our scheduled guests at the bottom of the hour are Baron Bodissey and Dymphna of the Gates of Vienna blog, the header of which reads as follows: At the siege of Vienna in 1683 Islam seemed poised to overrun Christian Europe. We are in a new phase of a very old war.

Gates of Vienna follows developments in the global jihad and in the counter-jihad, particularly in, but not limited to, Denmark. Baron also posts at the here at this blog.

If you are unable to listen live to the radio show, you can listen to recordings of the radio broadcasts later by CLICKING HERE.

A New Congressional Scandal: On the scale of 1-10 for Washington scandals, the CAIR propaganda event in the U.S. Congress last March was probably a 2. But the precedent it set could be very bad.

Now another group - the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a CAIR clone and part of the appeasement lobby for Ahmadinejad’s tyrannical Iranian regime, is planning a similar propaganda event in the U.S. Congress on July 26, 2007 in the Rayburn House Office Building. NIAC’s goal is to “freeze” U.S. policy before it can impose sanctions, support dissidents or take any military action to stop Iran’s headlong descent to nuclear capability.

Who is sponsoring this Iranian interest group’s meeting to lobby Congress? Can the Republican leadership summon the will to oppose them? Is this who you want influencing your Congressman?

The CAIR Precedent: Here’s what happened with CAIR. On March 12, 2007, The House Republican Conference called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to cancel the use of a Congressional Conference room by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Congressman Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) had booked the room for a 90 minute press conference. The House Republican Conference referred to CAIR as “terrorist apologists.”

Just to review why the House Republican Conference protested: CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a trial over terrorist financing that started yesterday in Dallas, Texas. CAIR is criticized for its historical links to Hamas, and for its refusal to disavow terrorism carried out by Hamas and Hezbollah. CAIR has also been criticized for refusing to protest the racism, female apartheid and anti-semitism practiced by CAIR’s financial backers ($50 million in 5 years just for Public Relations) in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. As Representative Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Chairman of the Republican Study Committee said:

“Meeting in the United States Capitol is a privilege. Our nation is actively engaged in a Global Ward on Terror, and we should never reward those who, given the opportunity, fail to condemn terrorist activities.”

Nonetheless, Pelosi granted CAIR that privilege and they happily held their meeting to bash the U.S.: “Global Attitudes on Islam-West Relations: U.S. Policy Implications.”

Will the House Republican leadership stand up to NIAC treating Congress like their personal Motel 6 where they can book a room at will to buy time for the murderous regime in Iran?

NIAC Books A Room: The House Republican Conference has one week to block the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), from holding a July 26, 2007 two and a half hour disinformation conference in room B 369, Rayburn House Office Building: “Human Rights in Iran and US Foreign Policy Options.”

NIAC presents itself as an educational non-partisan group, taking both sides of any issue, a slightly more sophisticated version of CAIR. But a closer look shows that they fit somewhere between open apologists for Ahmadinejad and a regime defense team running interference to prevent any U.S. actions against Iran. NIAC simply takes the Baker-Hamilton “realist” position to the logical conclusion of U.S. surrender: that the U.S. should appease Iran whenever possible, negotiate on Iranian terms all issues of interest to the Mullahs, and never support Iranian democracy advocates or any internal critics of the Mullahs’ regime. Just look at the NIAC speakers for their July 26 “educational” meeting to influence your Congressman:

Dr. John Tirman (right), MIT and author of 100 ways America is Screwing Up the World, who has dismissed Iran’s support for insurgents in Iraq as a “Republican Confection”, and rationalizes away any evidence of the regime’s efforts at acquiring nuclear weapons.

Joe Stork (left), Human Rights Watch, formerly of Middle East Research and Information Project, where Stork distributed literature in support of the PFLP and Fatah.

Laura Secor, New Yorker Magazine, a proclaimed supporter of the internal Iranian opposition who argues that the best thing America can do to help Iranian democratic activists is nothing.

Alex Arriaga, Amnesty International

They also have enough clout to at least invite senior advisor for the State Department David Denehy.

NIAC presents a semblance of moderation by agreeing that the current regime engages in human rights violations, but they make sure that the blame goes where it can hurt the Iranian regime the least, and the U.S. and Iranian dissidents the most - the Bush administration.

As reported in Time magazine, “Did the U.S. incite Iran’s Crackdown” citing Trita Parsi, NIAC President (left):

“Parsi says that, in the past, individual democracy activists have been arrested without a pretext, but that the Bush Administration’s program gave the regime an opportunity to go after as many as 10,000 non-government organizations and their memberships.”

NIAC says Iranian Americans are too successful for their own good : NIAC’s complaint about Iranian Americans (like CAIR’s about American Muslims), and the rationale for NIAC’s very existence, is that Iranian Americans assimilate to American culture, are better educated than most Americans, make more money than most Americans, are successful and mostly too smart to support the regime back home or a self-appointed grievance lobby in Washington, D.C.:

Iranian-Americans have achieved extraordinary levels of professional and economic success in the United States, consistently ranking among the highest in most surveys of immigrant education and affluence….the Iranian-American impact on our civil society - on our politics, our media, our advocacy organizations, our social institutions - is a less impressive story….Our job is to, through education, help Iranian-Americans to get more involved in US politics, media and civic life….

For NIAC, being an “advocacy organization” means pressuring Congress and the White House to eliminate or freeze economic sanctions and to stop any support for Iranian democracy supporters or dissidents. They’re wrong about Iranian Americans of course: those thousands of successful Iranian-Americans are involved in U.S. politics as citizens, as voters, through professional and civic associations. They’re just not involved in a way that makes them a malleable constituency for a handful of elite politicans in Tehran or Washington, D.C.

Iran Is a State Sponsor of Terrorism: Keep in mind that on April 30, 2007, the State Department Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism designated Iran as a state sponsor of terror:

Iran remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism. Its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) were directly involved in the planning and support of terrorist acts and continued to exhort a variety of groups, especially Palestinian groups with leadership cadres in Syria and Lebanese Hizballah, to use terrorism in pursuit of their goals.

Iran maintained a high-profile role in encouraging anti-Israeli terrorist activity, rhetorically, operationally, and financially. Supreme Leader Khamenei and President Ahmadi-Nejad praised Palestinian terrorist operations, and Iran provided Lebanese Hizballah and Palestinian terrorist groups - notably HAMAS, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command - with extensive funding, training, and weapons.

Iran continued to play a destabilizing role in Iraq, which appeared to be inconsistent with its stated objectives regarding stability in Iraq. Iran provided guidance and training to select Iraqi Shia political groups, and weapons and training to Shia militant groups to enable anti-Coalition attacks. Iranian government forces have been responsible for at least some of the increasing lethality of anti-Coalition attacks by providing Shia militants with the capability to build IEDs with explosively formed projectiles similar to those developed by Iran and Lebanese Hizballah. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard was linked to armor-piercing explosives that resulted in the deaths of Coalition Forces. The Revolutionary Guard, along with Lebanese Hizballah, implemented training programs for Iraqi militants in the construction and use of sophisticated IED technology. These individuals then passed on this training to additional militants in Iraq.

Iran remained unwilling to bring to justice senior AQ members it detained in 2003, and it has refused to publicly identify these senior members in its custody. Iran has repeatedly resisted numerous calls to transfer custody of its AQ detainees to their countries of origin or third countries for interrogation or trial. Iran also continued to fail to control the activities of some al-Qaida members who fled to Iran following the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

But in spite of that terrorism link, NIAC is opposed to “keeping the military option on the table”, sanctions, or even funding for Iranian democratic activists. All stances which are very agreeable to the Iranian regime. Anything to preserve the status quo and give Ahmadinejad time to consolidate his power. Iranian Scholar Hassan Daioleslam has alleged that the group has regime ties:

State-sanctioned Iranian newspapers started a campaign to promote Trita Parsi and NIAC. Pro-government publications outside Iran followed suit. The former head of the Iran interest in Washington, Ambassador Faramarze Fathnejad, was thrilled with the efforts of Trita Parsi and NIAC, and underlined “the importance of relation with Iranian organizations in the U.S. and specially pointed to NIAC and his young leader who is a consultant to CNN and has been very successful in his efforts.”

NIAC responded by denying a small set of the allegations in the article, and by threatening the Voice of America with a lawsuit after it provided Daioleslam with a forum. Frontpage’s Kenneth Timmerman (right) also noted similarities between the views of NIAC and those of the Iranians:

So let’s get this straight. An organization that has received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy to promote democracy in Iran is actually promoting the views of the Tehran regime in Washington, seeking to sabotage U.S. policy, and actually boasts of playing an intermediary role for Tehran’s mullahs in apparent violation of the Logan Act.

Earning him a stern rebuke from NIAC as well.

NIAC Board Members Oppose UN Resolution 1737, on Iran’s plans for nuclear weapons: Two of NIAC’s board members, Mohammad Navab (left) and Alexander Patico (right) are both also directors of Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII). A CASMII Fact Sheet rejects UN Resolution 1737 in terms which echo those of the Iranian regime.

CASMII: “There is no basis for Resolution 1737 under international law and questions have been raised as to whether political pressure was exerted on the Security Council members to vote in favour of it. Without evidence that Iran has diverted its civilian nuclear activities into a weaponization programme and since she has fully cooperated with the IAEA, there were no grounds within the NPT either to refer Iran to the UN Security Council, or to pass Resolution 1737.”

RFE/RL: Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki told the Security Council on March 24 that the resolution was “illegal, useless, and unjustified.” He also said the sanctions are “too small” to force Iranians to “relent” in what he called “their rightful and legal demands.”…The Iranian foreign minister also accused the authors of the latest “assault” on Iran of bullying members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) — and now of the Security Council — into repeatedly voting against Iran. He said the resolution does not reflect the views of most UN members.

Delay, Delay, Delay: NIAC’s public position is to provide time - lots and lots of time - with the U.S. in a policy “freeze” that will prevent any U.S. interventions with more sanctions or military action to stop Iran’s stampede towards nuclear weapons. According to analyst James Lewis, Iran needs another 24 months before serious sanctions are enforced, or military action is taken against its nuclear bomb factories. As NIAC President Trita Parsi stated at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East held in Amman Jordan in May 2007:

Parsi’s suggestion for a “freeze” in the Iranian program could appeal only to those unaware of Iran’s many years of opposing similar requests, refusing all inspections, and restating its “right” to nuclear hegemony over the continent. The freeze won’t “provide the U.S. and EU with much needed time,” but it would provide that to Ahmadinejad’s regime to “continue its current nuclear activities.” Only the appeasement lobby, like Grover Norquist’s cute little “American Conservative Defense Alliance” (found at the same address as the Norquist-founded Islamic Free Market Institute Foundation) or those benefiting directly from the current Iranian regime’s activities would support this kind of disinformation.

But the Bush administration is not freezing economic sanctions, in spite of NIAC’s lobbying. In fact, the administration is planning immediate, serious economic steps against the elite religious, financial and military interests (same thing in Iran) - perhaps the real reason for that July 26 NIAC lobbying conference in Congress. The Bush administration may finally be planning more effective economic sanctions:

President Bush is set to instruct the Treasury Department to block assets associated with Iran’s revolutionary guard corps in a new executive order declaring financial war on foreign saboteurs of the Iraqi government.

The paperwork to designate Iran’s revolutionary guard corps, or IRGC, and Quds Force is now on the president’s desk awaiting his signature, according to three administration officials who requested anonymity. The designation of the IRGC and Quds Force would mark the first time the finance related executive order process, reserved usually for foreign terrorist organizations, would be used against a branch of a foreign military.

The designation under a new executive order created to list organizations and people sabotaging Iraq’s government has been cleared by the National Security Council. …. The new order would instruct the Treasury Department to block all assets affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the elite paramilitary and intelligence arm of the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose Quds Force American military generals in Iraq have charged with masterminding the kidnap and murder of five American soldiers in January at Karbala…

A former senior adviser at the office of terrorism and financial intelligence for the Treasury, Michael Jacobson, yesterday said, “A designation of the IRGC would be an important step forward because the IRGC plays a significant role in the Iranian economy, handling some of the country’s largest construction projects.”

Mr. Jacobson, who left Treasury in February to join the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that the Revolutionary Guard earned revenues of about $1 billion a year from business interests, a figure he expected to rise.

So, if the White House isn’t cozying up to NIAC, then who is?

Breakfast of Champions… of delaying sanctions and not supporting dissidents: NIAC has held at least three “breakfasts” for Congressmen, including James Moran (D-VA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Congressmen Frank Wolf (R-VA), who also headlined at their June 3, 2006 fundraiser. We note that Congressman Moran has a history of ethics violations, anti-semitic remarks and a refreshingly open support for unlimited earmarks. Frank Wolf made his own trip to negotiate U.S. foreign policy with Syria, three days before Nancy Pelosi’s trip.

The George Soros Connection: Major foundations paying for the July 26 conference are all affiliated with or directly paid by George Soros’ network of extreme left-wing organizations: Pluralism Fund, Kenbe Foundation, and Ploughshares Fund. NIAC is a 501(c)3, which receives the majority of its funding from “Direct Public Support” (according to the 2006 Form 990). Major foundation support to the group comes from:

The Open Society Institute
Tides Foundation
National Endowment for Democracy
Kenbe Foundation
Kamyar and Goli Foundation

Soros’ organizations all support each other, so NIAC meetings have been co-sponsored by Hillary Clinton’s shadow cabinet-in-waiting at the Center for American Progress (background here) and the New America Foundation , whose Leadership Council includes Soros heir Jonathan Soros.

The Citibank Connection: In addition it should also be noted that two NIAC board members are Citibank employees. Djamshid Foroughi is Vice-President and Regional Manager of Citibank’s Community Lending Group in the Mid-Atlantic region. Parissa Behnia is Vice President and Senior Manager of Citigroup’s CitiSears business in the Chicago area. The largest shareholder in Citigroup is Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a major CAIR supporter. While Saudi Arabia and Iran are at times perceived to be at odds with each other, both the Wahhabi Kingdom and Shia theocracy have shared in financing Hamas - and they seem to meet up here at NIAC as well.

Bottom Line: As a public education effort, consider asking your Congressman these questions:

Will the Republican Leadership support NIAC’s efforts to book the room on July 26, or encourage Mr. Soros to spring for a room at an actual Motel 6?

Should your congressman be supporting efforts to buy Ahmadinejad more time?

Should we keep his economy chugging along without stronger economic sanctions, lest the Iranian mullahs begin to feel deprived?

If all efforts to assist dissidents and democracy advocates result in their imprisonment, is it NIAC’s position that ineffectual hand-wringing is the only alternative?

An aside for researchers and staff: NIAC does do a substantial amount of lobbying (see their current ad for a Legislative Director) and therefore may be in violation of 501c3 IRS obligations to do only insubstantial amounts of lobbying. Simply put, if you lobby more than a very small amount, you should lose the 501c3 status which makes contributions tax-deductible for the donors. NIAC is not the only Islamist group that may be pushing back against the 501c3 laws: CAIR-NY is a 501c3 and lobbies substantially as well, and the North American Islamic Trust owns significant assets that generate income but, according to Guidestar,NAIT reports to the IRS that it has neither assets nor income.