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Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Summer 2013) 1

BLIND TO TERROR: THE U.S. GOVERNMENTS DISASTROUS MUSLIM

OUTREACH EFFORTS AND THE IMPACT ON U.S. MIDDLE EAST POLICYBy Patrick S. Poole*

Why has the U.S. government called certain Islamic groups supporters of terror in federal court, and

then turned around and called these same organizations moderates and embraced them as

outreach partners? In a number of cases from the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations, the

leaders of these organizations (some of whom are now in federal prison) were under active

investigation at the same time they were meeting with senior U.S. leaders at the White House and the

Capitol and helping develop U.S. policy. Now these same Islamic organizations and leaders have

openly encouraged a purge of counterterrorism training that have effectively blinded lawenforcement, homeland security, and intelligence agencies to active terror threats as seen in the

inaction of the FBI concerning the Boston bombing suspects and other terror cases. This study poses

serious questions as to the efficacy and even security concerns about U.S. government outreach to

Islamic groups, which often turn out to be Islamist militants, enemies of Islamic moderation, and

even supporters of terrorism.

Obama meets with members of his national security team following the Boston Marathon bombings,

April 19, 2013. Pictured from left, are: FBI Director Robert Mueller; Lisa Monaco, Assistant to the

President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism; Attorney General Eric Holder; Deputy

National Security Advisor Tony Blinken; and Vice President Joe Biden.

The aftermath of the April 15, 2013bombings in Boston, Massachusetts, hasfocused attention on the failure of the FederalBureau of Investigations (FBI) to carry out anadequate investigation of the suspected

bombers despite warnings from Russianauthorities. This failure has partially beenattributed to a full scale campaign of politicalcorrectness waged inside the bureau andthroughout the U.S. government under the


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Patrick S. Poole

2 Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Summer 2013)

Obama administration against any attempt tolink jihadi terrorism with anything remotelyconnected to Islam of any variety (the mostradical versions included).1 This has extendedinto other segments of the government as well,

particularly the Department of Defense.2

One of the primary contributors to this

widespread political correctness campaign hasbeen the U.S. governments disastrous Muslimoutreach policies extending back to theClinton administration and the 1993 WorldTrade Center bombings. The U.S.governments historical outreach program,regardless of whether it has been a Democrator Republican in the White House, has been

based on a schizophrenic policy: In many

cases federal prosecutors have gone intofederal court and identified American Islamicorganizations and leaders as supporters ofterrorism, and no sooner have left court beforegovernment officials openly embrace thesesame organizations and leaders as moderatesand outreach partners. In several notablecases, the FBIs outreach partners have beenunder active FBI criminal investigation andwere later convicted on terrorism-relatedcharges at the time the outreach occurred.

In the case of the Cambridge,Massachusetts, mosque attended by thesuspected Boston marathon bombers, whenthe plethora of extremist ties to the IslamicSociety of Boston were reported, a mosquespokesman replied that they could not beextremists since they regularly participated inoutreach programs with the FBI, Departmentof Justice and Homeland Security.3

This exemplifies the chronic failure of the

U.S. governments outreach programs.

OUTREACH FAILURE: THEN AND

NOW

When President Obama hosted his annualIftar dinner in August 2010 to commemoratethe Muslim celebration of Ramadan, the list ofinvitees published by the White House wascuriously missing the names of severalattendees--all of whom were top leaders of

organizations known to be purveyors of jihadi

ideology and implicated by federal prosecutorsin financing terrorism.4

Yet it was not like they had crashed theparty. In fact, one of the individuals missingon the official White House list, Mohamed

Majid, president of the Islamic Society ofNorth America (ISNA), was pictured in anews service photograph sitting at the fronttable just a few feet from the president as hespoke.5 When Majid was hailed by Time

Magazine in November 2005 as a moderateMuslim cleric who was helping the FBI fightterrorists, he quickly published an open letterto his congregation on the mosques websiteassuring his congregants that he was doing nosuch thing, stating that his relationship with

the FBI was a one-way street only tocommunicate Muslim community concerns--not to report on individuals suspected ofterrorist activity.6

It was just a few years ago the attorneygeneral of the United States was cancelingMuslim outreach events for the sole reasonthat Majid would be present at the meeting,

because the Department of Justice had justnamed the ISNA as an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism financingtrial in American history.7

Majids connection to terrorism, however,goes back even farther than that, since theoffices of the mosque he leads, the All DullesArea Muslim Society (ADAMS) Center, wereraided by U.S. Customs authorities in March2002 in a wide-sweeping terror financeinvestigation.8 In an affidavit requesting asearch warrant for the raids, Customs AgentDavid Kane testified that Majids mosque was

being used to launder hundreds of thousandsof dollars for the targeted terror financenetwork that shared offices with ADAMS.9 Anappendix to the Customs Service affidavit alsonames eleven ADAMS Center officials astargets of their terror finance investigation.10Yet Majid and the ADAMS Center are stillconsidered legitimate outreach partners by theFBI as of the writing of this article.11

This was just the most recent episode in thedisastrous attempts at outreach to the Muslim

community since the September 11, 2001,attacks. In addition, with the release in 2011 of


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Blind to Terror: The U.S. Governments Disastrous Muslim Outreach Efforts and the Impact on U.S.Middle East Policy


President Obamas strategic plan to combatviolent extremism to expand outreach tothese same terror-tied groups, the presentadministration seems intent on compoundingthe disaster wrought by previous

administrations.12

Prior to the September 11attacks, there were two prime examples ofhow the governments Muslim outreach policyfailed spectacularly: Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi and Sami al-Arian.

Al-Amoudis case is perhaps the bestexample, because he was the conduit throughmuch of the U.S. government outreach thatwas conducted following the 1993 WorldTrade Center bombing. Not only was he asked

by the Clinton administration to help train and

certify all Muslim military chaplains (hisorganization being the first to certify such),13he was later appointed by the StateDepartment in 1997 as a civilian goodwillambassador to the Middle East, making sixtaxpayer-funded trips.14

Further, with the assistance andencouragement of then-First Lady HillaryClinton, al-Amoudi arranged the first WhiteHouse Iftar dinner in 1996, personally hand-

picking the attendees.15 Thus, he was regularlyinvited to the White House during both theClinton and Bush (II) Administrations. In1992 and 1996, al-Amoudis AmericanMuslim Council hosted hospitality suites at

both the Democratic and Republicanconventions.16 It is fair to say that during this

period, Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi was themost prominent and politically connectedMuslim leader in America.

As is now known, and the U.S. government

has admitted, at the time that he was beingcourted by Democrats and Republicans alike,he was a major fundraiser for al-Qaidaaccording to the Department of the Treasury.17However, it isnt as if the U.S. governmentwas not aware of al-Amoudis attachments. Asfar back as 1993, a government informant toldthe FBI that al-Amoudi was funneling regular

payments from Usama bin Ladin to the BlindSheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, who wasconvicted for authorizing terror attacks

targeting New York landmarks.18

In March 1996, al-Amoudis associationwith Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook wasexposed in the pages of the Wall Street

Journal.19 Two years later, the StateDepartment came under fire by the New York

Post for inviting al-Amoudi to official eventsdespite his known statements in support ofterrorism and terrorist leaders.20 Even then the

Postnoted the problem with the governmentspolicy of reaching out to the wrong Muslimleaders:

The problem is that such groups havebeen legitimized--both by governmentand the media--as civil-rights groupsfighting anti-Muslim discrimination and

stereotyping. Unfortunately, theirdefinition of such discriminationconsists of anyone who writes about theexistence of--or tries to investigate--radical Islamic terrorist groups and theirallies on these shores.21

A more embarrassing episode occurred inOctober 2000, when al-Amoudi appeared at ananti-Israeli rally where he was cheered by thecrowd for his support for terrorists. "I have

been labeled by the media in New York to bea supporter of Hamas. Anybody supportHamas here? he asked the crowd three timesto the roar of attendees. Hear that, BillClinton? he continued. We are all supportersof Hamas. I wish they added that I am also asupporter of Hezbollah. Does anybody supportHezbollah here? Again, he was met with thecheers of the crowd.

Al-Amoudi wasnt so bold the following

day when asked about his comments byreporters from theNew York Daily News, whohad a videotape of the rally to counter hisinitial claim that he wasnt even there: In a

phone interview yesterday, Alamoudi at firstchallenged the account of his Saturday speech,which The News reviewed on videotape. You

better check your Arabic, he said. Told hehad given the speech in English, Alamoudireplied, It was in English? Oh my God, Iforgot!22 He then deferred any further media

inquiries about his comments to his attorney,who appealed to the fact that he worked for


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Patrick S. Poole


the State Department and had just returnedfrom a taxpayer-funded trip to Saudi Arabia,Bahrain, and Oman as proof of hismoderation.

Al-Amoudis statements were not made in

a closed-door meeting in the Middle East.Rather, he delivered his speech supporting twodesignated terrorist organizations in LafayettePark--just steps from the White House. Yet ithad no impact on his standing with the U.S.government nor did it hinder his positionswith the Pentagon, the State Department, orthe White House.

No sooner had President George W. Bushtaken office before al-Amoudi was beingcourted by the new administration. In June

2001, the Jerusalem Post reported that al-Amoudi was going to be part of a WhiteHouse meeting with Vice President Cheneydespite the fact that al-Amoudi was known tohave attended a terror confab in Beirut earlierthat year, which featured representatives fromvirtually every major Islamist terroristorganization in the world--including al-Qaida.23 Yet just days after the September 11attacks by al-Qaida, al-Amoudi was one ofthe Muslim leaders asked to appear withPresident Bush at the Islamic Center ofWashington, D.C.24 That same week one of al-Amoudis close associates, MuzzammilSiddiqi, was asked to deliver an Islamic prayerand to represent the entire Muslim-Americancommunity at the national prayer servicemourning the fallen.25

The decision to include al-Amoudi andSiddiqi at the post-September 11 events washighly criticized, especially since al-Amoudi

had been videotaped in October 2000enthusiastically expressing his support for theHamas and Hizballah terrorist organizations ata rally held just steps from the White House.26At that same rally, Siddiqi accused the UnitedStates of responsibility for the plight of thePalestinians, parroting Usama bin Ladin, andwarning that the wrath of God will come.27One former Secret Service agent told Fox

News that The intelligence Community hasknown for sometime the association of Dr.

Muzammil Siddiqi, and Mr. Alamoudi and

their association with terroristorganizations.28

Yet Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi was not theonly troubling association for the Bushadministration after the September 11 attacks.

When Sami al-Arian, a tenured professor atthe University of South Florida, was indictedon terror support charges and his leadershiprole in Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) wasrevealed, his connection with Bush and topadministration officials also came under mediascrutiny.

In fact, photos of al-Arian and Bush on thecampaign trail in Florida during the 2000election quickly surfaced.29 The Washington

Postalso reported that al-Arian had met with

Karl Rove in the White House.30 One lawenforcement official told Newsweek that al-Arian had been flagged by the Secret Serviceas a possible terrorist at that June 2001meeting with Rove, where the Bush advisordiscussed the administrations outreach

policy, but he was allowed to enter to preventan incident.31 Several weeks later while al-Arian was being questioned during thedeportation hearing for his brother-in-law, hehad to invoke his Fifth Amendment rightagainst self-incrimination 99 times to avoidanswering questions about his role insupporting terrorist organizations.32

The reasons for al-Arians White Housevisits during the Clinton and Bushadministrations revolved around his attemptsto change the U.S. governments policy on theuse of secret evidence in terrorism deportation

proceedings, a policy that candidate Bush hadpromised to change during the 2000 campaign.

The Justice Department had drafted newguidelines revising the use of secret evidence,and ominously, President Bush was to presentthese new guidelines to Muslim leaders at ameeting in the White House scheduled at 2

p.m. on September 11, 2001.33However, at the time that al-Arian was

meeting with these Clinton and Bushadministration officials, he and his associateshad been the subject of a Foreign IntelligenceSurveillance Act wiretap order since

December 1993, and his home and offices hadbeen raided by the FBI in 1995.34 During that


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initial raid, FBI agents discovered a documentin al-Arians possession that outlined a

program to infiltrate the sensitive intelligenceagencies or the embassies in order to collectinformation and build close relationships with

the people in charge of these establishmentsand to create a center that would collectinformation from those relatives and friendswho work in sensitive positions ingovernment.35

During his trial, al-Arians attorney askedthe government to disclose any wiretappedconversations he had with then-Speaker of theHouse Dennis Hastert, former Speaker NewtGingrich, former Homeland Security DeputySecretary Asa Hutchinson, and GOP activist

Grover Norquist. His attorney also submittedevidence that al-Arian had been at the WhiteHouse every year between 1998 and 2001; hehad met with Al Gore in November 1998 andHillary Clinton in October 1999, and that hehad attended a briefing at the JusticeDepartment in July 2001 as proof that hecould not be a terrorist.36 That fact alone mayaccount for the jurys deadlocking on anumber of counts.

Yet al-Arians influence was not exclusiveto political circles. In fact, while he wassubject to FBI wiretaps and serving as a topofficial on PIJs governing shura council, hewas acting as a Middle East advisor to themilitarys Central Command, located inTampa. Al-Arian not only lectured atCentcomm and translated materials for themilitary, but also his colleague RamadanShallah, who would later emerge as the headof PIJ in Damascus.37 Al-Arian and Shallah

were able to gain access to Centcomm throughtheir friendship with Arthur Lowrie, whoserved as the Centcomm commandersMideast adviser.38

Two weeks after speaking at a Centcommsymposium in May 1993, attended byCentcomm commander Gen. NormanSchwarzkopf, al-Arian wired $4,776 to thefamily of convicted PIJ terrorists in the WestBank. When the FBI executed a searchwarrant at Ramadans Florida home in

November 1995, agents found materials that

had been sent from Centcomm to hisresidence.39

In both al-Amoudi and al-Arians cases,years of warnings about their support forterrorism and public criticism of their

inclusion in government programs and eventswent unheeded and ignored. Not only that, butthese terrorist leaders were being engaged bythe U.S. government at the very time theywere being investigated by federal lawenforcement authorities. In one incredibleinstance, the head of the FBIs civil rightdivision Tom Brekke and the FBIs topspokesman John Collingwood appeared at oneof al-Amoudis conferences held inside theHart Senate Office Building, where they

shared the podium not only with al-Amoudibut also al-Arian, despite the FBI knowing ofboth mens direct terror ties and funding yearsbefore.40

The U.S. governments success withMuslim outreach since September 11 hasntfared any better. One of the first Muslimleaders that the government turned to wasAnwar al-Awlaki, the al-Qaida cleric whowas in direct contact with at least three of theSeptember 11 hijackers.41 Awlaki, who had

been placed on the CIAs kill or capture list,was killed on September 30, 2011 in a CIA-led drone strike on the al-Qaida clericsconvoy in Yemen, which President Obamahailed as a milestone in the fight against al-Qaida.42

As the cleanup from the terrorist attack onthe Pentagon continued, Awlaki was invited

by the Pentagons Office of GovernmentCounsel to speak at a lunch in the buildings

executive offices as part of the governmentsnew Muslim outreach policy.43 Ironically, oneof the September 11 terrorists who had helpedhijack American Airlines Flight 77 that wasflown into the Pentagon had described Awlakias a great man and his spiritual leader.44Yet concerns had been raised about Awlakilong before the September 11 attacks.

A joint congressional inquiry in theSeptember 11 attacks found that lawenforcement had been investigating Awlakis

contacts with terrorism suspects as far back as1999.45 Further, just two days after September


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11, Awlaki had described the terror attacks asan accident in an interview with a localtelevision station.46 Also prior to hisappearance at the Pentagon the New YorkTimeshad noted Awlakis fiery anti-American

rhetoric prior to the attacks, and in November2001, he had defended the Taliban in an onlinechat about Ramadan on the Washington Postwebsite.47 Thus, despite claims that Awlakihad been vetted before the Pentagon event,abundant evidence of Awlakis extremistviews was more than readily available beforehe appeared at the Pentagon event.48

Equally egregious was the invitation by theNational Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) toYasir Qadhi to speak on de-radicalization at a

conference in August 2008. At that time too,Qadhis extremist views (such as hisstatements denouncing the hoax of theHolocaust) were well known.49 Even morethan that, at a Muslim outreach event inHouston in 2006, Homeland Security officialDan Sutherland was present when Qadhiopenly admitted that he was on the terrorwatch list.50

Yet no one at the NCTC bothered toquestion Qadhis de-radicalizationcredentials. By the time he was invited tospeak at the NCTC conference, at least one ofQadhis Houston students, Daniel Maldonado,had been captured by Kenyan forces fightingwith the Somali al-Shabaab terrorist group.51A number of other students from QadhisAlMaghrib Institute program have gone in tocareers in terrorism, including Christmas Dayunderwear bomber Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, who attended a two-week training

session in Houston sponsored by Qadhisgroup learning the nuts and bolts of Islamfrom the cleric. Abdul Mutallab also attendedtwo other events in the UK sponsored byAlMaghrib.52 If Yasir Qadhi is an expert inderadicalization, one shudders to think whatan expert in radicalization might produce.

The NCTC under the Obamaadministration continues this bipartisan policyof Muslim outreach disasters, best exemplifiedwhen they gave Shaykh Kifah Mustapha a tour

of their top-secret facility as part of the FBIsCitizen Academy civilian training program in

September 2010.53 Why was this socatastrophic? In 2007 Kifah Mustapha wasnamed an unindicted co-conspirator by federal

prosecutors in the largest terrorism financingtrial in American history. During that trial FBI

agent Lara Burns testified that Mustapha waspart of a singing troupe that glorified Hamasand encouraged the killing of Jews as part ofthe fundraising efforts for Hamas.54

Yet months before participating in the FBICitizen Academy program and visiting the

NCTC, Mustapha was removed as an IllinoisState Police chaplain in the wake of mediareports noting his long-time terrorist supportactivities.55 After Mustapha sued the state

police for discrimination, a protective order

was filed by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgeraldthat disclosed that the Chicago FBIs SpecialAgent in Charge Robert Grant had warnedstate police officials that Mustapha wouldnever be able to pass an FBI backgroundcheck.56 One former FBI official told theWashington Times that Mustapha was aknown senior Hamas guy.57

None of that prevented the FBI Chicagofield office from hosting Mustapha in the six-week Citizens Academy course, whichincluded a guided tour of the NCTC and theFBI Academy at Quantico. Caught in anembarrassing situation, an FBI spokesmanadmitted to Fox News that he had in fact

participated in the program, but defended thedecision, saying that he was a prominentfigure in the community.58 A week later, FBIDirector Robert Mueller doubled-down onMustaphas inclusion in the program after hewas questioned about it following a speech he

had given, but refused to address the mountainof evidence that federal prosecutors and theFBI had compiled on the Hamas cleric, saying,I am not going to talk about any particularindividual.59

Court documents filed in March 2013 in afederal court by Illinois Attorney General LisaMadigan asked the judge for summary

judgment against Mustaphas lawsuit againstthe Illinois State Police. In them were revealedmore warnings about Mustaphas terror ties

from the FBI Chicago field office. Ironically,this was the same office that a few months


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later invited Mustapha to participate in the FBICitizens Academy, even telling Illinois StatePolice officials about the imamsdemonstrable ties to an organization thatfunded terrorism and providing them a video

of Mustapha singing lyrics in praise of Hamasand calling for violence against Jews aschildren danced around him carrying guns.60Attorney General Madigan added that theinformation provided by the FBI Chicagoofficials conclusively showed that Mustaphasactivities damage Illinois State Police due toits anti-Jewish and un-American content andmanner.61

No matter how embarrassing the KifahMustapha incident was for the FBI and the

NCTC, the Department of Homeland Securityhas no grounds to fault their colleagues,especially after Secretary Napolitanoappointed Mohamed Elibiary to her HomelandSecurity Advisory Council in October 2010.62Elibiary had previously served on theDepartment of Homeland SecuritysCountering Violent Extremism WorkingGroup, along with Mohamed Majid, despitehis speaking at a December 2004 conferencehonoring Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini (anevent that the Dallas Morning Newseditorialized as a disgrace).63 RecentlyElibiary has billed himself as aderadicalization expert, despite clearevidence of his previous defense of terroristsupport organizations, his praise for jihadistauthors, and his threats made against a Dallas

journalist who repeatedly exposed hisextremist views.64 His open support for

jihadist ideological godfather Sayyid Qutb65

prompted the Washington Times to comment,If Mr. Elibiary is one of his [Qutbs]disciples, he has no business being anywherein government, let alone as an adviser at theuppermost reaches of an agency that purportsto protect the homeland.66 ConsideringMohamed Elibiarys track record, it seems hehas done more to promote violent ideologythan to prevent it.

The State Department under HillaryClinton was not immune from such outreach

disasters either. In November 2010, U.S.Ambassador to Britain Louis B. Susman

stirred international outrage following his visitto the notorious East London Mosque, wellknown as a longtime hotbed of extremism anda prolific terrorist incubator.67 In January2009, the mosque hosted a conference

featuring wanted al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki via telephone.68 Just a few weeks

before Susmans visit, the mosque chairmanhad defended Awlakis participation in theconference, calling it an act of fairness and

justice.The visit by the U.S. ambassador was

slammed in the Wall Street Journalby ShirazMaher of the International Center for theStudy of Radicalization at Kings College,who described the mosque as among

Britains most extreme Islamic institutions.Maher concluded that Mr. Susmans visitillustrates the blunders Western politiciansoften make by reaching out to the wrongMuslim dialogue partners. He added thatthe attendance of such a high-rankingdiplomat to the mosque emboldened robedreactionaries at the expense of their moremoderate counterparts.69 Maher also statedthat Susmans visit to the mosque was such anegregious blunder that British Prime MinisterDavid Cameron instructed officials to conductan exhaustive review of the governmentsPreventing Violent Extremism program toensure that all community partners had beenthoroughly vetted.70

The U.S. government, however, failed toeven acknowledge the blunder, let aloneattempt to reconsider its long-standing policyof engaging extremists. In fact, the AmericanEmbassy issued a statement explaining that

the visit was a part of President Obamas callfor a renewed dialogue with Muslimcommunities around the world.71

WHO ARE WE DEALING WITH?

In President Obamas call for reneweddialogue, isnt it incumbent upon intelligence,homeland security, and law enforcementofficials to know exactly who theyre dealingwith? Yet in many cases, the U.S. government

has known that the Muslim leaders andorganizations they were dealing with were


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Patrick S. Poole


involved in terrorism or hostile foreigngovernments and groups.

A case cited earlier, for example, showedthis to be true of Ramadan Shallah, anassociate of Sami al-Arian, who directed the

World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE), athink-tank affiliated with the University ofSouth Florida. In addition, he taught classes inMiddle Eastern politics at the university in1994 and 1995.72 He also was a regular fixturealong with al-Arian at CENTCOMMheadquarters at MacDill Air Force Base.Shallah was even a speaker at a January 1995conference with a former attorney general ofthe United States held at the University ofGeorgia.73 Yet just months after suddenly

leaving the Tampa area, Shallah reappeared inOctober 1995 in Damascus, Syria, as the newhead of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which had

been designated a terrorist organization byPresident Clinton. He is currently on the FBIsmost wanted list and is the subject of a $5million reward offered by the StateDepartment.74

More recently, the case of Ghulam NabiFai, president of the Kashmiri AmericanCouncil in Washington, D.C., should be noted.Fai was a regular fixture on Capitol Hill,where his organization hosted conferencessupporting the Kashmiri separatist causefeaturing high-ranking members of Congress,including Reps. Dan Burton, Joe Pitts, DennisKucinich, Yvette Clarke, and Jim Moran.75 Faialso spread around generous amounts ofcampaign cash to Republican and Democratsalike.

Yet for two decades, Fai had been

operating as a paid agent of influence underthe direct control of Pakistans intelligenceservice, the ISI.76 Senior high-rankingmembers of the ISI were in attendance at FaisCapitol Hill conferences. According to courtdocuments, Fai and his ISI handlers would gofrom the Capitol to his D.C. office to discusstheir plans to influence Congress illegally, theState Department, and other governmentagencies toward Pakistans views on Kashmir.All of this was caught on FBI wiretaps and

cited in Fais indictment. However, it wasyears before federal prosecutors put an end to

Fais influence in Washington, D.C. spyoperations, never informing the members ofCongress who were targeted by Fai. Further,during the two decades that Fai operated inservice to Pakistans intelligence service, he

was also serving in senior leadership roleswith a number of top Islamic groups favored

by the U.S. government, including serving onthe shura council of ISNA--the most

prominent Islamic organization involved withthe U.S. governments outreach

programs.77For years, federal law enforcementofficials knowingly looked the other way andstood mute as the Holy Land Foundationraised money inside the United States for theterrorist group Hamas. Their programs were

even registered with the State DepartmentsUSAID program until December 1999, whenthe agency informed the Holy LandFoundation that it was officially beingderegistered. Defending the organization, aspokeswoman appealed to their ties with thegovernment as proof of their innocence,saying, Were in close cooperation withA.I.D.78

The U.S. government has not just beencontent with turning a blind eye towards theirterror-tied outreach partners, but activefinanciers of them as well. Such was the casewith the Islamic American Relief Agency(IARA), which according to the TreasuryDepartment had provided direct financialsupport to UBL [Usama bin Ladin]. YetIARA had received a $300,000 USAIDcontract to provide support for a childsurvival program. It was also awarded a $4million contract by the U.S. Embassy in Mali

in 1998, which was only cancelled inDecember 1999, when Richard Clarke, chiefof counterterrorism for President Bill Clinton,

pressed the matter.79 Yet the FBI and the CIAhad known of IARAs ties to al-Qaida going

back to 1995 and made no effort to stoptaxpayer funds from going to the group.

One might think that considering thesecases, the U.S. government would haverevisited its policies and scrutinized morecarefully who they dealt with in their aid

programs. Yet exactly the opposite occurred--U.S. government agencies appear to have


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imposed a policy of institutional blindnesswhen it comes to the terrorist associations oftheir aid program partners. Such was the casein 2008, when the Bush Labor Departmentfunded a three-year contract with the

Charitable Society for Social Welfare (CSSW)based in Yemen to combat child labor andchild trafficking. Even as investigativereporter J.M. Berger noted, one of CSSWsformer leaders in the United States was noneother than al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.80According to tax documents filed with the IRSobtained by Berger, Awlaki had served as thegroups vice president. Yet at the time that theDepartment of Labor issued the grant,Awlakis work on behalf ofal-Qaida and his

ties to CSSW had been widely reported.81 Ithad also been reported that the founder ofCSSW and an ongoing active supporter of thecharity was Abdul Majid al-Zindani, one ofUsama bin Ladins mentors that had beennamed a U.S. specially designated terrorist bythe U.S. government in 2004.82

The Obama administration has continuedthis disastrous policy as seen the funding ofthe Sunni Ittehad Council, which wasostensibly formed to counter extremism inPakistan. Yet when a leading moderatePakistani governor critical of the countrys useof Islamic blasphemy laws to punish religiousminorities was gunned down by one of hisown bodyguards, the Ittehad Council heldrallies and demonstrations in support of theassassin. The council received $36,607 of U.S.taxpayer money.83

Equally as troubling has been the numberof transformations of leaders of American

Islamic organizations that partner with theU.S. government into senior officials withMuslim Brotherhood fronts around the world.One recent case is Louay Safi, who up until afew years ago was one of the Pentagons topIslamic advisers and only one of two officialecclesiastical endorsers of the DefenseDepartments Muslim chaplains. In August2011, however, just weeks after meeting withofficials at the White House, Safi reappearedat a press conference in Istanbul as a leader in

the Syrian National Council, a group heavilydominated by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood

looking to overthrow Bashar al-Asad.84 Saficurrently serves as the groups politicaldirector based in Qatar.

However, Safis connections to the MuslimBrotherhood even predate his advising the

Pentagon. Back in 2002, Safis offices wereraided by the U.S. Customs Service of theTreasury Department as part of a widespreadterror finance investigation into the SAAR

Network, a financial empire funded by Saudimoney but controlled and operated by U.S.Muslim Brotherhood operatives. At the time,Safi was working for the International Institutefor Islamic Thought (IIIT), which was one ofthe primary targets of the raid.85

Then in 2005, Safi was named unindicted

co-conspirator Number 4 in the trial ofPalestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leader Sami al-Arian. As the Tampa Tribune noted during thetrial, conversations between al-Arian and Safihad been caught on wiretaps authorized by atop-secret Foreign Intelligence SurveillanceAct (FISA) national security warrant. In oneconversation, Safi called al-Arian to ask himhow the designation of PIJ as a terroristorganization by then-President Bill Clintonwould impact al-Arians work.86 Yet despitehis known association with terrorist leaders, aslate as 2008, Safi was appearing with seniorFBI officials (the same FBI that hadwiretapped his conversations with al-Arian) atoutreach events.87

Safis involvement with the Pentagonbecame an issue following the Fort Hoodattacks, when 13 members of Congress sent aletter to Defense Secretary Gates complainingthat not only was Safi endorsing Muslim

chaplains for the Defense Department onbehalf of ISNA, but also teaching classes onthe Theology of Islam to troops departingfor Afghanistan at Fort Hood and Fort Blissunder a subcontract with the NavalPostgraduate School.88 AfterFox News madeinquiries about Safis relationship with thePentagon, they were informed that Safi was nolonger teaching or endorsing chaplains.89

Louay Safi is hardly alone in transitioningfrom American Islamic leader to foreign

Muslim Brotherhood leader:


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Patrick S. Poole


Ghassan Hitto, a Dallas technologybusinessman, was selected as theprovision premier of the Syrianresistance.90 According to the NewYork Times, Hitto was the favored

candidate of the Syrian MuslimBrotherhood.91 It also reported that hehad been an official for the Texas

branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Aftergraduation from Purdue University,Hitto and his wife had both worked forISNA in Indianapolis for several yearsin the late 1980s and early 1990s.92More recently, he had been on the

board of directors of the Muslim

American Society, which federalprosecutors had identified as the overtarm of the Muslim Brotherhood in

North America.93 He is also a long-time friend of Homeland Securityadviser Mohamed Elibiary, whoindicated that Hitto was broadlyrespected by the Muslim communityincluding Muslim Brotherhoodmembers.94

Muthanna al-Hanooti, formerexecutive director of CAIR-Michiganand public relations coordinator for theDetroit-based Life for Relief andDevelopment, was indicted in March2008 for his role in attempting toinfluence Congress of behalf ofSaddam Husseins Iraqi IntelligenceService. According to the indictment,al-Hanooti paid for and accompaniedthree members of Congress to Iraq on a

five-day trip in the lead-up to the U.S.invasion of Iraq, with the $34,000 inexpenses covered by Iraqi intelligence.In return, al-Hanooti was granted a $2million allotment of Iraqi oil.95Prosecutors said that al-Hanooti hadoperated on behalf of SaddamHusseins government during most ofthe 1990s and up until the Iraq War.Because LIFE and al-Hanooti was partof the Detroit U.S. Attorneys Building

Respect in Diverse Groups to EnhanceSensitivity (BRIDGES), the entire U.S.

Attorneys office had to recusethemselves from the case, which washandled by DOJ attorneys inWashington, D.C.96 In a plea deal, al-Hanooti agreed to charges of violating

sanctions against doing business withIraq and was sentenced to federal

prison.97 He is now regional director ofthe Detroit chapter of the MuslimLegal Fund of America.98

Mahmoud Hussein, secretary generalof the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood,was recruited into the organizationwhile studying in the United States atthe University of Iowa. He also servedas the president of the Muslim Arab

Youth Association (MAYA) in theUnited States, a now-defunctsubsidiary organization of ISNA.99During Husseins tenure with MAYA,the group sponsored a number ofconferences across the countryfeaturing terrorist leaders affiliatedwith the Muslim Brotherhood fromaround the world, including Afghan

jihad leader and al-Qaida co-founderAbdallah Azzam.100

Ishaq Farhan is the head of theJordanian Muslim Brotherhoods

political arm, the Islamic Action Front.However, he has also been a longtime

board member of the InternationalInstitute for Islamic Thought (IIIT)

based in the Washington, D.C., area.101According to congressional testimonyon Terrorist Threat to the UnitedStates, Farhan was also active with

MAYA as a conference speaker and asa recruiter of American Muslim youthsfor Hamas. One student recruited whoattended a terror training session inKansas City noted Farhan as one of thespeakers.102 In 1996, Farhan also sentletters on behalf of the IAF to the U.S.Embassy in Amman demanding therelease of Hamas senior leader MousaAbu Marzook.103

Ahmed Yousef, currently spokesmanfor Hamas in Gaza and a senior

political adviser to Hamas prime


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minister Ismail Haniyeh, was thelongtime director of the UnitedAssociation for Studies and Research(UASR) based in Springfield,Virginia.104 Article Two of the 1988

Hamas Charter self-identifies thegroup as one of the wings of theMuslim Brotherhood in Palestine.105The supposedly independent think-tank held conferences, publishedstudies, and a quarterly journal with anadvisory board featuring a number of

prominent academics. Yet as early as1993, UASR had been identified asthe political command of Hamas inthe United States by a captured

Hamas operative.106 Notcoincidentally, one of UASRsfounders was Hamas deputy leaderMousa Abu Marzook, and anotherdirector of the organization was al-Qaida fundraiser Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi.107 Yousef defended Hamas asa charitable organization, and manyof UASRs publications and speakersunashamedly defended Islamistterrorist groups as legitimateresistance.108 Yousef fled the UnitedStates in 2005 to avoid prosecution onterrorism-related charges. Hereemerged shortly thereafter asspokesman for Hamas. His departureleft many of his defenders flatfooted.This included GeorgetownUniversitys John Esposito, whoserved on UASRs editorial advisory

board and helped plan joint

conferences with UASR, and formerCIA official and Muslim Brotherhoodapologist Graham Fuller.109

It may then be the case that occasionallysome of the U.S. governments Islamicadvisors and leaders of the very organizationsgovernment agencies count as their outreach

partners seem to have the habit of turning upas illegal foreign agents or leaders of terroristorganizations and Muslim Brotherhood

affiliates across the Middle East. Among theleaders of the Islamic groups favored by the

U.S. government are even wantedinternational war criminals.

In October 2012, Ashrafuzzaman Khan,former secretary general of the Islamic Circleof North America (ICNA) and president of the

North American Imams Federation, wasindicted by a Bangladesh war crimes tribunalfor crimes against humanity and genocide forhis role in the abduction, torture, and murderof intellectuals during that countrys war ofindependence from Pakistan in December1971. A State Department spokesman said thatthey are looking at the charges.110 A

prosecutor in the case said that the killings byKhan, who at the time was a member of the al-Badr student militia wing of Jamaat-i-Islami,

were part of a master plan by the Pakistanimilitary to kill a specific group of unarmedcivilian Benghalis.111 Those murdered were

pro-independence professors, journalists, andphysicians.

Not only has ICNA condemned theinternational war crimes tribunal, but aspokesman for ICNA reaffirmed their supportfor Khan.112 He also appeared at a rally in

New York City in late 2010, with leadingmembers of the Islamic community and U.S.government outreach partners, includingObama White House regulars ISNAsMohamed Majid, CAIR executive director

Nihad Awad, and Haris Tarin of the MuslimPublic Affairs Council (MPAC).113

As has been shown, being under active FBIinvestigation has not prevented the U.S.government from counting terrorist leaders,recruiters, or fundraisers among their closestIslamic advisers. Such is the case with Abdul

Rahman al-Amoudi, Sami al-Arian, andAnwar al-Awlaki. Moreover, when the U.S.government has given taxpayer dollars toIslamic groups that support terrorism,

presumably inadvertently, there has neverbeen a systematic review of the screeningsystem to ensure similar incidents wont occurin the future--when, in fact, they repeatedlyhave.

In the case of Ghulam Nabi Fais two-decade long influence operation on Capitol

Hill on behalf of Pakistani intelligence, thematter passed with barely any notice, let alone


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Patrick S. Poole


any consideration that Fai had served inleadership positions with virtually every majorIslamic organization in the country. Nor hasthere been any reexamination on the part ofgovernment agencies of their policies when a

long line of their Islamic advisers and leadersfrom the groups they count as outreach

partners--including repeated visits to theObama White House in the case of LouaySafi--reappear as senior leaders for MuslimBrotherhood affiliates and fronts in the MiddleEast. This lack of acknowledgment,reexamination, or investigation following thenear-universal catastrophic failures in U.S.government outreach in the Clinton, Bush, andObama administrations has led to a corrosive

effect on U.S. domestic and foreign policy.

POLICY IMPLICATIONS

That many of the Islamic groups identifiedas outreach partners by the U.S. governmentwere identified by federal prosecutors in courtas fronts for the international MuslimBrotherhood and supporters of internationalterrorism has proved incredibly embarrassing.Extraordinary measures are thus taken toignore this situation.114 One response has beento ignore the problem altogether. Since March2012, the FBI has been undergoing aDepartment of Justice inspector generalinvestigation for continuing contacts with theCouncil of American-Islamic Relations(CAIR), despite a department-wide ban onformal contacts with the organizations for itslong-standing ties to terrorism.115 Thisoutreach contrary to official bureau policy

continued to occur as CAIR officials publiclyencouraged the American Muslim communitynot to talk to the FBI.116

At the same time that the DOJ inspectorgeneral began its investigation of the FBIscontinued contacts with CAIR in violation ofstated policy, the bureau began taking anotherapproach. In March 2012, the FBI releasedguidelines it claimed informed its purge ofhundreds of documents and more than 300

presentations from its counterterrorism

training materials.117

This Touchstonedocument articulates the FBIs new policy

that associating with a terrorist organization, ifthat organization has both violent and legalelements, does not mean that someone agreeswith the violent ends of that organization:

This distinction includes recognition ofthe corresponding principle that mereassociation with organizations thatdemonstrates both legitimate (advocacy)and illicit (violent extremism) objectivesshould not automatically result in adetermination that the associatedindividual is acting in furtherance of theorganization's illicit objective(s).118

Thus, according to this new FBI policy, if

the group supports violence but performssome legitimate functions (say, for instance,al-Qaida, which Sen. Patty Murray [D-WA]infamously said helped pay to build schools,roads, and day care centers119), associatingwith that group, according to the FBI, doesntmean you support that groups violent ends.Thus, the terror support of their Muslimoutreach partners is absolved with a rhetoricalsleight-of-hand.

This is why Mohamed Majid, who just afew years before was treated as a pariah by theAttorney General of the United States afterfederal prosecutors named his organization asa front for the Muslim Brotherhood and asupporter of terrorism in the largest terrorismfinancing trial in American history,120 can justa few short years later not only berehabilitated, but can regularly be found--much as al-Qaida fundraiser Abdul Rahmanal-Amoudi who preceded him--a frequent

visitor to the White House. Just prior toPresident Obamas March 2013 visit to theMiddle East, ISNA openly trumpeted thatMajid had advised the president prior to histrip.121

Another extremist leader rehabilitated bythe Obama administration has been Salam al-Marayati, president of the Muslim PublicAffairs Council (MPAC), who recentlyappeared as a member of the official U.S.delegation to the Organization for Security

and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)conference on human rights held in Vienna in


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October 2012.122 Going back to the ClintonAdministration, however, al-Marayati had hisappointment to a congressional terrorismcommission withdrawn after his comments insupport of Hamas and Hizballah--designated

terrorist organizations he had likened toAmerican patriots like Patrick Henry--and hislabeling Islamist suicide attacks as legitimateresistance had been revealed.123 In an op-ed

published by the Los Angeles Times, he andhis wife attacked the Jewish groups criticizinghis appointment as extremists.124

His appointment eventually withdrawn, hedoubled down on his support for the terroristgroups, telling the New York Times, WhenHamas and Hizballah commit acts of

terrorism, we condemn those acts as eventscontrary to the principles of Islam; when thosegroups build hospitals and develop socialservice agencies for the disenfranchised, that'ssomething that we do not condemn.125 Thisview foreshadows the new FBI Touchstonestandard.

He was also caught up in controversyimmediately following the September 11attacks, when he went on a Los Angeles radio

program in the immediate hours after theattacks and said we should put the state ofIsrael on the suspect list. This prompted anumber of Jewish organizations--many ofwhom had openly defended al-Marayati whenhis appointment to the congressional terrorismcommission was withdrawn--to stop dialoguewith al-Marayati and MPAC.126

Yet when the State Department came underfire for including al-Marayati in the officialU.S. delegation to the OSCE conference

despite his extremist positions and statements(including a recent posting on the MPACwebsite promoting anti-Jewish blood libels), aspokesman appealed to his longtime

participation in U.S. government-sponsoredoutreach as proof of his moderation. Theystated that he was valued and highlycredible.127 Al-Marayati and MPAC are alsoofficial outreach partners to the FBI.128

In 2012, Hani Nour Eldin, a known

member of the Egyptian al-Gamaa al-Islamiyya (a U.S.-designated terrorist group),

was invited to Washington, D.C. Eldin wasescorted into the White House to meet withObamas national security staff.129 The

purpose of his meeting was to demand therelease of his groups leader, the Blind

Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, currently infederal prison for his leading role in the 1993World Trade Center bombing and the plannedfollow-up Day of Terror attacks.130

To emphasize this policy, senior Obamaadministration officials made clear thatallowing Eldin--a member of a designatedterrorist organization--into the United Stateswas no mistake. A few months later,Department of Homeland Security SecretaryJanet Napolitano defended the decision during

a congressional hearing. She added that othermembers of terrorist groups would beadmitted into the United States in the future.131

Even more egregious than the invitation ofHani Nour Eldin is the May 2012 visit ofSudanese war criminal Nafie Ali Nafie--anarchitect of not one, but two genocides (thefirst in the 1990s in the Nuba Mountains, thesecond more recently in Darfur)--as part of aSudanese delegation at the invitation of theU.S. State Department.132 Nafie is the

principal adviser to Sudanese President Omaral-Bashir--who is currently under indictment

by the International Criminal Court--and wasthe longtime intelligence chief for the Islamistregime in Khartoum. In addition, he reportedlywas closely associated with Usama bin Ladinduring his stay in Sudan during the early1990s.133 Nafie readily admits to torturingcivilians in a series of ghost houses duringhis tenure as intelligence chief. He defended

such practices in an interview with the LosAngeles Times in 2008 (in the midst of theDarfur genocide), saying, We were there to

protect ourselves. Definitely we were not thereto play cards with them.134 Over a hundredHolocaust scholars and genocide experts senta letter to President Obama calling for theadministration to cancel its meeting with theSudanese delegation.135

As these examples demonstrate, the U.S.governments ignoring the terrorist support of

its Muslim outreach partners has had aslippery-slope effect in its foreign policy by


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Patrick S. Poole


inviting members of terrorist groups and warcriminals to Washington, D.C. for dialogue.Yet in light of Nafie Ali Nafies 2012 visit,there is a more direct connection to be made.The umbrella organization tasked with leading

the outreach efforts to the Obamaadministration for the governments Muslimoutreach partners, American Muslims forConstructive Engagement (which includesISNA, MPAC, IIIT, and CAIR as memberorganizations), is headed by a former high-ranking Sudanese genocide henchman.Abubakar al-Shingieti served as SudanPresident al-Bashirs spokesman and laterdirector of public affairs until 1998. His termas one of al-Bashirs top advisers fully

coincided with the genocide of Christians andanimists in southern Sudan. He came to theUnited States and served as editor of ISNAsmonthly magazine,Islamic Horizons, and nowserves as director of IIIT in addition to hisduties with American Muslims forConstructive Engagement organizing outreachto the U.S. government on behalf of the sameorganizations identified by federal prosecutorsas fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood.136

Thus, the policy pronounced by the FBI intheir Touchstone document, well establishedin practice during FBI Director RobertMuellers tenure,137 can now justify U.S.government outreach and dialogue withmembers of terrorist organizations and massmurderers. The corrosive effect on nationalsecurity and law enforcement when it comesto terrorism goes even further. An important

point to raise at this point is that at the verysame time that the FBI was receiving red flag

warnings from Russian authorities aboutfuture Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, theObama administration was engaged in agovernment-wide Islamophobia witchhuntthat left virtually no area of national security,intelligence, or law enforcement untouched.138

From the outset, the Obama administrationhas followed a course to blind governmentagencies to the international and domestic

jihadi threat and tie the hands of lawenforcement investigators to identify such

activity. One of the first steps in 2009 was forthe Obama administration to remove any

reference to radical Islam from the NationalSecurity Strategy, a move that was hailed byCAIR and other Muslim groups.139 In fact,many of the U.S. governments outreach

partners had a direct hand in demanding the

language purge from national security protocoland agency lexicons in recent years, going asfar back as MPACs vehement criticism of the9/11 Commission Report for the use of thewords Islamist,, jihad, and other suchterms to describe the motivations, influence,and ideology of al-Qaida and the September11 terrorists.140 Undoubtedly, the Obamaadministrations move was part of the recent

justification by the Associated Press to purgethe same language from their stylebook.141

More recently, Congressman LouieGohmert (R-TX) challenged the removal ofthese terms from the FBIs CounterterrorismAnalytical Lexicon, including jihad,Islam, and even Hamas, Hizballah, andal-Qaida, in a floor speech in the House ofRepresentatives.142 The very next day, FBIrepresentatives contacted Gohmerts staff,claiming that the lexicon he cited didnt evenexist. Those same representatives quicklyretreated when it was confirmed that hardcopies had been distributed to allcounterterrorism agents in the field, electroniccopies resided on the FBIs intranet, and afterthe current author reported the matter and

posted an electronic copy of the FBIs lexicononline.143

Another step came in January 2010, whenHomeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitanohosted a two-day meeting with members ofIslamic groups organized by the departments

Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.Attendees not from the Washington, D.C.,area were flown in and accommodated attaxpayer expense. What distinguished thismeeting from others is that several of theattendees represented organizations that had

been named unindicted co-conspirators andfronts for the Muslim Brotherhood in the HolyLand Foundation trial.144

According to documents about the meetingobtained by government watchdog Judicial

Watch through a Freedom of Information Act(FOIA) request, one attendee proposed by


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DHS staff included Hamas operative KifahMustapha.145 This was just weeks beforeMustapha was removed from his position aschaplain for the Illinois State Police under theadvice of the FBI Chicago field office.146

While he was not included in the finalparticipants list for the meeting with SecretaryNapolitano, Mustapha benefited from this newoutreach approach of the Obamaadministration when he participated in the FBICitizens Academy program in August of thatyear (just weeks after the same FBI office hadwarned the Illinois State Police of his terroristties).147

One of those who did attend the meetingwith Napolitano was Imad Hamad. In 2003,

Hamad had an FBI Exceptional Public Serviceaward stripped from him just days beforereceiving it from Director Mueller himself at aceremony at the FBI Headquarters inWashington, D.C. This occurred following a

New York Posteditorial noting the nearly two-decade-long effort of the Immigration and

Naturalization Service (INS) to deport Hamadfor his suspected membership in the PopularFront for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), adesignated terrorist organization responsiblefor countless bombings targeting civilians.Hamad had been recommended for the award

by the FBI Detroit field office.148Homeland Security was not alone in this

new Obama administration approach toMuslim outreach, with the White Housegetting into the act. In September 2010, thehome of Hatem Abudayyeh was raided by theFBI as part of a multi-state federal terrorismsupport investigation. A grand jury subpoena

served at the time of the raids said the U.S.Attorneys office was looking for all recordsof any payment provided directly or indirectlyto Hatem Abudayyeh, the Popular Front forthe Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) or theRevolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia(FARC)..149 Yet just five months earlier,Abudayyeh had been the guest at a briefingheld at the Eisenhower Executive OfficeBuilding by the White House Office of PublicEngagement for more than 80 of their outreach

partners, despite the fact that the grand juryinvestigation had been ongoing for more than

a year, according to Abudayyehs attorney.150In 2003, then-Illinois State Senator BarackObama had spoken at a farewell dinnersponsored by Abudayyehs Arab-AmericanAction Network for former Palestinian

Liberation Organization spokesman RashidKhalidi. In addition, a foundation that Obamahad sat on the board of had provided $40,000in funds to Abudayyehs group.151

Notwithstanding these embarrassments, theObama administration continued to pushforward with its outreach to extremists. InMarch 2011, Obamas Deputy NationalSecurity Advisor Denis McDonough spoke atMohamed Majids mosque, the ADAMSCenter. McDonough lavished praise on the

imam, who just a few years before had beenregarded as a pariah by the attorney general ofthe United States after Majids organization,ISNA, had been named unindictedcoconspirator in the Holy Land Foundationtrial. In his comments, McDonough failed tonote the extensive terrorist ties of many of theleaders of the ADAMS Center.152

The ADAMS Center would again be thesite of a visit by a high-ranking official in theObama administration in February 2012, whenAssistant Secretary of Defense Peter Lavoy

publicly apologized to the U.S. Muslimcommunity for the burning of several Koransat a U.S. base in Afghanistan, flanked byMajid and Haris Tarin of MPAC.153 TheKorans were burned after a counterintelligenceunit discovered that prisoners were using the

books to transmit messages. A military inquiryfound that the U.S. soldiers involved did nothave any malicious intent to disrespect the

Koran or to defame the faith of Islam.

154

To emphasize the Obama administrationsnew Muslim outreach policy, the White Houseissued a directive in August 2011 ordering lawenforcement to engage community partnersto help combat violent extremism.155 ThisWhite House policy, signed by PresidentObama, effectively granted highlyquestionable official status to extremistgroups, like ISNA and MPAC, who even nowclaim previously unknown oversight to law

enforcement training and investigations. Oneexample of the effect of this new policy are


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Patrick S. Poole


the Sharia-compliant guidelines that federallaw enforcement officials must now complywith when conducting raids related to Islamicleaders or institutions.

This was exhibited in May 2011, when the

FBI raided a South Florida mosque andarrested its imam and his son for financiallysupporting the Taliban. The rules required lawenforcement officials to remove their shoes

before entering the mosque and prohibitingpolice canines from the property.156 Thecommon sense of these new rules undoubtedlywould have been put to the test had thesubjects tried to flee to be pursued by shoelessfederal agents. There is also no indication thatsuch sensitivity rules have been established by

the FBI for any other religion but Islam,raising serious constitutional questions.

Much of this new outreach policy wasdeveloped at a June 2011 workshop atGeorgetown University, sponsored by thePrince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center forChristian-Muslim Understanding. There,leaders from ISNA, CAIR, MPAC, and otherIslamic organizations met with senior Obamaadministration officials. Those officials invitedto the Workshop on Police-CommunityEngagement and Counter-Terrorismincluded:

DHS Assistant Secretary for PolicyDevelopment

Principal Deputy for the DHS Officeof Intelligence and Analysis

Director of DOJs COPS Office Associate Director for the White

House Office of Public Engagement

State Department SpecialRepresentative to MuslimCommunities

Senior Policy Adviser and Review andCompliance Officer for the DHSOffice of Civil Rights and CivilLiberties

Members of the DHS HomelandSecurity Advisory Committee

Senior leaders from the FBI andNational Counterterrorism Center

That the White House fully intended torehabilitate these Islamic groups from theopprobrium from their past association andsupport of terrorist groups being raised infederal court was confirmed when George

Selim, the White House Director forCommunity Engagement, a newly created

position, admitted to a reporter at a StateDepartment diversity function that the Obamaadministration had hundreds of meetingswith Islamist extremist groups, includingCAIR.157 A State Department official then

berated the reporter for asking the question,claiming the reporter had committed awiretapping felony for recording Selimsresponse to the reporters questions.

No sooner had the White Houses newoutreach policy been announced, when it

became clear that one of the policy outcomesof this relationship was the administrationsenforcement of a blacklist of subject matterexperts deemed enemies by their Muslim

partners. A conference on violent extremismscheduled to be hosted by the CIAs ThreatManagement Unit in August 2011 wasabruptly cancelled by the CIA and HomelandSecurity after CAIR publicly complainedabout one of the speakers--former Joint Chiefsof Staff intelligence analyst StephenCoughlin.158

As explained previously, the FBI hasinstituted a publicly stated ban on contacts by

bureau officials with CAIR since 2009 due totheir past terrorism support.159 The banning ofa highly-regarded and credentialed expert byany U.S. government agency for no otherreason but the protest of a group identified by

federal prosecutors in federal court as a frontfor a terrorist organization, as well ascanceling the entire conference rather thanreplacing the speaker, is simplyunprecedented. This blacklisting was reified

by guidelines issued by the Department ofHomeland Security in October 2011 andintended to apply across all agencies that banstraining that equates religious expression,

protests, or other constitutionally protectedactivity with criminal activity.160 The

Homeland Security counterterrorism trainingguidelines specifically cites MPAC as the sole


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non-government source for best practices inCVE training and community policing.161

Former Assistant U.S. Attorney AndrewMcCarthy, who prosecuted the Blind SheikhOmar Abdel Rahman (who received a

sentence of life in prison) for his role in the1993 World Trade Center bombing and the

planned follow-up Day of Terror attacks,exposes the lunacy of the Department ofHomeland Securitys new training policies:

I marched into the courtroom every dayfor nine months and proved that therewas an undeniable nexus betweenIslamic doctrine and terrorismcommitted by Muslims. The Blind

Sheikh, the jury was allowed to learn,was not a fringe lunatic; he was aglobally renowned scholar of shariawhose influence over a spate ofinternational jihadist organizations was

based on his doctorate from al-AzharUniversity, the worlds most influentialcenter of Islamic thought. And when Idemonstrated the straight-line,undeniable logic of the evidence--thatscripture informed the Blind Sheikhsdirectives; that those directives informedhis terrorist subordinates; and that thosesubordinates then committed atrocities--the government gave me the JusticeDepartments highest award.Today, Id

be ostracized. No longer is thegovernment content to be willfully

blind. Today, it is defiantly, coercively,extortionately blind.162

Imagine the implications of this policyapplied to any other law enforcement problemor terror threat, such as organized crime,gangs, white supremacists, or militias. Anyactivity short of violence or other crimeswould be constitutionally protected activityaccording to this doctrine and out of boundsfor counterterrorism trainers, and presumablycounterterrorism analysts and law enforcementagents. Moreover, the FBIs Touchstonedocument says that membership in a violent

organization, if that organization is engaged inlegitimate advocacy activity, would mean law

enforcement cant assume that membersendorse the violence or criminality of thatgroup.

Consider the case of the Italian AmericanAnti-Defamation League founded in the early

1970s by La Cosa Nostra mob boss JoeColumbo. The League protested the use of thewords mafia or Cosa Nostra in the movieThe Godfather. They charged that the FBI, theOrganized Crime Task Force, and theAttorney General were engaged in a vendettaagainst Italian-Americans in their prosecutionof mafia activities, and even picketed in frontof FBI headquarters.163 Yet taking the currentFBI policy outlined in the Touchstonedocument at face value, just being a member

of La Cosa Nostra or openly associating andpromoting the goals and objectives of theItalian American Anti-Defamation Leaguedoesnt necessarily mean you agree with thecriminal and violent ends of the mob.

Such policies, as now advocated by the FBIand Homeland Security applied exclusively toIslamist terrorism, would have made the waveof organized crime prosecutions that broke the

back of the mafia impossible. As formerAssistant U.S. Attorney McCarthy has said, italso would have made the investigation and

prosecution of the Blind Sheikh impossible.As described below, this is exactly how this

policy that is being applied is stymieinginvestigators trying to prevent future terrorattacks. The intended result of these guidelinesand policies adopted by the Obamaadministration is effectively to blacklist anysubject matter expert willing to raise the issueof the terrorist ties of their Muslim outreach

partners, and blacklisting is precisely whatthey have accomplished.One victim of the administrations

blacklisting has been Dr. Zuhdi Jasser,president of the American Islamic Forum forDemocracy. When Jasser testified in March2011 before the House Homeland SecurityCommittee on radicalization in the AmericanMuslim community, he was branded a traitorand an Uncle Tom by many of thegovernments Muslim outreach partners, and

even by political allies of the White House,such as the Center for American Progress and


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Patrick S. Poole


The Nation magazine. Prior to hiscongressional appearance, he had beennominated by Senate Minority Leader MitchMcConnell to a post on the State DepartmentsU.S. Advisory Commission on Public

Diplomacy, which is tasked with appraisingU.S. Government activities intended tounderstand, inform, and influence foreign

publics. However, after 15 months of vettingand receiving a top-secret security clearance,Jasser was informed that his name had beenremoved from consideration without anyexplanation. Senator Jon Kyl commented onthe affair by saying that the Obamaadministration has chosen to sideline Dr.Jasser.164

A more formal blacklist of subject matterexperts was published on September 11, 2012--the same day that mobs besieged the U.S.Embassy in Cairo and terrorists attacked theU.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi,Libya. The blacklist was prepared and

published by MPAC, one of HomelandSecurity and the FBIs official outreach

partners.165 In fact, the current author was oneof those included on MPACs blacklist.166

With these policies established by theWhite House, Homeland Security, the DefenseDepartment, and the FBI, the next step of theefforts by the Obama administration and theirMuslim outreach partners occurred on October19, 2011. Fifty-seven Muslim groups sent aletter to John Brennan, then the presidentscounterterrorism adviser, and copied toAttorney General Eric Holder, HomelandSecurity Secretary Napolitano, DefenseSecretary Leon Panetta, FBI Director Robert

Mueller, National Security Advisor TomDonilon, and Deputy National SecurityAdvisor Denis McDonough.167 The cardinaldemand of these Muslim groups was agovernment-wide purge of allcounterterrorism training materials, removal of

books from libraries in the various agencies,the mandatory reeducation of FBI agents,

punishment for any government employeewho taught anything the groups had deemedbiased, and the permanent blacklisting of

any trainer they considered bigoted andbiased. These demands were restated in an

editorial by MPACs Salam al-Marayati in theLos Angeles Times.168

The same day that letter was sent to theWhite House, a meeting was held at GeorgeWashington University between these same

groups and top DOJ officials, including DOJCivil Rights Division head Tom Perez.According to a report on the meeting by NeilMunro of The Daily Caller, several Muslimgroup leaders called for creating criminal andcivil penalties for anyone advocating positionsthey deemed offensive. Among those wereMohamed Majid, who according to the reportsaid that teaching people that all Muslims area threat to the country is against the law andthe Constitution.169 While such a view might

be ill-informed and bigoted, contrary to Majidthere is nothing illegal or unconstitutionalabout it, and it should be protected by the verysame policies outlined earlier by HomelandSecurity CVE Training Guidelines and theFBI Touchstone policy as well as the FirstAmendments freedom of speech protections.

One problem with the letter is that theiralleged examples of biased training reliedexclusively on the internet posts by one

blogger at WIRED, Spencer Ackerman, whohad previously been fired by The New

Republic. His dismissal from the magazinecame after repeated attacks on his own

publication and for threatening his editor tomake a niche in your skull with a baseball

bat for not allowing him to edit thepublications baseball blog, which wasclaimed to be a joke.170 Several years later, hewas in the public eye again for highly charged

partisan statements he had made on a top-

secret email distribution list of far-Leftjournalists, where among other things he hadurged:

What is necessary is to raise the cost onthe right of going after the left. In otherwords, find a rightwingers [sic] andsmash it through a plate-glass window.Take a snapshot of the bleeding messand send it out in a Christmas card to letthe right know that it needs to live in a

state of constant fear.171


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Later in that same email he had advocatedrandomly picking a conservative media figureand call them racists.172

Critics of his posts attacking the FBItraining materials claim that this is exactly

what Ackerman had done, complaining thatthe slides from presentations obtained byAckerman were published out of context withthe rest of the presentations and withoutcomment by the trainers.173 Those trainerswithin government agencies accused byAckerman were gagged from responding,leaving his out-of-context representationsunchallenged. Meanwhile, Ackermans wifewas a veteran press flack for the ACLUsWashington, D.C., legislative office that was

obtaining the FBI presentations through FOIArequests and helping to gaslight the story.

The letter from these Muslim groups--onceagain, several of which had been named by thefederal government as supporters of terrorismand fronts for foreign extremist organizations--was met with an immediate response byBrennan, who assured the White House alliesthat a task force had already been convened toimplement their demands.174 The governmentagencies also met with their Muslim outreach

partners to demonstrate their progress inmeeting their widespread demands for anIslamophobia purge. This included meetings

by ISNA held with FBI Director Mueller,where they were told that hundreds of pagesfrom FBI training materials and hundreds of

presentations had been removed.175 However,the FBI has refused to provide other details ofthese meetings with the administrationsoutreach partners to government watchdog

groups who filed FOIA requests. This hasprompted federal lawsuits against the FBI forwithholding such information.176

That is not the only matter related to theObama administrations Islamophobia purgethat government agencies are trying to keepsecret. When congressional oversightcommittees tried to investigate the purged FBItraining materials, concerned that nationalsecurity interests were being sacrificed to

political correctness and unduly influenced by

terror-tied Islamic organizations, the FBIrefused to disclose the training materials that

had been purged and promptly moved toclassify all such materials.177 One member ofCongress, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN)--amember of the House Intelligence Committee--was allowed to view the purged materials

only after she had signed an FBIconfidentiality agreement. The materials were

brought into a secure room and three to fourFBI minders watched over her shoulder andmonitored what she took note of as shereviewed the purged materials.178 Yet thesesame materials, which the FBI threw upconsiderable obstacles for members ofCongress to view had already been provided tothe ACLU under a FOIA request.

The FBIs concealment of the details of the

Islamophobia purge didnt stop there. TheFBI additionally classified the names of thefive-member committee--including threeoutside experts--that had purged thematerials.179 Those trainers who had theirmaterials purged by these nameless, faceless

judges were never given a chance to justify ordefend their work. In one case, a slide had

been purged because it featured a picture of anal-Qaida leader who was wearing traditionaldress, and the reviewer claimed that having a

picture in that dress was discriminatory.The April 2013 Boston bombing occurred

in this atmosphere of government-sponsoredpurges, book bans, speech codes, blacklists,and star chambers. It is hardly surprising thatthe FBI chose not to follow through on anyinvestigation on Tamerlan Tsarnaev, when theObama administration was deliberatelyerasing any ability to connect dots that wouldhave flagged his contacts with extremist

individuals overseas, his promotion of terroristgroups on his YouTube page, and associationwith the Boston mosque that had previouslyspawned other terrorists.180 In light of thestated policies of the FBI and HomelandSecurity, it is entirely fair to say that thesystem, which failed to account for all of thesewarning signs, did not fail, but in fact worked

perfectly. Yet these policies continue to getAmericans killed.

This was true in the Fort Hood massacre by

Army Major Nidal Hasan in November 2009.As was reported in the weeks following the


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terror attack, the current author and two otherexperts had given an afternoon-long briefingto the entire Army anti-terrorism leadershipand hundreds of other Army force protection

personnel from around the world a full 18

months prior to the attack.181

Thesepresentations discussed the very warning signsand indicators, as well as the types of internaland external threats to U.S. military forces,which would have given advanced warning toU.S. Army authorities of Major Hasansintentions.

Hasan himself had even repeatedly given aPowerPoint presentation to fellow Armyofficers that laid out his doctrinal justificationfor killing his fellow soldiers.182 Because the

Army refused to implement any guidelines foridentifying signs of Islamist radicalization-- asthey had done for other supremacistideologies-- all of the warning signs wereintentionally disregarded. This was also thecase with the FBI investigation into MajorHasans email contacts with al-Qaida cleric(and former Defense Department Islamicadviser) Anwar al-Awlaki initiated by the

bureaus San Diego field office. Still, afterkicking the case up to FBI headquarters, it wasdetermined that the correspondence with theterror imam--who would be killed just twoyears later in a CIA drone strike--was fairly

benign and consistent with research he wasconducting as a psychiatrist at the WalterReed Medical Center.183

Immediately after the attacks the FBI wasquick to defend their inaction in MajorHasans case.184 Yet even House IntelligenceCommittee Chairman Rep. Pete Hoekstra

acknowledged, I think the very fact thatyou've got a major in the U.S. Armycontacting [Awlaki], or attempting to contacthim, would raise some red flags.185 It is nowknown that contrary to the FBIs assertions,the email correspondence between Hasan andAwlaki was far from fairly benign.186 Intheir first email--nearly a year before theattack--Hasan had inquired about the

justification of the fatal attack by anotherMuslim soldier, Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar, who

launched an attack on his fellow soldiers in acamp in Kuwait just days before the invasion

of Iraq. The attack killed two U.S. militarypersonnel. He even asked had Akbar beenkilled during the attack would he beconsidered a shahid (martyr). In one of thefinal emails--five months before the attack--

Hasan defended at length suicide bombingsand the permissibility of collateral damagewhile killing enemy soldiers.187

Yet in all of the post-attack reports issuedby Defense Department, not a single one evermentioned Hasans radical Islamistideology.188 Members of Congress wereequally perturbed when a Department ofHomeland Security report on the Fort Hoodattack could not even bring itself to label themassacre as terrorism, describing it instead as

workplace violence.189 This officialblindness to Major Hasans motivations areunquestionably the consequences wrought bythe Obama administrations outreach policies.

Not just content with not pursuing terrorinvestigations, as in the case of Major Hasanand Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the Obamaadministration has taken a more proactiveapproach to shutting down terrorinvestigations--especially when thoseinvestigations involved their Muslim outreach

partners.As the current author reported in April

2011, a top Department of Justice officialinformed this author that senior DOJ officialshad quashed the indictment of CAIRcofounder Omar Ahmad in March 2010, alongwith other Islamic leaders, in the plannedsecond round of prosecutions related to theHoly Land Foundation case.190 After two pressconferences by Attorney General Eric Holder,

who first tried to blame the Bushadministration (which decided to delay theprosecutions until after the initial Holy LandFoundation prosecutions), the DOJ admittedthat they had in fact permanently ended the

prosecution of all those involved infundraising for Hamas.191 They also admitted,after some evasion, that the decision to quashthe prosecution of the CAIR leader was made

by political appointees.Recall that White House Director of

Community Engagement George Selim hadtold a reporter from The Daily Caller that the


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administration has had hundreds of meetingswith CAIR despite an official ban on formalcontacts with CAIR by the FBI and DOJ basedon the trial evidence in the Holy LandFoundation showing the group had actively

supported terrorism. The DOJ inspectorgeneral is also conducting an investigationinto the FBIs disregarding of that same

policy. Thus, prosecuting the co-founder andchairman of one of the most active participantsin the U.S. governments Muslim outreachwould have undoubtedly been problematic forthe administration to say the least.

That is not the only case in which theObama administration has intervened to killthe terror-related prosecution of other senior

Islamic leaders in the United States. Thecurrent author was informed by the samesenior Department of Justice official that the

planned prosecution of a dozen differentleaders on racketeering, money laundering,obstruction of justice, tax evasion, andnaturalization fraud was dropped by the ordersof high-ranking officials.192 These

prosecutions were the result of an extensivefederal terror-finance investigation.193

Among those set to be prosecuted wereleaders of ISNA and the International Institutefor Islamic Thought (IIIT), one of the oldestand most respected Islamic organizations inthe country and a longtime partner for theState Departments International VisitorProgram:

Taha al-Alwani is perhaps the mostsenior Islamic cleric in the UnitedStates, previously serving as the

chairman of ISNAs Fiqh Council ofNorth America (FCNA) and also theauthorized trainer for many of the U.S.militarys Muslim chaplains. Al-Alwani had been named unindictedco-conspirator number 5 in the Samial-Arian terrorism trial.194

Hisham al-Talib is currently the vicepresident of finance for IIIT and thefirst full-time leadership trainingdirector for the Muslim Student

Association. Known as a seniorinternational Muslim Brotherhood

leader, al-Talib was the White Houseguest of Joshua DuBois, specialassistant to the president and executivedirector of the White House Office ofFaith-Based and Neighborhood

Partnerships on March 30, 2012 (asreported by syndicated columnistMichelle Malkin).195

Jamal Barzinji has held leadershippositions in virtually every majorIslamic organization in the UnitedStates, including national president ofthe Muslim Students Association(MSA), the North American IslamicTrust (NAIT), ISNA, and IIIT. InOctober 2012, CAIR gave Barzinji

their lifetime achievement award attheir national fundraising banquet.

Yacub Mirza is a board member ofIIIT and businessman that hasdeveloped software systems for theDepartment of Defense, such as theArmys Future Combat System andsensitive military aircraft software,initially for Ptech (which was raided

by federal authorities in September2001) and presently for Lynuxworks,which currently works under severalPentagon contracts.

All of these individuals were targeted andrepeatedly named in the 2003 U.S. CustomsService search warrant application by CustomsAgent David Kane (in Mirzas case 114 times)targeting the SAAR Foundation/SAFA Groupterror finance network.196 Another declassifiedFBI report identifies Barzinji and Mirza as

members and leaders of the IKHWAN[Muslim Brotherhood].197Yet some of thesesame individuals, who were scheduled to be

prosecuted by the Department of Justice priorto the intervention of DOJ political appointees,were treated to a special guided tour of theWhite House in February 2013, as part ofISNAs Founders Committee where they weregreeted by ISNA president Mohamed Majidand five senior White House officials. Thisincluded Associate Director of the White

House Office of Public Engagement PaulMonteiro, who praised ISNA as his primary


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