The American Standard Bearer

The Associated Press headline reads: “U.S. Muslims Warn of Threat From Within.” An AP religion writer, Rachel Zoll, then begins the article with the sentence, “After the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings, distraught U.S. Muslim leaders feared the next casualty would be their religion.”

But two of the Muslim groups that figure prominently in Zoll’s article are nothing more than front- groups for radical Islamic terror organizations. The Council on American-Islamic Relations is identified by Zoll as a “civil rights group, ” but is actually an extremist Wahhabi organization and a front for Hamas in the U.S. Here’s a quote from a co-founder of CAIR, Omar Ahmad, that plainly spells out CAIR’s ultimate goal:

“Those who stay in America should be open to society without melting, keeping Mosques open so anyone can come and learn about Islam. If you choose to live here, you have a responsibility to deliver the message of Islam … Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faiths, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.”

Another organization that Zoll refers to as an “advocacy group” is the Muslim Public Affairs Council. Aside from close ties to CAIR, MPAC leaders were clearly not “distraught” following the 9/11 attacks. On the afternoon of 9/11, one of the leaders at MPAC, Salam al-Marayati, told a Los Angeles radio audience that he believed the Israelis were behind the attacks, a position that MPAC has continued to maintain and defend. MPAC leader Ahmed Younis further justified the group’s position this way, “Adolf Eichmann was himself a Jew, so in fact Jews killed themselves in the Holocaust.

Zoll, on the other hand, prefers the sanitized MPAC message, dutifully reporting the thinly veiled lies that al-Marayati has fed her. She quotes al-Marayati thus, “We’re not on opposite teams. We’re all trying to protect our country from another terrorist attack.”

So the question remains, are Zoll and her comrades at the Associated Press and Reuters really just naive rubes attempting to be fair to all sides, or are they willing collaborators with Islamic terror organizations?

According to a Reuters story yesterday, a hapless Iraqi architect was wrongly detained by airport security officials prior to boarding a flight from New York to California Tuesday. Raed Jarrar, who was wearing a t-shirt that read “We Will Not Be Silent” in both Arabic and English, was asked by security officers at New York’s JFK Airport to change his shirt before boarding.

A long argument ensued but the end result was that Jarrar changed into a new shirt. Though, given the current climate, most Americans would be in complete agreement that it might not be wise for a very Middle-Eastern looking man to get on a long flight wearing a shirt that says something in Arabic, Jarrar insisted that his constitutional rights had been violated.

In fact, Jarrar claims that his last words to security officers before heading for his seat were, “I feel very sad that my personal freedom was taken away like this. I grew up under authoritarian governments in the Middle East, and one of the reasons I chose to move to the US was that I don’t want an officer to make me change my t-shirt. I will pursue this incident today through a Constitutional rights organization, and I am sure we will meet soon.”

He also told New York Public Radio, “I grew up and spent all my life living under authoritarian regimes and I know that these things happen. But I’m shocked that they happened to me here, in the U.S.”

Well, it’s true that Jarrar, who says he is half Iraqi, half Palestinian has moved here, but not because the authoritarian regimes of the Middle East ever asked him to change his t-shirt.

Jarrar is a radical Muslim agitator who’s purposes are, to say the least, suspect. He bills himself as an anti-war activist, but his affiliations tell a different story. For example, Jarrar is the director of the Iraq Project at Global Exchange, an organization formed by Medea Benjamin (Code Pink) and Lesilie Cagan who, according to David Horowitz, is a “60’s Stalinist.” Jarrar, along with Benjamin and Cagan, are blatant supporters of Saddam Hussein, North Korea, Syria, and anyone else who wishes to hasten the end of the United States.

Visit Jarrar’s anti-American blog and the first thing you notice is the row of flags at the top. Yes, one of the flags is the American flag, but the others are, in order of appearance, the flag of Iran, Palestine, Jordan and Iraq. One gets the sense that the American flag is there as a ruse.

So why is Jarrar here? His claims of constitutional rights are utterly false. The leftist charge that all speech is protected by the First Amendment certainly doesn’t apply to the misguided soul who yells “Fire!” in a movie theater and it doesn’t apply to the dim-wiited prankster who yells “Bomb!” in an airport. Anyone but Jarrar and his ultra leftist friends understands that Jarrar’s shirt could be reasonably construed as a possible threat of violence by other passengers.

As far as we can tell, Jarrar is not a U.S. citizen, so the argument over whether his free speech rights were violated by airport security is moot. The Constitutional rights enjoyed by Americans simply do not apply to non-Americans, whether they live here or not.

Jarrar’s actions illustrate the very serious danger we face. For fear of being labelled racists, government officials allow him to continue to live here while travelling freely to hostile countries such as Syria. Jarrar is not himself the trigger puller, but rather, the facilitator.

The constant rants and accusations in addition to the legal threats and challenges are creating a homeland security system that is skittish about openly identifying and challenging the Muslims who are almost always the source of terrorism. If we ever want to solve the problem, thugs like Jarrar need to be given the boot.

President Bush will be in Salt Lake City this week to coincide with the American Legion’s annual convention and the Bush-haters, led by Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, will be there to spew their hatred along with other assorted nuggets of nonsense.

In a state that voted overwhelmingly to re-elect Bush and has a reputation for conservative politics, Anderson is more than just a fly in the ointment. He is a true-blue leftist activist and is a harbinger of the leftward shift within the Democrat Party and the growing polarization of American politics.

Consider that Anderson’s guest of honor is that queen of leftist hyperbole, Cindy Sheehan. While most Democrat politicians who value their futures have distanced themselves from Sheehan’s hate-America road show, Anderson is bringing her in with the specific goal of taunting Utah’s conservative majority.

By hosting Sheehan, whether he wishes to or not, Anderson is tying himself to Sheehan’s filthy bagage. Sheehan includes among her friends and sponsors, the ANSWER coalition and various Islamic terrorist groups including Hamas and the PLO who all have the stated goal of America’s destruction. How can you claim with a straight face, as Anderson does, to represent the values that America was built upon while at the same time, embracing radical foreign organizations who have vowed the destruction of America.

The excellent Michelle Malkin posted some photos today of an illegal immigration rally that took place in Maywood, California, over the weekend. As Malkin notes, the protestors were very vocal about their “reconquista” intentions, going so far to raise a Mexican flag at the Maywood Post Office minutes after Post Office employees lowered the American flag.

Malkin also takes note of a column appearing today written by the Media Research Center’s Tim Graham that explores the mainstream media’s active support of illegal immigration. While it’s interesting to see documentation of the media’s anti-American leanings, there are other far more sinister forces driving the reconquista shock troops.

The ANSWER coalition, an international communist front organization that is openly dedicated to the overthrow of the United States, takes credit today on their website, TheExperiment, for organizing Saturday’s rally in Maywood. It’s also important to note that ANSWER is closely tied to groups such as the National Lawyers Guild (founded by Joseph Stalin to promote Soviet interests in the U.S.) and Islamic terrorist organizations like the PLO.

Considering that national coverage of Saturday’s event has been virtually non-existent, it brings a sense of urgency to the current state of the immigration debate to realise that the mainstream media is so utterly contemptuous of the interests of America that it is willingly and actively in league with subversives the likes of ANSWER.

Italian immigrant Mario Piccolino’s Pizzeria has been a fixture in Scranton, Pennsylvania, for 40 years. But if Scranton Mayor Chris Doherty has his way, Buona Pizza will soon be nothing but a memory.

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell signed a law earlier this year that prevents viable private property from being seized for the benefit of rapacious developers following the Supreme Court’s recent egregious eminent domain ruling. However, the new law doesn’t go into effect until September and Doherty plans to beat that deadline.

The pro-immigration – open borders folks should pay special attention to what is at work here. Piccolino is the type of immigrant we have always welcomed and celebrated here in America. He saw the opportunity that America provided, worked hard, played by the rules, and built a better life for himself, his family, and ultimately, his community. And our government is rewarding him by taking it all away.

Meanwhile, the same government is working overtime to insure that the flow of illegals cannot be stemmed. They are encouraging what amounts to a modern day equivalent (in America anyway) of slave labor – a huge unskilled labor force that is willing to work for low wages and live below the poverty level.

Thank you, Supreme Court, for this latest nail in America’s coffin.

An Iraqi man, reports the Chicago Sun Times, was arrested at O’Hare Airport in possesion of a penis pump. When asked what it was, Mardin Amin allegedly told an airport security officer that it was a bomb.

According to security officers, Amin clearly said the word “bomb” twice, presumably so that his mother, who was standing next to him at the time, would be proud of his martyr-like tendencies instead of finding out what a pervert he really is.

Amin is apparently under the misguided impression that every man in America keeps one of these devices in his sock drawer, but that could not be farther from the truth. It’s my own guess that penis pumps are pretty much the sole province of Judges who use them to pass the time while in the courtroom and the occasional young Muslim eagerly looking forward to his date with 72 virgins.

Mainstream news outlets recently reported the scandalous expose of systematic photo doctoring facilitated by, but not limited to Reuters. But the story only made the mainstream after several days of a small firestorm within the blogosphere. In other words, it was either run with the story or be shamed by refusing to report the scandal.

The photo scandal however, was only the tip of the iceberg of what is a much wider effort by the media to put lipstick on the pig that is Islam. It’s been almost 5 years since 9-11, yet Muslims in Western nations including the United States have overwhelmingly failed to speak out against the so-called radicals. Conversely, Muslims in America and Europe routinely taunt the host populations with the most blatant and radical threats and the media turns a blind eye.

Consider, for example, the Islamic Thinkers Society in New York, a group with ties to terrorist organizations and the terrorist front group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The Islamic Thinkers has openly called for the destruction of America, while burning and stomping American flags in the streets.

Or look at the Islamic Center of Boca Raton and the Islamic Center of South Florida which form the nucleus of a large and growing radical Muslim presence in Florida. Joe Kaufman, writing in FrontPageMagazine.com yesterday, said this:

“In October of 2000, the Imam of ICBR, Ibrahim Dremali, amidst burning Israeli flags and shouts that ‘Zionist blood will wet the sand,’ told a crowd not to be sad for ‘those who were martyred’ (i.e., suicide bombers). Despite this history, the ICBR had no trouble securing a zoning permit for a proposed 9,000 square-foot mosque. No one — not the police department, not the mayor’s office, not the zoning board — raised an objection.”

Why hasn’t this hotbed of anti-Americanism, or better yet, anti-civilization, been reported? Because the leftists in the media have a soft spot in their hearts for Islamic threats against America, Europe and Israel.

And here’s another glaring example of media coverup. A story in the London Daily Mail today leads off with the line, “Two Asian students have revealed their shock and despair after being thrown off a plane because other passengers feared they were suicide bombers.” The Daily Mail is going out of their way to portray the pair as hapless victims of racism.

The “Asian” (read: Middle-Eastern Muslim) students in question showed up for the flight from the Spanish resort of Malaga going to Manchester, England, wearing heavy clothing, including leather jackets in the 90 degree heat. They then proceeded to speak to each other in Arabic, look at their watches every few seconds and generally try to look scary and suspicious.

Authorities were called in and escorted the men off the plane at gunpoint after many passengers either walked off the plane or refused to get on in the first place. One of the men, Sohail Ashraf, said, “…we’re two ordinary lads who wanted a bit of fun. Just because we’re Muslim does not mean we are suicide bombers.”

And here’s the coverup. Important parts of the story were changed sometime between this morning and this afternoon. As it read this morning, the pair had been drinking prior to their arrival at the airport, and one of the men was quoted as saying that later in their hotel room, they had a good laugh about what had transpired. The Daily Mail apparently realized that they were revealing too much about the pair’s intentions and cut it out of the story! Incredible, but true.

A seventh grade teacher in Louisville, Kentucky, burned two American flags in his classroom on Friday. Teacher Dan Holden torched the flags as part of a civics lesson designed to explore the “feelings” of the students.

This incident illustrates exactly what’s wrong with the Supreme Court decision in the 1989 Texas vs. Johnson case. The Court, in that infamous case, created out of thin air, a “freedom of expression” to be tacked on to the First Amendment’s free speech clause. As a result, burning the American flag is now protected as free speech even though innocent lives are sometimes endangered.

In order to do what leftists love to do – reduce important issues down to “feelings” – Holden stupidly exposed his students to the possibility of a horrible death. Amazingly, he is still an employee, although school officials have reassingned him to a non-teaching position.

As evidenced by the actions of Mexican national Elvira Arellano, who is currently holed up in a church in Chicago refusing to leave the country, illegal imigrants have been emboldened to openly disregard our laws. The driving force behind this new-found bravado is none other than the leftist movement in America that is dedicated to the systematic destruction of American rule of law.

The leftist media has thrust Arellano’s case to the forefront of national attention in order to solicit sympathy for their cause – open borders and no restrictions on immigration. But they are ignoring an utter travesty of justice taking place in California because it shines the cold spotlight of truth on the leftist agenda.

Two U.S. Border Patrol officers, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, have been convicted on various bogus charges and face 20 years each in prison. Their crime? They confronted, then gave chase to a Mexican drug smuggler who was injured by gunfire from the officers. Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila was attempting to smuggle more than a million dollars worth of marijuana into the U.S.

Incredibly, Assistant U.S. Attorney Deborah Kanof, who prosecuted the case, maintains that the U.S. Border Patrol – in this case, Ramos and Compean – has no jurisdiction to give chase to Mexicans caught illegally entering the U.S. If the Border Patrol isn’t permitted to chase and apprehend illegals, then whose job is it?

According to DailyBulletin.com, Ramos and Compean “…were convicted on numerous counts of violating Mexican national Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila’s civil rights…” That U.S. law enforcement officials, and I’m referring to U.S. Attorney Kanof and friends here, would brazenly and illegally confer the rights of citizenship on a Mexican drug smuggler while criminalizing the actions of Border Patrol officers in the proper discharge of their duties, is beyond belief.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kanof took an oath (I presume) to enforce the laws and uphold the Constitution of the United States. I suggest that she should be the one facing a prison sentence for dereliction of duty.

The tolerant and peace-loving leftists of San Francisco held an ominous “Stop the US-Israeli War” rally last Saturday in front of City Hall. The conspicuous absense of any reference to the terrorists the US and Israel are at war with in the rally’s title becomes instantly clear upon viewing photos of the event on zombie’s site.

Support for Hezbollah, Hamas, and the PLO is evident by not only the flags, but the trademark PLO head scarves that are everywhere. Only American flags appear to be in short supply.

What’s remarkable is the dangerous alliance between American leftist radicals and radical Islamists. News out of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia today, reports the arrest of 20 men at an allegedly gay wedding. According to the report, “Homosexuality is illegal in conservative Saudi Arabia, which metes out strict punishments based on… Islamic law.”

The “strict punishments” alluded to here are simply put, the death penalty. Did the people attending this rally imagine that the organizations they identify with such as Hamas and Hezbollah would somehow give them a pass when it came to their embrace of the gay lifestyle? The sense I get is that these leftists haven’t a clue about the animal who’s cage it is they want to share.