I think the next step up in this bidding war (and wearen't so very far from this) to wear the mantle of the leading far-right candidate is the following: "all Muslims are terrorists or terrorist threats and they should be interred in camps until the threat of terrorism passes. If Gitmo isn't large enough we should build new camps". And while we are shocked at each raising of the ante, think about what it says about the Republican base some 20-30 percent of the population. All that's left is to choose a color, say red, and we can have some 50 million red-shirts patrolling everywhere.

I didn't catch this speech, but I saw one that he gave in Chicago a few weeks ago. In response to a question about global warming, Newt had the unmitigated gall to accuse Al Gore of using

SCARE TACTICS!!!

One thing these guys are consistent about is the fact that they lack any sense of shame (or irony).

Jan Knaus

Yes Gingrich is just islamophobic and these guys are completely innocent.

http://www.startribune.com/blogs/kersten/?p=68

The grounded imams incident at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport has been a public relations coup for the imams, their supporters and their claims that the group’s only suspicious activity was saying evening prayers.US Airways continues to defend its crew’s decision to pull the imams off a plane last month, saying they took the seating configuration used by 9/11 hijackers, requested seat-belt extensions that could be used as weapons and otherwise raised concerns.

Who are the parties involved here, who seem so interested in linking airport security with racial bigotry?

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the imams’ legal representative, is an organization that “we know has ties to terrorism,” Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said in 2003. And the Muslim American Society, which is also supporting the imams? It’s the American arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, according to the Chicago Tribune, which called it “the world’s most influential Islamic fundamentalist group.”

How about Omar Shahin, the imams’ spokesman and also president of the North American Imams Federation? He is a native of Jordan, who says he became a U.S. citizen in 2003. From 2000 to 2003, Shahin served as president of Islamic Center of Tucson (ICT), that city’s largest mosque.

The ICT is well known. The mosque has “an extensive history of terror links,” according to terrorism expert Steven Emerson, who testified about terrorist financing before the Senate Banking Committee in July 2005.

The Washington Post described these links in a 2002 article. “Tucson was one of the first points of contact in the United States for the jihadist group that evolved into al Qaeda,” the Post reported. And the ICT? It held “basically the first cell of al Qaeda in the United States; that is where it all started,” said Rita Katz, a terrorism expert quoted by the Post.

ICT members have included high-profile terrorists. Wael Hamza Jelaidan, the mosque’s leader in the mid-1980s, was identified by the U.S. government as a ” ‘co-founder’ of al Qaeda and its logistics chief,” the Post reported.

Another former member, Wadi Hage, served as Osama bin Laden’s personal secretary after leaving Arizona, the Post said, attributing it to government sources. Hage established a bin Laden support network in Arizona and “this network is still in place,” Emerson wrote in his book “Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the U.S.,” citing a 2002 Senate Intelligence Committee Report. In 2001, Hage was convicted of plotting the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The best-known terrorist with apparent (according to the Post and Emerson) connections to the ICT is Hani Hanjour, who piloted the plane that flew into the Pentagon on 9/11. Hanjour took aviation lessons in Tucson in the late 1990s.

Shahin has downplayed the ICT’s connections to terrorism. The mosque should not be held accountable for former members who may have engaged in terrorism after they left Arizona, he told the Post in 2002. Al-Qaida nests in America? “All of these, they make it up,” he told the Arizona Republic shortly after 9/11.

But dubious activity continued when Shahin became ICT president. For example, the mosque raised thousands of dollars for an Islamic charity called the Holy Land Foundation in 2001, and Shahin served as the charity’s Arizona coordinator, according to the Associated Press. Holy Land “collects funds for widows and orphans and needy people,” he told the AP.

[NOTE: Shahin continued to collect funds for Holy Land even after it came under investigation, according to the Arizona Daily Star. In November 2001, he told the paper that he was monitoring Holy Land’s status but would continue to collect money for it unless it was officially shut down. In August 2001, the State Department had asked the Agency for International Development to withdraw Holy Land from its roster of groups that receive U.S. aid, citing classified evidence.

The Daily Star quoted Shahin in detail on the matter:

‘We are doing everything in the open here at the Islamic Center,’ Shahin said. He said he also has called overseas and verified that funds raised for Holy Land have gone to help the poor with food, clothing and shelter.

‘I called Holy Land Foundation, too, and told them this money is going for food and this and that, and they said, ‘of course.’ I know because they are very trusted people,’ Shahin said….

Shahin said he sees little difference in collecting funds for Holy Land and collecting for victims of the Sept. 11 attacks….]

In December 2001, the Treasury Department froze Holy Land’s assets, citing its funding of the terrorist organization Hamas’ efforts to recruit suicide bombers.

Shahin also told the Arizona Daily Star in 2001 that he would permit the Global Relief Foundation to raise funds at the ITC. In 2002, the U.S. government froze that organization’s assets because of its support of bin Laden, Al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

Another incident of interest occurred during Shahin’s tenure at ITC. On June 13, 2003, the FBI arrested Muhammad Al-Qudhai’een, who was active at the mosque, and transported him to Virginia to testify as a material witness before a federal grand jury investigating 9/11.

Earlier, the FBI had investigated Al-Qudhai’een’s involvement in a 1999 incident. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, Al-Qudhai’een and Hamdan al Shalawi, a fellow Saudi, were removed from an America West flight after engaging in what the flight crew considered suspicious activity. The crew asserted that Al-Qudhai’een had twice attempted to open the plane’s cockpit door. After 9/11, FBI agents in Phoenix considered whether the incident had been a “dry run” for the attacks. The 9/11 Commission noted that Al Shalawi had reportedly trained in Afghan terrorist camps in November 2000, learning how to conduct “Khobar Towers”-type bombing attacks.

The America West incident attracted national attention in 1999. In 2000, the two Saudis filed a lawsuit alleging racial discrimination by the airline. “What happened to us was based on racial and religious discrimination,” al Shalawi told the Arizona Republic. CAIR hired the Saudis’ attorney for them, and urged a boycott of the airline. America West won the lawsuit. Al-Qudhai’een was later deported to Saudi Arabia.

Shahin left ICT in June 2003. Subsequently, he became a fundraiser for KindHearts, another Islamic charity. But the Treasury Department froze KindHearts’ assets on Feb. 19, 2006. “KindHearts is the progeny of Holy Land Foundation and Global Relief Foundation, which attempted to mask their support for terrorism behind the facade of charitable giving,” according to the Treasury Department.

Shahin has evidently helped raise money for all three of these organizations.

Ten days ago, Shahin expressed ignorance of KindHeart’s terrorist connections. “When they shut down, I had no clue what they were doing,” he told the Washington Times.

So was the Flying Imams incident an instance of bigotry? Or was it part of a larger script? If so, whose script is it, and what’s the final act?

I’ll consider those questions in Thursday’s column.

Well perhaps all the "good Germans" who helped out with the holocaust should be feted at Reichs Chancelory and given "freedom medals" too!

After all they did their part for unreasoning persecution!

How dare those Muslims publicly read the Koran anyway! Don't they know there's a war on?

Alas, there are endless idiots everywhere in this country who never stop to think even for 1 second. If you're a terrorist who's going to blow up a plane are you going to DRESS like a Hollywood version of a terrorist? Are you going to draw attention to yourself by mumbling verses from the Koran BEFORE you are ready to strike?

Idiots! They should have arrested those passengers who complained together with the airline crew for terminal stupidity!

Gingrich may come off as an extremist, but he should not be underestimated. His role is to push the dialog as far to the right as possible, so that what passes for moderation or centrist thinking ends up being still far right of center. And he is very good at it. He is framing the debate for the 2008 election.

Oh, you could totally beat those doors down with a seatbelt extension. And no one would even notice you trying.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

But, in Star Trek... didn't the red shirts always just get themselves killed?

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

They requested seatbelt extensions. They weren't fat. They put the extensions on the floor by their feet. They moved to seats so that two of them were by each of the plane's principle exits.

If this account is wrong, then Gingrich is. If it's right, those "scholars" should be in jail; or, as is likely the actual case, under heavy surveillance to see who their associates are. So if you're going to post this sort of story and conclude "xenophobia!", please include research showing that the published accounts of (1) requesting things suitable for putting people in chokeholds and then (2) changing seats to positions suggesting a plan to control the plane were wrong.

Otherwise we must suspect that you're just blinded by political correctness. Because, guess what, American nationals are often enough dangerous; so are foreign nationals. "They're foreign; they must be friendly and innocent!" is a bit like being a young child who thinks all the pit bulls in the neighborhood are pet-able.

It's obvious that Newt finds the right of free speech an abomination - recall that if in power he will "bury" public broadcasting.

It was in the winter of '61 that Eisenhower delivered to the American people his often quoted speech warning us of the military-industrial complex. The rest of his speech should be noted. "We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

Jan, As long as they are going to come after you, anyway, can we add

BUSH DESERVES A FAIR TRIAL BE4 HANGING

"I don't want to say that George Bush is a lame duck, but this morning, Cheney shot him". Bill Maher

Thanks for the link to he police report, but I have not idea what you are talking about when you say that it "does not show the six Imams in a good light".

The 'suspicious' activity is:
- They prayed before they boarded including saying 'Allah' a couple of times. If that's suspicious then my mom should have been arrested every time she's ever been on a plane, except she says Jesus instead of Allah.
- They were seated 2 in the front, 2 in the middle and 2 in the back. Aren't seat assignments done by the airline? I know you can request window or aisle seats when you book a flight, but that's about it.
- They asked for seat-belt extensions. I've seen people get the extensions so that they're not pinched down by the seat belt. If the Imams were wearing robes I bet that's why they got them.

What this is about is that people are scared of Muslims. It's the same reason that people cross to the other side of the street when they see a black man coming toward them on a sidewalk. It's stupid, but whatever. The problem here is the official sanctioning of the biggoted scardy-cats. It's analogous to the black guy on the sidewalk getting arrested.

THAT YOUR IGNORANCE MAKES YOU SCARED OF ME IS NOT MY PROBLEM.

"(1) requesting things suitable for putting people in chokeholds"

Man you are one paranoid dude. What if they had carried on licorice vines (suitable for "putting people in chokeholds")? Or what if they wore belts onto the plane, or even worse, were wearing ties? Or, God forbid, BOLO TIES??!! Now I think about it, we are all just seconds away from a terrorist chokehold.
Here's another newsflash for Fox viewers: I regret to inform you all that it's possible to choke someone with your hands or arms! The only reasonable answer is to handcuff all Muslims and Arabs on planes (though this does raise the issue of a handcuff choking danger...perhaps if we made them wear black hoods...).

Great link. Very funny/sad stuff.

Use lawyers as the secret agents and just don't be concerned about their being thrown into the shark tank.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*