Army War College Sides with CAIR

Raymond Ibrahim is one of the most esteemed and intrepid experts on the threat from Islamic jihad and sharia .

He has written extensively on the subject matter and his work is simply beyond reproach.

In 2007 Ibrahim wrote The Al Qaeda Reader in which he translated the written and spoken words of Osama Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and other Al Qaeda leaders. The Al Qaeda Reader is an indispensible window into the world of Islamic jihad.

Last year, Ibrahim came out with his excellent Sword and Scimitar, which details 14 centuries of conflict between the Islamic world and the West.

In addition to his prolific writing in books and columns, Ibrahim is a sought-after speaker.

Recently, the US Army War College invited him to speak.

And that is where the trouble began. In the end it shows an Army War College that has been penetrated by enemy influence operations.

When the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) got word that Ibrahim was slated to speak at the War College, their propaganda and character assassination mechanism shifted into high gear. CAIR contacted the War College and urged them to rescind Ibrahim’s invitation.

Unfortunately, the War College bowed to CAIR’s wishes and “postponed” Ibrahim’s appearance.

Had this been a civilian college or university that caved to CAIR, it could be chalked up to political correctness gone wild.

But this is the US Army War College. One would assume that the Army War College would have some “intelligence” folks on staff. Had those intelligence folks simply used open source documentation from the US Department of Justice, they would have quickly surmised that CAIR is a nefarious, anti-American organization and should have absolutely NO influence on any decisions made by, for or at the War College.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

As a result, a possible hostile actor has successfully influenced one of the US military’s most prestigious academic institutions.

Had the people who are supposed to be leading at the War College bothered to conduct an assessment, here are some of what they would have found out about CAIR:

• The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has suspended all formal contacts with CAIR due to evidence demonstrating a relationship between CAIR and HAMAS, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization;

• In the U.S. v the Holy Land Foundation, the largest successful terrorism financing prosecution in U.S. history, CAIR was identified as a Muslim Brotherhood front group and was named an unindicted co-conspirator;

• At about the time that CAIR opened its first office in Washington, D.C. it received a grant from the Holy Land Foundation., a charitable organization that was shut down by the US Treasury Department for funding Jihadist terrorist organizations;

• In 2014, US ally the United Arab Emirates officially designated CAIR as a terrorist organization;

• In March 2011, Muthanna al-Hanooti, one of CAIR’s directors, was sentenced to a year in federal prison for violating U.S. sanctions against Saddam’s Iraq;

• In 2006, the co-founder of CAIR’s forerunner, IAP (Islamic Association for Palestine), Sami Al-Arian, was sentenced to 57 months in prison on terrorism charges for financing Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a designated terrorist organization according to the US State Department;

• In 2004, CAIR-Northern Virginia director Abdurahman Alamoudi pled guilty to terrorism-related financial and conspiracy charges, which resulted in a 23-year federal prison sentence;

• Randall Todd Royer, who served as a communications specialist and civil rights coordinator for CAIR, trained with Lashkar-I-Taiba, an al Qaeda-tied Kashmir organization that is listed on the State Department’s international terror list and was also indicted on charges of conspiring to help al Qaeda and the Taliban battle American troops in Afghanistan and was sentenced to twenty years in prison on April 9, 2004;

• In September 2003, CAIR’s former Community Affairs Director, Bassem Khafagi, pled guilty to three federal counts of bank and visa fraud and agreed to be deported to Egypt after he had funneled money to activities supporting terrorism and had published material advocating suicide attacks against the United States, illegal activities took place while he was employed by CAIR;

• Ann Arbor, Michigan CAIR fundraiser Rabih Haddad was arrested on terrorism-related charges and was deported from the United States due to his work as Executive Director of the Global Relief Foundation, which in October 2002 was designated by the U.S. Treasury Department for financing al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.

Given CAIR’s ties to jihadist terrorism and the fact that numerous CAIR officers, employees and members have been convicted of terrorism and terrorism-related charges, the US Army War College should reverse its decision and expeditiously bring Raymond Ibrahim in to educate its leaders about the enemy that threatens us today.