Ignoring controversy, FBI readies to fete ‘mainstream’ supporters of Hamas

If the FBI’s assessment of the American Muslim Council (AMC) is any indication, the Bureau’s intelligence and analytical capabilities render it incapable of effectively fighting terrorism.

Controversy continues to build around FBI Director Robert Mueller’s planned legitimization of the AMC, scheduled as a June 28 luncheon speech, in which America’s top terrorist-hunter breaks bread with one of America’s top terrorist support groups. The FBI seems oblivious to the AMC’s record of aid and comfort to groups that the US government has labeled “terrorist.”

In recent days, AMC executive director Eric Vickers has been grilled on Fox News and MSNBC, refusing to denounce Hamas and other terrorist groups by name. He had to be badgered into making a half-hearted denunciation of al Qaeda. That seems to be standing AMC policy. “We are all supporters of Hamas,” longtime American Muslim Council (AMC) director Abdurahman Alamoudi proclaimed two years ago at a White House protest.

President Bush, for his part, is openly disgusted with Hamas and its US-based supporters. “Hamas is an extremist group that calls for the total destruction of the State of Israel. It is one of the deadliest terrorist organizations in the world today,” he said in a speech last December. “Hamas has obtained much of the money that it pays for murder abroad right here in the United States,” the president added.

Officially, the FBI doesn’t see any problem. Commenting on Mueller’s upcoming speech, an FBI spokesman called AMC “the most mainstream Muslim group in the United States.” Has politically-correct pandering blinded the FBI?

Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas thinks the FBI ought to get a grip: “a serious investigation should be conducted into the proliferation of Islamic front groups in this country. Influential American political activists are rumored to be taking money from Islamic states and seeking to shape U.S. foreign and domestic policies that may not be in the best interests of their own country. They should also be the focus of journalistic concern. This is war, after all. German spies were hunted down and exposed during the Second World War, as were spies and other threats to American freedoms during the Cold War. We should be doing the same with this greater contemporary threat.”

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