I had a chance to get a few words in with Joe Kaufman of Americans against Hate [1], earlier today, and I thought I’d fire a few questions at him.
What is posted here is edited only for flow.
-1-
Q: Please note the posting as regards the Democratic Party Leaderhip and their lies about the War On Terror. [2] Do you think significant, in light of what I’ve shown you in that post, the fact that Ellison, Reid and Pelosi are all Democrats?
A. With regards to the war in Iraq, I don’t appreciate how leaders of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party have used the war for political purposes. While Democrats are generally weak on security and embrace a ‘cut and run’ mentality, many Republicans sadly treat our troops as disposable commodities, and the fact that we’re sending more American soldiers into Iraq to die (a.k.a. the surge) attests to this fact.
Follow-on: Am I to understand that you accept the notion that the Surge has not been a success? Do you discount the reports coming back from those troops that progress is being made, and do you discount the re-up rate as evidence that they consider theirs to be a worthwhile task?
A:1. I do not believe, in any way, shape or form, that the surge has been a success, nor do I believe that it ever had a chance of being a success. The only thing the surge has done is it has put more troops’ lives at risk, and in my opinion, losing one American in that surge was a price too high to pay.
Q: What of them all being Democrats?
A:With regard to Keith Ellison, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi all being Democrats, that means less to me than who they associate with.
Follow-on: Whom are they each associating with, that you find troubling?
A: Obviously, I am concerned about Keith Ellison’s associations with groups connected to terrorism, including CAIR, ICNA (Islamic Circle of North America) and MAS (Muslim American Society). Nancy Pelosi has had at least one meeting with CAIR, MAS and ISNA (Islamic Society of North America). I would suggest that, if Democrats are truly serious about the war on terrorism, they would distance themselves from groups that are tied to terror.
2: Why is the press so reluctant to weigh in on these matters?
A: The press has its own liberal agenda. However, Fox News has done a good job of representing both sides of the war.
Q: What is the significance of CAIR losing by some reports, 95% of its membership, since 9/11/01? Most particularly, how does that drop-off in support, weighed on support for Mr. Ellison?
A. According to CAIR, its membership has not dropped as much as recent reports have stated. Paid membership may be an entirely different story. If I were a Muslim, I would be very concerned about which organization(s) I would give financial support to, especially ones that have been shown to have ties with terrorism, such as CAIR has. Obviously CAIR’s membership numbers haven’t had an effect on Keith Ellison, as he has recently been elected to Congress with a vast majority of Minnesotan votes.
Follow-On: One gets the feeling for the possibility that this supposedly lower amount of paid membership, is a ruse. In your opinion, is the lower “paid membership ” reflective of a drop in support, or are we merely dealing with large numbers of people who still support CAIR, but are smart enough to realize that tax records can be used to trace membership?
A: I think the fact that CAIR has been outed as a group that supports terror does play a role in the psyche of those that would normally give support to the group (financial and otherwise) or at least state their support for the group. Muslim charities, for example, have found it much more difficult, after 9/11, to raise funds, because Muslims are fearful of the consequences of giving money to groups that eventually have their funds frozen.
Q: Clearly, groups like CAIR are not being fully kept under control. What must we do to rein these people in?
A: CAIR does not need to be “reined in.” CAIR and other groups like it need to be shut down. After 9/11, any Islamist group with ties to terrorism abroad should have been shut down. Unfortunately, our government has been lax in this area. We can only hope that, with the naming of CAIR, ISNA and NAIT as co-conspirators to Hamas financing, things are beginning to change.
Follow-On: Do you have any evidence that suggests solid movement towards shutting down CAIR, (After all, naming an organization to be (repair of typo…terrorism linked and a danger) and acting on that information, are two vastly different things….) and if you do, do we have any evidence that the weed would not simply pop up in a different point on the sidewalk?
A: I do not have “solid evidence” to suggest that CAIR will be shut down. However, I have spoken to numerous officials, both inside the government and intelligence, that would like to see CAIR gone. I have been saying for the last year or so that it is only time before this happens. When my group called for Senator Barbara Boxer to rescind an award that her office had given out to a CAIR leader and she did (rescind it), CAIR admitted that it was a major setback for the group. From that time on, it has been all downhill for CAIR, and it’s my opinion that, within the next couple of years, their organization will no longer be in existence.
There have been instances where there have been Islamist groups that have been started from groups that have been shut down. A prime example of this is KindHearts, which was founded by individuals connected to the Holy Land Foundation and the Global Relief Foundation, which were both shut down in December of 2001. KindHearts was later shut down in February of 2006.
-0-