Does Muslim Blasphemy Trump Free Speech in America?
by Jerry Gordon (June 2012)
American Center for Outreach (ACO). Gibbons was the long term District Attorney General in Memphis’ Shelby County and previously served as an aide to two former GOP Governors, Lamar Alexander and Don Sundquist.
Muslim American Advisory Council. Quinn had appointed the Secretary General of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), Safaa Zazour and Kareem Irfan, President of the Council of Religious Leaders of Metropolitan Chicago, to serve on the Council. Illinois has 400,000 Muslims and more than 300 mosques. Its principal purpose according to ISNA is to “help ensure Muslim American participation in state government.” ISNA and the International Institute on Islamic Thought (IIIT), a northern Virginia based “think tank” for the Muslim Brotherhood met with the Institute for Defense Analysis (IDA) as Muslims for Constructive Engagement with the US government and Pentagon to push Islamization from within. IDA is a Pentagon contractor. In 2006 they met to develop guidelines for Muslim Advisory Groups to government agencies. In retrospect the Muslim Advisory Councils were the springboard for the infiltration of host government agencies like the DSHS in Tennessee. It was a furtherance of the Grand Jihad plan of the Muslim Brotherhood uncovered in a hidden basement of a northern Virginia home by FBI investigators. This discovery led to the Federal Dallas Holy Land Foundation trial and convictions in 2008. A trial that named the ISNA and several other Muslim Brotherhood front groups in America as unindicted co-conspirators.
Connecting the Dots in Tennessee
Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Council (TIRRC). Cotter claimed that membership In AMAC gave him access to any mosque in the State of Tennessee. The date of the letter came four days before the launch of the Preserving Freedom Conference: The U.S. Constitution or Shariah Law sponsored by the Tennessee Freedom Coalition (TFC) and the Shariah Awareness Action Network (SAAN). The November 7th letter signed by Commissioner Bill Gibbons may have been prompted by Muslim community and media criticism of the November 11, 2011 Preserving Freedom Conference. The Conference sponsors had booked convention facilities at the Hutton Hotel near Opryland in Nashville for November 11th to hear international experts discuss the threat of shariah law in America. In late October 2011 Hutton’s owners in Philadelphia summarily cancelled the reservations over alleged security issues including threats to its staff. Independent investigations revealed that the owners of the Hutton in Nashville, Amerimar Enterprises, had provided meeting space for a shariah compliant finance conference at a sister hotel in London, the St. Ermin, in 2010. When the Hutton hotel cancelled, the conference sponsors resorted to using the Cornerstone Church in Madison, Tennessee, a venue where the Hon. Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) had spoken at a TFC event in May 2011 concerning the threat of Islamization in Europe and the West.
Strategic Engagement Group (SEG) and funded by the TFC that was criticized by both the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and local Tennessee Muslim community advocacy groups as being “anti-Muslim.” This despite the endorsement of the Tennessee Peace Officers Standards & Training Commission (POST). That program was roundly criticized by Tennessee DSHS, the US Attorney for Nashville, leaders of Muslim groups in Middle Tennessee and the media. They accused it of being the equivalent of “hate speech” for conveying to local law officers information on the Grand Jihad of the Muslim Brotherhood in America. The SEG program was conducted by noted counterterrorism experts including former FBI officials using, in part, materials drawn from the Federal Dallas Holy Land Foundation trial testimony and exhibits, investigations of home grown terrorism, Islamic jihad and shariah doctrine.
State Attorney General Robert E. Cooper, Jr. filed an opinion at the request of Gibbons on companion bills, SB 2237 and HB 2375, which would authorize DSHS “to promote its goals by entering partnership agreements with non-profit organizations.” Measures that were vigorously contested by members of the Tennessee State legislature, among them Rep. Rick Womick and Sen. Bill Ketron. They offered several amendments contesting establishing partnerships with religious NGOs. Attorney General Cooper’s Opinion No. 12-29 concluded that a proposed amendment to the bills that would exclude partnership agreements with political or religious non-profits is constitutionally defensible. Commissioner Gibbons promptly withdrew the pending legislation. The Tennessee DSHS filed the legislation just prior to a two day counterterrorism program on February 27th and 28th, 2012 involving the US Attorney for Nashville, the FBI Office of Counterterrorism, and the West Point Center for Combating Terrorism and members of the shadowy AMAC/ACO. Several State Legislators were denied information as to the members of AMAC/ACO who spoke at this training event. Further they were informed it was none of their concern and that they were on a “need to know basis.” A source from a local law enforcement agency who attended the USDOJ sponsored program in late February in Nashville remarked that members of the board of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro (ICM)spoke expressing the view that Islam was a religion of peace. This source thought that overall the program was a waste of time. The source had also attended the SEG program sponsored by the Rutherford Sherriff’s office and found it most informative. The US DOJ sponsored program may have actually suggested that the real threat to homeland security in America came from “white neo-Nazis groups” and “right wing Christian extremists” rather than Islamic extremists.
The USDOJ has the Back of Muslims in Middle Tennessee
nnual Iftar dinners at the White House during Ramadan. Under President Bush these were expanded to Iftar dinners at the Pentagon, as well, along with appointment of Muslim outreach aides at senior levels in the Defense Department. The day following 9/11 in 2001 President Bush met with Muslim leaders at the Saudi financed Washington Islamic Center in a photo op declaring that Islam was a religion of peace and that extremists had hi-jacked this leading world faith with an underlying political ideological agenda. Bush in 2007 appointed Sada Camber, a Texas Muslim businessman of Indian origin, as the first special envoy with ambassadorial rank to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) (renamed Organization of Islamic Cooperation in July 2011). The 57 member OIC, composed of 56 nations and the Palestinian Authority, is Saudi controlled and headquartered in Jeddah. It is a virtual world Caliphate seeking to impose Qur’anic doctrine and Shariah rules, such as blasphemy codes denying criticism of Islam in the West. Obama appointed another Texas Muslim of similar background in March 2010 to the OIC, former Deputy White House Counsel Rashad Hussain. Later in December 2011, Secretary of State Clinton would convene an international plenary session with OIC members and other foreign representatives at the State Department. The so-called Istanbul Process conference was directed at developing best practices for combating religious intolerance, a code word for Shariah blasphemy codes adopted by the Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez of the USDOJ Civil Rights Division spoke about development of best practices to comply with the UN religious intolerance resolution. We shall see his role later in the USDOJ in the Tennessee mosque and counterterrorism program training conflicts.
controversial Muslim community profiling as part of their counterterrorism effort. Los Angeles dropped theirs at the request of local community leaders and the deputy mayor for public safety, Arif Alikhan a Muslim. Alikhan had served in the Bush USDOJ under Attorney General Gonzalez and currently is Assistant Secretary for Policy at the US Department of Homeland Security. He was a member of Muslim Brotherhood Front, MPACT.
media and Muslim community protests in 2011. Under Bush the deracination began with national security agencies eliminating references to Islamic jihad doctrine. Following the disclosures of evidentiary materials during the 2007-2008 Holy Land Foundation Trial and convictions, the FBI withdraw liaison with CAIR, simply substituting another Muslim Brotherhood front group, MPACT. The only venues where concerns were raised about matters of Muslim extremism and the threat of homegrown terrorism were hearings conducted by the Senate and House Homeland Security Committees, chaired by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Rep. Peter King (R-NY).
March 2011 raised national awareness about Nashville Muslim community Da’wa (conversion) activities. The senior Bledsoe’s testimony noted how his son had converted to Islam at Tennessee State University while a student in Nashville under the aegis of the Imam at the Islamic Center of Nashville (ICN). Carlos Bledsoe adopted his Islamic name from his mentor, the Imam at the ICN. Muhammad subsequently went to Yemen for jihadist indoctrination with the late American born radical Imam Anwar al-Awlaki and allegedly may have received terrorist training with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
raising the visibility of alleged right wing extremist threats from militia groups and returning veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.
With the eruption of the Arab Spring in North Africa and the Middle East, what had begun as informal outreach to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt became formalized. The Obama White House received a delegation of Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leaders and the Administration announced $1.5 billion in assistance to Egypt facing a Presidential election in May 2012.
Muslim Brotherhood in America).
“New Beginnings” address before a worldwide television audience at Al Azhar University in Cairo. During that speech he announced a new doctrine of aggressive civil and human rights defense of Muslims in the US:
statement in furtherance of President Obama’s Cairo remarks:
Murfreesboro Chancery Court Hearings. This was further exacerbated by allegations of arson and vandalism at the job site of the expanded Islamic Center of Murfreesboro. The latter brought the resources of both the FBI and the ATF into the alleged “hate crime” that occurred on August 28, 2010, just prior to the start of the Chancery Court proceedings in Rutherford County. As we shall see, the USDOJ, through the efforts of Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez for Civil Rights, would quickly respond to both local and national Muslim interests.
To suggest that Islam is not a religion is quite simply ridiculous. Each branch of the federal government has independently recognized Islam as one of the major religions of the world.
told the group that included the Imams the both the ICM and Nashville mosques that “his office has their back if it turns out that opponents aren't as interested in zoning esoteric as they are in sidelining the practice of Islam in Murfreesboro.”
were convicted and six were acquitted. In November 2011 there was the filing of a complaint by the US Attorney for the Southern District in Manhattan, Preet Bharara, on behalf of the US Drug Enforcement Agency regarding the laundering of Hezbollah drug money in a $300 million cash for wholesale used car scheme that caught 30 used car dealers across the US including one in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee owned by Middle Eastern Muslims.
If You Want to Learn About Islam, Do You Ask an Imam?
Anti-Muslim 'training' is fearmongering.” What was the Sheriff’s offense according to the editors?
In a county that has been torn emotionally for nearly two years over the right of local Muslims to build a new Islamic center, the top law enforcement officer is attempting to indoctrinate his deputies with concepts of religious bigotry against a portion of the population that they are pledged to protect.
If you want to learn about Islam, ask an imam.
Sheriff Arnold in Rutherford County showed the mettle of both his courage and independence of mind by putting on the Strategic Engagement Group (SEG) counter-terrorism program for his deputies. Some of the SEG program instructors had participated in the November 2011 Preserving Freedom conference. The TFC funded the SEG program and the World Outreach Church in Murfreesboro hosted it.
Hatewatch. Cavanaugh’s statement was:
Law enforcement urged to pick anti-terror courses with care”. The article praised a politically correct alternative program scheduled for February 27-28th. That program involved alleged “experts from the national Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council and the Combating Terrorism Task Force at West Point. Muslim speakers were to explain Islam and its code of conduct.”
The Smietana piece offered this comment from one of the program presenters:
White has worked with the Department of Justice, trained employees of overseas embassies and worked with Muslims who oppose terrorism.
The Nashville training included information on religious extremism and domestic terrorism, but also includes Muslim speakers. The Joint Terrorism Task Force and Tennessee Office of Homeland Security also are involved.
“Investigating Terrorism and Criminal Extremism” Terms and Concepts, 2009. In an interview with White in the Grand Valley Magazine in the Winter 2012 edition about his professional and academic career in law enforcement and terrorism, he revealed his views:
Lou Ann Zelnick of the TFC that funded the Rutherford County SEG program when interviewed commented:
Shariah: The Threat to America. (An Exercise in Competitive Analysis—Report of Team 'B' II) published by the Center for Security Policy, whose President, Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. testified during the 2010 ICM Murfreesboro Chancery Court Hearings.
“Panel OKs training that critics call anti-Muslim,” noted that on Friday, February 17, 2012 POST had issued a letter approving credits for the SEG program:
Jim Summerville was attending his first meeting as a new commission member. Asked about his vote, he said, “I support training for anti-terrorism.” He added that based on the information he had seen so far about this particular course, he had no objections to it.
Robert Arnold, in an interview, said he did not think the training was anti-Muslim.
National Review Online article:
Who are the Members of the Tennessee AMAC?
Despite inquiries by PJ Media in recent weeks, the conference organizers have refused to provide any details about who will be instructing law enforcement officials on these issues.
It is unclear what the event being closed to the public has anything to do with providing the information I requested, especially since it appears that two private outside organizations will be directly involved in providing the training.
Kasar Abdulla dominates the several interlocking Muslim groups as well as TIRRC. She is an ethnic Kurd, a refugee from the onslaught against her native Kurdistan from the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. She is a public face of the Tennessee Muslim community through her roles as Director of Advocacy & Training for TIRRC. From Nashville, she has also represented the ICN and the Salahadden Islamic Center. She is an alumna of American Muslim Civic Leadership Institute (AMCLI). AMCLI is based at the Center for Religion and Civic Culture in partnership with the Prince Alaweed bin Talal Center for Muslim Christian Understanding at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Among the funders for the AMCLI program are the Carnegie Corporation, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Open Society Foundation of George Soros. Ms. Abdulla is a graduate of Tennessee State University where she was a President of the Muslim Students Association chapter. She has been a frequent spokesperson in opposition to legislative initiatives such as American Law for American Courts, Putting Tennessee First and The Refugee Absorptive Capacity Act. Ms. Abdulla was in the forefront of criticism of the Preserving Freedom Conference in November 2011 and the Rutherford County SEG Counterterrorism program.
The other prominent Kurdish Muslim is Remziya Suleyman a resident of Nashville who has been a lobbyist for TIRRC and is now the Policy Director & Administrator for the ACO. Ms. Suleyman was profiled by New York Times Pulitzer Prize winning Muslim affairs journalist Andrea Elliott in a 2011 9/11 report on young Muslims in America. Ms. Elliott paid tribute to Suleyman’s efforts in forming the Muslim Rapid Response Team which brought 1000 Muslim protesters to the Tennessee legislature in 2011 to protest against the American Law for American Courts legislation.
criticized the recently enacted “Putting Tennessee First” legislation directed at controlling Visa abuses by Gulen chartered schools in the Volunteer State calling it “an anti-Muslim bill shrouded in anti-immigrant language.”
Mwafaq Aljabary another Middle Tennessee representative is a Tennessee Transportation Department employee and President of the Salahadeen Islamic Center serving the Kurdish Muslim community. He is also involved with a local group endeavoring to found another Gulen controlled Charter School in Nashville, the Nolensville Academy of Science and Math.
Haneef Shabazz, a Middle Tennessee resident is the property holder in Dover, Tennessee for Islamville, a para military compound affiliated with Jamaat ul-Fuqra (JF) or Muslims of America. JF has a network of 35 such compounds across America and is affiliated with the shadowy Pakistani Sufi Cleric, Sheikh Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani. Gilani was the last person known to have been visited by the late Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter. Pearl was abducted and slaughtered by Muslim extremists including Khalid Sheik Mohammed in Pakistan in 2002.
Eastern Tennessee representatives on the AMAC include Dorothy Awayed, Hana Ayesh and Zak Mohyuddin, the brother of Sabina Mohyuddin.
We note that the AMAC website has been taken down. Could it be that the missteps by Messrs. Gibbons, Purkey and Cotter have alerted the group that it was time to fold their tents and steal away?
The Rutherford County Chancery Court Ruling that Upset the Agenda
report noted Judge Corlew’s ruling:
Judge Robert Corlew III ruled that construction must cease because not enough notice was given about the May 2010 public meeting.
Corlew notes that his opinion does not prevent the Rutherford County Planning Commission from reconsidering the issue and approving the mosque site plan again. Construction of the mosque is well under way, [with the first phase of 12,000 square feet due for completion in early July 2012].
The judge held a trial on the narrower claim that the public meeting law was violated.
Kevin Fisher the lead plaintiff and a resident of Murfreesboro told The Tennessean:
commented on Corlew’s decision:
The Tennessean:
Rutherford County has no immediate plans to revoke the building permit for an embattled Murfreesboro mosque.
The county is going to look at all the possibilities. This could take weeks.
There are two sides here that disagree. The county is not the umpire here. There are a lot of moving parts in this.
The Tennessean noted what County Attorney Cope said in 2011 when the possibility arose of revocation of the approvals for the ICM mega-mosque:
If the site plan approval was revoked, then mosque leaders probably would have to reapply to the planning commission. Because the Veals Road site is already zoned for religious use, there would be no public hearing or comments on the site plan.
The county attorney also could appeal the decision.
Conclusion
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