The Investigative Project on Terrorism

There are times when an unfortunate name can come back to haunt someone even when he or she had nothing to do with the original moniker. Think ofRick Perry's ranch, or a Florida mosque named for a terrorist icon.  

The Islamic Community of Tampa, also known as the al-Qassam mosque, hosts an ironic event Friday evening with the local Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) chapter. The open house aims to advance "understanding Islam." Speakers will discuss Muslim beliefs and try to clear up "misconceptions about Islam, and Islam's condemnation of terrorism," a promotional release said.

In 2005, Saudi prince Alwaleed Bin Talal donated $20 million dollars each to Harvard and Georgetown Universities. In the years since, Georgetown has earned considerably more press for its use of the prince's largesse, through which it renamed an extant center founded in 1993 as the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU). This is due in no small part to the efforts of the center's director, John Louis Esposito, America's foremost apologist for ultra-fundamentalist Wahhabi Islam. The result of the Saudi-Esposito lash-up has been the emergence of ACMCU as an academic institution that promotes vigorously the "Palestinian narrative" and hostility to Israel.

Editor’s note: Sign the Freedom Center’s petition, Purple Hearts for Fort Hood Heroes.  

The Purple Heart, a United States military honor awarded for military merit, is specifically to be given, according to U.S. Army regulations, for “wounds received as a result of hostile action,” including fatal wounds. It can be awarded in peacetime “to military personnel wounded by terrorists or while members of a peacekeeping force.” Yet the twelve U.S. military personnel (plus one civilian) murdered by Islamic jihadist Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan at Fort Hood in Texas on November 5, 2009 have not been awarded the Purple Heart, and neither has Army Private William Long, who was murdered by Islamic jihadist Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad in Little Rock, Arkansas on June 1, 2009.  

Recently two extraordinary articles have appeared at the Daily Kos -- extraordinary because, to the rage and dismay of many of that site's commenters and regular readers -- they depart from the standard Leftist line that Islamic jihad violence has nothing whatsoever to do with Islam, even if jihadists invoke Islamic texts and teachings to justify that violence, and that only greasy Islamophobes think otherwise.

Federal departments and agencies tasked with safeguarding the U.S. must first safeguard themselves against Islamist infiltration. Recent news items about Muslims having security clearances rejected or revoked suggest that at least some government entities are forgoing political correctness and taking this problem seriously. More need to follow suit, but the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is determined to make life difficult for them.

In July 2007, seven key leaders of an Islamic charity known as the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) went on trial for charges that they had: (a) provided "material support and resources" to a foreign terrorist organization (namely Hamas); (b) engaged in money laundering; and (c) breached the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which prohibits transactions that threaten American national security. Along with the seven named defendants, the U.S. government released a list of approximately 300 "unindicted co-conspirators" and "joint venturers." During the course of the HLF trial, many incriminating documents were entered into evidence. Perhaps the most significant of these was "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America," by the Muslim Brotherhood operative Mohamed Akram.