Text 6562, 158 rader
Skriven 2008-04-28 18:32:00 av Bob Klahn (1:124/311)
     Kommentar till en text av John Massey
Ärende: MORE TERRORISTS FOR OBAMA
=================================
 JM> MORE TERRORISTS FOR OBAMA

 JM> The name Bill Ayers has become tied to the Barack Obama
 JM> campaign.

 Funny that. Bin Laden's family is tied to the Bush family. Yet
 no one wants to remember that.

 JM> But now it seems that Obama has yet another
 JM> terrorist buddy .. that would be Obama fundraiser Hatem
 JM> El-Hady.  This man was the chairman of an Ohio-based
 JM> Islamic "charity" called Kindhearts.This "charity" was
 JM> closed by the US government in 2006 for terrorist
 JM> fundraising.

 Yet, he has not been indicted, not been charged, not sent off to
 Gitmo, and is walking around a free man.

 IOW, you just might find yourself being sued for libeling him.

 Well, if you were important enough to be sued.

 ...

 JM> For those of you who may not be familiar with Kindhearts,
 JM> it is an off-shoot of the Holy Land Foundation, which has
 JM> been on trial for attempting to mask support of terrorism
 JM> as "charitable giving." Kindhearts not only provided funds
 JM> for Hamas, but its fundraising specialist - a man by the
 JM> name of Muhammad El-Mezain - was the designated Hamas bag
 JM> man in the US.

 From the Toledo Blade.
 **************************************************************************

 Article published March 6, 2006

        By CHRISTOPHER D. KIRKPATRICK
        and DAVID YONKE <mailto:dyonke@theblade.com>
        BLADE STAFF WRITERS



 Abdul Hammuda nods to his customers - a steady stream there for
 takeout and the mix of Libyan, Moroccan, and Lebanese cultures.

 He's a success story, an engineer who started several bakeries
 in the Arab-rich Toledo and Detroit metropolitan areas and
 chased down the American Dream. But there's a darker side to
 being Muslim in America these days: He asks a reporter not to
 name his business - bowing to the inevitable brick that would
 come crashing through his window, he says off to the side.

 The Libyan, who has lived in the United States for decades,
 said it's increasingly difficult for Middle Easterners here to
 celebrate their culture and religion without being scrutinized
 as supporting terrorists.

 Islam, like other religions, requires giving to the poor. For
 Christians, it's called tithing. For Muslims, the practice is
 zakat, and there are rules for how the money is distributed.

 But the Muslim community is finding it difficult to run
 charities without suspicion of funding terrorist organizations,
 they say. Toledo-based KindHearts - started after several major
 Arab charities were closed in 2002 - was shuttered by the
 Treasury Department last month for suspected ties to Hamas,
 considered a Palestinian terrorist group.

 Mr. Hammuda, who knows one of the indicted men, Marwan Othman
 El-Hindi, 42, planned to start a local charity with him. But the
 plans have fizzled since the arrest, he said.

 "I knew him; we were not friends. ... He portrayed himself as
 someone who had experience with grants. I put him on the
 board," he said of Mr. El-Hindi. "I was just as shocked as
 everyone else [by the arrest]."

 Along with Mr. El-Hindi, Mohammad Zaki Amawi, 26, and Wassim I.
 Mazloum, 24, were charged with conspiring to kill or injure
 people in the Middle East and with providing the "support and
 resources."

...

 Last week, the American Muslim Task Force on Civil Rights and
 Elections, a Washington-based coalition of U.S. Muslim groups,
 requested a meeting with Treasury Secretary John Snow to discuss
 KindHearts and "the continued targeting of Muslim charities
 without due process of law."

...

 "In that sense, of course, there is a fear and a danger of
 anything that is Arab and Muslim-related."

 For its part, KindHearts says it tracked donations and is
 innocent. The group was founded in 2002 after the government
 shut down the three largest U.S. Muslim charities. It raised
 $2.9 million the first year, $3.9 million in 2003, and $5.1
 million in 2004.

 The charity underwent a two-year investigation by the Senate
 Finance Committee, along with two dozen other U.S. Muslim
 charities, without charges. KindHearts officials said they knew
 the political climate after 9/11 and painstakingly followed
 federal laws and guidelines.

 The charity set up offices in Lebanon, Pakistan, and the
 Palestinian territories. By sending funds to its own offices,
 rather than to foreign nonprofit organizations, KindHearts had
 near-total control, Mr. Smaili said.

 Giving to the poor is one of the five "pillars" of Islam, and
 there are eight rules in the Qur'an for how the money can be
 used.

 Among the acceptable causes are orphans, the poor, travelers in
 need, someone with a sudden financial emergency, public
 projects such as roads, and salaries for charity workers.

 ...

 KindHearts gave to the YMCA, which is a Christian organization,
 Dr. Elhady said, and the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo has
 donated money to Christian-run soup kitchens, according to Dr.
 S. Zaheer Hasan, a spokesman for the mosque in the Perrysburg
 Township.

 ...
 **************************************************************************

 JM> And two months before the US government
 JM> closed down Kindhearts, it was revealed that the South Asia
 JM> Division Coordinator had known ties to al Qaeda, conducting
 JM> a ten day tour of an al Qaeda recruitment center.

 Wow! Al Qaeda recruitment centers as a tour destination!

 JM> Beyond El-Hady's leadership in Kindhearts, last summer he
 JM> was questioned by the FBI because they believed he knew
 JM> about possible conspirators in a UK-based terror plot.

 Questioned. Believed. Yet he has not been arrested or charged or
 indicted.

 JM> If you know a man by the company he keeps .. then we now
 JM> know Barack Obama a bit better.

 No, we really don't. Either the Bush administration has screwed
 up, and won't admit it, or it is too incompetent to follow
 through.

BOB KLAHN bob.klahn@sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn

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