Lee Dunn's List: JOURNALISM WATCH LIST

• CNN Trots out Jihad Teaching Extremist, Calls Him Instructor of Islam
• By Rusty Weiss (Bio | Archive)
  January 8, 2010
• As has been noted here in the recent past, it isn't just government entities that are a little slow on the uptake when it comes to identifying radical Muslim preachers as accessories to terrorism - it's also the media. 
• Consider the case of Anwar al-Awlaki, a man who has consistently shown ties to terrorist attacks, yet who had gone predominantly under the media radar as nothing more than a simple cleric.
• Also consider the curious case of one Yasir Qadhi, a man recently interviewed by CNN for a sympathetic look at the failed underwear bomber, Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab. 
• A man who has apparently escaped background investigations by both CNN and the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC).  (H/t the Jawa Report)
• How else to explain CNN's representation of Qadhi as a simple, orthodox teacher of Islam, who had no idea of the extremist views of AbdulMutallab? 
• And how else to explain the baffling decision by the NCTC to utilize Qadhi in its deradicalization efforts?
• What, you might ask, is wrong with presenting this man as a moderate teacher of ‘the nuts and bolts of Islam?'
• Well, for starters, he is - by his own admission - a proud member of the U.S. terror watch list, and an instructor at an institution so extreme in their teachings, that an anti-terror consultant once dubbed the school ‘Jihad U.'
• The CNN interview links the underwear bomber, AbdulMutallab, to Yasir Qadhi via a 16 day conference held in 2008 to teach young Muslims "the nuts and bolts of Islam." 
• The conference, known as an Islamic Knowledge Fest, was simply harmless we are led to believe, teaching young Muslims of "orthodox Islam for the 21st Century," and nothing more than "mainstream Islamic stuff."
• In fact, Qadhi is portrayed as the antithesis of the underwear bomber, expressing a bit of astonishment as to how the individual he knew could have ever developed into the extremist he has become.
• This conference however was organized by the Al Maghrib Institute where Qadhi is the Dean of Academic Affairs, an establishment not exactly known for its mainstream teachings.
• In fact it had earned the nickname ‘Jihad U' by anti-terrorism consultant, Patrick Poole, who in 2007 voiced his concern that their Islamic studies program was preaching "messages of religious extremism, racial bigotry and advocacy of jihad and militancy." 
• The following list confirms those thoughts, and apparently is what passes as ‘mainstream Islamic stuff' these days:
• Holocaust denial always seems to be a favorite of terrorists, and Qadhi is no exception. In a 2001 lecture Yasir Qadhi highly recommends that listeners read a book known as the Hoax of the Holocaust, urging them to ‘look up yourself what Hitler really wanted to do.'
• Qadhi served as a guest speaker at a conference organized by the Islam Channel, who's Chief Executive Officer was convicted terrorist Mohamed Ali Harrath.
• Qadhi is an ardent defender of Dr. Ali al-Timimi, convicted of inciting terrorism via the Virginia Jihad Network. The good doctor urged his followers to take up arms against U.S. troops shortly after the 9/11 tragedy.
• Perhaps we need a new color, as the red flags consistently being thrown up concerning terrorists, their preachers, and their teachers, aren't being readily recognized by the media or the government.
• CNN also misses the boat with the following statement:
• "Qadhi says there was no indication AbdulMutallab in 2008 was extreme in his views."
• But the Times Online indicates that there was plenty of indication that AbdulMutallab had certainly developed close ties to the terrorist (not cleric) Anwar al-Awlaki as early as 2007, and that U.S. counter-terrorism authorities believe his radicalization started during a period between 2005 and 2008.
• So much for the NCTC's deradicalization program - it appears Qadhi has developed more of a post-radicalization reputation.
• But hey, he's just a simple professor of Islam.  Words themselves can do no harm, they are not actual acts of terrorism. 

• Just ask the media about their handling of the simple ‘cleric' al-Awlaki.

   

  Nothing to see here...

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• NPR: No apology for 'Tea Bag' attack cartoon
• By: Byron York
    Chief Political Correspondent
         01/08/10 2:51 PM EST
• National Public Radio executives say there will be "no apology" for an animated cartoon on the network's website that has angered thousands of conservatives.
• The cartoon, entitled "How to Speak Tea Bag," by satirist Mark Fiore, will remain on the NPR site, executives tell NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepard.
• The cartoon is a mock instructional video in which viewers are told that if they are "distracted by the confusing words of other languages" -- for example, by the calm and rational discussion of health care reform -- they can instead learn to speak "Tea Bag."
• At that point, a figure begins to yell, "Socialist! Socialist!"
• "If you're having trouble understanding the words of others or being understood yourself, use Tea Bag's stronger, more descriptive words," the narrator says. The figure then yells, "Nazi! Nazi! Nazi!"
• The video takes brief shots at Republican Reps. John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Michelle Bachmann before envisioning a "paranoid future" in which people speak Tea Bag and walk around screaming "Nazi! -- Socialist! -- Baby killer!"
• "Tea Bag," the video concludes. "Because other languages are just too hard."
• Shepard, the NPR ombudsman, writes that the cartoon was originally posted on the NPR site on November 12, 2009 and attracted little attention.
• This week, however, it has been discovered, and NPR has gotten lots of comments, many of them from offended conservatives. (At this moment, there are 1,261 comments on "How to Speak Tea Bag" page.)
• Shepard says neither she nor the NPR staffers who approved the cartoon knew that there was anything derogatory about the phrase "tea bagger."
• Shepard adds that NPR has done much serious and balanced reporting on the tea party movement.
• Nevertheless, she concludes that there are real problems with the "How to Speak Tea Bag" video.
• "Chief among them is it doesn't fit with NPR values, one of which is a belief in civility and civil discourse," Shepard writes.
• "Fiore is talented, but this cartoon is just a mean-spirited attack on people who think differently than he does and doesn't broaden the debate. It engages in the same kind of name-calling the cartoon supposedly mocks."
• Shepard sought comment from top NPR executives, who said they would not apologize for Fiore's cartoon, nor would they remove it from the NPR site.
• "Opinion and satire are going to sting some members of the audience and soothe others," NPR senior vice president for news Ellen Weiss told Shepard.
• "This one satire is not the only coverage on the topic and while it offends some members of the audience, I see no reason to remove it."
• But NPR has taken action. It has enlarged the word "OPINION" on the page where Fiore's cartoon appears and labeled it his "personal take" on the issue.
• So there will be no apology, no withdrawal, and no further steps to provide balance in commentary.
• Right now, what balance there is can be found in the comments section.
• "This should be on the Democratic National Committee website," one California listener wrote. "Why did NPR allow this? I'll tell you why. The people who allowed it have the same views."

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• Why does Fox News promote terror-tied, FBI-shunned group?
• Bankrolled by same wealthy Saudi prince, CAIR now regular guest on cable leader
• Posted: January 11, 2010
  9:52 pm Eastern
  
• © 2010 WorldNetDaily
• Long a reliably patriotic media source in the war on terror, Fox News may now be among news outlets who have fallen under the spell of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' propaganda machine.
• "We own the media," CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper privately brags, according to a source currently working inside the aggressive Islamist lobby group.
• Fox News host Bill O'Reilly last week invited the TV-savvy Hooper on his show to debate passenger profiling, the second guest appearance by the CAIR spokesman in a month.
• 
   CAIR's Ibrahim Hooper, right, on the Fox News "O'Reilly Factor" show with host Bill O'Reilly last week
• At the end of the segment, O'Reilly thanked Hooper and called him a "stand-up guy," sending shockwaves through the conservative blogosphere.
• The government has blacklisted it as an unindicted terrorist co-conspirator, and the group remains under criminal suspicion by the FBI, which has cut off outreach ties to it.
• CAIR is no ordinary guest.
• Congress and the IRS also are investigating CAIR, which has had no fewer than 15 executives and board members convicted or implicated in terror probes, including its founding chairman.
• In addition, CAIR's very existence as a legitimate corporation has been challenged in a lawsuit in federal court.
• 
   FBI agents arresting CAIR founding director Ghassan Elashi in 2002
• Given CAIR's proven ties to terrorism – which O'Reilly failed to mention – why would Fox offer the group's top executives a virtually uncritical forum on prime-time cable TV? Saudi Arabian money may be a factor.
• It turns out that the same billionaire Saudi prince who owns a major stake in Fox's parent company also bankrolls Washington-based CAIR.
• And sensitive State Department records reveal Hooper – despite his repeated public denials – has personally solicited cash from the prince and other members of the ruling Saudi royal family during recent trips to the kingdom.
• The common financial bond between Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal and Fox, and between bin Talal and CAIR, raises questions not only about Fox News's independence, but about the truthfulness of CAIR's top spokesman.
• In CAIR press releases, Hooper has stated unequivocally: "We do not support directly or indirectly or receive support from any overseas group or government."
• Hooper repeatedly has denied that CAIR receives foreign support, insisting it's a "grass-roots" nonprofit organization.
• However, smoking-gun video footage obtained during a recent six-month covert investigation of CAIR puts the lie to Hooper's claims.
• In a private conversation with undercover researcher Chris Gaubatz, who was posing at the time as a CAIR intern, Hooper boasted that he personally can "bring (in) a half million of overseas money" a year, adding: "If some guy's got a lot of extra money in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia), I don't mind taking it."
• Hooper made the remarks Aug. 30, 2008, during the Islamic Society of North America's 2008 annual convention in Columbus, Ohio.
• A State Department cable citing Hooper by name, moreover, directly contradicts Hooper's denials about foreign support, according to the blockbuster book "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America," which exposes the secret inner workings of CAIR, among other radical Muslim Brotherhood front groups in America.
• The sensitive but unclassified communiqué was written by U.S. Embassy staff in Saudi Arabia, who in June 2006 reported the following after meeting with a CAIR delegation:
• "One admitted reason for the group's current visit to the KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) was to solicit $50 million in governmental and non-governmental contributions."
• "(Saudi) King Abdullah knows CAIR very well," the cable added.
• Among other things, CAIR said the money would be used to "counter negative stereotypes about Muslims in the U.S." media, a phenomenon described by CAIR as "Islamophobia."
• The core delegation, according to the cable, consisted of Hooper, CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad and then-CAIR Chairman Parvez Ahmed. Besides Riyadh, the trio also visited Mecca and Jeddah.
• Just three months after the trip, Hooper denied soliciting Saudi government funds.
• "To my knowledge, we don't take money from the government of Saudi Arabia," he said in a September 2006 appearance on MSNBC's Tucker Carlson show.
• At a meeting held that year at the Saudi headquarters of the kingdom-run World Assembly of Muslim Youth – whose U.S. branch was formerly run by Osama bin Laden's nephew – CAIR announced the launch of a massive PR campaign and warned potential donors that the U.S. was trying to curtail the political activity of Muslims.
• Awad, with Hooper at his side, said CAIR needed a well-funded endowment to change American opinion.
• He proposed spending $10 million annually for five years on the media campaign.
• "We are planning to meet Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal for his financial support to our project," Awad told the Arab press. "He has been generous in the past."
• He also presented a $10 million relief check to then-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani – or at least he tried. Giuliani rejected the gift after bin Talal blamed America's "pro-Israel" policies in the Middle East for the attacks.
• Indeed, the Saudi prince donated at least $500,000 to CAIR after 9/11.
• Prince Bin Talal's voting stake
• Bin Talal, a member of the Saudi ruling family, owns a 5.5 percent voting stake in Fox News' parent News Corp., run by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch.
• The prince has said he is willing to increase his share in Fox's parent to fend off hostile takeover bids by rivals.
• Murdoch, in turn, has invested in bin Talal's Saudi-based enterprises.
• It is not immediately clear if bin Talal has influenced Fox's decision to book CAIR. But there is strong evidence that bin Talal has directly influenced Fox News content in the past.
• As WND reported, during violent street protests involving Muslim immigrants in France in 2005, the Saudi prince persuaded Murdoch to change a screen banner that identified the unrest as "Muslim riots."
• "I picked up the phone and called Murdoch (and told him) these are not Muslim riots, these are riots out of poverty," bin Talal said. "Within 30 minutes, the title was changed from 'Muslim riots' to 'civil riots.' "
• 
   Prince al-Walid bin Talal
• Fox News has acknowledged it changed the banner after receiving complaints from unnamed Muslims abroad. It has not denied bin Talal's influence in its internal operations.
• Bin Talal isn't the only member of the ruling Saudi elite bankrolling CAIR.
• Bank wire records published exclusively in "Muslim Mafia" show another Saudi royal family member has pumped six-figure sums into CAIR coffers.
• In 2007, for example, Saudi Prince Abdullah bin Mosa'ad transferred $112,000 directly into CAIR's bank account at Citibank.
• The Saudi bank transfers further undermine the official line peddled by Hooper, who has a reputation for dissembling.
• Longtime CAIR critic Andrew Whitehead, for one, calls him "CAIR's liar-for-hire,"
• CAIR sued Whitehead for defamation and lost.
• "The record shows CAIR habitually engages in deception," said terror expert Steven Emerson, executive director of the "Investigative Project on Terrorism" and author of "Jihad Inc."
• In 2003, for example, CAIR accused WND of "demonizing Muslims" for citing a Bay Area newspaper's report that CAIR's then-chairman, Omar Ahmad, told a gathering of Muslims that Islam was in America to dominate and that the Quran would one day rule over America.
• Despite CAIR's dubious reputation, Fox has recently given Hooper and other top CAIR leaders an unchallenged platform to persuade the American public to back off passenger profiling and other measures to counter an ominous upswing in terrorism.
• Since the Fort Hood terrorist attack by a Muslim Army officer, CAIR's leaders have been invited on Fox at least four times, even though there are several other Muslim groups considered genuinely moderate who could speak for the Muslim community, such as the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.
• "The issue," Emerson said, "is whether CAIR is an honest and reliable broker for American Muslims."
• Hooper was invited on "The O'Reilly Factor" twice to shoot down profiling following the attempted airline attack by a Muslim would-be suicide bomber who concealed explosives in his underwear.
• In both appearances, Hooper – looking less fundamentalist without his trademark kufi skull cap – was given a full segment unopposed and unanswered by other guests.
• In the wake of the Fort Hood attack, CAIR chief Awad was invited on Fox, and in an interview with Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum, Awad denied Islam had anything to do with the deadly massacre – even though it was known at the time that the shooter was Muslim and had yelled "Allahu Akbar!" before opening fire. Awad also got a full segment unopposed.
• Free spin on Fox
• Fox did not balance Saylor with an opposing guest to challenge the CAIR spokesman during his full segment, in which he contended young Muslim men are no more "security threats" than 85-year-old grandmothers.
• Most recently, CAIR's chief lobbyist Corey Saylor appeared on Fox New during an interview with anchor Bill Hemmer.
• Washington recently added Saudi Arabia – CAIR's patron – to a list of 14 mostly Muslim nations whose travelers will undergo extra airport security screening.
• Saylor slammed the new Obama administration policy as "across-the-board profiling" and complained "Muslims will pay the price for this one."
• At no time during any of the four appearances by CAIR leaders did Fox bring up the fact that the FBI has cut off ties to CAIR or that the Justice Department has blacklisted the group as an unindicted terrorist co-conspirator – information critical to the public's understanding of CAIR's possible bias in delinking terrorism from Islam and arguing against Islamic terrorist profiling.
• 
   CAIR's Corey Saylor on the Fox News show "America's Newsroom" with co-anchor Bill Hemmer
• Curiously, even O'Reilly of "no-spin zone" fame failed to so much as hint at the many controversies surrounding CAIR in his introduction of Hooper.

• O'Reilly also let Hooper get away with a glaring falsehood during his most recent appearance.  

  Hooper maintained CAIR does not share al-Qaida's "talking point" that America and the West are "at war with Islam." Yet after the Iraq war, CAIR's chairman declared: "The United States is at war with Islam itself."  
• Detractors say the misleading statement is yet another example of CAIR's deceptive tactics, which should give the media pause before booking CAIR representatives as the official voice of Muslim Americans.
• Investigative journalist Paul Sperry, co-author of "Muslim Mafia," says giving CAIR's leaders a media platform is "like giving Hamas and the terrorist enemy a platform."
• He notes that while CAIR may bill itself as a "civil-rights advocacy group," the FBI says that far from being a benign nonprofit, it's an American front group for Hamas terrorists and the radical Muslim Brotherhood – the parent of both Hamas and al-Qaida.
• The bureau last year cut off formal ties to CAIR's national office in Washington and all 30 of its branch offices across the country.
• CAIR at the time blamed its ban on the "right-wing" Bush administration and confidently predicted that a Democrat administration would restore relations. Yet fully a year into the Obama administration, CAIR remains frozen out of any formal outreach with the FBI.
• At the same time, the Justice Department has blacklisted CAIR as an unindicted terrorist co-conspirator in the largest terror finance case in U.S. history, against the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation. The trial ended in convictions on all 108 counts.
• Prosecutors have also connected CAIR directly to the Muslim Brotherhood, a worldwide jihadist movement that seeks to institutionalize Saudi-style Shariah law in America and the West through immigration, coercion and political infiltration.
• "From its founding by Muslim Brotherhood leaders, CAIR conspired with other affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists," assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg stated in a court filing.
• He adds that the Saudis and CAIR's other Arab patrons pay him well for it – more than $95,000 a year in total compensation, IRS records show.
• Who is 'Dougie' Hooper?
• He also commands a six-figure annual budget for conducting opposition research against CAIR's enemies – which internal documents revealed in "Muslim Mafia" include, ironically, Fox's O'Reilly and other "right-wing" media personalities.
• A Canadian immigrant, the 53-year-old Hooper was known as "Dougie" before he converted to Islam.
• His birth name is Cary Douglas Hooper, according to government records.
• He became a member of the Cairo Foreign Press Association while working for periodicals in the Egyptian capital, the global headquarters of the radical Muslim Brotherhood.
• Hooper also worked for local TV stations in Minnesota, where he once let it slip out that he favored Islamic rule in America.
• 
  Ibrahim Hooper
• "I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future," Hooper said in a 1993 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
• "But I'm not going to do anything violent to promote that. I'm going to do it through education."
• "This is Hooper's real agenda," Sperry said, "make no mistake."
• In an October interview with CNN, Hooper denied charges of Middle Eastern influence-peddling: "We have no ties of any kind to any foreign group in any form."
• However, CAIR is on record promising to do the bidding of its Arab backers.

• In 2006, shortly after a company owned by the United Arab Emirates lost a controversial bid to take over control of several major U.S. ports, Awad, Hooper and other CAIR officials traveled to the UAE to meet with its rulers.  

  It was agreed that the UAE would set up an endowment in the U.S. run by CAIR to fund an "education" program to change negative perceptions about Islam that the UAE believes contributed to the public outcry that derailed its multibillion-dollar ports deal.   
• The endowment caught the attention of the U.S. government, which issued another sensitive State Department cable regarding the unusual deal.
• It noted UAE Minister of Finance Sheik Hamdan bin Rashid Al-Maktoum endorsed a proposal to build a $24 million property in the U.S. to serve as an endowment for CAIR to launch its $50 million image-building campaign through 2011.
• "The endowment will serve as a source of income," Awad told the Arab press at the time, "and will further allow us to reinvigorate our media campaign projecting Islam and its principles of tolerance."
• CAIR is working out details of its endowment with the Dubai-based Al-Maktoum Foundation, founded and controlled by Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai.
• The anti-Israeli charity has held telethons to support families of Palestinian suicide bombers and other so-called "martyrs."
• After 9/11, the Al-Maktoum Foundation took a nearly $1 million stake in CAIR's headquarters property, just three blocks from the U.S. Capitol, as first reported by Sperry in his 2005 book, "Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington."
• Sperry said. "Of all people, Fox should know better than to give the enemy voice. There are other legitimately moderate Muslim voices out there who can better speak for the broader Muslim community, and they aren't hard to find. Why Fox keeps going back to CAIR really makes one wonder about the influence Saudi money is having at Fox."

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