CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, is well known by students of the group as being sympathetic to terrorism and radical Islam, founded by people with ties to HAMAS, and an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the Holy Land Foundation case resulting from attempts to illegaly fund HAMAS.
Now, CAIR is trying to shut down the distribution of a DVD about radical Islam, saying it violates election law.
A U.S. Muslim advocacy group Tuesday asked the Federal Election Commission to investigate whether a nonprofit group that distributed a controversial DVD about Islam in newspapers nationwide is a “front” for an Israel-based group with a stealth goal of helping Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
The promoters of “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West” denied trying to promote any presidential campaign. They said it’s also incorrect to tie the DVD campaign to Jerusalem-based educational group Aish HaTorah International, although current and former employees are involved with the project.
The Council for American-Islamic Relations asked the FEC to investigate the DVD distribution, which targeted about 28 million households mostly in battleground election states.
In any rational world, this is the point at which the news story should give some background on CAIR and its ties to terrorist organizations, and apologetics for same. This story, by the AP religion writer Eric Gorski, eschews any such context setting about CAIR, which frequently manages to be represented as a “moderate Islamic organization” in the main stream press, about like calling the KKK a political action committee.
The DVDs, which critics call anti-Muslim propaganda, were inserted this month into more than 70 newspapers and paid for by the Clarion Fund, a nonprofit founded in 2006. The group’s focus is “the most urgent threat of radical Islam.” It has declined to identify board members or its funding.
Never picked up for traditional distribution, “Obsession” features scenes of Muslim children being urged to become suicide bombers, 9/11 carnage and interviews with critics of Islam.
Of course, Hollywood is too busy making movies decrying the war on terror to bother.
Another organization, the Endowment for Middle East Truth, is a partner with the Clarion Fund in “The Obsession Project,” which will also include research publications and issue forums.
Ari Morgenstern, a spokesman for that group, said targeting swing states was designed to attract media attention, but is not meant to influence the election result. He said the film “makes a very clear and upfront distinction between the majority of peaceful followers of Islam and those people who subscribe to a radical Islamic ideology.”
In its complaint, CAIR cites New York Secretary of State records showing that three people who incorporated Clarion Fund also are employees or have been employees of Aish HaTorah International, a Jerusalem-based Jewish educational organization that has offices around the world.
“American voters deserve to know whether they are the targets of a multimillion-dollar campaign funded and directed by a foreign group seeking to whip up anti-Muslim hysteria as a way to influence the outcome of our presidential election,” Nihad Awad, executive director of CAIR, said in a statement.
Maybe THIS would be a good time to tell the readers about CAIR’s very shady connections to terrorist organizations? Nah…
“If you heighten the hysteria over national security or terrorism or do anything to make people more fearful, it’s clear they would trend toward McCain because that’s been his mantra throughout the campaign,” said Ibrahim Hooper, a CAIR spokesman.
Under federal election law and the tax code, nonprofit groups are restricted from getting involved in candidate races and foreign nationals may not contribute to American campaigns. The DVD’s distributors say their efforts are issue-based and don’t break election laws.
The AP report never does get around to giving readers ANY useful information about CAIR and its biases, detailed here and at the links in the beginning of this post. What does all of this mean? It means there is information in the DVD that CAIR wants to block you from knowing about. It means the AP is simply hopelessly biased against any kind of fair reporting on the issues of Islamic extremism, and given how dependent the other major media are on the AP, it means you may not be getting the information you need anywhere else. Go here and watch the trailer. Then do what seems right to you.
