…and New York Times reporter Neil MacFarquhar does not care for it. Not one little bit. So much so that any notion of accuracy or honesty flew right out the window.
For example:
A small band of critics have made a determined but unsuccessful effort to link it to Hamas and Hezbollah, which have been designated as terrorist organizations by the State Department, and have gone so far as calling the group an American front for the two.
MacFarquhar seems to have a rather Clintonesque parsing of the word “unsuccessful” in mind. Andrew McCarthy, a man with plenty of experience prosecuting terrorism-related charges has observed:
CAIR, you see, was birthed by a Hamas creation: the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP). Several of CAIR’s top officials, including its founders, Omar Ahmed and Nihad Awad, were high-ranking IAP officers (respectively, its president and public-relations director). Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR’s communications director… is a former IAP employee [;] Hooper makes no secret that he would like to see the United States become an Islamic country under sharia law. As it happens, the IAP was started in 1981 by high-ranking Hamas operative Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook. Long a specially designated global terrorist under U.S. law, Marzook is also currently wanted on a U.S. terrorism indictment in Chicago, and named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a second U.S. terrorism indictment (which explains that he helps run Hamas’s “Political Bureau,†the branch responsible for “directing and coordinating terrorist attacksâ€Â). But he’s believed to be in Syria with other Hamas heavyweights, so maybe, using the Iraq Study Group strategy, we should just negotiate with him. In any event, so incestuous is the Hamas/IAP tie that, in 2004, a federal judge found the IAP liable for Hamas’s terrorist murder of an American citizen in Israel.
McCarthy also notes that “when CAIR was founded in 1994, part of the seed money came from the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development”—whose assets were frozen in 2001 based on the U.S. Treasury Department’s conclusion that it provided millions of dollars annually that is used by Hamas.
After noting that even as solid a lefty as Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has made defforts to distance herself from CAIR, MacFarquhar tries another defense:
Government officials in Washington said they were not aware of any criminal investigation of the group. More than one described the standards used by critics to link CAIR to terrorism as akin to McCarthyism, essentially guilt by association.
Number of those government officials quoted or named? Zero. MacFarquhar did find a former official, however:
“Of all the groups, there is probably more suspicion about CAIR, but when you ask people for cold hard facts, you get blank stares,†said Michael Rolince, a retired F.B.I. official who directed counterterrorism in the Washington field office from 2002 to 2005.
Those blank stares may be from people who find Rolince as oblivious about CAIR, its activities and leadership as he was about Zacarias Moussaoui before 9/11, or perhaps Rolince deals with people who are clueless about CAIR (he’s a consultant for CBS News)—but such ignorance proves nothing about CAIR. Rolince might want to speak with Steven Pomerantz, former FBI assistant director and chief of the FBI’s Counter-Terrorism Section, who has stated, “CAIR, its leaders, and its activities effectively give aid to international terrorist groups.†And “CAIR is but one of a new generation of groups in the United States that hide under a veneer of ‘civil rights’ or ‘academic’ status but in fact are tethered to a platform that supports terrorism.†For that matter, MacFarquhar might have contacted Pomeranz, whose quote is widely published on the Internet, including in the Wikipedia.
As for that guilt by association, you have to read through to paragraph 18 to get a hint of what those associations might be:
Broadly summarized, critics accuse CAIR of pursuing an extreme Islamist political agenda and say at least five figures with ties to the group or its leadership have either been convicted or deported for links to terrorist groups. They include Mousa Abu Marzook, a Hamas leader deported in 1997 after the United States failed to produce any evidence directly linking him to any attacks.
MacFarquhar somehow fails to mention that Marzook (per McCarthy) is a specially designated global terrorist under U.S. law, is currently wanted on a U.S. terrorism indictment in Chicago, and was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a second U.S. terrorism indictment. He also fails to mention that Marzook is not among the “big five” usually identified by CAIR critics. Those five are:
• Ghassan Elashi (founding board member of CAIR’s Texas chapter) – was Chairman of Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), which was shut down by the United States for raising millions of dollars for HAMAS; in July of 2004, was convicted of conspiracy, money laundering, and making false statements about shipments of high-tech equipment to countries deemed state sponsors of terrorism;
• Randall Todd “Ismail†Royer (national staff member of CAIR) – past Communications Director of the Muslim American Society (MAS), an organization that publishes materials calling suicide bombings against Israelis justifiable; in April of 2004, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his participation in a network of Al-Qaeda-related militant jihadists centered in Northern Virginia;
• Bassem Khafagi (CAIR’s Community Director) – was co-founder and past President of the Islamic Assembly of North America (IANA), an organization that has been investigated for possible funding to terrorist-related groups and publishing of materials calling for suicide bombings in the United States; in November of 2003, was sentenced to prison for bank fraud and making false statements on his visa application; was later deported to Egypt;
• Rabih Haddad (fundraiser for CAIR’s Ann Arbor chapter) – was co-founder and past Executive Director and Public Relations Director for Global Relief Foundation (GRF), which was shut down by the United States for its financing of terrorist groups, specifically Al-Qaeda; was arrested by INS for visa violations, in December of 2001, and was later deported to Lebanon;
• Siraj Wahhaj (national board member of CAIR) – in February of 1995, was named by federal prosecutor, Mary Jo White, as a possible co-conspirator to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center; was a character witness for Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, who is serving a life sentence for his part in the ’93 bombing conspiracy; currently sits on the board of directors of the radical Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).
BTW, CAIR featured Wahhaj at one of its big events on March 3rd of this year.
MacFarquhar then presses his case:
There were no charges linked to CAIR in any of the cases involved, and law enforcement officials said that in the current climate, any hint of suspicious behavior would have resulted in a racketeering charge.
Here, as with MacFarquhar’s note that the United States failed to produce any evidence directly linking Marzook to any attacks, MacFarquhar seems (or pretends to be) oblivious to the notion that politicians might not want to associate with or give a platform to a group whose officials seem to be involved with financing terror groups more often than one might like. The New York Times certainly seems willing enough to engage in far more tenuous assertions of guilt by association; it never fails to document alleged wrongdoing by Halliburton, years after VP Dick Cheney stopped working there. So it is not as though this type of reasoning is foreign to the paper. If Chimpy McHitlerburton continued to throw open his doors to Enron after five officers had been convicted of criminal charges, I suspect the paper would have disapproved.
Several federal officials said CAIR’s Washington office frequently issued controversial statements that made it hard for senior government figures to be associated with the group, particularly since some pro-Israeli lobbyists have created what one official called a “cottage industry†of attacking the group and anyone dealing with it.
God forbid that MacFarquhar report what those controversial statements might be. Perhaps these officials were referring to the comments collected by Daniel Pipes and Sharon Chadha in the the Middle East Quarterly:
In October 1998â€â€months after Osama bin Laden had issued his first declaration of war against the United States and had been named as the chief suspect in the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africaâ€â€CAIR demanded the removal of a Los Angeles billboard describing Osama bin Laden as “the sworn enemy,” finding this depiction offensive to Muslims. CAIR also leapt to bin Laden’s defense, denying his responsibility for the twin East African embassy bombings. CAIR’s Hooper saw these explosions resulting from “misunderstandings of both sides.”[57] Even after the September 11 atrocity, CAIR continued to protect bin Laden, stating only that “if [note the “if”] Osama bin Laden was behind it, we condemn him by name.”[58] Not until December 2001, when bin Laden on videotape boasted of his involvement in the attack, did CAIR finally acknowledge his role.
CAIR has also consistently defended other radical Islamic terrorists. Rather than praise the conviction of the perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, it deemed this “a travesty of justice.”[59] It labeled the extradition order for suspected Hamas terrorist Mousa Abu Marzook “anti-Islamic” and “anti-American.”[60] CAIR has co-sponsored Yvonne Ridley, the British convert to Islam who became a Taliban enthusiast and a denier that Al-Qaeda was involved in 9-11.[61] When four U.S. civilian contractors in Falluja were (in CAIR’s words) “ambushed in their SUV’s, burned, mutilated, dragged through the streets, and then hung from a bridge spanning the Euphrates River,” CAIR issued a press release that condemned the mutilation of the corpses but stayed conspicuously silent on the actual killings.[62]
During the 2005 trial of Sami Al-Arian, accused of heading Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the United States, Ahmed Bedier of CAIR’s Florida branch emerged as Al-Arian’s effective spokesman, providing sound bytes to the media, trying to get his trial moved out of Tampa, commenting on the jury selection, and so on.[63]
More broadly, TheReligionofPeace.com website pointed out that “of the more than 3100 fatal Islamic terror attacks committed in the last four years, we have only seen CAIR specifically condemn 18.”[64]
MacFarquhar or his unnamed officials—the sentence quoted above is ambiguous, perhaps deliberately so—let us know that CAIR would have gotten away with it too… if it weren’t for those meddling Joos!
Indeed, he goes on in that mode for a couple of paragraphs, also referencing CAIR’s pro-Hezbollah position during Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel last summer. MacFarquhar does not put it that way, natch. Then again, MacFarquhar is not above writing a glowing profile of the Party of God’s Secretary General, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, either.
No doubt that’s the sort of piece that gets you selected to write about CAIR at the New York Times.
Its as if the NYTs doesn’t expect anyone to actually read their articles anymore.
The NYT might be right about that.
WTF, your analysis was like free too. Or at least it was free for me. Nice work. A friend of mine works in the newspaper biz and he says that everyone, from bottom to top is afraid of losing their job. I wonder how this creates, if any, a bunker mentality in the media and how that influences the performance of the writers. I mean, other than writing complete dog shit on a regular basis.
Your analysis of these stories is RACIST!!!
Just because. So there.
‘Degraded’ imams need day in court
The real purpose behind the imam publicity blitz
The real question is, did the imams have prior connections to CAIR?
Excellent job, Karl!
Shorter NY Times article: Just because 4 of the 5 top officers of CAIR were convicted of providing material support to terrorism, and just because open supporters of terrorism are on its board, doesn’t mean the organization is corrupt or supports terror.
Just like how Enron wasn’t a bad company, it just had a couple bad apples that gave the rest of the company a bad name…
I regard today’s Press as a decisive refutation of “rational market” theory.
They print Left-oriented drivel and their circulation goes down, so they print more Left-oriented drivel. Fox News comes along and is remarkably successful, so they shriek “unfair” and print more Left-oriented drivel. It’s reached the point where it’s counterproductive because you can decode it without effort. We know that things are going well in Iraq, for instance, because there’s absolutely nothing in “the News” about it, and for years now stories about political malfeasance with no party identification attached have invariably discussed Democrats.
The top items on YouTube these days are Right-oriented, Rush still makes a fortune, and any hint of non-Leftism causes the public to vacuum it up and pay for it. A rational market would have moved at least a little to the Right long ago. “Rational” is a failed hypothesis.
Regards,
Ric
Good post Karl. Very informative.
I agree with Ric- I assume its the arrogance of the left wing editors of rags like the new york times and LA times that they think when circulation is down, people want MORE left wing drivel thrown at them
Its amusing that the newspapers have not quite recognized that the presidential elections have shown quite clearly that this country is split- it may be a close split but its unlikely you’ll make a profit when you alienate anywhere from 48-52% of the persons reading your newspaper. Its bad from a business standpoint and stupid from a common sense standpoint.
Ric,
An interesting point, but flawed.
What you are seeing is the failure of moats and bridges.
The established media are in essence defending entrenched positions. They have little choice given their base of investment, infrastucture, and reader/viewership.
The invisible hand does not select and reform particular establishments, but addresses resources applied to needs. Thus a particular establishment can be as stupid, or irrational, as it wishes, but the resources (dollars, readership, talent, etc.) naturally flows away from establishments that do not serve needs.
You cite the flow of resources to those alternatives that have developed in the absence of certain establishments failing to address needs.
In other words: the rational market is working, and the military truism of the vulnerability of entrenched positions is again proving itself.
John,
I’m more inclined to agree with Ric. I never paid for the NYT, but I did at one time have their link in my favorites.
Now, I just don’t go there, ever. They are like Sullivan. He used to provide some thought-provoking commentary. Then he became a monomaniacal crank, so I stopped reading. The NYT lies so often, by omission if no other way, that they are simply not worth my time.
If the NYT were a real business, Pinch would be on the streets, and the paper would be trying to attract customers. Instead, the Sulzbergers let Pinch do what he wanted, and the stock price has cratered, along with ad sales. Hint, never buy non-voting shares in anything. NYT and Ford are prime examples why not.
I rather suspect that some day in the not too distant future, this NYT article will come to be viewed in the same manner as the NYT reporting on the Soviet Union by Walter Duranty some 80 years ago.
Wasn’t Neil McFarquar one of the “goofy guys” Crazy Guggenheim used to talk about with Joe the Bartender and Mr. Donaghy?
MarkD,
Transformation is much more difficult than greenfield development.
Resources will flow more readily to new start-ups that address news and non-left opinion than to an institution trying to move from left to center or right.
They would have to transform their talent pool, their majority investors, and their realtionships with advertisers and government. In addition they would cast their devoted readership onto the craps table hoping that enough stay with them through the transformation until new readers make up for the loss.
A rational business would take such risks only in the direst of need. The additonal problem is that with a leftist view of the world, they truly wouldn’t understand the need for such a transformation.
If they did try, the market would not be kind to them. Their leftist talent would leave, the customers as well; while new talent would rather work for a grreenfield startup, as well as customers read or view a non-tainted source. Investors in the meantime would note all of this and rather put their dollars in the greenfield, not the transforming business.
They are stuck. There is no rational course available for them once they dig into deeply held positions. I think it safe to say they have done so.
Terry notes
You think they’re hoping for another Pulitzer, then?
Excellent post. Forwarded it along to Charles at LGF.
…and here it is! Congratulations on the lizardlanche, Karl.
Take note of the Times’ omission of any mention of CAIR’s “Flying Imams” lawsuit, either in this story or elsewhere in both today’s and yesterday’s editions, notwithstanding the group’s announcement of the suit Monday and its press conferecne about it Tuesday. This, despite the fact that it was a New York City attorney, Omar T. Mohammedi (http://www.otmlaw.com), who filed the suit in Minnesota – and he just happens to be president of CAIR’s New York chapter.
Thanks to JG for the referral and TSI for the follow-up.
Nothing like a little meat for breakfast.
If the reader were the customer the news media serves, you’d be right. But no market, however distorted, is irrational. If one appears to be, that only means it’s misunderstood.
The reader is the product.
Boz is right. Newspapers make money by creating an audience for their adverisers. The cost to the consumer is just the tip of the revenue iceberg. After several intentional, willful breaches of national securty (i.e., your security and mine) I vowed never again to be one of its products.
Thus, I thank the authors of this blog, and many others, for reading the New York Times so that I don’t have to. I don’t believe anything in the NYT except the national security beaches, the sports and the weather, and even with the latter two, I’m suspicious.
And the MSM asks why its readership is way down.
I still (despite hundreds of examples) can’t get over the arrogance of it. MacFarquhar makes easily refuted statements that anyone with 5 minutes and a computer can blow out of the water, and just expects people to lap it.
It’s astounding to me that an editor would let this go out without saying “Neil, did we really check in on all this stuff?”
It’s possible the Times is making a demographic play, i.e. it doesn’t matter if your overall readership goes down as long as the right subset of readership increases. I’m sure advertisers love the urban limousine liberal demographic—they’ve got plenty of money and are willing to part with it, often for utterly nonsensical reasons.
Or perhaps Pinch has simply decided that “the mission” means more than something so pedestrian as running a successful business.
DRB,
In the case of NYT, Pinch probably is a special case form of idiot, allowing this to happen through his own lack of awareness of, for him of alternative viewpoints.
But enough of the NYT culture fell into it easily enough as well. It would take heroic action for a single person or even a top-notch transformation team to stop that bus and turn it around.
I suspect that they are going after what you term the demographic play enthusiastically, but by default rather than by decision.
I used to get the print version here in Ohio, and always had it while I was in New York. The advertising is distinct, and would not appeal to NASCAR, hayseed, or duty driven people; or any of the other people out here in flyover land who don’t aspire to haut couture.
RDub and DRB: you are both right. The Times does not expect its “loyal” readers (an ever diminishing number) to ever question or even google anything in a Times story. Its an arrogance that comes from certainty. The same certainty on display in the Al Gore greenhouse gas movie: nobody will check or question any of the “facts”. And the producers/writers are proven correct with an (increasingly worthless) Academy Award. Just as the Times is self-reinforced with an (increasingly worthless) tray of Pulitzer Prizes, year after year. The ‘demographic play’ that DRB refers to is to the same demographic that made Al Gore’s movie the #1 documentary (or, in his case, religio-fantasy) of all time.