Jailed Terror Suspect Helped ACLU Draft Schools' Anti-Christian Ruling
Wes Vernon, Newxmax.com
WASHINGTON –
Abdurahman Alamoudi, an alleged senior terrorist operative, is
behind bars on an 18-count indictment. But he can take satisfaction in
the fact that a court in California has just given the green light to
schools following ACLU’s religion-in-the-classroom guidelines, which
he helped to formulate
A federal judge judge has now upheld the constitutionality of an
intensive three-week
course in California government schools that requires children to
choose a Muslim name, wear Islamic garb, memorize verses from the
Koraan, pray to Allah, play “jihad games, and simulate worship
activities related to the Five Pillars of Islam.”
The next step: likely an appeal to the
notoriously left-wing 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which
deems the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional.
But hasn't American Civil Liberties Union lectured us that
religious instruction in school violates what it describes as
“separation of church and state” (a phrase that appears nowhere in the
U.S. Constitution)? Read on. That injunction seems to depend on which
religion is involved.
The guidelines in ACLU's document is in effect a warning (some
would say an implied threat) to schools as to how they can avoid legal
challenges from the same ACLU on church/state issues in the classroom.
Alamoudi, founder and former executive director of American Muslim
Council, was jailed last fall on charges that include taking money
believed to come from a charity Libya has used to support terror,
taking $340,000 in cash with the intent to bring it to Syria from
London. It is also believed some of the money was to be taken to Saudi
Arabia (or Saudi accounts) and from there to organizations of
influence the United States. The charges include money-laundering,
misuse of a passport and failure to report bank accounts.
J. Michael Waller, Annenberg Professor of International
Communications at the Institute of World Politics, believes Alamoudi’s
arrest “may have ripped the lid off an international support network
in Washington that operated to finance terrorists inside the United
States and abroad,” according to Insight magazine.
Clintonoid Terrorist Connection
Alamoudi’s name will ring a bell with some NewsMax readers. In
2000, we identified him as a “friend and sometime adviser on Islamic
affairs to Hillary Rodham Clinton,” and reported that he had stood
before a crowd in Lafayette Park across the street from the White
House “and passionately declared his support for the terrorist
organizations Hamas and Hezbolah.”
NewsMax also quoted Alamoudi, a Clinton administration appointee,
as a “goodwill ambassador” to Muslim countries. We cited his comment
to a pro-Palestinian organization in Chicago in 1997, years before
9/11: “I think if we are outside this country, we can say oh, Allah,
destroy America, but once we are here, our mission in this country is
to change it. There is no way for Muslims to be violent in America, no
way. We have other means to do it [destroy America].”
Some outraged parents, particularly in California, believe one of
the “other means” Alamoudi might have had in mind was indoctrinating
American children in school, an issue back on the front burner with
this week’s decision by U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton.
Alamoudi, a naturalized American, proclaims he is innocent of any
terrorist links or activities. In a letter to the Washington Post for
Dec. 12, 2003, he blames an inaccurate translation of an Arabic
interview he gave in 1999 for the implication that he supports
terrorism. He said the charge ignored a preceding sentence “in which I
clearly and unequivocally denounced terrorist violence.” He added he
had been “criticized by many of my associates for believing that
violence is never justified by any religion.”
ACLU has confirmed to NewsMax that Alamoudi in fact represented
American Muslim Council among the organizations that helped craft the
ACLU document “Religion In The Public Schools: A Joint Statement of
Current Law.”
Many government schools have given great weight to the document as
a warning. Anyone who follows the news knows ACLU aggressively looks
for opportunities to run to court and sue anyone or any institution
that shows the slightest trace of promoting Christianity in the public
square.
As a result, many of them have bended over so far backward to show
“tolerance” and avoid costly nuisance lawsuits that they have prompted
outrage from parents who believe school authorities have crossed the
line from tolerance to indoctrination in Islam. NewsMax will have more
on that in upcoming articles.
The parents’ outrage led to the lawsuit by Christian students, now
dismissed by Judge Hamilton. The jurist did not find the prayer and
worship to be “devotional activities.” We will address the double
standard inherent in the judge’s ruling in our next installment in
this series.
Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy and a
severe critic of radical Islam’s attempted influence in both major
political parties in the United States, reiterated to NewsMax.com that
among Muslims “the vast majority do not subscribe to ‘Islamist’
radical, intolerant, often violent jihadist tendencies" of those who
want to kill Americans.
Part 2
Christians Fight California's Muslim Indoctrination of
Schoolchildren
Wes Vernon, Newxmax.com
WASHINGTON – NewsMax.com has learned that a public interest law
firm plans to file an appeal “probably within the next 20 days” to
overturn a federal judge’s decision upholding as constitutional the
Islamic indoctrination of children in California's government schools
Such schoolroom activities as
praying to Allah and simulating Islamic worship are not
“devotional activities,” District Judge Phyllis Hamilton decreed in a
highly publicized lawsuit brought by Christian pupils and parents at
Excelsior Elementary School in Byron, Calif.
The Thomas Moore Law Center in Ann Arbor, Mich., which represents
Christians on issues related to “religion, family values, and the
sanctity of life,” intends to file its brief with the
9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Given that this court (dubbed the
“9th Circus” by Rush Limbaugh) is notoriously left-wing and is by far
the most overturned in the nation, the case could very well end up
before the U.S. Supreme Court.
“I would like to think we will stop it before that,” said Finn
Laursen, executive director of Christian Educators Association
International (CEAI). His organization of public and private school
teachers would likely enter the case as “a friend of the court” in
support of the Thomas Moore Center.
Schools throughout the nation are urged to abide by the guidelines
for religion in the classroom handed down by American Civil Liberties
Union. That organization has caused school officials to be gun-shy for
fear of being dragged into court if anything not hostile to
Christianity appears in their classrooms. Many parents in California
believe the Islam indoctrination case now in the courts resulted from
the schools bending over backward to please ACLU.
ACLU Snickering but Otherwise Silent
NewsMax.com has requested and is still waiting for a comment from
ACLU. Doesn’t the heavily pro-Islam curriculum at the center of the
case violate the organization’s insistence on what it always refers to
as “separation of church and state”?
An ACLU spokesman chuckled in apparent disbelief when NewsMax
recited the curriculum involved, which
also includes staging mock Islamic "holy" wars.
In his interview with NewsMax.com, Laursen, a former public school
superintendent in Ohio, recalled that ACLU “did not even want the
subject [Christianity] to be brought up that might lead someone to
believe that there was some reality to the God of the Bible.”
Thomas Moore Law Center spokesman Brian Burch told NewsMax that the
group’s lawyers, in their research, discovered schools are definitely
being pressured to insert Islamic views into their curricula.
Concern over the case is enhanced by the arrest last fall of
Abdurahman Alamoudi, founder and former executive director of American
Muslim Council. AMC is listed as one of the organizations that
contributed to ACLU's guideline “Religion in the Public Schools: A
Joint Statement of Current Law.”
ACLU offices in Washington confirmed to NewsMax that
Alamoudi, a former appointee of Bill Clinton and adviser to Hillary
Clinton, personally represented AMC in that effort. (Alamoudi says
he is innocent of the terrorism-related charges, for which he is in
jail without bail.)
Laursen opined to NewsMax that “if there were equal justice coming
from that organization [ACLU], they themselves” would be suing on
behalf of the outraged parents.
Part 3:
Left-Wing Groups Silent on Schools' Muslim Indoctrination
Wes Vernon, Newsmax.com
WASHINGTON – Parents who are furious that their children are
receiving indoctrination in Islam in their schools have yet to hear
support from most of the same left-wing groups that loudly lecture
Americans on what they call “separation of church and state,” a phrase
that appears nowhere in the U.S. Constitution.
Thus far, not a peep out of American Civil Liberties Union,
Moveon.org, the misnamed People for the American Way or many others of
their ilk. ACLU continues to refuse NewsMax's request for comment.
The lone prominent liberal voice who has publicly protested the
double standard is Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United
for Separation of Church and State.
Front Page Magazine, an outlet for David Horowitz’s Students for
Academic Freedom, says Lynn finds that adding Muslim religious
recruitment to the three R’s is “too hard to stomach.”
“This project,” he declares, “falls well short of neutrality"
required of government schools when dealing with religion.
ACLU's guidelines on religion in the classroom are believed to have
led to the Islam classroom activity slipped into the curriculum. If
one reads the document it could be interpreted to “swing both ways,”
as parents have complained. That way, when Christianity is presented,
the restrictive sections are enforced. When Islam is presented, other
sections suggesting latitude are applied, as apparently has happened
in the school systems of California, Alabama and individual school
districts elsewhere, perhaps in your own community.
That “open to interpretation” language might have accounted for a
statement by Nancy Castro, a top official of the school system in
Byron, Calif., who told Assist News Service that the course in Islam
reflected state requirements.
Byron is at the eye of this storm. Parents and students there have
filed a lawsuit in the case that appears headed for 9th Circuit Court
of Appeals, thanks to the Thomas Moore Law Center of Ann Arbor, Mich.
Requiring that students pray to Allah and stage their own jihad
meets California standards?
Two years ago NewsMax’s Inside Cover quoted government schools
superintendent Peggy Green as insisting: “We are not teaching
religion. We are teaching California state-mandated standards with
state-adopted textbooks.”
At that time, we also cited a Washington Times report that pupils
in middle school in San Luis Obisbo were ordered to pretend to be
warriors fighting for Islam.
Then and now, there were and are parents who do not want to be
quoted by name for fear their children would get the “pay back” from
teachers or other school authorities.
Some protesters even fear for their safety. One mother told us she
had been threatened so severely she felt compelled to change her name.
Again, quoting Front Page, the textbook “Across the Centuries” and
its accompanying curriculum “have students memorizing and mimicking
Islamic prayers and theology. But when it comes to learning about
Judaism, no comparable engagement with its traditions or literature is
taught. Christianity is given short shrift, treated as a mere
sub-topic of Judaism and history of the Roman Empire.
“Oh, with one exception: when examples of religious atrocities and
crimes are given, every single evil deed is an act of committed
Christians. Not a single atrocity or evil deed is anywhere ascribed to
Islam.”
All of this has led the San Gabriel Valley Tribune to editorialize
that teaching children how the world’s religions have shaped world
history “makes for a well rounded curriculum,” but that “asking
students to practice religion as part of the school lesson” is a
distortion of the learning process and crosses the line.
As NewsMax has noted, another troubling aspect of ACLU's guidelines
is that Abdurahman Alamoudi, arrested and jailed without bail on
charges linked to terrorism (which he denies), had input along with
other, mostly left-wing, organizations and individuals.
In our next installment, we will deal with national security
aspects of Alamoudi’s arrest and any new developments in this
indoctrination story, which has been mostly ignored by the mainstream
media with the exception of Fox News Channel.
Part 4:
Arrest of Terror Suspect Points to Other Threats
Wes Vernon, Newsmax.com
WASHINGTON – The arrest of Abdurahman Alamoudi on charges related
to terrorism (which he vehemently denies) has led analysts to a
Pandora’s box involving the shadowy world of terrorism and links to
power centers in mainstream America, with some influence in high
places.
As reported by NewsMax.com, Alamoudi participated in drawing up
ACLU's guidelines of dealing with religion in government schools. His
involvement was confirmed to NewsMax by ACLU itself through its
Washington offices. But there is much more.
For starters, Alamoudi helped develop the Islamic chaplains program
for the U.S. armed forces. He moved easily through power centers of
the Clinton and Bush administrations, though the Bush White House has
in more recent times taken better precaution to distance itself from
those who, as Center for Security Policy CEO Frank Gaffney has said,
would dominate moderate Muslims and create “a potential terrorist
‘Fifth Column’ within the United States,” a concern he expressed to
NewsMax.com.
Congress is taking notice of the extensive radical Islamist
influence, not to be confused with the overwhelming majority of those
of the Muslim faith.
The Senate Finance Committee recently asked the IRS to turn over
confidential tax and financial records, including donor lists, in a
probe of allegations of ties of tax-exempt “charities” to terrorist
organizations.
Furthermore, Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., has made it clear he would
work to prevent President Bush’s “guest worker” plan from granting
citizenship to anyone who illegally entered this country.
No doubt Kyl's caution stems in part from what he has learned in
testimony at hearings his Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism has held in
recent months.
Gaffney told NewsMax it was regrettable that Alamoudi, now in jail
and held without bail as a flight risk, was not available for Kyl’s
hearings last fall. He charges his arrest was “politically motivated,”
but Gaffney, a former high official in the Reagan Pentagon, says much
could have been learned “if Alamoudi had testified under oath before
the Senate probers."
“Islamists,” who are “a sub-set of the Muslim faith,” are believed
to have “established beachheads in such places as the Pentagon’s
chaplain corps and America’s prisons, mosques and colleges,” Gaffney
said.
Some of Alamoudi’s background information has even seeped into
parts of the mainstream media, which has been mostly silent on his
backgrouond.
A report by NBC last fall identified the indicted Alamoudi as “the
founder of the Islamic chaplain program,” and cited court documents
claiming he had provided “financial support to Hamas” and “financial
support to al Qaeda.”
As reported earlier in this series, NewsMax.com identified
Alamoudi’s activities more than two years ago when he “flamed out"
(Gaffney’s description) at a rally in Lafayette Park across the street
from the White House and openly declared support for Hamas and
Hezbollah.
AMC has been listed as an affiliate of National Coalition to
Protect Political Freedom, a leftist “anti-American front,” Gaffney
said.
He referred to a post-9/11 “screed,” wherein NCPPF urged readers
not to cooperate with the FBI.
A powerful figure at NCPPF is Kit Gage, who in August 2002 was
executive vice president of National Lawyers Guild, according to NLG
itself in response to a telephoned inquiry from NewsMax.
At that time, Annenberg Professor J. Michael Waller pointed out to
us that NLG “was founded in 1936 under Stalin as the foremost legal
bulwark of the Communist Party as its main instrument of espionage,"
so described in a congressional Report of Sept. 21, 1950.
Three experts in the terrorist threat — Gaffney, Waller and former
“red-diaper baby” turned conservative David Horowitz - have made the
point that some present-day terrorist groups were originally organized
by the old Soviet Union during the Cold War.
The fact that Alamoudi participated in ACLU’s guidelines on
religion in government schools and in the military chaplain program
causes considerable pause.
Gaffney despairs that few in either major party in this country are
willing to discuss the problem at any length for fear of being labeled
as “bigots,” no matter how much care is taken to stress that this is
by no means an indictment of most Muslims.
Original web links to Newsmax.com
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