Earlier this month, CBN News told you about the latest Islamist outrage at Fort Hood: a lecture given by a top official from the radical Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). That official, Louay Safi, lectured about the "Theology of Islam" to American soldiers readying to deploy to Afghanistan--and just weeks after Islamic terrorist Nidal Hassan went on a jihadist rampage at the base. Safi and ISNA have a long track record of radical associations, including close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood is a worldwide jihadist movement that was the precursor to groups like Al Qaeda and Hamas.
Thankfully, A group of lawmakers has taken notice of Safi's appearance at Fort Hood, and they don't want to see a repeat. Thirteen members of Congress signed this letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates asking that Safi and other ISNA officials be barred from addressing American troops in the future. Here is an excerpt from that letter:
Safi himself has been connected to an entity called the “Safa Group.” Search warrants executed in 2002 were supported by an affidavit alleging its involvement in moving large sums of money to terrorist fronts. He was also caught on a 1995 FBI wiretap of Sami al-Arian. Safi was concerned that an executive order, issued by President Clinton prohibiting financial transactions with terrorist organizations, would negatively affect al-Arian. In April 2006, al-Arian pled guilty to a charge of conspiring to provide services to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad – a specially designated terrorist organization.
The Muslim Brotherhood is dedicated in its own words to “a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands.” What better way to carry out its plans to “sabotage” our efforts than to have one of its own invited to lecture on Islam to the very troops called to defend this country against those the Brotherhood supports. We ask that you immediately stop any lecturing by Louay Safi or ISNA affiliated speakers.
I spoke to one of the signatories of that letter, Missouri Congressman Todd Akin, about the Fort Hood/Safi debacle. He said:
"...to...bring in somebody who's an apologist, essentially, for jihad, and then giving him a bully pulpit to speak to our troops, it just seemed like an insane thing to do. And somebody apparently didn't do their homework...the Pentagon has been very buttoned down, they have not been transparent, not forthcoming with any information. This looks like just a very dumb thing that they’ve allowed. I’m not sure they won’t try to stonewall it. But next time we’ll get more signatures on the letter and see if we can get them to tell us: what in the world are you guys thinking?"
Akin and the other twelve lawmakers deserve big credit for moving on this. As I wrote in my original post about Safi at Fort Hood, someone indeed skipped their homework. And then some:
(Safi's) associations are readily accessible through a simple Google search on the Internet and are concrete, not "alleged." Which raises the question, yet again: who is doing the vetting at Fort Hood? Or the White House, DOJ and the FBI, all of whom have ongoing relationships with ISNA as well?