Your press agency also known as the New York Times is doing a great job reporting on your meeting with the huckster pope of Harlem who once also endorsed Tawana Brawley and various and sundry political grandees. You had just returned from a “listening tour” of some New York State cities which you described as “interesting.”
Well here’s a road map for your next “tour d’horizon” of the state you want to represent in the Senate.
Let’s start in Lackawanna, the locus of “The Lackawanna Six.” In September of 2002, a group of six Yemeni-Americans were arrested on the grounds of providing material support to al Qaeda The six, visited Afghanistan in the spring of 2001 to check out the food and accommodations of a terrorist training camp known as Al –Farooq. In September of 2003, after two years of extensive investigation and interrogation, all six defendants – who lived in the quiet suburb of the city of Buffalo – pleaded guilty to a charge of providing material support to al Qaeda. Mukhtar al-Bakri was the first of the so-called “Lackawanna Six” to be sentenced.
Investigators found rifles, telescopic sights, and a tape in Al Bakri’s home. Investigators say that when played, the tape “asks Allah to give Jews and their enablers the United States a ‘black day.’”
What do you think, Caroline, about the ideology that would cause Americans who were born in the U.S.A. to plot a “black day” for their fellow citizens?
Oh yes, and while we are in the neighborhood, did you know that in December 2006, three Muslim men from Lackawanna, New York, all with close ties to the infamous “Lackawanna six” terror cell, were sentenced for their role in operating an illegal, unlicensed money-transmitting company (known as a “hawala” in Arabic) that sent $5.5 million from Buffalo to Yemen between 1999 and 2002?
One of them, Mohamed Albanna, is a former vice president of the American Muslim Council of Western New York and his kinfolk would be some of the people you would represent in the Senate.
But it gets cold in Buffalo, so let’s move on.
Next stop is Islamberg, New York, located just outside a city named Deposit, New York. Hidden in a remote area, this is a 70-acre compound in which more than 100 Muslims live in seclusion, following the teachings of its founder, a radical cleric Sheikh Syed Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani with alleged ties to terrorism and the group Jamaat al-Fuqra linked to the murder of Daniel Pearl.
Now Islamberg sits right near the reservoir system that provides drinking water to most of New York City. Not, of course, a threat to those who only drink boutique waters.
And, since you are so interested in education, you should know that Islamberg’s 65 children attend a school within the compound.
But let’s move along.
Speaking of New York City where you live and have millions of putative constituents, what do you make of Mayor Bloomberg’s assertion that New York is still the number one target of terrorists from around the world, yet for bioterrorism prevention funding it ranks 21st out of 54 eligible states and cities in the amount of funding provided in 2008?
The mayor, one of your boosters added: “In fact, just last week, a Pakistani woman with ties to al-Qaeda – and a degree from MIT – was charged with trying to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. When she was arrested, she was ominously carrying a list of New York City icons, including the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, Wall Street, and the Empire State Building.”
He also reminded the audience of a plot to bomb the Herald Square subway station in Midtown Manhattan a week before the Republican National Convention in 2004. You must have been out of town then. August is so hot and humid. Do you think it could be global warming?
Oh yes, there was also the 2006 a plot to attack transit tunnels under New York’s Hudson River which was broken up in its early planning stages The FBI uncovered the alleged plot by intercepting e-mails and chat-room postings on Web sites used to recruit Islamic terrorists.
In New Jersey, the site of tunnel and bridge traffic to New York the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force monitors a number of New Jersey residents and mosques with ties to Al Qaeda, according to their reports. And there is that case of the Fort Dix terrorists planning to bomb a military base. Federal counter terrorism officials acting in New Jersey have disrupted activities of dozens of terrorist wannabes in Newark and environs.
Now I admit that New Jersey is not the state you wish to represent, but I am sure you can see across the Hudson River from the many penthouses you visit in your social whirl.
What do you think of, and how would you have voted on, the renewal of Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) in 2007 which revised the definition of a certified act of terrorism to eliminate the requirement that individuals are acting on behalf of a foreign government? Carolyn Maloney a New York Representative, also a Democrat, is very keen on this act.
This brings us to the subject of immigration reform likely to come up in 2009.
What are your opinions on the millions of undocumented aliens in the United States, many of whom can pose serious security threats?
Also given your knowledge of constitutional rights, how do you balance the need for surveillance with respect for citizens’ rights? How would you have voted on the Patriot Act and its renewal in 2006? Which provisions bother you?
Now you state that you are so committed to public education and you did indeed raise big bucks for the public schools.
So, what was your opinion when in New York City, Debbie Almontaser, a Muslim American (incidentally, born in Yemen and reared in Buffalo) was forced out as the founding principal of New York City’s first public Arabic-language school last fall after an incident regarding T-shirts with the logo “Intifada NYC?”
What do you think of foreign funds pouring into state colleges to gain control and pervert the curricula? Which public schools did your kids attend?
Finally, how would you classify the war on terror? Who are the combatants? What about NATO? What about Cuba? What about Venezuela?
Oh, never mind. How could I have forgotten that in your family a senate seat is a hereditary right – sort of like Illinois without the money and graft?
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Ruth S. King is a freelance writer who writes a monthly column in OUTPOST, the publication of Americans for a Safe Israel. Feedback: editorialdirector@familysecuritymatters.org.
