{"id":4549,"date":"2010-07-18T00:00:14","date_gmt":"2010-07-18T04:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cairunmasked.org\/?p=4549"},"modified":"2010-07-29T17:10:09","modified_gmt":"2010-07-29T21:10:09","slug":"what-cair-anna-chapman-and-rep-mark-siljander-have-in-common-by-adam-savit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cairunmasked.org\/?p=4549","title":{"rendered":"Big Peace: “What CAIR, Anna Chapman, and Rep. Mark Siljander Have in Common” by Adam Savit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Big Peace<\/a>, July 18, 2010-<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Late last month provocative pictures of alleged Russian spy Anna Chapman graced newspapers and blogs worldwide. The stories alongside the mandatory eye-candy featured scandalous accounts of \u201cspying\u201d and \u201cespionage.\u201d But despite the insinuations, the Russian \u201cspies\u201d in question were never charged with spying or espionage. Fox News reported that instead the ten Russians in American custody were charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and \u201cfailing to register with the Department of Justice as Foreign Agents under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA).\u201d FARA, first enacted in 1938 to counter Nazi infiltration, is a disclosure statute requiring entities acting in the U.S. on behalf of a \u201cforeign principal\u201d (in this case the Russian government) to register and make periodic disclosure of their relationship.<\/p>\n

Another U.S.-based entity that has been accused of violating FARA \u2013 by the Center for Security Policy and other leading intelligence and counter-terrorism sources \u2013 is the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). The CAIR Observatory.org website (http:\/\/www.cairobervatory.org) documents that CAIR has received $6.6 million in cash and loans and $54.5 million in pledges from foreign principals based in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait; has met and coordinated with representatives of those foreign principals on more than 30 occasions; and has carried out over 70 political and propaganda operations on behalf of those same foreign principals.<\/p>\n

Shortly after 9\/11 CAIR released a carefully qualified statement: \u201cWe do not support directly or indirectly, or receive support from, any overseas\u2026 government.\u201d
\nUnfortunately for CAIR, FARA \u00a7 611 (b) defines a \u201cforeign principal\u201d far more broadly than just a foreign government. It can also be a foreign political party, partnership, association, corporation, organization, or even an individual based outside of the United States.<\/p>\n

For a 72-year-old law, the FARA statute is very much alive and kicking in 2010. We\u2019re seeing it in the news nearly every week now. Underfunded and underestimated, the attorneys in the small FARA office are protecting America\u2019s security, in spite of an increasingly politicized DOJ environment.<\/p>\n

Just last week former Congressman Mark D. Siljander of Michigan pleaded guilty to violating FARA in connection with his work for a foreign organization; namely the Islamic American Relief Agency, a.k.a. the Islamic Africa Relief Agency (IARA), a non-governmental \u201ccharity\u201d based in Khartoum, Sudan. The IARA allegedly paid Mr. Siljander $75,000 in exchange for his lobbying efforts to have its name removed from a U.S. Senate Finance Committee list of terror-supporting organizations.<\/p>\n

The Siljander case is nearly a point-by-point match for CAIR\u2019s work as an agent for \u201cforeign principals\u201d in the United Arab Emirates in the wake of the Dubai Ports scandal of 2006. As part of a senior CAIR delegation to Dubai in May 2006, Board Chairman Parvez Ahmad stated, \u201cIf the image of Islam and Muslims is not repaired in America, Muslim and Arab business interests will continue to be on a downward slide in the US.\u201d CAIR was meeting with Khalaf Al Habtoor and other wealthy Dubai businessmen to solicit up to $50 million in donations to fund a public relations campaign in the US. CAIR\u2019s Ahmad assured the audience, \u201cDo not think about your contributions as donations. Think about it from the perspective of rate of return. The investment of $50 million will give you billions of dollars in return for 50 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within days of the fundraiser UAE Minister of Finance Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum endorsed a proposal to build an endowment property for CAIR in the U.S. CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad said, \u2018The endowment will serve as a source of income and will further allow us to reinvigorate our media campaign\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Furthermore, in 2007 CAIR received $325,000 in cash from another \u201cforeign principal\u201d based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). This mammoth pan-Islamic NGO composed of 57 governments is known for its \u201c10 Year Plan of Action,\u201d calling on all governments worldwide to institute \u201cdeterrent punishments\u201d for the \u201ccrime\u201d of \u201cIslamophobia.\u201d This is the same OIC that annually sponsors (and passes) resolutions in the U.N. General Assembly to prohibit \u201cdefamation of religions\u201d (i.e. Islam). Barack Obama controversially appointed Rashad Hussein as a special US envoy to the OIC this year. The $325,000 transferred to CAIR was earmarked to fund a major OIC conference on \u201cIslamophobia\u201d at Georgetown University.<\/p>\n

The ten Russian spies acted as sleeper agents for the Russian government. They allegedly received \u201chundreds of thousands of dollars\u201d from Moscow. They were indicted under FARA by the Department of Justice in 2010.<\/p>\n

Former Congressman Siljander lobbied members of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee to remove the Islamic Africa Relief Agency (IARA) from their terrorist sponsor list. He received $75,000 from the Sudan-based NGO for his services. Siljander was indicted under FARA by the Department of Justice in 2008, and pleaded guilty in 2010.<\/p>\n

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has lobbied for \u201cforeign principals\u201d and has conducted dozens of political influence operations in the US on their behalf. We have posted conclusive documentation at the CAIR Observatory website proving that CAIR has received $6,698,454 in cash and loans from \u201cforeign principals\u201d since their founding in 1994. So how close are they to being indicted under FARA?<\/p>\n

The next few months may tell. On February 2, 2010 Politico.com reported that FBI agents issued a grand jury subpoena seeking internal CAIR documents. Lynn Haaland, an assistant U.S. Attorney in the DOJ\u2019s National Security Division was listed as an \u201cinterested party,\u201d indicating that FARA may have been a factor in the investigation.<\/p>\n

Ten Russians, one former congressman, and CAIR were all paid by foreign donors. The Russians, the congressman and CAIR all followed their paymasters\u2019 orders. The Russians and the congressman got chump change compared to CAIR\u2019s millions in foreign funding.<\/p>\n

The Russians were indicted and deported. The ex-congressman was indicted and pleaded guilty.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s in CAIR\u2019s future?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Big Peace, July 18, 2010- Late last month provocative pictures of alleged Russian spy Anna Chapman graced newspapers and blogs worldwide. The stories alongside the mandatory eye-candy featured scandalous accounts of \u201cspying\u201d and \u201cespionage.\u201d But despite the insinuations, the Russian \u201cspies\u201d in question were never charged with spying or espionage. Fox News reported that instead […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[115,109,278],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-115","category-articles","category-cair-observatory-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cairunmasked.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cairunmasked.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cairunmasked.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cairunmasked.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cairunmasked.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cairunmasked.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4549\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cairunmasked.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cairunmasked.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cairunmasked.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}