Where Are Our Muslim Chaplains Coming From?
The U.S. Army and Air Force has selected two Muslim chaplains from a program run by an Islamic group closely tied to the Muslim Brotherhood that was named by the Justice Department as an unindicted co-conspirator in a scheme to raise money for Hamas.
This reporter broke the story in 2011 that the controversial Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA, is the official endorsing agency for the U.S. Armed Forces Muslim chaplain program.
The same report documented that the Muslim chaplain program was founded by a terror-supporting convict, while the Army’s first Islamic chaplain, who is still serving, has been associated with a charity widely accused of serving as an Al Qaeda front.
Now, ISNA has announced that two of its former applicants for chaplaincy were selected to serve on active duty in the U.S. Army and Air Force.
ISNA Chaplain Services Director and Islamic Endorsing Agent Abdul-Rasheed Muhammad said in a statement that the two chaplains selected for active duty are ready to serve Allah and the country – making the statement in that order.
While the new chaplains’ ties to ISNA has received some attention in the conservative blogosphere in recent days, missing from the conversation is the larger partnership between the U.S. military and, not just the ISNA, but other terror-tied groups.
In fact, Muhammad himself, the ISNA’s endorsing agent, has been tied to a group accused of serving as an Al Qaeda front.
Since the Muslim chaplain program’s inception in 1993, ISNA has been the official endorsing agency of new chaplains. ISNA was founded in 1981 by the Saudi-funded Muslim Students’ Association, which was founded partially by the Muslim Brotherhood. The two groups are still partners.
This reporter previously attended an MSA event at which violence against the U.S. was urged by speakers.
“We are not Americans,” shouted one speaker, Muhammad Faheed, at Queensborough Community College in 2003. “We are Muslims. [The U.S.] is going to deport and attack us! It is us versus them! Truth against falsehood! The colonizers and masters against the oppressed, and we will burn down the master’s house!”
ISNA was named in a May 1991 Muslim Brotherhood document, “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America,” as one of the Brotherhood’s likeminded “organizations of our friends” who shared the common goal of destroying America and turning it into a Muslim nation, according to Discover the Networks.
ISNA has not been the only official endorsing agency of the military’s Muslim chaplain program. A former endorsing agency along with ISNA was the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council, created in 1991 and operating under the umbrella of the American Muslim Foundation.
The American Muslim Foundation was founded by Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi, an Islamic cleric who served as an Islamic adviser to President Bill Clinton and who guided the establishment of the military’s Muslim chaplain program.
Al-Amoudi reportedly handpicked the army’s first Islamic chaplain, Imam Abdul-Rasheed Muhammad, who still serves in that position. It was Muhammad who endorsed the two recent Islamic chaplains who just joined the military.
In a 1993 interview with Muslehuddin Ahmed of Islam4all.com, Muhammad detailed his association with the Muslim World League, or MWL, a Saudi-funded Muslim charity accused of terrorism financing and ties to Al Qaeda. The website reports Muhammad was in dialogue with the charity to help establish the army’s Muslim chaplain program.
MWL has been accused of terror ties, as have its various offshoots, including the International Islamic Relief Organization, or IIRO, and Al Haramain, which was declared a terror-financing front by the U.S. and UN.
The Treasury Department, in a September 2004 press release, alleged Al Haramain had “direct links” with Osama bin Laden. The group is now banned worldwide by United Nations Security Council Committee 1267.
Al-Amoudi, in the meantime, was instrumental in the selection of several of the military’s six Islamic chaplains in addition to Muhammad.
Al-Amoudi currently is serving a 23-year sentence for terrorism-related financial transactions with the Libyan government and for his alleged role in a Libyan conspiracy to assassinate then-Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah.
Al-Amoudi was described as an “expert in the art of deception” in a report by Newsweek journalists Mark Hosenball and Michael Isikoff. The Newsweek article noted that Al-Amoudi espoused moderate, pro-American views while lobbying for Muslim causes in the U.S. but then expressed support for Hamas and Hizbullah at a rally.
What Is George Soros Doing In Ukraine?
Billionaire George Soros is heavily invested in Ukrainian activism, establishing a center in Kiev that donates large sums of money to the country’s nongovernmental organizations while advocating closer ties to the European Union.
Last week, Soros weighed in on the Ukraine crisis, recommending EU intervention to help save Ukrainian financial markets.
Soros first involved himself in Ukrainian affairs in 1989, when he established the Ukrainian International Renaissance Foundation, or IRF, two years before Ukraine became an independent nation. Since then, Soros has provided more than $100 million to support Ukrainian groups, mostly through the IRF and the Open Society Institute.
Soros’s IRF, headquartered in Kiev, not only supports numerous non-governmental organizations, it holds regular seminars and training sessions for local groups regarding such topics as “open borders” and the transformation of the region via the European Union.
One conference held in Kiev in May 2012, for example, sought to strengthen the capacity of Ukrainian NGOs to absorb EU financial support.
The IRF in 2009 created a consortium of experts to help reform the government and develop a coterie of so-called progressive politicians.
Another IRF initiative is its electronic governance, or e-governance, program, described as “interaction between government and citizens, government and business, and within government using computer networks.”
The IRF partnered with state and UN groups in the Crimea to launch a joint program called “Facilitating the introduction of e-governance, electronic democracy and informatization of local government in Crimea.”
A key initiative for Soros’s IRF is removing visa barriers between Ukraine and the EU while integrating Ukrainian experts within EU groups.
The IRF is also heavily involved in what it calls human rights campaigns, supporting numerous local groups and launching initiatives such as a “Legal Empowerment for the Poor” program.
The IRF also runs a program to develop what it refers to as “socially responsible journalists” in Ukraine.