a veritable smorgasbord

from HoweStreet.com...

THE TERRORISTS WITHIN Ever since the tragedy of 9/11, the U.S. government has again and again stressed the importance of new laws, stricter regulations, and virtually unrestrained surveillance of citizens in the name of counter-terrorism. "To abandon the Patriot Act,” said George W. Bush in an April radio address, “would deprive law enforcement and intelligence officers of needed tools in the war on terror, and demonstrate willful blindness to a continuing threat." Yet, wearing a blindfold seems to be exactly what past and current administrations have been and are doing. For terrorists and their associates may be closer than you think. Meet Faisal Gill, a man with proven links to a suspected terrorist. He is not hiding out in some Arabian spider hole: he is the policy director of the Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence division. Last Tuesday, Salon Magazine reported about Gill’s former connection to Abdurahman Alamoudi, a naturalized U.S. citizen whom Gill worked with at the American Muslim Council in 2001. In March 2004, the FBI alerted Homeland Security officials after finding out that Gill had conveniently failed to mention his association with Alamoudi on his "Standard Form 86" national security questionnaire. Abdurahman Alamoudi is presently imprisoned in Virginia on an 18-count indictment, based on charges of illegal financial transactions with the Libyan government. In violation of U.S. sanctions, he had received $340,000 in cash from Libyan officials, presumably with the intent of taking it to Syria via London. According to government charges, the money was to be used to support terrorist activities. According to Alamoudi’s own statements to prosecutors, in June and August 2003 he met twice with Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi to hammer out details of the planned assassination of Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and the destabilization of that oil-rich country. Alamoudi’s testimony was confirmed by Libyan intelligence officer Colonel Muhammad Ismael who is currently in Saudi custody. But Alamoudi—a fervent supporter of the militant Islamist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah with alleged business ties to Abdullah bin Laden, Osama’s nephew—hasn’t always been looked upon as an enemy of the state. To the contrary, he used to enjoy great influence on the U.S. political scene. In 2003, MSNBC’s show “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” reported that “Alamoudi has been a familiar face in Washington. The Pentagon chose him to help select Muslim chaplains. He met with President Clinton, made six trips to Muslim nations as a goodwill ambassador for the State Department, met with candidate George Bush.” In his spare time, he apparently kept busy fundraising for Hamas and other groups the U.S. government has on its list of terrorist organizations. Upon arrest, his Palm Pilot was found to contain the names and phone numbers of six individuals designated global terrorists. It turned out, said John Loftus, host of “The Loftus Report” and guest on Olbermann’s show, that Alamoudi & Co. had been covertly operating in the U.S. for over a decade. “About a year and a half ago, people in the intelligence community came and said guys like Alamoudi and Sami al-Arian and other terrorists weren’t being touched because they’d been ordered not to investigate the cases, not to prosecute them, because they were being funded by the Saudis and a political decision was being made at the highest levels, don’t do anything that would embarrass the Saudi government … And, the stuff that they’re taking out of [Alamoudi’s headquarters] now is absolutely horrendous.” According to Loftus, the only reason that Alamoudi and his cohorts received immunity from prosecution for over a decade was due to his association with Grover Norquist, a Republican power broker with great influence in Washington. Norquist serves on the board of directors of the American Conservative Union and as a lobbyist for Microsoft. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, head of Americans for Tax Reform, chairman/co-founder of the Islamic Free Market Institute, and said to be the best friend of White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove. According to an article in the conservative FrontPage Magazine, titled “A Troubling Influence”, Alamoudi ponied up $20,000 to help found Norquist’s Islamic Institute and paid a lobbying firm Norquist was associated with a total of $50,000 over two years. “[The] overwhelming majority of the Norquist Institute’s funds from its inception,” says FrontPage, “have come from Persian Gulf states and their U.S. funding mechanisms, a number of which have been raided by federal anti-terrorism task forces.” Back to Faisal Gill, our DHS policy director. When Gill came under fire for his connection to Alamoudi, it was none other than Grover Norquist who came to his rescue by pulling political strings on his behalf. Which is where the story comes full circle. What happened to the DHS policy director who, by the way, has no documented intelligence background? Was he indefinitely suspended from work, fired, or excessively interrogated by the FBI? According to a spokeswoman from the DHS, a “thorough investigation” revealed nothing that would justify denying Faisal Gill security clearance. Which means Gill not only kept his job— according to Salon, he continues to enjoy “access to top-secret information on the vulnerability of America’s seaports, aviation facilities and nuclear power plants to terrorist attacks.” Lest it be unclear, we can’t tell whether Gill is a person of good or bad intent—or whether his association with known terrorists is anything more than a coincidence. But in an era when people are locked away without trial on lesser charges than lying on an official government document about such associations, keeping Gill in such a sensitive position seems to be more than a little hypocritical.