Calls to stop funding Lebanese army put Obama in tight spot

By Janine Zacharia
The Washington Post
Thursday, August 12, 2010; 4:05 PM

BEIRUT -- After Israel and Hezbollah fought a war in 2006, President Bush bolstered assistance to the Lebanese army to create a counterweight to the Shiite militia. Now, after a deadly clash last week between Israeli and Lebanese troops, some on Capitol Hill want to stop funding Lebanese forces entirely.

The State Department has so far said continuing to provide aid to the Lebanese army is in the interests of the United States.

But amid growing protests in Congress, President Obama could soon face a dilemma: whether to abandon the institution-building effort Bush began because the army won't confront Hezbollah, or continue to fund the army to maintain stability and fight other militant groups it is willing to act against.

A day before the Aug. 3 border fight between Israel and Lebanon, Rep. Howard Berman (D-Ca.), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, had put a hold on $100 million in assistance to the Lebanese military because of his concern that Hezbollah's influence over the army had grown.

Some lawmakers in both parties have also expressed frustration at the Lebanese military's lax patrolling of the border with Syria and the continued flow of Iranian-made weapons to Hezbollah. Israel estimates the group has now amassed an arsenal of roughly 40,000 rockets, four times what it had during the 2006 war. The Lebanese military says there is no evidence of weapons smuggling across the border.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) said after spending more than $700 million over five years on the Lebanese military, "it has become clear that assistance to Lebanon has not advanced U.S. national security interests."

House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) said the United States looked the other way for too long "as the lines between Hezbollah and the Lebanese military and government became blurred."

State Department officials say they do not plan to reevaluate their position on the aid. "We have an extensive military cooperation program with Lebanon, because it's in our interest to have that program," department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters following the border clash. "It allows the government of Lebanon to expand its sovereignty. We think that is in the interest of both of our countries and regional stability as a whole."

Many of the army's key figures are Shiites sympathetic to Hezbollah, including the powerful deputy head of Lebanese military intelligence. The last two Lebanese army commanders, both Christians, struck a pro-Hezbollah stance that helped them become presidents.

The United Nations Security Council following the 2006 war called for Hezbollah to be disarmed. Nevertheless, its arsenal has grown to something far larger than before that confrontation and more potent than anything the Lebanese army has, analysts say. Amid this imbalance, maintaining American assistance, advocates of continuing the aid say, is crucial if the United States ever wants to build a counterpoint to Hezbollah in the long term.

"From Congress, I think this is a classic mistake," said Paul Salem, an analyst who heads the Beirut office of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "You have some misgivings about the Lebanese army so you strengthen Hezbollah and you make things much worse."

While saying it wants to bolster the army's capabilities, the United States has still remained queasy about supplying Lebanon, technically at war with Israel, with advanced weapons. The bulk of U.S. assistance, besides training for officers, is non-lethal equipment like body armor, boots, uniforms, and Humvees.

The Lebanese army's weakness was on display when it sought to dismantle an extremist Sunni group in 2007. During the army's operation in a Palestinian refugee camp, 168 Lebanese troops died, many from friendly fire, amid severe weapons shortages.

The army's next major challenge could come when a special tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri issues indictments. Hezbollah members are top suspects, and the militia has threatened retaliation if they are arrested. The army's sympathies and its ability to maintain stability could be tested soon.

Obama's Islamic America

What country is he talking about?
The Washington Times
Thursday, August 12, 2010

President Obama says Islam has always been part of America, which raises the question, does the president know something about American history that we don't?

It has become customary for presidents to offer greetings to various religious communities on the occasion of their most holy days. Presidents Ford and Carter both issued Ramadan messages, as did Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush. The Ramadan greeting became intensely political during Mr. Bush's tenure because he was seeking to dispel the charge that the war on terrorism was a crusade against Islam. But Mr. Obama has used the occasion of Ramadan to rewrite U.S. history and give Islam a prominence in American annals that it has not earned.

In this year's greeting, Mr. Obama said the rituals of Ramadan "remind us of the principles that we hold in common and Islam's role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings. Ramadan is a celebration of a faith known for great diversity and racial equality. And here in the United States, Ramadan is a reminder that Islam has always been part of America and that American Muslims have made extraordinary contributions to our country."

That Islam has had a major role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings may come as a surprise to Muslim women. Young Afghan girls who are having acid thrown in their faces on the way to school might want to offer their perspectives. That Islam is "known" for diversity and racial equality is also a bit of a reach. This certainly does not refer to religious diversity, which is nonexistent in many Muslim-majority states. This is a plaudit better reserved for a speech at the opening of a synagogue in Mecca.

Most puzzling is the president's claim that "Islam has always been part of America." Islam had no influence on the origins and development of the United States. It contributed nothing to early American political culture, art, literature, music or any other aspect of the early nation.

Throughout most of American history, the Muslim world was perceived as remote, alien and belligerent. Perhaps the president was thinking about the Barbary Pirates and their role in the founding of the U.S. Navy, or Andrew Jackson's dispatch of frigates against Muslim pirates in Sumatra in the 1830s. Maybe he was recalling Rutherford B. Hayes' 1880 statement regarding Morocco on "the necessity, in accordance with the humane and enlightened spirit of the age, of putting an end to the persecutions, which have been so prevalent in that country, of persons of a faith other than the Moslem, and especially of the Hebrew residents of Morocco." Or Grover Cleveland's 1896 comment on the continuing massacre of Armenian Christians: "We have been afflicted by continued and not infrequent reports of the wanton destruction of homes and the bloody butchery of men, women and children, made martyrs to their profession of Christian faith. ... It so mars the humane and enlightened civilization that belongs to the close of the nineteenth century that it seems hardly possible that the earnest demand of good people throughout the Christian world for its corrective treatment will remain unanswered."

It also is customary in the United States to search for obscure contributions made by in-vogue minority groups as a feel-good way of promoting inclusion. One of the earliest Muslims to come to the United States was a 17th-century Egyptian named Norsereddin, who settled in the Catskills and was described by one chronicler as "haughty, morose, unprincipled, cruel and dissipated." Spurned by the princess of an Indian tribe that had befriended him, he managed through a subterfuge to poison her. He was later run down by the betrayed Indians, who burned him alive. It is not the kind of tale that makes it into politically correct history books.

Former bin Laden cook reaches secret sentencing deal with U.S. government

By Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 9, 2010; 6:57 PM

GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA -- A former cook for Osama bin Laden's entourage in Afghanistan has reached a agreement with the U.S. government that will allow him to serve any sentence at a minimum-security facility at Guantanamo Bay, according to statements by lawyers at a military commission on Monday.

Ibrahim al-Qosi, a 50-year-old native of Sudan, who worked for bin Laden for years before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, pleaded guilty last month to conspiracy and material support for terrorism as part of a pre-trial agreement. The case marked the first conviction at Guantanamo Bay under President Obama, whose administration had promised that reformed military commissions would offer greater due process and more transparency.

But the government and the defense, with the blessing of Judge Nancy J. Paul, an Air Force lieutenant colonel, have sealed the newly reached agreement, including the maximum sentence that Qosi can serve.

A spokesman for the military commission's prosecutors, Navy Capt. David Iglesias, refused to discuss the agreement or explain why it was kept secret, except to say the plea raises "security issues" and is to the benefit of both Qosi and the government.

Iglesias said Qosi's period of confinement would be made public after military officials review the record of trial, a process that he said could take several weeks. Another military official said the process could take several months.

A military defense lawyer would not discuss the agreement.

The sealed agreement is "certainly a novelty to me," said Gary Solis, a former military judge who has presided over more than 700 court martials. Solis, who teaches law of war at Georgetown University and is observing the commissions for the National Institute of Military Justice, said there was obviously a quid pro quo that led both prosecution and defense to agree to it.

Only three detainees were convicted at Guantanamo under the Bush administration, and two of those have since been released. Qosi was among the first four detainees charged before a military commission when charges were brought against him in 2004. Prosecutors alleged at that time that Qosi had managed charitable donations for al-Qaeda and a bin Laden-owned company.

Those allegations were dropped when Qosi was recharged in 2007. At a hearing in December, prosecutors appeared to want to reintroduce some of those allegations, but the judge said they would have to withdraw all charges and re-file the case to do so. The government went ahead with the existing allegations that Qosi was a cook and driver for al-Qaeda.

The trial of Omar Khadr, the youngest detainee at Guantanamo, is scheduled to start later this week. Khadr, a Canadian citizen, was 15 years old when he was captured in 2002. He is accused of murder, among other war crimes, by the government, which alleges he threw a grenade that killed a U.S. Special Forces medic during a firefight in southern Afghanistan.

In a significant victory for the government in the Khadr case, Judge Pat Parrish, an Army colonel, said the government can use as evidence a series of self-incriminating statements made by Khadr while in detention at Bagram air base and Guantanamo Bay. His lawyers had argued that the statements were the result of torture, or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and should be suppressed. The judge also admitted a videotape showing Khadr among a group of men building home-made bombs.

Jury selection will begin Tuesday in the Khadr case.

A jury of at least five military officers will be selected in Qosi's case. The judge and lawyers Monday began questioning a panel of 15 officers, five women and 10 men, whose names are protected. They were questioned about things such as their service, if they knew anyone killed or injured on Sept. 11, 2001, and if they knew and had opinions about Arabs or Muslims.

Both the defense and the prosecution are allowed to strike one juror each, and the court can dismiss any number if the judge believes they cannot act impartially.

The Qosi panel is ostensibly to hear evidence and determine a sentence for him. But if they impose a prison sentence that exceeds the sentence laid out in the plea agreement, it will be moot, unless Qosi breaks the agreement. A military lawyer said in court Monday that Qosi has met all of his obligations under the pact.

Iglesias also refused to say whether the government has guaranteed Qosi that he will be repatriated to Sudan after he serves any sentence. The Obama administration, much like the Bush administration, asserts a right to detain what it calls "unprivileged belligerents" under the laws of war, a claim that is independent of any military commission finding.

If the military jury comes back with a lesser sentence, the "Convening Authority," the Pentagon official who refers cases for prosecution, can reduce Qosi's sentence, officials said.

Al-Arabyia, a 24-hour Arab news network based in Dubai, cited anonymous sources to report last month that the plea agreement calls for a two-year sentence.

In court Monday, Paul said the relevant officials at the Defense Department should ensure that Qosi serves any time he gets at Camp 4 -- a minimum-security facility at Guantanamo Bay where detainees live in communal quarters -- unless the military detention center at Guantanamo is closed. If that happens, and it appears unlikely as the Obama administration's efforts to close Guantanamo have stalled, Qosi will be moved to a similar prison facility that also offers communal living. If the government fails to live up to the deal, Paul said she will invalidate the guilty plea.

One of Qosi's attorneys had asked the judge to order confinement at Camp 4 after it became clear that officials at the Defense Department had not yet sanctioned Qosi's confinement there, despite the plea agreement. Pentagon policy had stated that detainees convicted in a military commission should be kept in isolation from other detainees.

In the past, defense officials have said that the Geneva Conventions do not allow convicts to be in the same facility as detainees.

Qosi agreed to a statement of facts that he followed bin Laden from Sudan to Afghanistan in 1996. Qosi said that he served as a head cook at an al-Qaeda compound in Kandahar. After the Sept. 11 attacks, Qosi fled to Pakistan, where he was picked up the local authorities and handed over to American officials. He has been held at Guantanamo for more than eight years.

Zero tolerance

Far from ground zero, opponents fight new mosques

TRAVIS LOLLER
Associated Press Writer Travis
Sun Aug 8, 2010

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. – Muslims trying to build houses of worship in the nation's heartland, far from the heated fight in New York over plans for a mosque near ground zero, are running into opponents even more hostile and aggressive.

Foes of proposed mosques have deployed dogs to intimidate Muslims holding prayer services and spray painted "Not Welcome" on a construction sign, then later ripped it apart.

The 13-story, $100 million Islamic center that could soon rise two blocks from the site of the Sept. 11 attacks would dwarf the proposals elsewhere, yet the smaller projects in local communities are stoking a sharper kind of fear and anger than has showed up in New York.

In the Nashville suburb of Murfreesboro, opponents of a new Islamic center say they believe the mosque will be more than a place of prayer. They are afraid the 15-acre site that was once farmland will be turned into a terrorist training ground for Muslim militants bent on overthrowing the U.S. government.

"They are not a religion. They are a political, militaristic group," said Bob Shelton, a 76-year-old retiree who lives in the area.

Shelton was among several hundred demonstrators recently who wore "Vote for Jesus" T-shirts and carried signs that said: "No Sharia law for USA!," referring to the Islamic code of law. Others took their opposition further, spray painting the sign announcing the "Future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro" and tearing it up.

In Temecula, Calif., opponents brought dogs to protest a proposed 25,000-square-foot mosque that would sit on four acres next to a Baptist church. Opponents worry it will turn the town into haven for Islamic extremists, but mosque leaders say they are peaceful and just need more room to serve members.

Islam is a growing faith in the U.S., though Muslims represent less than 1 percent of the country's population. Ten years ago, there were about 1,200 mosques nationwide. Now there are roughly 1,900, according to Ihsan Bagby, professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Kentucky and a researcher on surveys of American mosques.

The growth involves Islamic centers expanding to accommodate more Muslims - as is the case in New York, California and Tennessee - as well as mosques cropping up in smaller, more isolated communities, Bagby said.

A 2007 survey of Muslim Americans by the Pew Research Center found that 39 percent of adult Muslims living in the United States were immigrants that had come here since 1990.

"In every religious community, one of the things that has happened over the course of immigration is that people get settled and eventually build something that says, 'We're here! We're not just camping,'" said Diana Eck, a professor of Comparative Religion at the Harvard University. "In part, that's because those communities have put down roots in America and made this their home."

Before the demonstration in Murfreesboro, a fundraiser was held for the new community center. Children behind a folding table sold homemade wooden plaques, door hangers and small serving trays decorated with glitter and messages like, "Peace," "I love being a Muslim" and "Freedom of Religion."

Mosque leader Essam Fathy, who helped plan the new building in Murfreesboro, has lived there for 30 years.

"I didn't think people would try that hard to oppose something that's in the Constitution," he said. "The Islamic center has been here since the early '80s, 12 years in this location. There's nothing different now except it's going to be a little bigger."

Bagby said that hasn't stopped foes from becoming more virulent.

"It was there before, but it didn't have as much traction. The larger public never embraced it," he said. "The level of anger, the level of hostility is much higher in the last few years."

The Murfreesboro mosque is one of three planned in the Nashville area that have drawn recent scrutiny.

Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, a nonprofit that advocates for reform and modernization of Islam, said opposing mosques is no way to prevent terrorism.

Neighbors didn't want his family to build a mosque in 1979 in Neenah, Wis., because they didn't understand who Muslims were.

"If the Wisconsin mosque had not been allowed to be built, I, at 17, might have put up walls and become a different person," he said. "If we start preventing these from being built, the backlash will be increased radicalization."

A study by professors at the Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy and the University of North Carolina backs up Jasser's statement. The study found that mosques, religious bookstores and other communal associations that bring Muslim-Americans together helps prevent radicalization.

In Murfreesboro, Imam Ossama Bahloul said the center has hired a security guard for Friday prayer services and a security camera constantly pans the parking lot and doors. Their fears are not without cause.

Two years ago, several men broke into the Islamic Center of Columbia, about 30 miles southwest of Murfreesboro, and torched it with molotov cocktails, stealing a stereo system and painting swastikas and "White Power" on the front of the building.

Bahloul said he hopes the controversy will die down with time. He said the situation has been hardest on the children.

"The second generation is facing a huge challenge because they did not think even for a second before that someone would say, 'You are not welcome.'"

Mosque once used by Sept. 11 attackers shut down

By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER
The Associated Press
Monday, August 9, 2010; 5:39 AM

BERLIN -- A Hamburg mosque once frequented by some of the Sept. 11 attackers was shut down Monday because German authorities believe the prayer house was again being used as a meeting point for Islamic radicals.

The Taiba mosque was closed and the cultural association that runs it was banned, Hamburg officials said in a statement.

"We have closed the mosque because it was a recruiting and meeting point for Islamic radicals who wanted to participate in so-called jihad or holy war," said Frank Reschreiter, a spokesman for Hamburg's state interior ministry.

He said that 20 police officers were searching the building and had confiscated material, including several computers. He was not aware of any arrests.

Authorities have said the prayer house, formerly known as the al-Quds mosque, was a meeting and recruiting point years ago for some of the Sept. 11 attackers before they moved to the United States. Ringleader Mohamed Atta as well as Marwan Al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah had studied in Hamburg and frequented al-Quds mosque.

Reschreiter said Monday marked the first time the mosque had been closed, and that it had been under observation by local intelligence officers for "quite a long time."

A 2009 report by the Hamburg branch of Germany's domestic intelligence agency also said the mosque had again become the "center of attraction for the jihad scene" in the northern port city.

It said some people who belonged to the mosque's cultural association and prayed there had traveled to a radical training camp in Uzbekistan.

A group of 11 militants that traveled to military training camps in Uzbekistan in March 2009 was formed at Taiba mosque, the report said.

Most of the group's members were either German converts, of Middle Eastern origin or from the Caucasus region.

"A very important factor for the radicalization of the group members was certainly their joint visits to the mosque," the intelligence report stated.

It appears that one man from the group joined the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a terrorist organization in Central Asia, the report said.