U.S. Taxpayers Funding Terrorism: the Ties that Blind
Allan’s note: So, we have a pending CIA director and presidential advisor who goes soft on Iran and Hezbollah. We have a Sec. of State who whines about stupid Americans and his budget and blames our troops for atrocities. We have a Sec. of Defense who is also soft on Iran, and tends to blame Israel. And now we have a Treasury Secretary, Jack Lew, former chief operating officer of Citigroup, which reaped profits from the housing bust, then got a $45 billion bailout. Even so, Lew got almost $1M in bonus. All this brought to mind an old column which is published in my book, and is reprinted here for perspective on how we appear to be in bed with our enemies, more so now than ever before.
What would you think if it was proven beyond doubt your tax money is getting into the hands of terrorists, not altogether accidentally?
How would you feel if you discovered that the dollar you paid in income tax had been channeled by the federal government through a bank bailout law to Citigroup which then “invested” in an Islamic, or Shariah-compliant organization that transformed that dollar invested into a payout which was used to support international terrorism?
Outrage? Beyond furious?
The story has been out there for many months. Most Americans remain unaware, another indictment of the mean-streak media in this country.
First, one must understand a little about Shariah Compliant Financing (SCF) and the linkage to Citigroup. (Note as well: what is happening in England is happening here.)
The U.S. taxpayer now owns most of AIG and Citigroup, two companies massively engaged in Shariah-compliant transactions (SCF), at odds with our constitutional separation of church and state,” wrote Frank Gaffney last March, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Reagan administration, and founder of the Center for Security Policy. “Promoters of this (SCF) industry, like ‘Shariah advisor’ and al-Jazeera host Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, have described SCF as ‘financial jihad’ and al Qaeda has publicly embraced its practice . . . (and British Prime Minister) Brown has declared he wants Britain to be the world capital of Shariah finance. The British government has refused to take punitive action against British-based Islamic ‘charities’ that provide money to terrorist organizations. The latest is Interpal, a Palestinian organization that even the BBC was able to figure out provides support to Hamas.
Investigative reporter Daniel Greenfield explains further.
Islamic Banking uses a Sharia board to vet permissible investments. That Sharia board is much the same for Citigroup and AIG. It consists of Saudi or Saudi affiliated ‘religious scholars’ who have to give their okay on financial products that can be sold by a bank. This has obvious political implications. The terrorist connections aren’t hard to find either. Citi Islamic Investment Bank is overseen by ‘eminent’ Sharia scholars. For example Nazih Hammad, President of Citi Islamic Investment Bank’s Sharia board. Nazih Hammad is a board member of the North American Fiqh Council. The North American Fiqh Council is another one of the Saudi front groups operating in America, one of whose trustees was Alamoudi, an Al Qaeda fundraiser. The North American Fiqh Council’s former President, Taha Jaber Al-Alawani, was an unindicted co-conspirator in the case of Islamic Jihad leader, Sami Al Arian. And there was board member Sheikh Muhammad al-Hanooti, who had extensive Hamas ties.
Thanks to the work of people like Frank Gaffney, Jack Cashill, Kevin J. Murray, Daniel Greenfield and Melanie Phillips we know the truth.
More background and connections from the research by Cashill, Greenfield and Gaffney:
>Al-Waleed bin Talal, net worth $16.3 billion, the man who helped Barack Obama get into Harvard Law School, is the second largest shareholder in Citigroup, right behind the U.S. Government.
>”As far back as 1988, however, Obama had serious pull. He would need it. As previously reported, Khalid al-Mansour, principle adviser to Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal lobbied friends like Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton to intervene at Harvard on Obama’s behalf. An orthodox Muslim, al-Mansour has not met the crackpot anti-Semitic theory he could not embrace. As for bin Talal, in October 2001, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani sent his $10 million relief check back un-cashed after the Saudi billionaire blamed 9/11 on America.” — Jack Cashill
>Citigroup pioneered the big bank embrace of Shariah finance back in the 90’s
>Citigroup’s Islamic Banking operation represents the world’s leading of Islamic loans and Sukuk bonds.
>Currently American taxpayers are in hock for 45 billion dollars to bailout Citigroup, while the Treasury, the FDIC and the Federal Reserve cover 90 percent of Citi’s 335 billion dollar losses.
>The American taxpayer is maintaining the number one Shariah finance bank in the world and that means the US government now officially owns a third of the largest Sharia finance arranger in the world, together with the Saudi royal family: Wahhabism’s quest for global Islamic domination and the US government come together.
>AIG is also big into Shariah finance, even fielding Shariah finance offerings domestically.
>Another Obama connection: Citigroup provided half a million dollars to ACORN, essentially money directed for the Obama campaign’s “Get Out the Vote” fraud program. Citigroup partnered with Acorn Housing Works to provide a specialized mortgage program for ACORN, the exact sort of program that caused the economic disaster in the first place.
There can be no doubt the U.S. government is squandering taxpayer money, not only wasting it, but using it in support of activities actually threatening to the future of the country.
“The US government hasn’t just bailed out Wall Street fat cats, but the centers of Islamic finance, rescuing the sizable investments of Saudi Arabia and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority,” reports Greenfield.
And American taxpayers are now in the position of funding the world’s largest Sharia arranger, as well as the importation of Sharia finance to the United States through AIG. Lenin used to talk about the capitalists selling him the rope with which he would hang them. He had no clue that we would actually be buying the noose of Sharia Finance with which we’re being hung, and paying through the nose for the privilege.
One U.S. Marine — Kevin J. Murray — has decided to take direct action, filing a lawsuit
directed at AIG’s Shariah-compliant activities, calling the Sec. of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve to account.
As a Christian, a federal taxpayer, and a former U.S. Marine veteran of the war against Islamic terrorism, Plaintiff objects to and is harmed by the appropriation and disbursement of public funds to AIG and being forced as a taxpayer to contribute to the propagation of Islamic beliefs and practices predicated upon Shariah law, which is hostile to his religious beliefs and practices and which forms the basis for the global jihadist war against the West and the United States in particular.
Some have said all this criticism and concern is nonsense: Muslims simply tithe for charity, giving 10% to the less fortunate (zakat), something President Obama has praised.
Columnist Melanie Phillips clarifies:
Sharia requires Muslims to tithe a percentage of their money to charity, called ‘zakat’. But charity in Islam is more like solidarity. So some of this money donated to Islamic charities may well find its way to organisations promoting jihad and supporting suicide bombing including Hamas, Hezbollah, the families of Palestinian suicide bombers and Islamist madrassas in places like Pakistan.
OTHER SOURCES:
Obama offers prime posts to top campaign contributors, one from Citibank
OBAMA and AL-WALEED BIN TALAL connection
Forbes profile of AL-WALEED BIN TALAL