Feed on Posts or Comments 16 May 2010
Homeland Defense & Virginia politics Richard Falknor on 15 May 2010 03:04 pm
Will GOP Candidates in Virginia 11 Talk About Islamists?
Yesterday morning the Washington Post’s Ben Pershing gave us his take on the Republican primary race between Pat Herrity and Keith Fimian in Virginia’s Eleventh Congressional District - -
“The battle has been fought almost exclusively on economic issues. Both say they would crack down on illegal immigration and repeal Obama’s health-care plan.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)
According to reporter Pershing - -
“Some national party strategists say privately they prefer Herrity because they think he would be more competitive in the fall, but the National Republican Congressional Committee is neutral. House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) endorsed Fimian before Herrity entered the race but has since done nothing substantive to aid Fimian’s campaign.
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R), who is popular among conservative activists, announced his endorsement of Fimian Wednesday; McDonnell has so far stayed out of the race. Nearly all of the district’s GOP elected officials who have picked a side are with Herrity.
How About the Elephant in the Republican Living Room?
But the Eleventh Congressional District has seen several years of uproar over the Fairfax County’s Board of Supervisors renewing the lease of the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA) in May 2008, as well as the Board’s approval of the ISA’s subsequent expansion in August 2009.
Supervisor Pat Herrity, for example, approved continuing the ISA’s lease although he voted against the subsequent expansion of the controversial school because of what he called “transportation issues created by rural, shoulderless, hilly, winding, and narrow Popes Head Road – a road I occasionally travel on.”
Readers can refresh their understanding of the significance of this controversy and now-incumbent Representative Gerry Connolly’s earlier role in the extension of the ISA’s lease by reviewing our posts here and here.
Author Paul Sperry’s post “The Saudis’ New Man in Congress” in Front Page Magazine of December 5, 2008 declared - -
“When the Saudi Embassy earlier this year [2008] asked officials to renew the lease of a radical school it runs in Alexandria, Va., local residents strenuously objected. They argued the school teaches hatred toward Jews and Christians, and has become a breeding ground for terrorists.
Gerry Connolly, at the time the Democrat chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, gave a full-throated defense of the Islamic Saudi Academy, even smearing protesters as anti-Islamic ‘bigots.’”
“All ancient history” - - a “one-time” stumble - - Herrity voices might respond.
But the Islamist issues won’t go away. Yesterday former Federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy in National Review on Line (NRO) reports in his post entitled “The State Department Doubles Down on the Islamist Mosque” - -
“Yesterday I noted the State Department’s showcasing of the Dar al-Hijra Islamic Center in a film about Muslim life in America — despite the mosque’s longstanding ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, its virulent Islamist ideology, its support for the murderous Hamas organization, its notorious Islamist imams and elders (including al Qaeda recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki), and the ties of some of its worshippers to the 9/11 attacks and the Fort Hood massacre. Then, we learned that the federal government has struck a deal to pay Dar al-Hijra a whopping $582K just for this year (i.e., about one-tenth what it cost the Saudis to build the place), purportedly because the Census Bureau needs work space — y’know, because there are like no federal facilities anywhere near Falls Church, Virginia.”
McCarthy points us to Steve Emerson’s revelations “Government Outreach with Terror-tied Mosque Continues” on the Investigative Project on Terrorism.
Wrote investigator Emerson - -
“The State Department wants its next wave of diplomats to learn what Muslims in other countries think of America.
To do that, it is sending a class to Anwar al-Awlaki’s former mosque in Falls Church, Va. this Sunday, the Investigative Project on Terrorism has learned.
As we reported Tuesday, federal law enforcement officials view the Dar al-Hijrah mosque as home to Hamas operatives and others linked to terrorist financing and “bad orgs.” In addition, it was home for two years to Awlaki, a charismatic, American-born cleric now living in Yemen. He is considered to have been inspirational to the accused Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan, failed airplane bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and Times Square bomber Faizal Shahzad. As a result, he may be the only American the CIA is authorized by the President to kill.”
Faithful readers will also recall our post about this mosque, “Flash Points 5: “Drilling for Votes” | Dar Al-Hijrah’s Invitees” of last April.
In February in a related post we reported “’Getting’ Jihad: Real Meat in A Non-Celebrity CPAC Panel” - -
“You think we are fighting a war over there.
I think we are fighting a war right here.”
“With this as one of his themes, sometime senior Pentagon analyst Steve Coughlin (together with six other experts) gave a standing-room-only crowd at CPAC last Friday morning chapter and verse on Jihad, Sharia, and our Islamic enemies.”
Perhaps readers will find illuminating this excerpt from the Pakistan American Business Association - -“Fairfax police assures Pakistani Americans: Muslims won’t be targeted in aftermath of Fort Hood” - -
“[A Fairfax County police official] has assured a delegation from the Pakistani American Business Association that the Fairfax Police will provide full protection to members of the Muslim and Pakistani community living in the area in the aftermath of the Fort Hood shootings. The eight-member Pakistani American delegation was led by the Association’s chairman, Siddique Sheikh. [The police officer] told the delegation that as a responsible official of the Fairfax County Police Department, he would ask all members of the community to report any hate crime taking place in the name of the Fort Hood shootings. He said that they were the act of an individual and it would be wrong to link the shootings to any religion or culture, assuring greater protection to the Pakistani Americans living in the county against any hate crimes.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)
The Virginia GOP Candidates and Islamists
One would think each Eleventh District Republican Congressional candidate could declare whether the many public concerns about Shariaand Jihad in northern Virginia were, on the one hand, unfounded, or, on the other, that these concerns had merit and should be promptly addressed.
The fact that their websites here and here say nothing about Sharia and Jihad in northern Virginia, of course, speaks volumes. In his 2008 campaign for the House, however, Keith Fimian did make reference to the ISA problem, saying “from what I know, the board was wrong to renew the lease.
How will the silence from current District 11 Congressional candidates on these Virginia homeland-defense concerns - - raised by many knowledgeable voices - - sit with Eleventh District conservatives?