By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Tuesday, June 23, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Homeland Security: Recognizing that money is the mother's milk of terrorism, the U.S. cracked down on charitable fronts after 9/11. The new administration thinks it went too far.
In fact, it's hinting at loosening restrictions, a move that threatens to reopen the financial pipeline between several Muslim charities and overseas terrorists that Treasury shut off after 9/11. Left-wing activists, meanwhile, are helping convince the public the charities deserve a second chance.
On the heels of President Obama's Cairo speech, in which he suggested relaxing Treasury anti-terror "rules," the ACLU published a well-timed report slamming those very rules.
It makes a point of noting throughout the thick report that Treasury policies "developed under the Bush administration" are undercutting Obama's mission to reach out to Muslim countries. What's more, they're denying American Muslims the "right" to make donations to Islamic charities.
"U.S. terrorism financing laws and policies developed under the Bush administration are inhibiting American Muslims' ability to freely and fully practice their religion," the ACLU says, noting that "zakat," or Muslim charitable giving, is a pillar of Islam.
The New York Times gave the report currency with a sympathetic story: "ACLU Report Says Anti-Terror Fight Undercuts Liberty of Muslim Donors." It highlighted Obama's pledge in Cairo to work "with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat."
"In the United States," the president explained, "rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligations."
First, there are no "rules" barring Muslims from giving to charity, as he suggests. There are laws against giving material support to terrorists, and those laws were first enacted under the Clinton administration. They've also made it harder for jihadists to fulfill their own perverted religious obligation to murder Westerners. If it weren't for Treasury's crackdown on charitable fronts, they'd still be siphoning off donations for terrorist attacks.
Material-support laws have become a sore subject for Muslim groups and their allies like the ACLU because the vast majority of terror is carried out by Muslim groups — with Muslim money.
Second, the president and the ACLU imply that the right to give donations in the name of zakat is absolute. It's not. And nothing is stopping Muslims from giving donations to legitimate charities — Muslim or non-Muslim — or through their mosques to fulfill their religious obligation.
The ACLU whines that its choices are limited now that nine major U.S. Muslim charities have been shut down. In each case, however, evidence that the charities funneled money to al-Qaida, Hamas and other terrorist groups was overwhelming.
The ACLU argues that "only one" was actually convicted. True, but it was the largest Muslim charity in America, and it funneled more than $12 million to terrorists. The Holy Land Foundation and its leaders were convicted on all 108 counts. Top leaders recently got life sentences.
Never mind that. The ACLU demands Treasury unfreeze all the Muslim charity assets it's frozen, including Holy Land's assets. It also wants the Justice Department to expunge the names of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and other Muslim front groups from its unindicted co-conspirator list. ACLU says CAIR was "smeared," ignoring the dozens of court exhibits linking CAIR to the radical Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.
The ACLU's real agenda is revealed in the section of the 165-page report where it recommends "reforms." Turns out it also wants to deny the government key anti-terror tools, such as blacklisting individuals and groups as "specially designated global terrorists."
Other goals: purging the FBI terror watch list; passing the End Racial Profiling Act drafted by Rep. John Conyers, a Detroit Democrat, with help from CAIR; demanding an end to FBI raids of charities and undercover operations at mosques.
The ACLU, moreover, proposes giving charities advance notice of investigations to provide them "the opportunity to cure any issues." Or shred documents, as Holy Land executives did. They also stored incriminating papers at off-site locations and swept their offices for FBI bugs.
The real purpose of the ACLU and its report is to dismantle, piece by piece, the terror-fighting infrastructure erected after 9/11 to protect the nation. It's no coincidence that the flow of terrorism slowed after we choked off the flow of money and other activities.
Reopening the spigot now may win points with Muslim leaders like CAIR and placate the civil-liberties crowd.
But it's a suicide wish.
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