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The Saudi Hypocrisy Behind Trump’s Muslim Ban

The Saudi Hypocrisy Behind Trump’s Muslim Ban

Last Friday, President Trump delivered on one of his most controversial campaign pledges by banning citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. He claims that the ban will protect America from terrorists. Yet, shockingly, the ban doesn’t include citizens of arguably the world’s largest exporter of “Islamic” terror—the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, home of 15 of the 9/11 hijackers and global financier of the extremist Wahhabi sect of Islam.

Why isn’t the Kingdom on the list? The reason is as simple as it is disturbing: Saudi leaders have helped the president and his friends make billions. Now, thanks to Trump, a Syrian widow and her children, running for their lives, will encounter a locked door in America — while a Saudi oil tycoon kicks back and relaxes at Trump Tower.

For decades, Saudis have spent billions to support schools, charities, mosques, and nonprofits that suppress pluralism and promote their corrupted, extremist form of Islam, which has done so much to defame the vast majority of peace-loving and tolerant Muslims, both here and around the world. In keeping with this mission, the Saudis have directly and indirectly financed the same Islamic terror organizations American troops have been fighting since the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. As a 2002 Pentagon briefing put it: “The Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot-soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader.”

Worst of all, Western governments have been caught up in the Saudi export of violence from the very beginning. The British helped install the Saud family as the monarchs of Arabia after World War I, and the royal family surely wouldn’t still be ruling today if not for American military and political support. Once the California Arabian Standard Oil Company (today known as Aramco) struck oil in 1938, the Saudi rulers became our key economic, political, and military partner in the Middle East.

To protect this partnership, the Kingdom has purposefully expanded its financial ties to the United States over the years. Riyadh has invested $750 billion in the U.S. economy, including many placements in bedrock Wall Street funds and U.S. securities. Saudi Arabia is now the world’s largest purchaser of U.S.-manufactured arms. And just last June the Kingdom made news by investing $3.5 billion in Uber, the largest investment ever made in a privately held company.

The list of Wall Street banks, private equity firms, and hedge funds with extensive fundraising operations in Saudi Arabia reads like a “Who’s Who” of American business, including major firms from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to Blackstone and BlackRock. All these corporations are unwittingly helping to fund Saudi Arabia’s expansion of extremism.

Not surprisingly, Trump is continuing this awful partnership with the Saudis. But this time, it’s for an even more self-centered reason—they help keep him rich.

Take the Trump World Tower, a luxury skyscraper just across the street from the United Nations in Manhattan. In 2001, the Kingdom paid Trump $4.5 million to buy the building’s 45th floor. Since then, the Kingdom has paid Trump over $85,000 annually for building amenities. For years, Trump even had two Saudi princes living in his multi-million dollar condominiums.

During last year’s campaign, Trump opened eight new companies in Saudi Arabia—an almost unbelievable conflict of interest. “Saudi Arabia, I get along great with all of them. They buy apartments from me,” he told an Alabama crowd over the summer. “They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much.”

Why is Trump’s complex web of hidden connections and conflicts of interest so detrimental to our national interest? The Saudi connection is a perfect example.

First, this relationship proves that Trump’s bans are not only un-American and misguided, but hypocritical. Blocking refugees and immigrants from poor Muslim countries will not prevent terror, but excluding Saudi Arabia from the list makes the new policy little more than a self-enriching dog whistle.

Second, it reinforces the pattern of the Saudi relationship. When Americans support U.S. companies that do business with Saudi Arabia,that helps the Kingdom export its radical agenda and suppress pluralism. And when we elect politicians supported by the Saudis, we make it easier for them to avoid accountability for empowering organizations that spread terror around the world. Once again, we’re being sold out by our elites—and as much as Trump doesn’t want to publicly admit it, he’s now one of them.

For over a thousand years, Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived peacefully under Muslim rule in the Middle East. When Spain expelled hundreds of thousands of Jews in 1492, the Islamic Ottoman Sultan welcomed them with open arms and laughed at the Spanish King Ferdinand’s idiocy. How could anyone think Ferdinand was wise, he asked, when he “impoverished his own land and enriched ours?”

In the years ahead, we can learn much from the Sultan’s lesson. Saudi Arabia’s influence has poisoned peaceful coexistence and served to turn millions of innocents into refugees. Thanks to Trump, we’re now helping those who caused that suffering, while locking out the people — many of them our friends and allies — who need to rebuild.

Amed Khan is a former official of the State Department and USAID. He is an investor and philanthropist who founded Elpida Home, a public-private project in Thessaloniki, Greece that houses and serves thousands of Syrian refugees, which he is currently working to expand.

IMAGE: View shows the construction of the King Abdullah Financial District in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Cartoon: President Trump Negotiates With The Terrorists

Cartoon: President Trump Negotiates With The Terrorists

Lone Wolf Terrorists Continue To Confound Law Enforcement

Lone Wolf Terrorists Continue To Confound Law Enforcement

By Cindy Chang and Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

In 2005, Torrance, Calif., police officers searched the apartment of two men suspected of robbing a gas station.

There, the officers found a lengthy manifesto and a list of potential targets, including synagogues and military sites. They had stumbled on an Islamist terrorist cell in the advanced stages of an attack plan.

The San Bernardino massacre, which killed 14 people, has focused new attention on “lone wolf” terrorists who plan attacks away from traditional high-profile targets without directly coordinating with others.

While the FBI typically takes the lead in major terrorism investigations, local police officers and sheriff’s deputies are the initial line of defense — especially in the case of home-grown plotters.

With their local intelligence and connections to the communities they serve, police are often the first to pick up on clues that something is wrong — or to fortuitously come across a dangerous situation. Large agencies like the Los Angeles Police Department and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department have sizable counter-terrorism units that comb the Internet for suspicious postings, follow up on tips and cultivate contacts in the community.

Neighbors or friends might notice strange behavior, an uptick in bulky package deliveries or changes to a person’s routine. Human intelligence is the key, and local authorities are more likely than their federal counterparts to be plugged into those sources, said Deputy Chief Michael Downing, who oversees the LAPD’s counter-terrorism bureau.

But the challenges are daunting. Sometimes, as with the San Bernardino assailants Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, even family members said they did not notice any warning signs. Federal authorities say Malik wrote a Facebook post pledging her allegiance to an Islamic State group, but there is no evidence so far that they were connected to a larger terror cell.

“Self-radicalization poses a tremendous problem, as it is hardest to detect,” Downing said. “For us, it has always been easier to detect a network group adversary, because someone is going to slip up or hit a trip wire, versus a lone wolf.”

At the LAPD, the Counter-Terrorism and Special Operations Bureau’s 900 officers include some Muslims and several who speak who speak Arabic or Urdu. The bureau maintains relationships with local mosques and works closely with other law enforcement agencies, including the FBI.

The LAPD’s version of the “If you see something, say something” program, which encourages residents to report suspected terrorist activity, has won praise but also raised concerns in recent years.

In 2007, the LAPD scrapped a plan to map the city’s Muslim population amid an outcry from Muslim groups and civil libertarians.

But law enforcement officials say it is precisely those kinds of grass-roots leads that could stop the next terror plot. Officers are constantly checking out reports of suspicious activity, searching for the smallest of clues, Downing said.

Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State, San Bernardino, said terror networks have become more sophisticated at delivering their messages through social networks, making it easier to lure followers.

The San Bernardino massacre illustrates the difficulties of stopping terrorists who may have been radicalized mainly behind closed doors while surfing the Internet, said Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens, who previously oversaw the counter-terrorism unit in L.A. County.

“Sleepy little Orange County is pretty active” in producing terrorists, Hutchens said. She noted that several aspiring foreign fighters arrested and charged by federal authorities in recent years came from the county and were heading to Syria to join ISIS.

In the U.S., homegrown terrorists come from a range of socioeconomic and educational backgrounds, making it hard to generate a criminal profile, said Brian Michael Jenkins, a terrorism expert at the Rand Corp., a Santa Monica, Calif., think tank.

It is the terrorist among us — someone like Farook, seemingly leading a normal life — who poses the biggest challenge for law enforcement and who stokes the biggest fear in the public.

“The fact that this was such an ordinary guy, who was likable, who got along with other people at work … It was a Christmas party. It was the Inland Regional Center, which is not at the top of anybody’s perceived target list,” Jenkins said. “That underscores the point that this could happen anywhere. This person I’ve known for years is maybe, as we speak, planning to kill me.”

©2015 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan (C) speaks at a news conferenece, informing the media, that the couple Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, were responsible for the shooting rampage at the Inland Regional Center, in San Bernardino, California December 2, 2015.  REUTERS/Alex Gallardo

Plan For Virginia Mosque Becomes Target Of Anti-Muslim Backlash

Plan For Virginia Mosque Becomes Target Of Anti-Muslim Backlash

By Noah Bierman, Tribune Washington Bureau (TNS)

SPOTSYLVANIA COUNTY, Va. — The zoning meeting, in a community room packed beyond capacity, was intended to focus on traffic, lighting and parking impacts from a proposed building.

But the building in question was a new mosque — and the meeting occurred four days after the terrorist attacks in Paris.

A thickly built man interrupted the discussion about stormwater runoff, saying to the small group of Muslims in the crowd, “Nobody wants your evil cult,” and “Every one of you are terrorists. I don’t care what you say. I don’t care what you think.”

The unidentified man pledged to do everything in his power to block the mosque, jabbing his finger toward one of the mosque’s trustees, a civil engineer leading the presentation, according to a video posted by the Free Lance-Star of Fredericksburg.

Many groaned. But there was enough applause — and enough other comments like it — to shut down the meeting under orders of a sheriff’s deputy, and to shock the small Muslim community near historic Fredericksburg.

The incident is one of a growing number that have put American Muslims on the defensive since the attacks Nov. 13 in France. Bullets were fired at a mosque in Connecticut. Feces were smeared on an Islamic house of worship in Texas. A fake bomb was left at another in northern Virginia.

“We always see a certain amount of backlash” following an overseas Islamist terrorist attack, said Corey Saylor, who monitors anti-Muslim incidents for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “This time, however, it’s getting fueled by people who are exploiting it for political purpose. … That is essentially pouring gasoline on an already burning fire.”

President George W. Bush pointedly visited a mosque after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to defuse similar tensions. By contrast, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has asserted that, contrary to evidence, thousands of American Muslims in New Jersey cheered after the attacks. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, another GOP candidate, has said that only Christian refugees from Syria should be allowed to resettle in the U.S.

The mayor of Roanoke, Va., a Democrat, spoke favorably about Japanese internment camps during World War II to buttress his position that Syrian refugees should be blocked from entering the country.

The incident over the mosque near Fredericksburg was striking in its bluntness. Samer Shalaby, the engineer and trustee for the Islamic Center of Fredericksburg who bore the brunt of the negative comments, said he was saddened by the number of people who came to applaud the hateful comments. “I was kind of stunned,” he said.

The Cairo native said he moved here three decades ago after attending George Washington University, when there were only four Muslim families in the area. The community grew to include many professionals and small-business owners, some of whom drive about 55 miles to jobs in Washington, he said.

The community has grown more diverse, but the large Confederate flag waving near the highway exit is a reminder that the past remains in full view.

In 2000, the Muslim community built a small mosque, a spare brick building with two basketball hoops in front, across from a Goodwill store in the sprawling suburbs near downtown Fredericksburg. The mosque hardly stands out amid the strip malls, looking more like a house than a house of worship.

But the membership, now between about 250 and 300 families, feels cramped during Sunday school and other large gatherings, Shalaby said. The new building, which would be built on a 10-acre plot a few blocks away, would fit about 350 people, he said.

Shalaby said he had never experienced discrimination here. In retrospect, he believes the timing of the meeting was poor. He and other leaders have tried to emphasize their ties to the community, including work to feed the hungry and help the homeless.

In fact, members of the mosque said they had heard from hundreds of supporters, including local Christian and Jewish clergy, who have offered support.

Greg Bundrick, a retired social worker, drove 19 miles to tell the imam in person that he did not approve of the ugly words delivered at the meeting.

“It was wrong. It’s important for me to stand up and say how wrong it was,” he said, standing in the small office next to the sanctuary.

Imam Sherif Shehata gave Bundrick a hug and a piece of chocolate from a box the mosque kept on hand for well-wishers.

Swalha Craig, a Kenya native whose American-born husband converted to Islam, said she has never felt overt discrimination but does sense some sideways glances directed at her head scarf. Still, even after the frightening meeting, she considers this home.

“I got married here,” said Craig, who works as a part-time office manager for the mosque. “I love it here.”

©2015 Tribune Co. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: Samer Shalaby, trustee for the Islamic Center of Fredericksburg, Va., on November 23, 2015. (Noah Bierman/Tribune Washington Bureau/TNS)