Spread the word

I always check in on Bob, so this is how I came to the NBC report about Abdurahman Alamoudi, the man who helped set up the Muslim Chaplain program for the Pentagon, and who is now accused of providing them as spies at Guantanamo.

Bob says that, while he offers "different" or "original" views on his blog, he also "steals" from other bloggers, like Atrios, which is where Bob came to the NBC report. I like to have "original" or "different" stuff to offer, too. But I figure that there aren't enough people who read my blog, or Bob's blog, or Atrios' blog, individually, to get the information out to a very large number of people (admittedly, a lot more read Atrios than You Will Anyway - a whole lot). And that's really my goal - get that information out there. So, I make no apologies for "stealing" from any source. I always credit them, and I happily take the information they provided and spread it around.

So, Bob, I'm stealing from you. And thank you so much.

Excerpts from MSNBC online "Countdown With Keith Olbermann":

CORRESPONDENT LISA MYERS: Over the year, Alamoudi has been a familiar face in Washington. The Pentagon chose him to help select Muslim chaplains. He met with President Clinton, made six trips to Muslim nations as a goodwill ambassador for the State Department, met with candidate George Bush. Last year FBI director Rob Mueller even spoke to an organization founded by Alamoudi over the objections of some agents.

JOHN LOFTUS (Former DoJ official and host of radio's "The Loftus Report"): About a year-and-a-half ago, people in the intelligence community came and said guys like Alamoudi and Sami al-Arian and other terrorists weren't being touched because they'd been ordered not to investigate the cases, not to prosecute them, because there were being funded by the Saudis and a political decision was being made at the highest levels: don't do anything that would embarrass the Saudi government. So, of course I immediately volunteered to do it, and I filed a lawsuit against al-Arian charging him with being a major terrorist for Islamic Jihad. Most of his money came from Saudi charities in Virginia.

Now, Alamoudi's headquarters were in the same place. He was raided the same day, on March 20, an hour after I filed my lawsuit. The U.S. government finally got off its butt, and they raided these offices. And the stuff that they're taking out of there now is absolutely horrendous. Al-Arian has now finally been indicted, along with Alamoudi, today [10/23/03].

But, who was it that fixed the cases? How could these guys operate for more than a decade immune from prosecution?...What Alamoudi and al-Arian have in common is a guy named Grover Norquist. He's the super lobbyist. Newt Gingrich's guy, the one the NRA calls on...He is the guy that was hired by Alamoudi...and he's the registered agent for Alamoudi, personally, and for the Islamic Institute.

Grover Norquist's best friend is Karl Rove, the White House chief of staff, and apparently Norquist was able to fix things....That's why moderate Americans couldn't speak out after 9/11. Moderate Muslims couldn't get into the White House because Norquist's friends were blocking their access.

OLBERMANN: How does this tie back into the thing that apparently pulled the stopper out of the drain, if you will - the developers at Guantanamo Bay? How rotten is the system of the interpreters and the chaplains - the Muslim Chaplains that Alamoudi was involved in setting up?

LOFTUS: It's as rotten as it gets. Think of the Muslim chaplain's program that he set up as a spy service for al-Qaeda. The damage that's been done is extreme. It wasn't just sending home mom and dad messages from the prisoners. These guys, this network in Guantanamo, stole the CIA's briefing books. Everything that the CIA knew about al-Qaeda is now back in al-Qaeda hands. That's about as bad an intelligence setback as you can get.

OLBERMANN: John, how does this end up? How far will the investigation into this necessarily have to go to get to the bottom of it?

LOFTUS: There's a lot more to go. Norquist had a lot of other clients. There's a whole alphabet soup of Saudi agencies that funded terrorism in this country. They had an awful lot of protection. And, one of the things we may find about 9/11 is that people out in the field weren't allowed to connect the dots, and questions will be asked whether guys like Grover Norquist were part of the problem.

And if that's a little much to absorb on a Saturday afternoon, then this bit from the same Olbermann show should bring you back to a less complex side of American culture:

More geniuses in Morgantown, West Virginia, even by the low standards of college football. The behavior of the fans of West Virginia University last night was astonishing. After their favorites upset the team from Virginia Tech, West Virginia's fans promptly tried to burn their own town down. 90 - nine oh - fires were set around Morgantown - twelve described by officials as sizable. They threatened overhead electrical lines. Things got so out of hand that the county considered shutting off the power to an area where many students lived. Incidents at the game were too numerous to count. Fans threw rocks, bottles, and debris at police. This is after their team won. Police used pepper spray on fans. "We can't breathe," said one fan Brad Anderson, "we're hacking up our lungs, but it was worth it."

You know, these people are old enough to vote. That should make you stop and ponder.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.