I was planning to title this essay, “Oh Brother Waleed, Where Art Thou?” for Omar and I had not heard from him in a while. Then, at 4:41 yesterday afternoon, six minutes after CAIR pinged me with yet another zakat appeal, an email from Waleed came in.
Waleed had been out of the country, of course, as Omar and I suspected. Either that or maybe he had gotten spooked by all the ado about me being a spy. I thought I had cleared that all up, until I discovered a most peculiar sentence in the very first essay I sent Muslim friends, which I published in my last post, How I First Prayed with Muslims – Reform CAIR.
Maybe the smartest thing I can do now is just say, Let’s all agree I am a spy.
Why is that a smart thing for me to say? Because it puts to rest the question, and raises this one: What difference does it make for CAIR?
Not a mote’s worth.
Why? Because the case I and others have made against CAIR-National is based on internal CAIR documents and statements in court filings and other evidence that a spy cannot make up (see: CAIR’s Incriminating Communications – Reform CAIR, and Two Years of Deception and Retaliation at CAIR – Reform CAIR).
Now, the evidence against CAIR might not be quite so easy for spies like me or outright Islamophobes to obtain had CAIR not absent-mindedly sued a whistleblower and put her in the position where she naturally decided to defend herself, with the help of an attorney CAIR did not approve of.
Admittedly, it was bad form of her not to obtain CAIR’s approval of her attorney. If I ever meet her I will mention that.
The lawsuit did not turn out well for CAIR, with the judge telling CAIR to produce some real evidence of defamation or she would toss the case out. But it did make Robert Spencer’s job a lot easier. Spencer would seem to be an honest-to-God Islamophobe, which may be an odd choice of words on my part.
Spencer composed a nasty article about CAIR suing the above-mentioned whistleblower, even attaching the words “Hamas-linked” to “the Council on American-Islamic Relations”. The article quotes the whistleblower at length, even though she never spoke with Spencer. He got his material from her Response to CAIR’s Complaint in its lawsuit, which is a public document.
Let us hope that CAIR has learned one thing. That is, when it sets out to silence and smear a member of the Muslim community, or even a pretender like me, it should not count on controlling the outcome.
I have quipped before that the main thing CAIR-National seems to do is label this or that person an Islamophobe. By CAIR’s criteria, anyone who raises any question about any goings on at CAIR is an Islamophobe.
The problem with that way of thinking, though, is that it seems to justify CAIR circling the wagons to “defend” itself, and of course the entire Muslim community, rather than look honestly at itself. And so, we regularly get messages like this one yesterday from CAIR:
“Don’t forget to defend the Muslim community with a [zakat] donation to CAIR during the final nights of Ramadan.”
Too bad there’s no zakat-eligible charity working for justice for the victims of CAIR representatives.
In November of 2016, the executive director of a CAIR chapter wrote:
“I have really been thinking about our approach to things. Especially 15 years post 9/11 what do we really have to show for our work if we look at this high level. We made a name for CAIR. Did we help or harm our community in the process?” (cairlawsuit62021-2.pdf (wordpress.com), p.34.
Good question. Seven years later, not much has changed, except that CAIR has spent tens of thousands more donors’ zakat dollars trying to suppress civil rights, and may have earned more critics for doing so. I for one was a big fan of CAIR in 2016, and my involvement with local Muslims working to establish a Colorado chapter had something to do with my conversion.
Now, on a previous occasion when Brother Waleed was out of the country, he wrote to ask if I needed or wanted anything. I replied by asking if the Kingdom could spare a few bodyguards, for Waleed is from Saudi Arabia.
“You’re gonna need an army”, he wrote back.
Well, maybe not. The few at CAIR-National and elsewhere who appreciate the job security that Islamophobes and spies like myself provide them must be far out-numbered by the many CAIR employees who still believe in its founding mission. More power to them.
But they better start insisting that CAIR-National clean house.
Reform CAIR 