The United States Institute of Peace: Trojan Horse for Terrorism?

On one of the blogs I read I learned about Daniel H. Simpson, former United States Ambassador to the Central African Republic (1990-92), Kenya (1994-1995) and the Congo-Kinshasa (1995-98) according to the Wikipedia article on him.  He was brought up as someone of “authority” who says the United States should leave Afghanistan.  I did a little digging on this man and found some interesting things which I’d like to share with you.

Mr. Simpson currently writes for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (you may read his columns here) and, again according to the Wikipedia page on him, he is on the Board of Directors the United States Institute of Peace.

Sounds like a nice place, the United States Institute of Peace, doesn’t it?  I think of Starfleet Command or people from the future who have no need for money or possessions and they all live in harmony.  So, what, exactly is the United States Institute of Peace, anyway?

The United States Institute of Peace

According to their website:

The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) provides the analysis, training and tools that help to prevent, manage and end violent international conflicts, promote stability and professionalize the field of peacebuilding.

To start with, they have a very nice building!  The construction costs alone (not counting the land) cost $108 million.  Since it is centrally located in Washington, D.C. the land must have been very expensive.  According to the firm that designed it:

Moshe Safdie and Associates of Somerville, Mass., designed the concrete building as a symbolic statement of the nation’s commitment to peace.

I have no problem with extravagantly expensive buildings but this “organization” is funded by the U.S. taxpayer and is established as a nonprofit tax-exempt entity. This organization receives upwards of $30 million a year from the taxpayer.  According to the CATO Institute, the United States Institute of Peace is listed as a “costly agency” that should be cut from taxpayer support.

Okay, so they have an expensive building, they consume millions of dollars in taxpayer monies, and one influential think tank thinks they should be de-funded.  So what does the United States Institute of Peace actually say about the issues and whom do they support?

For starters in a recent report from this organization essentially says that even though the terrorist organization Hamas calls for the destruction of Israel, they have “changed” and Israel should work with them.  However the report also says:

For Hamas, “recognition” of Israel would represent a negation of the rightness of its own cause and would be indefensible under Islam.

Although Hamas, as an Islamic organization, will not transgress shari’a, which it understands as forbidding recognition, it has formulated mechanisms that allow it to deal with the reality of Israel as a fait accompli.

So Israel should compromise with Hamas even though Hamas’ official position (which the report dutifully notes cannot change “officially”) is to wipe Israel off the face of the map.  Pretty interesting verbal chicanery there, isn’t it?

Here are some of the things that put the word “terrorist” into Hamas (there are plenty more this is just a sampling):

• March 9, 2002: Eleven people were killed and 54 injured, 10 of them seriously, when a suicide bomber exploded at in a crowded cafe at the corner of Aza and Ben-Maimon streets in the Rehavia neighborhood in the center of Jerusalem. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
• March 7, 2002: Aharon Krogliak of Beit El, Tal Kurtzweil of Bnei Brak, Asher Marcus of Jerusalem, Eran Pikar of Jerusalem, and Ariel Zana of Jerusalem, all aged 18, were killed and 23 people were injured, four seriously, when a Palestinian gunman penetrated a highschool that combines religious studies and military training in the Gush Katif settlement of Atzmona late Thursday night. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
• March 5, 2002: Palestinians fired two Kassam II rockets at the city of Sderot shortly before 18:00 PM on Tuesday. One of the rockets hit a residential building, moderately wounding a 16-month-old infant. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
• February 10, 2002: A drive-by terrorist shooting at the entrance to the IDF Southern Command base in Be’er Sheva killed two female soldiers and injured four others. One of the Palestinian terrorists was killed at the scene; the second, wearing an explosives belt, fled in the direction of a nearby school when he was shot and killed by a soldier and police officer. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
• December 2, 2001: A suicide bombing on a No. 16 Egged bus in Haifa killed 15 people and injured about 40 people. Hamas claimed responsibility for the Haifa blast, while Hizbullah’s radio and television stations expressed support for the attacks.
• December 1, 2001: A double suicide bombing at the Ben-Yehuda pedestrian mall in Jerusalem at 11:30 p.m. on a Saturday night killed 11 people, aged 12-21, and injured 188 people. A car bomb exploded 20 minutes later. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

Your tax dollars at work!

So what about the other “important works” of the United States Institute of Peace?  According to Daniel Pipes, a man whom former President George W. Bush appointed to their Board of Directors (along with Daniel Simpson) published this article in 2004 in the New York Sun:

Last week, I became a whistleblower. (According to Merriam-Webster, a whistleblower is someone “who reveals wrongdoing within an organization to the public or to those in positions of authority.”)

This is not a role I expected or sought, but I felt compelled to go public when the U.S. Institute of Peace, in Washington, D.C., the taxpayer-funded organization to whose board President Bush appointed me, insisted on co-hosting an event with a group closely associated with radical Islam.

That group is the Washington-based Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy; the event was a workshop that took place — over my strenuous objections — on March 19.

Most of CSID’s Muslim personnel are radicals. I brought one such person in particular, Kamran Bokhari, to the attention of USIP’s leadership. Mr. Bokhari is a fellow at CSID; as such, he is someone CSID’s board of directors deems an expert “with high integrity and a good reputation.” As a fellow, Mr. Bokhari may participate in the election of CSID’s board of directors. He is, in short, integral to the CSID.

Mr. Bokhari also happens to have served for years as the North American spokesman for Al-Muhajiroun, perhaps the most extreme Islamist group operating in the West. For example, it celebrated the first anniversary of 9/11 with a conference titled,” Towering Day in History.” It celebrated the second anniversary by hailing “The Magnificent 19.” Its Web site currently features a picture of the U.S. Capitol building exploding. (If the site changes, an archived copy is available.)

According to a June 1, 2009 story on this organization:

The radical Islamist group Al-Muhajiroun has announced that it plans to relaunch in the UK. The group claimed to have disbanded in 2004. Since then it has periodically resurfaced under various names including the Savior Sect, the Saved Sect, Ahl ul-Sunnah Wa al-Jamma and the Association for Islamic Research [see, http://www.pipelinenews.org/2008/Al-Muhajiroun-Resurfaces-In-London-Under-Guise-Of-Association.html].

Al Muhajiroun founder Omar Bakri Mohammed fled the UK for Lebanon after the July 2005 London bombings which were linked to his organization.

In 2000, al-Muhajiroun claims to have recruited hundreds of young British Muslims to wage jihad in Kashmir, Chechnya and Afghanistan. The organization was banned under Brit terrorism laws. Omar Bakri is believed to still be living in Lebanon where he is suspected to have trained al-Qaeda operatives.

According to a story on the United States Institute of Peace’s own website:

National American Muslim organizations like MPAC, CAIR, ISNA, and AMA have focused on violence and religious extremism as critical issues with local and international strategies. MPAC’s “National Grassroots Campaign to Fight Terrorism” and CAIR’s “Not in the Name of Islam” efforts are examples of American Muslims’ innovative programs to raise awareness on issues of radical ideologies. The coordination of their efforts with those of law enforcement agencies demonstrates mutual recognition of the roles each group plays in conflict prevention.

So what about these organizations?

On MPAC we have this tidbet:

On October 28, 2000, MPAC was a cosponsor of a rally in Washington DC in support of the recent spate of violence known as the Al-Aqsa intifada between the Palestinians and the Israelis. (This was the rally at which the American Muslim Council’s Abdulrahman Alamoudi exhorted the crowd to voice their support for the Hamas and Hizballah terrorist organizations.) During these exhortations, MPAC’s Political Advisor, Mahdi Bray, stood directly behind Alamoudi and was seen jubilantly exclaiming his support for these two deadly terrorist organizations. Dr. Maher Hathout, MPAC’s Senior Advisor, also participated in this rally. Later, in an article in The American Muslim, rather than condemning the rally for its extremist and militant views, Hathout heralded the rally as a marker of a “new era.”

Former members of CAIR, associated with the USIP

On CAIR we have this information:

CAIR consistently defends other militant Islamic terrorists too. The conviction of the perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing it deemed “a travesty of justice.” The conviction of Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind sheikh who planned to blow up New York City landmarks, it called a “hate crime.” The extradition order for suspected Hamas terrorist Mousa Abu Marook it labeled “anti-Islamic” and “anti-American.”

Not surprisingly, CAIR also backs those who finance terrorism. When President Bush closed the Holy Land Foundation in December for collecting money he said was “used to support the Hamas terror organization,” CAIR decried his action as “unjust” and “disturbing.”

Looking into ISNA we learn:

The government is merely claiming that evidence exists that ISNA and NAIT have sufficient ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood – HLF – that justify the groups’ inclusion on a list of un-indicted co-conspirators, which enables prosecutors to more easily enter into evidence information which shows the scope of HLF’s pro-Hamas operations.

That is NAIT/ISNA money going to a top Hamas official, his wife, and a university controlled by Hamas. So the lawyers for ISNA and NAIT are admitting that both groups supported Hamas financially in the late 80′s and early 90′s, which, at a minimum, destroys ISNA’s contention that the group has no ties to Hamas, let alone the Muslim Brotherhood.

Finally, research into the AMA shows:

AMA leaders often appear with individuals and organizations that support terrorist organizations.  AMA’s president, Agha Saeed, has appeared at lectures and events sponsored by Hamas-associated organizations and and attended by Hamas supporters.

The AMA also donated $50,000.00 to Senator Hillary Clinton’s campaign but when it was reported that the group had ties to terrorist organizations, she returned the money.

One has to wonder… looking at all of this evidence why this entity is funded by U.S. taxpayers and why Mr. Simpson would sit on their Board of Directors?  And why isn’t our fair press writing about this?

What sort of insidious root grows in our society that organizations like this are able to gain funding, a platform, and acceptance?

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