WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 /U.S. Newswire/ -- A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group today welcomed a ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that rejected claims that students at a California school were being "indoctrinated" during lessons about Islam.

The court rejected a lawsuit by two Christian families that accused the Byron Union School District of unconstitutionally endorsing religious practices. "The Islam program activities were not overt religious exercises that raise Establishment Clause concerns," said the three-judge panel.

In 2003, a U.S. District Judge ruled in favor of the school district. Thursday's appeals court decision upheld that ruling.

"We welcome the court's recognition that the learning process can include information about different faiths and cultures without being considered an endorsement of a particular set of religious beliefs or practices," said Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Board Chairman Parvez Ahmed.

A number of other CAIR officials have been charged with, and some convicted of, offenses related to the support of Islamist terrorism.

On February 2, 1995, CAIR advisory board member Imam Siraj Wahaj was named by the Office of the U.S. Attorney as one of several "unindicted persons who may be alleged as co-conspirators in the attempt to blow up New York City monuments," including the World Trade Center in 1993. He has called for replacing the American government with an Islamic caliphate, warned that America will crumble unless it submits to Islam, and was a character witness during Abdel-Rahman's World Trade Center bombing trial.

On December 18, 2002, Ghassan Elashi, a founding board member of CAIR-Texas and a co-founder of the Holy Land Foundation, was arrested by the FBI on charges of having ties with front groups that fund Islamic terrorism. In 2005, Elashi and two of his brothers were convicted on 21 counts of federal terrorism charges related to funding Hamas and the illegal export of electronics equipment to U.S. State Department-designated state sponsors of terrorism.

In January 2003, CAIR's director of community relations and founder of the Islamic Assembly of North America, Bassem Khafagi, was arrested by the FBI on charges of having ties to front groups that fund Islamist terrorism. Khafagi pleaded guilty to charges of visa and bank fraud, and agreed to be deported to Egypt.

In August 2003, CAIR's former civil-rights coordinator, Randall "Ismail" Royer, was arrested on charges of possessing "in his automobile an AK-47-style rifle and 219 rounds of ammunition" in September 2001, and conspiring to provide material support to al Qaeda and to the Taliban. He pleaded guilty and is serving 20 years in federal prison.

The first manifestation of Hamas’ presence in the United States was the creation
of the Islamic Association for Palestine for North America (IAP) in 1981.16
Founded by Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook, IAP has served as a Hamas
support organization in the United States by publishing Hamas communiqués,
distributing Hamas recruitment videos and hosting conferences raising monetary
and popular support for Hamas. Marzook has been listed by the Treasury
Department as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.

Republican lawmakers say that ties between Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) and his brother’s lobbying firm, KSA Consulting, may warrant investigation by the House ethics committee.

The calls come as Murtha, a former Marine and pro-military Democrat, has made headlines this week by coming out in support of a rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

According to a June 13 article in The Los Angeles Times, the fiscal 2005 defense appropriations bill included more than $20 million in funding for at least 10 companies for whom KSA lobbied. Carmen Scialabba, a longtime Murtha aide, works at KSA as well.

KSA directly lobbied Murtha’s office on behalf of seven companies, and a Murtha aide told a defense contractor that it should retain KSA to represent it, according to the LA Times.

In early 2004, Murtha reportedly leaned on U.S. Navy officials to sign a contract to transfer the Hunters Point Shipyard to the city of San Francisco, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. A company called Lennar Inc. had right to the land, and Laurence Pelosi, nephew to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was an executive with the firm at that time.

Murtha also inserted earmarks in defense bills that steered millions of dollars in federal research funds toward companies owned by children of fellow Pennsylvania Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D).

[...]

Jennifer Crider, a Pelosi aide, dismissed the allegation that the Minority Leader was involved in anything improper as “absolutely ludicrous, and an attempt to divert from the real issue that Mr. Murtha is attempting to engage in debate on a critically important topic — U.S. policy in Iraq. The real story here is the Republican strategy to try to discredit at Congressman Murtha” while he is pushing for a U.S. pullout from Iraq.

Resolution: Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., on Thursday offered a resolution that would force President Bush to withdraw U.S. troops in Iraq "at the earliest practicable date."

Alternative resolution: Friday, House Republicans planned to put to a vote -- and reject -- a symbolic alternative: "It is the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately."

"The deployment of United States forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress, is hereby terminated and the forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practicable date."

I believe before the Iraqi elections, scheduled for mid December, the Iraqi people and the emerging government must be put on notice that the United States will immediately redeploy.

Democrats last night whined and whined for hours about the Republicans dastardly trick of forcing Democrats to clearly state their position on the war in Iraq. They said that the Republican resolution differed in content from the Murtha resolution. So, lets see:

Republican Resolution: "It is the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately."

Murtha Resolution: "The deployment of United States forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress, is hereby terminated and the forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practicable date."

As anyone with basic reading skills can see, there is no substanative difference between the content of the resolutions. The Republican one is shorter and to-the-point. The Democratic one tries to speak more softly.

So what about the last sentence in that quote, "the forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practicable date"? There's only one problem: That's kind of what our policy already is. The debate is over when the "practicable date" is. When is the practicable date in Murtha's opinion? Apparently, his definiton of "practicable date" is around the time of the mid-December elections, as he stated in his big press release:

"I believe before the Iraqi elections, scheduled for mid December, the Iraqi people and the emerging government must be put on notice that the United States will immediately redeploy."

That doesn't sound much different than what the Republicans offered. Considering the nature of how difficult an immediate redeployment will be (withdrawing over 100,000 troops requires more than a simple overnighter), it sounds like starting now wouldn't be much quicker than starting any other time before the mid-term December elections. Hey Jack: How close to the elections do we need to be for you to act on your own words? 

As most of you now know, a number of days ago, Democrats in the Senate used a rare procedure to shut down the Senate for a closed session regarding pre-war intel on Iraq.

Apparently, Democrats finally decided to put their memo on using Iraq war intelligence for political gain later into play. Well, I have three words: Bring it on. We will go all the way back and make our case to war.

To help out all you CAARs out there, I have decided to offer you a well-researched, sourced fact sheet that gives you responses to those against the war. I hope it reminds you of why we support this war and why we must continue the fight for Iraq. Some of these arguments are rarely, if ever, used anymore, but it helps even to expose these arguments, as it proves that liberals will find any excuse they can to avoid war. The arguments are in no specific order. If you don't like that.... I don't care.

Argument 1: We have not found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, as proven by the CIA Duelfer Report.

Response: Funny how liberals love to mention this, but seemingly manage to always brush off this little gem from the report:

ISG judges, based on available chemicals, infrastructure, and scientist debriefings, that Iraq at OIF [Operation Iraqi Freedom] probably had a capability to produce large quantities of sulfur mustard [a.k.a. mustard gas] within three to six months.

And elsewhere:

ISG uncovered information that the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) maintained throughout 1991 to 2003 a set of undeclared covert laboratories to research and test various chemicals and poisons, primarily for intelligence operations.

 

[...]

 

The existence, function, and purpose of the laboratories were never declared to the UN.

 

Even if we have not found stockpiles of WMD in Iraq, it is without question that they were a. going to have them very soon and b. they were several suspicious activities taking place that were not reported to the U.N.

Argument 2 (builds off of the first a bit, and is not used as often anymore): North Korea, with its nuclear weapons, are a more significant threat than Iraq. 

Response: Indeed, shortly before war on Iraq began, with our startling revelation that North Korea had betrayed the U.S. by secretly developing its nuclear capability, all of America was shocked. But liberals, in their abundant wisdom, used this as a way to deter war in Iraq:

You don't have to have a Ph.D. in foreign relations to understand that North Korea poses a greater danger to the United States than Iraq.

-Sen. Chuck Schumer

...[North Korea] may very well have two nuclear weapons. We don't have to get into that. But there is no question that they're going to be producing weapons-grade plutonium, which can be made into nuclear weapons within the next few weeks... We don't need another review. We don't need another study. We know that they've done that. Why isn't that a crisis? [George Tenet] refuse[s] to call it a crisis. Why isn't that a crisis?

-Sen. Ted Kennedy

[O]ur principal focus and attention today ought to be what is happening in North Korea. North Korea has produced nuclear weapons. It has a missile that can reach the United States. We ought to be talking to a North Korea that has nuclear weapons rather than going to war with Iraq that does not.

-Senator Ted Kennedy

What these morons and the rest of the loony-tune-left fails to comprehend is a basic, logical approach ( though to their benefit, that's never been liberals' biggest area of expertise.) Here, America had been hoodwinked by North Korea (due mostly to an almost laughably idiotic "peace agreement" proposed by Bill Clinton in 1994), and, instead of learning a lesson, liberals insisted that we make the same mistake again. America dealt with the crazies in North Korea. In turn, North Korea constructed a terrifying WMD program behind our backs. Iraq was working to construct a WMD program. But instead of taking note and preventing Iraq from becoming the same mess that North Korea was, liberals said that North Korea was the real threat. That's the only way liberals will feign support for a war: When we have weapons aimed right at us. Liberals don't believe in preventing America from having to endure a face-to-face showdown.

Unsurprisingly, Ted Kennedy already knew the outcome of only attacking the immediate threat and never keeping in mind the future threat. In 2001, Ted Kennedy would be found criticizing Bush's nominee for Asst. Sec. of Defense because the Secretary was not particularly fond of Clinton's 1994 peace deal. Kennedy said (requires registration) that we could not take a harsher action, for it would be "dangerously provocative to a nation that already fears aggression from the United States and South Korea."

...I think he may regret that statement now.

....or even worse, maybe not....

We cannot wait until threats grow to the point of face-to-face. We must eliminate them prematurely.

Argument 3: The number of civilian casualties, at 100,000, has made this war far too bloody to ever be justified.

Response: Actually, that number is not credible at all. The number, from the publication Lancet, has an enormous margin of error and is based on sloppy facts.

First off, the MOE is a pathetic "could be as low as 8,000, or as high as 194,000." Second, it was based on faulty methods. Richard Miniter claims: "When I investigated the 100,000 dead-civilians claim, I was surprised at how quickly it fell apart. The 100,000 figure is based on a single study in a British medical journal published just days before the 2004 elections. The authors were open about their anti-Bush bias. They got the 100,000 by knocking on doors in 33 neighborhoods across Iraq. They simply asked Iraqis how many civilian deaths they knew about. They did not take any steps to avoid double counting. They didn't demand any proof, such as a funeral notice or a newspaper clipping. Instead they decided to just trust Iraqis to give them straight dope. So if you interview Baghdad Bob you know what kind of answers you're going to get. In that chapter, I also uncovered four other major technical flaws with that study."

There have been more official studies, but ultimately even those cannot be entirely trusted. Civilian death counts in a place like Iraq are severely difficult to accurately represent.

Argument 4: The war in Iraq has created terrorists.

Response: Money created thieves.