Deja vu — Judith Apter Klinghoffer
WHO GAVE AL DAINI A VISA AND WHY?
This is one of those posts I am writing to lower my blood pressure. I got used to the idea that a ("former") Baathist, a supporter of the Iraqi killers of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians, excuse me, I meant to write, "insurgents" are members of the Iraqi Parliament.
I am not surprised to read that US soldiers raided his house and confiscated 31 guns and arrested some of his aids.
I can even ignore the New York Times calling the man an "Antiwar Iraqi." It is par for their course and safer than British channel 4 treating him as a credible witness. They are getting sued. Al Jazeera should be:
Al-Jazeera recently had MP Mohammed Al-Daini as a guest on one of its talk shows claiming that the Buratha Mosque contained torture chambers for Sunni victims. The photo was actually from a wax museum in Iran depicting torture against Iranian dissidents under the Shah regime
The US news and world report political bulletin asks:
Were Dean, Antiwar Liberals Duped By Iraqi Terrorist? In a rather disturbing story this morning, the New York Times discloses that Muhammad al-Daini, a Sunni Iraqi lawmaker who has made the rounds in Washington anti-war circles always making the case that a US pullout will end the violence in Iraq "has publicly praised the Sunni insurgency for taking on American troops, and a reporter for a Shiite newspaper has accused him of complicity in the killing of the reporter's brother." In fact, "Shiite opponents accused him of having ties to Sunni insurgents."In DC, Daini "has been ushered from meeting to meeting by a public relations firm paid by an American businessman who calls the Iraqi politician 'a true humanitarian.'" The Times goes on to cast doubt on many of Daini's claims about the Iraqi government -- many of which were made in meetings with US officials. Daini "briefly saw Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and met with Lee H. Hamilton, the co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group. He saw a long list of members of Congress. Most were antiwar Democrats."
Sorry, "antiwar" activists public embrace terrorist supporters and terrorists has been par for the course for decades. You can read some more fawning over this unsavory character by the antiwar activist who is actually hosting him.
What I want to know is who gave him an American visa and why? For when all said and done there is nothing people around the world, even the most virulent anti-American value more than an American visa except an American green card. Denying them to anyone remotely connected with or on the record as approving of terror should be the easiest anti-terrorist strategy to employ. The US did it during the Cold War when it kept out former members of the Communist parties,but it is not doing it today when these people are more dangerous than ever.
Why are we throwing away such a potent weapon? And why does the State Department invite to our country men who are on record as justifying killing the sons and daughters they send to Iraq? Yes, and why do our elected officials who are sending them there welcome these supporters of our enemies welcome them to their Congressional offices?
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