It wasn’t enough

It wasn’t enough that outraged Muslims (via CAIR) successfully lobbied to get Michael Graham taken off the air at WMAL.    Now a group of local Muslims in Denver are calling for US Rep. Tom Tancredo to be removed from office:

Local Muslims aren’t satisfied with an apology from U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo about his remarks about bombing Islamic holy sites, Muslim officials said Saturday at a Denver rally.

"He needs to be removed from office," said Gerald Muhammad, a Nation of Islam minister from Denver. "We’re not going to stop pushing until he is censored. We can’t afford to have a man like that in office."

Muhammad and other Muslims spoke to about 200 people at the "With Justice Comes Peace" at Civic Center Park.

Tancredo has been under fire since July 15 when he told a radio host that the United States could "take out their holy sites," if Islamic terrorists attacked the country with nuclear bombs.

Some at the rally worry that Tancredo’s remarks will cause people to be hostile towards Muslims and encourage prejudice.

"He should be bringing people together, not dividing them," Israr Haq, 42, of Northglenn. "The congressman went overboard."

Tancredo, earlier in the week, met with a select group of Muslims.  World Net  Daily reports:

While refusing to dialogue with his most vocal Islamic critics, U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo met with a select group of Muslims to clarify his remarks about threatening to target holy sites in response to a terrorist nuclear attack.

The Colorado Republican was visited Wednesday by a three-member delegation from the Free Muslims Coalition, a group urging mainstream Muslims to take a stronger stand against terrorists.

The coalition’s president, Kamal Nawash, told the Rocky Mountain News after the meeting, "To the extent anyone was insulted by his comments, [Tancredo] said he’s sorry about that."

"It confirmed what we always believed. He’s a great guy … and he has no animosity toward Muslims," said Nawash, a Republican and former state Senate candidate in Virginia.

Meanwhile, officials for the Council on American-Islamic Relations said Tancredo was making a mistake by not including them in the meeting.

"If they want to talk to mainstream, moderate Muslims, this is the organization to talk to," Corey Saylor, government affairs director for CAIR, told the Denver paper.

"Moderate"?  Let’s take a look at how moderate CAIR is:

… [The Council on American-Islamic Relations] has desperately tried to project a moderate and patriotic image in the face of growing skepticism. "We are Americans and we are Muslims," is the motto that it runs in the nation’s newspapers. Part of that image campaign involves dispelling notions that it is controlled by foreign interests in the Middle East. CAIR emphatically denies receiving any foreign support, including for its new headquarters. It argues that it is a "grassroots organization" largely supported by members who pay dues.

For the record, here is what Hooper insisted in a November 8, 2001, press release: "We do not support directly or indirectly or receive support from any overseas group or government."

But land and tax records tell a different story—if you can find them, that is (and then figure them out). And believe me, it is not easy. The original deed to the property for CAIR’s headquarters—located a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol at 453 New Jersey Avenue, S.E.—is kept at the District of Columbia Recorder of Deeds Building. You can access it by computer. Problem is, you cannot read it once you call it up. The copy in the database was scanned from microfilm, not the original, and the resulting blurry type has rendered it illegible (printing the image does not help). The only way to read it is to view it on microfilm, which requires a trip to the third floor of the building.

[…]

The Al-Maktoum Foundation is based in the United Arab Emirates capital of Dubai and is headed by Gen. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, the Dubai crown prince and UAE defense minister. So essentially, the UAE government is CAIR’s new benefactor.

[…]

And in a surprisingly unsympathetic statement made just two weeks after the attacks, Al-Maktoum warned Washington not to strike Afghanistan and kill "innocent" Muslims. He also advised against confusing "legitimate" acts of resistance against "Zionist oppression" with acts of terrorism, arguing that the only real terrorists are "Israeli terrorists" and that Israelis should be included in any American war on terrorism.

"We should not confuse legitimate resistance with terrorist acts," Al-Maktoum said, referring to Palestinian suicide bombings. "The Arab and Muslim communities have paid dearly for terrorism, especially the state terrorism practiced by the government of [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon and extremist groups in Israel. Regrettably, the powers in the international community have done nothing but watch the Israeli terrorists, a matter which has angered Arabs and Muslims." He added, "Confrontation of terrorism must cover Israeli terrorism."

Al-Maktoum’s foundation, which builds hard-line mosques and schools in other countries, has also held Dubai telethons to support the families of Palestinian suicide bombers as part of a relief campaign called "We Are All Palestinians."

If they’re moderate, I’m Queen Elizabeth.  If Tancredo wants to clarify his remarks, fine.  But hopefully he’ll do it with Muslims who are truly interested in discussing them, and not a group of self serving individuals who put up a front for open dialogue with people of different faiths while their bankrollers finance terror behind the scenes.