Charity Begins at Home

The arrest Wednesday, 10.09.02, of Enaam M. Arnaout, the leader of the Benevolence International Foundation, must have really hurt the islamofascists; they doth protest too much. As reported in the 10.09.02 New York Times, here's a partial list of what's on the the bill of indictment:

• Included in the seized documents were notes from a 1988 organizational meeting in Afghanistan that Mr. bin Laden attended, along with the text of the oath of allegiance, or bayat, that prospective Qaeda members were required to take, prosecutors said.


• Worked under Mr. bin Laden's direction in the late 1980's and early 1990's at a mujahedeen camp in Afghanistan, buying and distributing rockets and rifles for military camps operated by Al Qaeda members.


• Worked under Mr. bin Laden's direction in the late 1980's and early 1990's at a mujahedeen camp in Afghanistan, buying and distributing rockets and rifles for military camps operated by Al Qaeda members.


• After beginning work in the United States with Benevolence International in the early 1990's, helped launder some of the charity's proceeds to pay for armed conflicts and terrorism overseas, and concealed the true use of the money from the charity's donors and the government.


• Allowed Saif al Islam el Masry, a military adviser to Mr. bin Laden who was part of Al Qaeda's inner circle, to serve an officer of Benevolence International's affiliate in Chechnya in the late 1990's.


• Sought earlier this year to destroy photographs and documents linking himself and his charity to Mr. bin Laden and other terrorists, and instructed a Benevolence International worker in Bosnia-Herzegovina to disguise the true purpose of money that went to an injured fighter there.

What the defenders of the indefensible say is (from the Times): Many Muslim and Arab-American organizations have asserted that the Justice Department has unfairly sought to portray innocent charities, particularly ones operating in sensitive parts of the world, as covert funding mechanisms for terrorism. The fact is that some of these charities have been exactly that.

An op-ed piece in today's Times makes the two classic victim's assertions: "By effectively shutting down these charities, it has given Americans the false impression that American Muslims are supporting terrorists. It has also given the Muslim world a similarly false impression that America is intolerant of a religious minority".

As for American Muslims supporting terrorists, I haven't seen the polling numbers; I don't think this is something your typical Hamas or Islamic Jihad cell member (Lackawana, Portland, where next?) would blab to a pollster. As for the majority (hopefully) who don't support terrorists, they've been very quiet in making that assertion, except when their "leaders" wish to make political hay by claiming discrimination.

As for America being intolerant of a religious minority, guilty as charged when that minority has shown itself most prominently in plotting to blow up people and things; the silence of the American Muslim community in denouncing 9.11.01 and more current Islamic terror (e.g. killing of a U.S. marine in Kuwait two days ago) is positively deafening.