Terror ties in the Capitol?
Some would say so.
In this morning’s Washington Times, S.A. Miller writes how New Jersey Democrat Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr., has secured a room in the U.S. Capitol building for a meeting of the Council on American-Islamic Relations a group that has been suspected of terror-ties, and has not disavowed groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
“We just see it as a simple room request,” Pascrell spokesman Caley Gray said. “We did receive a room request and evaluated it and approved it.”
He said the forum “opens up an important dialogue about global public opinion concerning the United States.”
Still, the event’s sponsor raised eyebrows on Capitol Hill, even if all sorts of groups routinely hold receptions and meetings in the Capitol.
“It does happen all the time but usually it is the United Way or some constituent group or Mothers Against Drunk Driving, not a group with supposed ties to terrorism — in the Capitol no less,” a Hill staffer said.
In 1994, Nihad Awad, CAIR’s Executive Director said he is “in support of the Hamas movement.”
In 1999, CAIR co-founder Omar Ahmad praised homicide-bombers, saying: “Fighting for freedom, fighting for Islam — that is not suicide. They kill themselves for Islam.”
Even leading Democrats have problems with CAIR:
According to Sen. Richard Durbin in 2003: CAIR is ““unusual in its extreme rhetoric and its associations with groups that are suspect.”
As recently as December, Sen. Barbara Boxer “expressed concern” about the group.
Just to put it in perspective, while CAIR gets a room, Republicans, now in the minority, are “bounced from room to room.”