Former Congressman Was Fundraising for Al Qaeda

[Lemur]

You really can't make this stuff (http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8U76PK82&show_article=1) up.

Ex-Lawmaker Charged in Terror Conspiracy

By LARA JAKES JORDAN / Jan 16 03:42 PM US/Eastern

WASHINGTON - A former congressman and delegate to the United Nations was indicted Wednesday as part of a terrorist fundraising ring that allegedly sent more than $130,000 to an al-Qaida and Taliban supporter who has threatened U.S. and international troops in Afghanistan.

The former Republican congressman from Michigan, Mark Deli Siljander, was charged with money laundering, conspiracy and obstructing justice for allegedly lying about lobbying senators on behalf of an Islamic charity that authorities said was secretly sending funds to terrorists.

A 42-count indictment, unsealed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Mo., accuses the Islamic American Relief Agency of paying Siljander $50,000 for the lobbying—money that turned out to be stolen from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Siljander, who served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, was appointed by President Reagan to serve as a U.S. delegate to the United Nations for one year in 1987.

He could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday, and his attorney in Kansas City, JR Hobbs, had no immediate comment.

The charges are part of a long-running case against the charity, which was formerly based in Columbia, Mo., and was designated by the Treasury Department in 2004 as a suspected fundraiser for terrorists.

In the indictment, the government alleges that IARA employed a man who had served as a fundraising aide to Osama bin Laden.

The indictment charges IARA with sending approximately $130,000 to help Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whom the United States has designated as a global terrorist. The money, sent to bank accounts in Peshawar, Pakistan in 2003 and 2004, was masked as donations to an orphanage located in buildings that Hekmatyar owned.

Authorities described Hekmatyar as an Afghan mujahedeen leader who has participated in and supported terrorist acts by al-Qaida and the Taliban. The Justice Department said Hekmatyar "has vowed to engage in a holy war against the United States and international troops in Afghanistan."

The charges "paints a troubling picture of an American charity organization that engaged in transactions for the benefit of terrorists and conspired with a former United States congressman to convert stolen federal funds into payments for his advocacy," said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein.

Siljander founded Washington-area consulting group Global Strategies, Inc. after leaving the government.

[Banquo's Ghost]

Surely that means everyone in Congress should be rounded up at gunpoint and sent to Guantanamo for water-boarding to find out what/who they knew. And why's this guy getting a trial?

[Xiahou]

Surely that means everyone in Congress should be rounded up at gunpoint and sent to Guantanamo for water-boarding to find out what/who they knew. And why's this guy getting a trial?
I don't think many Americans would mind if Congress was carted off to Gitmo.... :shrug:

[Seamus Fermanagh]

BG:

No U.S. citizens have been imprisoned in Gitmo. They've handled our own citizens in different facilities.

Funny line about waterboarding Congress.

If this guy knowingly supported Al Quaeda, then its treason and he should be executed.

[Lemur]

Some background on Siljander is emerging. From a former aide (http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2008/01/what_happened_t_2.html):


What makes the allegations in the indictment so shocking, is that Siljander is a Born-Again Evangelical Christian. We had fast days in his office. There were prayer circles.

From a manifesto he signed as a "national Christian leader," the Foundation Documents (http://www.angelfire.com/ca4/cor/manifesto.html):

We affirm that this God-inspired, inerrant Bible is the only absolute, objective, final test for all truth claims, and the clearest verbal picture of reality that has ever come into the hands of mankind. By it, and it alone, are all philosophies, books, values, actions, and plans to be measured as to their consistency with reality, visible and invisible. Whatever statements or values are in opposition to the statements and values of the Bible err to the degree of their opposition...

We affirm that the Great Commission is a mandate by our Lord to go forth into all the world and make Bible-obeying disciples of all nations. Getting men's souls saved is only a preliminary part of fulfilling the Great Commission. Our work is incomplete unless we teach them to obey all He commanded. The words of the Lord's prayer for God's will to "be done on earth as it is in heaven" are another way to state the essence of the same Great Commission...

We affirm that all Bible-believing Christians must take a non-neutral stance in opposing, praying against, and speaking against social moral evils such as the following… B. Adultery, fornication, homosexuality, bestiality and other forms of sexual perversion.
I'm not sure what to make of this. If the indictments are true, what is the connection between a right-wing Christianist congressman and Al Qaeda? Does this mean that Dinesh D'Souza was onto something when he wrote (http://www.slate.com/id/2156927/?nav=tap3):


[T]he political right and the Islamic fundamentalists are on the same wavelength on social issues. [...] Instead of trying to unify America and the West, the right should highlight the division between red America and blue America, and also between traditional America and decadent Europe. By resisting the depravity of the left and the Europeans, conservatives can win friends among Muslims and other traditional people around the world.

Is it possible that Siljander raised money out of sympathy for the Islamist cause, or is it more likely he was just greedy?

[Proletariat]

Surely that means everyone in Congress should be rounded up at gunpoint and sent to Guantanamo for water-boarding to find out what/who they knew. And why's this guy getting a trial?


I honestly agree. Waterboard and hold him without any trial. Go Roman style and throw him in a sack with a bunch of snakes and drop him in Lake Michigan.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Some background on Siljander is emerging. From a former aide (http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2008/01/what_happened_t_2.html):

Is it possible that Siljander raised money out of sympathy for the Islamist cause, or is it more likely he was just greedy?

From the same site:

It boggles my mind. It must have been the money, as I know that, after he lost his re-election bid (he was replaced by liberal Republican and pan-Islamist Fred Upton), he was engaged in a million different business endeavors trying to make a success of one.
...
I think this was about money. Since he lost his Congressional seat, he was hard up for money and was involved in many failed business ventures, including an AIDS-Test-By-Mail. (He also ran, unsuccessfully, for Congress from Virginia.)

Desperation and money do bad things.

I agree with Seamus on the punishment if he's guilty.

CR

[Papewaio]

He will get a full public trial IFF he doesn't have any nasty secrets that might embarrass a powerful set of politicians... and surely he could have built up a small stock of minor secrets that could be embarrassing to someone... but maybe not enough to save his butt.

Otherwise it will be closed to keep national secrets.

[Spino]

He will get a full public trial IFF he doesn't have any nasty secrets that might embarrass a powerful set of politicians... and surely he could have built up a small stock of minor secrets that could be embarrassing to someone... but maybe not enough to save his butt.

Otherwise it will be closed to keep national secrets.

What, his butt or the trial?


:hide:

[seireikhaan]

I honestly agree. Waterboard and hold him without any trial. Go Roman style and throw him in a sack with a bunch of snakes and drop him in Lake Michigan.
:inquisitive: Yes, lets just execute EVERY person who ever gets ACCUSED of treason. Yeah, that'll be great. :rolleyes:

So far, he's been ACCUSED of treason. We don't hold trial, then what? I could accuse my neigbor who I don't like of treason, give the police some easily forged papers incriminating him, no trial, he's executed. Bam, done, dead.

Point is, he's not been CONVICTED of anything. If he's convicted, then by all means, go ahead and drop him in Lake Michigan or whatever, but doing so merely because of an allegation is ludicrous.

[Ice]

:inquisitive: Yes, lets just execute EVERY person who ever gets ACCUSED of treason. Yeah, that'll be great. :rolleyes:

So far, he's been ACCUSED of treason. We don't hold trial, then what? I could accuse my neigbor who I don't like of treason, give the police some easily forged papers incriminating him, no trial, he's executed. Bam, done, dead.

Point is, he's not been CONVICTED of anything. If he's convicted, then by all means, go ahead and drop him in Lake Michigan or whatever, but doing so merely because of an allegation is ludicrous.

Kamikhhan, you do the lack the ability to spot a joke?

[Tribesman]

So the main allegation is not that he sent money to Al-qaida or was fundraising for terrorists , it is that he took a job to lobby for a charity that had been getting money from the US taxpayer .
Oh and that he lied about where the money was from and what he was getting it for .
Strange indeed , so it could be said that by taking the money from the charity he was in fact stopping terrorists from getting that money which the US givernment had given them ...hey he is a patriot after all .

[ICantSpellDawg]

So the main allegation is not that he sent money to Al-qaida or was fundraising for terrorists , it is that he took a job to lobby for a charity that had been getting money from the US taxpayer .
Oh and that he lied about where the money was from and what he was getting it for .
Strange indeed , so it could be said that by taking the money from the charity he was in fact stopping terrorists from getting that money which the US givernment had given them ...hey he is a patriot after all .

I think it also said that the "charity" was laundering money for him as well.

[Proletariat]

:inquisitive: Yes, lets just execute EVERY person who ever gets ACCUSED of treason. Yeah, that'll be great. :rolleyes:



Alright, someone help me fit kami in this sack, it's quite obvious who's side he's on!

:furious3:

[Marshal Murat]

Maybe they had to throw a Congressman under the bus to prevent or stop an investigation? Maybe he was planning on doing something that threatened the establishment and they needed to silence him.

(I've just watched Syriana btw)

[seireikhaan]

Kamikhhan, you do the lack the ability to spot a joke?
That was a joke?(hint, that should answer your question)

Frankly, I hear enough people at my school with very similar lines of thought, so I'm kind of conditioned to hearing it proposed with seriousness, with exception of me and a couple others who mock the sheer idiocy of those people.

[HoreTore]

what is the connection between a right-wing Christianist congressman and Al Qaeda?

Oh, the conspiracies...

Whoah, I just got psychic!


I predict that there will be made a bunch of crappy websites containing TEH TRUTH about right-wing christians and al-qaida. With compulsory crappy pictures and bad html-coding

Oh, and of course including the jewishcommiefascistcapitalistalienmormonatheistliberals.