Politics Carter breaking the law?

Discussion in 'Free Speech Alley' started by uscvball, Aug 29, 2014.

  1. uscvball

    uscvball Founding Member

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    How does he get away with it?

    "Former President Jimmy Carter will headline a fundraising convention for Hamas, a group which has been recognized by the U.S. as a terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel....Carter, 89, long known as a supporter of Hamas in its struggle with Israel, will be welcomed this weekend to the Detroit event by members of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), implicated by the Justice Department in a scheme to funnel $12 million to Hamas. Expected to speak at the meeting at Cobo Hall are unindicted co-conspirators Jamal Badawi, named in 2007 in the Holy Land Foundation Trial, and Siraj Wahhaj, listed for his involvement in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

    Carter's involvement may be in violation of the law, U.S. Code 2339B, Section 18, which makes it a crime for any U.S. citizen to provide material support to any group designated as a foreign terrorist organization.

    Constitutional law expert Alan Dershowitz stressed that Carter's actions, in raising funds for the ISNA, place him "very close, if not across the line," of criminal behavior."
     
  2. mobius481

    mobius481 Registered Member

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    Do you have a link to that article?
     
  3. tigerchick46

    tigerchick46 Quick Learner

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    This cannot be real, please say it isn't so! If true how can any American possibly defend his actions.
     
  4. mctiger

    mctiger RIP, and thanks for the music Staff Member

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  5. Bengal B

    Bengal B Founding Member

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    Its got to be a hoax. You might expect that from Obama but I thought Carter was a real American even if he was a bad president.
     
  6. red55

    red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

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    Don't believe anything you read on the Internet. Check it out.

    Breibart is making stuff up. The ISNA is an American muslim group (not a foreign terrorist organization) and their national convention is not "a fundraising convention for Hamas". He's lying. ISNA is not affiliated with Hamas. ISNA provides various services for Muslim immigrants and Muslim communities in North America. They have survived about a half dozen Congressional investigations and were found not to be a problem.

    http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2014/08...-address-leading-u-s-muslim-group-in-detroit/

    Jimmy Carter and the Republican governor of Michigan are speakers. Carter is set to speak Saturday afternoon about the need for religious communities to tackle discrimination and violence against women and girls worldwide. That is a topic Vball usually supports.

    More Breibart lies . . .

    1. "ISNA, which claims to be America’s largest Muslim organization, as the lead conduit in a scheme to illegally pass on $12 million to Hamas, the Palestinian terror group established to annihilate the State of Israel." {He lied. Actually that was a group known as The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)}

    2. "The Justice Department officially designated ISNA as an un-indicted co-conspirator as part of its successful 2007 trial of those accused of coordinating fundraising efforts for Hamas in the United States." {He lied. The District Court, upheld by the Court of Appeals, held that the Justice Department erred by listing them as Unindicted Co-Conspirators.}

    3. Dershowitz' comments had nothing to do with this speech but with a letter Carter previously wrote in a London paper concerning lifting the Gaza blockade for humanitarian goods. Dershowitz is a virulent Israel shill who blasts Carter for exercising free speech. That is not "material support for Hamas" by any stretch of the imagination.
     
  7. uscvball

    uscvball Founding Member

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    Anything? Including your reply? Come on now, that's no fun.

    Yes and no. The facts are loosely interpreted but there is enough there to question why Carter would participate.

    "A panel discussion on Turkey set for Saturday features three speakers who favor Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, aligned with Islamist movements. Some Turkish journalists have slammed ISNA for the panel."

    Also speaking is "aaris Ahmad, Counsel for Economic Development and Real Estate for Wayne County who is president of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations....(CAIR).

    The convention exists to do what you claim but also....to raise money. Why a 5K if it isn't about fund-raising? And yes, there has been proof of their associations.

    "In 2009, a federal judge in Texas, Jorge Antonio Solis, ruled in a case involving a Muslim charity, Holy Land for Relief and Development, that "the government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of" ISNA and other groups with Hamas. The Justice Department had labeled ISNA as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case against the charity, which was linked to Hamas. The judge's ruling also cited a 1991 memo that listed ISNA as a Muslim Brotherhood organization."

    I will address your refutation below.

    I do support it. Do you think Carter will wield influence with another speaker at the conference?

    "seven talks by Yasir Qadhi, a Muslim leader from Tennessee who has said that Muslim women generally should not work outside the home, and has expressed anti-gay and anti-Shia views".

    Discrimination against women in some muslim countries is beyond Carter's scope.


    Well, no. The Case against HLF included CAIR, ISNA, and NAIT.

    It was not held as an error.
    "The Government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, ISNA and NAIT
    with HLF, the Islamic Association for Palestine (“IAP”), and with Hamas. While the Court
    recognizes that the evidence produced by the Government largely predates the HLF designation date,
    the evidence is nonetheless sufficient to show the association of these entities with HLF, IAP, and
    Hamas. See U.S. v. Ladd, 218 F.3d at 704-05 (“the Government must prove by a preponderance of
    the evidence that a conspiracy existed”). Thus, maintaining the names of the entities on the List is
    appropriate in light of the evidence proffered by the Government"

    The ruling was about naming those organizations when they were not themselves charged. The association with Hamas existed. They argued 5th amendment violations.

    As a Jew and successful attorney well established in discussing the rights of Israel, he doesn't fit the description of a shill. If Dershowitz referenced fund-raising by Carter (and I can't find any reference to suggest it was otherwise), then the letter you linked doesn't fit. However, Dershowitz was at one time, an acquaintance of Carter (since 1976) and had found him to be a man of integrity and principal. That changed in 2007 when Dershowitz realized that Carter had "received a monetary reward in the name of Shiekh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayan, and kept the money, even after Harvard returned money from the same source because of its anti-Semitic history....The Zayed Centre for Coordination and Follow-up, a think-tank funded by the Shiekh and run by his son, hosted speakers who called Jews "the enemies of all nations," attributed the assassination of John Kennedy to Israel and the Mossad and the 9/11 attacks to the United States' own military, and stated that the Holocaust was a "fable." (They also hosted a speech by Jimmy Carter.)"

    In addition, "Carter and his Center have accepted millions of dollars from suspect sources, beginning with the bail-out of the Carter family peanut business in the late 1970s by BCCI, a now-defunct and virulently anti-Israeli bank indirectly controlled by the Saudi Royal family, and among whose principal investors is Carter's friend, Sheikh Zayed. Agha Hasan Abedi, the founder of the bank, gave Carter "$500,000 to help the former president establish his center...[and] more than $10 million to Mr. Carter's different projects."

    Carter gladly accepted the money, though Abedi had called his bank, ostensibly the source of his funding, "the best way to fight the evil influence of the Zionists." BCCI isn't the only source: Saudi King Fahd contributed millions to the Carter Center "in 1993 alone...$7.6 million" as have other members of the Saudi Royal Family. Carter also received a million dollar pledge from the Saudi-based bin Laden family, as well as a personal $500,000 environmental award named for Sheikh Zayed, and paid for by the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates. It's worth noting that, despite the influx of Saudi money funding the Carter Center, and despite the Saudi Arabian government's myriad human rights abuses, the Carter Center's Human Rights program has no activity whatever in Saudi Arabia."

    Indeed, in 2007, the Carter Center's human rights activities in other countries: essentially no human rights activities in China or in North Korea, or in Iran, Iraq, the Sudan, or Syria, but activity regarding Israel and its alleged abuses, according to the Center's website.

    Those things are either true or not. As an attorney, Dershowitz wouldn't play with libel. So he's got a circumcised hard on for the peanut man and it seems Carter earned it.
     
  8. red55

    red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

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    So why wouldn't we want a voice in that panel discussion?. Do you imagine that he has the same agenda as the other speakers. He will ask pointed questions, he is not known for mincing words. Carter's mantra is engagement with the adversary. It worked in the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt who have been friendly ever since. It has worked many times in his post-presidential work to broker peace talks. How does this hurt us?

    Those were overturned. Yes, they raise money, so does the Red Cross. But they don't fund Hamas, they fund humanitarian relief in Gaza.

    An American President is always influential. Carter especially has international credibility through his continuing work as an ex-President. He actually earned his Nobel Peace Prize.

    You are dreaming. There are few politicians with Carters long-term experience and hands-on grasp of the Middle east and with discrimination of all types.

    The case was against CAIR. ISNA and NAIT had very tenuous alleged links that did not withstand scrutiny.

    Yes it was. A District Court and a Court of Appeals held that it was improper to list ISNA as an un-indicted co-conspirator.

    It was alleged, it was never proved in court. The case ended in a mistrial and CAIR has never been charged with a crime. Neither has ISNA. If this evidence exists, why hasn't the federal government prosecuted them with it?

    The point is that he is not speaking as a respected attorney here, but as a completely one-sided advocate of Israel.

    It was in the article under discussion.

    Likewise Dershowitz has received much money from Jewish Israeli interests (as well as OJ Simpson, who he defended). He is at political odds with Carter (and quite a number of other people) and slings a lot of muddy accusations.

    So what? The Carter Center is not Jimmy Carter. It is a non-profit organization with a Board of Supervisors and open books. They receive funding from many sources all over the world. About 3% comes from the Arab World. Of the donations from the Middle East, the Center states:

    "Seventy-eight percent of those funds have helped to support health programs in Africa, 14 percent have gone to the institution's endowment, 4 percent were for original construction of buildings at headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, and 4 percent for projects to directly promote peace, such as specific election observations.

    It seems like it to you perhaps. Many things can be true but not what they are insinuated to be. Carter is a public figure and the donations to the Carter Center are public records. Dershowitz cannot libel Carter by politically misrepresenting what should be obvious to everybody. Like a good lawyer, he is a hired gun for his clients, in this case Israel, and he is spinning like crazy to make Carter look bad. Yet he's only made himself look bad.
     
  9. LaSalleAve

    LaSalleAve when in doubt, mumble

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    It's from Breitbart. Next......
     
    MLUTiger and red55 like this.

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