Sunday, September 12, 2010
www.observer.com
By Mark Ames
So far, the debate over the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero has unfolded along predictable lines, with the man at the center of the project, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, drawing attacks from the right painting him as a terrorist sympathizer with ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
But meanwhile, links between the group behind the controversial mosque, the CIA and U.S. military establishment have gone unacknowledged.
For instance, one of the earliest backers of the nonprofit group, the Cordoba Initiative, that is spearheading the Ground Zero mosque, is a 52-year-old Scarsdale, New York, native named R. Leslie Deak. In addition to serving on the group's board of advisors since its founding in 2004 by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, Deak was its principal funder, donating $98,000 to the nonprofit between 2006 and 2008. This figure appears to represent organization's total operating budget—though, oddly, the group reported receipts of just a third of that total during the same time period.
Deak describes himself as a "Practicing Muslim with background in Christianity and Judaism, [with] in-depth personal and business experiences in the Middle East, living and working six months per year in Egypt." Born into a Christian home, Deak became an Orthodox Jew and married a Jewish woman before converting to Islam when he married his current wife, Moshira Soliman, with whom he now lives in Rye.
Leslie Deak's resume also notes his role as "business consultant" for Patriot Defense Group, LLC, a private defense contractor with offices in Winter Park, Florida, and in Tucson. The only names listed on the firm's website are those of its three "strategic advisers." These include retired four-star General Bryan "Doug" Brown, commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command until 2007, where he headed "all special operations forces, both active duty and reserve, leading the Global War On Terrorism," and James Pavitt, former deputy director for operations at the Central Intelligence Agency, where he "managed the CIA's globally deployed personnel and nearly half of its multi-billion dollar budget" and "served as head of America's Clandestine Service, the CIA's operational response to the attacks of September 11, 2001."
Besides Pavitt, Brown and a third advisor, banker Alexander Cappello, the Patriot Defense Group is so secretive it doesn't even name its management team, instead describing its anonymous CEO as a former Special Forces and State Department veteran, the group's managing director as a former CIA officer experienced in counter-terrorism in hostile environments and the group's corporate intelligence head as a "23-year veteran of the U.S. Secret Service who worked on the personal security details of former Presidents Bush and Clinton."
Leslie Deak and Moshira Soliman/ PanachePrive
Patriot Defense Group's primary business involves leveraging its government connections and know-how. The firm is divided into two divisions: one that "focuses exclusively on the needs of the U.S. military and law enforcement communities as well as the requirements of friendly foreign governments," and a corporate division, which "provides business intelligence and specialized security services to corporate clients and high net-worth family enterprises."
So, to recap: From 2006 to 2008, R. Leslie Deak worked as a "business consultant" to this super-secretive security contractor with ties to the CIA and counterterrorism forces, and in those same three years he also donated nearly $100,000 in seed money to the foundation now advocating the construction of the so-called Ground Zero Mosque.
Interestingly, during the same three-year period during which the Deak Family Foundation was financing the Cordoba Initiative, Deak also donated a total of $101,247 to something called the National Defense University Foundation. The National Defense University is a network of war and strategy colleges and research centers (including the National War College) funded by the Pentagon, designed to train specialists in military strategy. The organization recently announced a November 5 dinner gala in honor of Defense Secretary and former CIA chief Robert Gates. Sponsors include Northrup Grumman, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and...the Patriot Defense Group.
Deak also sits on the NDUF's board of directors, the chairman of which is Mark Treanor, the former general counsel for Wachovia bank from 1998 through its collapse in 2008 and a major bundler of campaign donations for the McCain-Palin ticket in 2008. Wachovia, now owned by Wells Fargo, was recently fined $160 million for laundering "at least $110 million" in Mexican drug money between 2003 and 2008, while Treanor was Wachovia's general counsel, though the figure is likely higher since Wachovia admitted it didn't put any controls on at least $420 billion—that's billion—in cash moved through its network of Mexico currency exchanges.
Which leads to another odd coincidence: Laundering money for drug lords is what brought down Deak & Co., the company run by Leslie Deak's father, Nicholas Deak, years ago. The elder Deak, a former top intelligence commander during World War II for the OSS (the forerunner of the CIA), was the founder of Deak-Perera, which became for a time one of the world's biggest foreign currency and gold dealers. But in 1984, a Presidential Commission on Organized Crime accused the firm of acting as a money laundering operation for Columbia drug cartels, who reportedly brought sacks of cash containing tens of millions of dollars into Deak's Manhattan offices. By the end of 1984, Deak & Co. had declared bankruptcy, and a year later, Nicholas Deak was murdered in the company's headquarters at 29 Broadway by a deranged homeless woman.
After the firm went bankrupt and Leslie Deak was left on his own, the corporation was broken up and sold off in pieces. One company that traces its beginnings to the defunct Deak empire is Goldline International, a business concern well known to fans of Glenn Beck as well as California investigators. Goldline is to Glenn Beck what General Electric was to Ronald Reagan: The company sponsors Beck's TV and radio shows as well as his touring act, and Beck is its public face. The Los Angeles County District Attorney's office, along with the Santa Monica City Attorney's office, are currently investigating Goldline for defrauding customers by railroading gullible customers into buying their most debased products.
Speaking of Glenn Beck, it has been reported that Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, the second-largest shareholder in News Corp., the parent company Fox News, which airs Beck's program, is also a major funder of Imam Rauf's projects, as Jon Stewart viewers heard all about last week.
Coincidences happen, of course. (For instance, Pamela Geller, the blogger who's become the leading voice denouncing the mosque project was once, bizarrely enough, associate publisher of The New York Observer.)
But add to this array of unexpected connections the work of Imam Rauf on behalf of the U.S. government—which includes serving as an FBI "consultant" and being recruited as a spokesperson by longtime George W. Bush confidante Karen Hughes, who headed up the administration's propaganda efforts in the Muslim world—and a compelling picture begins to emerge. Bush's favorite Imam, with backing from a funder with connections to the CIA, the Pentagon and the currency trading company that now sponsors rightwing firebrand Glenn Beck, proposes to build a mosque around the corner from the site of the most devastating terrorist attack ever visited on America. In the name of "[cultivating] understanding among all religions and cultures," he puts forth a project that offends a majority of Americans and deals a significant setback to the broader acceptance of Muslim-Americans. It's a little like Billy "White Shoes" Johnson claiming the only reason he moonwalks after scoring a touchdown is to lower tensions on the football field and raise the other team's spirits.
Whether the Cordoba Initiative ever gets its way with the Ground Zero Mosque, it may well have a lasting legacy at odds with its stated intention: By damaging the very moderates and progressives who actually view New York, and the nation as a whole, as a tolerant melting pot, and strengthening the position demagogues on both sides, it will almost certainly deal a setback to interfaith relations. It will also help to hobble the Democratic party. Which just might have been the point all along.
Either that, or it's merely a coincidence that this controversy has erupted now, during crucial mid-term elections. In which case we can all go back to what we were doing before—either denouncing the Park51 Mosque as an affront to Americans, or championing it as a symbol of our fundamental rights-playing our accustomed roles in a drama that seems too perfect, somehow, to believe.
Labels: Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, ground zero mosque
The Koran-Burning / "Ground Zero" Mosque Hullabaloo
It is being perpetrated by the corporate-media (who are owned by the globalist bankers) in order to inflame hatred of the USA towards Muslims and Muslims towards the USA.
It is one big stupid psychological operation! Don't fall for it! Don't let yourself be manipulated!
Fox News...one of the biggest pot-stirrers in this whole fiasco...is a subsidiary of News Corp.
News Corp's second largest shareholder is a major financier of the mosque project!
The corporate-media is being used to yank the chains and push the buttons of the American people to get them enraged against the Muslims.
The military-industrial complex is beating the war drum through the corporate -media to dupe the public into going along with their next war of aggression...invading Iran for the benefit of the Israeli lobby and the globalist bankers.
Don't let your emotions be manipulated...
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See the following articles and video...
Another Look At Fox News And ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ Imam’s Shared Money Man
The Saudi Prince, The Mosque And Fox News
Stewart: FOX Failed To Mention Co-Owner Is One They Accuse Of 'Terror Funding' (VIDEO)
Jon Stewart continued his coverage of the 'Ground Zero Mosque' debate last night, focusing on Fox News' incongruities harder than he ever has. In a segment called "The Parent Company Trap," Stewart shared with his viewers how Fox News' plan to "follow the money" from mosque builder Imam Rauf to terrorists will be a tricky one because it leads right back to Fox News.
Stewart showed clips from his show last week, in which he mocked Fox News for playing a dangerous game of association based on speculation, and wherein Fox continued to mention a nameless man with ties to Imam Rauf through the "Kingdom Foundation." It turns out the man they are referring to but never name is Saudi prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, one of the biggest shareholders of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
Showing a photo of the prince shaking hands with Rupet Murdoch, Stewart exclaimed, "That's right, the guy they're painting as a sinister money force OWNS Fox News." Stewart then used Fox's own logic to explain how the "terror mosque" is funded by Prince Alwaleed, despite being a co-owner of Fox News, and therefore funding terrorism. So, using their logic, Stewart said, "If we want to cut off funding to the terror mosque, we must, together as a nation, stop watching Fox."
But with this new information, one thing is now uncertain. Did Fox actually not know the name of the Kingdom Foundation leader or that he is a News Corp investor? Or did they, as Stewart said, "purposefully cover it up because it didn't help their fear-driven narrative?"
Stewart turned to John Oliver and Wyatt Cynac to figure out whether Fox is, in fact, evil or stupid?
WATCH:| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| The Parent Company Trap | ||||
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Labels: Fox News, ground zero mosque, Koran, Muslim, News Corp
Sunday, September 5, 2010
The proposed construction of an Islamic center and mosque close to ground zero in New York City has inspired intense scrutiny from news outlets this month — and few have outstripped the Fox News Channel in their interest.
That's especially true on Fox's opinion-driven shows in the morning and evening hours. Familiar figures including Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham have repeatedly asked where the money for the center will come from.
Yet the parent company of Fox News shares a financial backer with the imam who is at the center of the firestorm. The second-largest holder of voting stock in News Corp. is Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, a nephew of the Saudi king. And through his philanthropies, Waleed has given generously to initiatives pursued by the imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf.
But that connection has not been spelled out by Fox to viewers. Fox's intense coverage of the Islamic center, combined with its lack of disclosure about the corporate connection to Waleed, has sparked scorn from some media critics and from liberals — including, repeatedly, from satirist Jon Stewart.
Former ABC News correspondent Robert Zelnick, who covered the Middle East, praised Fox News' straight reporters for their stories on what he said was a legitimate issue. But he said disclosure might have been warranted.
"I think in a circumstance where an apparent — or at least arguably apparent — conflict of interest is present, the better part of valor is to simply broadcast information about the person in question," Zelnick says.
On the morning show Fox & Friends, Fox News analyst Dan Senor referred to Waleed as "the guy who tried to give Rudy Giuliani $10 million after 9/11 that was sent back" and said "he funds radical madrassas all over the world."
Senor did not refer to Waleed by name, and his characterization was true as far as it went, though some Muslims would take exception to that characterization of the madrassas. But other people characterize Waleed more generously. Among those others is Rupert Murdoch, the controlling owner of Fox News' parent company, News Corp.
In a 2005 documentary about the prince, Murdoch called Waleed "very shrewd, very analytical, yet at the same time prepared to gamble — and to go against sort of the prevailing thoughts about markets."
Murdoch added, "He's very original in his thinking."
The prince had long been Murdoch's business partner in News Corp. — but that year he arranged a share swap in which he obtained more than 30 million voting shares.
Al-Jazeera anchor Riz Khan, formerly of the BBC and CNN International, wrote that documentary and a companion biography about Waleed. Khan tells NPR that despite the criticism from Senor, Waleed is friendly to Western interests and to Murdoch's.
"Rupert Murdoch said, 'Well, the thing about the prince is, he's there for you,' " Khan recalls. " ‘When you need the help, he is there. He will try and do his best to make things work.' "
Indeed, according to the latest filings with the SEC, Waleed now holds 7 percent of the voting stock in News Corp., more than any other person not named Rupert Murdoch, and he has repeatedly voted to support Murdoch's priorities. And News Corp. has invested in Waleed's own Middle Eastern media venture, called the Rotana Media group. Khan described sitting by the billionaire prince and the media baron as they strategized about billion-dollar deals and exchanged tips about fuel efficiency on their respective jets...
Labels: Alwaleed bin Talal, Fox News, ground zero mosque, mosque, News Corp
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
RevoltOfThePlebs.wordpress.com
by Keith Johnson
Islamophobia is sweeping the nation—and it couldn’t have come at a better time. Just when the American people were starting to become distracted with trivial issues like the potential stock market crash, the re-branding of the war in Iraq, and the ongoing environmental disaster in the Gulf—along comes a crisis of Biblical proportions, that threatens to destroy the moral fiber of America itself, and deliver its Christian population into the diabolical hands of an Islamic dictatorship ruled under the precepts of Sharia law.
Oh, foolish man. What can you not be made to believe?
~Adam Weishaupt~
By now, it should be quite obvious that the hysteria centered on the proposed construction of an Islamic cultural center—a full two blocks from Ground Zero—is nothing more than an engineered distraction, designed to take the focus away from serious geopolitical and domestic issues as we head into the November elections...
[Full Article]Labels: Ground Zero, ground zero mosque, Islam, Islamophobia
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Hundreds of thousands for project's imam come from high-profile network investor
The Saudi prince whose post-9/11 relief check was rejected by former New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani has found a more willing recipient in the city for his millions: the head of the Ground Zero mosque project.
The same Saudi potentate, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, owns the biggest chunk of the parent company of the Fox News Channel outside of the Murdoch family.
Former Bush advisers have similar ties to the prince and the proposed mega-mosque in Manhattan, which may explain why they've asked Republicans to soften their opposition to it.
WND has learned that one of the original board members of the nonprofit group promoting the 13-story mosque and "cultural center" took the job as a favor to James A. Baker III, the former President George H.W. Bush official and lawyer who defended Saudi government officials against a lawsuit filed by families of 9/11 victims. Baker has counted bin Talal as a client.
Bin Talal has pumped more than $300,000 into the project headed by New York imam Feisal Abdul Rauf as part of the prince's campaign to "improve the image of Islam in the American public." The prince's charitable foundation in 2008 gave $125,000 to Rauf, which came on the heels of an earlier $180,000 gift, according to the Arab press...
[Full Article]Labels: Alwaleed bin Talal, Fox News, ground zero mosque, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf
In March 2003, federal officials were being criticized for disrespecting the rights of Arab-Americans in their efforts to crack down on domestic security threats in the post-9/11 environment. Hoping to calm the growing tempers, FBI officials in New York hosted a forum on ways to deal with Muslim and Arab-Americans without exacerbating social tensions. The bureau wanted to provide agents with "a clear picture," said Kevin Donovan, director of the FBI's New York office.
Brought in to speak that morning -- at the office building located just blocks from Ground Zero -- was one of the city's most respected Muslim voices: Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. The imam offered what was for him a familiar sermon to those in attendance. "Islamic extremism for the majority of Muslims is an oxymoron," he said. "It is a fundamental contradiction in terms."
It was, by contemporaneous news accounts, a successful lecture.
Flash forward six-and-a-half years, and Feisal Abdul Rauf occupies a far different place in the political consciousness. The imam behind a controversial proposal to build an Islamic cultural center near those same FBI offices has been called "a radical Muslim," a "militant Islamist" and, simply, the "enemy" by conservative critics. His Cordoba House project, meanwhile, has been framed as a conduit for Hamas to funnel money to domestic terrorist operations...
[Full Article]Cenk Uygur (host of The Young Turks) filling in for Ed Schultz on MSNBC talked to Sam Stein of the Huffington Post about his piece explaining how the 'Ground Zero Mosque' Imam is not only not radical, but he helped the Bush administration and FBI with counterterrorism. Link to his piece below:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08...
Labels: FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation, ground zero mosque, Huffington Post, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, provocateur, Sam Stein
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Fox News Shareholder Connection To "Ground Zero Mosque"
The opponents of the proposed Cordoba Initiative Islamic center planned for Lower Manhattan are fond of suggesting, by way of lengthy and often confusing chains of causation and association, that its principal planner, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, is connected to terrorism. "The imam has been tied to some shady characters," Fox Business Channel's Eric Bolling recently said, "so should we worry that terror dollars could be funding the project?" Blogger Pamela Geller, who has become a regular talking head on cable-news channels to denounce the mosque, has noted Rauf's involvement with a Malaysian peace group that funded the group that organized the Gaza flotilla under the headline, "Ground Zero Imam Rauf's 'Charity' Funded Genocide Mission."...
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Fox News co-owner funded ‘Ground Zero mosque’ imam: report
The second largest shareholder in News Corp. -- the parent company of Fox News -- has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to causes linked to the imam planning to build a Muslim community center and mosque near Ground Zero in Manhattan, says a report from Yahoo!News.
According to the report from Yahoo!'s John Cook, Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, who owns seven percent of News Corp., "has directly funded [Imam Feisal Abdul] Rauf's projects to the tune of more than $300,000."
Cook reports that Prince Al-Waleed's personal charity, the Kingdom Foundation, donated $305,000 to Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow, a project sponsored by two of Rauf's initiatives, the American Society for Muslim Advancement and the Cordoba Initiative, which is building the Manhattan mosque.
That Fox News' second-largest shareholder, after Rupert Murdoch, has financial links to the "Ground Zero mosque" will be seen as ironic by critics of the news network, who have watched with chagrin as the network's talking heads attempt to link the mosque to radical Islamism.
Last week, Daily Show host Jon Stewart lambasted Fox panelist Eric Bolling's attempt to link the Cordoba Initiative to Hamas and Iran. Stewart used News Corp.'s connections to Prince Al-Waleed, and the prince's connections to the Carlyle Group and Osama bin Laden to make a tongue-in-cheek argument that Fox News may be a "terrorist command center."...
[Full Article]Labels: Fox News, ground zero mosque, mosque
Saturday, August 21, 2010
RELATED: Ground Zero Mosque Imam Is Globalist Stooge
The mosque is being funded by the who’s who of the global corporate elite – not “muslims from around the world”.
Eyeblast.tv
Aug 21, 2010
Labels: ground zero mosque, mosque
CFR member receives financial backing from who’s who of global corporate elite
Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
Friday, Aug 20th, 2010
The Imam of the now infamous “ground zero mosque” is a member of the ultra elitist Council On Foreign Relations and receives financial backing from powerful globalist sources including the Rockefellers, the Carnegie Corporation and the Ford Foundation.
This information provides a compelling backdrop to the theory that the move to establish the mosque is a deliberate attempt to further stoke religious tensions and divert attention away from the real enemy of free humanity, the corporate globalist elite who continue to profit from global war and division.
The proposed mosque, to be known as Cordoba House is the project of the Cordoba Initiative, an organisation founded by ‘Imam’ Feisal Abdul Rauf (pictured above), who, in addition to being a member of the World Economic Forum’s Council of 100, is an active member of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Religious Advisory Committee.
The Cordoba Initiative’s website cites “Christian support for the Cordoba House” in the form of Christian publication, “Sojourners”, which is owned by evangelical Christian writer and political activist Jim Wallis, also coincidentally a sitting member of the CFR’s Religious Advisory Committee.
The CFR, as regular readers know, is populated exclusively by major players with the biggest corporations, banks and defence contractors in the world – all of whom are making vast profits and securing more power from continued global conflict. The CFR also exerts far reaching influence over the U.S. government.
Tony Cartalucci at landdestroyer blog breaks down the fact that every single leading player in both the neocon infested Bush administration and the “change” gang under Barrack Obama is a CFR luminary. Cartalucci also provides further stunning research relating to Cordoba House and its CFR Imam, which breaks down as follows.
Feisal Abdul Rauf also heads up the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA) which enjoys a partnership with the Cordoba Initiative and provided $100 million to secure the site close to ground zero for the mosque to be built.
That $100 million came directly from the back pockets of ASMA’s financial backers.
According to ASMA’s website they include the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers, Rockefeller Philanthropy, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund – essentially the tip of the pyramid of the international globalist elite.
This story is a perfect microcosm of the new world order agenda.
The mainstream media continues to push the mosque story hour after hour, day after day, from the perspective of both the left and the right, manufacturing a controversy that plays on a now indentured fear of Islam that has been cooked up over the last nine years via endless phony “muslim” terror plots and concocted “al qaeda” threats.
Real muslims are witnesses to a vicious backlash, stirred up and served from this corporate media cauldron, creating the impression they are under attack by non-muslims and forcing them to have to defend their religion, and the whole thing snowballs onwards.
The connections to 9/11 are clear, and also serve to enforce the mythical notion that 19 radical muslims controlled by some guys in a cave in Afghanistan were able to direct military precision attacks on America with devastating consequences.
Meanwhile behind all of this are the global elite, rubbing their hands in glee as a manufactured “clash of civilizations” unfolds and the whole of humanity lunges at each other’s throats.
Labels: ground zero mosque, mosque, Steve Watson
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