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| CAIR membership falls 90% since 9/11 |
| 2007-06-12 |
| Membership in the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has declined more than 90 percent since the 2001 terrorist attacks, according to tax documents obtained by The Washington Times. The number of reported members spiraled down from more than 29,000 in 2000 to fewer than 1,700 in 2006. As a result, the Muslim rights group's annual income from dues dropped from $732,765 in 2000, when yearly dues cost $25, to $58,750 last year, when the group charged $35. The organization instead is relying on about two dozen donors a year to contribute the majority of the money for CAIR's budget, which reached nearly $3 million last year. Asked about the decline, Parvez Ahmed, CAIR's board chairman, pointed to the number of donors. "We are proud that our grass-roots support in the American Muslim community has allowed CAIR to grow from having eight chapters and offices in 2001 to having 33 today," Mr. Ahmed said. M. Zuhdi Jasser, director of American Islamic Forum for Democracy, says the sharp decline in membership calls into question whether the organization speaks for American Muslims, as the group has claimed. "This is the untold story in the myth that CAIR represents the American Muslim population. They only represent their membership and donors," Mr. Jasser said. "Post-9/11, they have marginalized themselves by their tired exploitation of media attention for victimization issues at the expense of representing the priorities of the American Muslim population," Mr. Jasser said. CAIR listed contributors in its Form 990 filings with the Internal Revenue Service, but the IRS redacted all the names before releasing the documents. In 2001, 26 contributors gave more than $1.6 million; in 2002, 26 gave more than $2.6 million; in 2003, 24 gave more than $2 million; in 2004, 20 gave more than $1.4 million; in 2005, 19 contributed $1.3 million. The Washington Times requested from the IRS all the 990 Forms that CAIR has filed since its inception in 1994 under the law regulating tax-exempt organizations. The first two annual forms are no longer on file pursuant to agency regulations. Tax forms for 1997 and 1998 were "unavailable" either because the group's income was less than $25,000, was filed under a parent corporation or "the return may have been requested by another department of the Internal Revenue Service," the IRS said. CAIR's papers were provided by the government agency for tax years 1996, 1999, and 2000 through 2005. Revenue from those periods totaled more than $17.7 million, while program expenses totaled $8.5 million. CAIR constantly notes in its press releases that it cooperates with federal law-enforcement activities and claims to conduct sensitivity training for Homeland Security officials. A February press release from CAIR's Chicago office says it met with Homeland Security immigration officials and made an agreement to "conduct sensitivity training to [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] officers and possibly prison personnel." Homeland Security officials deny such claims and a check of the Office of Management and Budget Watch database of government contracts since 2000 shows CAIR has never been awarded a grant or a government contract. "The department does not have a formalized relationship with that particular organization," said one Homeland Security official speaking on the condition of anonymity. "We do have formalized relations with other community groups with whom we do contracts for training and consultation on matters that are specific to a given community." "It is not uncommon for that particular organization to issue a press release attempting to overstate their interaction with the department," the official said. |
| Posted by:Nimble Spemble |
| #12 I have seen videotapes of UAE personnel landing in Taliban controlled Afghanistan, days before 9-11, for the noted hunting trips. Damn! I guess it's a good thing that Port Management deal fell through then, huh? Yep, them UAE folks is just plain misunderstood! |
| Posted by: Natural Law 2007-06-12 21:41 |
| #11 When federal investigation of CAIR begins, they'd better be sure to use membership lists from the period of peak enrollment. Who knows how many terrorist operative members were intentionally warned away from further participation after 9-11 by CAIR's own executives. CAIR is rotten to the core and must be dissected cell-by-cell before its executive staff and select members or donors are all deported from America. They are nothing but a terrorist organization. Anyone who is not a citizen that ever subscribed to CAIR should be deported. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-06-12 18:51 |
| #10 CAIR was inflating the number of US muslim numbers in the USA prior to Sept 11, I don't doubt they inflated their own numbers as a force multiplier in their dealings with politicians. I also suspect that many of the questionable folks within their numbers dropped off because they were unsure how effective the US government would be in rooting them out. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2007-06-12 12:53 |
| #9 If memory serves me correctly, both Bill Clinton and Ms Maddy Albright both serve (for a fee, I'm sure) as some kind of liaison between UAE and USA. |
| Posted by: Sherry 2007-06-12 12:02 |
| #8 1. Nuke the middle east 2. Drill for oil through green glass 3. Sell what we don't use 4. Profit to pay to replace the nukes we used. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2007-06-12 09:40 |
| #7 I have seen videotapes of UAE personnel landing in Taliban controlled Afghanistan, days before 9-11, for the noted hunting trips. The gift of 400 Toyota vehicles - it was trucks and not land cruisers - has also been confirmed. Taliban officials gave some to Al-Qaeda, of whom there are numerous videotapes of same in Toyotas. The Koran tells Muslims, "jihad is prescribed to you." Jihad is like breathing to a Muslim. Even peaceful contacts are jihad in another form. |
| Posted by: McZoid 2007-06-12 09:32 |
| #6 I've read about how big the Bund was here back in the 30's. Ever hear of Fritz Kuhn, Parvez? |
| Posted by: tu3031 2007-06-12 09:19 |
| #5 The quote in #3 is also from a FrontPage article: The CAIR-U.A.E. Connection. It is definitely worth reading: Before 9-11, the UAE sponsored hunting camps in Afghanistan attended by Osama bin Laden. In fact, according to U.S. intelligence, UAE Defense Minister Gen. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum requisitioned a C-130 cargo plane to deliver Toyota Land Cruisers, weapons and other supplies to bin Laden at one of the camps a year after the terrorist kingpin attacked U.S. embassies in Africa. Sheikh Mohammed, now the ruler of Dubai, knew bin Laden was wanted by the U.S., but provided him material support nonetheless. His Al-Maktoum Foundation, which holds telethons to support families of Palestinian suicide bombers, holds the deed to CAIR's headquarters in Washington. ... The memo also determined that Dubai officials had lied to U.S. officials about visiting the camps. And they were believed to have even tipped off bin laden about U.S. plans for additional strikes on his terror-training camps. Hunting with prized falcons is popular sport in the Middle East. The late president of the UAE, Sheik Zayed, reportedly introduced his top falcon trapper to bin Laden during a hunting trip in Afghanistan before 9-11. The trapper, Mohamed al-Qahtani, then signed on as the would-be 20th hijacker, according to recently disclosed detainee interrogation logs from Gitmo. ... U.S. intelligence officials say the secret hunting expeditions were a way for al-Qaida to safely meet with top officials of purported U.S. allies in the region, such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia. While there is no evidence to suggest they discussed the 9-11 operation as they sipped tea with bin Laden at the Afghan camps, bin Laden nonetheless chose to use Dubai as the final staging ground for the operation and the launching point from which to deploy most of his 9-11 hijackers to hit America. Two of the hijackers, in fact, were UAE citizens, and one of them -- Marwan al-Shehhi -- served under Gen. Sheikh Mohammed as a sergeant in the UAE army. Al-Shehhi was the pilot who crashed the plane into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. Dubai also served as the transit point for 9-11 cash. More than $100,000 in al-Qaida funds were funneled through Dubai banks to the hijackers. |
| Posted by: ed 2007-06-12 09:19 |
| #4 This fits with what I've read on FrontPage: twice this year Patrick Poole has written articles on CAIR's membership and how their rhetoric is light-years ahead of their numbers. I know that to some extent every organization likes to claim that it speaks for a portion of the population larger than the segment that actually subscribe to it (via memberships or donations or volunteers or whatever), but CAIR is ahead of them all. Scary, really. "CAIR By the Numbers" - http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=28394 "Numbers Don't Lie" - http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=26860 |
| Posted by: The Doctor 2007-06-12 09:11 |
| #3 The usual suspects, Saudis and other Gulf muslims. The United Arab Emirates recently announced that it has set up an endowment serving as a source of income for CAIR. The amount of the funding is undisclosed, but sources say it will be enough to help CAIR finance the construction of a new $24 million office building and a planned $50 million public-relations campaign aimed at repairing Islam's -- and the UAE's -- image in America. |
| Posted by: ed 2007-06-12 09:02 |
| #2 I'd love to see the redacted donor list. Might be interesting to see just who is funding this nest of vipers. Oh, and when is the Major Subversive Media going to stop using quotes from this splinter organization as gospel truth? |
| Posted by: DanNY 2007-06-12 08:26 |
| #1 Just like the most virulent bacteria survive antibiotics, only the jihadis are left. |
| Posted by: Spot 2007-06-12 08:07 |