Is Karen Hughes Using Wacky Weed?

U. S. funding groups that the State Department says funded or collaborated with and/or have links to entities such as al-Qaida, Hamas and Hezbollah.

Why has longtime adviser and close confidant of President Bush Karen Hughes funnel millions of dollars in U.S. government grants to radical Islamist organizations, many of whose leaders have been convicted or indicted in terrorism cases in the United States? Have radical Islamists taken a page from practiced race-baters Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and filch funds under threat of calling the U. S. Islamophobic, and why should we care?

Some of the worst stinkers include, for instance:

1. Hundreds of thousands to Ahmed Younes, formerly an official with the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), a group that has “publicly challenged the designation of Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist organizations.

2. More money to Aly Abuzaakouk, the executive director of the American Muslim Council (AMC) and a former director of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIHT). IIHT “is suspected of being a pivotal cog in the radical Muslim Brotherhood’s high command in America,”

3. $340,000 since 2004 to the Palestinian American Research Center (PARC), co-chaired by Columbia University professor Rashid Khalili, who served as a spokesman for late Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat. PARC consistently blame Israel for violence in the Middle East but not once condemned Palestinian terrorism and extremism, and

4. The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), “a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organization, [which] was an unindicted co-conspirator in last year’s terrorist financing trial against the Holy Land Foundation,”

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on July 10, demanding that she instruct the State Department to cancel all outstanding grants to radical Islamist groups. During her confirmation hearings Hughes as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs she promised to stop such peculiar grants.

A number of groups that the State Department has funded or collaborated with have links to entities such as al-Qaida, Hamas and Hezbollah, all of which are designated as terrorist organizations by the United States government.

Shortly before the last week’s hearing, supporters of MPAC protested in front of the Sherman Oaks, Calif., offices of Rep. Brad Sherman, the Democratic chairman of the House International Relations Subcommittee on Terrorism and Nonproliferation where terrorism expect Steven Emerson, Executive Director of the Investigative Project on Terror (IPT) exposed these grants.

Hughes apparently believes in the time honored adage of keeping frends close and enemies closer apparently thinking money could buy moderation and change. Certainly there are many Islamic groups worthy of support to further their peaceful pursuits. But, this bunch is not among them.

The subcommittee hearings will continue and hopefully discover what, if anything taxpayers have gotten for their money, and “to make sure that the State Department is not giving U.S. tax dollars to those on the other side in the war on terrorism.”