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Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
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Friday, 18 January 2008 |
Topping my personal list of mondo bizarro stories
this week was the headline in papers all over the country, Ex-Congressman
Charged in Terror Case. The story
reveals that:
Former congressman from Michigan
Mark Siljander was indicted Wednesday (1/16) as being part of a terrorist
fundraising ring that allegedly sent more than $130,000 to an al-Qaeda and
Taliban supporter. He's accused of lying about lobbying on behalf of an Islamic
charity (The Islamic American Relief Agency or IARA) that was accused of
sending funds to terrorists...
The government accuses IARA of
sending approximately $130,000 to help Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whom the United
States has designated 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 participated
in and supported terrorist acts by al-Qaeda 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."
Nope, no mention of how the CIA gave Gulbuddin the lion's
share ($600 million out of $1 billion) of all military aid to the Afghans
fighting the Soviets in the 1980s - as you learned long ago in Gulbuddin and the CIA,
and again recently in Charlie Wilson and
Ronald Reagan's War.
In the latter, I explain how it wasn't just Charlie alone,
but a number of Congressmen who passionately supported aid to the Afghans. Among them was Mark Siljander, who served in
Congress from 1981 to 1986. I briefed
Mark many, many times, and he thoroughly understood the sort of creature Gulbuddin
was. As a result, he was constantly
berating the CIA for its Gulbuddin obsession.
Admittedly, I have had no contact with him for almost 20
years, but for Mark to be caught in a scam not just with a terrorist
fundraising ring, but the terrorist being Gulbuddin, is just off the wall.
One question to ask is:
where did the IARA get the $130,000 to send to Gulbuddin?
Turns out the Islamic charity got the money from the US
government: USAID, the US Agency for
International Development.
The IARA has been under suspicion for a long time. In 2004, it was designated by the Treasury
Department as a possible fundraiser for terrorists.
So just what is a US government agency doing giving money to
a terrorist funding group? USAID said
it was for "relief work in Africa." Oh...
According to friends of mine who still know him, Mark remains
a very devout evangelical Christian who has become dedicated to a "healing"
between Christians and Moslems. Maybe
that's naïve, but nonetheless, this indictment of him sure smells like rotten
scapegoat.
Are Feds trying to scapegoat Mark in order to cover up their
funding of terrorism? Shouldn't the
boys at USAID be at least included in the indictment?
That Gulbuddin is at the bottom of this is a giant red
flag. US government support for him is
one of the great untold slimy scandals, and the Feds are desperate to keep it
untold. The headline-grabbing
indictment of a former Congressman - your government at work protecting America
from terrorists! - seems the latest cover-up move.
Maybe Mark is guilty as charged. But much more than maybe is that's not the whole story.
Unless the Feds can solidly prove his knowing complicity,
the suspicion will grow that Mark Siljander is a Red Herring Scapegoat. The real story, the real place to focus, is
the connection between US government agencies and Gulbuddin.
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