“Please continue to keep the pressure on Bank of America,” CAIR advised members.
CAIR officials also attached CAIR’s name to an EEOC complaint filed on behalf of Anwar. They got pledges of support from the NAACP and ACLU and sent letters to Maryland senators Mikulski and Sarbanes and Maryland representative Van Hollen urging them to contact Bank of America. They even sent “letters to ambassadors of all Muslim countries, keeping them informed”—including the ambassador of Anwar’s ancestral home of Pakistan—CAIR’s internal communications reveal.5
When Bank of America continued to balk at their demands, CAIR threatened an international boycott, suggesting it had the power to deny the bank millions of dollars in deposits and transactions worldwide.
“Bank of America enjoys the patronage of Muslim-owned business accounts throughout the United States,” it warned in a press statement. “And they also enjoy the benefits of large transactions from the Middle East, Malaysia, and other parts of the Muslim world.”
Raising the specter of possible violence against its “branches in the Muslim world,” CAIR also warned that Bank of America’s “belligerence towards our beliefs” had “angered the Muslims worldwide.”
CAIR set more deadlines for “positive action”—including “punitive damages”—from the bank. But the bank ignored them, too, and repeatedly refused to meet with representatives from CAIR.
With its anti-bank jihad now several months old, an increasingly frustrated CAIR promised its members it would hold a “big” press conference announcing a boycott if Bank of America remained silent. It gave the bank a final deadline for resolving the issue.
“If we do not hear from them within the next two weeks, we will then proceed with a big press conference calling on Muslims and concerned Americans to boycott Bank of America,” CAIR huffed, railing on about the bank’s “insensitivity” toward the Muslim community.
“YOU HAVE JUST SHOT YOURSELVES IN THE FOOT”
Around that time, the bank’s legal team bypassed CAIR and reached out to Anwar’s personal attorney, cracking the door to a possible settlement, even though she had no case. It requested CAIR not be party to negotiations, however.
When Anwar’s lawyer insisted CAIR had to be part of any deal, Bank of America’s assistant general counsel allegedly retorted, “You have just shot yourselves in the foot.”6
CAIR complained it was “utterly disgusted” with the Bank of America counsel, Mary Ulmer-Jones, and her “arrogant comments.”7
In a last-ditch attempt to ratchet up the pressure, CAIR sent one more threatening letter to CEO Lewis that warned: “We are in talks with your competitors to make arrangements to pick up the slack” from Muslims and mosques canceling accounts in a massive boycott.8 But it too had little impact.
The promised boycott fizzled and CAIR’s aggrieved client eventually left the bank. It turns out she had a reputation as an agitator. Anwar, who is of Pakistani descent, had vocally protested the War on Terror and insisted on wearing a hijab, or Islamic head scarf, at the teller window. She’d also demanded time off for Islamic holidays.
And from the start, money, not justice, appeared to be the controlling motive in the case. According to a copy of the agreement Anwar signed with CAIR, she agreed to split 50 percent of “any monetary sum recovered” from Bank of America with CAIR, a nonprofit group.9
Publicity also appeared to be an overriding interest. “Nihad [Awad] suggested we move fwd [forward] with this and this may be the big case,” CAIR officials in Maryland said in notes recorded in CAIR’s confidential case files.10
In the end Bank of America called CAIR’s blu? after the group got greedy and overplayed its hand. After a relentless months-long assault on the bank, CAIR could only rouse about four hundred Muslims to express a willingness to close their personal or business accounts with Bank of America, according to internal documents. And most of them said the exact same thing in their emails to the bank, repeating the talking points provided by CAIR in an obvious cut-and-paste letter-writing campaign.
That doesn’t mean the bank wasn’t stung by the charges. It later made some minor changes to internal policies to look more Muslim-friendly in an effort to appease groups like CAIR who flex their legal muscle.
For instance, Bank of America has blocked employee access to Web sites like Jihad Watch, while allowing employees to visit CAIR and Arab news sites. It also now provides space at its offices for Muslim employees who want to pray during work hours.11
ANOTHER PAKISTANI TARGETS BANK OF AMERICA
There’s an intriguing side note to the clash between CAIR and Charlotte-based Bank of America.
Just a few months after the dust had settled on the case, federal authorities arrested a Pakistani man videotaping buildings in downtown Charlotte where Bank of America has its tower. The suspect, Kamran Akhtar, who was in the U.S. illegally, had also filmed the bank’s building in Dallas.
Guess who rushed to his defense, accusing police of harassing him and his family? That’s right, CAIR.12
CAIR VERSUS MICHAEL SAVAGE
While CAIR touts its victories in an effort to intimidate its prey, it has suffered just as many defeats. And not all its victories are slam dunks. Some have been costly and caused the group unexpected headaches.
CAIR’s campaign to run popular conservative radio host Michael Savage off the air, for example, cost the group $160,000. Though it didn’t work, Awad says it was “worth every penny,” because he says it cost Savage at least $1 million in advertising revenue.13 CAIR highlighted some “bigoted on-air comments,” and pressured corporate sponsors to stop airing commercials on his top-rated Savage Nation show.
Still, internal memos reveal CAIR ran into a number of roadblocks in its battle to intimidate Savage’s advertisers. CAIR’s power-and-coercion game wasn’t as effective as it let on.
It launched its campaign in 2007, after Savage called the Quran “a throwback document” and “a book of hate” and demanded CAIR be thrown out of the country for promulgating it. In a series of press releases running into 2008, CAIR trumpeted its success in convincing some twenty companies to drop ad spots on Savage’s show. (Those who caved into its demands include previous targets Office Max, JC Penney, and Sears, as well as: Wal-Mart, Sprint, Nextel, US Cellular, GEICO, Union Bank of California, ITT Technical Institute, AT&T, and Intuit.)
However, CAIR and its leftwing allies had hoped to knock off more of Savage’s advertisers, reveal internal reports, which document their difficulties and frustration.
“Getting advertisers to withdraw from the Savage Nation has its challenges,” one report written early last year says. “Some companies are quick to respond and look into the matter, while others are slow or don’t even return phone calls.”14
CAIR and its confederates complained that it’s much easier to get the attention of big, national corporations than small local firms, especially franchisees.
“Going after franchises [like Jiffy Lube or Burger King] is hard,” the report notes, because “for the most part the parent company cannot tell them not to advertise on a specific show.”
Large corporations, on the other hand, are worried about their reputations and easier marks.
“Companies that should be the primary focus are big national companies like AT&T,” the report advises. “They are the ones who’s [sic] reputation is at stake the most, and don’t want to associate with anything that might seem controversial.”
However, it cautions that some large advertisers have been known to “slip through the cracks and start airing ads again.”
“If this happens, which it has, you have to start from square one.”
“THEY ARE LOYAL TO SAVAGE”
CAIR and its partners at Hate Hurts America, a nonprofit it helped form to attack Savage, complained that they got nowhere with companies whose products and services Savage personally endorses on the air. These firms refused to succumb to their boycott threats and pull their ad campaigns.
�
��Companies and products endorsed and/or promoted by Savage are an absolute no (Direct Buy, Life Lock, Swiss America),” the report conveys. “They are loyal to Savage and there is a chance they might sue.”15
As a result, Savage is still on the air and still railing against CAIR and its efforts to deny critics freedom of speech. (In fact, CAIR is not happy that he still has a microphone to “badmouth” the group.)
CAIR has had more success censoring other radio personalities.
After publishing a list of ABC Radio’s advertisers on its Web site, along with their contact information, CAIR forced the media giant to sack popular Washington DC radio personality Michael Graham for arguing that Islam promotes terrorism. Graham, to his credit, refused to bow to “CAIR’s wishes and apologize or retract the truth.”
Similarly, when syndicated radio legend Paul Harvey asserted that Islam “encourages killing,” CAIR instructed its members to blast both Harvey and his corporate sponsors like General Electric with angry calls and emails. GE caved and agreed to pull its sponsorship, prompting Harvey to issue a revised on-air statement saying Islam is a “religion of peace.” GE then restored its advertising.
CAIR also took a swipe at Dr. Laura Schlessinger, but she in contrast didn’t flinch. The self-help guru held her ground when CAIR demanded she apologize for what it called an “anti-Muslim tirade” on her national radio show.
CAIR and Hate Hurts America had planned to broaden its attacks on right-wing radio hosts before running out of money. “The campaign needs to expand beyond Michael Savage to other bigoted talk show hosts,” their report recommends.16
CAIR has turned its guns on other media personalities, including:
Mideast expert and columnist Daniel Pipes, who earlier this year was trashed by CAIR as “the nation’s leading Islamophobe”
Terror expert Steve Emerson, who CAIR recently bashed as “a notorious Islamophobe” who’s “staunchly pro-Zionist and anti-Muslim” and creates along with Pipes and a few others “the bulk of the anti-CAIR literature, which is consumed and circulated by others,” the group grumbled internally;17
David Horowitz and Joe Kaufman of FrontPageMagazine.com, who also top CAIR’s hit list—literally (“Prepare hit sheets on Horowitz, Kaufman, Frontpage mag,” CAIR official Corey Saylor recently ordered in a memo);18
Glenn Beck, formerly of CNN and now with Fox News, who gave CAIR such fits that it monitored his “bigoted” show every night for four months and prepared a PowerPoint presentation for his bosses at CNN in Atlanta as part of a campaign—the “Glenn Beck Campaign,” as it was known inside CAIR—to oust him from the network over his “inflammatory” coverage of Islam and Muslims;19
Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly—along with nationally syndicated radio hosts Michael Medved and Dennis Prager—all of whom CAIR gripes broadcast “lies and conspiracy theories” about CAIR and Islam on their “right-wing” shows;20 and
Anti-CAIR.com founder Andrew Whitehead, whom CAIR sued for libel and defamation, budgeting $50,000 to fight him in court and put his Web site out of business. Whitehead countersued and filed an extensive discovery request for internal documents. CAIR never provided the documents, and Whitehead never removed any of the anti-CAIR charges he posted on his Web site.21
NO OPPOSITION TO CAIR ALLOWED
CAIR considers all these critics “threats,” according to internal memos, and it has assembled an “oppositional research” team to monitor “blogs and anti-CAIR sites” and “put them on the defensive.” The memo suggests “framing” critics as “voices of hate” and showcasing them in a “hall of shame.”
CAIR has used even heavier-handed tactics to silence the media.
After accusing National Review of selling books defaming Muhammad, CAIR pressured the magazine into withdrawing the titles from its online bookstore by essentially blackmailing one of its biggest advertisers. CAIR’s Awad sent a letter to the head of Boeing complaining about the books and demanding Boeing stop running full-page ads in National Review until the magazine stopped selling the offending books. Awad noted that Boeing enjoyed a multi-million-dollar contract with the UAE—which happens to be one of CAIR’s top foreign backers—and he threatened to copy his letter to the UAE.
The dirty trick worked: National Review pulled the books from its Web site.
‘WE WILL HAVE A DIRECT INFLUENCE ON HOLLYWOOD’
CAIR has also trained its sights on Hollywood, and plans to have a major influence on how Muslims and Islam are portrayed in films in the future.
In the 1990s, CAIR led a nationwide protest against the movie The Siege which it complained stereotyped Muslims as terrorists. Awad credited CAIR’s campaign with causing the film to show a $20 million loss. “Maybe the film industry learned a $20 million lesson,” he sneered.
Then in 2002, with Islamic terrorism more realistic than ever, CAIR pressured writers and directors of a soon-to-be released movie about terrorism—The Sum of All Fears—to change the villains from Muslims to neo-Nazis. CAIR had launched a successful preemptive campaign to rid the film of “negative images of Muslims or Arabs.” As one columnist opined, the developers should have also changed the title of the film, calling it instead The Sum of All PC.
By 2005, CAIR was on a roll, meeting with developers of Fox TV’s hit drama 24 and warning them that the show was “going in a dangerous direction” by casting terrorists as Muslim. Fox honchos agreed to air CAIR public service announcements around 24, along with a disclaimer read by star Kiefer Sutherland stating that American Muslims reject terrorism. CAIR kept the pressure on Fox executives, and the show gradually phased out Islamic terrorists for Russian separatists and other less-plausible national threats.
According to internal strategy papers, CAIR is grooming its own stable of film makers and hopes to soon have “a direct influence on Hollywood.”22
CAIR VERSUS US AIRWAYS
By now the notorious “Flying Imams” are well known to Americans, along with their CAIR-led war against US Airways. CAIR sued the airline on behalf of six Muslim clerics who in 2006 were bounced off a flight after engaging in behavior that alarmed passengers and crew. Some feared they were testing security procedures in a dry run for a future hijacking. The imams insist they were acting innocently.
What has not been widely reported, however, is that the ringleader of the group has a connection to an eerily similar disturbance aboard another airline several years earlier. So does CAIR. And the parallels raise fresh questions about their motives.
Rewind to 1999. That year, two Muslim college students were removed from an America West flight to Washington from Phoenix after twice attempting to open the cockpit. The FBI later suspected it was a “dry run” for the 9/11 hijackings, according the 9/11 Commission Report.
At the time, however, authorities didn’t have enough suspicion to hold the students. And as soon as Hamdan al-Shalawi and Muhammed al-Qudhaieen were released, they filed racial profiling suits against America West, now part of US Airways.23
Representing them was none other than CAIR, which held a news conference to condemn “this ugly case of racial profiling” and urge Muslims to boycott America West.
“Muhammed and Hamdan had done absolutely nothing wrong,” Awad insisted. “Their crime was being Arab, speaking Arabic.”
The pair, who spoke loudly in Arabic despite being fluent in English, also switched their seats and roamed the plane from the tail section to the cockpit, while asking suspicious questions about the plane and its routes.
“Flying Imams” ringleader Omar Shahin is familiar with such shenanigans. Witnesses say he prayed loudly in Arabic before boarding his US Airways flight—which also originated from Phoenix. And once on board, he asked for a seatbelt extender even though he didn’t need one and never used the one provided him. (He and other imams reportedly left the extenders on the floor of the plane.) And he roamed the cabin and tried to switch seats with another imam.
Shahin also happens to be familiar with both of the students who
were kicked off the America West flight. In fact, he ministered to them at his former mosque in Tucson, Arizona, where they attended college on visas from Saudi Arabia. When they were arrested, he rushed to their defense along with CAIR.
Shahin has admitted to being a former supporter of Osama bin Laden while running the Saudi-backed Islamic Center of Tucson, which functioned as one of al-Qaida’s main hubs in North America.24
FBI investigators believe bin Laden operated a cell at that same mosque. Hani Hanjour, the Saudi hijacker who piloted the plane that hit the Pentagon, worshipped there along with bin Laden’s one-time personal secretary, according to the 9/11 report. Bin Laden’s former chief of logistics was president of the mosque before Shahin took over.
“These people don’t continue to come back to Arizona because they like the sunshine or they like the state,” said FBI agent Kenneth Williams. “Something was established there, and it’s been there for a long time.”
And the America West pair and their imam were right in the middle of it.
Al-Qudhaieen’s name turned up in Williams’s investigation of Islamic flight school students in the Phoenix area and he later became a material witness in the 9/11 investigation. And as it turns out, his partner Al-Shalawi -- far from being an innocent random passenger -- had contacts with al-Qaida operatives, according to the 9/11 report, and trained for attacks in Afghanistan. Both were deported back to Saudi.
Shahin, a native of Jordan, now heads the North American Imams Federation, or NAIF, a sister organization to CAIR also controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood. In fact, he was returning from a private NAIF conference in Minneapolis when he was removed from the flight. During the conference he’d met with newly elected Representative Keith Ellison who had just spoken the previous night at a CAIR event (see timeline below).
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