Every once in a while sanity prevails.
Despite pressure tactics, threats and even a $15,000 cash bribe from the Council on American-Islamic Relations to shut down a recent counter-terrorism training program for Virginia law enforcement, the training took place as scheduled, albeit with extra security.
It was one of the rare times government officials have not backed down under the group’s pressure tactics.
Washington-based CAIR, an Islamic lobbying group shunned by the FBI due to its ties to terrorist groups, launched a weeks-long campaign to intimidate Culpepper County Sheriff Scott Jenkins into canceling the three-day program, titled “Understanding and Investigating Jihadi Networks in America.”
But Jenkins was not deterred, even after agreeing to meet with CAIR officials.
The lead trainer, former special FBI agent John Guandolo, presented some 50 Virginia law enforcement officers with evidence of the radical Muslim Brotherhood’s operations in the U.S. and their jihadi support network, along with a large amount of evidence demonstrating CAIR was created and continues to be an entity of Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror group. Former U.S. prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy, former Pentagon inspector general Joseph Schmitz and former CIA case officer Clare Lopez also spoke at the seminar.
Now a counter-terrorism and homeland security consultant, Guandolo detailed for officers who attended the Feb. 25-27 seminar how this dangerous Islamic network in America radicalizes, trains and logistically supports jihadi operations in the United States and those launched from the U.S. against overseas targets.
He says CAIR, which is part of that network, was so worried about the training that it sent officials to Culpepper to lobby the sheriff to cancel the program, even offering together with a local mosque to pay for the program’s fees and related expenses.
HT: Allen West