Friday, August 1, 2008

Common Law vs Radical Islam

One of the pillars of Western Civilization is our Common Law. Unfortunately, Radical Islam is exploiting this great strength of our culture in a guerilla warfare campaign to undermine our way of life. They are using the courts’ system to silence their critics with an avalanche of lawsuits. The goal is not to necessarily win the case but to cow and intimidate anyone who may speak out against their extreme agenda.

The most glaring example of this is in Britain where “Libel Tourism” has become a cottage industry. Due to the quirk in British law, libel cases that would be tossed out by any American court, are not only filed, they are often won. It is so bad in the UK that flamboyant entertainer Liberace once sued a London tabloid for “implying” he “might” be homosexual and won! A few years later, Liberace was involved in a messy “palimony” suit when he split with his longtime, live-in boy friend.

The bigger problem with the British system is a claim can be filed even if none of the parties resides in Great Britain. A perfect example is the case of Dr. Rachael Ehrenfeld, an expert on terrorism, who wrote a book titled, “Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It. In the book she made heavily supported claims that Saudi billionaire Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz had helped finance global terrorism. Even though Dr. Ehrenfeld was an American and the book was published in the United States and not distributed to the UK, Mahfouz’s lawyers were able to convince a British court to hear the case because 23 copies of the book had been purchased online in England. Refusing to recognize the authority of a foreign court to infringe on her constitutionally protected rights as an American, Dr. Ehrenfeld, to her eternal credit, refused to defend herself against the claim. A default judgment was issued against her demanding money and an apology. Neither is forthcoming. Prompted by this case and several others, the State of New York recently passed the aptly named “Libel Terrorism Protection Act” which effectively makes any judgment by the British courts unenforceable in the state.

Khalid bin Mahfouz has used the English court system over 30 times to suppress and chill any journalist or author who looked too closely into any of the dark corners of his shady past. Recently the mere threat of legal action motivated Cambridge University Press to recall all copies of “Alms for Jihad”. In an eerie reminder of the days of Nazi book burnings, Cambridge took the added step of requesting libraries around the world destroy any copies they may have on their shelves.

Mahfouz has been so successful in using the British legal system to intimidate writers and publishers he even has a webpage where he gloats about his victories over the rights of free speech.

The big question that remains unanswered is why has the U.S. Congress and the President failed to pass legislation similar to New York's to shield our journalists, authors and scholars from potential financial ruin at the hands of a Saudi billionaire with alleged direct links to global terrorism? Isn’t it the first job of our elected officials to protect our citizens and defend the United States Constitution?

Our friends at Act! for America are conducting a letter writing campaign in support for the "Free Speech Protection Act." Please join in this worthy effort.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks Foster for writing this great piece. As usual it is very true, honest, and thoughtful. What is also good about it is that you can visualise the future of the free world if we did not react from now.
I can see the relationship between Radical Islam and western democracy as a "parasitic relationship" where the parasite do not love the host but rather enjoy sucking its blood to grow until it destroys the host itself. It is a very slow and gradual process that many people may fail to even notice. In fact I can call it a "parasitic cancer" that may occasionally cause acute problems to the host such as terrorism or gradual replacement of its laws and system by intolerant Sharia laws. One of the tactics that Islamists use is to make people think that the threat of Radical Islam is only terrorism so that people do not take notice of the growing –probably more destructive threat- which is loss of our freedom.
What is also noticeable in the case you mentioned is the 'selectivity' of the British legal system. In other words, they only apply such laws to prevent defamation of Muslims but it seems that they do not have much problem with the too many books and teaching tools in Islamic Libraries that calls Jews pigs and monkeys! It will be nice if we tested the British legal system by asking their courts to also ban Islamic books that calls Jews (a whole nation) pigs and monkeys.
Finally I want to salute Dr. Ehrenfeld for her courage and honesty and fully support the Act for America letter idea.
Tawfik Hamid

Anonymous said...

I have a complete disconnect between 'Islam' and 'Radical Islam'. They are one and the same! Both are taught from the same Koran, by the same Imams in the same Mosques where revolt is sewn around the world, and both operate under the same Sharia Law. I distrust ALL Muslims everywhere, because those that could do something to stop radical islam, don't! All Muslims' hands are in the same evil cookie jar because Mohammed was a rogue!

Anonymous said...

Foster, check out this film--it deals with the case you describe here. it is short and nails it:

www.libeltouristmovie.com

Anonymous said...

This is an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal...unfortunately it is important to follow the money in this country to try and understand some of our policies... Mahfouz’s past also includes business dealings with George W. Bush, having invested $50,000 in the younger Bush’s first company, Arbusto Energy, through his U.S. representative James R. Bath, an aircraft broker and friend of Mr. Bush from their days together in the Texas Air National Guard. (Wall Street Journal (WSJ), “Vetting the Frontrunners: From Oil to Baseball to the Governor’s Mansion,” 9-28-1999)

Legal papers regarding Bath's contested divorce listed one of his assets as a $50,000 investment in Arbusto Oil -- Bush's first company. Moreover, Bath's business partner said he had no substantial money of his own at the time he made the Arbusto investment, implying that Bath received the money from someone else: "Most of Bath's investments....were really fronts for Mahfouz and other Saudis connected with the Bank of Credit and Commerce (BCCI)." (The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride Into the Secret Heart of BCCI, Random House, Beaty & Gwynne, 1993, page 229.)...

As always, many thanks for all you do to make the world a better place. Thanks also for promoting dialogue on these very pressing issues facing our country and the world. Mo