Book Review: Rounded Up

April 1, 2010

The Muslim Observer

Rounded Up: Artificial Terrorists and Entrapment After 9/11
By Shamshad Ahmad, PhD
Troy Book Makers: 2009. www.thetroybookmakers.com

Book Review by Karin Friedemann, MMNS

Yassin Aref, a Kurdish refugee from Iraq, was thrust into the media spotlight with claims that his name was allegedly discovered in an address book found in the pocket of a “terrorist” killed by US soldiers in Iraq. At the time, Aref was working as an imam at an Islamic center in Albany, NY. After it was exposed that the entire case against him was a fraud based on a mistranslation, the US government resorted to “secret evidence” to continue Aref’s prosecution.

“How can a trial be called fair if a defendant, or even a defendant’s attorney, cannot challenge the evidence of the accusation against him?” asks the author.

Step by step this book details the injustices suffered by Aref and the local community.

The legal atrocity starts when the FBI raided the mosque in the culmination of a sting operation. An accused felon serving as a cooperating witness hoped to avoid prosecution in return for fingering Aref and local pizzeria owner Mohammed Hossain as dangerous Islamic terrorists. Such sting operations have been part of a larger strategy on the part of the Neocon-corrupted FBI and DOJ to justify selective surveillance and prosecution of Muslim Americans. A show trial based on secret evidence ended with a guilty verdict and an extremely harsh sentence handed down in 2007.

Dr. Ahmad describes how improper prosecutorial psychological tactics, US government manipulation or miscategorization of the evidence, and judicial misconduct gave the false impression the defendant was involved with terrorism when the actual albeit false charges pertained to money laundering.

Meanwhile, many supportive community members, media journalists, and cartoonists actively demonstrated their belief in Aref’s innocence. These American patriots bridged the gap between immigrant Muslims and the local community in order to preserve the freedom of an innocent man and to save what is left of America’s political integrity.

This book is an extremely painful and frustrating journey through the perversion of US law enforcement, which smears innocent people as terrorists in order for the government to save face for its failure to catch any real terrorists in the post-9/11 era.

It is too bad that every falsely accused person doesn’t have a friend like Dr. Ahmad to tell his story step by step, point by point. It is my hope that the evidence presented in this book will help win Aref’s freedom in his ongoing legal battle.

Those interested in learning more about the life and travails of Yassin Aref may wish to also read his book “Son of Mountains,” available at http://www.yassinaref.com/.

Isn't it great to be us?

I just have to mention how glad I am that I am me. Truly it would suck if I had to be you. No offense. I just love my life so much. I love my reasons. I love my bed, I love what's in my refrigerator. I cannot deny. I love my children, I love my jeans. I love the fact that I can fit into my jeans. My size 4 jeans are even baggy on me and I had a baby only 3 1/2 months ago. So there. I rule. If you want to contradict me, take it up with my attorney. My latest baby even has my blue eyes. So sue me. If you knew me, you would not be able to help yourself but to love me. At least, that is what I have been told.

I just want to recommend to any of you reading this to love yourself as much as I love me. Nobody else can do it for you. Even if they say they do, well, love yourself more. Because other people come and go but you alone are going to be stuck with you in the final death throws (however you spell that). I assume death is worse than birth and believe me, birth totally sucks; I did it five times. The good part is I have a bunch of really cute human beings who think I'm great and wait for my kisses, yes even the 11 year old boy.

Life is good, love is good. Life with love is even better.

Anyone who was hoping for something more political, sorry. Maybe next time.

Asperger's Syndrome Wives Need Understanding

Those who stay in a relationship with an Asperger’s-afflicted mate should do everything possible to be independent socially and financially.


Asperger's Syndrome Wives Need Understanding
Karin Friedemann Salem-News.com


(BOSTON, Mass.) - Asperger's Syndrome is a neurological disorder considered as high-functioning autism. Individuals with this syndrome have difficulty with social aspects of intelligence. This manifests itself as a notable lack of "common sense."

The presence of Asperger in children is getting more attention now, but the undiagnosed adult is not yet well recognized. Because these types of brain disorders seem to be more common in men, many times wives have trouble getting the support they need.

The shortcomings of adults with Asperger’s Syndrome have been camouflaged beneath layers of coping strategies and defense mechanisms. Their behavior often gives the impression of someone perhaps a little eccentric or odd - but passable because of their high IQ or gift in an area or career, such as engineering.

Life with an AS spouse is very isolating. Since the AS person in public often appears normal, others do not understand the spouse's suffering. Spouses of people with Asperger Syndrome play an abnormally large caregiver role. Even when AS people are successful professionals, their families cannot rely on them to participate fully in family life since they typically don't do their share of chores or provide emotional support to other family members.

Although people with Asperger’s Syndrome do feel affection towards others, relationships are not a priority for them in the same way that it is for people who do not have Asperger’s Syndrome. People with Asperger’s Syndrome generally seem to be more focused on a particular interest, project or task than on the people around them.

Because the person with Asperger’s Syndrome does not have the same relational needs as the non-Asperger partner, he or she is mostly unable to recognize instinctively or to meet the emotional needs of his or her partner. Marriages can thus form seriously dysfunctional relationship patterns.

The denial, the complex and multi-layered coping mechanisms and defensive strategies make it difficult to live successfully in a relationship with someone who has Asperger’s Syndrome. Often the afflicted will deny there is a problem, since one of the disorder's main characteristics is the lack of ability to imagine someone else's point of view.

People who do not have Asperger’s Syndrome enter a marriage with the normal expectation that the priority of a marriage relationship will be about togetherness, mutual terms and meeting of needs, but in reality the relationship ends up being more one of practicality and convenience for the person with Asperger’s Syndrome than for the loving and meeting of emotional needs of the marital partner.

In many cases, the Asperger partner analyzed the partner prior to marriage and assessed them as being capable of filling a compensatory role for his own deficits. The non-Asperger partner then unwittingly fills the role of personal assistant. In the privacy of their relationship, the spouse who does not have Asperger’s Syndrome will more than likely be physically and emotionally drained, working overtime to keep life on track for both of them. Perhaps the relationship has taken on more of the characteristics of a business partnership or arrangement.

For those who had normal expectations of the mutuality of marriage, there will be a sense of betrayal and a feeling of being used and trapped. Instinctively they know that their partner needs them, but feelings develop that the relationship is about the needs and interests of the person with Asperger’s Syndrome and that there is not even room for their own voice.

Many partners feel that they are daily sacrificing their own sense of self to help fulfill the priorities of the partner who has Asperger’s Syndrome. They begin to feel that they are entirely defined by the role they fill for their Asperger partner. There’s a sense that there is no mutuality, no equality, no justice.

People married to someone with Asperger’s Syndrome continue to hope for the mutual meeting of emotional needs within the marriage and resent the reality of living on terms dictated by the needs and priorities of the partner with Asperger’s Syndrome. In effect, their flexibility is exploited by the inflexibility of the person with Asperger’s Syndrome. This prompts an extremely manipulative behavior pattern, with the neurologically typical spouse going overboard to prevent stress. Living with someone who sees only his or her own viewpoint cannot help but damage a spouse's self-esteem.

The neurotypical spouse must thoroughly evaluate all the issues before deciding if there is enough of value to make continuing the relationship worthwhile. Those who stay in a relationship with an Asperger’s-afflicted mate should do everything possible to be independent socially and financially. In most cases, the afflicted spouse will not be able to make substantial changes, so the neurotypical spouse must be able to accept that. Knowing what to expect will make the marriage more predictable and manageable, if not easier.

Scaremongering Muslim Interns, Undermining Democracy

The Fort Hood Massacre media orgy covered up the probably more politically significant story of the attack on Muslim Congressional interns and CAIR by David Gaubatz, who co-authored the Muslim Mafia with fellow Islamophobe and Hoover Media Institute fellow Paul Sperry.

Gaubatz is a long-time professional supplier of Neocon disinformation. He is the sole source of delusional right-wing claims that Saddam had WMDs and shipped them out of the country -- something that even George W. Bush does not even believe.

Representatives Sue Myrick (R-NC), John Shadegg (R-AZ), Paul Broun (R-GA), and Trent Franks (R-AZ) publicly endorsed The Muslim Mafia in a Capitol Hill press conference on Oct. 14.

The book accuses CAIR (Council for American-Islamic Relations) of espionage and subversive jihad against the USA. On the basis of The Muslim Mafia, the four Congresspersons, whose main support comes from Christian Zionists and the Israel Lobby, accused CAIR of a sinister strategic plan to place Muslim interns into Congressional offices to spy on Congress.

In reality, CAIR is a legitimate 501(c)(3) educational organization with missions of defending the right of American Muslims to practice Islam and of educating American non-Muslims about Islam in order to improve Muslim-non-Muslim relations. CAIR’s work differs little from those of other educational advocacy and lobby groups including those that are pro-Israel.

CAIR helps the US government serve the American public better by putting American Muslims on Capitol Hill so that the voice of their constituency can be heard more clearly. Even if a Muslim intern reported back to CAIR, what could CAIR possibly do? CAIR's power to direct political resources is far less than those of AIPAC.

AIPAC runs non-partisan institutes throughout American colleges and universities explicitly to recruit interns to spy on congressmen. When Zionist interns report back to AIPAC on deviation from pro-Israel orthodoxy, AIPAC springs into action either to intimidate the offender into conformity or to target him for political destruction in a poisoning of the American political process.

Because Gaubatz has long been an Israel Lobby operative, his perception of CAIR’s activities looks like a form of psychological projection of own activities, particularly in regards to his involvement with the Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE), which advocates arresting Muslims for voluntarily practicing Islam:

“Whereas, adherence to Islam as a Muslim is prima facie evidence of an act in support of the overthrow of the U.S. Government through the abrogation, destruction, or violation of the U.S. Constitution and the imposition of Shari'a on the American People...It shall be a felony punishable by 20 years in prison to knowingly act in furtherance of, or to support the, adherence to Shari’a.”

Gaubatz is the former head of SANE’s Mapping Sharia Project: “It is our task to conduct an extensive mapping of all the Islamic day schools, mosques, and other identifiable organizations in the US and to determine which ones teach or preach Islamic law, Sharia. This investigation will also map the leadership of these Muslim organizations and their other affiliations.”

Until CAIR outed his racist anti-democratic political views, SANE’s founder David Yerushalmi was a leading activist in Stop the Madrassa, an anti-Muslim organization connected with Islamic threatmonger Daniel Pipes.

Stop the Madrassa mobbed-and-smeared Debby Almontaser over a T-shirt bearing the word “Intifada” until she resigned from her position as principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy.

Gaubatz, Yerushalmi, and Pipes are busy little bees flying all over the place.

Yerushalmi is longtime board member of the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies (IASPS), which produced the Neocon Manifesto, “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” which became the blueprint Bush II’s foreign policy.

Yerushalmi’s funding network seems based in the Israel Export Development Co., Ltd., which he was instrumental in founding. Working alongside fellow board members and shareholders such as Robert Tishman, Jerry Speyer, Larry Silverstein, Lawrence Tisch, Eugene Grant and Sy Syms, Yerushalmi was appointed the company's CEO and Chairman. Silverstein famously received a $4.55 billion 9/11 payment under a double claim on his six week old World Trade Center insurance policy.

If people like Gaubatz, his friends, his Congressional supporters, and his Zionist funders have their way, not only will the ongoing political prosecutions of Muslim American leaders expand to include practically all Muslims, but the Zionist intelligentsia will also have veto power over anyone seeking to serve in the US government.

The pattern of stigmatization, marginalization, demonization, and punishment of Muslims and of anyone refusing to bow to Zionism is unmistakable. If extreme Israel advocates succeed in the stigmatization of Muslim interns, yet another category of government jobs will effectively be reserved only to Israel Lobby approved candidates in a process constituting a slow-speed coup killing American democracy and putting ultimate control of the US government into the hands of the hyper-wealthy Israel Lobby.

Karin Friedemann is a Boston-based writer on Middle East affairs and US politics. She is Director of the Division on Muslim Civil Rights and Liberties for the National Association of Muslim American Women. Joachim Martillo contributed to this article

Protecting Our Children in a World Gone Mad

When I spent a year teaching 6-8 grade students in Detroit, Michigan, I had hoped that with my high ideals, I could influence the children to become thinkers, perhaps even sway them towards a Godly life. But I found a tragic situation. American children of today are seriously brain damaged from computer games, TV, movies and pop music. They have an attention span no longer than a commercial and if something is not flashing lights and making bleeping noises they have no interest in it. They have a huge problem translating their thoughts into written words and they have a hard time sitting still. They really require - and want - adults to manage their behavior.

Concerning sex education, it was painfully clear that there was nothing I could do for these kids, except maybe an occasional isolated miracle. How do you convince a girl not to date boys when her own mother goes out on dates? You and I know that she is too young to think about such things, but the fact is, by 6th grade these kids' minds are set into the pattern created by the mass media. It made me realize that you really have to focus on protecting your kids from a very young age and arm them with knowledge.

The religious kids, if they are going to stay clean and innocent, they have to have made that choice well before 6th grade. Parents need to realize that the kids are going to learn everything about the facts of life - if not from school then from the songs playing in the supermarket - so we have to protect them. We have to tell them that they are persons of value who deserve to be respected and cherished and to enjoy happy and healthy relationships. Many children never hear these words from their parents so they seek affection and positive encouragement elsewhere. Most kids chase after boyfriends or girlfriends because the media tells them this is how you find happiness. Parents really need to walk the middle line between saying too much and not saying enough.

Young kids don't need the "details" of how babies are made but they do need to be told at a young age, for example, which parts of their body are off limits, even to family members, and the child should be made to promise to report any violations even if done in jest. Since they are giggling about boys as early as first grade, girls need to be advised well in advance that their lives will be miserable if they fall in love with boys before they are old enough to get married. They need to know the rules of clothing. They need to be instructed never to be alone in a room with a boy. Their brother should go with them if they are visiting the neighbor kids or cousins. You really can't be under-prepared.

A child needs to make an internal promise to keep chaste until marriage, if it is to be. If the kid has not gotten any good advice by age eleven, he or she may easily get lost. Whatever you tell your kids, it has to make sense within the context of the way that their peers explain the world. Although, "We don't do that because we are Muslim (or whatever religion)" goes a long way.

American children have full knowledge of how babies are made and how to prevent them, but they are very protected from knowing how babies come out. I believe that in families where the mother gives birth at home and the children are there to emotionally support her and know what women go through, these children will probably have a healthier attitude and reverence for their bodies and for life itself and will be less likely to make light-hearted decisions. Even many religious men, who were chaste until marriage, still lack the appropriate respect and reverence for the extreme sacrifice that a woman makes when she obeys her husband. A man that heard his mother's screams when he was a boy will probably be more helpful and more emotionally supportive towards his wife than if he was raised in ignorance.

The good news is that there seem to be more and more kids in high schools and colleges that choose to be chaste and who give each other moral support, and I have to assume it's because their parents talked to them about when sex is appropriate. Looking at online teen discussions it seems clear that there is a group of kids who have zero self esteem and are actively striving to crash their lives because they have no guidance other than the desire to be "cool" - while there is another group of kids who are actively striving to be responsible. When I was a kid there were no kids striving to be responsible in matters of chastity. If anyone was religiously motivated they would be treated like a mentally ill person and no one would be their friend. America is becoming better in many ways. At least, there are better choices available. As parents we have to make sure our children are aware of the choices we hope our kids will make, to balance the information they are getting from society about the choices that corporate military consumer culture hopes they make.

Karin Friedemann is a Boston-based writer on Middle East affairs and US politics. She is Director of the Division on Muslim Civil Rights and Liberties for the National Association of Muslim American Women. Joachim Martillo contributed to this article.

Whither After the Goldstone Report?

The debate over the Goldstone Report is a huge distraction from the real problem: the Report's inadequacy and the futility of bringing the case to the International Criminal Court. The Report itself, written by a Zionist Jew, is extremely flawed and biased in favor of Israel. Richard Goldstone's daughter Nicole told Israeli Army Radio (in Hebrew) that her father, as head of the UN Fact Finding Commission on the Gaza Conflict, had actually softened accusations against Israel.

Goldstone's Report creates a fictional equality of power and obligation between Hamas and the State of Israel. In addition, it incorrectly tries to fit both within the same legal framework, as Goldstone misapplies the Geneva Conventions to Hamas.

The Geneva Conventions apply to Israel because Israel is a state and a signatory while post-WW2 Nuremberg Law provides the appropriate legal framework for resistance movements like Hamas. The Nuremberg indictment of the Nationalist Socialist Government concerning German conquests and the Sudetenland, which was annexed to the Reich under international agreement, charges (International Military Tribunal, vol. 1, p. 63):

"In certain occupied territories purportedly annexed to Germany the defendants methodically and pursuant to plan endeavored to assimilate these territories politically, culturally, socially, and economically into the German Reich. They endeavored to obliterate the former national character of these territories. In pursuance of their plans, the defendants forcibly deported inhabitants who were predominantly non-German and replaced them by thousands of German colonists."

If State of Israel replaces Germany, Zionist State replaces German Reich, and Jewish replaces German, the Nuremberg accusation precisely describes Zionist goals from the start of the Zionist movement until the present day. Until Israel negotiates an agreement with the resistance, all Jewish colonists today just like German colonists back then are legitimate targets for the resistance anywhere throughout the occupied lands of Historical Palestine.

The Palestinian-Jewish conflict has existed since before I was born. The UN essentially caused the conflict and has not solved it. Current UN actions show no evidence of bringing any improvement. Albert Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get different results. Maybe we should try something else besides asking for UN help.

Furthermore, why waste time with the ICC? Even if it ruled against Israel, the ICC does not possess the power to enforce its decisions. One can only conclude that the Arabs are so traumatized by perpetual injustice that they confuse ineffective posturing with effective legal tactics.

Few Americans would ever argue that Jewish and Arab Americans should receive unequal treatment under US law. Yet the Department of Justice is unconstitutionally selectively targeting and prosecuting individuals and organizations. Jews file terror victim lawsuits against Palestinian organizations; for example a US judge ordered the PLO to pay $116 million to a Jewish American family; but no one files lawsuits on behalf of non-Jewish American citizens, who like Rachel Corrie and Suraideh Gharbieh have been victims of IDF terrorism.

In the American legal and political process, Jews seem privileged over non-Jews, thanks to efforts of the Israel Lobby, which is actively engaged in Conspiracy Against Rights (US Code Title18, 241). Yet no one in government or media discusses the situation. Obama administration Zionists want to bury the Goldstone Report because it provides specific evidence under US law that the IDF is a terrorist organization (e.g., paragraph 798):

"With regard to the shooting of Muhammad Hekmat Abu Halima and Matar Abu Halima, the Mission notes that the Israeli soldiers had ordered the tractor on which they were transporting the wounded to stop and had ordered the two cousins (aged 16 and 17) to come down. They had complied with those instructions and were standing next to the tractor, when the Israeli soldiers standing on the roof of a nearby house opened fire on them."

US anti-terrorism law is clear with regard to aiding and abetting, material aid, and conspiracy to aid terrorism. Practically all Israel advocates should be arrested forthwith, and their assets should also be seized. Such is the current US practice whenever Jewish Zionist groups or individuals accuse Arab or Muslim organizations of terrorist ties under flimsy, ridiculous or counterfactual evidence. Because Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey is clearly not applying US law to American Jews in the same way that he applies it to American Arabs and Muslims, he is preventing enforcement of US law in time of war and should face immediate charges for Seditious Conspiracy (US Code Title 18, 2384).

Criminal complaints should be filed with US law enforcement officials in order to bring charges against all Zionists violating US law or subverting the US government. If some number of Arab or Muslim American lawyers started to work on the project, US-based legal processes could start within a matter of weeks.

Karin Friedemann is a Boston-based writer on Middle East affairs and US politics. She is Director of the Division on Muslim Civil Rights and Liberties for the National Association of Muslim American Women. Joachim Martillo contributed to this article.

The Business of Lobbying in American Politics

A lot of aging leftists invite us to march in the streets. Some say, “Mass action will defeat the empire.” Will protesting stop war? Everyone who has been paying attention probably already knows that marching on Washington will not even disturb President Obama’s breakfast.

In fact, by causing havoc on the streets we actually distract the public’s attention from the real crimes taking place like AIPAC’s lobbying of Congress to bomb this or that country or like Haliburton’s pocketing of our tax money. Americans and their politicians need to understand that invading other countries hurts America. This approach is the only way to get the anti-war movement into the mainstream and away from the fringes of society.

The Israel Lobby has made sure the Zionist perspective permeates American discourse from grammar school through the highest levels of government. No child is too young for brainwashing.

An official diverging one iota gets 
his knees shot metaphorically. Holocaust Studies in the public school curriculum can start as early as Pre-K. Anyone that wants to discuss the role the Holocaust plays in US policy-making is an insane Holocaust denier. The Israel Lobby makes no distinction between national, transnational, and international politics.

Obama told AIPAC, “... the bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable today, tomorrow and 
forever.” As long as Zionist subversives dictate to Obama, patriotic Americans will not make much headway in attempting a direct effort to change US policy. Activists need to change tactics by focusing on the danger that the Israel Lobby represents to the American political system and by attacking the discourse on which the Israel Lobby stands.

The pro-Israel lobby operates on every level of American society. Holocaust propaganda serves to shield the most privileged group in America from just criticism of many of its members and of its collective conduct—especially in relation to the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people and the destruction of America’s Constitutional liberties.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was one of the main proponents of the Patriot Act, which monitors the reading history of library patrons. Zionist organisations are heavily involved with Homeland Security and they use book banning and far worse methods to squelch criticism of Israel. While there is no limit to the amount of hate speech against Muslims or Christians that is tolerated now in the western world, the mere suggestion that Muslims and Christians should have equal rights with Jews in the Holy Land, or that the Hollywood version of the Holocaust is not entirely accurate, have in recent times resulted in the deportation, imprisonment, and even assassination of the speakers, writers, or publishers, and in the banning of their books or films because of Zionist pressure on western governments to abandon the principle of freedom of expression.

How about a turn-around in rhetoric? Instead of trying to make Americans care about Arabs—too hard—we need to increase their awareness that Jewish Lobby is undermining American democracy and costing taxpayers money. Since activists can destroy a movement if they dwell upon who the good guys are (there are various opinions), we should concentrate on what we can all agree on: The Lobby needs to be stopped. That’s the only way to stop war and war taxes. The Israel Lobby is the enemy of all Americans. I would suggest a public rhetoric campaign against all Israel lobbyists suggesting prison. It should be social suicide to participate with Hillel or other pro-Israel organizations training future lobbyists.

There are plenty of ways to address this issue in town meetings, parent-teacher conferences, and other mundane ways. Causing a huge stir at a Martin Luther King school assembly or sending a mass mailing to all the high school students will create a lot more word-of-mouth grassroots pressure than a protest in DC, which doesn’t even get discussed. We are at war because we allowed our country and our minds to be taken over by Zionists and other opportunists. We refused to take responsibility for our country or for our children’s education.

Every town has a web of pro-Israel groups that work together to undermine American democracy to promote their personal interests. Pro-peace advocates need to identify the Zionist individuals who are pushing their agenda in the local school system. As soon as you start engaging in anti-Israel activism, all the Israel lobbyists will come crawling out of the woodwork to try and discredit or stop you.

Once you know who these individuals are, then you will be able to protest directly to the local leadership and law enforcement specifically about those who are personally responsible for pushing Americans to die for Israeli interests. You probably know where they live. If Americans started talking to their neighbours we could probably stop this insanity.


Karin Friedemann is a Boston-based writer on Middle East affairs and US politics. She is Director of the Division on Muslim Civil Rights and Liberties for the National Association of Muslim American Women