CAIR Official Compares U.S. “Military Terrorism” to Taliban

Zahra Billoo, the executive director of the San Francisco chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), tweeted that she’s more outraged at the “U.S. military terrorism” than the Taliban. She is also one of the CAIR officials who questioned whether to honor U.S. soldiers around Memorial Day. The CAIR leadership has yet to publicly repudiate remarks or fire her.

Billoo has a history of incendiary rhetoric, including supporting the terrorism of Hamas, backing the Muslim Brotherhood, advocating the elimination of Israel and pushing anti-American propaganda.

On June 10, she reacted to a terrorist attack on an airport in Karachi by the Pakistani Taliban by favorably comparing the group to the U.S. military. The tweet reads:

Another tweet argued that the U.S. is morally equivalent to the Taliban terrorists that carried out the airport attack, as if American drones deliberately target civilians by attacking weddings and funerals without cause or concern for innocents:

The U.S. military goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid civilian casualties, putting American soldiers’ lives at risk and spending extraordinary amounts of money on advanced weaponry meant to limit damage to civilian life and property. American objectives are noble. The Taliban’s atrocities are intentional and its objectives are reprehensible.

The only way someone can compare the Taliban to the U.S. military is if they are driven by anti-American sentiment.

CAIR officials consistently slander U.S. soldiers as murderers, terrorists and oppressors of Muslims. CAIR, which purports to be a “moderate” civil rights organization, keeps these officials as chapter leaders and spokespersons. While its personnel bash the U.S. military, CAIR instantly comes to the defense of Muslims that are prosecuted for criminal and terrorist activity.

Contrast Billoo’s attitude towards the U.S. military with her attitude towards the anti-American Imam Jamil al-Amin, who she refers to as a “black liberation soldier.” In another recent tweet, she expressed regret that she did not come to his defense:

As we noted in our last article about CAIR officials’ remarks about U.S. soldiers, Al-Amin was a member of the Black Panthers terrorist group and was convicted of murdering a police officer in 2000. He is also anti-American, having stated, “If America doesn’t come around, we’re gonna burn it down” and “I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.”

Al-Amin also said, “When we begin to look critically at the Constitution of the United States . . . we see that in its main essence it is diametrically opposed to what Allah has commanded.”

CAIR’s top national leadership goes to great lengths to disguise its radical roots as a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity. However, its hidden extremism often bubbles to the surface.

Counter-terrorism experts and U.S. government officials have long recognized CAIR’s hypocrisy. In a 2007 court filing during the terrorism-related prosecution of Sabri Benkahla, federal prosecutors stated:

“From its founding by Muslim Brotherhood leaders, CAIR conspired with other affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists … the conspirators agreed to use deception to conceal from the American public their connections to terrorists.”

The extremist views of CAIR officials like Billoo are incompatible with the moderate image that CAIR presents in interviews, newsletters and internet videos. If CAIR were genuinely moderate, its officials making statements like these would be sacked immediately.

Ryan Mauro is the ClarionProject.org’s National Security Analyst, a fellow with the Clarion Project and is frequently interviewed on top-tier TV stations as an expert on counterterrorism and Islamic extremism.