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The trial for Hinda Osman Dhirane of Kent, Washington is underway.
Dhirane, a 44-year-old mother of 6, is charged with supporting and providing material support to a terrorist organization.
She is accused of funneling money to the al-Qaida-affiliated group al-Shabaab.
The defense of the mother being offered in the trial suggests that although she supports the terrorist group, she didn't "act" out in any "terrorist" way.
I am reminded of the speech Newt Gingrich gave Wednesday evening at the GOP Convention in which he told Americans, "We Are Sleep Walking Through History."
News Alert. Roger Ailes, the man who built Fox News and Fox Business Channel and has maintained its conservative integrity has resigned amid accusations that he sexually assaulted several women at Fox.
Meghn Kelly is one of the women who has accused him.
He denies the accusations. Bill O'Rielly, Sean Hannity, Greta Van Sustran and others have said if Ailes goes, they, too, will leave Fox. Many, in fact most of the people working at Fox---some working for Ailes for the past 20 years, say they do not believe the allegations. They say its about certain women wanting to "be" the news rather than simply reporting the news,
It is also reported that there has been a power struggle with Fox as to who should be the "face" of Fox.
This is a link to the developing story about Fox News.
Court records show Dhirane funneled small amounts of money to the terrorist group to avoid detection---as low as $50 or $100 at a time, for a total of less than $5,000.
Hinda Osman Dhirane was arrested back in July 2014 at her home in Kent, WA and is now standing trial.
Her defense attorney, Paula Deutsch, admits her client supports the jihadist group but says her client has done nothing wrong because she hasn't "acted," she has only expressed her support with "talk."
The defense says, "We make no bones about the fact she is a supporter of al-Shabaab, an al-Qaida affiliate centered in Somalia that claimed responsibility for the 2013 attack on the Westgate Mall in Kenya that killed 67 people, among other attacks. But," Deutsch said, "it's talk. It doesn't prove that she necessarily provided substantial assistance to al-Shabaab."
Dhirane is accused of not acting alone---it isn't only the $5,000 or so she gave the terrorist group--- but along with Muna Osman Jama, she has been directing an international conspiracy fundraising network composed mostly of women who provided monthly payments that were coordinated, facilitated, and tracked by the defendants to their conduits in Kenya, Somalia...etc.
The defendants would refer to the money they sent overseas as "living expenses" and they repeatedly used code words such as "orphans" and "brothers in the mountains" to refer to al-Shabaab fighters, and "camels" to refer to trucks needed by al-Shabaab.
Dhirane's defense is attempting to make the case that her "heart is right" because she and others believe they are supporting the terrorist group to "help establish peace and order and a Sharia system of law" in their country.
And there is growing public support for this.
One of the prosecutors quoted Jama as saying, "If you work with the women and pretend that you are supporting your family, can the infidels and the animals who work with them find out what is in your heart?"
We live in a time when it is very difficult to know what's in your neighbor's, or co-worker's heart. Or the heart of the person sitting beside you on a plane, train, bus or other public accommodation.
Particularly if you are uninformed.
Wednesday evening, Newt Gingrich, speaking at the GOP convention, listed the terrorist atrocities around the world over "the past 37 days" since Orlando.
He said, "We cannot let ourselves grow numb to these accumulating atrocities."
Gingrich said Trump is right, "We are at war with radical Islamists, we are losing the war, and we must change course to win the war."
Newt said although the "vast majority" of Muslims in the US, and around the world, were peaceful---and Muslims themselves were often the victims of terrorism---"the challenge is, when even a small percentage of the 1.6 billion people support violence against those who disagree with them, that is still a giant recruiting base."
He noted that Pew Polling has found that 9% of Pakistani Muslims support the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
"Unfortunately, nine percent is 16 million people," he said. "And that's just one country."
Many people said they thought his speech was the highlight of the convention so far.
However, Zack Beauchamp of Vox called the speech "fearmongering" and Salon, a far Left publication, described it as "the most nightmarish vision of the global climate delivered at any point throughout an RNC full of the most insidious right-wing lies."
Is Salon denying that terrorism exists, or merely calling on people to pretend it doesn't exist?
To sum up his thoughts, Newt said, "Which brings us to the heart of the matter. We are sleepwalking through history as though it is all about politics. It is not. It is about our safety and our survival as a country."
Some feel Newt should be the next Secretary of State. I would agree.
I also agree that too many of us in America are "sleepwalking" and it certainly is not "all about politics."
Americans must wake up to the realities of our times. We must be vigilant. And discerning.
And certainly prayerful.
It was Marcus Tullius Cicero, leader, philosopher and author in Rome who said:
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.”
Abraham Lincoln put it this way: "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
God help us.