A Word on Rooting Out Charitable Terrorists: The Road to Hell

According to sensational reports in the New York Times and the Washington Post, Saddam Hussein used Life for Relief and Development, a Detroit Based 501(c)(3), to fund the travel of two prominent Congressmen to Iraq shortly before the fiasco that has become known as the Gulf War.  Is my bias showing?  Well, I served in the Army during the first gulf war, two of my brothers also served, one was recently resident in Baghdad and flew F-18 missions over Afghanistan, so I damn well have a right.  My niece was sitting in a fuel truck in Iraq five months ago when a mortar landed close by.  She said it was a frequent occurrence.  She now suffers from PTSD.  I can’t stand the hawks and neocons who wave the flag and stomp their feet for war but never personally sacrifice (nor do their children, mothers, fathers, brothers or sisters).  But I digress and should calm down.  According to the New York Times article, the Justice Department has indicted one of the insiders of the charity for acting in violation of the Iraqi oil embargo.  I suppose its best for the independent sector that the terrorists in charitable sheep’s clothing be exposed and weeded out, lest the entire sector suffer.  So I am not so much  bothered by the authority granted in 501(p) allowing summary suspension of exempt status for groups posing as charities that actually support terrorism.  But both articles indicate that the congressmen did nothing wrong even if the allegations that Saddam funded their travel through the nonprofit is true.  If nothing was wrong with that, why mention it in the indictment.  We ought to be careful, it seems to me, about charitable racial profiling via insinuations that charities supporting middle eastern people and causes (whether Arab or Jew, frankly) are invariably up to no good. For example, the articles say that Saddam used the charities to “secretly” fund travel, though everybody knows that Saddam was openly seeking to generate U.S. opposition to the invasion.  Why use the word “secretly” except  to insinuate that this islamic charity was up to no good.  The problem with this sort of insinuation and broad brush painting is that it smacks of the sophisticated sort of repression less democratic countries engage in against NGO’s and other civil society members who work to bring unbiased scrutiny of government policies around the world.  We can’t very well condemn Russia or China or African countries for their repression of nonprofits working to bring about civil society when we do so via more sophisticated means.  IRC 501(p) and related efforts to prevent the misuse of charities are well-intentioned but then again the road to hell is paved . . .

dkj