Politics

Ben Carson Wants to Investigate a Major Muslim Advocacy Group for Terrorism

December 15th 2015

Republican presidential candidate and former neurosurgeon Ben Carson thinks the country's largest Muslim advocacy group should be investigated by the government over ties to terrorism.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit with branches nationwide, previously called on Carson to drop out of the race after he said that a Muslim should not be president because the tenets of Islam clash with the Constitution in September.

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But on Tuesday, Carson said the group should be investigated in a seven-point national security plan that included strategies for defeating the self-proclaimed terror group known as the Islamic State, or ISIS.

7. The Department of State should designate the Muslim Brotherhood and other organizations that propagate or support Islamic terrorism as terrorist organizations, and fully investigate the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood and a supporter of terrorism.

The proposal to investigate the group comes at a time when Muslims have been a national focal point following high-profile terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California. The indiscriminate nature of those strikes have led many, including U.S. politicians, to question international immigration policy as millions of Syrian refugees displaced by conflict and persecution at home seek refuge abroad.

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The proposal also comes ahead of a GOP debate Tuesday night which will likely place a heavy emphasis on questions of foreign policy, a subject the candidate has stumbled over in previous appearances. Carson also called for a declaration of war against ISIS.

For its part, CAIR said the proposal is reflective of Carson's slumping poll numbers.

"Ben Carson is a failing candidate grasping at straws and seeking payback for CAIR's previous criticism of his anti-Muslim bigotry and his lack of commitment to uphold the Constitution," CAIR national communications director, Ibrahim Hooper, said in a statement. "He found that Islamophobia gave him a boost in the past, so he is trying it again."

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According to the Hill, CAIR has faced critics in the past who also claimed it had ties to terrorist groups:

CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a 2007 trial of a different group that was convicted of funneling money to Hamas, a group that has been on the United States's Foreign Terorrist Organization list since 1997.

Carson has faced backlash for his comments from other prominent Muslims, too. In response to his September claims about Islamic ideology's incompatibility with the Constitution, author and NBA hall-of-famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said he was "very disappointed" by the candidate. "Religion is not supposed to be a litmus test for office here in the United States of America," he told MSNBC.

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