Martial Art teacher gets 15 years for pledging to teach AQ

[Crafty_Dog]

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Apr 4, 9:14 PM EDT
Guilty Plea in New York Terror Case
By LARRY NEUMEISTER
Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) -- A martial arts expert pleaded guilty Wednesday to pledging to help al-Qaida by teaching his fighting skills, the third of four defendants and the second this week to admit guilt in the case.
The deal means Tarik Shah, who also is a jazz musician, faces 15 years in prison instead of the 30 years he could have faced if convicted at trial.

Shah, 44, pleaded guilty to conspiring from October 2003 through May 2005 to provide martial arts and hand-to-hand combat with weapons training to fighters knowing that al-Qaida was engaged in terrorism.

"I agreed with others to provide material support to al-Qaida in the form of martial arts training, which I knew was wrong," he told U.S. Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein.

A prosecutor asked Shah to say he knew that al-Qaida was a terrorist group, but Shah, after a pause of several minutes to consult with his lawyer, agreed only that he knew that the U.S. had designated al-Qaida a terrorist organization.

Prosecutors alleged Shah met May 20, 2005, with an undercover FBI agent he thought was an al-Qaida recruiter. During the meeting, he pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida and agreed to provide martial arts expertise to al-Qaida fighters, according to court documents.
Prosecutors also said Shah met multiple times with a confidential source and an FBI undercover agent, expressing a desire and intention to help al-Qaida by recruiting others.

Among materials recovered from Shah were names and telephone numbers of other people, including Seifullah Chapman, a member of what the government called a "Virginia jihad network" that prepared to join the Taliban by playing paintball near Fredericksburg, Va., in 2000 and 2001. Chapman was convicted in Virginia in 2004 and sentenced to 65 years in prison.

Shah's sentencing was set for July 10.

On Monday, Shah's co-defendant Mahmud Faruq Brent Al Mutazzim, of Gwynn Oak, Md., a Washington cab driver, pleaded guilty to providing material support to the Lashkar-e-Taiba organization, which the U.S. designated a terrorist organization in 2001.

Another co-defendant, New York bookstore owner Abdulrahman Farhane, pleaded guilty in November and is to be sentenced next week.

Dr. Rafiq Abdus Sabir of Boca Raton, Fla., is the only defendant who has not pleaded guilty. He is to go to trial April 24 on charges of agreeing to treat holy warriors in Saudi Arabia.

Sabir, educated in the Ivy League, has argued through his lawyers that it was unconstitutional to prosecute a doctor for providing medical services.

[SB_Mig]

Crafty,

Disturbing story, to say the least.

I can't remember the previous thread which addressed this issue, so I will ask the questions here...

1) Is there a barometer by which you attempt to measure a prospective/current student's intent when it comes to training?
2) Are there realistic steps which can be taken to ensure that the ofttimes lethal material being taught does not fall into the "wrong" hands?
3) Obviously, there is a ton of material available online and in other places so a certain amount of "leakage" of information is unavoidable. But how does one judge character/intention in terms of dissemination of material in a class?
4) How do we prevent the intended "unorganized militia" members from becoming possible "trainers to troublemakers"?

You mention in your Rambling Ruminations clip struggling with the concept of thievery. In the context of the article, are you concerned with the material you teach possibly falling into the wrong hands in terms of what we would consider "anti-ethical" or "anti-societal" use?

Thanks,

SB_Mig

[lewis]

We all have to be very careful about who we teach or learn from and why.  I have no doubt that some of the Silat systems that come from the Muslim Malay Archipeligo are being used by terrorist organizations.  The Silat Mubai people recently completely disbanded their organization just to try and get out of all the political crap they had gotten themselves into. 

I personally would rather that politics and martial arts never, ever mix, but due to human nature, this is impossible.  I personally believe in this country and our constitution and will never train with anyone that I think is against it.  Period. 

[Crafty_Dog]

SB Mig et al.

In the year 2000 I received a very brief email from an email address in Syria asking for knife training.  I asked who they were and they replied that they were a "Syrian kickboxing club".   I did not respond further and have always wondered who they were , , ,
I have received other inquiries which also had my spider sense tingling and have acted accordingly.

In answer to your specific questions:

1) I do gage to the best of my ability and have deflected away some people.

2) To "ensure" is not possible.  One can only do one's best.   IMHO we also need to keep in mind that there is lots of lethal info out there and that virtue does not consist of fighting it by defanging one's self.  I do believe that a society of sheeple is more likely to have problems than a society where criminals, Islamo-fascists, etc must fear the capabilities of a righteous unorganized militia.

3) One part of the answer for me is that with our Die Less Often material is that I orient the answer around defending the knife attack as is commonly done by thug culture.  Thus, unless I feel confident about who is in the room, I do not show what thug culture already does not know.  I also seek to anchor the material continuously with higher consciousness values.

You may remember a thread here on this forum where I asked about finding out about people's criminal records.  Unfortunately it seems that getting someone's records is either illegal, really expensive and/or a great pain in the ass (e.g. records are county by county).  The logic of this eludes me.  To me it seems quite sound for criminal records to be a matter of easily accessible information to one and all.

4) We can only do the best we can-- and must avoid letting the perfect become the enemy of the good.   FWIW I see my posting of this thread as an example of raising consciousness about these issues.  The more we the unorganized militia think about these things, the better I suspect we will do in making good choices.

Lewis:

What can you tell us about what has happened with the Silat Mubai people?  What news of their leader (Usatz Hussein Udom or something like that?) 

Concerning mixing martial arts and politics, at the moment my thinking is that for some arts (e.g. submission grappling) keeping them separate is possible.  Others, e.g. Kali/FMA because of their weaponry orientation, need to be careful about how they go about things.  Western civilization in general and the United States in particular are being targetted by world-wide Islamo-fascism.   In many circumstances, the skills and knowledge of our art would be ideal for the killers of Islamo-fascism and we must be vigilant.

The Adventure continues,
Crafty Dog

[lewis]

Guro Crafty,

I am not associated with the silat mubai people and do not speak for them.  I had looked at their stuff on the web because I am always looking to see what is out there.  If you go to their webpage now, you get a redirect that takes you to a new page with the following text, this is a direct cut and paste from www.mubai.cc  :

Notice to Members and Friends

Salam Alaikum / Peace Be Upon You

After much thought and deliberation, myself and the governing board of SMI have decided to terminate Silat Mubai International as an organization.

Over the past two years I mistakenly allowed myself to be dragged into political debate and with time SMI as an organization became politicized and dragged in aswell. This was a mistake. It is a mistake which has led to our Silat, Chivalry teachings, and students being backbenched while political rambling, slander, and arguing has taken the front seat.

I did not work the last 15 years of my life on this Silat to have it turned into an object of dejection and horror, rather the opposite was intended. So to keep to the original mission objectives of SMI which are to promote traditional Muslim Fighting Arts, Chivalry and Warrior Ethos, the decision has been made to destroy SMI and start fresh.

Silat Mubai as a system will remain intact but will receive a name change to Pencak Silat Sharaf. The last word "Sharaf" meaning honour in the Arabic language. This was chosen to respect those who came before us who left this great heritage for future generations to benefit from. The Silat Tarab which trained the core combatives of Silat Mubai will remain intact without change as a it was before, a quickly learned reality based self defense system.

Those persons who were enrolled in our Emir programs or any courses with us, your work will be forwarded on to the new system. The training curriculum will remain the same. We still teach one of the toughest and most functional systems of Silat on the planet. That will not change either.

For future correspondences please email us at admin@cogtactical.com and visit the new school site at www.cogtactical.com

Your hard work and dedication is much appreciated and respected.

Wasalam / Sincerely

Ustaz Hussein Udom

[Crafty_Dog]

Thank you for that. 

FWIW, although there are substantial and important areas of disagreement that I have with him, I found UHO to be an interesting guy who could handle himself very well and express himself quite lucidly in internet exchange.  Indeed I quoted him extensively in one of our threads on the Politics & Religion forum.

TAC,
CD

[Crafty_Dog]

Here's the thread that discusses how hard it is to get someone's criminal records or absence thereof:

http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=439.0