Moran Now Claims To Represent All Constituents, Yet In 2001 He Spoke Of Keeping Information Secret From "Your Cousins" In His Speech To A Muslim Group

"noted that his 'immediate reaction is to get annoyed, even angry when it is suggested that I would be biased toward any group of people ... I represent.'

There is no community, he added, 'that I have not embraced throughout my career in public service and tried to represent to the best of my ability.'"

Now the reason I say these things is not to deliberately get in trouble, even though I know in every room where I speak there is always somebody who before the sun goes down will report to your cousins exactly everything that I’ve said (laughter/applause).

How could Moran represent the group he calls "your cousins" if he tried to keep "your cousins" in the dark about what Moran was actually saying to others?.

James Moran is confused if he believes that he was at that moment representing the mysterious group "your cousins" well. James Moran could not represent any group to whom he was unwilling to communicate his positions.

Either Moran was deceiving the American Muslim Council and pretending to hold beliefs that he did not in fact hold, or else Moran was deceiving the group he calls "your cousins" by not telling them what his positions were and what he was saying about them.

A group that must rely upon what Moran calls "somebody who before the sun goes down will report to your cousins exactly everything that I’ve said" is not being represented by Jim Moran, they are being deceived by Jim Moran.

A transcript of James P. Moran, Jr.'s June 2001 speech to the American Muslim Council follows. Please note that the "Abdurahman" whose approval Moran keeps soliciting during the speech is former Moran campaign contributor and supporter Abdurahman Alamoudi, who is currently imprisoned after his arrest last year in London with a suitcase containing $360,000.

Transcript of Speech by Congressman Jim Moran At The 10th American Muslim Council (AMC) National Convention

Alexandria, Virginia

June 21- 24, 2001

This transcript was produced based upon a video of James P. Moran, Jr.'s speech to the American Muslim Coucil. The video was on display at the AMC's website for much of 2002. Jonathan S. Mark has viewed the the video and attests that this transcript is accurate.

Well, it’s been an interesting week. I don’t know how it happens that this Irish Catholic boy, I’m so Irish that some of the inbreeding worries me sometimes (laughter). One person got that, you weren’t supposed to laugh at that. Tuesday night I had dinner with the Pakistani Foreign Minster at the Pakistani Ambassador’s house, Maleeha Lod’s

house. Thursday night I had an interesting dinner sitting next to Prince Bandar with the new Egyptian Foreign Minister and the Egyptian Ambassador Nabil Fahmy. I just came from the Islamic Saudi Academy graduation. Some of you were there and have just joined us as well. But I feel that I spend more time with the Muslim community than any other communities (applause). It’s not necessarily by design, I guess I just go where my friends are, when my friends invite me but it’s so nice to be with you. I certainly have gained an appreciation of the culture, the customs, the community, the religious beliefs of the Islamic community. Not to mention the food. It’s always a struggle, every time I go have dinner at Rafat Mamud’s (sp?) house or at any of these Embassies wonderful food. I turned down the great food over at the academy though assuming I would have a similar dinner here (applause and laughter). No offense to the Hilton, but, you know, this doesn’t shape up. I miss that, you know, spicy spinach and the lamb and the chicken with the orange and yellow stuff on it and the onions, and the, much better. Now at night I probably won’t remember this food like I normally do some of the other meals that I’ve had, but this was blah. Anyway, I won’t get into it…those kinds of cultural differences.

Those don’t matter a whole lot, but I’m glad that you are making inroads into the American culture because the American culture is an amalgam. It’s not like France where you really needed to be born in France to be considered Frenchman, or the English or the Germans. I don’t want to offend the Europeans, but you know they have in most countries a sense of nationalism.

Here, you just sort of have to buy into the principles, you know, that everybody counts. That everyone is born equally with equal rights that deserve and are legally entitled to be respected. And that everyone is not only able to profess their religious beliefs, but expected to. Likewise, their culture, their ideology, their philosophy. They’re expected to contribute their crafts, their talents, their skills. When they do, that makes them an American. Doesn’t really matter where they were born, they want to come here and make this a more inclusive, richer, more diverse, tolerant society, they’re Americans. But we also have to bear in mind where we came from. And invariably where we came from was not as tolerant and inclusive, and it is our job to create an example for the rest of the world.

There’s still a lot of discrimination here, so we can’t be much of a model and example for the rest of the world until we wipe out that discrimination. (applause). Until we’re true to our principles. You know, this secret evidence stuff is not true to our principles. It’s unconstitutional. It’s un-American. It’s illegal (applause). Oppression of religious beliefs and respect for all religious customs and dress is un-American. It deprives us from understanding and appreciating other cultures. I don’t want my kids growing up thinking that there is something wrong with anyone who doesn’t look or dress or think like them. I want them to stop, and listen, and learn from other cultures.

Mr. Albazengi (sp?) are you coming in here? Let me wait til you sit down, this an old buddy here, an old friend. You’re one of the guys who got me in so much trouble because you and a handful of other people became such good friends, one thing leads to another and they uh (applause). He just came from the Islamic Saudi graduation as well, he normally is very punctual but he had things to do, and…I’m sure there, I know there were a whole lot of ambassadors there and I know they all wanted to talk to he and his wife, and, they um…

Mr. Sharon is coming to Washington this week. He’s (boos in audience) no no no no, no, no, no. (something said in background) I’ll get in trouble, I don’t want you to do that. He’s probably seeking a warrant from President Bush to kill at will with weapons we have paid for. I hope he is not given that license. I hope that calmer heads like Secretary Powell and others intervene. I don’t know what Mr. Bush’s position is or if he has one. But to the extent that he thinks the United States can or should withdraw from participation in the Middle East, he is wrong. To the extent that he thinks that we should, uh, take sides for whatever political or financial reasons he is wrong. We have got to be an honest broker. That’s where we can have the greatest influence. But we also have to have all the facts at our disposal.

There have been five commissions on human rights that have looked at what’s gone on in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I haven’t read much about the results in any of them but there but you have to search them out. One of the arguments that has been made is that Mr. Arafat is sending kids to get shot to generate sympathy. Well, they looked at that, the World-wide Commission looked at that, sponsored by the United Nations, they found that there were in fact a couple nations that have been using children for that disgraceful, heinous purpose, but it is not happening on the part of the Palestinians. In fact, most of the, many children that have been shot were actually trying to go to school when they were shot. So there’s a lot of things going on that have got to stop. And when we say that they are intolerable, that’s not taking sides, what that’s saying is that we have principles that need to be respected.

And one of those principles is truth. We have to stand first of all for truth. We have to speak truth to power. Just looking at this pamphlet on the jailing of Anwar Ibrahim, and the ridiculous accusations that were made about him. These kinds of things are not acceptable. They shouldn’t be acceptable in this world. We should speak out, as a nation, as a community, as individuals.

I was reading today a book by Theodore Herzl. He was the founder of Zionism. He wrote a book called "Der Judenstaat" I think is the German term. Most people have interpreted it "The Jewish State." That’s not, it turns out, how he wanted it interpreted. He wanted it interpreted as a state for Jews. And the reason is, this is an important distinction, he never felt that it should be a religious state or in any way an exclusive Jewish state. He said it was, it should be a state for Jews so that Jews could feel as though they were welcome there and would not discriminated against, even though they would undoubtedly always be a minority, but their minority status would be respected. He wanted a community where everyone respected each other, and learned from each other. He was a very open-minded individual, actually, and I think that state could have worked.

Subsequently, of course you had, this was back in 1895 when he wrote that, subsequently you had the Balfour declaration, where 6% of the land was owned by, uh, Jewish people and they got two thirds, oh, about two thirds of the land was given to them, about 3% of the population was Jewish about 97% Palestinian. And one thing after another has occurred with a lot of people displaced, a lot of people put in desperate situations.

And there have been revisionists. Revisionists to the original intent of the Zionist vision. There was a socialist vision. The newest vision is one that is based upon might and power. And we have contributed to their belief that might and power will succeed . I say we, I mean U.S. policy. That has to turn around. It is not might and power that in the long run will succeed, it is truth and justice (applause).

Now the reason I say these things is not to deliberately get in trouble, even though I know in every room where I speak there is always somebody who before the sun goes down will report to your cousins exactly everything that I’ve said (laughter/applause). But the reason I say this is that the U.S. can be a great and good nation. But it is what you make of it. You have to be an integral part of its political system. You have to wade in there. Stand up tall. Assert your rights. Vote. Run for office. Speak out. Be heard. Insist that you be listened to. And make it clear that the rest of America has a great deal to learn from the Muslim community (Applause).

And in the process, those who would today discriminate, who would portray Muslims in an unfavorable light because of their dress or whatever, and attempt to suggest that all Islamisists are terrorists or extremists or whatever, whatever, when they get to know you they will be embarrassed by those bigoted, ignorant views. But they need to get to know, you need to part of the community, you need to be the community.

I don’t want to preach but time is short, and this is serious stuff. People are dying. People are being oppressed. People are being jailed. And most of all, millions of kids, and in the Middle East hundreds of thousands, are growing up with nothing to look forward to, nothing to hope for, no reason to live, other than to express their hatred and frustration. That can’t continue, it is not a sustainable situation. It is critically important that every one of you be heard. Every one of you stand up for what you know America can be and thus what you know this world can be.

Now, the reason I just said that is because Abdurahman (Alamoudi) wanted me to express some views on my own. When I said no, no, no I’m not going to do that because I’m supposed to be here representing Mark Warner and if I do that I’m going to get Mark in trouble and, and, uh, I don’t want to do that because he needs to be the next Governor. So now I’m just going cut off that stream of thought and I’m going to make a political pitch, which is the reason I’m supposed to be here. But seeing people with so much, uh, political…potential…thank you (laughter). [woman in audience has suggested the word "potential"]. Perfect. No, thank you, that’s just the word I was looking for and it’s even alliterative. Political potential. Nice going. I’m going to talk to her afterwards, I’m not going to interrupt the conversation, but that’s perfect, that’s what its all about, political potential.

Now, now for the, uh, political pitch for Mark Warner because we live in the Commonwealth of Virginia, many of us, and, um, we have been disadvantaged by a previous administration that came up with this political slogan of cut the car tax; sounded nice and everybody gets two or three hundred bucks back, and those of you who don’t live here, uh, you’re lucky from that point of view, but, that you haven’t had to deal with that. But you know a lot of political slogans are successful, for the time being, but people don’t see through them. And right now we’ve seen our public schools and our universities and our health care system gutted all in the pursuit of this single-minded reduction in the car tax, not to mention our transportation system which always makes me think about the Woodrow Wilson bridge. How many of you know or care about the Woodrow Wilson Bridge? Well, it’s not the majority so that’s good. Finally, I have an audience that doesn’t want me to just go into that Woodrow Wilson Bridge thing because it’s been the bane of my existence. (laughter)

But, we need a Governor who’s not going to foist political slogans on us. Who is going to realize the full human potential in this state, and the way, the best way, that the government helps realize it is education. You know the minds of children are so absorbent. And they start to learn and they start to respect themselves and they don’t feel as though they are in any way deficient compared to their peers when they can get good schooling and good teachers. But it costs money. It doesn’t just happen. And it can’t just be done by parents. They need a good school system, and we need a public school system. I like private schools, I mean this Islamic Saudi Academy is wonderful. Oh those kids were so talented and knowledgeable and happy it was terrific. But we can’t go without a public school system. I don’t know how much the academy costs, it’s probably a fair amount of money for, to maintain it, but everyone regardless of what schooling their parents can afford is entitled to good schooling. We need good public schools. And we need to make sure that everybody’s talent is developed. And that’s why, personally, I’m a democrat. But it’s particularly why I’m supporting Mark Warner.

And I also know he’s committed to health care. An awful lot of immigrant families come into this country, they don’t have health care, and they wait until they get sick, and then they go to the emergency room and it costs a heck of a lot of money. The kids or the parents or whoever it is is already suffering. We need to be preventing suffering before it occurs. We need good maintenance of health care, we also need a patient’s bill of rights, incidentally, so that you can have your own specialist and you can, and uh, you can sue the health insurance company if they deny you the care you deserve, etc…

But, the federal government is as strong as state governments, and state governments are as strong as local governments. So, I’m making a pitch that, uh, Mark Warner is running for governor, he asked me to speak for him, that’s the purported reason I’m here tonight. Is that enough? Can I… Is that okay Abdurahman? Mr. Alamoudi wants me to, didn’t want me to get into too much politics, but that’s why I’m here, and I’m making a pitch for him.

It was nice of you to entertain my brother, incidentally. It meant a lot to my brother Brian, he told me so, and he’s, anyways, he’s a good guy. But uh. Whoever you vote for, that’s not the most important thing. Vote. Read what they stand for. Make decisions. Get involved. Get involved in both political parties. Make your influence known. And, uh, you know, when you do the power the might of this country will in fact be used in the pursuit of truth and justice. That is our ultimate objective. (applause.).

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