Talk:Spencer Abraham

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons. Controversial material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted or if there are other concerns relative to this policy, report it on the living persons biographies noticeboard.

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.	Biography Portal
Start	This article has been rated as start-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]

	Spencer Abraham is part of WikiProject Michigan, a WikiProject related to the U.S. state of Michigan.
Start	This article has been rated as start-Class on the quality scale.
High	This article has been rated as high-importance on the importance scale.

	Energy Portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Energy, which collaborates on articles related to energy.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the assessment scale. [FAQ]
???	This article has not yet received an importance rating within energy.
Help with this template Please rate this article, and then leave comments here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.

Contents 1 Missing heading 2 POV material needs correction 3 No Claim That Abraham is a Terrorist, Extensive Information Supporting Links to Islamists and Supporters of Terrorism 4 Moved section to talk page 4.1 Links to Radical Islamists 5 Removal of religion category

[edit] Missing heading

Abraham played a significant role weakening visa and immigration controls before 9-11. His efforts and those of his staff, enabled the tragedy of 9-11. Like it or not, he was an enabler of terrorism. This is not to say that he personally is a terrorist. However, he maintained ties to various Islamic extremists. See http://www.politicalusa.com/columnists/schlussel/schlussel_017.htm for some details. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.201.252.202 (talk • contribs)

[edit] POV material needs correction

obvious POV material needs correction. No facts presented that Abraham is a terrorist sponsor. Political opinion pieces are not facts. Thanks Hmains 04:16, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No Claim That Abraham is a Terrorist, Extensive Information Supporting Links to Islamists and Supporters of Terrorism

No one is claiming that Abraham planted bombs or contributed money to groups that hijack airplanes. However, Abraham did associate with Islamic radicals and in the case of Sami Al-Arian, a convicted sponsor of terrorism. His ties to Sami Al-Arian were particularly shameful because it was known for years the Sami Al-Arian was an extremist and suspected of being a sponsor of terrorism. The latter was proven this year. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.201.252.202 (talk • contribs)

[edit] Moved section to talk page

What's implied in this section is highly misleading. The "source" linking Abraham and Al-Arian states this:

Then there’s Jamal Barzinji. Abraham enlisted him to find parties who helped and reached out to Muslims after 9/11, with Abraham hosting an awards ceremony for them. Problem is, Barzinji is an officer and/or director in SAFA Trust, Mar-Jac Poultry, and International Institute for Islamic Thought, all raided by Customs in March 2002 for laundering over $1.7 billion to Al-Quaida and Islamic Jihad (through indicted University of South Florida professor and alleged Islamic Jihad frontman Sami Al-Arian).

Using this to imply a "link" between Abraham and Al-Arian is like playing the six degrees of Kevin Bacon game, except with potentially slandrous results. I could possibly be convinced that this deserves some sort of mention in the article. Maybe. Until then I'm moving the section to this talk page --Nscheffey^(T/C) 06:09, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Links to Radical Islamists

The Political USA [1] article establishes links between Abraham and Barzinji as well as Saeed. These links are documented elsewhere as well. A good quote from the "All Dulles Area Moslem Society" [2] "On Dec 1-3 ADAMS helped The Secretary of Energy(Spencer Abraham) find awardees for people or organizations that helped out and reached out to Muslims in September and October. Dr. Jamal Barzinji, Sr. Priscilla Martinez, and I helped them with their nomination process".

Abraham actually wrote a letter [3] to Agha Saeed promising that he would work to elminate the use of "secret evidence" for deporting radical Islamists from the US. Apparently, the most important "secret evidence" case was the effort to deport Mazen Al-Najjar, the brother-in-law of Sami Al-Arian. As part of his confession, Sami Al-Arian admitted that Mazen Al-Najjar was a member of Palestian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

The Political USA article demonstrates only a weak linkage between Abraham and Sami Al-Arian. However, I included Sami Al-Arian as an associate of Abraham because Sami Al-Arian's lawyer insisted that they were associated at the trial of Sami Al-Arian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.201.252.202 (talk • contribs)

[edit] Removal of religion category

I removed the category "Eastern Orthodox Christians." According to WP:BLP, categories need to be supported by relevant material in the text of the article, need to be properly sourced (are there any sources about him in English?), and in the cases of religion or sexual preference, need to be relevant to the person's notability, and the person has to have publicly acknowledged their faith. These conditions don't seem to have been met, thus the removal. If proper sourcing and additional text can be added, this category (or perhaps a slightly more specific one?) can be added back in. Notmyrealname 03:59, 29 March 2007 (UTC)