The Washington Post’s Pinnochios on Terror Training

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Holy Land Foundation = Muslim Brotherhood = Hamas. Got it?

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 A letter to the Editor of the Washington Post:

Glenn Kessler recently awarded Rep. Louis Gohmert “four Pinnochios,” asserting that that Texas Republican legislator had “invent[ed] his own facts” about the Obama administration’s ties to Islamists.  Actually, Mr. Gohmert is on solid ground with his warnings about Muslim Brotherhood influence operations inside the U.S. government that have contributed to the dumbing-down of the FBI’s and other agencies’ understanding of the threat thus posed.  Such penetration has indeed contributed, among other things, to the purging of official training materials the Brotherhood and its fellow Islamists find “offensive.”

Mr. Kessler wrote that, “We are open to altering this ruling if more evidence is provided” in support of Rep. Gohmert’s allegations.  Happily, such evidence is readily available in a free, 10-part, online video-based course posted last year by the Center for Security Policy at MuslimBrotherhoodinAmerica.com.  This course offers six examples of individuals with documented ties to the Brotherhood who have served as officials of the Obama administration or as key advisers concerning “Muslim-outreach.”

For instance, the course chronicles the role one such individual, Mohamed Elibiary, appears to have played in the elimination of training materials used by the FBI that connected the proverbial dots between the Islamic supremacist doctrine of shariah, jihad and terrorism.  It also describes the role of Mr. Elibiary and others with Islamist associations in the adoption by the administration of guidelines that effectively require future training materials and trainers in “countering violent extremism” to be vetted by “community partners.” The latter seem to be drawn exclusively from Brotherhood front groups or their surrogates, which can only make matters worse.

Finally, Mr. Kessler faults Rep. Gohmert for pointing to the Obama administration’s elimination of words like jihad, shariah and Islam from key documents.  While President Bush began this practice, it has been enshrined in the Obama presidency to the point where, for example, the 2009 National Intelligence Strategy and even the 2010 after-action report on the jihadist attack at Fort Hood make no mention of such terms.  Rep. Gohmert is right to worry that such willful blindness can only interfere with our government’s understanding of the dangers we face and its ability to protect us against them.

I hope that, on the basis of such additional evidence, Mr. Kessler will, indeed, “alter this ruling” and the serious disservice it does to one of the most knowledgeable and truthful Members of Congress, Louie Gohmert.Frank Gaffney
Center for Security Policy 

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Frank Gaffney, Jr.
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