Tag Archives: Al Qaeda

It’s ‘Crazy’ to Ignore Shariah

As the nation mourns the loss in combat of thirty of its military heroes – including 22 members of the Navy’s elite SEAL Team 6 – in Afghanistan over the weekend, the question inevitably occurs:  What are we fighting for that justifies this latest among so much sacrifice in that distant, backwards and inhospitable land?

Sen. John McCain suggested on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday that the answer, in part, is to prevent the Taliban from taking over the country again – at horrific cost to the people and, in particular, the women of Afghanistan.  That would be a more credible goal if we were not simultaneously negotiating what amounts to the surrender of the country to Taliban representatives.

A more compelling justification would be if we were fighting to prevent the success of those who, like the Taliban, adhere to the politico-military-legal doctrinethey call shariah.  According to that doctrine, the entire world – not just Afghanistan – must submit to divine dictates as recounted by Mohammed and refined, interpreted and applied for over 1400 years by Muslim rulers (caliphs), scholars, institutions and jihadists.  It is the particular mission of the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots, notably al Qaeda, to accomplish this objective and establish a new, global caliphate to rule in accordance with shariah.

Unfortunately, many in this country remain clueless about this threat.  A particularly egregious example of official willful blindness was evident in an outburst last week by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. In response to criticism that he had appointed to his state’s superior court a Muslim lawyer known for his ties to shariah-adherent terrorists and their sympathizers, Christie declaimed: "[This] shariah-law business is crap…and I’m tired of dealing with the crazies!"

As Andrew McCarthy a former federal prosecutor, National Review essayist and constituent of the Governor observed over the weekend:

As Governor Christie ought to understand, shariah concerns can’t be dismissed as ‘crap.’ They help us sort out the pro-American Muslims we want to empower from the Islamists. When we dismiss these concerns, we end up building bridges to all the wrong people, as government has done, to its repeated embarrassment, for two decades. That is how we end up ‘partnering’ with the likes of Abdurrahman Alamoudi and Sami al-Arian (both ultimately convicted, with their ties to terrorism duly exposed); Salam al-Marayati, the Muslim Public Affairs Committee leader who argued that Israel should be at the top of the 9/11 suspect list; and such Islamist organizations as the Council on American Islamic relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which, though not indicted, were shown by the Justice Department to be co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism-financing case.

Unfortunately, as Mr. McCarthy observes, Gov. Christie is not the only one who is witless about the threat from shariah and the dangers associated with "building bridges" to its adherents, whether in the New Jersey Islamic community, among the Afghan Taliban or via Muslim Brotherhood fronts like CAIR and ISNA.  Such "‘bridge building’ – code for ‘Muslim outreach,’ the law-enforcement strategy that started in the Clinton years, picked up steam in the Bush years and has become the backbone of Obama counterterrorism."

The extent to which such "outreach" has now morphed into unvarnished embrace of Muslim Brotherhood-tied entities is evident in the Obama administration’s "strategy" for "Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States" unveiled last week.  Notable for its moral equivalence – it studiously avoids specificity about the threat in favor of euphemisms such as "radicalization," "terrorism" and "violent extremism" that suggest threats from "Christian" and "right-wing" are equivalent to those from Islamists – the strategy calls for partnering with those who purport to eschew the "al Qaeda ideology."

In so doing, Team Obama is missing the same thing Chris Christie fails to comprehend:  Far from being "crazy" or the ideology of only so-called "extremists" like al Qaeda and its franchises and copycats, shariah also drives the Muslim Brotherhood.  That is true notwithstanding the fact that the Brotherhood uses non-violent – or more accurately pre-violent – means to advance shariah’s imposition.  According to its "phased plan," that will continue to be the case right up until the moment when the Brothers "seiz[e] power to establish their Islamic nation."

Consequently, what’s crazy, to use Gov. Christie’s term, are it is efforts to detect and defeat violent extremism by enlisting the very organizations that the federal government has established in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation trial in Dallas are to be Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated entities. So is the Obama administration’s bid to "bridge" differences with the Brothers’ friends in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to stop free expression in the West– if it has whenever there are "consequences," with or without actual connections,  like, conveniently, that "right-wing" extremist’s murderous rampage in Norway.  Ditto, the White House’s reported decision to entrust to a deeply MB-penetrated Department of Homeland Security exclusive responsibility for determining who and what can be used to train local law enforcement and others charged with keeping us safe.

Here’s the bottom line: America is under assault by those who see its Constitution and liberties as the ultimate impediment to the triumph of shariah worldwide.  We will needlessly lose many more of our finest in Afghanistan, elsewhere around the world and ultimately here if we fail to recognize that it is crazy to believe and behave on any other basis.

Obama’s only policy

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has explained repeatedly over the years that Israel has no Palestinian partner to negotiate with. So news reports this week that Netanyahu agreed that the 1949 armistice lines, (commonly misrepresented as the 1967 borders), will be mentioned in terms of reference for future negotiations with the Palestinian Authority seemed to come out of nowhere. 
Israel has no one to negotiate with because the Palestinians reject Israel’s right to exist. This much was made clear yet again last month when senior PA "negotiator" Nabil Sha’ath said in an interview with Arabic News Broadcast, "The story of ‘two states for two peoples’ means that there will be a Jewish people over there and a Palestinian people here. We will never accept this."
Given the Palestinians’ position it is obvious that Netanyahu is right. There is absolutely no chance whatsoever that Israel and the PA will reach any peace deal in the foreseeable future. Add to this the fact that the Hamas terror group controls Gaza and will likely win any new Palestinian elections just as it won the last elections, and the entire exercise in finding the right formula for restarting negotiations is exposed as a complete farce.
So why is Israel engaging in these discussions? 
The only logical answer is to placate US President Barack Obama. 
For the past several months, most observers have been operating under the assumption that Obama will use the US’s veto at the UN Security Council to defeat the Palestinians’ bid next month to receive UN membership as independent Palestine. But the fact of the matter is that no senior administration official has stated unequivocally, on record that the US will veto a UN Security Council resolution recommending UN membership for Palestine.
Given US congressional and public support for Israel, it is likely that at the end of the day, Obama will veto such a resolution. But the fact that the President has abstained to date from stating openly that he will veto it makes clear that Obama expects Israel to "earn" a US veto by bowing to his demands. 
These demands include abandoning Israel’s position that it must retain defensible borders in any peace deal with the Palestinians. Since defensible borders require Israel to retain control over the Jordan Valley and the Samarian hills, there is no way to accept the 1949 armistice lines as a basis for negotiations without surrendering defensible borders. 
SAY WHAT you will about Obama’s policy, at least it’s a policy. Obama uses US power and leverage against Israel in order to force Israel to bow to his will. 
What makes Obama’s Israel policy notable is not simply that it involves betraying the US’s most steadfast ally in the Middle East. After all, since taking office Obama has made a habit of betraying US allies.
Obama’s Israel policy is notable because it is a policy. Obama has a clear, consistent goal of cutting Israel down to size. Since assuming office, Obama has taken concrete steps to achieve this aim. 
And those steps have achieved results. Obama forced Netanyahu to make Palestinian statehood an Israeli policy goal. He coerced Netanyahu into temporarily abrogating Jewish property rights in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. And now he is forcing Netanyahu to pretend the 1949 armistice lines are something Israel can accept.
Obama has not adopted a similarly clear, consistent policy towards any other nation in the region. In Egypt, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Libya, and beyond, Obama has opted for attitude over policy. He has postured, preened, protested and pronounced on all the issues of the day. 
But he has not made policy. And as a consequence, for better or for worse, he has transformed the US from a regional leader into a regional follower while empowering actors whose aims are not consonant with US interests.
SYRIA IS case and point. President Bashar Assad is the Iranian mullahs’ lap dog. He is also a major sponsor of terrorism. In the decade since he succeeded his father, Assad Jr. has trained terrorists who have killed US forces in Iraq. He has provided a safe haven for al Qaeda terrorists. He has strengthened Syrian ties to Hezbollah. He has hosted Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian terror factions. He has proliferated nuclear weapons. He reputedly ordered the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.
Since March, Assad has been waging war against his fellow Syrians. By the end of this week, with his invasion of Hama, the civilian death toll will certainly top two thousand.
And how has Obama responded? He upgraded his protestations of displeasure with Assad from "unacceptable" to "appalling."
In the face of Assad’s invasion of Hama, rather than construct a policy for overthrowing this murderous US enemy, the Obama administration has constructed excuses for doing nothing. Administration officials, including Obama’s ambassador to Damascus Robert Ford, are claiming that the US has little leverage over Assad.
But this is ridiculous. Many in Congress and beyond are demanding that Obama withdraw Ford from Damascus. Some are calling for sanctions against Syria’s energy sector. These steps may or may not be effective. Openly supporting, financing and arming Assad’s political opponents would certainly be effective.
Many claim that the most powerful group opposing Assad is the Muslim Brotherhood. And there is probably some truth to that. At a minimum, the Brotherhood’s strength has been tremendously augmented in recent months by Turkey. 
Some have applauded the fact that Turkey has filled the leadership vacuum left by the Obama administration. They argue that Turkish Prime Minister Recip Erdogan can be trusted to ensure that Syria doesn’t descend into a civil war. 
What these observers fail to recognize is that Erdogan’s interests in a post-Assad Syria have little in common with US interests. Erdogan will seek to ensure the continued disenfranchisement of Syria’s Kurdish minority. And he will work towards the Islamification of Syria through the Muslim Brotherhood. 
Today there is a coalition of Syrian opposition figures that include all ethnic groups in Syria. Their representatives have been banging the doors of the corridors of power in Washington and beyond. Yet the same Western leaders who were so eager to recognize the Libyan opposition despite the presence of al Qaeda terrorists in the opposition tent have refused to publicly embrace Syrian regime opponents that seek a democratic, federal Syria that will live at peace with Israel and embrace liberal policies.
This week Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held a private meeting with these brave democrats. Why didn’t she hold a public meeting? Why hasn’t Obama welcomed them to the White House? 
By refusing to embrace liberal, multi-ethnic regime opponents, the administration is all but ensuring the success of the Turkish bid to install the Muslim Brotherhood in power if Assad is overthrown.
But then, embracing pro-Western Syrians would involve taking a stand and, in so doing, adopting a policy. And that is something the posturing president will not do. Obama is much happier pretending that empty statements from the UN Security Council amount to US "victories." 
If he aims any lower his head will hit the floor.
OBAMA’S PREFERENCE for posture over policy is nothing new. It has been his standard operating procedure throughout the region. When the Iranian people rose up against their regime in June 2009 in the Green Revolution, Obama stood on the sidelines. As is his habit, he acted as though the job of the US president is to opine rather than lead. Then he sniffed that it wasn’t nice at all that the regime was mowing down pro-democracy protesters in the streets of Teheran and beyond. 
And ever since, Obama has remained on the sidelines as the mullahs took over Lebanon, build operational bases in Latin America, sprint to the nuclear finishing line, and consolidate their power in Iraq and Afghanistan. 
On Wednesday the show trial began for longtime US ally former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and his sons. During last winter’s popular uprising in Egypt, Obama’s foes attacked him for refusing to abandon Mubarak immediately. 
The reasons for maintaining US support for Mubarak were obvious: Mubarak had been the foundation of the US alliance structure with the Sunni Arab world for three decades. He had kept the peace with Israel. And his likely successor was the Muslim Brotherhood. 
But Obama didn’t respond to his critics with a defense of a coherent policy. Because his early refusal to betray Mubarak was not a policy. It was an attitude of cool detachment. 
When Obama saw that it was becoming politically costly to maintain his attitude of detachment, he replaced it with a new one of righteous rage. And so he withdrew US support for Mubarak without ever thinking through the consequences of his actions. And now it isn’t just Mubarak and his sons humiliated in a cage. It is their legacy of alliance with America.
Recognizing that Obama refuses to adopt or implement any policies on his own, Congress has tried to fill the gap. The House Foreign Affairs Committee recently passed a budget that would make US aid to Egypt, Lebanon, Yemen and the PA contingent on certification that no terrorist or extremist organization holds governmental power in these areas. Clinton issued a rapid rebuke of the House’s budget and insisted it was unacceptable. 
And this makes sense. Making US assistance to foreign countries contingent on assurances that the money won’t fund US enemies would be a policy. And Obama doesn’t make policy – except when it comes attacking to Israel.
In an interview with the New York Times on Thursday, Muammar Qaddafi’s son Seif al-Islam Qaddafi said he and his father are negotiating a deal that would combine their forces with Islamist forces and reestablish order in the country. To a degree, the US’s inability to overthrow Qaddafi – even by supporting an opposition coalition that includes al Qaeda – is the clearest proof that Obama has substituted attitude for policy everywhere except Israel.
Acting under a UN Security Council resolution and armed with a self-righteous doctrine of "Responsibility to Protect" Obama went to war against Qaddafi five months ago. But once the hard reality of war invaded his happy visions of Lone Rangers riding in on white stallions, Obama lost interest in Libya. He kept US forces in the battle, but gave them no clear goals to achieve. And so no goals have been achieved.
Meanwhile, Qaddafi’s son feels free to meet the New York Times and mock America just by continuing to breathe in and out before the cameras as he sports a new Islamic beard and worry beads.
If nothing else, the waves of chaos, war and revolution sweeping through Arab lands make clear that the Arab conflict with Israel is but a sideshow in the Arab experience of tyranny, fanaticism, hope and betrayal. So it says a lot about Obama, that eight months after the first rebellion broke in Tunisia, his sole Middle East policy involves attacking Israel. 
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Breivik and Totalitarian Democrats

Last Friday morning, Anders Breivik burst onto the international screen when he carried out a monstrous act of terrorism against his fellow Norwegians. Breivik bombed the offices housing the Norwegian government with the intention of murdering its leaders. He then travelled to the Utoya Island and murdered scores of young people participating in a summer program sponsored by Norway’s ruling party. 
In all, last Friday Breivik murdered 76 people. Most of them were teenagers.
Although Breivik has admitted to his crimes, there are still some important questions that remain unanswered. For instance, we still do not know if he acted alone. Breivik claims that there are multiple cells of his fellow terrorists ready to attack. But so far, no one has found evidence to support his claim. We also still do not know if – for all his bravado – Breivik was acting on his own initiative or as an agent for others.
Finding the answers to these, and other questions are is a matter of the highest urgency. For if in fact Breivik is not a lone wolf, then there is considerable danger that additional, perhaps pre-planned attacks may be carried out in the near future. And given the now demonstrated inadequacy of Norway’s law enforcement arms in contending with terror attacks, the prospect of further attacks should be keeping Norwegian and other European leaders up at night.
Despite the dangers, very little of the public discourse since Breivik’s murderous assault on his countrymen has been devoted to these issues. Rather, the Norwegian and Western media have focused their discussion of Breivik’s terrorist attack on his self-justifications for it. Those self-justifications are found mainly in a 1,500 page manifesto that Breivik posted on the Internet. 
Some of the material for his manifesto was plagiarized from the manifesto written by Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, whose bombing campaign spanned two decades and killed 3 and wounded 23. Kaczynski got the New York Times and the Washington Post to publish his self-justifications in 1995 by threatening to murder more people if they refused.
Breivik’s manifesto has become the center of the international discussion of his actions largely as a result of the sources he cited. 
Kaczynski, like his fellow eco-terrorist Jason Jay Lee, who took several people hostage at the Discovery Channel in Maryland last September, was influenced by the writings of former US vice president Al Gore. A well worn copy of Gore’s book Earth in the Balance was reportedly found by federal agents when they searched Kaczynski’s cabin in Montana in 1996. Lee claimed that he was "awakened" to the need to commit terrorism to save the environment after he watched Gore’s film, "An Inconvenient Truth." 
Aside from Kaczynski, (whom he plagiarized without naming), certain parts of Breivik’s manifesto read like a source guide to leading conservative writers and bloggers in the Western world. And this is unprecedented. Never before has a terrorist cited so many conservatives to justify his positions. 
Breivik particularly noted writers who focus on critical examinations of multiculturalism and the dangers emanating from jihadists and the cause of global jihad. He also cited the work of earlier political philosophers and writers including John Stuart Mill, George Orwell, John Locke, Edmund Burke, Winston Churchill and Thomas Jefferson. 
Breivik’s citation of conservative writers, (including myself and many of my friends and colleagues in the US and Europe), has dominated the public discussion of his actions. The leftist dominated Western media – most notably the New York Times — and the left wing of the blogosphere have used his reliance on their ideological opponents’ arguments as a means of blaming the ideas propounded by conservative thinkers and the thinkers themselves for Breivik’s heinous acts of murder. 
For instance, a front page news story in the Times on Monday claimed, "The man accused of the killing spree in Norway was deeply influenced by a small group of American bloggers and writers who have warned for years about the threat from Islam." 
The reporter, Scott Shane named several popular anti-jihadist blogs that Breivik mentioned in his manifesto. Shane then quoted left-leaning terrorism expert Marc Sageman who alleged that that the writings of anti-jihad authors "are the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged."
That is, Shane quoted Sageman accusing these writers of responsibility for Breivik’s acts of murder. 
Before considering the veracity of Sageman’s claim, it is worth noting that no similar allegations were leveled by the media or their favored terror experts against Gore in the wake of Lee’s hostage taking last year, or in the aftermath of Kaczynski’s arrest in 1996. Moreover, Noam Chomsky, Michael Scheuer, Stephen Walt and John Mearshimer, whose writings were endorsed by Osama Bin Laden, have not been accused of responsibility for al Qaeda terrorism.
That is, leftist writers whose works have been admired by terrorists have not been held accountable for the acts of terrorism conducted by their readers.
Nor should they have been. And to understand why this sort of guilt-by-readership is wrong, it is worth considering what separates liberal democracies from what the great Israeli historian Jacob Talmon referred to as totalitarian democracies. Liberal democracies are founded on the notion that it is not simply acceptable for citizens to participate in debates about the issues facing their societies. It is admirable for citizens in democracies to participate in debates – even heated ones — about their government’s policies as well as their societies’ cultural and moral direction. A citizenry unengaged is a citizenry that is in danger of losing its freedom.
One of the reasons that argument and debate are the foundations of a liberal democratic order is because the more engaged citizens feel in the life of their societies, the less likely they will be to reject the rules governing their society and turn to violence to get their way. As a rule, liberal democracies reject the resort to violence as a means of winning an argument. This is why, for liberal democracies, terrorism in all forms is absolutely unacceptable.
Whether or not one agrees with the ideological self-justifications of a terrorist, as a member of a liberal democratic society, one is expected to abhor his act of terrorism. Because by resorting to violence to achieve his aims, the terrorist is acting in a manner that fundamentally undermines the liberal democratic order.
Liberal democracies are always works in progress. Their citizens do not expect for a day to come when the debaters fall silent because everyone agrees with one another as all are convinced of the rightness of one side. This is because liberal democracies are not founded on messianic aspirations to create a perfect society. 
In contrast, totalitarian democracies – and totalitarian democrats — do have a messianic temperament and a utopian mission to create a perfect society. And so its members do have hopes of ending debate and argument once and for all. 
As Talmon explained in his 1952 classic, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy, the totalitarian democratic model was envisioned by Jean Jacques Rousseau the philosophical godfather of the French Revolution. Rousseau believed that a group of anointed leaders could push a society towards perfection by essentially coercing the people to accept their view of right and wrong. Talmon drew a direct line between Rousseau and the totalitarian movements of the twentieth century – Nazism, fascism and communism. 
Today, those who seek to silence conservative thinkers by making a criminal connection between our writings and the acts of a terrorist are doing so in pursuit of patently illiberal ends to say the least. If they can convince the public that our ideas cause the mass murder of children, then our voices will be silenced. 
Another aspect of the same anti-liberal behavior is the tendency by many to pick and choose which sorts of terrorism are acceptable and which are unacceptable in accordance with the ideological justifications the terrorists give for their actions. The most recent notable example of this behavior is an interview that Norwegian Ambassador Svein Sevje gave to Maariv on Tuesday. Maariv asked Sevje whether in the wake of Breivik’s terrorist attack Norwegians would be more sympathetic to the victimization of innocent Israelis by Palestinian terrorists.
Sevje said no, and explained, "We Norwegians view the occupation as the reason for terror against Israel. Many Norwegians still see the occupation as the reason for attacks against Israel. Whoever thinks this way, will not change his mind as a result of the attack in Oslo."
So in the mind of the illiberal Norwegians, terrorism is justified if the ideology behind it is considered justified. For them it is unacceptable for Breivik to murder Norwegian children because his ideology is wrong. But it is acceptable for Palestinians to murder Israeli children because their ideology is right. 
As much as statements by Sevje, (or Gore, Walt, Mearshimer, Scheuer or Chomsky), may anger their ideological adversaries, no self-respecting liberal democratic thinker would accuse their political philosophies of inspiring terrorism. 
There is only one point at which political philosophy merges into terrorism. That point is when political thinkers call on their followers to carry out acts of terrorism in the name of their political philosophy and they make this call with the reasonable expectation that their followers will fulfill their wishes. Political thinkers who fit this description include the likes of Muslim Brotherhood "spiritual" leader Yousef Qaradawi, Osama Bin Laden, Hamas founder Sheikh Yassin, al Qaeda in Yemen leader Anwar Awlaki and other jihadist leaders.
These leaders are dangerous because they operate outside of the boundaries of democratic polemics. They do not care whether the wider public agrees with their views. Like Mao — who murdered 70 million people — they believe that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun not out of rational discourse.  
Revealingly, many not particularly liberal Western democracies have granted these terrorist philosophers visas, and embraced them as legitimate thinkers. The hero’s welcome Qaradawi enjoyed during his 2005 visit to Britain by then London mayor Ken Livingstone is a particularly vivid example of this practice. The illiberal trajectory British politics has veered onto was similarly demonstrated by the government’s 2009 refusal to grant a visa to Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders. Wilders has been demonized as an enemy of freedom for his criticism of Islamic totalitarianism.
The Left’s attempts to link conservative writers, politicians and philosophers with Breivik are nothing new. The same thing happened in 1995, when the Left tried to blame rabbis and politicians for the sociopathic Yigal Amir’s assassination of then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. The same thing happened in the US last summer with the Left’s insistent attempts to link the psychotic Jared Loughner who shot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her constituents, with Governor Sarah Palin and the Tea Party.  
And it is this tendency that most endangers the future of liberal democracies. If the Left is ever successful in its bid to criminalize ideological opponents and justify acts of terrorism against their opponents, their victory will destroy the liberal democratic foundations of Western civilization. 
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Anti-American activities: A Cold War-style Effort to Root Out Civilizational Jihad

It is not exactly news that the Obama presidency is determined to go to unprecedented lengths to mollify, appease and otherwise pander to what it calls the “Muslim world.”  But the question has begun to occur:  At what point do these efforts cross the line from a misbegotten policy to one that is downright anti-American – hostile to our values, incompatible with our vital interests and at odds with our Constitution?

The evidence is rapidly accumulating that we have reached that point. Our representatives in Congress must have the courage to re-discover a lost vocabulary, one that is conscious of the fact that subversion of our counter-terror institutions—[and, indeed, our very understanding of the threat we face]—is a goal of our enemy in the War on Terror. The danger entailed cries out for congressional oversight, and corrective action.

What is needed is a new select committee modeled after the much-vilified, but ultimately vindicated, House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).  (This vindication is comprehensively documented in Yale University Press’ groundbreaking Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America by John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, and expanded in M. Stanton Evans’ 2009 Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America’s Enemies .  Members of Congress and their staff can only benefit from reading these studies to have a better understanding of the history of their own institution.)  Such a panel needs a mandate to investigate in particular the extent to which the Obama administration’s anti-American activities reflect the success of the toxic Muslim Brotherhood (MB or Ikhwan) in penetrating and subverting both U.S. government agencies and civil institutions.

Consider a few examples of what appear to be such successes:

On June 30, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared that the Obama administration will “welcome…dialogue with those Muslim Brotherhood members who wish to talk with us.” 

As former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy has observed, Eric Holder’s Justice Department appears to have basically stopped prosecuting alleged material support for terrorism. That was certainly the practical effect when it blocked prosecutors from bringing charges against Muslim Brotherhood fronts listed as unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation money-laundering case. 

Such dereliction of duty would seem to be the practical upshot of President Obama’s  much-ballyhooed “Muslim outreach” speech in Cairo in the Spring of 2009 when he pledged to eliminate impediments to zakat.  Mr. McCarthy has noted that the only impediment to such Islamic tithing is the prohibition against the sort of material support to terror that is commanded by the Islamic political-military-legal doctrine known as shariah – which requires 1/8th of zakat to underwrite jihad.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported on 8 July that prosecutors in the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia have asked a federal judge to reduce the twenty-three-year sentence of convicted terrorist and al Qaeda financier Abdurahman Alamoudi.  Before he was arrested for plotting with Libyan dictator the assassination of the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Alamoudi was one of America’s top Muslim Brotherhood operatives.  

In that capacity, this self-professed “supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah” helped found and operate dozens of MB front organizations.  One of these, dubbed the Islamic Free Market Institute, had the mission of influencing and suborning the conservative movement.  During the Clinton administration, Alamoudi was given the responsibility for selecting, training and credentialing chaplains for the U.S. military and prison system.  (Not to worry about the obvious peril associated with such an arrangement:  After his arrest, Alamoudi’s responsibilities were transferred to the nation’s largest Muslim Brotherhood front, the Islamic Society of North America.)

It is not clear at this writing what the justification for reducing this al Qaeda financier’s sentence might be, or to what extent his prison time will be reduced.  We should all be concerned though that such an individual might be turned loose in our country.  Even more worrisome are reports that the Muslim Brotherhood is making a concerted effort to get the rest of their operatives and allies out of U.S. prisons, as well.

Then, there is Hillary Clinton’s announcement in Istanbul last week that the United States would find common ground with the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) on a resolution that the OIC has been pushing for years aimed at curbing free speech that “offends” Muslims.  The United States has already co-sponsored one somewhat watered-down version of this initiative at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. 

The Islamists who see the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference as a kind of new caliphate uniting and advancing the interests of all Muslims (the ummah) will not be satisfied, however, with anything less than the realization of their ultimate objective: an international directive to all United Nations member states to prohibit and criminalize expression that is deemed offensive by the MB, OIC or other shariah-adherent parties. 

To “bridge” the gap between the OIC agenda and our constitutional freedoms, the OIC is pressuring Secretary Clinton to agree that we join Europe in considering the “test of consequences,” not just the content of speech.  That way lies censorship and submission.

The Pentagon recently gave conscientious objector status to a Muslim soldier who claimed that, according to shariah, it was impermissible for him to kill his co-religionists in places like Afghanistan.  No one has explained how the Pentagon proposes to square its acquiescence to that stance with the oath every serviceman and woman takes to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

For that matter, it is hard to see how Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Holder and, indeed, their boss, President Obama, can deem actions like the foregoing as consistent with their oaths of office.  At best, they are acquiescing to far-reaching concessions to the Muslim Brotherhood and its ilk.  At worse, they are enabling the MB’s efforts to destroy the West from within.

So pervasive now is the MB’s “civilization jihad” within the U.S. government and civil institutions that a serious, sustained and rigorous investigation of the phenomenon by the legislative branch is in order.   To that end, we need to establish a new and improved counterpart to the Cold War-era’s HUAC and charge it with examining and rooting out anti-American – and anti-constitutional – activities that constitute an even more insidious peril than those pursued by communist Fifth Columnists fifty years ago.  Critics of a new select committee with such a mandate have an obligation to propose another approach to address this manifestly growing problem.

 

 

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy, a columnist for the Washington Times and host of the nationally syndicated program, Secure Freedom Radio, heard in Washington weeknights at 9:00 p.m. on WRC 1260 AM.

 

Freeing Al Qaeda?

Just when you thought it was not possible for the Holder Justice Department to become any more hostile to the national and homeland security interests of the American people, along comes yet another travesty.  This one threatens both, as it apparently would involve turning loose in America a convicted terrorist known to be a top Muslim Brotherhood (MB or Ikhwan in Arabic) operative and al Qaeda financier: Abdurahman Alamoudi.

According to a short Associated Press report on July 8th:

Federal prosecutors are asking a judge to cut the 23-year prison term being served by an American Muslim activist who admitted participation in a Libyan plot to assassinate King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

Alamoudi – who famously declared his support for Hamas and Hezbollah at a rally in Lafayette Square in October 2000 and was recognized by the Justice Department as a Muslim Brother – has been incarcerated with other top terrorists in the Supermax facility in Colorado.  As an American citizen, he would presumably be allowed to stay in this country upon his release.

Alamoudi at Large

Can it be precluded that, once he is freed, Alamoudi would take up again with those he did so much to help sponsor, foster and run as one of the leading Muslim Brothers in the country?  Lest we forget, as a driving force behind many of the myriad MB front organizations in the United States, he previously was deeply involved with the fulfillment of the Ikhwan‘s mission here as described in its 1991 strategic plan.

That plan, which was found by the FBI in 2004 when they discovered the secret archives of the Muslim Brotherhood in Annandale, Virginia, is entitled An Explanatory Memorandum On the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America. (It is reprinted in its entirety as Appendix 2 of Shariah: The Threat to America, ShariahtheThreat.com.)  According to this memorandum, the Brotherhood’s mission in America is "a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within…by their [read, our] hands and the hands of the believers."

This objective is, of course, identical to that of al Qaeda, the other jihadist enterprise for whom Alamoudi previously worked.  Who knows, if freed, could he rejoin its ranks, too?

At the very least, one has to assume that Abdurahman Alamoudi would be able to reconnect with the Muslim chaplains in the U.S. military and prison systems whom the Clinton administration allowed him to recruit, train and credential.  As no evident effort has been made to relieve his hand-picked folks from their clerical responsibilities ministering to such exceedingly sensitive populations, putting Alamoudi back in business – or at least back in touch – with them could intensify the grave security threat they might pose even now.

Why Would Alamoudi be Freed?

So what possible justification could the Holder Justice Department have for releasing such an individual just nine years into a twenty-three year sentence?  The AP story notes that, "The documents explaining why prosecutors want to cut Alamoudi’s sentence are under seal, but such reductions are allowed only when a defendant provides substantial assistance to the government."

We can only speculate about what such "assistance" might be.  Could Alamoudi be telling the feds insights about his former paymaster, Qaddafi, that could be helpful in removing the latter from power?  As it is not entirely clear whether such an outcome is actually the goal of the United States, France or NATO in Libya at this point, it is hard to see that possible help as justification for running the serious risks associated with springing so dangerous an individual.

Perhaps, alternatively, Alamoudi might have spilled the beans about his friends in the Brotherhood’s vast North American infrastructure.  Did he provide further confirmation of the subversive role being played as part of what the Ikhwan calls its "civilization jihad" by, for example, organizations and members of: the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Muslim Students Association (MSA), the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), the Muslim Community Association (MCA), the Islamic Council of North America (ICNA), the Muslim American Society (MAS) and the Fiqh Council?

Such insights seem unlikely to have been valued by the Obama administration, though, since it continues to have extensive dealings with such groups and individuals associated with them.  If anything, such ties with MB fronts and operatives will be intensifying, now that Team Obama has decided formally to embrace the Muslim Brotherhood’s mother ship in Egypt.

Unfortunately, given this trend – to say nothing of the mindlessness of the Holder Justice Department when it comes to matters of national security – a more probable explanation for its willingness to give Alamoudi a get-out-of-jail-free pass is that the Obama administration is anxious to remove an irritant in relations with its friends in the Muslim Brotherhood and to demonstrate that a new day is dawning in those ties.

Alamoudi’s GOP Influence Operation

As it happens, in the aftermath of the Alamoudi announcement, one of his most successful pre-incarceration influence operations bore fresh fruit.  In 1998, Alamoudi personally provided seed money to enable libertarian anti-tax activist Grover Norquist to establish the Islamic Free Market Institute (better known as the Islamic Institute or II).  The Institute served the purpose of credentialing Muslim Brotherhood operatives like Khalid Saffuri, Alamoudi’s longtime deputy at the American Muslim Council (AMC), who became II’s founding executive director – as "conservatives" and enabling them to infiltrate the George W. Bush 2000 campaign and administration.

After the incarceration of his sponsor on terrorism charges, Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, has continued to promote Muslim Brotherhood personnel and agendas inside Republican circles.  For instance, just this week, at the July 13th meeting of his so-called "Center-Right Coalition" in Washington, Norquist staged a denunciation of legislation now being debated in state legislatures across the country: the American Laws for American Courts (ALAC) legislation.

MB Priority: Stopping American Laws from Governing in American Courts

The Muslim Brotherhood is outraged that three states have already enacted one version or another of the ALAC bill designed to preclude foreign laws (including, but not limited to, shariah) from being used in that state’s courts if doing so would deny constitutional rights or otherwise conflict with state public policy.  It has been introduced in some twenty others states and, to date, has passed in one house or another of four of them.

Such successes have been achieved by Americans all over the country because there simply is no good argument for opposing this affirmation of our civil liberties for all Americans – including American Muslim women and children whose rights are frequently being impinged upon by the application of shariah.  (See ShariahinAmericanCourts.com, a study of twenty-seven cases in twenty-three states where shariah was allowed to trump American laws.)

Last Wednesday, Norquist arranged for three speakers – self-described Jews or Christians – to promote the Muslim Brotherhood line that free practice of religion, including that of non-Muslims, would be denied were ALAC to be adopted.  Nothing could be farther from the truth, as the legislation itself makes clear (See PublicPolicyAlliance.org).  But it is instructive that the GOP influence operation Alamoudi spawned continues to serve his intended purpose: dividing and suborning conservatives in the best tradition of the stealth jihad at which he and his Brothers have long excelled.

Perhaps another venue in which we can expect to see Abdurahman Alamoudi should the Obama administration actually get away with freeing this al Qaeda terrorist will be as a featured speaker at Grover Norquist’s Wednesday meeting?

Disarmed By Shariah: Political correctness prevents Army from recognizing sedition

Today, the mind-numbing disease of political correctness has so infected the American military leadership that it is a threat in itself. The political correctness mentality was the principal reason why Fort Hood’s alleged murderer, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was not cashiered out of the Army after a shocking June 2007 PowerPoint presentation he gave as part of his psychiatric residency program. In that presentation, he reportedly warned his Army colleagues and supervisor at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center of "adverse events" that would occur if the Army did not accept the precepts of Islamic Shariah law and grant Muslims serving in the Army conscientious objector status.

He went on to describe what he meant by adverse events, citing previous cases of Muslims murdering their fellow soldiers, spying against the United States, deserting their units and refusing to deploy. None of his fellow doctors or his supervisor reported his remarks, most likely out of fear of being labeled a bigot or racist, which in today’s military could end one’s career.

Now it seems the Army has embraced Maj. Hasan’s position in an incredible decision made last month by the secretary of the Army to grant conscientious objector status to Pfc. Naser Abdo. He is a 21-year-old soldier, a member of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky., who refused to deploy to Afghanistan, claiming that Shariah law prevented him from killing other Muslims.

The fact that Shariah law is totally incompatible with the U.S. Constitution and has no legal basis in the United States was somehow overlooked in the Army’s decision process. Shariah is a totalitarian legal-military-political system that is designed to control every aspect of an individual’s life and is antithetical to our concept of freedom and democracy. By its dictates, Shariah is seditious.

By acceding to the dictates of Shariah, the Army has tacitly endorsed an absurd position that in effect sanctions Muslim service members to kill non-Muslims but forbids them to kill Muslims. Further, it is an unbelievable basis on which to classify them as conscientious objectors.

When Pfc. Abdo enlisted, he stated he initially believed that he could be a soldier and a Muslim at the same time. What changed his vision? He stated that his understanding of Islam "changed" as he went through training ahead of a planned deployment to Afghanistan. He worried whether going to war was the right thing to do.

This would indicate that someone in the Army training process for an overseas deployment in the 2009-10 time frame was indoctrinating Pfc. Abdo and other Muslim soldiers. Could it have been one of the Muslim chaplains personally selected by Abdurahman Alamoudi, who currently is serving a 23-year sentence in a federal prison? He was convicted of terrorism-related charges and was proved to be a senior al Qaeda financier as well as a strong supporter of the terrorists groups Hezbollah and Hamas.

As a result of his close connections in the Clinton White House, Alamoudi had the lead role in establishing the Muslim chaplain program. He nominated and approved which Muslim chaplains could serve in the U.S. military. The chaplains have never been vetted. This, together with a review of how Muslim military personnel currently are being indoctrinated, needs to be examined on an expedited basis.

Who helped the Army come to this inconceivable position on classifying Pfc. Abdo as a conscientious objector? My guess would be the Army received "guidance" from its Muslim "outreach partners," who it believes are operating in America’s best interest. This would be classic stealth jihad at its finest.

By granting conscientious objector status to Pfc. Abdo, the Army is tacitly accepting a key tenet of the Islamic doctrine of jihad, as embraced by al Qaeda and other terrorists groups, which states that any incursion by non-Muslims into the Islamic lands makes it the duty for all Muslims to fight the "occupiers." This view is shared by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has challenged American efforts in Afghanistan as "unwelcome outsiders," in effect, occupiers.

The U.S. military is the finest in the world. It represents the best of America. We have many Muslims serving honorably in the U.S. military and their service should not be tainted by Pfc. Abdo’s conscientious objector designation. His discharge from the Army is currently on hold because he has been charged with possession of child pornography. That should not be surprising: Shariah sanctions marriage of girls 9 years old and younger, in effect, legalized pedophilia.

Retired Navy Adm. James A. Lyons was commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and senior U.S. military representative to the United Nations.

Taking Iran’s missiles in Venezuela seriously

In the last several days it has been reported that Iran is planning to place medium-range missiles in Venezuela. Such information seems to confirm last November’s article published by the German daily Die Welt. The newspaper reported that an agreement was signed last October between the two countries; a fact that has remained mostly unknown to the public.

The Menges Hemispheric Security Project has often spoken about such a possibility. Indeed, Venezuela and Iran have mutual interests in doing this. Iran which has come under international sanctions initiated by the United States is constantly seeking ways to avoid them. But most importantly, Iran also seeks the ability to deter the U.S.  Certainly, the missiles positioned on Venezuelan soil could become not just mere assistance to Venezuela but also a direct threat to the U.S. This is especially the case should the U.S or Israel take military action against Iran’s nuclear facility or any other act perceived by the Iranians as hostile.

On the other hand, there is also a Venezuelan agenda that makes this type of action a perfect match between the two countries.

Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez has aggressively tried to influence the different countries of the region and pretends to be the regional leader that will put an end to American influence in the region. He has systematically allied himself with U.S enemies as is the case with Iran and has taken hostile, mostly indirect, action against U.S friends such as Colombia. Colombia is an obsession in Chavez’ eyes.  Currently, the Venezuelan army is no match for the Colombian army which is far superior in numbers and training. This is why Venezuela has been arming itself mostly by purchasing weapons from Russia for billions of dollars. Moreover, there has even been suspicions that Chavez was seeking nuclear weapons as he himself publicized in the fall of 2009.  He said that Venezuela and Iran were working to build a "nuclear village". Sophisticated weaponry could give Chavez the military might he has pursued for a long time.

Iran already has ballistic missiles with a range of more than 1,500 miles. This represents a real threat to the U.S. If Iran goes nuclear the chances of facing a crisis similar to the 1962 Cuban crisis is higher. The Nuevo Herald cited intelligence sources who pointed out that a number of underground bunkers have already been built in different areas of Venezuela. Some former members of the Venezuelan military confirmed that Iranian war material was found in these bunkers.

General Douglas Frasier commander of Southern Command, at a recent conference sponsored by the Center for Hemispheric Policy at the University of Miami pointed out that there is no indication that the Iranian presence in Latin America constitutes a threat to the U.S.  

In a different presentation in Florida a week later, former U.S Ambassador to Venezuela, Patrick Duddy, omitted to speak about the security challenges posed by Chavez and did not mention a word on the Venezuelan-Iranian relation.   What we learned from Ambassador Duddy’s presentation is that there is an extraordinary, almost superhuman effort on the part of our foreign policy establishment to work things out with Chavez even if this task is virtually impossible

It was only last year Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed a bill that imposed very harsh economic sanctions against Iran precisely because Iran is a threat to world security. Certainly, the Obama Administration’s recent placement of sanctions against Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA, is a positive step. It is also known that Iran is involved in a plethora of places such as Iraq, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. It sponsors terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and has relations with Al Qaeda, Hamas and other such organizations. In fact, the man chosen to replace Bin Laden in that organization, Saif al- Adel,  found refuge in Iran after he was expelled from Afghanistan by U.S. forces. In the last several years, Iran has maintained a very close relationship with Venezuela including nuclear cooperation and now placement of medium range missiles. The fact that Venezuela is cooperating with Iran on weaponry and nuclear matters places it in violation of the sanctions against Iran approved by the United Nations Security Council.   

Now that this information is known what else does the U.S. defense and foreign policy establishment need in order to understand that Venezuela is a rogue state. Both countries, Iran and Venezuela, given the opportunity, would do harm to the United States. As in many past foreign policy challenges, waiting for the current situation to worsen will only require more drastic measures in the future.

Obama’s next war

Barack Obama’s tenure as Commander-in-Chief has not exactly been characterized by success.  What comes next, however, may make his record to date look like the good old days.

To be sure, on his watch, an extraordinary intelligence-special forces team liquidated Osama bin Laden and drones have dispatched a number of other "high value targets" in what the President calls our "war on al Qaeda."  These are morale-boosting tactical achievements, but in the great scheme of things are more like whack-a-mole than strategic victories.  Much more important is the fact that Mr. Obama is in the process of losing the two wars he inherited, and making a hash-up of the one he initiated in Libya.

Worse, Mr. Obama is actively encouraging trends that threaten to unleash the next, horrific regional war in the Mideast -a war that may well embroil nations far beyond, including ours.

The President’s mishandling of the present conflicts has set the stage for such dangers:

Mr. Obama’s earlier insistence on withdrawing U.S. combat forces from Iraq and his abiding determination to pull out virtually all others by year’s end has, as a practical matter, made it impossible for the government in Baghdad to ask us to stay on.  Even if the Iranian puppet, Muqtada al-Sadr, were not threatening if Americans are invited to stay to relaunch his Madi army’s sectarian warfare and bring down the coalition government (in which his party is a prominent part), the Iraqis can hardly be more in favor of maintaining an American presence than we are.

The predictable result in Iraq next year (if not before) will be a vacuum of power that Iran will surely fill.  State Department and other Americans left behind, in the hope that the immense investment we have made in lives and treasure in Iraq’s democratic and pro-Western future will not be squandered, stand to become endangered species.  The ironic symbol of our defeat may be the takeover in due course of the immense new U.S. embassy in Baghdad by Iranians – this time by invited diplomats, not the hostage-taking "students" of 1979.

Afghanistan – now no longer George Bush’s war, but Barack Obama’s – is, if anything, in even worse shape.  There, despite the valor of our troops and others trying to build a 21st Century nation out of a backwards 6th Century tribal/Islamist entity, we are in the process of negotiating the Afghans’ surrender to the Taliban.  Again, the President’s insistence that U.S. forces will begin coming out of theater this summer signals to friends and foes alike that we will not stay the course.  The only question now is:  How ignominious will be our defeat at the hands of those we routed after 9/11, and their Pakistani, Chinese, Iranian and Russian friends?

Then, there is Mr. Obama’s first "elective war":  His ill-considered, incoherent, congressionally unauthorized and, to date at least, unsuccessful campaign in Libya.  Mr. Obama has tried to limit the costs and offload responsibility for this fiasco onto the French, British and other NATO allies.  Once again U.S. forces have performed their missions impressively – but, to what end?  We are now aligned with, defending and increasingly supporting "rebels" who, if anything, are likely to be more dangerous enemies of the United States than Muammar Gaddafi.

Which brings us to Mr. Obama’s next war.  In his speech last week to what he calls "the Muslim world," the President made it U.S. policy to support whoever manages to get elected in the various nations of North Africa and the Middle East currently undergoing political upheavals. As a practical matter, that will mean legitimating, working with and underwriting the Muslim Brotherhood, since they are far and away the most organized, disciplined and ruthless of the contenders for power in country after country.  History tells us that such people – from Hitler in Weimar Germany to Hamas in the Gaza Strip – win even "free and fair" elections, which then amount to one-man, one-vote, one-time. (For more on the deadly nature and agenda of the MB or Ikhwan, see last week’s column in this space.)

President Obama’s openness (to put it mildly) to bringing the Brotherhood to power was manifested not only by his pledge to forgive $1 billion in Egyptian debt and to provide it another billion in additional foreign aid.  Just as he did in his last much-ballyhooed "outreach" to Muslims in Cairo two years ago, Team Obama had one of the top Muslim Brothers – Imam Mohamed Magid, president of the Ikhwan‘s largest front group in this country, the Islamic Society of North America – prominently seated in the audience at the State Department.

Beyond his embrace of the ascendant Muslim Brotherhood, Barack Obama has helped catalyze the next Mideast war by declaring that Israel must return to the 1967 borders, whose indefensibility induced the Arab nations to precipitate the Six-Day War of that year.  However much the President may deny it, and point to others as supporting a "two-state solution" based on such borders, the Jewish State cannot survive without the high ground, strategic depth and aquifers of the Golan Heights and West Bank.  Period.

It is in America’s vital interests to deter more wars in the Mideast, not invite them.  If President Obama persists in the latter, his already checkered record as Commander-in-Chief may be best remembered as the man who elected to precipitate World War III.

 

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy (www.SecureFreedom.org), a columnist for the Washington Times and host of the nationally syndicated program, Secure Freedom Radio, heard in Washington weeknights at 9:00 p.m. on WRC 1260 AM.

Obama’s abandonment of America

I was out sick yesterday so I was unable to write today’s column for the Jerusalem Post. I did manage to watch President Obama’s speech on the Middle East yesterday evening. And I didn’t want to wait until next week to discuss it. After all, who knows what he’ll do by Tuesday? 

Before we get into what the speech means for Israel, it is important to consider what it means for America.

Quite simply, Obama’s speech represents the effective renunciation of the US’s right to have and to pursue national interests. Consequently, his speech imperils the real interests that the US has in the region – first and foremost, the US’s interest in securing its national security.

Obama’s renunciation of the US national interests unfolded as follows:

First, Obama mentioned a number of core US interests in the region. In his view these are: "Countering terrorism and stopping the spread of nuclear weapons; securing the free flow of commerce, and safe-guarding the security of the region; standing up for Israel’s security and pursuing Arab-Israeli peace."

Then he said, "Yet we must acknowledge that a strategy based solely upon the narrow pursuit of these interests will not fill an empty stomach or allow someone to speak their mind." 

While this is true enough, Obama went on to say that the Arabs have good reason to hate the US and that it is up to the US to put its national interests aside in the interest of making them like America. As he put it, "a failure to change our approach threatens a deepening spiral of division between the United States and Muslim communities."

And you know what that means. If the US doesn’t end the spiral of division, (sounds sort of like "spiral of violence," doesn’t it?), then the Muslims will come after America. So the US better straighten up and fly right.

And how does it do that? Well, by courting the Muslim Brotherhood which spawned Al Qaeda, Hamas, Jamma Islamiya and a number of other terror groups and is allies with Hezbollah. 

How do we know this is Obama’s plan? Because right after he said that the US needs to end the "spiral of division," he recalled his speech in Egypt in June 2009 when he spoke at the Brotherhood controlled Al Azhar University and made sure that Brotherhood members were in the audience in a direct diplomatic assault on US ally Hosni Mubarak.

And of course, intimations of Obama’s plan to woo and appease the jihadists appear throughout the speech. For instance:

"There will be times when our short term interests do not align perfectly with our long term vision of the region."

So US short term interests, like for instance preventing terrorist attacks against itself or its interests, will have to be sacrificed for the greater good of bringing the Muslim Brotherhood to power in democratic elections.

And he also said that the US will "support the governments that will be elected later this year" in Egypt and Tunisia. But why would the US support governments controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood? They are poised to control the elected government in Egypt and are the ticket to beat in Tunisia as well. 

Then there is the way Obama abandoned US allies Yemen and Bahrain in order to show the US’s lack of hypocrisy. As he presented it, the US will not demand from its enemies Syria and Iran that which it doesn’t demand from its friends. 

While this sounds fair, it is anything but fair. The fact is that if you don’t distinguish between your allies and your enemies then you betray your allies and side with your enemies. Bahrain and Yemen need US support to survive. Iran and Syria do not. So when he removes US support from the former, his action redounds to the direct benefit of the latter. 

I hope the US Navy’s 5th Fleet has found alternate digs because Obama just opened the door for Iran to take over Bahrain. He also invited al Qaeda – which he falsely claimed is a spent force – to take over Yemen.

Beyond his abandonment of Bahrain and Yemen, in claiming that the US mustn’t distinguish between its allies and its foes, Obama made clear that he has renounced the US’s right to have and pursue national interests. If you can’t favor your allies against your enemies then you cannot defend your national interests. And if you cannot defend your national interests then you renounce your right to have them.

As for Iran, in his speech, Obama effectively abandoned the pursuit of the US’s core interest of preventing nuclear proliferation. All he had to say about Iran’s openly genocidal nuclear program is, "Our opposition to Iran’s intolerance – as well as its illicit nuclear program, and its sponsorship of terror – is well known."

Well so is my opposition to all of that, and so is yours. But unlike us, Obama is supposed to do something about it. And by putting the gravest threat the US presently faces from the Middle East in the passive voice, he made clear that actually, the US isn’t going to do anything about it. 

In short, every American who is concerned about the security of the United States should be livid. The US President just abandoned his responsibility to defend the country and its interests in the interest of coddling the US’s worst enemies.

AS FOR ISRAEL, in a way, Obama did Israel a favor by giving this speech. By abandoning even a semblance of friendliness, he has told us that we have nothing whatsoever to gain by trying to make him like us. Obama didn’t even say that he would oppose the Palestinians’ plan to get the UN Security Council to pass a resolution in support for Palestinian independence. All he said was that it is a dumb idea. 

Obama sided with Hamas against Israel by acting as though its partnership with Fatah is just a little problem that has to be sorted out to reassure the paranoid Jews. Or as he put it, "the recent announcement of an agreement between Fatah and Hamas raises profound and legitimate questions for Israel."

Hamas is a jihadist movement dedicated to the annihilation of the Jewish people, and the establishment of a global caliphate. It’s in their charter. And all Obama said of the movement that has now taken over the Palestinian Authority was, "Palestinian leaders will not achieve peace or prosperity if Hamas insists on a path of terror and rejection."

Irrelevant and untrue.  

It is irrelevant because obviously the Palestinians don’t want peace. That’s why they just formed a government dedicated to Israel’s destruction. 

As for being untrue, Obama’s speech makes clear that they have no reason to fear a loss of prosperity? After all, Obama is going to continue to give them money for bombs and patronage jobs. So is the EU. They have nothing to worry about. They will continue to be rewarded regardless of what they do.

Of course there are all the hostile, hateful details of the speech: He said Israel has to concede its right to defensible borders as a precondition for negotiations; he didn’t say he opposes the Palestinian demand for open immigration of millions of foreign Arabs into Israel; he again ignored Bush’s 2004 letter to Sharon opposing a return to the 1949 armistice lines, supporting the large settlements, defensible borders and opposing mass Arab immigration into Israel; he said he was leaving Jerusalem out but actually brought it in by calling for an Israeli retreat to the 1949 lines; he called for Israel to be cut in two when he called for the Palestinians state to be contiguous; and he called for Israel to withdraw from the Jordan Valley – without which it is powerless against invasion – by saying that the Palestinian State will have an international border with Jordan.

Conceptually and substantively, Obama abandoned the US alliance with Israel. The rest of his words – security arrangements, demilitarized Palestinian state and the rest of it – were nothing more than filler to please empty-headed liberal Jews in America so they can feel comfortable signing checks for him again.

Indeed, even his seemingly pro-Israel call for security arrangements in a final peace deal involved sticking it to Israel. Obama said, "The full and phased withdrawal of Israeli military forces should be coordinated with the assumption of Palestinian security responsibility in a sovereign, non-militarized state."

What does that mean "with the assumption of Palestinian security responsibility?"

It means we have to assume everything will be terrific.

All of this means is that if Netanyahu was planning to be nice to Obama, and pretend that everything is terrific with the administration, he should just forget about it. He needn’t attack Obama. Let the Republicans do that.

But both in his speech to AIPAC and his address to Congress, he should very forthrightly tell the truth about the nature of the populist movements in the Middle East, the danger of a nuclear Iran, the Palestinians’ commitment to Israel’s destruction; the lie of the so-called peace process; the importance of standing by allies; and the critical importance of a strong Israel to US national security. 

He has nothing to gain and everything to lose by playing by the rules that Obama is trying to set for him.

Obama’s Muslim Outreach 2.0: Doing Business with the Muslim Brotherhood

President Obama’s latest paean to what he calls "the Muslim world," delivered at the State Department today, was an exercise in whistling past the graveyard of real and growing dangers and a litany of misleading statements that borders on official malpractice.   Its most important upshot is this:  The United States is now prepared to do business with the Muslim Brotherhood.

While Mr. Obama did not use those exact words in his Muslim Outreach 2.0 speech,  that was surely the practical effect of his effusively depicting the so-called "Arab Spring" as a welcome expression of democratic sentiment throughout the region.  By so doing, he studiously ignored the reality on the ground in virtually every country in the Middle East and North Africa now undergoing political turmoil:  Islamists associated with or akin to the totalitarian, salafist Muslim Brotherhood are poised to  be the principal beneficiaries of any balloting that ultimately occurs in Egypt and Tunisia – and, perhaps in due course in, Syria, Yemen, Tunisia, Libya, Bahrain and beyond.

Mr. Obama seeks to provide the putative, newly minted "democracies" with tangible evidence of his commitment to their future success.  He declared that the United States would give up to a billion dollars in debt relief to Egypt and economic, trade and technical aid to the Egyptians and Tunisians.  Other nations stand to get similar treatment if only they replace their present autocrats with new ones – provided the latter are prepared to come to power via elections.

With such a policy, the United States stands to compound the mistake now being made in Libya – where al Qaeda operatives, former Guantanamo Bay detainees and other Islamists are already being given "non-lethal" and "humanitarian assistance" and U.S. political support.   Without knowing precisely who are likely to be the beneficiaries of such assistance, we run the very considerable risk that we will effectively be arming, as well as legitimating, our enemies.

In his wishful thinking about the region and its future, the President glossed over the extent to which the Muslim Brotherhood is not the "moderate" and "modernizing" movement – let alone, as his Director of National Intelligence James Clapper once put it, "a largely secular organization" that "eschews violence."  In fact, the Brotherhood is a virulently fascistic group that is explicitly committed to waging jihad to achieve the triumph of the supremacist Islamic politico-military-legal doctrine known as shariah, and the establishment of a global caliphate to rule in accordance with it.

Neither did Mr. Obama mention the threat posed by the Muslim Brotherhood’s operations inside the United States – a vast array of front groups that have as their common mission "destroying Western civilization from within" and that are executing a phased plan for achieving that objective.  [Link to my column this week.]  Such organizations would also be legitimated by the President’s embrace of their comrades elsewhere – and certain to gain still greater access and influence inside his administration.

Particularly worrying is the President’s contribution to the growing peril facing our friends in Israel.   His earlier, vociferous denunciations of Israeli housing-construction activities, combined with his highly public, contemptuous mistreatment of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, contributed to the widespread perception in the region that what he rhetorically insists is the "inseverable bond" between the United States and Israel has, in fact, been greatly weakened.  If the sense takes hold that there is daylight between Washington and Jerusalem, the problem will not be confined to the train-wreck in the making of yet-another Palestinian unilateral declaration of independence.  It will translate into war.

The President sought to finesse what should properly be understood as an insuperable impediment to peace negotiations between the Israelis and a Palestinian government that includes the Brotherhood’s local franchise, the designated terrorist organization Hamas.  He said what he depicted as "that question" needs to be sorted out in coming months, but immediately declared that the United States and its "Quartet partners" were going to press on to get negotiations going and concluded as soon as possible.

Add in his view that Israel must withdraw fully to the 1967 borders (albeit with some "swaps" of territory) – what amounts, implicitly, if not explicitly to a call for the re-partitioning of Jerusalem – and the expectations can only be fanned among  Israel’s many enemies that the moment is arriving at last, to drive the Jews into the sea.  Lip service paid to Israel having secure and defensible borders will founder on the reality that the 1967 borders are wholly incompatible with either security or the defense of Israel, and the growing readiness and ability of her foes to exploit that reality.

The President’s ongoing efforts to align the United States with Muslims, irrespective of whether they seek to impose shariah or otherwise seek our destruction, is a prescription for furthering what has emerged as the Obama Doctine: Emboldening our enemies, undermining our friends and diminishing our country.  It is also a formula for disaster.  It should be challenged at every turn, in favor of a policy that makes clear we differentiate between Muslims who do not seek to impose shariah upon the rest of us and those who do.  The former are our natural allies; the latter our unalterable foes.   We had better start making that distinction, and act accordingly.