Tag Archives: Al Qaeda

Muslim Outreach 2.0

On Thursday, President Obama will "reach out" yet again to what he insists on calling "the Muslim world."  Think of it as the 2.0 version of his much-ballyhooed, but seriously deficient, 2009 speech at Al-Azhar University in Cairo.

His message this time, we are told, will be that the death of Osama bin Laden and the outpouring of support for democratic change across the Middle East and North Africa opens a new dawn for Muslims – and even greater opportunities for expanded relations with the United States than he promised two years ago.  But will they?

The answer would appear to depend on who actually benefits most from these developments.  As things stand now, the answer seems likely to be the Muslim Brotherhood (MB or, in Arabic, Ikwan).  If the Brotherhood does indeed come to power in Egypt, Syria, Jordan, "Palestine" (through its local franchise, Hamas) and/or others of the roughly 13 countries in North Africa and the Middle East currently in play, there is no chance that U.S. interests will be served – no matter how much Mr. Obama tries to reach out to Muslims in those regions.

That reality is rooted in the jihadist nature of the Ikhwan and its goals.  While some have claimed the organization is non-violent and, in the words of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, even "largely secular" – the most cursory examination of the Muslim Brotherhood’s own words makes clear that such assertions are unfounded, and dangerously so.

Consider the MB’s creed: "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."  Not much non-violent or secular about that.

Then, there is a pregnant quote from a 1991 document entitled the Ikhwan‘s "Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goals of the Group."  The memo was found in a concealed archive in Annandale, Virginia in 2004.  It was introduced into evidence in the successful 2008 prosecution of the first group of defendants in the Holy Land Foundation conspiracy, the largest terrorism-financing prosecution in the nation’s history. 

This strategic plan describes the MB’s mission in America as "a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within, sabotaging its miserable house with their [i.e., Americans’] hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions."  Secular?  Non-violent?

The federal government also has made public another, undated Brotherhood document called, "Phases of the World Underground Movement Plan."  It describes precisely how the MB’s mission statement is being operationalized within the United States, and provides a progress report (in italics).  Highlights of its key passages make for chilling reading given the prospect of an even-more-aggressive Obama outreach campaign to Muslims, one that would inevitably entail parlaying with the Ikhwan:

Phase One:  Discreet and secret establishment of leadership.

Phase Two:  Phase of gradual appearance on the public scene and exercising and utilizing various public activities. [The Brotherhood has] greatly succeeded in implementing this stage. It also succeeded in achieving a great deal of its important goals, such as infiltrating various sectors of the Government.    

Phase Three:  Escalation phase, prior to conflict and confrontation with the rulers, through utilizing mass media. Currently in progress.

Phase Four:  Open public confrontation with the Government through exercising the political pressure approach. It is aggressively implementing the above-mentioned approach.  Training on the use of weapons domestically and overseas in anticipation of zero-hour. It has noticeable activities in this regard.

Phase Five: Seizing power to establish their Islamic Nation under which all parties and Islamic groups are united.

President Obama can try to promote the illusion that the Muslim Brotherhood does not really intend to act on these ambitions.  But the rest of us cannot safely ignore what those ambitions are, or the abundant evidence that the Ikhwan is, indeed, intent on realizing them – and disciplined, organized and ruthless enough to try to achieve them.

Finally, there is the strategic alignment of jihadist forces that led up and assuredly contributed to the so-called "Arab Spring."  Two co-authors of the Center for Security Policy’s new book, Shariah: The Threat to America (at Shariahthethreat.com), former Joint Chiefs of Staff advisor Stephen Coughlin and former FBI special agent John Guandolo, have been warning for months about the following developments:

In July 2010, al Qaeda used its new, English-language Inspire magazine to  challenge the Muslim Brotherhood to move from the "Meccan phase" (i.e., stealthy forms of jihad) to the "Medinan phase" (i.e., violent jihad).  In October 2010, the MB’s recently elected Supreme Guide, Mohammed Badie, issued what amounted to a declaration of war against Israel, the United States and the West.  And in January 2011, Al-Azhar University issued a fatwah affirming that offensive operations are a legitimate part of "defensive jihad."

Team Obama missed these ominous developments.  In all likelihood its Outreach 1.0 and other missteps actually encouraged them, even before the President called for the immediate removal of one of America’s relatively reliable Arab allies, Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak.

Now, Mr. Obama seems intent on compounding his earlier errors by further embracing Muslim Brotherhood operatives overseas and front organizations here at home.  Redoubling such efforts now will only serve to embolden our foes, undermine our friends and endanger our country.  Enough already.

 

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.

 

Time for a fresh start on ‘terrorism’

The liquidation of Osama bin Laden is a cause for full-throated national celebration.  It must also be the occasion for a redirection of our efforts to wage and win what has been misnamed “the War on Terrorism.”  At last, we must recognize the struggle we are in for what it is – the War for the Free World – and begin taking all the steps necessary to win it, not just some of them.

For starters, let’s consider some of the areas in which lessons can already be learned in light of what is now known about the takedown of al Qaeda’s leader:

Ferreting out bin Laden’s safe haven in Abbattabad, Pakistan is the latest affirmation of the importance of human intelligence.  While various technical means of monitoring his couriers’ communications and movements played a role, in the end it appears there really is no substitute for old-fashioned spying and tradecraft.  The need to correct continuing – and in some cases acute – shortfalls in this area should feature prominently in the upcoming confirmation hearings for the outgoing and incoming CIA Directors, Secretary of Defense-designate Leon Panetta and General David Petraeus, respectively.

That imperative is especially pressing when foreign “liaison” services are as manifestly unreliable as is now indisputably true of Pakistan’s double-dealing intelligence agency, the ISI.   Ever since Jimmy Carter’s Director of Central Intelligence, Stansfield Turner, set about dismantling U.S. “humint” capabilities – and especially since 9/11 – America has relied to a great and unwise degree on information and agents supplied by others.

The fact that the Pakistanis could not be apprised of the operation that took out bin Laden until after it was over – to say nothing of the manner in which he was “hiding” in a million-dollar compound behind 12-foot walls in close proximity to some of Pakistan’s key military installations – tells us everything we need to know about the untrustworthiness of our so-called ally, and the extent to which it is working with our foes.

These insights come, moreover, on the heels of published reports last week that Pakistan’s prime minister and the director of the ISI paid a visit to Afghan president Hamid Kharzi.  In its course, they are said to have pressed him to cut ties with the United States and partner instead with their country and its ally, Communist China.

Such contemptuous behavior towards us reflects in part at least the calculation in Islamabad (and doubtless elsewhere) that the U.S. is a declining power, which need not be feared because it lacks the will to punish its enemies and cannot be counted upon to protect its friends.   Bin Laden’s liquidation is an important corrective to such portentous impressions.  It must be reinforced and built upon as a matter of the utmost national importance.

The proficiency of our armed forces in executing the kill-or-capture orders for Osama bin Laden should be a source of pride for all Americans.  The fact that it was done without loss of any U.S. personnel makes the performance all the more extraordinary.   Press reports served up in the wake of the bin Laden mission to the effect that special forces teams and their CIA paramilitary counterparts perform such feats on a daily basis only underscores the high quality of these units, and their value to the nation.

Such proficiency comes at a price, though; “Freedom is not free.” Yet, we are now increasingly trying to defend America without making the sustained investment it requires.

Barack Obama’s own incumbent Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, has warned that we risk “hollowing out” our military if the President’s announced cut of a further $400 billion cut in defense spending over the next 12 years is enacted – coming as it would on top of the nearly $200 billion already excised.  Even elite units are having to operate without the requisite gear, in some cases relying on family and friends to supply some of what they need to survive the dangers associated with their assignments.  Time will tell whether the helicopter lost in the latest mission was a casualty of maintenance shortfalls.

One thing is certain:  We will pay in treasure or in a currency we hold more dear – lives – if the success against bin Laden is taken as a further excuse to diminish our armed forces, rather than as a reminder of the need to assure their readiness for tomorrow’s wars, as well as today’s.

Finally, bin Laden’s welcome demise must precipitate a retooling of our appreciation of the threat we face.  No matter how often our leaders insist the enemy is al Qaeda and its destruction is our goal, the reality is different.  We confront a larger array of adversaries who share such terrorists’ goals – the imposition worldwide of a politico-military-legal program they call shariah to be administered by a Caliph – but pursue them via different, often stealthy means.

Such enemies, including the Muslim Brotherhood, operate here as well as abroad – a point that should be a focus of Senate and House hearings this week with Attorney General Eric Holder.   Ending the sort of obstruction of justice his department appears to have engaged in with respect to the prosecution of Brotherhood fronts and operatives is a good place to start the next phase of the War for the Free World.

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.

Misinformation on Shariah from the Center for American Progress

On 31 March, the leftist Center for American Progress (CAP) released a document called Understanding Sharia Law. In that document, the authors asserted that "conservatives’ skewed interpretation" of Sharia law "needs debunking." It is actually the Center for American Progress that exhibits profound confusion when it comes to Shariah.

The fact is, Shariah is the enemy threat doctrine in the war being waged by the Jihadists against the rest of the world. CAP’s irrelevant assertion that Shariah is "not static" and that there is "no one thing called shariah," notwithstanding, the most ridiculous evidence that CAP cites to attempt to put Americans at ease about what is essentially a barbaric code of life is that: "Sharia is overwhelmingly concerned with personal religious observance such as prayer and fasting, and not with national laws."

Before we get into the actual evidence refuting CAP’s enabling of the enemy threat doctrine by declaring it benign, we first should analyze the gist of CAP’s analysis of shariah. By declaring that shariah is not static and that there is no one shariah, they have essentially made any interpretation or analysis of shariah impossible. According to this theory, anything that paints shariah in a negative light can be declared either outdated or not accepted by Muslims.

Unfortunately for CAP, we have written evidence that contradicts their salacious statements about the Jihadists’ threat doctrine.

That evidence comes in the form of a book called Reliance of the Traveler: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law. Originally written in 1368 by Islamic scholar Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri, the book was translated into English by Nuh Ha Mim Keller in 1991. It has since been reprinted 5 times and is available on Amazon.com for anyone to purchase.

Lest you think that a book written 700 years ago has no bearing on today, think again. Reliance of the Traveler is one of the world’s most widely circulated references on the shariah law that CAP basically claims does not exist and the organizations that have endorsed it are hardly fringe elements.

The first several pages of the book contain endorsements by Islamic authorities from across the Muslim world: Abd al-Wakil Durubi (Imam of the Mosque of Darwish Pasha, Damascus, Syria); Nuh Ali Salman (Mufti of the Jordanian Armed Forces); Dr. Taha Jabir al-Alwani (President of the International Institute of Islamic Thought, Member of Islamic Fiqh Academy at Jedda, President of the Fiqh Council of North America); and Fath Allah Ya Sin Jazar (General Director of Research, Writing and Translation, Al Azhar Islamic Research Academy, Cairo, Egypt).

The IIIT is one of the most influential Muslim juridical organizations in the entire world. The Islamic Fiqh Academy of Jedda is one of the most influential educational institutions in the Muslim world for shariah scholars. And the Fiqh Council of North America serves in a similar capacity for the US and Canada. But none of these can compare to Al Azhar in Cairo. Al Azhar is nothing less than the premiere Islamic university in the entire world.

Reliance makes allowance for the various fiqhs, or schools of shariah jurisprudence under Sunni and Shia Islam and provides an amalgamation of them for reference. Here are excerpts of what this authoritative work on Islamic sacred law has to say about several vital issues according to Shariah law:

Charging One’s Wife With Adultery

Public imprecation consists of the Islamic magistrate telling the husband to repeat four times,"I testify by Allah that I am truthful in charging her with adultery" though if she is present he says,"this wife of mine," and points to her. The fifth time, after the magistrate warns him, enjoins him to fear Allah, and after he has put his hand in front of the husband’s mouth, the husband adds,"And may the curse of Allah be upon me if I am lying."

When the husband has done this, …his wife is divorced from him…She is now liable to be punished for adultery.
 

Dealing With a Rebellious Wife

When a husband notices signs of rebelliousness in his wife, he warns her in words without keeping from her or hitting her, for it may be that she has an excuse. The warning could be to tell her: "Fear Allah concerning the rights you owe to me."

If she commits rebelliousness, he keeps from sleeping with her without words, and may hit her, but not in a way that injures her.

It is not lawful for a wife to leave the house except by permission of her husband, though she may do so without permission when there is pressing necessity. Nor may a wife permit anyone to enter her husband’s home unless he agrees, even their unmarriageable kin. Nor may she be alone with a nonfamily-member male, under any circumstances.

It is obligatory for a wife to obey her husband as is customary in allowing him full lawful sexual enjoyment of her person.

 

Jihad and The Rules of Warfare

Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the world mujahada, signifying warfare to establish the religion.

 

The Obligatory Nature of Jihad

Jihad is a communal obligation. When enough people perform it to successfully accomplish it, it is no longer obligatory upon others.

… He who provides the equipment for a soldier in jihad has himself performed jihad.

… Jihad is personally obligatory upon all those present in the battle lines provided one is able to fight.

… Jihad is also obligatory for everyone able to perform it, male or female, old or young.

 

The Rules of Warfare

It is not permissible in jihad to kill women or children unless they are fighting against the Muslims. It is permissible to kill old men, meaning someone more than forty years of age and monks.

… When a child or woman is taken captive, they become slaves by the fact of capture and the women’s previous marriage is immediately annulled.

 

The Penalty for Theft

A person’s right hand is amputated, whether he is a Muslim, non-Muslim subject of the Islamic state, or someone who has left Islam.

… If a person steals a second time, his left foot is amputated; if a third time, then his left hand; and if he steals again, then his right foot.

 

Apostasy from Islam

Leaving Islam is the ugliest form of unbelief and the worst. It may come about through sarcasm, as when someone is told, "Trim your nails, it is sunna," and he replies, "I would not do it even if it were."

… When a person who has reached puberty and is sane voluntarily apostatizes from Islam, he deserves to be killed.

… Someone raised among Muslims who denies the obligatoriness of the prayer, zakat, fasting Ramadan, the pilgrimage, or the unlawfulness of wine and adultery, or denies something else upon which there is scholarly consensus and which is necessarily known as being of the religion thereby becomes an unbeliever and is executed for his unbelief.

 
There are many other examples in the 1200+ page book and I urge everyone to obtain a copy of Reliance of the Traveler yourself to verify the truly all-encompassing nature of Shariah to see if the Center for American Progress is correct in the assertion that "Sharia is overwhelmingly concerned with personal religious observance such as prayer and fasting, and not with national laws."

To close out this article and to offer further evidence of Shariah as the enemy threat doctrine, I offer these quotes from some infamous, but not insignificant, Muslims about the importance of Shariah to their Jihad. For one reason or another, their view of Shariah does not match that supposed by the Center for American Progress. We ignore their views on Shariah at our peril.

 

 Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda Ideologue:

  • The sharia has forbidden us from taking infidels as confidants, inducting them into our secrets.
  • The sharia forbids us from appointing infidels to important posts.
  • The sharia forbids us from adopting or praising the beliefs and views of the infidels.
  • The sharia forbids us from assisting infidels against Muslims; even the one who is coerced has no excuse to fight under the banner of the infidels.
  • The sharia commands us to battle infidels–both original infidels and apostates, as well as hypocrites. As for waging jihad against the infidels who have usurped the lands of Islam, this is a duty considered second only to faith, by ulemaic consensus.
  • The sharia does not accept the excuses made by hypocrites–that they befriend the infidels because they fear the vicissitudes of time.
  • We are duty-bound by the sharia to help Muslims overcome the infidels.
  • Democracy is based on the principle of the power of creatures over other creatures, and rejects the principle of God’s absolute power over all creatures; it is also based on the idea that men’s desires, whatever they may be, replace God absolutely, and on the refusal to obey God’s law. In Islam, when there is a disagreement or a difference of opinion, one refers to God, his Prophet, and the commands of sharia.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary General of Hizballah: 

  • From the point of view of ideology and sharia, we are required to establish God’s rule over any part of this earth, regardless of particularities and details. This can only happen, however, if the nation adopts this ideology and safeguards it.

Ayatollah Khomeini, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran (1979-1989)

  • The laws of the shari’a embrace a diverse body of laws and regulations, which amounts to a complete social system. In this system of laws, all the needs of man have been met: his dealings with his neighbors, fellow citizens, and clan, as well as children and relatives; the concerns of private and marital life; regulations concerning war and peace and intercourse with other nations; penal and commercial law; and regulations pertaining to trade and agriculture.
  • Reason also dictates that we establish a government in order to be able to ward off aggression and to defend the honor of the Muslims in case of attack. The shari’a, for its part, instructs us to be constantly ready to defend ourselves against those who wish to attack us. 
  • It will be the duty of the Muslims to engage in an armed jihad against the ruling group in order to make the policies ruling society and the norms of government conform to the principles and ordinances of Islam.
  • If the enemy attacks the lands of the Muslims or their borders, it is the duty of all Muslims to defend them by any means possible, including the sacrificing of one’s life and the expenditure of one’s wealth. With respect to this matter, there is no need to seek the permission from a shari’a judge.

Osama Bin Laden, founder of Al Qaeda

  • Regarding which shared understandings, exactly, is it possible that we agree with the immoral West?… What commonalities, if our foundations contradict, rendering useless the shared extremities-if they even exist? For practically everything valued by the immoral West is condemned under sharia law. As for this atmosphere of shared understandings, what evidence is there for Muslims to strive for this? What did the Prophet, the Companions after him, and the righteous forebears do? Did they wage jihad against the infidels, attacking them all over the earth, in order to place them under the suzerainty of Islam in great humility and submission? Or did they send messages to discover "shared understandings" between themselves and the infidels in order that they may reach an understanding whereby universal peace, security, and natural relations would spread-in such a satanic manner as this? The sharia provides a true and just path, securing Muslims, and providing peace to the world.
  • …Offensive Jihadis (are) an established and basic tenet of this religion. It is a religious duty rejected only by the most deluded. So how can they call off this religious obligation [Offensive Jihad], while imploring the West to understandings and talks "under the umbrella of justice, morality, and rights"? The essence of all this comes from right inside the halls of the United Nations, instead of the Divine foundations that are built upon hating the infidels, repudiating them with tongue and teeth till they embrace Islam or pay the jizya [tribute] with willing submission and humility…. Muslims, and especially the learned among them, should spread sharia law to the world-that and nothing else. Not laws under the "umbrella of justice, morality, and rights" as understood by the masses. No, the sharia of Islam is the foundation.
  • They say that our sharia does not impose our particular beliefs upon others; this is a false assertion. For it is, in fact, part of our religion to impose our particular beliefs upon others.
  • Thus whoever refuses the principle of terror[ism] against the enemy also refuses the commandment of Allah the Exalted, the Most High, and His sharia.

Second thoughts, from Goldstone to the ‘Arab Spring’

One might have been forgiven for thinking it was an April Fool’s joke. At the very least, the author of an oped published in the Washington Post last Friday – former South African Supreme Court Justice Richard Goldstone – sure looked foolish as he all but acknowledged being incredibly naïve and irresponsible when he authored a harshly critical report for the United Nations Human Rights Council after Israel’s 2008-2009 war with Hamas in Gaza.

It seems the lead author of the Goldstone Report has experienced a severe case of second thoughts or buyer’s remorse. Presumably, that is due at least in part to a belated appreciation of the immense damage caused by his misbegotten handiwork.  As the jurist put it in his essay, "If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document."  He is not the only one who is reconsidering – or should be – what they are about.

Unfortunately, as in the case of the Goldstone Report, in most instances where buyer’s remorse is setting in, there is really no excuse for the actions to be taken in the first place.  Consider several examples:

Let’s start with Justice Goldstone’s opus.  In it, he assailed the Israel Defense Forces for engaging in "potential war crimes" and "possibly crimes against humanity" by purposefully attacking non-combatants.  In so doing, his report established a moral equivalency for the Jewish State with the terrorists of Hamas and contributed mightily to international efforts to stigmatize and delegitimize Israel.  Yet, Goldstone now acknowledges, based on subsequent investigations conducted by others (including the Israeli government), that "civilians were not intentionally targeted [by Israel] as a matter of policy."

Welcome as this vindication of Israel is, it cannot undo the immense damage done by charges made eighteen months ago, when there was ample reason not to tar the Israelis with the same brush as Hamas.  Justice Goldstone now avers, "That the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying – its rockets were purposefully and indiscriminate­ly aimed at civilian targets."  There is, however, no excuse for him not knowing and affirming at the time that Israel had adopted a wholly different approach.  No amount of remorseful op.ed. articles will obscure that reality, or mitigate the damage done by his moral equivalence.

Second thoughts are much in evidence at the moment in official Washington about the Obama administration’s responses to the wildfires that have been raging in recent weeks throughout North Africa and the Middle East.  The original view was that these were spontaneous "awakenings" in which peoples long denied freedom were rising up, asserting their demand for democracy, inspired and fanned by Western-innovated social networking media.  As such, they were widely seen to be causes that warranted strong U.S. support.

It is becoming increasingly clear that in virtually every case, these fires were set by arsonists, not democrats.  The instigators were Islamists seeking to impose the supremacist, totalitarian politico-military legal program they call shariah.  In those few instances where such Islamists were not actually among the catalysts, they are certainly emerging as the principal beneficiaries of the revolts thus set in train.

American policies encouraging the overthrow of regimes that were (more-or-less) aligned with the United States are having the effect of clearing the way for successors deeply hostile to us, our allies (most especially Israel) and interests. These include not just Muslim Brotherhood operatives but al Qaeda terrorists, some of whom have returned to the fight after being released from Guantanamo (another practice sorely in need of reconsideration!)  The Obama administration is reportedly cutting off arms sales to Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon; it should exercise similar restraint with respect to the present impulse in some quarters to supply weapons to the so-called "rebels" of Libya.  Andy McCarthy calls the latter the Libyan mujahideen, a group perfectly capable of turning their weapons on us, as their counterparts in Afghanistan did after we collaborated in defeating the USSR there in the 1980s.

Now would also be a good time, with Congress and the executive branch poised to effect deficit reduction on the backs of U.S. servicemen and women, to engage in some second-thought-style reflection – before the Pentagon budget is reduced any further.   After all, we are at war in three different theaters.  Our enemies are already sensing our weakness and irresolution and emboldened by it.  And the past costs of reconstituting military capabilities unwisely and irresponsibly dissipated have proven – time and time again – vastly to exceed the savings.  At the very least, we should resolve to apply any resources freed up by ferreting out waste, fraud and abuse in the Defense Department, to addressing yawning shortfalls in the military’s modernization, research and development and operations and maintenance funding.

Monday, President Obama declared his candidacy for reelection. While his decision was no surprise, whether the American electorate will decide to give him a renewed mandate next year seems an open question. For millions across the country, the answer may rightly turn on second thoughts they have had – and will have between now and November 2012 – about him and his policies, among others the foregoing directly related to keeping us safe and secure.

 

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.

Durbin launches the ‘anti-Pete King’ hearing

How curious.  At the very moment that the threat posed to U.S. interests by the toxic Islamist organization known as the Muslim Brotherhood is becoming ever more palpable, a top Senate Democrat seems determined to suppress Americans’ understanding of that menace.

Even the New York Times is now acknowledging the obvious: the principal beneficiary of the forced departure of an Egyptian dictator, Hosni Mubarak – a double-dealing leader who nonetheless passed, in the hall of mirrors that is Mideast politics, for a reliable U.S. ally – will likely be the Muslim Brotherhood (MB or Ikhwan in Arabic).  That means an organization explicitly committed to waging jihad to achieve the worldwide imposition of the Islamic politico-military-legal program its adherents call shariah will soon: run the most populous Arab Muslim nation; control the strategic Suez Canal, through which 5% of the world’s oil passes every day; and be armed with a vast, American-supplied arsenal of sophisticated and modern weapons.

Unfortunately, a similar outcome may be in store for Libya, whose so-called "rebels" and "freedom fighters" appear actually to be drawn from the ranks of the Brotherhood, its spin-off known as al Qaeda or other Islamist factions.  Some of those to whom we are now providing with air cover and perhaps soon armaments are said to have returned home from Iraq where they were, until recently, trying to kill U.S. forces.  Variations on the basic theme of MB fomenting and exploiting "Arab Springs" may also play out shortly across the Mideast, from Tunisia to Saudi Arabia, from Syria to Yemen.

It would seem that, under these ominous circumstances, it would behoove the Congress to maximize public exposure to the true nature and intensifying threat posed by the Ikhwan and its associates not only elsewhere, but in the United States, as well.  Instead, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat in the U.S. Senate, will be holding a hearing Tuesday [today] that appears calculated to obscure, rather than illuminate, this problem. 

In an interview Monday on Secure Freedom Radio, Steven Emerson, executive director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism and one of the country’s top counter-terrorism experts, described this event as "the anti-King hearing." Whereas Rep. Peter King, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee sought to assess the problem of extremism emanating from the Muslim American community, Sen. Durbin evidently hopes to promote the line touted by the Muslim Brotherhood and its myriad front groups, associates and apologists: Congressman King and others like him are the problem, not jihadist Muslims.  Instead, it is the "racism," "bigotry" and "Islamophobia" to which followers of Islam are subjected that is the real danger.

In fact, an analysis of FBI "hate crimes" data just published by the Center for Security Policy clearly refutes the notion that Muslims are being victimized in America because of their faith.  Jews are eight times more likely to be victims of such crimes.

Mr. Emerson explained that this perverse role is the rule rather than the exception with Sen. Durbin:

"He has been in bed with radical Islam for the last eight years…. He has aligned himself with the [Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas front] Council on American Islamic Relations, sent them letters of congratulations, agreed to speak to their banquets, fundraised for them, and most recently paid a visit to the Bridgeview Mosque, which… is… one of the largest mosques in the United States…. It is considered the senior center of Hamas activity in the United States, led by Imam Jamal Said. [He] was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case… against the fundraisers for Hamas, all of whom were convicted.

"In [a] picture [taken at the mosque], which was printed in the Bridgeview Mosque newsletter online, it shows [Sen. Durbin] with eight people, six of whom are actually allied with Hamas. Five of whom have been listed as unindicted co-conspirators [in the Holy Land trial]. And four of whom have made statements calling for the killing of Jews."

Scarcely less troubling are Senator Durbin’s choice of witnesses.  They include "civil rights activist" Farhana Khera, who Mr. Emerson recounts has discouraged Muslims from cooperating with law enforcement, and retired Cardinal Theodore McCarrick who is a prominent participant in "interfaith dialogues" manipulated by the largest Muslim Brotherhood front in the United States, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).

Unfortunately, the narrative Sen. Durbin is advancing has been taken up by some in government who should know better.  For example, Mr. Emerson told me in his interview that Michael Leiter, the director of the National Counter-Terrorism Center, raised serious questions about his fitness to serve in that front-line capacity by announcing recently at a closed, $4 million conference that "al-Jazeera was his favorite television station, radical Islam was only a nuisance, a tiny problem, and that Islamophobia was the biggest problem we faced."

Were the Congress and the nation more generally to adopt this narrative – to the effect that the greatest danger facing the nation emanates from efforts of those seeking to inform our countrymen about the threat posed by the Muslim Brotherhood and other adherents to shariah, it would hand the Ikhwan perhaps its greatest bloodless victory to date: acquiescence to the sort of shariah blasphemy laws that forbid any expression that offends Islam. 

This act of submission will greatly compound the willful blindness that is facilitating the Brotherhood’s stealth jihad here at home, even as it and its allies make immense strides abroad.  Will Senator Durbin’s colleagues sit idly by as he contributes to such a wholly unacceptable outcome?  Will the rest of us?
 

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.

King of the Hill

On Thursday, Chairman Peter King of New York will convene in his House Homeland Security Committee one of the most anticipated – and controversial – hearings in memory.  The subject? "The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community’s Response."  It is hard to imagine a more timely, and more urgently needed, inquiry.

For one thing, events in the Middle East have thrust to the forefront concerns about the Muslim Brotherhood (MB or, in Arabic, Ikhwan).  That organization was established in Egypt in 1928 and it is likely to become the dominant political force there in the wake of the overthrow of the MB’s long-time nemesis, former President Hosni Mubarak.

For another, confusion about the true nature and intentions of the Muslim Brotherhood is much in evidence at the moment.  The Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, contributed to it, first by testifying last month that the Brotherhood is "a largely secular organization."  He subsequently recanted that preposterous characteri­zation, but nonetheless downplayed concerns about the group by insisting that it is "heterogeneous," has "eschewed violence" and is engaged in good works, like hospitals and day care.

Such contentions are, presumably, contributing to the Obama administration’s intention – as reported on the front page of the Washington Post last Friday – to establish relations with Muslim Brotherhood-dominated or other Islamist governments emerging from the revolutions sweeping the Middle East.  The implications of that decision would be incalculably problematic for our homeland security, as well as our foreign policy interests.

For these among other reasons, Congressman King’s hearings provide an invaluable opportunity to examine not just the threat of "extremism" posed by al Qaeda, but also that arising from the Muslim Brotherhood’s operations at home and abroad.  Absent the latter, it will be impossible to understand either the source of much of what has been dubbed "extremism" in the Muslim-American community, or the reason that community has been so deficient in systematically, comprehensively and consistently helpfully responding to extremists in its midst.

In point of fact, as a book published last November by the Center for Security Policy – Shariah: The Threat to America – makes clear, the Muslim Brotherhood is not just somebody else’s problem; its ours.  It operates in some seventy countries worldwide, including the United States.  In each, it adapts its methods to suit the local conditions.  Where practicable, the MB uses violence to achieve its goals; where not, its uses stealth.

But the Ikhwan‘s goals are the same in every case.  Indeed, they are the same as those embraced by Islamists everywhere, including al Qaeda:  By definition, they are dedicated to the global triumph of shariah, a politico-military-legal program that is unalterably totalitarian and supremacist in character and wholly incompatible with this country’s Constitution.

If Congressman King and his colleagues want to get to the bottom of what is happening in the Muslim-American community at the moment, they must explore the extent to which virtually every prominent group that purports to speak for that community is a front for the Muslim Brotherhood or sympathetic to its agenda.  This is not a matter of speculation; it has been established by the Department of Justice in federal court in connection with the Holy Land Foundation trial, largest terrorism financing prosecution in U.S. history.

Particularly dispositive is the Brotherhood’s strategic plan which the prosecution introduced into evidence uncontested in that trial.  After declaring the mission of the Ikhwan in America to be "destroying the Western civilization from within…by their [that is, our] hands and the hands of the believers," this document describes such groups as the Muslim Students Association, the Islamic Society of North America and the progenitor of the Council on American Islamic Relations, the Islamic Association of Palestine, as "our organizations and organizations of our friends."

It should, therefore, be no surprise that such groups have been aggressively vilifying the chairman as a "racist" and "bigot," assailing his choice of witnesses (including an authentic Muslim reformer, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser) and denouncing the whole hearing enterprise as an example of "Islamophobia" and McCarthyism.

Shakespeare’s cynical turn of phrase – "They doth protest too much" – comes to mind.  This caviling is transparently aimed at preemptively discrediting and, if possible, aborting the King hearings.  Clearly, the Brotherhood’s effort to wage stealth jihad inside the United States and, in particular, its successful penetration of the U.S. government, could be seriously imperiled if Rep. King and his colleagues do their jobs.

The rest of us, however, hope and expect that the Homeland Security Committee will not shrink from a close examination of the role being played in the American Muslim community by both al Qaeda and its ilk, and by the Muslim Brotherhood.

For example, of whom was Gen. Clapper speaking when he told ABC’s Diane Sawyer last December that he considered the "Muslim community to be a source of advice, counsel and wisdom" with respect to the extremists among them.  Was he referring to the self-appointed "leadership" of that community – namely, the Muslim Brotherhood’s front groups?

If Thursday’s hearing takes the nation to school on the source of such extremism – shariah – and the role played in promoting it by the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as al Qaeda, every patriotic American, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, will owe Chairman King an enormous debt of gratitude.

 

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.

The Muslim Brotherhood: the enemy in its own words

As Egypt lurches towards the end of Hosni Mubarak’s regime, one way or another – by "an orderly transition to democratic rule" (as Hillary Clinton delicately puts it), through violent overthrow or simply through the demise of the ailing 82-year-old president – much is unclear. One thing that should not be is that the Muslim Brotherhood is our enemy, and whatever role it plays in Egypt’s future will be to our detriment.

Such clarity is readily available since the Brotherhood (MB or in Arabic, Ikhwan) has told us as much. Consider, for example, the mission statement for the MB found in one of its secret documents entitled "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America":

The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.

As a blue-ribbon group of national security experts convened by the Center for Security Policy, "Team B II" noted in their new best-seller Shariah: The Threat to America, the incompatability of the Ikhwan’s agenda with our interests has been evident from its inception:

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928. Its express purpose was two-fold: (1) to implement shariah worldwide, and (2) to re-establish the global Islamic State (caliphate).  Therefore, al Qaeda and the MB have the same objectives.  They differ only in the timing and tactics involved in realizing them.

We also know how the Brotherhood plans to pull off our destruction.  Another MB document, this one undated, is called "Phases of the World Underground Movement Plan."  It describes a five-installment program for achieving the triumph of shariah – together with a status report on the realization of several of the phases’ goals:

Phase One: Discreet and secret establishment of leadership.

Phase Two: Phase of gradual appearance on the public scene and exercising and utilizing various public activities. It [the MB] greatly succeeded in implementing this stage.  It also succeeded in achieving a great deal of its important goals, such as infiltrating various sectors of the Government.

Phase Three: Escalation phase, prior to conflict and confrontation with the rulers, through utilizing mass media.  Currently in progress.

Phase Four: Open public confrontation with the Government through exercising the political pressure approach.  It is aggressively implementing the above-mentioned approach. Training on the use of weapons domestically and overseas in anticipation of zero-hour.  It has noticeable activities in this regard.

Phase Five: Seizing power to establish their Islamic Nation under which all parties and Islamic groups are united.

If any further evidence were needed of the threat posed by the Muslim Brotherhood, consider the comments on October 6, 2010 by Mohamed Badie, the Ikwan’s virulent promoter of shariah who was installed as its leader ("Supreme Guide") last year.  According to a translation provided by the indispensable Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Badie declared: 

[Today, the United States] is withdrawing from Iraq, defeated and wounded, and it is on the verge of withdrawing from Afghanistan. [All] its warplanes, missiles and modern military technology were defeated by the will of the peoples, as long as [these peoples] insisted on resistance. Its wealth will not avail it once Allah has had his say, as happened with [powerful] nations in the past.  The U.S. is now experiencing the beginning of its end, and is heading towards its demise.

Barry Rubin, one of the most astute observers of the Middle East, warned within days that this speech represented a "declaration of war" by the Brotherhood, with it "adopting a view almost identical to al Qaeda’s" but coming from "a group with 100 times more activists than al Qaeda."

At first blush, it seems incredible that the sort of clarity about the Brotherhood’s intentions that the foregoing provide seems to be eluding many in official Washington and the policy elite.  On closer inspection, however, the muddle-headedness that has many describing the Ikhwan as "non-violent," "democratic" and desirable candidates for a coalition to replace Mubarak’s dictatorship is, to use an old Soviet expression, "no accident, comrade."

In fact, the aforementioned MB "Explanatory Memorandum" provides a list of "Our Organizations and the Organizations of Our Friends" that includes virtually every prominent Muslim-American organization in business at that time.  What is incredible, therefore, is that many of these same Muslim Brotherhood fronts are used by the U.S. government for "outreach" to the Muslim community and policy advice.  The nation’s top intelligence official, James Clapper, has actually characterized the resulting "dialogue with the Muslim community" as "a source of advice, counsel, and wisdom."

As a result, one other thing should be frighteningly clear:  We are having our policies towards Egypt’s succession – and the tsunami it is accelerating elsewhere in the region influenced, shaped and probably subverted by the Muslim Brotherhood’s American operatives.  If we let our enemies call the shots, there is no doubt who will wind up taking the bullet.

 

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.

 

 

Suhail Khan & the Muslim Brotherhood: Evasions and Evidence

In the video below, Khan receives an award– and really, really lavish praise– from a man who had just a few years before, openly prayed, "Oh, Allah, destroy America." The man was Abdul Rahman Al-Amoudi, who was convicted and sentenced in 2004 to over twenty years in prison as part of a Libyan and al Qaeda assassination plot. Also known at the time of the award was Al-Amoudi’s fervent support for both Hamas and Hezbollah.

Job #1 for Congress

By all accounts, the 112th Congress is going to be consumed with cutting government spending and creating jobs.  This agenda reflects the election campaign of 2010 in which matters of national security featured not at all. 

As in the past, however, when the nation and its leaders indulge in the temptation to focus exclusively on domestic matters and ignore present – and growing – dangers, there are usually nasty surprises in store.  Such surprises frequently compel the federal government to give urgent attention to its constitutional mandate to "provide for the common defense," often at the expense of fiscal discipline and other priorities.

One need not look too hard to discern the sorts of threats that could well preoccupy official Washington in the months ahead.  For example, the Obama administration’s much-ballyhooed "reset" in relations with Russia is becoming ever more one-sided as Vladimir Putin cracks down at home and sells dangerous arms to, and otherwise provides diplomatic protection for, the world’s most dangerous regimes.  And Communist China is operationalizing its ability to engage in what its military planners have described as "unrestricted warfare" – a strategy for using every instrument of power, from traditional and unconventional weaponry to financial attacks and terrorism – to decisively defeat the United States.

Other sources of what would be, at best, instability, and, at worst, war include: a succession crisis in a bankrupt and nuclear-armed North Korea; the prospect of another nuclear-armed nation, Pakistan, becoming a failed state; the Palestinians obtaining international recognition – including quite possibly from President Obama – for their unilaterally declared statehood; meltdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan catalyzed by the U.S. withdrawal from each; and one-time allies in the Far East, Mideast and Latin America adapting to perceived new realities of waning American power and protection.  They may manifest this by capitulating to emerging regional hegemons or by arming themselves to the teeth, in some cases at least with nuclear arms.  Either way, our interests will likely suffer.

Two national security threats are particularly likely to demand congressional attention in the New Year: 

First, Iran has reportedly reached an agreement with Venezuela to deploy ballistic missiles on Venezuelan territory.  Initially, these Scud and Shahab 3 missiles may not be able to reach the continental United States, unless employed in a sea-launched mode (a capability the Iranians have demonstrated) and brought closer to our shores aboard ships equipped for that purpose.  Certainly, if this deployment goes forward unchallenged – and so far, President Obama has taken no public steps to prevent it – over time, longer-range missiles will surely migrate to our hemisphere, as well.

Such a prospect is all the more alarming insofar as the Senate has just approved a New START Treaty that the Russians say they will remain party to only as long as the United States refrains from making "any quantitative or qualitative improvements" in our missile defenses.  Since we have no defenses in place at the moment to defend against threats emanating from the south, Congress will have to reckon with whether to provide for the common defense come what may, or allow Moscow to veto protection for the American people.

Second, the effort to impose or otherwise insinuate into this country the totalitarian, supremacist program the authorities of Islam call "shariah" is likely to intensify in 2011.  Our government remains unwilling to recognize this wellspring of jihadist terrorism and insists on legitimating and empowering organizations and individuals associated with the Muslim Brotherhood (MB).  The latter practice is unconscionable since the MB absolutely shares the same goal as violent groups like al Qaeda, even though, for the moment at least, it chooses in the West use more stealthy forms of jihad to pursue shariah’s worldwide triumph under a caliphate. 

As a new book entitled Shariah: The Threat to America and published in November by the Center for Security Policy describes, such governmental behavior makes it is impossible to defeat such enemies.  If allowed to persist, there will not only be more deadly attacks perpetrated in this country in the name of Islam.  There will also be further, serious erosion of our Constitution and freedoms as serial accommodations are made to shariah’s adherents and their determination to create here, as in Britain, a parallel system of laws.

The good news is that Rep. Pete King (R-NY) the new chairman of the Homeland Security Committee has announced his intention to hold hearings addressing the nature of the threat of what he calls "radical Islam."  He wants to end the "political correctness" that has obscured our understanding of and hamstrung our response to this threat.  Congressman King’s efforts may prove to be among the most important of the 112th Congress and a model for oversight and corrective measures by its intelligence, foreign affairs and armed services committees.

History suggests that, if Congress properly attends to these and related matters, it will have time and resources to address other domestic priorities.  If legislators fail to do their part to identify and stave off such dangers, though, they may find their plans for budget cutting and the like go by the board, as they have to refocus big time on Job #1: providing for the common defense.

 

 

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.

Reporting Islam: Fair, balanced and accurate

On Tuesday night, I had an opportunity to address the O’Reilly Factor‘s audience  on a matter of immense importance: the threat posed to America by not only the violent form of jihad but by its stealthy counterpart – what its prime practitioner, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB or Ikhwan), calls "civilization jihad."

As it happened, Eric Bolling was substituting for Bill during our conversation about  the blindspot too many in academia, journalism and the U.S. government have when it comes to the sort of non-violent – or, more accurately, pre-violent – jihad being waged against the United States by the likes of Ground Zero Mosque Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf.

The news peg for this segment was Rauf’s announcement that he is going to begin next month a nationwide tour of college campuses and other venues.  The ostensible goal is to promote "understanding" and "tolerance" through speeches, interviews and interfaith dialogue.  In fact, the real purpose is dawa – the systematic, highly disciplined and aggressive effort to proselytize and recruit adherents to shariah.  Dawa is the engine behind what the Ikhwan has dubbed the "process of settlement," a term used to describe the phased insinuation and ultimate triumph of shariah in lands where it has yet to be established.  Dawa is the precursor to jihad.

Faisal Rauf’s dawa agenda (see his book whose Malaysian title was A Call to Prayer from the World Trade Center Rubble: Islamic Dawa in the Heart of America post 9/11.) is largely indistinguishable from that of the Muslim Brotherhood.   As we discussed on O’Reilly last night, the MB laid out its vision two decades ago in a strategic plan that was introduced into evidence in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terrorism-financing trial.  According to this document, the Brotherhood’s self-declared mission is "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their [American] hands and the hands of the believers."  (See the full text of this "Explanatory Memorandum" at the Appendix to Shariah: The Threat to America).

For Rauf’s part, the would-be imam of the Ground Zero Mosque could not be more clear:  His goal is to bring shariah to the United States and indeed, the entire world.  That objective happens to be the animating purpose of the Muslim Brotherhood.  It is also the object of so-called "Islamic radicals" and "terrorists" like al Qaeda, the mullahs of Iran, Hezbollah, the MB’s Palestinian franchise, Hamas, etc.  Only the tactics employed differ from the pre-violent jihadists to the violent ones.

It is chilling to read the Muslim Brotherhood’s strategic plan and to realize that it explicitly calls for the establishment of "Islamic centers" and "Islamic societies" – entities that are required by the Ikhawn to "prepare [Muslim Brothers] and supply our battalions."  Keep that in mind as Faisal Rauf tirelessly promotes his own Islamic center (now repackaged as "Park 51") and others around the country during his tour.  It seems predictable that this will be a mantra of his road show, which will likely feature only  private meetings before hand-picked and sympathetic Muslim Brotherhood audiences (like his visit to the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA) or left-wing ones (like Harvard’s).

The sooner we awaken to shariah as the enemy threat doctrine we confront – and recognize the range of guises being adopted by those who promote it, the sooner we will be able to counter the danger posed by the mosque at Ground Zero and around the world.

In particular, there will be an enormous premium in 2011 on accurate reporting about shariah as the Muslim Brotherhood’s sizeable propaganda machine is ginned up for a simple, but lethal, purpose: to keep us in the dark about this doctrine.  It will help greatly if we can keep in mind the central reality: the goals of the violent jihad waged by al Qaeda et.al., and those of pre-violent jihadists of Muslim Brotherhood propagandists like Rauf are the essentially the same – the imposition of shariah as a political, legal and military doctrine..

In the words of former federal prosecutor, bestselling author and member of Team B II Andrew C. McCarthy (from his Broadside):  "We need to move the dividing line of where we understand the threat to the United States.  We’re suggesting that the dividing line is not terrorism.  The dividing line is shariah."  It is time for a great many more fair, balanced and accurate news broadcasts to that effect.