Tag Archives: Andrew McCarthy

Spring Time for Sharia in Araby

The release of Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy, PJM columnist and former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy’s brilliant, evocatively written jeremiad, could not be more timely.

As Americans solemnly commemorated the 11th anniversary of the cataclysmic acts of jihad terrorism on September 11, 2001, jihadists in Egypt and Libya were besieging our government buildings in these Muslim countries, eventually murdering U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other U.S. officials….

 

The full article can be read at P.J. Media.

The Grand Deflection

A magician typically succeeds when the attention of the audience is diverted from his main activity onto some distraction.  President Obama has raised this sort of deflection into a political art form.

Take, for example, the matter of revelations by five Members of Congress and the Center for Security Policy that there appear to be a number individuals working for or with the Obama administration with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.   The possibility that their influence may be helping to shape U.S. policy in ways that increasingly align it with the demands, ambitions and goals of the Brotherhood and other Islamists is a national security problem of the first order.  That is especially true at a moment when Muslim Brothers are consolidating their hold on power in Egypt with the cashiering of two top generals at the hands of the Brotherhood’s newly elected president, Mohamed Morsi.

Yet, Team Obama and its allies in the elite media have aggressively worked to deflect the focus away from these realities.  At first, they did so by viciously attacking Congresswoman Michele Bachmann – even though she was just one of five legislators who asked for investigations into these seeming influence operations by inspectors general of five federal agencies.

Then, they sought to portray as a victim of racism and bigotry just one of those about whom the Members of Congress raised legitimate questions: Huma Abedin, the Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  Journalists like CNN’s Anderson Cooper repeated uncritically – and unprofessionally –  assurances that there was no factual basis for linking Ms. Abedin to the Muslim Brotherhood.  Where compelled to acknowledge that members of her family do have ties to Brotherhood-connected organizations, the administration and its allies denounced such concerns as “guilt by association” and “McCarthyism.”

Then, former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, former Muslim Brother Walid Shoebat and other researchers established a direct tie between Huma Abedin and a Muslim Brotherhood front, the Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA).  IMMA was established essentially as an Abedin family business by Abdullah Omar Naseef, an officially designated al Qaeda financier.

Shortly after IMMA was founded under his chairmanship, Naseef became the secretary general of the Muslim World League (MWL) which Mr. McCarthy described in an August 8thspeech in Washington sponsored by the Center for Security Policy as: “the Saudi-financed global propagation enterprise by which the Muslim Brotherhood’s virulently anti-Western brand of Islamist ideology is seeded throughout the world, very much including in the United States.”

It happens that Huma Abedin was listed for twelve years on the masthead of the IMMA’s journal as an associate editor.  For at least seven of those years, Omar Naseef was also listed as a member of the editorial advisory board.

In his remarks last week, former Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney McCarthy directly spoke to charges that Huma Abedin was being unfairly challenged by virtue of these various ties to the Muslim Brotherhood: “‘Guilt by association’ has nothing to do with fitness for high public office. High public office is a privilege, not a right. Access to classified information is a privilege, not a right. You need not have done anything wrong to be deemed unfit for these privileges.”

Andrew McCarthy added pointedly:  “It is not a question of your patriotism or your trustworthiness. It is about whether you would be burdened by such obvious conflicts of interest that you would be tempted to act on those interests, rather than in the best interests of the United States.”

Nonetheless, two days later, the Deflector-in-Chief used the occasion of remarks at his fourth annual White House Iftar dinner – a ceremony marking the breaking of the Ramadan fast – to provide a shout-out to one of his guests, Huma Abedin.  Mr. Obama pronounced: “Huma is an American patriot, and an example of what we need in this country – more public servants with her sense of decency, her grace and her generosity of spirit. So, on behalf of all Americans, we thank you so much.”  Nothing to see here folks, move along.

Not only does Ms. Abedin’s relationship to the Muslim Brotherhood and involvement in policies favorable to its interests warrant close official scrutiny. There are at least six other individuals with Brotherhood ties whose involvement in Obama administration “Muslim outreach” and/or related policy-making also deserve investigation by the IGs and the Congress:

  • Rashad Hussain, Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation;
  • Dalia Mogahed, an advisor to President Obama;
  • Mohamed Elibiary, a member of Homeland Security Department’s Advisory Council;
  • Mohamed Magid, a member of the Homeland Security Department’s Countering-Violent Extremism Working Group;
  • Louay Safi, until recently the credentialing authority for Muslim chaplains in the U.S. military and now a leader of the Brotherhood-dominated Syrian National Council; and
  • Kifah Mustapha, a Hamas-fundraiser and graduate of the FBI’s ‘Citizens Academy’

The American people are entitled to know who is shaping the policies that are increasingly empowering, enriching and emboldening the Muslim Brotherhood – an organization sworn to our destruction.  Under no circumstances should legitimate and well-grounded congressional requests for formal investigations be deflected, let alone suppressed.

And the results of those investigations must be available to inform the critical choice American voters have to make this November.  It just might make all the difference in the outcome – which is presumably why the grand deflection is being pursued with such determination.

CSPAN: Andy McCarthy on Muslim Brotherhood Influence Operations in the US

[Click here to watch the entire presentation as broadcast by C-SPAN]

[Click here to read transcription of speech courtesy of PJ Media]

 

Andrew C. McCarthy

Andrew C. McCarthy is the author of The Grand Jihad and Willful Blindness, both New York Times bestsellers.  His forthcoming book, Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy, will be published by Encounter Books later this year. He is a contributing editor at National Review and writes the Ordered Liberty blog for PJMedia.

Andy is a former chief assistant United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, and, in 1995, led the successful prosecution against the jihadist organization of “the Blind Sheikh” (Omar Abdel Rahman) for waging a terrorist war against the United States that included the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to bomb New York City landmarks. He is the recipient of the Justice Department’s highest honors, including the Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Service, awarded by the Clinton Justice Department after the Blind Sheikh trial. He participated in several other terrorism prosecutions and, following the 9/11 attacks, supervised the U.S. Attorney’s command post near Ground Zero in New York City. He has also served as a special assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense in 2004, and as an adjunct professor of law at Fordham and New York Law Schools. He began his law-enforcement career as a deputy U.S. Marshal in the Witness Protection Program.

Andy’s commentary on national security, the law, and politics is featured regularly in the national media.

Articles on this issue by Andy McCarthy:

http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2012/07/27/huma-abedins-brotherhood-ties-are-not-just-a-family-affair/

http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2012/07/24/huma-abedin-and-the-muslim-brotherhood-closely-connected/

http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2012/07/23/the-wages-of-willful-blindness-is-it-time-for-defenders-of-liberty-to-abandon-the-gop/

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/312211/huma-abedin-s-muslim-brotherhood-ties-andrew-c-mccarthy

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/310198/questions-about-huma-abedin-andrew-c-mccarthy

SUPPLEMENTARY RESOURCES:

Huma Abedin Timeline: US Government Associations and Muslim Brotherhood Associations

Louay Safi Timeline: US Government Associations and Muslim Brotherhood Associations

Kifah Mustapha Timeline: US Government Associations and Muslim Brotherhood Association

Reports on Huma Abedin

Center Report Reveals Radical Islamist Views and Agenda of Senior State Department Official Huma Abedin’s Mother

Walid Shoebat: Proof: Huma has Ties to Muslim Brotherhood – Countless Documents Surface

Relevant Laws

Information on State Department security clearances

Executive Order: Presidential access to classified information

Further resources on Executive Orders regarding national security and background investigations

House Subcommittee on Intelligence Security Management: Security Clearance Reform — Upgrading the Gateway to the National Security Community

Letters

Original letters sent by 5 Members of Congress to Inspectors General of executive branch agencies regarding the Muslim Brotherhood

Letter from Rep. Michele Bachmann to Rep. Keith Ellison with extensive sourcing explaining Member’s concerns

Letter from prominent conservative leaders supporting the sending of the Inspectors General letters

Letter from National Security leaders supporting the Inspector General letters

 

The Atlantic Whitewashes Islamist Groups in Abedin Controversy

After a week of evidence coming to light about the connections of Hillary Clinton’s Deputy Chief-of-Staff Huma Abedin to Islamist groups, the Muslim Brotherhood and internationally-designated terrorist enities, the response from the left is ridicule, misrepresentation, caricature and—on the most damning evidence—utter silence. 

A cartoonish chart prepared by The Atlantic’s Serena Dai includes jaw-dropping distortions of Islamist groups—several being officially-designated terrorist groups—to make Abedin’s family and personal connections with them seem benign. 

The blue dots populating “Alleged Connection between Huma Abedin, Muslim Brotherhood, and other things that are bad” are laughably incomplete. In her effort to paint these multiple and serious affiliations as a comical six degrees of separation  to the Muslim Brotherhood (and provide talking points to that effect to others in the left media), Dai whitewashes the fact that most of the organizations listed can reasonably be considered Brotherhood fronts, or, at minimum, heavily populated by Muslim Brothers or ideological Islamist fellow travelers. 

The controversy surrounding Huma Abedin—and, importantly, the extent to which her connections to Islamist groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, alarmingly seemed not to factor into a background check—arise from letters to Inspector Generals of five departments written by a group of Congressmen Newt Gingrich recently dubbed the “National Security Five.” Examining these connections are crucial in light of the advice the Deputy Chief-of-Staff is giving to her boss, the Secretary of State, at a time when Islamist groups openly declaring jihad against America are being rewarded by the Obama administration with legitimacy in the political process. 

Most egregiously, Dai’s chart omits the closest connection Abedin has to Islamist groups and individuals: she was, herself, an assistant editor of the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs for seven years along with terrorism financier Abdullah Omar Naseef. The Journal and the Institute for which her father also worked, was the brainchild of Naseef, who found time to found the Rabita Trust (banned by US Treasury just after 9/11) and serve as secretary general to the Muslim World League (MWL), a group founded by the trusted deputy and son-in-law of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood and, reportedly, one of al Qaeda’s prime sources of funding. When looking for a head of the Rabita Trust, Naseef turned to Wael Hamza Jalidan, who had, by then, been an associate of Osama Bin Laden in al Qaeda. 

In other words, many of the people and groups with whom a man like Naseef surrounds himself (at minimum) tend to be what you’d call “problematic,” and a locus of these links should (again, at the very minimum) give a background investigator pause—or, more sensibly, ring the alarm bells—if he finds not one but several links to Naseef or people like him. 

For example, Huma Abedin is linked to Naseef in several ways: (1) herself, through her employment at an organization Naseef founded and chaired, the Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs; (2) through her mother, who was also employed by Naseef’s IMMA; (3) through her late father, who served with Naseef as part of the Muslim World League; and finally (4) through her brother, a fellow at the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies, a group which includes Naseef as a board member. That’s a cluster of associations with merely one man, and that one man is a terror funder. 

But let’s pause for a moment. These links are not “guilt by association”—a term the left has wrung of any meaning, transformed into an all-purpose self-satisfied comeback. As Andy McCarthy explains:

A person is not required to have done anything wrong to be denied a high-ranking government position, or more immediately, the security clearance allowing access to classified information that is necessary to function in such a job. There simply need be associations, allegiances, or interests that establish a potential conflict of interest… Government jobs and access to the nation’s secrets are privileges, not rights. That is why the potential conflict needn’t stem from one’s own associations with hostile foreign countries, organizations, or persons. Vicarious associations, such as one’s parents’ connections to troublesome persons and organizations, are sufficient to create a potential conflict.

In an effort to caricature the exhaustive research done by Walid Shoebat, Andy McCarthy, the Center for Security Policy, and others, the Atlantic proceeds to whitewash and downplay as uncontroversial the individuals and groups that the Abedin family is deeply connected with. A sampling:

Dai’s description for the group Abedin’s mother founded, the International Islamic Committee for Woman and Child (IICWC), is cynically deceptive: “Its website states a goal of defending women’s rights.” In Arabic, its website also recommends repeal of laws forbidding female genital mutilation, child marriage, and marital rape. For justification of these barbaric positions clearly in conflict with the mandate of “protecting women’s rights,” IICWC turns to Yusuf al-Qaradawi—the infamous Hitler-praising cleric who is considered to be the Muslim Brotherhood’s chief jurist. Oh, and according to the IICWC’s own website (again, in Arabic), Qaradawi was also the author of the group’s charter.

In addition, the Atlantic omits references to Women in Islam, the book Saleha Abedin and her IICWC published, translated into English and distributed through the Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA), the organization with which Huma Abedin herself was employed. Excerpts of the book were published by the Center for Security Policy, including a chapter arguing for women’s participation in armed jihad, stoning or lashing for adultery, curtailing free expression based on what would benefit Islam, and more. To establish these positions—again, as far from a western notion of human rights as you can get—the book relies on extensive citations from opinions of Muslim Brotherhood figures like Qaradawi and Sayiid Qutb, the ideological inspiration for nearly every modern jihadist group, including al Qaeda.

Moving on, there’s the International Islamic Council for Da’wah and Relief (IICDR), which Dai refers to as a group that merely “connects various Islamic organizations.” You could say that. You could also say it was banned in Israel for funding Hamas as part of a scheme by the very same Qaradawi and his Union For Good. Saleha Abedin attended IICDR’s board meetings, and their own websites and publications acknowledge the linkage. 

On to the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), which Dia euphemistically says, “helps the social development of Muslim youth.” As Andrew McCarthy—who has published invaluable information on Abedin’s connections and putting them into context, recounts: 

Its principal role is the indoctrination of young Muslims in supremacist ideology. As outlined in one of its pamphlets, Islamic Views, it aims to “teach our children to love taking revenge on the Jews and the oppressors, and teach them that our youngsters will liberate Palestine and al-Quds [i.e., Jerusalem] when they go back to Islam and make Jihad for the sake of Allah.” As Matthew Levitt extensively details in Hamas: Politics, Charity and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad, WAMY has been a financial supporter of Hamas and al-Qaeda.

“An Islamic organization aiming to further the religion” is how Dai gingerly describes WAMY’s parent organization, the aforementioned World Muslim League (WML). Ian Johnson’s bestselling investigative book on the Muslim Brotherhood in the west, Mosque in Munich, details the development of the WML as an innovation of the Brotherhood at the highest levels, led by Said Ramadan. 

And on and on. 

This episode illustrates the extent to which the left is determined to downplay the explicit danger of well-funded Islamist groups and individuals, ranging from the ideological incubators of shariah and jihad to actual government-designated terrorist sponsors. Rather than being the hyper-partisan defense of Huma Abedin that the writer intends, this piece—and the accompanying chart—willfully contributes to a lack of understanding of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood that threaten our way of life, our freedoms, and our national security.

Even more, the hyperventilation on this issue by the likes of CNN’s Anderson Cooper, the evening lineup of MSNBC, John McCain, and Keith Ellison (who’s got his own Muslim Brotherhood ties) has the effect of legitimizing the Muslim Brotherhood and similar radical groups, effectively delivering the American Muslim community into its hands. If any criticism of the Brotherhood or its court-established front groups is tantamount to Islamophobia and is off limits, then our national security is in a perilous place. And, like their efforts to destroy anti-communists during the Cold War, we’ve got the left to blame.

America’s ‘Iron Lady’

Movie theaters across America have recently called to mind former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a woman whose visionary leadership and fortitude – particularly in the fight against Soviet Communism – earned her the sobriquet “the Iron Lady.”

Lady Thatcher’s partner in dispatching that toxic ideology to the “ash-heap of history,” Ronald Reagan, famously declared in 1961 – at a time when the USSR was still very much a going concern – that “freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”  Today, it is threatened by another totalitarian ideology that some have aptly described as “communism with a god”: the supremacist Islamic doctrine known as shariah.

Fortunately, it turns out that, as we confront our time’s most imminent threat to freedom, we have found America’s Iron Lady: Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.  Her Thatcheresque qualities are evident in the fearless and visionary leadership she is providing in opposing shariah’s most formidable champions, the Muslim Brotherhood.

In particular, Rep. Bachmann – whose training as a tax attorney has prepared her well for the painstaking business of studying and mastering arcane organizational, financial and other relationships that are at the core of the stealthy subversion the Brotherhood calls “civilization jihad.”  Her experience raising 28 of her own and foster children has steeled her against the name-calling and worse that have met her efforts to bring those skills to bear to expose and defeat the jihadists, wherever they may be.

Good thing.  For, at the moment, Michele Bachmann is not facing mere name-calling but outright character assassination.  She has been singled out for special treatment despite the fact that she was one of five Members of Congress (the others being Reps. Louie Gohmert of Texas, Trent Franks of Arizona, Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia and Tom Rooney of Florida) who had the temerity to send five federal Inspectors General formal requests for investigations into Muslim Brotherhood influence operations inside our government – a threat every bit as dangerous as was the communist subversion of a generation ago.

It is, of course, no accident that Mrs. Bachmann is being subjected to such vilification by the Islamists, their allies on the Left and in the establishment media’s amen chorus.  As a principled, articulate and wildly popular Tea Party and conservative leader, she is a prime target forelectoral defeat by her political foes.  These include her fellow Minnesotan, Rep. Keith Ellison, the “first Muslim congressman” who launched the initial attack on our Iron Lady.  More on him in a moment.

Regrettably, the Minnesota congresswoman has also been savaged by prominent figures in her own party.  Some have been motivated by a desire to exonerate one of the individuals identified in thefive legislators’ letter to the State Department’s Inspector General: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin.  Others seem determined to deflect or at least deny the problem of which she appears to be but one example and a symptom:  There are individuals with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood inside or at least influencing the White House, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Departments of Justice, Defense and Homeland Security, as well as Foggy Bottom.

With respect to the former, long-time federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy noted in a brilliant expose posted at National Review Online on July 21, the question is not whether Ms. Abedin has committed a crime but should she have a security clearance?  The State Department’s own guidelines would appear to deny access to classified information to a person who has, as she does through living and deceased family members, “foreign associations that could create…a heightened risk of foreign exploitation, inducement, manipulation, pressure, or coercion.”  [(For more on those troubling associations and their implications for U.S. policy, see a new Center for Security Policy report entitled “Ties That Bind? The Views and Agenda of Huma Abedin’s Islamist Mother” (http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p19045.xml).]

With respect to efforts to dismiss as “dangerous” or baseless concerns about a possible, far-larger problem with individuals whohave connections to the Muslim Brotherhood shaping U.S. policy toward that organization and enabling its rising power, what can one say?  There is abundant evidence that indicates such concerns are warranted (including that found in Parts 8 and 9 of the Center for Security Policy’s online curriculum at www.MuslimBrotherhoodinAmerica.com – a resource drawn upon by the five legislators).  Unless and until the critics – on Capitol Hill, in the media and elsewhere – perform the sort of due-diligence that has characterized the approach taken by Mrs. Bachmann and her colleagues, their authority on the matter must be questioned.

That applies particularly to Keith Ellison who claims not to know much about the Muslim Brotherhood, let alonehave ties to it. Counter-terrorism expert Patrick Poole, however, shreds such assertions in a July 22 article at PJMedia (http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/07/21/rep-keith-ellison-rewrites-history-on-his-muslim-brotherhood-cair-ties/) that establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that he, too, has – as Rep. Bachmann has observed – myriad, longstanding associations with Muslim Brotherhood organizations.  These include what the government has established is the Brotherhood’s “overt arm” in America, the Muslim American Society (which paid for Mr. Ellison’s 2008 religious pilgrimage (hajj) to Saudi Arabia), and the Council on American Islamic Relations.  CAIR was proven twice in federal court to be a front for the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian franchise, the designated terrorist organization Hamas.

Michelle Bachmann’s response to her critics is vintage Thatcher: “I will not be silenced.”  We cannot allow America’s Iron Lady or her courageous colleagues to be silenced – or otherwise punished for their needed leadership in countering the Muslim Brotherhood.

Center Report Reveals Radical Islamist Views and Agenda of Senior State Department Official Huma Abedin’s Mother

WASHINGTON, D.C.:  A book published and translated by the mother of Obama administration State Department Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin provides fresh evidence that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s closest aide has deeply problematic foreign associations that could, in violation of departmental guidelines, “create… a heightened risk of foreign exploitation, inducement, manipulation, pressure, or coercion.”

In light of the escalating controversy over the role being played in U.S. security policy-making by Ms. Abedin and others with personal and/or professional ties to the Muslim Brotherhood (see Part 8 of the Center for Security Policy’s online curriculum at MuslimBrotherhoodinAmerica.com), the revelations contained in a new Center report— Ties That Bind? The Views and Agenda of Huma Abedin’s Islamist Mother— could not be more timely, or important.

The Center’s report excerpts and analyzes relevant passages from a book published and translated by Saleha S. Mahmood Abedin called Women in Islam: A Discourse in Rights and Obligations by Fatima Umar Naseef. Naseef is a past head of the “women’s section” and professor of shariah at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, where Dr. Abedin is also on the faculty.  The book was published in 1999, the same year Dr. Abedin founded Dar Al Hekma, a university for women also in Jeddah, that Secretary Clinton visited and spoke admiringly of with Huma Abedin in February 2010.  [See Remarks on that occasion by Mrs. Clinton, including her comment that Huma holds a “very sensitive and important position” in her department, and those by her hosts.]

Excerpts from Women in Islam in Ties That Bind? The Views and Agenda of Huma Abedin’s Islamist Mother include Islamic shariah justifications for the following practices:

  • Stoning for Adultery when Married; Lashing for Adultery when Unmarried
  • No Death Penalty for the Murder of an Apostate
  • Freedom of Expression Curtailed to What Benefits Islam
  • Women’s Right to Participate in Armed Jihad
  • Social Interaction Between the Sexes is Forbidden
  • Women Have No Right to Abstain from Sex with their Husbands
  • A Woman Should Not Let Anyone Into the House Unless Approved by Her Husband
  • Female Genital Mutilation is Allowed
  • Man-Made Laws “Enslave Women”

The organization responsible for the publication of Women in Islam was the International Islamic Committee for Woman & Child (IICWC), chaired at the time by Dr. Abedin.  IICWC misleadingly describes itself as “an international organization of concerned women who are committed to improving the condition of women and children around the world.”  In fact, like the Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim World League (MWL) and other Islamist organizations with which it is associated, the IICWC is committed to eviscerating the rights of women and children by imposing everywhere shariah, a code that denies them fundamental – and, in the United States, constitutional – liberties.

Specifically, the book published by Dr. Abedin wholeheartedly affirms: limits on women’s free expression; the permissibility of stoning as a punishment for adultery, killing of apostates and female genital mutilation; the contention that “man-made laws” enslave women; and more.  It also endorses women’s right to fight in armed jihad.  Women in Islam is available online and sold at the Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs, an Islamist organization co-founded by Huma Abedin’s mother and her late father, Dr. Syed Zainul Abedin.

On July 21, former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy posted an essay at National Review Online that should be required reading for everyone commenting on the request by five Members of Congress led by Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota for Inspector General investigations of Muslim Brotherhood influence operations within the U.S. government.  In it, he observed that the Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs “was backed by the Muslim World League. As the Hudson Institute’s Zeyno Baran relates, the MWL was started by the Saudi government in 1962 ‘with Brotherhood members in key leadership positions.’ It has served as the principal vehicle for the propagation of Islamic supremacism by the Saudis and the Brotherhood.”

Mr. McCarthy notes that:

The five House conservatives…are asking questions that adults responsible for national security should feel obliged to ask: In light of Ms. Abedin’s family history, is she someone who ought to have a security clearance, particularly one that would give her access to top-secret information about the Brotherhood? Is she, furthermore, someone who may be sympathetic to aspects of the Brotherhood’s agenda, such that Americans ought to be concerned that she is helping shape American foreign policy?

Andrew McCarthy, who successfully prosecuted the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdul Rahman – a convicted terrorist and clerical inspiration for jihadists worldwide, whose release from federal prison at the insistence of Muslim Brother and Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi has been the subject of discussions within and enabled by Mrs. Clinton’s State Department – goes on to observe that:

The State Department is particularly wary when it comes to the category of ‘foreign influence‘ – yes, it is a significant enough concern to warrant its own extensive category in background investigations. No criminal behavior need be shown to deny a security clearance; access to classified information is not a right, and reasonable fear of “divided loyalties” is more than sufficient for a clearance to be denied. The [Department’s own security] guidelines probe ties to foreign countries and organizations because hostile elements could “target United States citizens to obtain protected information” or could be “associated with a risk of terrorism.” Note: The Brotherhood checks both these boxes.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., President of the Center for Security Policy, said upon the release of the Center’s new report, Ties That Bind? The Views and Agenda of Huma Abedin’s Islamist Mother:

In the interest of informing the debate about the need to investigate Huma Abedin’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and its agenda, and those of others shaping policy in the Obama administration, the Center for Security Policy offers in Ties That Bind? further cause for such an investigation.  That includes, for instance, evidence of Dr. Saleha Abedin’s personal involvement with the International Islamic Committee on Woman and Child’s affiliated organization, the International Islamic Council for Da’wah and Relief (IICDR). The IICDR was banned in Israel in 2008 for its collaboration with Muslim Brotherhood cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi‘s Union for Good in the funding of the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist organization, Hamas. In the United States, the Union for Good was designated a terrorist entity in late 2008.

This further documentation of Dr. Abedin’s positions on shariah law, her leadership of the IICWC and its affiliation with a designated terrorist entity such as the IICDR makes plain that a thorough investigation is fully justified regarding her daughter’s access to classified information and policy-influencing role.  In particular, in connection with the latter, Ties That Bind powerfully reinforces the Center’s earlier warning that the IICWC is currently advocating for the repeal of Egypt’s Mubarak-era prohibitions on female genital mutilation, child marriage, and marital rape, on the grounds that such prohibitions run counter to shariah. Americans want no part of such an agenda. They should they have  reason for concern that senior officials in their government are stealthily encouraging it.

 

 

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About the Center for Security Policy

The Center for Security Policy is a non-profit, non-partisan national security organization that specializes in identifying policies, actions, and resource needs that are vital to American security and then ensures that such issues are the subject of both focused, principled examination and effective action by recognized policy experts, appropriate officials, opinion leaders, and the general public.

Hold Obama Accountable

Suddenly, congressional leaders of both parties are demanding investigations into serial disclosures of national security secrets on President Obama’s watch.  The truth of the matter is that we already know what we need to about these leaks.  The question is:  Will anybody do anything about it?

Of course, the leaks themselves are already out there – prominently featured, for example, on the front pages of the New York Times.  We know of the compromise of techniques used to defend our country through cyberwarfare, drone attacks, covert operations and what turned out to be other nations’ successful penetration of terrorist cells. 

We also know that, in every case, the leakers’ handiwork portrayed Barack Obama as a highly effective, decisive, muscular and hands-on Commander-in-Chief.  Sadly, the President’s overall record shows him to have been anything but, hence the need to pump up his street creds as part of the reelection campaign.

If the damage done for what are, on their face, nakedly political purposes were not so serious, the President’s remark last week that he finds "offensive" suggestions that "his White House" could have been responsible would be hilarious.  Yet, it seems certain that his Justice Department’s investigation will shed no helpful light on the degree of involvement by the Executive Office of the President or, in case he was parsing his words deliberately, the culpability of those who work for him elsewhere in the government.  At a minimum, that will certainly be true between now and the November election.

As former federal prosecutor-turned-bestselling author Andrew McCarthy has observed (http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2012/06/09/latest-in-leak-farce-the-special-counsel-folly/), Attorney General Eric Holder has jujitsued legislators’ demands for a special prosecutor into a review by two U.S. Attorneys that will not only take, in all likelihood, a year or more to complete.  Worse yet, their investigation will also be used as a pretext to thwart congressional inquiries into the leaks for the duration of that probe.

This is all the more ridiculous in light of what we already know:  People working for Barack Obama have been talking to the media.  Some, like longtime Democratic political operative and current National Security Advisor to the President Tom Donilon, have actually allowed themselves to be named as sources.

In other cases, the leakers are part of a very small universe, making a swift and rigorous investigation manageable.  For instance, some of the leaks were attributed to officials among the presumably quite restricted number of subordinates who participate in highly classified meetings with Mr. Obama to target terrorists for assassination.  One of these turns out to be none other than presidential campaign strategist David Axelrod.  It really should not take long to ferret out who among this small group said what on an off-the-record basis.   

More importantly, the bottom line is also clear:  President Obama is the beneficiary of the spin associated with these leaks, not the American people.  And that truly is offensive.

Unfortunately, the same can be said of a number of other actions for which the President can – and must – be held directly accountable.  These include, for example:

  • President Obama’s deliberate and far-reaching unilateral disarmament of both U.S. conventional and nuclear forces through budgetary actions and malign neglect.
  • President Obama’s embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood – bringing them to power in the Mideast and encouraging their efforts to insinuate shariah here.  In fact, Mr. Donilon’s deputy, Dennis McDonough, was in Qatar last week meeting with senior operatives of America’s two most prominent Brotherhood front groups, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), toward that end.  We also just learned that his administration has had "hundreds of meetings" with CAIR.
  • President Obama’s buying time for Iran to complete its decades-long drive to acquire nuclear weapons and eviscerating the U.S. missile defenses needed to protect against that growing threat.
  • President Obama’s alienating of Israel, Poland, the Czech Republic, Honduras and other allies in the vain hope of currying favor with their foes, and ours.
  • President Obama’s encouraging other adversaries, from Russia to China to North Korea to Chavismo in our hemisphere, thanks to the weakness and irresolution that have characterized his policies to date and that his team now feels the need to obscure with heavy spinning of the leaked secrets.  And,
  • President Obama’s diminishing of our sovereignty, notably by trying to ram through the Senate the Law of the Sea Treaty – the subject of two more hearings this week in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, including the first in which opponents have been allowed to testify, led by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Despite the likelihood that the American people will not learn who has been responsible for the damage done to our security through the serial leaks of highly classified information until well after November 6th – if then, they are on notice about his priorities:  Emboldening our enemies, undermining our friends and diminishing our country.  We simply cannot afford four more years of unaccountable and dangerous malpractice on the part of a Commander-in-Chief.

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.

2012 Freedom Flame Award: Michael Mukasey

On May 22nd, the Center for Security Policy recognized the distinguished public service and continuing contributions of former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey with the presentation of its 2012 Freedom Flame Award.

Judge Mukasey’s myriad accomplishments in American jurisprudence and law enforcement epitomize the commitment to freedom and the practice of “peace through strength” that the Freedom Flame was created to recognize.  Mr. Mukasey served from 2007 to 2009 as the eightyfirst U.S. Attorney General following his appointment to that position by President George W. Bush. From 1988 to 2006, he was a federal judge in the Southern District of New York, becoming that court’s Chief Judge in 2000.
Michael Mukasey rendered a singular public service as the presiding judge in the successful prosecution Omar Abdel Rahman (the “Blind Sheik”) and nine other coconspirators convicted of the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., the Center for Security Policy’s President noted that “Judge Mukasey’s acceptance remarks provided a characteristically thoughtful, articulate and compelling indictment of shariah law and the Muslim Brotherhood – and those in the U.S. government who are wittingly or unwittingly enabling their insinuation into this country.”

Highlights included the following excerpts:

The story, the end meant to be served by the means of the violence, is the imposition of shariah, which is a comprehensive framework that has spiritual aspects to be sure, but is supposed to regulate all behavior…Which is to say shariah is totalitarian and profoundly anti-democratic.

Those charged with protecting our security have a duty to understand and to teach others under their authority to understand what the basic tenets are of the people who are trying to destroy our way of life…Also, those charged with protecting us have a responsibility to avoid strengthening the hand of those who are trying to undermine our way of life by relying on them as our principle interlocutors in the Muslim community. CAIR, the Council on American/Islamic Relations, is a branch of Hamas and of the Muslim Brotherhood. ISNA, the Islamic Society of North America, is another branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In a moving tribute to Michael Mukasey, Andy McCarthy – himself a 2010 recipient of the Freedom Flame award – described the Judge’s greatest contribution to our national security:
By following the law faithfully, he ensured that history would fairly and accurately record the ideology of our enemies — not only what they did, but why they did it. Neither political correctness nor willful blindness can efface that record.

Two other honors were also conferred at the dinner:

The Center presented Major General John K. Singlaub, a former Office of Secret Service (OSS) officer and founding member of the Central Intelligence Agency, with the Freedom’s Shield award.  He was introduced by a former comrade-in-arms, E. Miles Prentice III, Chairman of the Center’s Board of Directors.  Mr. Prentice recounted Gen. Singlaub’s storied role in special operations from World War II through Vietnam, his principled stand that helped derail President Carter’s reckless decision to reduce the U.S. military’s deterrent presence in South Korea and his help to President Reagan in securing Latin America from communist subversion.

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation was honored with the Terry Elkes Sacred Honor Award in recognition of its visionary and generous philanthropy in the service of national security. Dianne Sehler, the Foundation’s much-admired Director of Academic, International and Cultural Programs, accepted the award.

Regarding the evening, Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., further stated:

This is a true gathering of heroes – citizens who have answered their country’s call to serve in their respective capacities with distinction and incalculably important effects.

Judge Mukasey is an exemplar of American jurisprudence and law enforcement at its very best.  General Singlaub is a patriot’s patriot, whose achievements under fire are the stuff of legend and an inspiration to all.  And the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation is the gold standard of American philanthropy under the leadership of its President, Michael Grebe, and his able programmatic right-hand, Dianne Sehler.  We are privileged to be able to recognize all of these truly great Americans in one evening.

 

About the Freedom Flame Award:  This recognition is extended each year to acknowledge the contributions of one or more individuals who have exemplified the ideals of freedom, democracy, economic opportunity and international strength to which the Center for Security Policy is committed.  Past recipients include: John Lehman, the “Manhattan Seven” (seven Americans who worked to block the creation of the Ground Zero Mosque and the trial of 9/11 co-conspirators in New York City), Herb London, James Woolsey, Ray Kelly, John Bolton, Richard Perle, Fred Thompson, William Casey, Robert Krieble, Albert Wohlstetter and Margaret Thatcher.

 

Center honors heroes at Freedom Flame Award Dinner

The Freedom Flame Award recognizes individuals who have exemplified the ideals of freedom, democracy, economic opportunity and international strength to which the Center for Security Policy is committed.

The Award acknowledges the past contributions of its recipients while serving as a reminder that the goals for which they have worked so valiantly require the continuing, unflagging efforts of those who follow in their footsteps.

On Tuesday May 22, at an elegant New York City dinner, the Center bestowed the 2012 Freedom Flame Award to the Honorable Michael B. Mukasey, former Attorney General under President George W. Bush, and presiding judge in the successful prosecution of Omar Abdel Rahman (the "Blind Sheik") and nine other coconspirators convicted of the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.

The prosecutor in that same case, Andrew C. McCarthy, had the honor of introducing Judge Mukasey:

 

[TRANSCRIPT]

 

Mr. Mukasey’s acceptance speech was an eloquent assessment of the threat from the doctrine of jihadist Islam from the 1993 World Trade Center attacks to the present day, providing a systematic analysis of the enemy’ ideology:

 

[TRANSCRIPT]

 

The 2012 event saw the inaugaration of a new honor, the Freedom’s Shield Award, which was bestowed to Major General John K. "Jack" Singlaub.  He is one of our nation’s most storied and accomplished military officers. His service in the United States Army from 19431977 included an assignment with the Office of Strategic Services that involved parachuting into occupied France to work with the Resistance to support the Allied invasion. Other highlights of General Singlaub’s extraordinary career include: a role as a founding member of the Central Intelligence Agency; uniformed leadership positions in, among other places, Vietnam and South Korea; and assisting President Reagan in defeating Soviet Communism’s proxies in Latin America.

 

Finally, Center President and CEO Frank J. Gaffney, Jr presented the Terry Elkes Sacred Honor Award for philanthropy in the service of national security.  The 2012 award went to the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation for its tireless commitment to freedom and the American experiment. The Foundation has done incalculable good by promoting limited, competent government; a dynamic marketplace for economic, intellectual, and cultural activity; and a vigorous defense, at home and abroad, of American ideas, institutions and liberties.

2012 Mightier Pen Award: Roger Ailes

ailes_gaffney_crowley(1)On Tuesday, February 28, 2012 at the Union League Club in New York City, the Center for Security Policy presented Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes with the Mightier Pen Award.

Mr. Ailes personifies the qualities extolled by the Mightier Pen award. Under his guidance, Fox News has transformed coverage of national security and related issues. Fox News has proven with its stunning market success that the American people want to be told the truth about an increasingly dangerous world, the challenges it poses to those who cherish freedom and the momentous choices before us – choices that may determine the future security and prosperity of this nation and its friends.

The award luncheon was preceded by a morning conference titled Under the Gun: Reporting News in a Dangerous World, meant to reflect the increasing threats to journalists around the world and to free expression, among other places, here at home.

The first session, titled “Growing Censorship of Free Speech” discussed “lawfare,” the misuse of the legal system through, notably lawsuits, to suppress 1st Amendment rights. The panel was moderated by former Congressman Fred Grandy and featured Sam Nunberg of the Middle East Forum, Brooke Goldstein of the Lawfare Project and Andrew McCarthy, former Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney and Senior Fellow at the National Review Institute.

The second session, titled “Escalating State Violence Against Political and Religious Expression” discussed the disturbing trend that journalistic freedom is on the decline globally, according to an Freedom House report.  This panel was moderated by Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., President of the Center for Security Policy, and featured prize-winning investigative reporter and editorialist Claudia Rosett of Forbes, a former recipient of the Mightier Pen and Vilma Petrash, a veteran Venezuelan journalist forced to flee censorship and oppression in her homeland.

The luncheon also featured an impromptu recognition of a past recipient of the Center for Security Policy’s Freedom Flame award, NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly.  He received a standing ovation following a tribute by Andrew McCarthy, who received the Mightier Pen in 2008.

Mr. Gaffney said after the conclusion of the day’s events:

Roger Ailes was a natural choice when considering the contributions made by members of the Fourth Estate to a free and strong America. Few have been more extraordinary or consequential.  In particular, under his visionary, creative and pioneering leadership, Fox News has revolutionized a media establishment that has, for far too long, been neither fair nor balanced when it comes to covering national security and related issues.”

We were also delighted to have several distinguished working journalists and subject matter experts with us to discuss the dangers – both personal and professional – facing today’s journalists striving on an increasing variety of fronts to bring us “the story.”  Their insights into the difficulties associated, one the one hand, with externally imposed and self-censorship of free speech and, on the other, with the escalation of state violence against the reporters, as well as political and religious minorities internationally cast significant light upon a problem receiving woefully deficient attention.

The Center for Security Policy’s Mightier Pen Award was inaugurated in 2001 in recognition of individuals who have, through their work in the Fourth Estate, contributed both to the public appreciation of the need for robust U.S. national security policies and the indispensability of US military strength to preserving international peace. Previous awardees have included William F. Buckley, Jr., A.M. Rosenthal, Charles Krauthammer, and Norman Podhoretz.

The Mightier Pen Award is presented under the auspices of the National Security and New Media Journalism Project.  The Project was established to provide professional development for the next generation of national security journalists in an objective environment informed by the burgeoning opportunities of the new media.

The National Security and New Media Journalism Project was initiated by the Center for Security Policy in 2010 to encourage high quality news reporting by advancing new standards for accuracy and integrity in national security journalism.