Tag Archives: Huma Abedin

Anderson Cooper Crosses the Line

Anderson Cooper closed one of five segments of his weeknightly CNN show that he recently devoted to attacking principally Rep. Michele Bachmann with a genuflection towards an iconic newsman, Edward R. Murrow.  He deployed against her the gauntlet Murrow threw down to Sen. Joseph McCarthy in March 1954: “The line between investigating and persecuting is a [very] fine one.”  If anyone has stepped over that line, however, it is Cooper himself, rather than the Minnesota congresswoman.

Night after night during the week of July 16th, the host of “Anderson Cooper 360” failed to meet even the most basic standards of investigative journalism.  The irony is that, in his ill-concealed persecution of Mrs. Bachmann, Cooper has serially engaged in precisely the practices he pillories her and others for allegedly using, by his account, to destroy the reputation of the Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a Muslim-American woman named Huma Abedin.  Let us count the ways:

  • Anderson Cooper insists that Michele Bachmann (who he singles out for most of his criticism, despite the fact that she was but one of five Members of Congress to raise concerns not only about Ms. Abedin’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, but those of a number of others the Obama administration has enlisted as officials, advisors and/or liaisons to “the Muslim community”) failed to do her homework. Yet, Cooper repeatedly showed his ignorance of the extensive evidence cited by the legislators, even as he mentioned the website where some of it resides: the Center for Security Policy’s online video course at www.MuslimBrotherhoodinAmerica.com.
  • As he accused Rep. Bachmann of playing fast and loose with the facts, Cooper repeatedly mischaracterized the nature of the legislators’ request for five federal inspectors general to conduct investigations.  He or his echo-chamber of exclusively like-minded guests complained that Ms. Abedin is accused of being a “spy” and engaging in “treason” and that she has been subjected to a groundless, bigoted and McCarthyite witch-hunt. Several of the reporters and interested parties who added color commentary (sometimes repeatedly) further demeaned Congresswoman Bachmann by asserting that she is simply engaging in partisan politics and fund-raising for her reelection campaign.
  • As with the Congresswoman and to a lesser extent her colleagues, Cooper also made a point of going after this columnist.  If anyone is guilty of “McCarthyism,” though, it is the journalistic poseur who specializes in shooting the messenger and buying into and tendentiously proclaiming that there are “no facts” supporting the unwanted message – rather than rigorously examining and accurately reporting on the vast amount of evidence that inconveniently does exist.
  • While portraying Huma Abedin as an innocent victim of smears, Cooper engaged in his own smearing – occasionally through his rants on the subject, often by citing others who have indulged in ad hominem attacks against the congresswoman and her team.  He repeatedly showcased such attacks by individuals in her own party, even though they were clearly were unfamiliar with the actual nature of the legislators’ concerns and the abundant grounds for raising them.
  • One of the prominent figures in this televised persecution of Michele Bachmann was the man who kicked it off:  Her colleague, Rep. Keith Ellison, Democrat of Minnesota and the first Muslim Member of Congress.  As it happens, according to the public record (recently brilliantly distilled by counter-terrorism expert Patrick Poole at PJ Media http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/07/21/rep-keith-ellison-rewrites-history-on-his-muslim-brotherhood-cair-ties/), Mr. Ellison has himself been closely associated with the Muslim Brotherhood – a natty problem Rep. Bachmann has noted, to Cooper’s horror.

So, the “360” host had Keith Ellison on to help deflect that charge.  When the congressman blithely denied that he was a Muslim Brother or, for that matter, that he even knew very much about the Brotherhood, well, that was good enough for crack investigative journalist Anderson Cooper.  Back to the persecution of Michele Bachmann, with Cooper egging on Minnesota’s Muslim congressman.

  • Anderson Cooper further discredited his claim to be an independent, let alone exacting, journalist by taking at face value the FBI’s assurances that it had not dealt with Muslim Brothers or other “extremists” in the recent purge of its training materials and files.  The evidence of that falsehood is readily available.  Yet, the FBI statement was taken – and presented – as though gospel by a credulous host whose only skepticism was reserved for why Michele Bachmann had been charged by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers with investigating the extent of the Brotherhood’s influence operations inside the Bureau.]
  • Perhaps most distressing was the service Anderson Cooper has provided to the Islamists by promoting the meme that inquiries about specific Muslims with demonstrable ties to the Muslim Brotherhood amount to attacks on all Muslims.  This plays into the victimhood mantra Islamists use to justify their jihadism undertaken ostensibly for the purpose of defending beleaguered co-religionists.

Applying Cooper’s logic, every Muslim – even those whose associations (personal, familial, professional or other) with an organization like the Brotherhood that is sworn to our destruction clearly violate the government’s own guidelines for security clearances, to say nothing of the oath of office to support the Constitution and defend it against all enemies foreign and domestic – are to be given an automatic pass.  That may also be the view of the Obama administration, but it is a formula for disaster for the country.

There is a particular irony to Anderson Cooper’s, well, jihad against those who oppose the Muslim Brotherhood.  For an avowedly gay man, Anderson Cooper is rooting for the wrong team.  If the Islamists have their way here, he will not simply be on the wrong side of the line.  He’ll be toast.

The Muslim Brotherhood, Clinton State Department, John McCain and Todays Lax Security Mindset

There was a time when it was considered necessary and proper to be concerned about possible foreign influences in US government and military service. Way back in 1981 when I first filled out forms as part of the process for joining the US military (it was a DOD form, I don’t remember the number) I had to answer a specific question regarding travel. The question asked if I had traveled to any of a list of nations after certain dates (all communist bloc countries) with a date listed by each nation (the date that each country had turned communist).

Anyone who joined the military in the Cold War era probably remembers this form and this question. If the answer to the question for any of the nations involved was "yes" you had to provide a complete explanation for the reason for the trip, when it took place, etc. Having never visited countries like Cuba, North Korea, East Germany, the Soviet Union, etc., I can’t say that I know what the process would have been had I answered yes.

But the point is, if you wanted to join the US military and you had even visited any communist countries, the Department of Defense wanted to know about it.

Fast forward to today. We are locked in a mortal struggle against a force not unlike communism. In fact, it has been called "communism with a god." That force is Islam as defined by the Shariah doctrine which forms the basis for it. There are certain countries and organizations that are prominent in the enemy threat doctrine. Yet, to my knowledge, today we have no similar safeguards in place to what the DOD had during the Cold War years to check on the influence of foreign powers on American institutions.

For instance, are any questions ever raised about travel to Iran, Syria or Sudan, three countries on the State Department’s list of terrorist sponsoring nations? For that matter, what about travel to Yemen, like Carlos Bledsoe did where he was indoctrinated to wage jihad in the USA by Anwar al-Alwaki? What about travel to the tribal areas of Pakistan, where the Times Square bomber traveled and received training? For that matter, how about travel to Saudi Arabia? After all, the Salafi strain of Islam that gave birth to Al Qaeda has its seat there and most of Al Qaeda’s cannon fodder seems to come from Saudi Arabia.

Then there is the whole present question of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood is best described as the forefather of all modern Jihadist terrorist groups. Its apologists and proponents claim that the Muslim Brotherhood has completely eschewed violence, yet the available evidence proves otherwise. HAMAS was founded as a Muslim Brotherhood wing and has been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the US State Department. HAMAS is one of the deadliest Jihadist organizations in the world, having carried out numerous Islamikaze bombings. And make no mistake, HAMAS has a large presence inside the USA.

There seems to have developed in recent years some romanticized view of the Muslim Brotherhood among certain naive political factions in the USA–and not just Democrats. Rather than being viewed as an organization in the political wing of a global insurgency, the Muslim Brotherhood is unfortunately being embraced in the West and the US. Senator John McCain, for instance, seems to have become smitten with the Muslim Brotherhood after meeting with them for a few hours in Egypt. But no one has embraced the Muslim Brotherhood quite like the Obama administration. The Obama administration has established close ties to Muslim Brotherhood organizations in the US and met with them at length and frequently. All indications are that the Muslim Brotherhood plays a prominent role in the Obama administration. Organizations like CAIR (the Council on American Islamic Relations) and ISNA (the Islamic Society of North America) were named unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation trial, the largest terrorism financing conviction in US history. (Attorney General Holder declined to prosecute these organizations when he came to office, despite intentions by others in the Justice Department to do so.) In the Holy Land Foundation trial, in documented evidence that was stipulated to by the defense, both CAIR and ISNA were identified as Muslim Brotherhood organizations.

And yes, a high-level member of the Clinton staff at the State Department, Huma Abedin, comes from a prominent Muslim Brotherhood family. Her father, her brother and her mother all have prominent positions in the Muslim Brotherhood apparatus. If during the Cold War such a person came from a family with extensive ties to the Communist Party of Romania or East Germany, there would have been ample reason to conduct a security investigation. But in today’s politically correct surreal world of Washington DC "go along to get along" culture, it seems that no questions can be raised. This is the same culture that looked the other way while a known Jihadist, Major Nidal Hassan, hid right out in the open in the US Army spouting Islamic Jihad doctrine, culminating in the terrible terrorist attack at Fort Hood.

Well, the Center for Security Policy DID raise questions. The Center produced a 10-part video course on the Muslim Brotherhood in America that every American should watch: http://www.muslimbrotherhoodinamerica.com. Among others members of Congress, Michelle Bachmann has written a letter to inspectors general of key Washington departments inquiring as to Muslim Brotherhood influence in Washington’s halls of power. For her trouble, the likes of Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Anderson Cooper and a host of Leftist media from the Huffington Post to the Los Angeles Times and MSNBC have attacked Rep. Bachmann.

They have all done so in a total vacuum of knowledge about the Muslim Brotherhood, the Holy Land Foundation trial and American fronts like CAIR and ISNA.

The Center has published a rebuttal to this shrill, emotional criticism.

This all stems from a complete failure of our leadership to put America on a war footing in the wake of 9/11. Our leaders have failed to identify the enemy. They have failed to even try to understand the enemy threat doctrine. In fact they have even denied that an enemy threat doctrine even exists. As a result of this culture, an imperialist, nefarious organization with long-standing ties to terrorism and with goals identical to those of Al Qaeda itself, namely the Muslim Brotherhood, is treated as a friend, rather than as a foe. If you even suggest that the Muslim Brotherhood might be an enemy of America, Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Anderson Cooper will attack you as if you are a wild-eyed bomb-thrower. We are indeed through the looking glass.

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.

Center Responds To McCain On Muslim Brotherhood; Invites Dr. Saleha Abedin To Discuss Her Policy Positions

Washington, D.C.:  Senator John McCain weighed in today on an intensifying controversy concerning the influence being exercised within the U.S. government by Muslim Brotherhood-associated individuals and organizations.   In his remarks, the Arizona legislator assailed five of his House colleagues – Reps. Michele Bachmann, Louie Gohmert, Trent Franks, Lynn Westmoreland and Tom Rooney – and an online video curriculum produced by the Center for Security Policy, The Muslim Brotherhood in America: The Enemy Within (www.MuslimBrotherhoodinAmerica.com).
Unfortunately, in so doing, Sen. McCain made clear that he: had not actually reviewed the curriculum; was unfamiliar with its extensive documentation of a stealthy “civilization jihad” being mounted against this country, its civil society institutions and government; and misrepresented its findings.  By contrast, with the benefit of that resource and their own extensive research, the Representatives wrote the State Department Inspector General, Amb. Harold Geisel, making the factual observation that his agency has recently adopted a number of policies that are “enormously favorable to the Muslim Brotherhood and its interests.”  They went on to characterize those policies as ones that are “deeply problematic and may even pose security risks for this nation, its people and interests.”  (The five Members of Congress also sent similar letters to the IGs of the Departments of Justice, Defense and Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.  http://bachmann.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=303218.)
The legislators requested that the Inspector General “conduct a formal investigation or evaluation of the extent to which Muslim Brotherhood-tied individuals and entities have helped achieve the adoption of these State Department actions and policies or are involved in their execution.”
One of those actions was the Secretary of State’s February 2010 visit to Dar Al-Hekma College in Jedda, Saudi Arabia.  On that occasion, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demonstrated her support for the views and achievements of the college’s founder, Dr. Saleha Mahmood Abedin, the mother of Mrs. Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin.
In the interest of exploring Dr. Abedin’s policy recommendations, the Center for Security Policy today extended to her the attached invitation to participate in a dialogue.  A particular focus of this dialogue would be to illuminate attitudes towards shariah espoused by the organization with which Dr. Abedin has long been associated: the International Islamic Committee for Woman and Child.  She has also been identified as a leader in Saudi Arabia of the Muslim Sisterhood.
Center for Security Policy President Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. said, “Congresswoman Bachmann and her colleagues have rendered a tremendous public service by raising an alarm about the dangers posed by the Muslim Brotherhood’s ‘civilization jihad.’  Far from being chastised for doing so, by Sen. McCain or others, they should be applauded and aided in their efforts to have the extent of Brotherhood influence operations properly investigated by Inspectors General and/or congressional committees.  We very much hope that a conversation with Dr. Abedin will help inform such deliberations.”

The Center’s invitation letter to Dr. Abedin is available here.

– 30 –
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.
 
For more information visit www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org.

The Company They Keep

The truism that you know someone by the company they keep has rarely been more true than with respect to the Obama administration and its burgeoning ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists. Just this weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton became the latest member of Team Obama to consort with sworn enemies of the United States when she sat down with the newly installed Brotherhood president of Egypt, Mohammed Morsi.

Despite official, media and academic efforts to portray Morsi – and, for that matter, the Muslim Brotherhood more generally – as the kind of people with whom the United States can safely deal in the evolving Middle East and here, the determination of such Islamists to impose their supremacist Islamic doctrine of shariah worldwide could not be more palpable. Their hostility to America, Israel, Western civilization and other infidels goes back to the founding of the organization in 1928 and is rooted in its guiding program – shariah – and it is absolute and unwavering. Anyone who says otherwise is deluding themselves or deliberately deceiving others.

While it cannot be confirmed at this writing, presumably Mrs. Clinton was accompanied on her travels as usual – particularly in the Middle East – by her Deputy Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin. That would be all the more probable given that Ms. Abedin has myriad family ties to the Brotherhood. For example, her mother, Saleha Abedin, is a leader of the organization’s secretive women’s auxiliary, the Muslim Sisterhood, in which she serves along with Mohammed Morsi’s wife, Naglaa Ali Mahmoud.

The presence of an individual with such associations in the seniormost ranks of the State Department at a moment when the Obama administration is assiduously "engaging" with the Muslim Brotherhood has raised concerns on Capitol Hill. To their credit, five legislators, led by Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, have asked for a formal inquiry into the role Ms. Abedin and perhaps others have played in the adoption of problematic policies favorable to the Islamists.

For her troubles, Rep. Bachmann has recently been assailed by one of her colleagues – the self-styled "first Muslim congressman," Keith Ellison. The congresswoman responded Friday with a detailed – and devastating – 16-page, 59-footnote letter (http://bachmann.house.gov/uploadedfiles/letter_to_rep._ellison.pdf) to Mr. Ellison’s rash charge that there was no basis for concerns about Ms. Abedin.

The documentation provided also lays bare the established connections between several Muslim-American organizations and the Muslim Brotherhood. The upshot of Rep. Ellison’s foray is that he has inadvertently called attention to the bad company he keeps – namely, with various known Brotherhood front groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).

Meanwhile, as Secretary Clinton headed off to Jerusalem, reportedly to assure Israeli leaders that Mr. Morsi means no harm to the Jewish State, a very different message is conveyed in a document (http://www.memri.org/clip_transcript/en/3431.htm) currently making the rounds. It is the transcript of an endorsement given at the kick-off rally of the Morsi campaign by one of his supporters, Egyptian cleric Safwat Higazi. As the candidate looked on beaming, Higazi declared: "…The dream of the Islamic Caliphate is being realized, Allah willing, by Dr. Muhammad Mursi and his brothers, his supporters, and his political party – that of the United States of the Arabs….The capital of the Caliphate – the capital of the United States of the Arabs – will be Jerusalem, Allah willing."

Rep. Bachmann and her colleagues also asked for investigations into the role being played in shaping U.S. policy by the president of ISNA, Imam Mohamed Magid. As documented at www.MuslimBrotherhoodinAmerica.com, that senior Brotherhood operative has been an advisor to President Obama, feted at the White House, State and Treasury Departments, literally embraced by the Justice Department and used as the vehicle for serial apologies by the Pentagon. Counterterrorism expert Patrick Poole has dubbed Magid Team Obama’s "Diversity Czar."

The fact that the Obama administration is keeping such company is made all the more appalling by the kind of company Czar Magid keeps. For example, as Mr. Poole observed, at a recent ISNA "Diversity Forum" in Dearborn, Mohamed Magid presented CAIR-Michigan executive director Dawud Walid with a "diversity award." It speaks volumes about Walid’s actual "sensitivity" to others that he is on record (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDS-BWqWORw&feature=share) justifying the destruction of Jews. The Investigative Project on Terror’s Daniel Rogell reported last month that, in an anti-semitic rant, Walid asked rhetorically "Did Muhammad order the killing of Jews?" He subsequently answered, "Muhammad didn’t order it. Sa’ad ibn Mu’aadh [one of his followers] ordered that punishment. It was a correct one. (Emphasis added.)

Another award handed out by Mohamed Magid’s organization recognizes "community service" and is named for one of ISNA’s founders, Mahboub Khan. It happens that Mr. Khan is the father of someone else who has long been keeping company with Magid and his fellow Islamists – a controversial member of the Board of Directors of the American Conservative Union (ACU) named Suhail Khan. The younger Khan once declared at an ISNA conference, "What are our oppressors going to do with people like us? We are prepared to give our lives for the cause of Islam….I have pledged my life’s work…to work for the umma [Muslim nation.]"

Not only can you gain insights into people by the company they keep. When it comes to the Muslim Brotherhood and like-minded Islamists, it is downright dangerous to do otherwise.

 

Now on DVD! Frank Gaffney’s ‘Muslim Brotherhood in America’ Series

By popular demand, Frank Gaffney’s The Muslim Brotherhood in America: The Enemy Within is now available on DVD at Amazon.com. The entire 8 hour series is on four volumes priced at $12 each.

The Muslim Brotherhood in America: The Enemy Within addresses a threat most Americans are unaware even exists within our country, let alone the degree of peril it represents. The threat is the totalitarian, supremacist Islamic doctrine its adherents call “shariah” and the organized, disciplined and increasingly successful efforts by such adherents– most especially the Muslim Brotherhood– to bring it here.

Click each volume to buy the DVDs.

 

 

The Muslim Brotherhood
in America, volume 1 ($12.00)

included in this disc:

Part 1: The Threat Doctrine of Shariah & the Muslim Brotherhood. The first section of this briefing explains what shariah is according to the authorities and institutions of Islam and as promoted most aggressively by an organization called the Muslim Brotherhood.

Part 2: The Brotherhood’s ‘Civilization Jihad’ in America. The Muslim Brotherhood’s strategy for realizing its mission of “destroying Western civilization from within” was described in an undated 1991 Muslim Brotherhood document entitled “Phases of the World Underground Movement Plan.” In this part, we investigate what they’re doing to implement it.

 

The Muslim Brotherhood
in America, volume 2 ($12.00)

included in this disc:

Part 3: Brotherhood Influence Operations Against ‘Policy Groups’: Conservatives & the GOP. With this grounding in the nature of shariah, the goals and activities of the Muslim Brotherhood to impose it worldwide and an introduction to the latter’s civilization jihad against the United States, let’s take a closer look at one of the Ikhwan’s most successful influence operations: its penetration and manipulation of the Republican Party and the conservative movement in America.

Part 4: Suhail Khan, A Case Study in Influence Operations. If we are to understand the full nature of the threat posed by the likes of Suhail Khan, we need to examine the Khan case study in closer detail. We’ll explore both Khan’s extensive ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and those he has cultivated in his own right for decades, including what he’s said in public about those ties. Then, we’ll take stock of the real service he has performed for the Islamist cause, both in the past and ongoing.

The Muslim Brotherhood
in America, volume 3 ($12.00)

included in this disc:

Part 5: The Organizations Islamists Are Using to Subvert the Right. The next part of this briefing offers some illustrative examples of the myriad ways in which Grover Norquist and his team are still very actively and purposefully promoting the Islamist agenda — with considerable, and toxic, effect.

Part 6: Electing Islamist Republicans. In this part, we consider how several individuals with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood or other Islamists have been groomed to run for office as Republicans. The careers of Grover Norqust proteges Kamal Nawash, Faisal Gill, and Imad ‘David’ Ramadan are given close scrutiny.

Part 7: Advancing the Islamists’ Agendas. Building infrastructure and running candidates helps with the third part of Grover Norquist’s ongoing Islamist influence operation: advancing the agendas of the civilization jihadists or, at a minimum, promoting agendas that serve the Islamists’ interests. In this part, we take a look at some of those initiatives, including opposition a host of policies that keep America safe.

 

The Muslim Brotherhood
in America, volume 4 ($12.00)

included in this disc:

Part 8: Team Obama & the Islamists. The Obama administration has greatly exacerbated the penetration of the U.S. government achieved during the Bush administration. This part of the course will concentrate on illustrative examples of Muslim Brotherhood-associated individuals who have been allowed access to – and, in some cases, given positions in the Obama administration. This part is a case study of Rashad Hussain, Huma Abedin, Daliah Mogahed, Kifa Mustapha, Momamed Elibiary, and Mohamed Magid.

Part 9: Team Obama & the Islamist Agenda. In 2008, Barack Obama began “fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” He has certainly done so with respect to policies favored by Islamists. This part is a two-hour deep drill-down into the disastrous policies of the Obama White House, its State Department, Defense Department, Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security, and more.

Part 10: What’s to be Done? How to defeat the most serious and imminent of such dangers in our time: the Islamist doctrine of shariah and the efforts of its adherents to impose it world-wide, on Muslims and non-Muslims alike, through violent means or by stealth.

Frank Gaffney’s Warning for America

By Jack Kemp, The American Thinker.

On the morning of April 24, Frank Gaffney, Jr., president of the Center for Security Policy, held a live public gathering and online briefing in Washington to discuss his latest project.  Gaffney’s organization has produced a ten-part video course, which Gaffney narrates, on the Muslim Brotherhood in America.  This free course, lasting around ten hours, can be accessed at www.muslimbrotherhoodinamerica.com.  It explains why we are not winning the war against jihad in America today and names the names of those responsible for the current situation.

Preceding Mr. Gaffney’s main talk was Harry E. Soyster, a retired U.S. Army general and member of Gaffney’s research team.  He pointed out that the CIA’s published Book of World Facts (and trends) didn’t even mention religion as a significant factor in politics and thus is quite myopic in its worldview.  It was also mentioned during this gathering that a senior State Department official had said that “the war on terror is over” since we have “killed most of Al Qaida.”  The general also mentioned was that in Italy today, crucifixes are being removed from all public places so as not to offend Muslims.  Gen. Soyster recalled, in years past, having to register a car in Italy and going to a police station where there was a crucifix on the wall, as it was considered a normal part of Italian culture.  Speaking about both Italy and the U.S., he concluded that with the attacks on our culture, the government refuses to look at the true situation and is thus limiting (hindering) itself and stopping any chance of victory (in this profound culture war).

Frank Gaffney then took the podium to give a basic refutation of a prevalent myth today, stating that although we can eliminate a number of semi-literate jihadists overseas, the major thrust of the jihadists now in America is to engage in a civilizational jihad.  This stealth jihad currently overshadows the violent acts of such people as Nidal Malik Hasan at Ft. Hood or Faisal Shahzad, who attempted to set off a bomb in Times Square in New York.  Gaffney is talking about a civilizational jihad consisting of lawfare, multiple court cases used to financially drain defendants and inhibit free speech, and “insidious informational dominance” that results in Americans imposing a doctrine on ourselves of not offending organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood as they attempt to impose demands of silence at the expense of our Constitution.  Also widespread is a civilizational jihad technique of takiya — deception — claiming that attempts to influence and change our laws and culture aren’t what they clearly are.  Mr. Gaffney stated plainly that the Muslim Brotherhood’s objectives are indistinguishable from those of al-Qaeda.  In fact, he called civilizational jihad “pre-violent” and not merely “non-violent.”

The briefing crowd was then shown a fifteen-minute video executive summary of the ten-part online video course on The Muslim Brotherhood in America.  The summary touched upon a number of subjects and was narrated by the Center for Security Policy’s president.

The first part was a criticism of the constant apologies one sees offered to jihadists, particularly by our higher-level military officers.  Also, there was mention that U.S. soldiers themselves are “taught to talk in submissive terms” about Islam.  Nidal Malik Hasan’s attack at Ft. Hood was classified by the government as “workplace violence,” to give an example.

Gaffney then identified Grover Norquist, the tax protester and associate of Abdul Rahman Al-Amoudi, as one of the enablers of the Muslim Brotherhood in the latter’s efforts to influence American government leadership at the time of time of the George W. Bush administration.  This type of influence has continued under the Obama administration with the placing of Muslims who advocate civilizational jihad in high places.  These people advocate policies that do not speak the truth of the Muslim Brotherhood’s self-professed programs of wanting to change America to a sharia-compliant state along with continued attempts to normalize the suppression of free speech as it relates to jihadists.

In the final part of the fifteen-minute overview film, Gaffney discusses the last of the ten-part video course, which goes into some detail about what can be done by individuals and groups to stop this assault on our values by civilizational jihad.  There are listings of (re)sources at other websites given in that lesson.  At the conclusion of the video preview, Mr. Gaffney mentioned that today, the New York City Police Department is being attacked politically, that the Muslim Public Affairs Council is now “educating” the government and calling on Attorney General Holder to investigate the NY Police Department.  One would assume that the offense of the NYPD is daring to investigate, find, report, and act on jihadist activities.

“We have to start to understand. It is our purpose to start this debate,” Mr. Gaffney said in concluding his prepared remarks.  And this was followed by questions by those in attendance and by some online participants.

Someone asked about Huma Abedin, the member of a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated group, wife of former Congressman Anthony Weiner, and current political confidante of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  Frank Gaffney replied that because he has no subpoena power, he is not sure what she is doing, but he knows from public records that Hillary Clinton just gave $1.5 billion to the current post-Mubarak government of Egypt.

The next question, though provocative, was treated seriously by Mr. Gaffney.  It was asked whether the film and the briefing was a slander against Muslims.  Gaffney replied that such wasn’t the case and that he knows that there are millions of Muslims who don’t want to live under sharia — Muslims who came to the U.S. to get away from sharia-based governments.  He further stated that during the Cold War, a person’s loose association with communists was considered enough to make him suspect but that current definitions of what constitutes a jihadist are not as strict.  Gaffney said that he hoped his ten-part video course will be seen as a legitimate inquiry into the nature of the situation today.

Something not mentioned in Mr. Gaffney’s reply was that his Center for Security Policy was a participant and sponsor of the early March public show of support by moderate Muslims in favor of the New York City Police Department and their Commissioner Ray Kelly, an event led by Dr. Zuhdi Jasser.  In fact, Mr. Gaffney’s executive vice president, former Congressman Fred Grandy, was a participant at that event, as I reported in American Thinker.

“To the extent that we ignore the connections of these groups we are insuring our government’s defeat in civilizational jihad,” Gaffney added.  He further stated that the Justice Department has ordered the FBI to purge documents that “offended” Muslim groups because of complaints from the Muslim Brotherhood, thus making the training that FBI agents receive less detailed as to various past facts uncovered and conclusions made, despite whose feelings might be allegedly hurt.

A question was posed by someone listening on the internet in Kansas, asking whether the State Department should classify the Muslim Brotherhood as a hostile foreign power — essentially a terrorist organization.  Gaffney replied that that is his own recommendation.

Another question led to a detailed discussion of a stealth jihad tactic known as having an “Interfaith Dialog.”  This often extends the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood into churches and leads to changes in how churches act and perceive the Brotherhood.  There was also a discussion of schools that require young Americans to pretend they are Muslims for a period of time — an indulgence given to no other religion in our secular schools.

The question of how sharia is being addressed in American law schools got a response from Mr. Gaffney in which he stated that Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan has been a major promoter of sharia financial education in law schools.  This led to another discussion of a war on women in America caused by courts in the U.S. supporting a sharia-compliant decision in 23 of 27 cases brought so far.  New Jersey had a famous — one could say infamous — case where a woman was being raped and beaten by her husband, and the family court upheld the practice because it was part of sharia cultural practices, refusing to grant a restraining order against her Moroccan husband.

One of the final questions asked of Mr. Gaffney was all but a stealth jihad act in itself.  Someone inquired whether sharia law was similar to Orthodox Jewish Halacha Law, since both have many strictures.  Rather than dismissing this out of hand, Gaffney addressed the question with an answer formulated by David Yerushalmi, an Orthodox Jewish attorney he works with.  Halacha, Gaffney stated, does not advocate the overthrow of the government and requires submission to the secular law of the land.  What went unsaid was that this is very different from sharia law, which seeks to establish a caliphate and make sharia the law of the land, negating the U.S. Constitution.  I believe that Mr. Gaffney answered this question more for the audience listening in on the internet and for the other people in the room than for the questioner, who appeared to attempt to advance a false equivalence between the two religions’ laws.

Another of the final topics mentioned was the original prosecutorial intention of the successful 2007-2008 Holy Land Foundation case convictions — namely, for that case to be a first step in further investigations and trials.  But Attorney General Holder has been unwilling to investigate or bring to trial anyone else in a Phase Two follow-up.

Among these final remarks, Mr. Gaffney made a plea for his cause in relation to the upcoming U.S. elections.  He asked if we, as Americans, want more submissions to sharia — or do we want something different?  What he didn’t say is what I will now add.

It would be too easy to assume that one political party is automatically better in regard to fighting a civilizational jihad than the other party.  In fact, the extent of the attack on our society’s institutions in the name of tolerance (that is, of our tolerance alone) has not been fully understood by either political party’s leadership.  It is up to all of us to be, as Thomas Jefferson said, eternally vigilant as to the price of our liberty.  And this issue will not go away if your favorite political party wins in November.  There will still be much to do to keep our Republic.

A predictable fiasco

The Egyptian elections have resulted in a rout for the throngs whose springtime hopes for freedom are now facing the prospect of a nuclear winter at the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood and its fellow Salafists.  These Islamists appear to have garnered 60% of the seats in the next parliament and the opportunity to shape the country’s new constitution in line with their ambitions to impose the totalitarian doctrine of shariah nationwide.  That will be bad news for the people of Egypt, for Israel and for us.

This fiasco was made predictable in early February when President Obama announced that President Hosni Mubarak had to leave office at once.  It was clear even then that the most organized, most disciplined and most ruthless group would prevail in the ensuing, chaotic electoral environment.  Apart from the military, in Egypt that group has been the Muslim Brotherhood basically since its founding in 1928.

Press reports indicate that the Obama Administration spent $200 million to help non-Islamist parties organize and compete in last week’s elections.  If true, it adds insult to injury.  The money was wasted, not only because the liberal and secular elements to whommuch of it reportedly was given, were hopelessly outgunned by the Brotherhood.  More importantly, it was squandered because Team Obama, in the person of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, made a point in the run-up to the vote of welcoming the Muslim Brotherhood’s participation in the “political dialogue” in Egypt.

In so doing, the Obama administration not only signaled that it could do business with the Brotherhood.  It gave lie to any pretense of concern about the Islamists’ role in the massacre of Coptic Christians (which will be the subject of an important hearing in the House of Representatives’ Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission on Wednesday).

Similarly, the President and his subordinates appear determined to ignore the Brotherhood’s virulently supremacist and jihadist creed.  They are also evidently indifferent to the strategic plan issued in 1991 by the MB’s American arm and the phased approach for realizing its goal of “eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within.”  (Documents enshrining these ambitions were introduced uncontested into evidence by federal prosecutors in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial.)

At the same time, the Obama administration is reaching out to and empowering Muslim Brotherhood front groups as their exclusive interlocutors with Muslims inside the United States.  Incredibly, the Department of Homeland Security has recently promulgated guidelines that effectively require all trainers and their training material to be approved by “community leaders” – read, officials of organizations like the Islamic Society of North America and the Council on American Islamic Relations that the federal government has identified as tied to the Brotherhood.

One wonders about the extent to which such fatally flawed policies reflect the influence exercised on senior administration officials by people with deep ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.  For example, Secretary of State Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, Huma Abedin, has a mother (Saleha Abedin) and a brother (Hassan Abedin) who have been linked, respectively, to the Muslim Sisterhood and Brotherhood.  Could such associations be coloring Mrs. Clinton’s judgment about, notably, the advisability of having the MB come to power in Egypt and the reliability of the Islamist government of our NATO “ally,” Turkey?

Perhaps such influences are also shaping Secretary Clinton’s willingness to engage next week in Washington with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in aneffort to bridge differences between the United States and Islamists bent on its submission to shariah.  The issue involves one of our most fundamental liberties – freedom of expression.  Unfortunately, it is hard to see how this conclave will do anything but impinge upon that constitutionally protected right.

After all, the OIC has been seeking for years to secure worldwide acceptance of its shariah-adherent prohibition on expression that offends Muslims.  The Obama administration has already associated itself with a watered-down version of this initiative.  Now, it seems intent on finding a way to deny free speech to those who the Islamists depict as “Islamphobes.”

Given this agenda, it is ironic that Vice President Joe Biden has been lately touting the importance of free speech – most recently during a visit to, of all places,  Turkey.  He seems to epitomize the old saw that “somebody always doesn’t get the word.”  Neither the Veep nor Mrs. Clinton (who started her dialogue with the OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu in Istanbul in July) seem to have noticed that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyep Erdogan is in the process of completing the Islamization of his country andsnuffing what is left of independent media that dares to challenge him.

In fact, what is happening in Turkey right now is a roadmap for what is to come in Egypt – and wherever else the Muslim Brotherhood or its ilk come to power.  The willful blindness of the Obama administration to the reality that such Islamists are determined to impose shariah at the expense of freedom has – as was predictable and predicted – facilitated that outcome in Cairo.  If it persists, such malfeasance will simply substitute the despotic misrule of clerics for the despotic misrule of secular autocrats, to the detriment of the people most immediately affected and, in due course, of America’s as well.

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.

The Tipping Point: Embracing the Muslim Brotherhood

The Obama administration chose the eve of the holiday marking our Nation’s birth to acknowledge publicly behavior in which it has long been stealthily engaged to the United States’ extreme detriment:  Its officials now admit that they are embracing the Muslim Brotherhood (MB or Ikhwan in Arabic).  That would be the same international Islamist organization that has the destruction of the United States, Israel and all other parts of the Free World as its explicit objective.

On Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to downplay the momentousness of this major policy shift by portraying it during a stopover in Budapest as follows:  "The Obama administration is continuing the approach of limited contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood that have existed on and off for about five or six years."  In fact, as former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy points out in a characteristically brilliant, and scathing, dissection of this announcement, Team Obama’s official, open legitimation of the Brotherhood marks a dramatic break from the U.S. government’s historical refusal to deal formally with the Ikhwan.

To understand why the Obama administration’s embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood is so ominous, consider three insights into the organization’s nature and ambitions:

First, here’s 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."  (Source: Husain Haqqani and Hillel Fradkin, "Islamist Parties: Going Back to the Origins.")

Second, here’s the Ikwhan‘s mission in America: 

"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." (Source: Muslim Brotherhood’s "Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goals of the Group," entered into evidence by the Department of Justice in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terrorism-finance trial. Archived at the NEFA Foundation.)               

Third, here are excerpts from the Muslim Brotherhood’s "phased plan" for accomplishing that mission:

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 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. (Source: Undated Muslim Brotherhood Paper entitled, "Phases of the World Underground Movement Plan." Archived at Shariah: The Threat to America.)

In short, the Muslim Brotherhood is deadly serious about waging what it calls "civilization jihad" against the United States and other freedom-loving nations in order to secure their submission to the Islamic totalitarian political-military-legal doctrine called shariah.  The MB’s goal in this country is to replace our Constitution with theirs, namely the Koran.  And they regard this task as one commanded by none other than Allah.  (For more details on the nature, ambitions and modus operandi of the Ikhwan, see the Team B II Report, Shariah: The Threat to America).  To this end, as Andy McCarthy notes in the aforementioned essay, the MB’s senior official, Supreme Guide Muhammad Badi, has effectively declared war on the United States. 

Were there any doubt that legitimacy is what the Ikhwan is taking away from this gambit, consider this assessment from an expert in Islamic groups, Ammar Ali Hassan, cited by Associated Press:  "…The Brotherhood will likely try to float ‘conditions’ or ‘reservations’ on any dialogue to avoid a perception that it is allowing the U.S. to meddle in Egypt’s internal affairs. But in the end, the talks will give a boost to the group, he said, by easing worries some in the Brotherhood and the public have of a backlash if the Brotherhood becomes the dominant player in Egypt. ‘Now the Muslim Brotherhood will not have to worry [about] moving forward toward taking over power,’ Hassan said."         

Unfortunately, the U.S. government’s dangerous outreach to the Ikhwan is not confined to Egypt but is systematically practiced inside the United States, as well.  For example:

  • Muslim-American organizations identified in court by the U.S. government – and, in many cases, by the Muslim Brotherhood itself – as MB fronts are routinely cultivated by federal, state and local officials. Representatives of homeland security, Pentagon, intelligence and law enforcement agencies frequently meet with and attend functions sponsored by such groups.
  • MB-associated individuals are sent as our country’s "goodwill ambassadors" to foreign Muslim nations and communities. MB-favored initiatives to insinuate shariah into the United States – notably, the Ground Zero Mosque and shariah-compliant finance, conscientious objector status for Muslim servicemen and stifling of free speech in accordance with shariah "blasphemy" laws – are endorsed and/or enabled by official institutions.

A blind eye is turned to the presence across the country of shariah-adherent mosques that incubate jihadism. A peer-reviewed study published last month in Middle East Quarterly determined that 81% of a random sample of 100 mosques exhibited such qualities – constituting an infrastructure for recruitment, indoctrination and training consistent with the Brotherhood’s phased plan.

  • Under both Republican and Democratic administrations, individuals with family and other ties to the Muslim Brotherhood have actually given senior government positions. The most recent of these to come to light is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin (who also happens to be former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s wife).

It seems a safe bet that, as Team Obama legitimates Muslim Brotherhood organizations and groups overseas, it will feel ever less constrained about further empowering their counterparts in the United States.  If so, the MB will come to exercise even greater influence over what our government does and does not do about the threat posed by shariah, both abroad and here.

The absolutely predictable effect will be to undermine U.S. interests and allies in the Middle East and further catalyze the Brotherhood’s campaign to insinuate shariah in the United States and, ultimately, to supplant the Constitution with Islamic law.  Consequently, the Obama administration’s efforts to "engage" the Muslim Brotherhood are not just reckless.  They are wholly incompatible with the President’s oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" and the similar commitment made by his subordinates.

These officials’ now-open embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood constitutes a geo-strategic tipping point, one that must catalyze an urgent national debate on this question:  Does such conduct violate their oath of office by endangering the Constitution they have undertaken to uphold?

At a minimum, such a debate would afford a much-needed opportunity to examine alternatives to the administration’s present course – as well as the real risks associated with that its intensifying pursuit.  For instance, one of the most astute American authorities on the Middle East in general and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular, Dr. Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute, wrote in a posting at The American blog yesterday:

Rather than embrace the Brotherhood, the Obama administration should be seeking to ensure that the group cannot dominate Egypt. Most analysts agree that the Muslim Brotherhood is by far the best organized group in Egypt, but that it only enjoys perhaps 25 or 30 percent support. The secular opposition remains weak and fractured. If the Obama administration wishes to remain engaged in Egypt’s future and shape the best possible outcome for both U.S. national security and the Egyptian people, it should be pushing for electoral reform to change Egypt’s dysfunctional system to a proportional representation model in which the secular majority can form a coalition to check a Muslim Brotherhood minority for which true democracy is anathema.

The same goes for the enemy within.  Instead of relying upon – let alone hiring – Muslim Brotherhood operatives and associates, the United States government should be shutting down their fronts, shariah-adherent, jihad-incubating "community centers" and insidious influence operations in America.  By recognizing these enterprises for what they are, namely vehicles for fulfilling the seditious goals of the MB’s civilization jihad, they can and must be treated as prosecutable subversive enterprises, not protected religious ones under the U.S. Constitution.

Let the debate begin.