Two weeks ago, I wrote about the handful of House Republicans, led by Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who sent letters in June to inspectors general at five government departments, asking them to investigate evidence of Muslim Brotherhood influence on U.S. government policymaking. The Muslim Brotherhood is a global Islamic movement engaged, according to the group’s own internal document, on a “grand jihad” in North America to destroy “Western civilization from within.” To date, the inspectors general haven’t responded.
Nonetheless, Bachmann and her colleagues — Trent Franks of Arizona, Louie Gohmert of Texas, Tom Rooney of Florida and Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia — have focused attention on the disastrous policy of bringing members of known Muslim Brotherhood fronts and their associates into Uncle Sam’s policymaking chain. The representatives’ letters went to inspectors general at State, Justice, Defense, Homeland Security and the Office of the National Intelligence Director. These government nerve centers are increasingly advancing policies American leaders once would have excoriated for supporting the enemies of this country.
Is it by chance, for example, that director of national intelligence James Clapper, reading from prepared notes, absurdly described the Muslim Brotherhood to the House Intelligence Committee last year as a “largely secular” organization? Is it an accident that in June the State Department issued a visa to Hani Nour Eldin of Egypt to meet with senior White House officials? Eldin is a member of Gama’a al-Islamiyya, a terrorist organization once led by Omar Abdel Rahman, “the blind sheikh” convicted of the first attack on the World Trade Center. In the person of Rahman’s successor, Refai Ahmed Taha, the group is one of the five signatories of Osama bin Laden’s February 1998 “World Islamic Front Statement Urging Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders.” Isn’t it imperative to review the policy mechanism that permitted a member of bin Laden’s jihad front into the White House?
According to our elected officials, the answer is no. Not one House member, Democrat, Republican or tea party, has come out in solidarity with the National Security Five. Typically, the mainstream media have reacted not by digging up facts themselves (what are they, journalists?), but rather by throwing mud on Michele Bachmann. “Stop ‘witch-hunting’ Huma Abedin, top aide to Hillary Clinton,” is the war cry from CNN to USA Today. Many conservative outlets, such as Fox and The Washington Examiner, are strangely silent.
To be sure, one of the Bachmann letters notes the case of Huma Abedin — a confidante of the secretary of state whose family has dense ties to Muslim Brotherhood organizations. She has become the human face used to distract from the overarching national security issue. Honest answers to the wide array of questions the House members have asked would expose high elected officials in both parties as dupes of our enemies, at best. The American people would find out how Uncle Sam came to support al-Qaida in Libya; Muslim Brothers in Egypt; and, now, al-Qaida and Muslim Brothers in Syria. An honest investigation would spotlight the internal process that led Uncle Sam to sponsor a new international counterterrorism organization without Israel. The shameful fact is, our power-elites don’t want these questions answered because the answers would threaten their hold on power.
Bachmann & Co. haven’t alleged wrongdoing on Abedin’s part. Rather, their question turns on the process that permitted a person with close family ties to an array of world Islamic movements and figures hostile to the United States to gain the security clearance Abedin requires to serve alongside the secretary of state.
I looked over the lengthy Form 86 that federal employees fill out to apply for national security positions. One portion is devoted to an applicant’s relatives, with a question about relatives’ affiliations with any “foreign movement.” If Abedin answered fully — and there are stiff penalties for failing to do so — she would have noted, for starters, that her mother, Saleha Abedin, belongs to the Muslim Sisterhood (the Brotherhood’s auxiliary, primarily for relatives of prominent Brothers) and serves on the board of the International Islamic Council for Dawah and Relief, a group banned in Israel for supporting Hamas. Saleha Abedin has been a representative of the Muslim World League, whose affiliates have been charged by the U.S. government with funding terrorism. Any ensuing investigation would turn up Saleha’s work with the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, where she edits the journal that Huma, too, worked on for a dozen years. That same institute was founded by Huma’s father in Saudi Arabia with the assistance and long-term involvement of Abdullah Omar Naseef. Naseef was secretary-general of the Muslim World League and also founded the Rabita Trust, a U.S.-designated international terrorist organization with ties to al-Qaida.
There’s more, but just imagine the light dawning on the background-checker: So, Ms. Abedin, let me get this straight: Your folks, and you, too, worked with a guy who founded a terrorist organization linked to al-Qaida, your mom’s on the board of a group banned in Israel for supporting Hamas, and you want top-secret clearance to work for the secretary of state.
Then what happened?
• West is the author of “The Death of the Grown-up: How America’s Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization,” and blogs at dianawest.net.
Comments (74)
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this corrupt & deceitful administration
Shhh!
Listen. Do you hear dog whistles?
The writer might actually
The writer might actually have a point. However, anything with Michele Bachmann's stamp on it leaves me at the very least highly skeptical. Maybe some of the more enlighten regulars on this forum would be so good as to weigh in and enlighten us a little more on this issue.
naivete-- it does kill
does anyone expect these corksuckers to play by the rules?? Clapper should be pillaged for his 1. pc personnae; 2. idiocy in an appointed position; 3. on principle.
See?
Whistle blows. Grendel barks.
Good Morning, Lat58
You got thoughts on this one??
ps- I'm not just throwing that out as provocative. I think you do have thoughts on this one...
Diana West hmmm.
so also argues that the President's birth certif is a forgery. Well she gets headlines for her causes, uninformed as they are.
I'm sure Diana West has the skills needed to get to the bottom
of this.
Oh, she's a blogger?
Well, I'm sure her lengthy education would have prepared her for investigating a government conspiracy.
Oh, she's an english major?
Well, umm, that's all for now.
Hmmm...
To even respond to something written by Diana West hurts my butt pretty bad, but it's a slow slow slow rainy day in Juneau, so I will...
I'm not saying I support all the actions of the Muslim Brotherhood, but people I hope you check some damn facts before simplifying a political matter like this to fit your predispositions. When you do that, you're one step closer to Diana West's hopes that Islam will be eradicated, and that every Muslim group is synonymous with Al Qaeda. Are we so low that we label the entire Muslim Brotherhood as an extremist organization set on “grand jihad” in North America to destroy “Western civilization from within?”
Go to a college campus and you'll find members of the Muslim Brotherhood. You know who they are? They are students, just like every other person there. They don't have some hidden agenda, and they aren't your enemy. The Muslim Brotherhood at my University was one of the only groups that did anything to help the victims of the Haiti earthquake, and they raised thousands upon thousands. Why? Because they wanted to help. Sorry Diana, these aren't all bad people. You can't label these two million people as "the bad guy" and not sound like an idiot. We understand your target audience is a group that will NEVER FACT CHECK A THING YOU SAY, but that doesn't give you carte blanche to apply ridiculous generalizations to this entire group of people. If West approached this academically, maybe (but probably not) she would have received a response.
I won't post links because it isn't allowed, but there have been some informative objective articles written on these guys (NY Times and BBC have several) that inform you of exactly what this organization does, their hierarchical structure and a timetable of how their beliefs and actions have changed over time. Go to their website and read about them. I'm not saying I support every action of the MB, far from it, I'm just asking people to read it. Read it so you can discuss it academically and actually form an OPINION WITH SOME SUBSTANCE.
Maybe you'll throw out Mahmoud an-Nukrashi Pasha's assassination, but probably not because that'd require research, but it doesn't change the fact that Al Qaeda condemns the actions of the brotherhood. Advocating and supporting democratic elections, constructing schools and teaching people to read is quite different than Al Qaeda. Does that sound like Al Qaeda?
I'll leave you with this hate-mongering speech from the Muslim Brotherhood:
"We believe that the political reform is the true and natural gateway for all other kinds of reform. We have announced our acceptance of democracy that acknowledges political pluralism, the peaceful rotation of power and the fact that the nation is the source of all powers. As we see it, political reform includes the termination of the state of emergency, restoring public freedoms, including the right to establish political parties, whatever their tendencies may be, and the freedom of the press, freedom of criticism and thought, freedom of peaceful demonstrations, freedom of assembly, etc. It also includes the dismantling of all exceptional courts and the annulment of all exceptional laws, establishing the independence of the judiciary, enabling the judiciary to fully and truly supervise general elections so as to ensure that they authentically express people's will, removing all obstacles that restrict the functioning of civil society organizations, etc"
Take away
Take away the ideological harping on both sides of the aisle and one still has to wonder: Why does a group with a clear and articulated goal of destroying Western nations through religious jihad have such strong policy connections within the US government?
akjim . . .
"Why does a group with a clear and articulated goal of destroying Western nations through religious jihad have such strong policy connections within the US government?"
They don't.
Fume
Not sure if you are capable of being "enlightened."
Muslim Brotherhood
Rashad Hussain
Dalia Mogahed
Azizah al-Hibri (member of International Institute of Islamic Thought, according to the Muslim Brotherhood a "like-minded" organization)
to the SOB that thumbs-downed me at 0752 AM
you got issues, you stinking little twist
Is it the incessant rain...or did we run out of tin foil?
Ms. West, do you have any proof?
Ms. West's response: "Well, if I had any proof it wouldn't be a conspiracy"!
rough cut, just give it up. your comment is just stupid.
really, really stupid.
from Pt Cornwallis with love
Yeah, I edited my stuff. But I'm out on my boat right now, so cut me some slack. Guess what -- coho are going for a buck & 46 if you can find a tender. Otherwise, it's about a buck a lbs. How does this factor into world politics? I'm paying 6.50 a gallon for diesel in Kake.
someday...a PB&J on white bread will go for $6.50 in THEIR stores. They see it coming too.
cheesypoof
With your moniker, I suggest that you refrain from calling any post "stupid."
dennyh, cool.
By the way, it offends me so much that a troll thinks my screen name is stupid. I'm going to go cry now because it's one of the things I find most important about online forums...
Rough cut, can you remember what you said when you signed in under calypso? You two are the same, right? You both sound infinitely dumber than 90% of the people on here, so it's an obvious assumption.
Example one: "Harry reid standard of proof... according to an ultraconservative d0uchebag."
Example two: "Ultraconservative blogger makes unfounded case for furthering my fear and hatred of Islam. It must be true!"
Speaking of calypso, it's not sunday, so she isn't picketing a planned parenthood. Where is she?
Hey poofy - here I am!! All
Hey poofy - here I am!!
All you progressives wore me out yesterday - I'm taking the day off!
And dust hurt my feelings - again.
I'm sure it's exhausting to argue the wrong side all the time.
Take a break sometime and join the liberals. You'll find it's much easier to argue when the facts are readily available.
Facts are certainly readily
Facts are certainly readily available when they're made from scratch.
Facts and liberals? That's
Facts and liberals? That's funny...
Indeed! When has science ever
Indeed! When has science ever produced any facts? We liberals are all engaged in conspiracy of grand proportions--everything you know is wrong! The internet works via the principles of magic! Spontaneous generation is true! We have God locked up inside of the Ark of the Covenant in an old warehouse!
But in all seriousness, anyone who takes Michele Bachmann seriously needs to not ever have children. If her and her supporters' goal is to make me see fewer and fewer redemptive qualities in humanity, then mission accomplished.
Bwahahahahahaaaa!!!
"Facts and liberals"??? Calypso is suggesting that ne'er the twain shall meet???
Stop! Stop! My side!
The thing I find the most obscene is not any given specific of opinion, but Calypso's fundamental dishonesty.
cheesypoof
Speaking of trolls...
snicky
I completely agree with your first paragraph.
"But in all seriousness,
"But in all seriousness, anyone who takes (p) seriously needs to not ever have children. If he and his supporters' goal is to make (we conservatives) see fewer and fewer redemptive qualities in humanity, then mission accomplished."
Couldn't have said it any better myself.
Calypso
Surely you are aware of your incessant, blatant hypocrisy?
@cheeesypoof
I'm going to tell you all something. Listen up. I recently put a Glock 19 on a table with an Afghani chief and his sons watching me. They knew I had 38 rounds in 2 magazines (plus 1 in the chamber). They knew I could clear that room out, every son in it, and get out to my Marines and the Toyota we had waiting for us. My point: that's what they understand. I have kids that want to save the world (4 of them, God love 'em). I want my kids to save the world (all 4 of them), But I want them to know there's a whole lot of crap they have no control over.