Tag Archive for: Muslim Brotherhood

New York Times features United West Video Expose: LA Top Cop in Bed with Muslim Brotherhood

New York Times Excerpt:

“From the other side of the religious and political spectrum, Chief Downing has been portrayed as the dupe of jihadists. The activist group United West, which contends that Muslims want to impose religious law in America, crashed a community meeting with Chief Downing at a Los Angeles mosque and posted footage of the resulting confrontation on YouTube under the title “LA Top Cop in Bed with Muslim Brotherhood.”

Read more.

Deputy Chief Michael Downing of the Los Angeles Police Department officially partners with the Muslim Brotherhood to fight Muslim terrorism. Downing calls the Muslim Brotherhood “Like Democrats and Republicans.”

Global Islamic Caliphate Spreading Like Spilled Ink: One Observant Muslim at a Time

First, a couple of notes from the author to the reading audience: As with all of my articles, none of the Islamic terms or phrases used are of my own invention; every term or phrase (including the title itself) is derived exclusively from primary sources (i.e., the Quran, Hadith, Tafsir and Sharia Law).  I invite and encourage everyone to access the hyper-linked references, then evaluate each statement in this article for accuracy and completeness.

Expanding The ‘Observant Muslim Base’ is the latest in what I hope will be an on-going series of articles dealing with complex, sometimes abstract subjects, which are often counter-intuitive to those of us in the non-Islamic West.  By counter-intuitive, I mean that there are times when it is almost impossible for us to believe that the authorized Islamic sources mean exactly what they say.  Instead, our natural tendency is to respond ‘That can’t possibly be true!’  Nonetheless, if we hope to preserve any chance of victory against the escalating threat we face, we must endeavor to master this (sometimes unpleasant) subject; we must ‘dis-enthrall ourselves, and then we shall help save our country, the last best hope on earth.’

Introduction

The purpose of this article is to introduce the concept of ‘Expanding The Observant Muslim Base’ (Al-Qaeda Al-Islamia Al-Moltzema), which is a tactical term found in a 1991 Muslim Brotherhood (MB) document known as the Explanatory Memorandum (EM).  In Arabic, the EM is a concise, densely written manifesto – not a word is arbitrary or incidental.  Saturated with iconic language, it distills 1,400 years of Strategy & Tactics, which have been used since the time of Mohammed to advance the ‘Global Islamic State’ (also see The Quranic Concept of War).

quran expand muslim base

Muslim Brotherhood Memorandum: Expand the observant Muslim base.

Since 9-11, we’ve heard the term Al-Qaeda (i.e., ‘The Base’ or القاعدة in Arabic) almost every day.  However, Al-Qaedais not just the name of a hydra-like global terrorist organization.  It is also an abstract concept, with a deep ocean of Islamic history behind it.  For example, after Mohammed established his final Al-Qaeda in Medina in 622, it became the power base of Islam for the next hundred years, initially under Mohammed’s leadership, and then under four ‘Rightly Guided Caliphs.’  Also, we see it reflected on TV every night; the black flag of Jihad displayed so prominently by ISIS features the ‘Seal of Mohammed,’ which goes back to the founding of Islam in 610.

The MB has maintained a highly-visible leading role in the global effort to ‘expand the observant Muslim base’ since it was founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, in close collaboration with Sayyid Qutb.  After these two ‘founding fathers’ summarized and published the goals and operational tactics of Islam, they began attracting thousands of dedicated followers from countries all over the world.  To this day, the MB remains the largest and most well-organized Islamic organization on earth.  Not only that, but the MB continues providing a solid, reliable theological and political base to fellow members (operatives) in nearly every country in the world.

Meanwhile, as a relatively small but financially influential Islamic community began to coalesce in North America, a ‘Group’ (see Figure 1 above) of respected MB leaders summarized the same strategic goals and tactics discussed by Al-Banna and Qutb in a format tailored to fit the theological and socio-political challenges faced by Muslims living in a wealthy, predominantly non-Islamic region.  These respected members of the Shura Council and the Organizational Conference (see Figure 1 above) called this carefully crafted strategic and tactical communiqué the

Explanatory Memorandum

It is important to recognize that the MB summarized the goals and tactics for ‘expanding the observant Muslim base’ more than 10 years before Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri helped form a global coalition of 12 Islamist groups called the World Islamic Front (a.k.a. the Global Jihad Front and/or Al-Qaeda), then declared Jihad on America and Israel on February 23, 1998.  In fact, Al-Zawahiri, who is the current leader of Al-Qaeda, was not only a member of the Brotherhood in his native Saudi Arabia, but also bases his operational templates on the views of prominent Islamic theorists like Al-Banna and Qutb.

Despite the fact that the EM was introduced as prima facie evidence in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial, many today still do not realize that the ideology of a wide spectrum of Islamic macro-groups, such as Al-Shabaab, Hamas, ISIS, and the World Islamic Front, are all based on exactly the same aggressive goals and concepts that were summarized and endorsed in 1987 by Muslim Brothers in North America.  In simple terms, every Islamic group mentioned just above is engaged in their own regional version of ‘expanding the observant Muslim base.

Finally, as I discussed earlier in Fitnah Is Worse Than Slaughter, much of the driving force (catalyst) for this expansion comes from ‘push-back’ (aka Islamophobia) encountered by the Muslim community in North America.  As mentioned earlier, the EM is very concise and comprehensive, and includes tactical principals (‘operative verbs’) that are designed to overcome and neutralize this Islamophobic ‘push-back,’ which is also described in the EM as a ‘Civilizational alternative,’ and/or a ‘Civilizational Jihad.’

Here is how the EM addresses the problem of ‘push-back’ from the resistant, non-Muslims they encounter: ‘The process of settlement is a Civilization-Jihadist Process with all the word means.  The Ikhwan [i.e., Brothers in Arabic] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it [i.e., Fitnah] is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.’  As discussed in the Fitnah article, this concept is derived directly from Quran 2.1938.39.

Background – How Did We Discover The Explanatory Memorandum?

In August of 2004, a Maryland Transportation Authority Police officer conducted a traffic stop after observing someone videotaping the support structures of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.  As it turns out, the driver was Ismail Selim Elbarasse, who was already wanted in connection with fundraising for Hamas.  The FBI subsequently executed a search warrant on Elbarasse’s residence, where they found 80 boxes of archived documents hidden in a sub-basement.

The search led to an incredible discovery.  Among the thousands of documents found, one of the most revealing was entitled An Explanatory Memorandum On The General Strategic Goal For The Group In North America, aka the Explanatory Memorandum (EM).  Originally commissioned in 1987 by the leadership of the MB in North America, it was not officially released to the Board of Directors until 1991.  It may just be a coincidence, but it is plausible that the same Muslim Brothers who commissioned the EM also authorized the 1988 Hamas Charter.  In any event, Hamas (aka the Palestine Branch of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood), pursues the exact same goals and objectives found in the EM, and even uses the same slogan as the MB (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.)

Approved by the MB’s Shura Council (aka Organizational Conference) for internal use only, the EM was never supposed to become public.  For this reason, the EM is both an Enigma Code and the Rosetta Stone of the Global Islamic Movement (GIM).  Like the Enigma Code, it was meant to remain hidden (unbroken), but now provides the key to deciphering the Strategy & Tactics of the GIM.  And, like the Rosetta Stone, the EM enables those of us in the non-Islamic world to discern the commonly-held strategic and tactical doctrines of every Muslim organization in the world.

The EM was written by a former US resident and still-active senior MB/Hamas leader named Mohamed Akram (aka Mohamed Akram Adlouni, aka Muhammad Akram Al-Adlouni).  To this day, Muslim apologists insist that Mohamed Akram is an obscure, ‘self-described’ fringe member of the MB, and that the EM is the ‘product of either of the Muslim lunatic fringe, or of the Islamophobic lunatic fringe.’  In fact, Mr. Akram is currently the President of an OFAC-listed organization (Al-Quds International) who not only remains a co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial (HLF), but is a well-known fundraiser for Hamas in Asia and Europe.  Mr. Akram was also listed in a 1992 ‘Phonebook‘ (included as evidence in the discovery phase of the HLF trial), where he is listed as a member of both the Board of Directors and the Executive Office (see page 03 and 15, respectively).

Regarding the ‘lunatic fringe’ argument, the EM will never become obsolete or outdated.  Why not?  Because it is based entirely on the Quran and Hadith.  The Strategy & Tactics described in the EM are exactly the same today as they were 30 years ago (when it was written), and exactly the same as they were 1,400 years ago (when Islam was founded).

Relevant Current Events

On January 28, 2015, we learned that high-level officials at the U.S. State Department had hosted meetings with several ‘former’ members of the Freedom & Justice Party (F&JP), which is the well-known political arm of the MB in Egypt. Samuel Tadros of the Hudson Institute observed that the visit served two goals. ‘First, to organize the pro MB movement in the US,’ and second, to ‘reach out to administration and the policy community in DC,’ adding that the delegation’s composition was designed to portray ‘an image of a united Islamist and non-Islamist revolutionary camp against the [Abdul Fattah al-Sisi] regime.’

Just two days later, it was revealed that the MB in Egypt posted a message on its official website, stating that ‘It is incumbent upon everyone to be aware that we are in the process of a new phase…where we recall the meanings of Jihad and prepare ourselves…to a long, uncompromising Jihad, and during this stage we ask for martyrdom.’  The official announcement also referred to Hassan Al-Banna, the founder of the MB, stating that ‘Imam Al-Banna prepared the Jihad brigades that he sent to Palestine to kill the Zionist usurpers, and the second [Supreme] Guide Hassan Al-Hudaybi reconstructed the ‘secret apparatus’ to bleed the British occupiers.’

In retrospect, these sharply contradictory statements (i.e., saying one thing in English, but something entirely different in Arabic) are common, and are very similar in nature to the January 11, 2015 appearance of Mahmoud Abbas at the Charlie Hebdo solidarity march, while on the very same dayhis organization (Fatah)posted violent pictures and statements on its official website.

Despite claims by the State Department that the meetings were ‘routine,’ on January 31, 2014, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shokry said that the reasons for the meetings were ‘not understandable, as they are not a political party, and according to the Egyptian law they should be treated as a terrorist group.’  Along with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have also declared the MB to be a terrorist group.

Incidentally, the word ‘Prepare’ (Wa-Aiddu), which is mentioned several times in the above quotes, is taken directly from Quran 8.60, and is prominently displayed in the MB logo.  The verse reads ‘Prepare for them whatever force and tethered horses you can, to terrify thereby the enemy of God and your enemy, and others besides them that you know not.’  In other words, preparing forces to terrify your enemies is the iconic theme of a supposedly moderate Muslim organization, which currently enjoys unprecedented direct access to the highest levels of the US Government.

To finish up this section, there is a revealing point of contact (nexus) between [1] the F&JP individuals who met at the State Department, [2] the MB members who posted the call to Jihad on their website, and [3] the ideology found in the Explanatory Memorandum.

The point of contact is Hassan Al-Banna, an open advocate of offensive Jihad who was honored in the EM in the following concluding passage: ‘This paragraph was delayed…to stress its utmost importance as it constitutes the heart and core of this memorandum…It suffices to say that the first pioneer of this phenomenon [i.e., doing Jihad] was our prophet Mohamed…as he placed the foundation for the first civilized organization, which is the mosque…And this was done by the pioneer of the contemporary Islamic Dawah [i.e., ‘Promotion of Islam’] Imam martyr Hasan al-Banna…when he and his brothers felt the need to re-establish Islam and its movement anew, leading him to establish organizations with all their kinds.’

Conclusion

At this point, it would be fair to ask whether the MB’s efforts to ‘expand the observant Muslim base’ in North America have been successful.  The objective answer would be an unqualified ‘Yes.’

On December 01, 2014, the White House issued an official response to a petition signed by more than 213,000 Americans, requesting that the Muslim Brotherhood be designated as a terrorist group.  The White House response reads as follows:

We have not seen credible evidence that the Muslim Brotherhood has renounced its decades-long commitment to non-violence.  The United States does not condone political violence of any kind and we continue to press actors of all viewpoints to peacefully engage in the political process.  The United States is committed to thwarting terrorist groups that pose a threat to U.S. interests and those of our partners.’

Despite the constant focus on Islamophobia by MB-front groups like the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), there has actually been a wave of conversions to Islam, while the population of Muslims in America has nearly doubled since 9-11.  In addition, the number of Mosques has also nearly doubled since 9-11.

More importantly, the less visible (overt) strategic goals of creating a ‘Central political party, [influencing] local political offices and political symbols, [building] relationships and alliances, and establishing an American Organization for Islamic Political Action‘ have probably succeeded far beyond what Muhammad Akram Al-Adlouni and the other members of the Shura Council in North America ever expected.

Boston Imam with ties to Senior al Qaeda operative is keynote speaker for CAIR-PA banquet

Imam Suhaib Webb is the keynote CAIR-PA speaker.  Wikipedia.com reports in part:  Suhaid Webb was born William Webb in 1973 in Oklahoma to a Christian family.  He lost interest in religion and began engaging in delinquency by joining a local gang and became a local Hip-Hop DJ and producer.  

The Daily Caller reports in part:  Dzhokhar-Tsarnaevs imam shares ties with senior al Qaeda operative.

The Islamic organization that includes Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s mosque has ties to the al Qaeda operative that reportedly inspired Tsarnaev to carry out the Boston Marathon terrorist attack, according to FBI surveillance documents.

Tsarnaev, 19, was indicted Thursday on 30 criminal counts related to the April 15 bombing at the Boston Marathon, which was allegedly carried out by Tsarnaev and his late brother Tamerlan. The bombing left three people dead and numerous others injured, and resulted in a manhunt during which a Boston-area campus police officer was shot and killed.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev reportedly left a note in the boat he hid in during the manhunt claiming that he bombed the Boston Marathon as retribution for U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“When you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims,” Tsarnaev wrote.

Prior to the Boston Marathon attack, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who attended the Islamic Society of Boston mosque in Cambridge, downloaded radical Islamic propagandafrom the Internet, including materials authored by Anwar al-Awlaki, the senior al Qaeda operative who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen on September 30, 2011. Tsarnaev also downloaded a summer 2010 edition of the al Qaeda magazine “Inspire,” which included bomb-making instructions and which is thought to have been the work of al-Awlaki.

Al-Awlaki lived in the United States between 1990 and 2002, when he moved to the United Kingdom before eventually relocating to Yemen, where he where worked for al-Qaeda and produced propaganda tapes and other materials urging Muslims to commit terrorist attacks against the United States.

Suhaib Webb, imam of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center in Roxbury, spoke alongside al-Awlaki at a September 9, 2001 fundraiser at the University of California at Irvine, according to FBI surveillance documents. The fundraiser was intended to raise money for the legal defense of H. Rap Brown, an Atlanta-based Islamic radical who shot and killed two Georgia police officers. Webb and al-Awlaki helped raise $100,000 to defend Brown, who was eventually convicted for his crimes.

“Webb and Aulaki may be associated with the Muslim American Society,” according to the surveillance documents, which were prepared to investigate the unconfirmed possibility that al-Awlaki purchased plane tickets for some of the 9/11 hijackers.

An Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center spokesman told The Daily Caller that Webb did not know the full extent of al-Awlaki’s terrorist agenda when Webb was “working with him.”

Counterjihadreport.com reports in part:

FBI documents found that Webb and Awlaki were closely associated through the Muslim American Society, which many believe to be an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States.

Webb also served as imam of the sister organization of the mosque attended by Boston Marathon bombers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Before coming to Boston, Webb was the imam of the Islamic Society of Oklahoma City, which was home to Alton Nolen, the man who beheaded an innocent Oklahoma woman in September.

Twelve of Webb’s Islamic Society of Boston members “have either been killed, imprisoned, or declared fugitives due to their involvement in terrorist activity,” according to Americans for Peace and Tolerance.

Additionally, some of the reasons why many American’s are concerned about CAIR’s history and agenda are posted below:

  • CAIR chapters demonstrated in the streets across America to show their support for Hamas even declaring that “We are Hamas.” 
  • Omar Ahmad, Chairman and founder of the Council on American Islamic Relations, told a Muslim crowd Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faiths, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.  At the Islamic Association of Palestine’s third annual convention in Chicago in November 1999, Omar Ahmad gave a speech at a youth session praising suicide bombers who kill themselves for Islam.  Fighting for freedom, fighting for Islam — that is not suicide. They kill themselves for Islam, he said.
  • Nihad Awad, CAIR Executive Director, said I am in support of the Hamasmovement.
  • Mustafa Carroll, executive director of the Dallas-Fort Worth CAIR branch, told a crowd at a Muslim rally in Austin, Texas in 2013 If we are practicing Muslims, we are above the law of the land.
  • CAIR pressured the FBI in June 2013 to stop their Most Wanted advertising campaign which helped the FBI gain information regarding the whereabouts of dangerous terrorists.  The list of CAIR officials who have made apologetic comments in the public regarding terrorists is quite extensive.
  • The Council on American Islamic Relations is vigorously fighting bills in twenty state legislatures that would prohibit courts from considering provisions of foreign laws including Sharia if they are inconsistent with the United States and state constitutions.  Sharia law is antithetical to the rights and liberties afforded under the United States Constitution.
  • Ghassan Elashi, founder of CAIR’s Texas chapter, in 2009 received a 65-year prison sentence for funneling over $12 million from the Islamic charity known as the Holy Land Foundation to the jihad terrorist group Hamas, which is responsible for murdering hundreds of Israeli civilians.
  • Mousa Abu Marzook, a former CAIR official, was in 1995 designated by the U.S. government in 1995 as a “terrorist and Hamas leader.” He now is aHamas leader in Syria.
  • Randall Royer, CAIR’s former civil rights coordinator, in 2004 began serving a 20-year prison sentence for aiding al-Qaida and the Taliban against American troops in Afghanistan and recruiting for Lashkar e-Taiba, the jihadist group responsible for the 2008 Mumbai jihad massacres.
  • Bassem Khafagi, CAIR’s former community relations director, was arrested for involvement with the Islamic Assembly of North America, which was linked to al-Qaida. After pleading guilty to visa and bank fraud charges, Khafagi was deported.
  • Rabih Haddad, a former CAIR fundraiser, was deported for his work with the Global Relief Foundation (which he co-founded), a terror-financing organization.
  • CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case–so named by the Justice Department during the HLF trial.

EDITORS NOTE: The Florida Family Association has prepared an email to send to Marriott and Springfield Country Club officials. Readers may click here to send an email to Marriott and Springfield Country Club officials.

UPDATE: Victory for Iran — Hegemony Over the Arabian Peninsula

Iran has thrown  a lasso around Arabian peninsula with Houthi Shia takeover in Yemen.  Friends of ours here in Pensacola have two serving U.S. Marine Captains. One of them was in charge of  Marine Security for our embassies in the Middle East.  He called home to say that he was in the last group of 10 persons that  vacated the U.S. Embassy in Saana, Yemen, He told his parents in a phone call of the circuitous trip to the airport in Yemen’s capital evading Houthi checkpoints. The flight took the group to safety in Dubai. Yemen is now a failed state that will likely devolve into sectarian war between the minority Houthi and the divided majority Sunni.  It also marks another failure of this  exemplar  of the Obama ‘no name’ counterterrorism strategy.

Saudi Arabia’s fences on its northern and southern borders may become the equivalent of France’s Maginot Line that failed to stop the Nazi blitzkrieg in 1940 that saw the demise of Third Republic. The Kingdom has the largest number of Islamic State foreign fighters who will constitute a fifth column upon return to the Wahhabist realm.  That gives Iran virtual control of Iraq, Syria, Yemen, plus Lebanon with Proxy Hezbollah.  Then  there are restive majority Shia in Bahrain and oppressed Shia sitting atop Saudi Arabia’s oil fields in the eastern province on the Persian Gulf. Some argue that Iran may have even been complicit  fostering the rise of ISIS despite the alleged hatred between radical Islamist Salafist and Apocalyptic Twevlers in Tehran.

If President Obama’s quest for a nuclear pact with the Islamic Regime in Tehran occurs on March 24th with the P5+1 final agreement, Iran becomes a nuclear hegemon threatened the region, America’s ally Israel  and the West. Remember that agreement excludes ICBMs that may be capable of covering Europe and beyond.  Yesterday Uruguay arrested a senior Iranian diplomat  alleged to be involved in a possible repeat in Montevideo  of the Iranian sponsored 1992 Buenos Aires blast at the Israeli Embassy.

Obama’s ‘Strategic Patience”  document released Thursday amounts to capitulation and appeasement of Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, IS, Taliban and Al Qaeda. To say nothing of his failed Russian reset with Imperialist Putin in the Ukraine and  failed pivot to contain China’s saber rattling in East Asia  He even changed the wording of his original war declaration against IS  from “degrade and destroy” to “degrade and destroy”.  He is worse than British PM Neville Chamberlain at Munich in 1938 that sold out pre-war Czechoslovakia. At least Chamberlain brought Sir Winston Churchill into his cabinet after the declaration of war against Nazi Germany on September 3, 1939  as First Lord of the Admiralty, a prelude to Churchill being asked by King George VI to form a government on May 10,1940 following Chamberlain’s resignation.

Obama and  many Democratic Senators and Representatives deplore the proposed speech by Israel’s PM Netanyahu on the dangers of  Iran and radical Islam before a Joint Session of Congress on March 3rd at the invitation of U.S. House Speaker John Boehner. If that does occur then the leader of America’s only democratic ally in the Middle East, who is said to speak in Churchillian cadence, will like the fabled UK wartime premier, have a third opportunity to present his prescient views.

NOTE: This Twitchy headline and  tweeted  comments  posted on ‘Victory for Iran’: Shia rebels in ‘success story’ Yemen dissolve parliament, take charge

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of Houthi Shia rebels in Yemen.

Qatar Deports Hamas Politburo Chief Khaled Meshaal?

Just before year end, on December 30, 2014, we posted on pronouncements from Qatar about abandoning support for the Muslim Brotherhood and opening up dialogue with Egypt’s President El-Sisi. El-Sisi , then Defense Chief ousted President Morsi , a former Muslim Brotherhood leader in a coup on July 2013, Has Qatar turned Away from Islamist Support in the Middle East?  Earlier on December 6, 2014, we reported that the Qatari Ambassador to the US,  H.E. Mohammed Jaham Al-Kuwari at a presentation before the Pensacola, Florida Tiger Bay Club proclaimed, “We do not support Hamas”.  He astounded some in the audience. In retrospect, given today’s news about Qatar expelling, Hamas Politburo leader, that may have been a scoop.  If confirmed, that would end Meshall’s three year sojourn in the gas rich Gulf state.  However, denials by Senior Hamas leader and the lack of confirmation from Qatar raise questions.  CNN reported:

Senior Hamas official Izzat Risheq denied reports Monday that the group’s political leader Khaled Meshaal has been expelled from Qatar.

Earlier Monday, sources close to Hamas told CNN that Meshaal and members of the Muslim Brotherhood were expelled from Qatar, and were most likely on the way to Turkey.

The Qatari government has not commented.

Saudi Arabia has been working to improve relations between Qatar and Egypt.

Israel’s reaction to this development was what you might expect as reported by AP:

The Israeli Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying it “welcomes Qatar’s decision to expel the head of the Hamas political bureau, Khaled Meshaal, to Turkey.” It said the Qatari decision came after heavy diplomatic pressure from Israel.

“We expect the Turkish government to act responsibly in a similar way,” it added.

Hardly, likely.  Meshaal traveled to Ankara on December 25, 2014 and met with Islamist AKP President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.  Meshaal then showed up on December 27, 2014 at the annual convention of AKP Party of President Erdogan held at the hometown of AKP Premier Dovutoglu in Konor. Al-Monitor reported his reception and remarks:

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu appeared on Dec. 27 with Meshaal in Davutoglu hometown, Konya, for the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) annual assembly. Known for being conservative, Konya residents jubilantly greeted Meshaal, as reported by Islamist news network Takva Haber: “The democratic and secular Hamas leader reminded Konya residents of their protests in the 1980s in solidarity with Jerusalem.”

Turkish mainstream media reported Meshaal’s appearance in Konya as a surprise visit. Meshaal gave a brief but potent speech in which he praised Erdogan and Davutoglu multiple times as the crowd waived Turkish and Palestinian flags, passionately cheering “Allahu akbar” (God is great) and “Down with Israel.” Meshaal said: “A strong Turkey means a strong Jerusalem and a strong Palestine. … Inshallah [God willing], we will liberate Jerusalem together. A strong Turkey is a source of power for all Muslims.”

Erdogan has gone out of his way to support Hamas as fellow Brothers. That included the infamous exiled Egyptian Brotherhood preacher, the anti-American and anti-Semitic Yusuf al Qaradawi, head of the US Global terror financing conduit, Union of Good. In our December 6th post we drew attention to an Interpol Red Tag Warrant issued for the arrest of al-Qaradawi sought for extradition “to serve a sentence” for crimes including “incitement and assistance to commit intentional murder” in El-Sisi’s Egypt.  Al Monitor in a December 12, 2014 report on the Arrest Warrant noted Erdogan saying:

His resentment publicly at the Fifth Religious Council in Ankara Dec. 8, Erdogan said: “Look, a person who came to power through a coup is giving instructions to Interpol. Based on this instruction a step is being taken for the arrest of Youssef al-Qaradawi, president of the [International] Union of Muslim Scholars. What kind of a business is this?”

 The Qatari Ambassador’s  presentation on December 6th in Pensacola was eclipsed by the Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani’s  appearance at a GCC summit in Doha three days later on December 9th that marked the start of a lowering of Qatar’s profile internationally reflected in  a Wall Street Journal  op by Yaroslav Trofimov’,  Qatar Scales Back Role in Middle East Conflicts.   The Qatari Ambassador to Washington comments about Meshaal at the Pensacola Tiger Bay Club meeting in response to his status may have been cover for what may have happened yesterday when H.E. Ambassador Al-Kuwari said, “Better to have Khaled Meshaal in Qatar than across the Gulf in Iran”.  Meshaal, the political leader of Hamas is said to live in luxury and control funds estimated at over $2.0 billion.

 Now it is likely that Khaled Meshaal, and possibly MB Preacher Al Qaradawi and others in the Hamas Politburo entourage in Doha may have also found new refuge and safe haven for their ill-gotten billions in Turkey. Meanwhile Hamas leaders in Gaza are complaining bitterly that less than $100 million out of the $5.4 billion pledged to rebuild the enclave have been received since the Cairo conference with Arab states following the cease fire that ended the 50 day war with Israel in the summer of 2014.  Trofimov in his WSJ analysis noted the turnabout following the Emir al-Thani appearance at the Doha   Gulf Cooperation Council meeting on December 9th:

Trofimov in his WSJ analysis  noted the turnabout:

After their threats to boycott a summit of Gulf monarchies in Doha this month, Qatar revised its stance on the critical point of disagreement—how to treat the Muslim Brotherhood and the current Egyptian leadership, which ousted the Islamist group from power last year.

Having expelled several Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leaders ahead of the summit, Qatar sent a senior envoy to Egypt on Dec. 20 to seek a rapprochement with President Abdel Fattah El -Sisi.

Two days later, Qatar shut down the Egyptian channel of its Al Jazeera TV network, an outlet for the Brotherhood and other opponents of Egypt’s current leadership.

“The security of Egypt is important for the security of Qatar,” Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani said.

Our conclusion from our December 30th post is worth repeating:

Thus, tiny Qatar has been forced to rein in its support of the Islamist jihadist causes because of geo-political realities, leaving Turkey’s President Erdogan as the lone supporter of Hamas in the region.  That has been fueled by the US energy revolution producing a glut in the weakened demand for oil and gas that precipitated the plummeting oil and gas prices.

We shall see if Qatar makes the transition away from being a Frenemy dropping its support for the Brotherhood in the region and in Gaza. Backing Egypt’s security was likely a show of good faith to be brought back into the fold of the Gulf Cooperation Council. If Qatar can clean up its problems with the construction of the FIFA 2022 World Cup including alleged human rights violations of foreign workers, it may be on the path to rehabilitation in the world community. Still Qatar is not a budding democracy as it tries to portray itself. Rather it an Arab autocracy granting little to no human rights to its 280,000 citizens and nearly 1.8 million foreign workers.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of Khaled Meshaal, Hamas Politburo chief, at a Doha 7-23-14 news conference. Source: Reuters.

Qatar Ambassador to U.S.: “We Don’t Support Hamas”

Qatar’s Ambassador to Washington  H.E. Mohammed Jaham Al-Kuwari is a veteran diplomat with 32 years of service to the small gas rich wealthy Arab state on a peninsula jutting into the Persian Gulf off Saudi Arabia.  American educated at the University of Portland, Oregon with graduate work at the University of Madrid in Spain, he speaks several languages including Farsi used during a diplomatic post in Tehran.  He has held a number of diplomatic posts, Foreign Ministry and Cabinet positions. As Qatar’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, he presented his credentials to President Obama in the Oval Office in March 2014. Ambassador Al-Kuwari spoke Friday, December 5th at the monthly meeting of the Tiger Bay Club in Pensacola, Florida.

Qatar with its capital of Doha has fewer subjects than the metropolitan Pensacola area, approximately 300,000. There are also upwards of 1.7 million foreign workers residing in Qatar with some evidence of human rights violations. Human Rights Watch in its 2014 World Report noted:

Migrants continue to experience serious rights violations, including forced labor and arbitrary restrictions on the right to leave Qatar, which expose them to exploitation and abuse by employers.

The soft spoken Qatari diplomatic representative flew in from “wintry DC” the prior evening to be greeted by Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward, Escambia County Commissioner Michael Underwood and the board of the Tiger Bay Club.  He presented a check for $10,000 to Mayor Hayward and proceeded to unroll a charm campaign on this Gulf Coast community in North West Florida with a heavy military presence.  Located in Northwest Florida are the famed Pensacola Naval Air Station, Navy Training and Information Dominance Commands, the Naval Flight Training Center at Whiting Field, the USAF Air Force Special Operation Command Headquarters at Hurlburt Field, Eglin and Tyndall Air bases.  It is not uncommon to see personnel from the six Arab States, members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, undergoing training at these facilities.  One of the Tiger Bay board members who attended the private dinner Thursday evening opined the Ambassador gave a “smooth performance.”

The Qatar Charm Campaign

Tiny Qatar across from Shiite Iran is endeavoring to explain the presence of the leaders from terror groups Hamas and Taliban ensconced in luxury in Doha.   There are also allegations by the US Treasury that some Qatar individuals and charities may have funded these groups, as well as, the self declared Islamic State, formerly ISIS. A bit ironic, as Ambassador Al-Kuwari said ISIS is a threat to them that needs to be addressed through immediate military action.

On the diplomatic side, Qatar is one of two Gulf Arab States, the other being Oman, that have diplomatic relationships with America’s ally in the Middle East, Israel.  He stressed their recognition of the State of Israel which has offices in Doha.  He spoke about the role of Qatar trying to bring about peace between the Jewish State and the Palestinians, what he repeatedly deemed as the principal  root cause of unrest and violence in the region. He spoke about the criticism from fellow Arab League members questioning why Qatar tolerates Israeli presence and Jewish visitors.

Ambassador Al Kuwari propounded the view that the Al Jazeera satellite TV network was founded as the “voice of the Arab Spring”, promoting democratic aspirations.  He pointed out Qatar’s own aspirations to build democratic institutions noting a possible future elected parliament, given the two century rule by the Al-Thani family.

“Qatar doesn’t support Hamas”

He astounded some in the audience when he claimed that Qatar does not support Hamas.  This despite the $1 billion pledge by Qatar made at a Cairo conference to underwrite one quarter of the $4 billion cost to rebuild Gaza after the third Hamas perpetrated war with Israel since 2008. In his Tiger Bay talk he referenced the 2,200 Gazans killed in IDF Operation Protective Edge, not mentioning that the majority were Hamas and Palestinian Islamic jihad operatives who had used civilians as human shields. Nor did he mention that the $400 millions pledged after the 2012 Gaza war may have been used to build the terror tunnels that enabled cross border attacks inside Israel during the recent summer war.   As he put it, “better to have Khaled Meshaal, the leader in Qatar than across the Gulf in Iran”.

As to questions concerning permitting a Taliban office in Qatar, the Ambassador said that was to facilitate discussions with the Afghan government leading to an inclusive democratic government.  He recommended the terror group relinquish its threats of violence and denial of empowerment of women through education.  He noted the role played by Qatar in release of several Taliban leaders from detention in Guantanamo in exchange for release of captive US Army Sergeant Bergdahl.  However he did not respond to questions as to whether any of the released Taliban commanders in Qatar were rumored to have subsequently joined ISIS.

When asked about the Muslim Brotherhood, he suggested that there could be democratically elected Islamist governments, decrying the imprisonment by Egyptian President el-Sisi of Brothers, liberals and human rights advocates by the newly elected government.  The Ambassador suggested that the Muslim Brotherhood may not have resorted to terrorism, which appears contradicted by Egyptian, Saudi and UAE designations.   He was, however, silent about the long term presence in Qatar of exiled Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood preacher, Yusuf al-Qaradawi founder of the Union of Good, a US Treasury Global Designated Terror Group supplying Hamas.

As Ambassador Al-Kuwari was finishing his presentation The Investigative Project was reporting:

 Interpol issued a bulletin Friday seeking the arrest of the Muslim Brotherhood’s most influential cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi. The bulletin was sparse on details but said that Egypt wanted the 88-year-old Qaradawi “to serve a sentence” for crimes including “incitement and assistance to commit intentional murder.” …  According to the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch, Interpol issued a “red notice” which is both its highest level alert, and a move subject to later review by the international police agency.

The Egyptian El-Sisi government had requested extradition by Qatar of al-Qaradawi to stand trial.

Ambassador Al-Kuwari painted a glowing picture of Qatar as the Switzerland of the Middle East with billions of dollars holding hundreds of international academic, business and interfaith conferences akin to Davos. He touted American universities like Cornell, Northwestern, Texas, and Virginia Commonwealth that set up programs in Doha. He said that Qatar wanted to invest in economic enterprises in the region to create jobs for the large number of unemployed university graduates.  In the US Qatar is spending $5 million funding university courses to teach Arabic.

 He emphasized the humanitarian contributions of Qatar reflected in the $100 million given for the rebuilding of New Orleans following hurricane Katrina, the $850 million to rebuild Haiti after the 2012 Earthquake in cooperation with the Clinton Foundation and a major push against Polio in the less developed world in conjunction with the Gates Foundation.  But there were also investments in the US, like the $1.5 billion City Center complex developed with the Hines group in Texas revitalizing a derelict section of Washington, DC.

When asked about the depiction of Islam as being prone to violence reflected in the barbarism of ISIS, he deplored that.  He contended that ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliates were a distinct minority that had infiltrated the demonstrated record of tolerance of Islam. His message was that Qatar was following the example of the 800 year Muslim reign in Al Andaluz, southern Spain, where allegedly Jews, Christian and Muslims lived in tolerance. This is not demonstrated by the history of intolerance and barbarism akin to that perpetrated by contemporary ISIS and the Taliban during the successive waves of invasion by extremist Berber-Muslims from North Africa.  He noted Qatar’s approval for building a new Catholic church.

Is Qatar a Frenemy?

Seasoned observers of the Middle East Region say that Qatar under the two century rule by the Al-Thani family “has been punching internationally above its weight class” to use the boxing analogy. Yet Qatar has often been referred to as a Frenemy.  Not exactly a friend, not exactly an enemy.

On the friend side Qatar has assisted in building several major bases including the forward command center at al-Udeid air base for the US Central Command, headquartered at MacDill Air Base just outside Tampa, Florida. Qatar has supplied air contingents in the US-led coalition of 60 countries seeking to “degrade and destroy” Sunni extremist group, the Islamic State, formerly ISIS. The capital, Doha has been turned into an international education hub for the Middle East with the aid of US academic institutions and think tanks like the Doha Center of the Washington, DC –based Brookings Institution.  Qatar has created jobs here in the US by purchasing $19 billion  of 50 Boeing 777s  for expansion of its Qatar Airways in major hubs  Dallas, Miami , Philadelphia to bolster existing facilities in Houston, Washington, DC, New York and Chicago .  Further, Qatar has signed agreements with the Pentagon to purchase more than $11 billion in Patriot Missiles, Apache helicopters and Javelin anti-tank missiles. Moreover, it acquired the Current TV channel, now Al Jazeera America, from former Vice President Al Gore and investors.

On the other hand, there is a troubling story.  Qatar in a New York Times op-ed by Israeli Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor called Qatar a “Club Med for Terrorists”. He was referring to providing sanctuary for Khaled Meshaal, the billionaire leader of Hamas.  Dr. Jonathan Schanzer of the Washington, DC-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies in testimony before the Joint Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs on September 9, 2014 said “that Qatar is currently Hamas’ ATM”:

“If you add up the annual $400 million that we believe has been pledged by the Qataris and perhaps the rumored $300 million provided by the Turks, then you’re looking at $700 million out of a roughly $1 billion budget,” Schanzer told members of Congress. “I’m no math major, but that would be 70 percent.

Earlier this year three Arab states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Bahrain, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, briefly withdrew their Ambassadors from Qatar.  They were, among other reasons, objecting to the Qatar funded Al Jazeera satellite TV network broadcasting across the region in Arabic the extremist inflammatory statements of exiled Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood preacher, Yusuf al Qaradawi.  In November 2014, the UAE joined Saudi Arabia placing the Muslim Brotherhood on its list of world terrorist organizations, including Hamas and, here in the US, Muslim Brotherhood affiliates, the Council of American Islamic Relations and Muslim American Society.

There are questions about what Qatar is doing concerning wealthy Qataris who have funded Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusrah and the Sunni fundamentalist Islamic State in both Syria and Iraq.

There have been  accusations that some of the $220  billion funds for the infrastructure  in preparation for 2022 FIFA World Cup competition may have involved bribes to FIFA officials and  possible  diversion of contractor payments  to fund the Jihad of the Islamic State.

Some Members of Congress have called for black listing both Qatar and Turkey because of these individuals’ contributions to ISIS, even suggesting that the U.S. move CENTCOMM bases in Qatar elsewhere in the region. Those accusations led the US State Department while calling the current relationship with Qatar “productive”, to also state that “disruption of terrorist financing by Qatari individuals and charitable associations remains inconsistent”.

Conclusion

Qatari Ambassador Al-Kuwari’s Pensacola presentation will doubtless be repeated frequently during his Washington, DC posting. After all the campaign is laced with prospects of American communities and businesses receiving billions in economic rewards.  If Qatar is to succeed it might wisely follow the path of fellow Gulf Cooperation Council member Kuwait and rein in terrorist financiers in the tiny state. Qatar might start by honoring the Interpol Red Tag warrant for the arrest and extradition of Muslim Brotherhood preacher Al Qaradawi.  As to fostering peace between Israel and the Palestinians, if Qatar’s track record negotiating cease fire proposals with Turkey on behalf of Hamas in the recent summer Gaza war is any indication, that is an unlikely prospect.

Listen to the Qatar Ambassador’s Pensacola Tiger Bay Club presentation.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

Israel’s “Long War”

Tom Jocelyn, the American counter terrorism expert and Senior Fellow at the Washington, DC-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies is the editor of The Long War Journal. It is a chronicle of the global Islamic jihad in the 21st Century, now in its 13th year. The global jihad was sparked by what the US State Department has taken to calling “core Al Qaeda”, most dramatically with 9/11. Subsequently it has metatisized driven by the Salafist doctrine seeking to replicate the great barbarism of the first jihad that burst out of the Arabian peninsula 14 Centuries ago. In many instances it has been a long war against indigenous populations, both Muslim and not. In the later case, it has witnessed the self-declared Caliphate of the Islamic State, formerly ISIS, confronting non-Muslims with the choice to convert, be subjugated, leave or be killed. It is sacralized barbarity emboldened with arms and advanced military technology abandoned by fleeing armies. It is financed by extortion and billions in booty, money seized in conquered territories and oil resources.

Mideast Israel Palestinians

Israeli Merkava tank leaving Gaza staging area August 5, 2014. Source: The Guardian.

Virtually alone and surrounded by these Jihadist forces is the Jewish nation of Israel. Israel has conducted a long war of its own over the 21 years since the conclusion of the 1993 Oslo Accords with the Palestinian Authority. An agreement orchestrated by former President Clinton between Israeli Prime Minister, the late Yitzhak Rabin and the late Yassir Arafat, first President of the Palestinian Authority. Arafat went on to ignite the Second Intifada in September 2000 using the excuse that the late Israeli PM Ariel Sharon had made an unauthorized visit to the Temple Mount. That intifada saw thousands of Israeli causalities, both dead and wounded,  that morphed into a seemingly unending series of military Operations. It began with Operation Defensive Shield following the bloody Park Hotel Passover suicide bombing in March 2002 that killed many Holocaust survivors. It culminated in the siege of Arafat in the Mukata in 2004 in Ramallah. A brief hiatus following the demise of Arafat saw Israel build a security barrier in the disputed territories that virtually brought to a close the Second Intifada. The late PM Sharon left Likud to found a new coalition party, Kadima, on the strength of a letter in 2004 with former President Bush giving Israel permission to defend itself with US assurances.

That led Sharon in 2005 to order the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza of 9000 settlers and 10,000 IDF personnel under the misguided pretext that it would make Israel more secure. The Bush Administration was preoccupied in the Long War in both Iraq and Afghanistan. It sought to foist the myopic view that the Islamist world could be transformed into budding western style democracies. This despite the rise of anti-democratic Muslim Brotherhood elements in Gaza, Egypt and other adjacent Muslim countries. They had been kept in check by autocracies supplied with both US and Russian military assistance and aid. Thus, the Bush Administration thought it had a willing peace partner in Arafat’s successor, the long serving PA President, Mahmoud Abbas. The Bush Administration prevailed upon Israel to relinquish its control over the strategic Philadelphi corridor along the Egyptian Gaza frontier installing Fatah bureaucrats. 2006 saw the one vote, one time election in Gaza of a Hamas dominated Palestinian Legislative Council. That  lead to the June 2007 ejection and literal defenestration of Fatah from Gaza, leaving Hamas virtually in control. Israel was forced to engage in a series of air assaults that resulted in assassinations of Hamas leaders, co-founder Sheik Yassin and Dr. Rantisi. Hamas took over the Rafah border with Egypt through which arms, rockets and missiles were infiltrated along with huge infusions of cash from foreign Muslim charities and backers, Iran and Qatar.

In 2006 Israel was embroiled in the Second Lebanon War with Iran proxy Hezbollah supplied by the former with thousands of rockets. That conflict was triggered by a kidnapping of two IDF soldiers followed by massive  Hezbollah artillery rocket barrages. The 34 day War with Hezbollah saw more than 4,000 rockets rain on Israel setting a pattern that was copied by Hamas in Gaza in 2009, 2012 and 2014. In that first clash with Hezbollah saw Israel’s population in the north sweltered in crude shelters or displaced to the central Mediterranean shore. It also sparked the development of technical countermeasures to protect the both Israel’s population and IDF defense. Those developments included the now recognized Iron Dome system of batteries equipped with Tamir anti-rocket missiles, and the less well known, Trophy system, used effectively in the most recent 2014 Operation protecting armored vehicles against anti-tank rockets and missiles. Just prior to the Second Lebanon War, a cross border raid by Hamas operatives kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Schalit, holding him hostage until released in an October 2011 exchange for 1,027 Palestinian terrorist prisoners held by Israel.

In June 2009, President Obama made a dramatic speech at Cairo University extending outreach, many believed that emboldened Islamist elements in the Muslim ummah. In December,2011 the self-immolation of a fruit vendor in Tunisia sparked the so-called Arab Spring that erupted in North Africa and the Middle East. Autocracies in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt were overturned. The latter witnessed the ousting of strongman Mubarak with rise of the Muslim Brotherhood that saw the election of one if its prominent leaders, Mohammed Morsi as its President in June 2012. Morsi was backed by a National Assembly  composed of dominate Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist parties. They sought to impose Sharia law on women, secular elements and the country’s ancient minority Coptic Christian community. Virtually, a year later, Morsi and thousands of Muslim Brotherhood leaders were ousted, jailed and killed during a coup by his Defense Minister Gen.Abdel- Fattah El-Sisi. He was engaged in a counter terrorism campaign against Hamas linked Salafist terror groups in the Sinai.

The overthrow of the Libyan strongman Qadaffi, with aid from the US and NATO, spawned chaos with warring tribal and jihadist militias. That culminating in the Benghazi attack that killed the US Ambassador and three other Americans, a communications aide, and two CIA-contractors on 9/11/2012.

Meanwhile, Israel was concerned about security on its southern border with Egypt in the Sinai. Following cross border attacks near the Red Sea resort of Eilat it constructed a 200 mile security barrier seeking to prevent intrusion, only to be left exposed to rocket attacks. On Israel’s north eastern Golan frontier a raging civil war in Syria, now well into its third year, saw the Assad regime forces ranging across the Golan frontier fighting opposition rebel groups. These included al Qaeda affiliates the Al Nusrah front and the extremist Salafist spinoff, the Islamic State, formerly ISIS.

The latest IDF Operation Protective Edge that began on July 8th with barrages from Gaza from both homemade and Iranian supplied long range rockets covered fourth fifths of Israel. It was triggered by a botched kidnapping by Hamas operatives and that resulted in the murder of three Jewish yeshiva students, whose remains were discovered on June 30th. The Palestinian Authority in late April had announced a unity government with Hamas that scuppered any chances of a possible final stage agreement sought by US Secretary of State Kerry. Hamas is a foreign terrorist group so designated by the US, Canada and the EU. Its 1988 Charter, had sought not only the destruction of Israel but the killing of Jews globally. Israeli PM Netanyahu and his coalition cabinet had no choice but to call up what ultimately would be a massed IDF force of 80,000 elite brigades and reservists to conduct the ground phase of Operation Protective Edge. That culminated in the launch of ground operations in Gaza that ended with the seventh truce on August 5th that is holding for the moment. That truce occurred ironically on the Jewish Fast Day of Tish B’Av commemorating historic catastrophes that have befallen the Jewish people over the millennia.

Jocelyn’s FDD Long War Journal had this entry:

Israel

Israel accepted a Gaza ceasefire plan that will start with a preliminary 72-hour truce beginning tomorrow morning. Israeli officials will work out further details of the ceasefire over the next few days in Egypt. As of Aug. 1, at least 2,909 rockets had been fired at Israel from Gaza and 66 Israelis had been killed. In the first fatal attack in Jerusalem in three years, a Palestinian construction worker drove an earthmover into a bus, flipping it over and killing one Israeli and wounding five more. PM Netanyahu’s spokesman said Israel’s military campaign to destroy the Gaza tunnels is coming to a close, but that the overall operation will not cease until Israel experiences an extended period of quiet and security.

Jonathan Spyer, of the GLORIA Centre in Herzliya, published an assessment of Israel’s Long War in a PJ Media article, “Netanyahu’s Long War Doctrine.”  In it he paid tribute to Netanyahu’s cautious, but resolute position, overwhelmingly supported by Israelis, to bring to a conclusion the Hamas genocidal threat to the Jewish nation. A threat backed and financed by Qatar, a wealthy gas-rich emirate, a supporter of Muslim Brotherhood and extremist Salafist al Qaeda spinoffs. Qatar and the terrorist Salafist groups it funded and gave sanctuary to, including Hamas leaders, are viewed by Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia as a dire threat to their regimes. That created a coalition of interest with Israel tacitly condoning the latter’s war against Hamas. The Administration in Washington and the UN were desperate to end hostilities seeking to engage MB supporting regimes in Turkey and Qatar to convince Hamas to stand down. Newly elected Egyptian President El-Sisi, who had ousted MB President Morsi and closed Gazan smuggling tunnels, had endeavored to broker several cease fires during the 28 day Operation Protective Edge. It became evident that Hamas had been seriously degraded, nearly three dozen terror tunnels neutralized, sustaining an estimated $5 billion in destruction of buildings and infrastructure in the 25 mile square area of Gaza. All while the world media falsely portrayed Israel as perpetrating mounting civilian casualties most graphically at UNWRA- run schools and refuge centers where over 180,000 Gaza residents had sought shelter. These schools were reported to have held rocket caches, that enabled Hamas rocketeers to launch barrages some of which misfired resulting  in civilian casualties. This barbaric strategy was confirmed in a captured combat manual of Hamas uncovered by the IDF in Gaza City.

As to Israeli PM Netanyahu’s conduct of Operation Protective Edge Spyer observed:

Netanyahu, in stark contrast to his image in Europe and to a lesser extent in North America, is deeply cautious when it comes to the use of military force.

Indeed, the record shows that Israel elected to begin a ground campaign on July 18th only when it became clear from its actions and its statements that Hamas was not interested in a return to the status quo.

Netanyahu’s caution derives, rather, from his perception that what Israel calls “wars” or “operations” are really only episodes in a long war in which the country is engaged against those who seek its destruction. In the present phase, these forces are gathered largely under the banner of radical Islam.

Spyer concludes his assessment of Netanyahu:

Netanyahu’s vision is a chilly one, though it is not ultimately pessimistic. It aims to provide firm, durable walls for the house that the Jews of Israel have constructed. Within those walls the energies of Israeli Jews will ensure success — provided that the walls can be kept secure, thus believes the Israeli prime minister. It is from the point of view of this broader strategic picture that the current actions of Israel need to be understood. Operation Protective Edge — like Cast Lead and Orchard and Lebanon 2006 and the others — is intended as a single action in a long and unfinished war.

The Tish B’Av truce concluding Operation Protective Edge saw IDF forces leave Gaza, remaining ready if the truce is broken to return, if recalled. The current truce may still hold, but, will not last, unless and until Gaza is demilitarized and its leadership dispatched.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on the New English Review.

Islamic Slaughters and Short Memories

“We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.”

Obama said that on August 20, 2012 in remarks to reporters. Realizing that he was close to having to engage in some kind of military action against Bashar Assad, Syria’s dictator, he was bailed out by the Russians who stepped in to remove the stores of poison gas and then, except for the “red line” gaffe, everyone promptly forget about it.

The insurrection against Assad began in March 2011 and by September 2013 there were an estimated 120,000 dead Syrians and a million or more refugees. The conflict turned from local to regional as the extremist Islamic State (IS) emerged. It is backed by Iran and Turkey, but only for the purpose of defeating Assad, not for declaring itself the new caliphate.

IS is now in control of much of Syria’s northern region and has taken control of central Iraq, challenging Baghdad as well as its Kurdish sector. On Sunday Islamic State fighters overtook the Lebanese city of Arsal where 100,000 Syrian refugees had fled. There were attacks in Tripoli as well. There is no accounting for how many have been slaughtered by IS at this point.

On August 4, The Daily Star, Lebanon, reported “The jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) group executed seven members of a single family from the Ismaili minority in the central Syrian province of Hama overnight, state media and an activist group said Monday. ‘An armed terrorist group committed a massacre in the Mzeiraa area near the town of Salmiya, killing seven people, including two aged 13 and 15 years old,’ Syrian state news agency SANA said.”

Three days earlier Breitbart News reported “The Islamic State, formerly known as ISIS, told Palestine the terrorist group will join its fight against the ‘barbaric Jews’ but urged patience until ISIS is finished in Arab countries.”

So, according to the Islamic State, it is the Jews of Israel who are “barbaric” for defending themselves and their Arab citizens against rocket attacks from Gaza; land given to the Palestinians by Israel in 2005.

During the months when Hamas was firing thousands of rockets into Israel from Gaza there was a low level of coverage, but when Israel responded with Operation Protective Edge, it became front page news. Dead Palestinians always seem to be more important than dead Israelis even if they were forced by Hamas to serve as human shields for their rockets and their elaborate matrix of tunnels into Israel which exist solely to carry out its goal of destroying it.

Being Christian in the Middle East has proven to be deadly. When the Islamic State took control of Mosul, a city in which Christians had lived for centuries, they were given the choice of converting, paying a tax, or dying. The Islamic State has swiftly gained a reputation for murdering prisoners of war and anyone else they determine to be “hypocritical” or “apostate” Muslims. So being Muslim does not protect one from more fanatical Muslims and being Christian can be a death sentence.

In an August 4 Washington Post article, Ilias al-Hussani, 27, told its reporter, “They are savages. We’ve seen what they’ve done to people of their own faith. Imagine what they would do to us non-Muslims.” The article noted that Islamic State “now controls resources and territory unmatched in the history of extremist organizations.”

Who remembers the 246 girls kidnapped in April by Boko Haram in Nigeria and forced to convert? Or hears of their further attacks?

Despite having troops stationed in Afghanistan and having fought in Iraq, for Americans the Middle East is still someplace far away filled with people who are little more than statistics, but the Muslim jihad still poses a threat.

It is less far away for Europeans who have slowly awakened to the changes occurring and being demanded by the Muslims who emigrated there, many of whom to escape life in their own nations. As the Muslim population has grown in various European nations, it has begun to pose a threat to native-born citizens. Even so, the Israeli military operation unleashed a lot of Europe-based anti-Semitism and some showed up in the U.S. as well.

Does anyone know who the real enemy is any more?

There is going to be more news of slaughters in the Middle East because the Islamic State is going to challenge every nation there. Assad retains control over an estimated 40-60% of Syria. Iraq has been halved with just the south remaining. Lebanon will likely fall under IS control and that is bad news for the Christians who have lived there for centuries.

Jordan is girding for an attack. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are watching the situation with increasing apprehension.

The present Syrian conflict began in 2011 with an effort to remove Bashar Assad as other Middle East nations, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt, had done with their despots during the so-called Arab Spring. In addition to Syria’s Assad, Iran supports Hamas, but Iran is a Shiite nation and the Islamic State is Sunni. The Sunnis are the majority of the Middle East’s Muslim population.

ISIS flag and fighters

ISIS flag and jihadi terrorists.

The Islamic State has been officially designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S., the U.K, Canada, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and the United Nations. It does not give much evidence of being concerned. It has access to millions in oil wealth and a growing military capability thanks in part to all the U.S. weapons that were abandoned by the Iraqis when they came under attack.

We cannot expect President Obama to engage the Islamic State. The term “Commander-in-Chief” has never been more misapplied to him than any President.

What we can expect is the continued expansion of the Islamic State and more news of the slaughter of Muslims and Christians.

Once Israel is through destroying Gaza’s tunnels and its store of rockets, it will have to turn its attention to the IS threat to Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and perhaps Turkey as well. It will make Gaza look like a picnic.

Recommended Reading: Palestine and Double Standards: The world is outraged by Israeli self-defense but only ‘concerned’ when Muslims kill Muslims – Wall Street Journal

© Alan Caruba, 2014

RELATED ARTICLE: Iraq Christians flee as Islamic State takes Qaraqosh

Infiltrating the ISNA and NAIT Conference in Detroit

I use the word infiltrate because the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) likes to use this word when a non Muslim attends a MB conference. Actually I spent four days with MB leaders from all across the country. There were representatives from every known MB group and some that were recently developed. The usual MB acronyms were there, but the most vocal were ISNA (Islamic Society of North America), NAIT (North American Islamic Trust), MSA (Muslim Student Association), and Muslim Advocates.

A fantastic group of American Patriots invited me to their city to obtain first-hand evidence pertaining to Islamic groups and mosques allegedly supporting the agenda of Islamic based terrorism. This report will be general in nature until I analyze all of the intelligence I was able to obtain.

I stayed at the same hotel as the conference attendees. The Double Tree (Hilton) on the Southfield Freeway, Dearborn, MI. This Masjid Forum was specifically for Imams, Board members, and senior personnel for the dozen and a half MB acronym supporters.

The first MB supporters I encountered was at the Muslim Advocates booth. The MB supporter manning the booth talked with me several minutes. He was passing out material to ‘end hate’ on the internet. I asked him to describe some examples of hate. He said anyone critical of Islam and Sharia Law are haters. He used the example of ACT For America. He went on to say anyone who opposes the building of a mosque or mosque expansion in America is a hater. Little did he know he was talking with someone who was very critical of the Islamic ideology and Sharia law.

The conference should have been titled, “The U.S. Constitution and the 1st Amendment are for MB terrorists and not for American Patriots. The Muslim Advocates group advised they were working closely with internet social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. They are asking these groups to close the accounts of anyone who is critical of Islam. This is considered serious hate speech and should not be allowed on the internet. I was provided materials of their strategies and goals.

This is directly from Muslim Advocates: “We are experts with deep experience in the courtroom and powerful connections in Congress and the White House”. I agree with them on this statement. Their supporters go all the way up to the highest level of the White House. This should be of no surprise to anyone.

I met ISNA and NAIT Executives. The main emphasis of the conference was for Muslims to continue building and expanding in America. ISNA promised to help with their projects and NAIT encouraged Muslim leaders to allow NAIT to hold the mosque and other property titles, so they can be better protected. I was informed that NAIT owned several hundred million dollars of property in America, and has the funding from 400 plus Islamic Centers in America.

While in Detroit/Dearborn, I went to some suggested mosques and Islamic bookstores in Detroit to conduct research. When I was driving around Detroit and Dearborn I thought I was back in Saudi Arabia. appeared to be Islamic related: Mosques, Islamic businesses, Islamic stores, etc… It only took a few minutes to realize the Detroit area is under invasion from the MB. The area of Detroit has been reduced to destruction. By far it is one of the most dangerous and ugliest cities in our country.

While at the conference I was able to obtain a taped lecture by none other than America’s number one MB terrorist leader (CAIR/Nihad Awad). Nihad Awad had a lecture being distributed titled “How American Muslims Can Affect Change in Politics and Media”.

Per the norm I obtained material from Detroit mosques, the conference, and Islamic bookstores, both Sunni and Shia. The material advocates treason, sedition, and abusing innocent Muslim women and girls. One such piece of evidence advocates marrying off Muslim girls at any age, and consummating the marriage of these girls at the age of nine.

There were books on establishing Sharia throughout the world and using physical Jihad to achieve these goals. I found the law enforcement from the Dearborn area supported the violent Islamic ideology and Sharia law more so than they support innocent American Patriots living in this area.

For decades there has been many people like Steve Emerson, ACT leaders, and I who have provided direct evidence about the Islamic ideology, and recently there have been actors and actresses from Fox News who are now using the data we collected for decades at great financial losses and threats to us.

The Boko Haram Islamic terrorist group in Nigeria are helping to raise the awareness of the violence within Islam. Boko Haram essentially means “Western Education is Unlawful”. Just last night I was listening to Sean Hannity attempt to explain Shariah law to his followers. It was very clear from the start that Hannity has maybe a 3rd grade level education on Islamic matters. He has good intent, but hurts America more than he helps.

Hannity made a comment such as Boko Haram has a distorted vision of the true Islam. He was suggesting there is an Islamic ideology formed by Mohammed that is peaceful. Then he went on to say Sharia law is dangerous and evil. I am sorry but only a politician can have things both ways. There is no separation of Islam and Shariah law. You can’t have one without the other. If one considers Shariah law dangerous, then you must acknowledge Islam as a whole is dangerous.

The brutality of Boko Haram is not radical Islam. Their actions are being administered exactly as Islam dictates. Murder, hatred, violence, sexual abuse of young girls, forced conversions to Islam, and slavery are all true aspects of Islam.

Until world leaders stop making excuses for Islam and blaming it on so called radicals, ‘Pure Islam’ and it’s dangers will spread throughout the world. America will soon see the type brutality being committed by Boko Haram in the name of Islam, being carried out at American schools and neighborhoods. Only you can stop Islamic based terrorism. Do not count on our political leaders, media, or senior law enforcement to counter Islamic terrorism.

First hand evidence as I and my team obtain is the only way we can show the dangers of Pure Islam.

In closing, a point to ponder: If American Patriots are indeed haters because they do not want more mosques and their expansions in America, what are the billions of Muslims to be called who would kill in the name of Islam anyone who began building churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia?

Detroit: A Bees Nest of Islamic Terrorists

I believe there are only two ways to defeat your enemies.  You must know who your enemies are and understand their mindset.  Our number one enemy in America and throughout the world is Islam itself.  When groups of hundreds or thousands gather at a building and advocate following and enforcing ‘Pure Islam’, there is a high probability violence will generate from these buildings that breed hate and violence.   What are these buildings called?  Answer: Islamic Mosques

I have conducted firsthand research in hundreds of mosques in America.  The research is not difficult (if you know what to look for and know the right questions to ask) and is conducted in a legal manner always.  If a mosque is advocating peace, tolerance, a desire for their members to contribute and fit into the melting pot of America, this is exactly what I report.  There are few of these mosques in America, but they do exist.

If a mosque is the breeding ground for hate, violence, and their leadership does not want their members to uphold the U.S. Constitution and live within the confines of American law, I will also report this.

As of 6 May 2014, there are 37 mosques in Michigan.  The largest mosque in America is in Dearborn, Michigan.  About four years ago my team and I visited Michigan to conduct research.  I can sum my analysis into three words: Dangerous-Dangerous-Dangerous.

The Detroit area hosts large groups of Shia Muslims who do not want anything in America, aside from using our beautiful land for future Shariah Caliphate property. There are also a large population of Sunni Muslims and the ever dangerous Nation of Islam Muslims.  They are all dangerous and are a grave threat to the innocent people living in the land of the ‘Detroit Tigers’ and ‘Detroit Lions’.

Are their media, law enforcement agencies, or politicians reporting to the American public on the dangers of Islamic terrorist groups and their supporters operating in the Detroit area?  No.  Even our Fox News journalists will not dare report anything negative on particular mosques that advocate treason and sedition against America.

So what do we do? Do we remain idle as our country’s leaders do?  Do we just turn our heads as millions of Americans do?  The answer is simple.  We must remain vigilant  and expose the Islamic terrorists operating freely in the Detroit area.  The intelligence obtained must be shared with all in America, and not filed away into a safe and given so high a security classification that most government officials would not be allowed to view and report even if they desired.

Within the next couple of weeks I will travel to Michigan and will again go on the front lines to obtain Islamic based terrorism spurting from mosques disguised as religious buildings.

If you desire to see more firsthand research and actual affidavit’s of my work at particular mosques, please consider donating to keep the word alive.  If I had the financial ability to do so myself I would have several researchers on the streets monitoring Islamic terrorists activity in America and providing the intelligence to you.  Essentially I would be doing what our media, law enforcement, and politicians are not doing.  Protecting America should be their number one concern, but it is not.

Would it not be nice and beneficial for Americans to know who are the leaders of a mosques in their area, what the mosque leadership is advocating, and if there is a danger to the public and our country?  Would it not be beneficial to know about a mosque that is advocating and practicing ‘Child Marriages’ as was the research referenced below determined?  You decide.

Affidavit sworn to on 24 April 2009 about a Mosque in Nashville, TN:

I, Paul David Gaubatz, declare under penalty of perjury that the following statements are true and correct and based on my own personal knowledge:

This sworn affidavit pertains to Islamic Centers operating within Nashville, TN, and the local authorities who are in my professional opinion jeopardizing the lives of innocent Muslim children at Al Farooq, Nashville, the citizens of Nashville, and our country.

  1. Background: I was a U.S. Federal Agent with a Top Secret/SCI clearance for approximately 15.5 years.  This was during the time period 1988 – 2003.
  2. In addition to my Top secret/SCI clearance, I was also briefed into many programs known to the public as “Black Projects”. These projects pertained essentially to Counter-intelligence and counter-terrorism issues.
  3. On 11 Sept. 2001, I was assigned as an (1811) civilian Federal Agent in Albuquerque, NM. I had primarily been assigned the duties of ‘Technology Protection’ in regards to our countries highest classification of technologies used to defend our country.
  4. After the attack on our country (11 Sept. 2001), I was assigned counter-terrorism duties on a full time basis and in late 2002, assigned to the Foreign Service Institute (U.S. State Department/Arlington, VA). My duties were to train full time in Arabic and counter-terrorism issues. The Arabic language was almost one complete year. During this time period I was sent to Jordan for a three week ‘immersion’ program to better understand the Arabic language, the culture, and Islam.
  5. In Jan 2003, before Operation Iraqi Freedom, I was requested to deploy as a U.S. civilian Federal Agent to ArAr Air Base, Saudi Arabia (within a few miles of Iraqi border). My full time duties were to collect intelligence involving potential attacks against U.S. Armed Forces personnel and to conduct counter-espionage against Saudi Arabian government/military, Iraqi, and other people in the ArAr area.  I led several counter-terrorism/counter-espionage expeditions.
  6. From Apr – Jul 2003, I was assigned inside (Nasiriyah, Baghdad, Basrah, and other cities) Iraq and my primary duties were counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence.
  7. While in Iraq I interviewed numerous Iraqis in regards to terrorism against the U.S., the Islamic ideology pertaining to violent Jihadists activity, and the methodology of Islamic terrorists.
  8. While in Iraq I had the opportunity to discuss the training and tactics used by Islamic terrorist leaders and their supporters.
  9. I have received training on the Islamic terrorist ideology/tactics from people who were former members of Islamic terrorist groups and from Muslims who were investigating these groups themselves. These people included military and police officers who served under Saddam Hussein (former Iraq President).
  10. Since returning from Iraq in 2003, I have trained over 2500 U.S. law enforcement officers in counter-terrorism involving Islamic terrorist groups and their supporters.
  11.  I have discussed Islam and Sharia law with over 100 Imams and Islamic leaders in the U.S.
  12. I have listened to over one thousand plus hours of lectures by Islamic scholars/leaders that have been trained in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, and Iran.
  13. I have read over 5000 different publications, books, and brochures by Islamic scholars.
  14. In 2005, I hired a senior Council on American-Islamic Relations leader to provide me training on the operation of this Islamic organization.
  15. I have personally conducted first-hand research at over one hundred plus Islamic Centers in the U.S. The research involved speaking with the leaders, worshipers, and reviewing the materials they use to educate their worshipers (men, women, and children).
  16. I have monitored several ‘overseas’ based Islamic terrorist group internet sites.
  17. I have received numerous U.S. Government awards pertaining to my work in protecting our country, our technology, and U.S. Armed Forces personnel.
  18. I have worked jointly in counter-terrorism research and investigations with Muslims and non Muslims.
  19. My research is not biased. I credit the saving of my life and the saving of many U.S military personnel lives with several Muslims who risked their lives to protect ours. These Muslims and I both realize there are Islamic groups, their supporters, and Islamic scholars based in the U.S. that do advocate violence against innocent men, women, children, and pose a ‘grave’ security risk to our country.
  20. In Mar and April 2009, (last day of research was on 18 Apr 2009)  I conducted first-hand research at the Al Farooq Islamic Center, 1421 4th Ave. South, Nashville, TN, and businesses in the Nashville area operated/supported by the leadership of Al Farooq and its worshipers. The research involved speaking with leaders, worshipers, and reviewing the materials this Center and businesses use to educate their worshipers.
  21. Based on my qualifications listed in numbers 1 through 19, it is my professional opinion the leadership of the Al Farooq Islamic Center, 1421 4th Ave. South, Nashville, TN.

A: Does advocate violence against innocent Muslims and non-Muslims that do not adhere to and desire an Islamic Ummah (Nation) under Sharia Law in America.

B: Does advocate treason and sedition against the U.S. using violent and non violent tactics/methods as do such Islamic terrorist groups as Al Qaeda have and currently utilize.

C: Does pose a serious risk of educating innocent Muslim children into the violent aspects of Islamic terrorist groups and their violent activities directed against America.

D: This Islamic Center uses materials from convicted terrorist and supporters to educate their worshipers.

E: Is not a religious institution, but more in line with a political/government system.

F: The leadership ‘hit’ the children during study of the Quran and Sharia law and an audio/video was obtained as evidence.

G: The leadership is openly involved and advocates polygamous marriages, allegedly with children as young as 7 years old. A child at Al Farooq had mentioned ‘her’ husband. This is also on audio/video.

F: Additionally it is my professional opinion this Islamic Center has the support of personnel within the Nashville Metropolitan Police Department and/or Nashville Prosecutors office.

G: I have been informed a Nashville Metropolitan Police officer fears lawsuits from CAIR and they are involved in ‘Interfaith’ meetings with Nashville Islamic scholars.

H: The Child Protective Officer who allegedly investigated the child abuse allegations at Al Farooq conducted a poor job at best, and does not understand the Islamic ideology or Sharia law.

I: Recommendation to law enforcement: Conduct a thorough investigation of Al Farooq and its leadership (using federal or state authorities) due to the possible criminal violations by Metropolitan Police Personnel, Child Protective Services, and the local Nashville Prosecutors office.

J: Remove Al Farooq’s IRS approved non-profit and tax exempt status  as applicable.

K: My understanding is no formal investigation was conducted by law enforcement, although more than sufficient probable cause evidence was provided by me to LE authorities.

L: Somali owned businesses are involved in money laundering and support violence against innocent men, women, and children who oppose an Islamic Ummah (Nation) under Sharia law within America.

  1. Overall, I rate this Islamic Center and their related businesses located along Murfreesboro Pike, Nashville, TN as ‘High’ in regards to posing a threat to the security of the United States.
  2. Overall, I rate the local authorities as a ‘High’ risk to the security of the innocent Muslim children at Al Farooq, to the citizens of Nashville, and our country. This is based on my interaction/assessment of the local Nashville authorities. They are poorly trained in regards to understanding the mindset/ideology and tactics of Islamic terrorist groups and their supporters. The local authorities are intimidated by Islamic leaders/organizations, and are possibly illegally protecting the Islamic scholars from a thorough criminal investigation.
  3. As stated above this assessment and professional advice are based on my qualifications as listed in numbers 1 – 19 above.

Signature: Electronic Signature
Printed name: Paul David Gaubatz
Subscribed and sworn to me, this 24th (day of month) day of April (month), 2009.

RELATED STORY: Detroit: Muslim imam convicted of sexually abusing three of his nieces…

Islamists are rising in America while we sleep by Allen West

This week we covered two key stories that I’m quite certain aren’t getting much play: the rejection of Muslim women’s advocate Ayaan Hirsi Ali by Brandeis University and the Muslim Brotherhood forming a political bloc in America.

We are indeed witnessing the rise of Islamists in America. How has it come to this, that such a small minority has gained such a powerful political voice and influence? How is it that an organization like the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) is even allowed to exist in our Republic?

It’s simple, we have become so damn politically correct that a vile organization that was an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest Islamic terrorist funding case in America can thumb its nose and by intimidation and coercion deny free speech and freedom of expression in our country. We have fallen under the spell of the bumper sticker “coexist” and have failed to heed the lessons of history.

What is even worse, we have failed to even take this enemy — yep, I mean it –enemy to heart for what they have openly stated their objective to be. Just read the Strategic Memorandum discovered in 1991 if you still have any doubts.

However, most importantly, we have seen a class of political cowards who castigate those of us who recognize this enemy as “Islamophobes” and “extremists.”

And why is that possible? Because we refuse to develop our own energy independence so that we can tell OPEC and the 56 nations of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to get bent. Instead, they use our petrodollars to hold us hostage, fund their Islamic terrorism, export their materiel propaganda, and worst of all, buy off American political cowards.

We need to follow the money in America from these Islamist organizations to any politician and defeat them. We then need to find courageous men and women who will be relentless in identifying these Islamist infiltrators and their enablers, and ban them from operating in our country. If the Egyptians can categorize the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group, so should the United States of America. And in turn, classify those groups associated and listed in the Strategic Memorandum of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations and cease their operations in America.

This is no laughing matter. It is not about “freedom of religion” — as a matter of fact, Islam stopped being a religion in 622 when Muhammad decided to undertake the “”hejira” (migration) and departed Mecca for Medina.

When he returned to Mecca in 628 it was after breaking the Treaty of Hudaibiya and massacring the occupants of Mecca in the Battle of the Trenches. Thus began the violent march of the theocratic-political totalitarian system, a global scourge for the past 1400 years known as Islam. America battled this enemy in the Barbary Wars, first from 1801-1805, and then in 1815. The specter of the past has returned, but do we have a Jefferson and Madison who will give the order to crush this enemy — or will we continue down the path with feckless, accommodating, and acquiescing leadership which offers the throat of our Republic to this rabid barbaric foe?

If there is one thing that is bipartisan it is the failure of Democrat and Republican senior elected officials to confront this enemy — and therefore they exploit this weakness.

I cannot say this often and enough: When tolerance becomes a one-way street, it leads to cultural suicide.

Sorry, I ain’t going down this way, and to Nihad Awad, Ibrahim Hooper, and all the other Muslim Brotherhood facilitators and Islamists in America — enjoy it for now, but your dawg don’t hunt!

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on AllenBWest.com.

Louisiana: Foreign Operated Charter School State Legislation Introduced

Kenilworth Science and Technology School(1)

Gulen Science Academy Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Turkey’s Sunni Muslim Brotherhood Islamist leader, Premier Erdogan, this June could become the country’s first elected Executive President modeled on the US and France. It would give him enormous powers furthering his goal of creating a neo-Ottoman Caliphate.  Erdogan’s former ally, Sufi Sheik Muhammed Fethullah Gülen launched a major split in December 2013, after Erdogan banned non-state run preparatory school. This was, aimed squarely at the Gulen academies, a major source of the multi-billion dollar Gulen Movement (GM) global empire. The GM supplies Turkish nonimmigrant foreign workers to more than 1,000 private preparatory schools in over 100 countries, including more than 135 Charter schools in 20 states here in the US.

The expat Sheik Gulen, a resident alien, occupies a fortified compound in the Poconos Mountains of Eastern Pennsylvania. In retaliation, GM followers in Turkey’s public prosecutors and judiciary launched a series of investigations against Erdogan.  The investigations revealed extensive family involvement with funneling funds via Saudi global terrorist financier for Al Qaeda –backed militias in Syria, bribery payments on major construction projects, illicit gold for gas trades with Iran and muzzling free speech with shutdown of Twitter and You Tube.  Recent municipal election victories in Turkey in late March have paved the way for changes in the country’s basic Constitutional law enabling Erdogan to seek the new form of Presidency. That could have his AK party extend its power a decade beyond the current 11 year tenure of the Islamist party in Ankara’s parliament.

What we have in Turkey today is a contest between two Islamists. Erdogan, seeking to convert the country into a Caliphate with a one time election to an executive Presidency, versus, Gulen “the world’s most dangerous Islamist” slowly perfects the same goal.

The GM connection here in the US is of interest, because of the controversy over the movement’s control of dozens of Math and Science academies operating with US taxpayer funding as charter schools. According to one source there are more than 135 Gulen charter schools with an enrollment of 45,000 students in over 20 states in the US. The staffs of these US charter schools are manned by Turkish Gulenists who enter the US under the H-1B visa program. There have been expose’s on the US Gulen science academies in Texas and elsewhere published by the New York Times. The Gulen  Harmony Schools in Texas received  $30 million in  grants  from the US Department of Education “Race to the Top” program.

We posted on an FBI raid of a Gulen science academy in Louisiana. Because of the problems with the Gulen charter schools, many states have either passed or are considering legislation that would control the proportion of H-1B Visa staff employed at Gulen-sponsored charter schools. The Gulen movement charter school program has been supported by the Gates and Walton Family Foundations.  The Walton Family Foundation contributed more than $1 million for Gulen schools in California, alone. Former President Bill Clinton has gone on record supporting the GM interfaith dialogue and educational development program in 2008. GM members were alleged to have contributed to Hillary Clinton’s failed Presidential Campaign in 2008.

Gulen’s immigration status came into question in the same year, 2008, in actions brought by the US Department of Homeland Security. Note what the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) reported:

In 2008, negative U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service decisions threatened to deny Gulen’s application for permanent residency. A federal court reversed the rulings after receiving 29 letters on Gulen’s behalf. One of those letters came from [Prof. John] Esposito [of Georgetown University]… after his Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding received donations from the [GM] and sponsored a conference in [Gulen’s] honor.

We noted in a December 2013  Iconoclast post a report by Christopher Holton on the FBI investigations into Gulen  Louisiana charter schools and the efforts by a Texas-based GM charity to stop legislation controlling the influx of Turkish adherents under the H-1B visa program:

The story broke in Baton Rouge media that the Kenilworth Science & Technology School had been raided by the FBI.

The FBI indicated that the raid, which evidently was conducted to gather material evidence in the form of documents and computers, was not a matter of public safety. As a result, it probably was not related to a report earlier this year that a teacher at the school was accused of having inappropriate pictures of children on his cell phone.

Had those charges stuck, that would have been the second scandal of a sexual nature involving a Gulenist school in Louisiana. Abramson Science & Technology Charter School in New Orleans was shut down back in 2011 in the wake of a scandal that started as an investigation into sexual activity involving students at the school and evolved into a possible public bribery investigation. Abramson operated under the same charter organization that Kenilworth operates under: Pelican Educational Foundation.

During the course of the investigation into Abramson, Pelican’s ties to the Gulenist movement were revealed.

[ . . . ]

State Representative Cameron Henry in the 2013 legislative session … filed a bill that would have limited the number of employees hired by Louisiana state-funded charter schools who were in the country on H-1B visas. Henry’s legislation would have gotten right to the heart of the matter – with a very reasonable restriction that no more than 3.5 percent of the school’s employees be H-1B visa recipients (or 1 in 29), and that the people or groups submitting requests to start charter schools be American citizens.

Unfortunately, Henry’s bill hit hard where it hurt for some powerful, politically connected people in Louisiana. It seems that the number one donor to the Louisiana Republican Party in 2012 was none other than a Gulenist organization out of Texas. Kemal Oksuz, president of the Turquoise Council, a Texas-based group closely related to the Gulenist movement and the Harmony charter schools in that state, donated $83,000 to the state GOP, making him its largest donor during 2012.

Fast forward to the current 2014 legislative session in Baton Rouge and the re-introduction of restrictive legislation aimed at employment of nonimmigrant Turkish workers in Louisiana charter schools.

HB 1243 was introduced by Reps.  Hodges and Pope, in the Louisiana legislature in late March 2014. The bill’s purposes are to establish conditions for “approval of certain charter school proposals and provides relative to prohibitions on the employment of nonimmigrant foreign workers in charter schools, with exceptions.”  The bill denies” approval of charter school applications if  staff  positions  with  nonimmigrant  foreign  workers  unless the  charter  school  plans  to  take  affirmative  action  to  recruit,  select,  employ,  and  train nonimmigrant  foreign  workers  regardless  of race, color, religion, sex, national ancestry,  or  national  origin.”   The legislation defines a non immigrant foreign worker as ” as an individual  who  has  a  visa  pursuant  to  certain provisions  of  the  federal Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965’. Further it states that “non-immigrant foreign worker” shall not mean a teacher who spends more than half of his time providing instruction in or teaching a foreign language.”

Similar legislation was introduced in the 2014 Mississippi legislature.  HB510 contains similar bars against employment of nonimmigrant foreign workers.  Section 37-28-47 1. (b) of the, Mississippi Code of 1972, would be amended as follows:

 A charter school may not staff positions for teachers, administrators, ancillary support personnel or other employees by utilizing or otherwise relying on non-immigrant foreign worker visa programs.  However, a charter school may submit a request to the authorizer for an exception allowing the employment of a non-immigrant foreign worker before the worker is employed.  The authorizer may grant permission for the employment of the non-immigrant foreign worker only if the charter school makes a satisfactory showing of efforts to recruit lawful permanent residents of the United States to fill the position and a lack of qualified applicants to fill the position.

In May  2011, we were asked to prepare a presentation to brief the Tennessee House Speaker about the GM charter schools investigations at that time and the purported abuses of the H-1B visa program for nonimmigrant foreign workers, see here.  In May 2012, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam allowed the law restricting the employment of nonimmigrant foreign workers for Charter schools approved by the state despite his misgiving and those of the State’s attorney general in an October 2012 opinion indicated  that the provisions might be unlawful under the equal protection provisions of the US Fourteenth Amendment.   A  Knoxville News .com report on the 2012 Tennessee legislation noted its provisions vis vis foreign interests, including funding as well as restriction on employment of nonimmigrant foreign workers:

The governor announced on May 2, 2012, that the bill restricting foreign interests in charter schools would go into law without his signature.

Under the act, which takes effect July 1, 2012, a chartering authority may not approve an application if a school plans to rely on “non-immigrant foreign worker H-1B or J1 visa programs in excess of 3.5 percent of the total number of positions,”  if operators of the proposed school have been affiliated with other schools that have been “subjects of investigation by any government agencies for questionable use of non-immigrant foreign worker visa programs,” or if  the school is controlled by foreign nationals. Certain provisions of the law do not apply if the chartering authority is a local education agency and the agency itself uses foreign worker visa programs to fill more than 3.5 percent of its staff.

The law also states that charter school applications and renewals shall disclose all sources of private funds and all funds from foreign sources.

The emergence of restrictive employment of non-immigrant foreign workers will take a long time to be adopted by Louisiana and Mississippi, notwithstanding the relatively quick adoption in Tennessee.  Given the battles in Turkey between the AK party of Premier Erdogan and former ally Sheik Gulen there will doubtless be intense pressure to place GM Turkish adherents through its global private academy and charter school network.

There is a further compounding factor that should be considered. The attractiveness of investment in private run charter schools to so-called entrepreneurial immigrants under the EB-5 Visa system. In exchange for a $500,000 private investment, the investor receives an immediate green card.  Note this Reuters article, “The new US visa rush: Build a charter school, get a green card”:

Wealthy individuals from as far away as China, Nigeria, Russia and Australia are spending tens of millions of dollars to build classrooms, libraries, basketball courts and science labs for American charter schools.

In Buffalo, New York, foreign funds paid for the Health Sciences Charter School to renovate a 19th-century orphanage into modern classrooms and computer labs. In Florence, Arizona, overseas investment is expected to finance a sixth campus for the booming chain of American Leadership Academy charter schools.

And in Florida, state business development officials say foreign investment in charter schools is poised to triple next year, to $90 million.

The reason? Under a federal program known as EB-5, wealthy foreigners can in effect buy U.S. immigration visas for themselves and their families by investing at least $500,000 in certain development projects.

The GM has latched on to a good thing in the Charter School system here in the US. It provides a platform for indoctrinating American children in its form of Turkish Islamism supplying employment for GM adherents. The EB-5 system would bolster investment in Charter Schools not only by the GM but also by the Muslim Brotherhood perfecting its form of Da’wah to Somali émigré children. That occurred in Minneapolis with the Muslim American Society control of the Tarek Ibn Zayed Academy subjected to a suit by the Minnesota branch of the ACLU in violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment.  Let’s see if these bills can make it through the Louisiana and Mississippi legislatures in the waning days of the 2014 sessions. Those legislative bills  and the Tennessee law are a work in process that other states with GM charter school problems might consider investigating as remedies.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The New English Review.

Saudi-led Gulf Squabble Spells Trouble for Obama?

The Obama White House and the world media are pre-occupied with Russian President Putin’s grab of the Ukrainian autonomous province of Crimea. There are undertones of “Back to the Future”- meaning a possible return to Cold War era geopolitics with Russia.

Despite that overriding ruckus there was a less well publicized series of events in the Persian Gulf region among members of the Gulf Cooperating Council (GCC). Does this spell trouble ahead for President Obama’s Middle East policies?

At the GCC meeting on March 5th in Riyadh, Qatar was effectively isolated by “sisterly” Sunni Arab states. The Emir of Qatar, a member of the GCC, has been prominent in supporting financial aid and assistance to Muslim Brotherhood (MB) affiliates in Egypt under Morsi, Hamas in Gaza and the Syrian Opposition Council, one of whose leaders is a dual American Syrian citizenLouay Safi.

Virtually on the heels of the squabble at the GCC gathering, Saudi King Abdullah announced decrees on Friday, March 7th. They listed the MB as a terrorist organization along with several AQ affiliates in Syria and Iraq, as well as Shia terrorist groups in North Yemen and in the oil rich Eastern Province. The latter are backed by both Iran’s Qod Force and Hezbollah. This should present problems and potential conflicts of interest for President Obama’s senior National Security advisor Robert Malley and White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough. Both of these men espouse outreach to the MB, Iran and proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas.

This train wreck about to happen has been in development since the July 3, 2013 ouster by Egyptian Gen. al-Sisi of President Morsi in Egypt. Morsi was a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood endeavoring to create a Sharia compliant constitution with him as Emir. Egypt’s interim government in December 2013 outlawed the MB. This week an Egyptian court went after Hamas, the Gaza affiliate of the MB banning activities in Egypt. Following, the ouster of Morsi, Saudi Arabia and several of members of the GCC provided upwards of $12 billion in financial assistance to the interim Egyptian interim government. The stage now appears set for Gen. Abdel Fateh al-Sisi to run as the country’s President, a harkening back to the days of Gamal Abdel Nasser and the possible return of military autocracy in Egypt.

The flashpoint for the GCC isolation of Qatar was the notorious aged Egyptian MB preacher Yousuf al Qaradawi who had been in exile in Qatar before temporarily returning to Egypt in February 2011. He issued Fatwas for the reconquest of Al Quds (Jerusalem) and preached anti-Semitic hatred to crowds in Tahrir Square. In a January 2009 broadcast from Qatar, al Qaradawisaid about Jews: “kill them, down to the very last one.” While in Doha, Qatar he steadfastly refused to participate in annual International Interfaith Conferences.

A news report by Radaw noted the isolation of Qatar by “sisterly” Sunni Arab states because of the mischief of al Qaradawi and sanctuary provided by the Emir:

The Arab states of the lower Gulf are engaged in the latest and potentially most serious of their periodic family squabbles, which this week provoked three of them to withdraw their ambassadors from tiny Qatar.

The Qatar government expressed regret and surprise at Wednesday’s decision by the “sisterly countries” of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, but said it did not plan to retaliate by pulling out its own envoys.

All four states, together with Kuwait and Oman, are members of the GCC.

The official reason for the diplomatic spat is Qatar’s alleged failure to live up to a recent commitment not to interfere in the internal affairs of fellow GCC states.

The three conservative states are particularly distressed that Qatar continued to provide a platform for Yousuf Al Qaradawi, a Qatar-based Egyptian cleric, to use his fiery sermons to attack Saudi Arabia and the UAE despite Riyadh’s threat to freeze relations unless he was silenced.

The scope of King Abdullah’s terrorist designations was reported by Al-Jazeera:

Saudi Arabia has listed the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization along with two al-Qaeda-linked groups fighting in Syria.

The decree against the Brotherhood, whose Egyptian branch supported the deposed Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, was reported on Saudi state television on Friday.

Egypt in December listed the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, prompting the arrest of members and associates and forcing the Islamist group further underground.

Saudi Arabia also listed Jabhat al-Nusra, which is al-Qaeda’s official Syrian affiliate, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Sham) (ISIS), which has been disowned al-Qaeda, as “terrorist organizations”.

It also listed Shia Huthi rebels fighting in northern Yemen and the little-known internal Shia group, Hezbollah in the Hijaz.

Early in February, 2014, Ayman al Zawahiri at Al Qaeda Central announced that the global Islamic terrorist group had no association with ISIS, instead providing support for the Al Nusrah front fighting against the Assad regime in Syria.  ISIS however has rampaged across the Anbar province in neighboring Iraq overtaking the Sunni town of Fallujah.

About the same time as the AQ ISIS declaration, King Abdullah had announced new counterterrorism policies that were directed against so-called reform movements in the Saudi Kingdom. The Washington Post  reported the new law “states that any act that ‘undermines’  the state or society, including calls for regime change in Saudi Arabia, can be tried as an act of terrorism.” This Saudi law appears  to be in violation of human rights taken for granted in the West, but clearly viewed as seditious in the autocratic and Sharia compliant Wahhabist Kingdom.

These latest Saudi initiatives could have significant implications for the Obama Administration and Secretary Kerry. Kerry is endeavoring to fashion an Israel- Palestinian final status agreement and resolution of the 37 month civil war in Syria.  We noted earlier the presence of Louay Safi as spokesperson for the Syrian Opposition Council at the recent Geneva II plenum talks. Safi was Research Director at the northern Virginia- based MB supported International Islamic Institute of Thought. Moreover, he was also Leadership Development Director at the MB front, the Islamic Society of North America, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008  Federal Dallas  trial and convictions of leaders of the Holy Land Foundation. The Muslim charity group had been accused of funneling upwards of $35 million to MB affiliate Hamas. Safi was also invited by the US Army Chief of Staff to lecture troops on Islam at Fort Hood in early December 2009 following the massacre perpetrated by Maj. Nidal Hassan a month earlier. Clearly, Safi’s rise to prominence in the Syrian Opposition Council is indicative of the MB controlling presence.

White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and senior National Security Aides were present at the May 2012 meetings of the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar. They were engaged in outreach to MB officials from Egypt, Tunisia and other Arab states and facilitated assistance to ousted President Morsi. Obama Appointments of MB members, especially Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Policy, Arif Alikhan and Senior Advisory board member Mohamed Elibiary have been problematic. National Security Advisor Malley was a former Middle East foreign policy aide to President Clinton during the failed 2000 Camp David Israel-Palestinian negotiations between former Israeli PM Ehud Barak and the late Yassir Arafat. Malley had accused Israel of nixing the agreement, when it was evident that Arafat had purposely sabotaged it. Malley went on to become head of the Middle East and North African program of the International Crisis group and later advised then Senator Obama and was part of the President’s transition team. He holds views that may further complicate Administration Middle East policies.  Malley propounded speaking with terrorist proxies Hamas and Hezbollah as well as the MB. Malley, was recently appointed to the National Security Council. He has the portfolio for Israel -Palestinian peace talks and the Iran nuclear P5+1 diplomatic initiative.

Now that Egypt and Saudi Arabia have designated the MB as a terrorist group, would the Obama Administration dare follow their lead? How Messrs. McDonough, Malley and Secretary of State Kerry will contend with a plethora of problems arising from efforts by the Egyptian government and now the Saudi led GCC targeting the MB is a ‘puzzlement’.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The New English Review.

Ukraine: Does President Obama have a third bite at the “Apple of Freedom”?

A second bite at the apple is defined as, “A second chance at an argument or negotiation previously lost.” President may have a third bite at the apple of freedom if he decides to support the people of the Ukraine in their efforts to achieve liberty. He has failed twice to make a strong argument against tyrannical regimes during his administration. As people died Obama remained silent.

The first failure was in 2009 during the Green Revolution in Iran.

The Los Angeles Times reported, “At a White House news conference in June 2009, Obama was asked whether he had a message for ‘people who are on the streets protesting, who believe their votes were stolen and who are being attacked violently?’… We will continue to pursue a tough, direct dialogue between our two countries, and we’ll see where it takes us.  But even as we do so, I think it would be wrong for me to be silent about what we’ve seen on the television over the last few days.  And what I would say to those people who put so much hope and energy and optimism into the political process, I would say to them that the world is watching and inspired by their participation, regardless of what the ultimate outcome of the election was.  And they should know that the world is watching.”

Iranian officials and the Russian media have accused the Western media for unfair coverage and have contended that the protests were planned by the CIA.

President materially did nothing and the Green Revolution was put down violently by the Iranian regime. The winners: Russia and Iran. Loser: United States.

The second failure was in 2013 during the mass demonstrations against and overthrow of the Morsi regime in Egypt.

President Obama stated on July 3rd, 2013, “The United States is monitoring the very fluid situation in Egypt, and we believe that ultimately the future of Egypt can only be determined by the Egyptian people. Nevertheless, we are deeply concerned by the decision of the Egyptian Armed Forces to remove President Morsy and suspend the Egyptian constitution. I now call on the Egyptian military to move quickly and responsibly to return full authority back to a democratically elected civilian government as soon as possible through an inclusive and transparent process, and to avoid any arbitrary arrests of President Morsy and his supporters. Given today’s developments, I have also directed the relevant departments and agencies to review the implications under U.S. law for our assistance to the Government of Egypt.”

President Obama materially did nothing and the people of Egypt prevailed. The winners: Egypt and Russia. Loser: United States.

Today President Obama is faced with yet another revolution but this time in the heart of Eastern Europe – Ukraine.

CBS News reports:

Following deadly clashes between protesters and police on the streets of Ukraine’s capital, President Obama said Wednesday [February 19th] that the United States “condemns in the strongest terms the violence that’s taking place.”

“We have been deeply engaged with our European partners as well as the Ukrainian government and the opposition to try to ensure that that violence ends,” Mr. Obama said, shortly after arriving in Toluca, Mexico for an economic summit.

 The U.S., he said, holds the Ukrainian government primarily responsible for dealing with peaceful protestors in an appropriate way. Hours later, a statement on Ukraine’s presidential website said that President Viktor Yanukovych met with opposition leaders and that the two sides called for a truce, the Associated Press reports. However, the statement gave no details of what the truce would entail or how it would be implemented.Mr. Obama said that over the next several days, “we’re going to be watching closely, and we expect the Ukrainian government to show restraint, to not resort to violence in dealing with peaceful protestors.”

Sound familiar? Will President Obama miss, once again, the opportunity to take a bite out of the apple of freedom? Or will he, once again, make statements without taking material actions?

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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of Mstyslav Chernov and is of the state coat of arms of Ukraine, Tryzub, against the background of Dynamiska street barricades on fire. Euromaidan Protests. Events of Jan 19, 2014. The use of this image implies that Mstyslav Chernov in anyway endorses the author or the use of the work in this column. This photo is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

It’s called “spying” on Muslims, but just SOP for the rest of us

Interesting how just one word in a news headline reveals the agenda of the media. This morning, the Washington Post reported an AP story “Judge: Spying on NJ Muslims by NYPD was legal.”

Someone once asked me about “racial profiling” of Muslims. I responded that the issue was not “profiling” which is the PC word liberal progressives love to use to make you uncomfortable. The issue is trend analysis. In combat, as well as in law enforcement investigations, you study trends in order to understand the adversaries.

But woe betide you if your trends point in one particular direction.

In 2012, eight Muslims sued the New York Police Department of spying on ordinary people at mosques, restaurants and schools in New Jersey since 2002. However, US District Judge William Martini dismissed the lawsuit saying it was a lawful effort to prevent terrorism, not a civil rights violation.

I’m quite sure President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder are trying to figure out what they can do to reverse the decision. I can almost hear all the individuals associated with the Muslim Brotherhood working within the Obama administration making the calls right now. Funny thing though, it’s apparently ok to conduct wide-open blanket surveillance – spying — on the general American public despite that pesky Fourth Amendment thing about “unreasonable search and seizure.”

So let’s do a bit of trend analysis. Just this week we learned there are indeed Islamic terrorist training camps in America.

And less than a year ago, the Tsarnaev brothers conducted a terrorist attack against innocent Americans at the Boston Marathon. Would it have made sense to conduct surveillance and trend analysis of the mosque they attended? Yes.

And this week we have new warnings about renewed threats of shoe bombs in aircraft emanating from the mastermind Islamic terrorist bomb maker in Yemen – the chap behind the “underwear bomber” Abdulmutallab from Nigeria.

In his ruling, Judge Martini said “The police could not have monitored New Jersey for Muslim terrorist activities without monitoring the Muslim community itself.” Farhaj Hassan, a plaintiff in the case and a U.S. soldier who served in Iraq, said he was disappointed by the ruling. “I have dedicated my career to serving my country, and this just feels like a slap in the face — all because of the way I pray,” he said.

I pray Hassan’s allegiances are in the right place, but I beg to differ with him. This is not about how he prays, it is about those who pray to destroy America, kill innocent people, and follow a theocratic-political ideology aimed at totalitarian conquest. And if he fails to understand the enemy is already within the gates and our Constitutional Republic and its people must be protected, then he is misguided.

The Center for Constitutional Rights in New York and the California-based civil rights organization Muslim Advocates, which represented the plaintiffs, complained the court’s decision “gives legal sanction to the targeted discrimination of Muslims anywhere and everywhere in this country, without limitation, for no other reason than their religion.”

However, using Constitutional liberties to not only allow the enemy to hide and mask itself but actually be protected and find sanctuary is a very dangerous path. It is a form of civilizational jihad and “lawfare” under the sympathetic guise of political correctness. Americans must not voluntarily drop our shield just to appease a minority, which fails to accept responsibility for the issues within its community.

Let me be clear and blunt. The bastards who flew airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9-11; the traitor who stood atop a table and gunned down American Soldiers at Ft. Hood; these jerks were not heard saying “God Bless America” or singing “Rocky Top” — they were shouting “Allahu Akhbar.” When that stops, we can stop our trend analysis.

In the meantime, keep it up Brothers and Sisters in the NYPD!

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on AllenBWest.com. The feature image is adapted from one which was originally posted to http://www.eff.org/nsa. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States and does not in anyway suggests that EFF endorses the author or the use of the work in this column.