Senator Ted Cruz has filed a bill to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).
We congratulate Senator Cruz for this long overdue move. Way back in 2007 the Bush administration was petitioned to designate the Muslim Brotherhood but they failed to do so.
Not only is the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, it is the forerunner of all modern-day Sunni Jihadist terrorist organizations.
There is a common misconception that the Muslim Brotherhood swore off violence years ago, but that myth stems from an agreement decades ago between the MB and the Egyptian government. The MB agreed not to target the Egyptian government with violence, but they never gave up all violent Jihad. That explains why their Palestinian wing, HAMAS, is one of the most savage, barbaric terrorist organizations on the planet.
Andrew McCarthy has complete details in a great column over on National Review:
In recent years it has become increasingly clear that the Jihadists have targeted the African continent.
On September 11, 2001, the groups Al Shabaab, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Ansar al Shariah and the Islamic State were not just unheard of–they didn’t even exist.
Today these groups are waging Jihad, killing thousands in their drives to establish Islamic rule under Shariah law…
This development didn’t just “happen.” The rise of Jihad was promoted and financed. Africa is becoming a battleground because the global Jihadist movement has targeted it.
At least one analyst reports that Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and Boko Haram are all training in the Saharan desert nation of Mauritania:
Human Rights Watch reports that Boko Haram has killed 1,000 people so far this year in four different African nations (Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger):
Al Shabaab has taken a page from the Islamic State’s propaganda manual, producing a video showing the barbaric and cowardly execution of unarmed civilians:
Last week, Ansar al Shariah killed 23 mostly Western tourists in an attack on the Bardo museum in Tunis (there may also have been Al Qaeda involvement):
In Mali, Jihadists with AQIM beheaded a civilian for cooperating with the French Army, which has been doing a bang up job of clobbering AQIM Jihadists in Mali for a few years now…
Ironically, after aiding Jihadists in Libya a few years ago, US government officials are now worried that the Islamic State is making inroads in Libya:
What all this indicates is that the global Jihadist movement is getting stronger and spreading its violent attacks to more areas of the world, giving them more training areas, launching pads and recruiting fodder with which to wage war against America and the West.
Two Taliban Jihadis getting ready to behead a Polish hostage. Note the flag in the background. If you can’t tell the difference between this setting and those of EVERY OTHER JIHADIST organization in the world, then you aren’t qualified to work for President Obama
Obama and his Obamanistas have told so many outright lies about the Taliban over the years that we can now devote a lengthy article to it.
It started way back in 2008 when Obama was campaigning for the presidency. Back in those days he was saying that Iraq was a sideshow and that President Bush had “taken his eye off the ball.” According to Obama, the good war was in Afghanistan and he was going to concentrate on Afghanistan, where the Taliban were fighting US forces, when he got to be president.
That turned out to be campaign rhetoric. Sure, he pulled out of Iraq first, but, let’s face it: Obama never really went hard in Afghanistan and now he’s abandoning that fight, just as he abandoned the fight in Iraq.
Pretty soon into his administration, the Obamanistas started the meme that the Taliban weren’t actually our enemy. This predates the latest supposition that the Taliban aren’t terrorists by several years.
Two lies there. The Taliban are America’s enemy and they are also terrorists.
In December 2013, the Taliban published the autumn edition of their magazine, Azan.
This was the fourth issue of the magazine and was significant in that it called for Muslims in the West to launch attacks at home or fight on foreign battlefields, urging recruits to even leave behind their children or elderly parents:
If calling on Jihadis to launch attacks in the West doesn’t amount to terrorism, nothing does.
Such calls to Jihad and other propaganda are nothing new, so why was this particular publication worth mentioning here?
Because it had been released just a few days after the Obama administration was quoted saying that “the Taliban are not our enemies and we don’t want to fight them.”
Such statements about the Taliban were nothing new from the Obama administration. Vice President Joe Biden told Newsweek magazine the same thing almost exactly two years before:
Not only are these statements from the Obama administration disheartening because our troops have been fighting Taliban Jihadis for a decade, they also demonstrate a profound ignorance about Jihadist doctrine.
Jihadist doctrine does not regard nationalities or international borders as significant. Under their doctrine, Jihad is to be waged to make Allah’s law and religion supreme around the entire world. With their fall Azan magazine, the Taliban clearly demonstrate adherence to that doctrine with their call for Muslims in the West to launch attacks at home.
What’s more this is not something new from the Taliban. When they seized power in Afghanistan in 1996, they announced that Afghanistan was to be a launching pad for global Jihad and invited Jihadi fighters to come to their country. Jihadis from all over the Islamic world and even parts of the West and the Pacific Rim heeded that call and gravitated to the new Shariah-ruled outpost established by the Taliban regime.
Among those who relocated to Afghanistan was Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. We know the rest: Al Qaeda launched its attack on America from Afghanistan and the Taliban harbored Al Qaeda from the US when America sought to bring justice down on them.
How anyone can look at these facts and conclude that the Taliban are not our enemy is mind-boggling. The idea that the Taliban want to strictly limit their evil designs to Afghanistan is absurd. Yet that has been the policy of the Obama administration for years. It is a policy of lies.
And, yes, despite what the Obamanistas might claim, the Taliban are in fact terrorists.
Actually, we don’t believe that it makes sense to get too wrapped up in labeling them “terrorists.” Terrorism is a tactic, a method of warfare. The warfare that the Taliban–and the Islamic State, Al Qaeda, Lashkar e Taiba, HAMAS, Al Shabaab, Boko Haram and a host of other groups–are waging is called Jihad. In Islamic law, Jihad is defined as warfare to establish the religion:
All of the groups mentioned above, including the Taliban, are Jihadis.
But it is still NOT true that the Taliban haven’t engaged in terrorism and they are not just “armed insurgents” like the bodyguards of lies in the Obama administration maintain.
Just 6 weeks ago, on December 16, the Taliban slaughtered 153 people–mostly young school children–in a terrorist attack on a school in Pakistan.
Taliban have also been involved in terrorist plots and activity on US soil:
• In May of 2011, six people, including two Imams at a Florida mosque, were indicted for providing material support to none other than the Taliban:
Irfan Khan of Florida, indicted for providing material support to the Taliban
• Faisal Shahzad, the Jihadist who attempted to detonate a Vehicle-Born Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) in New York’s Time Square in May 2010, was trained at a Taliban camp and, according to Attorney General Eric Holder himself, “the Pakistani Taliban was behind the attack…We know they helped facilitate it. We know they probably helped finance it and that he was working at their direction.”
Faisal Shahzad. This Connecticut resident/Pakistani immigrant attempted to bomb Times Square in New York City
• Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan-American who pled guilty in a plot to bomb the New York City subway in 2009, traveled to Afghanistan to join the Taliban when he was recruited by Al Qaeda to go back to America to attack targets in the US homeland. This shows the continued, close cooperation and collaboration between the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Najibullah Zazi. This Denver resident travelled to Afghanistan where he received terrorist training. Upon his return, he plotted to bomb New York subways.
Most recently, there are new reports from Leftist NBC News that hundreds of Taliban fighters have joined the Islamic State, which is becoming a greater factor in the southwest Asia region.
The Obamanistas try to make a distinction between the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Taliban in Pakistan. But not even NBC is subscribing to that nonsense. No one in the world outside the Obama administration believes that the Taliban in Pakistan and the Taliban in Afghanistan have nothing to do with each other.
The Taliban are committed Jihadists. As such, they are undoubtedly an enemy of America. They have killed and wounded thousands of US GIs in combat over the past decade and they have, from the time they originally seized power in Afghanistan to today, involved themselves with other Jihadist organizations from around the world, all of which are classified as “terrorist” organizations. Jihadis do not limit their scope based on political borders; their stated goals are global. To say that the Taliban are not the enemy of the United States or are not terrorists is to demonstrate a profound ignorance of the doctrinal basis for the threat from Jihad. When that ignorance comes from the executive branch of the US government, it can only be described as frightening.
If you listen to some political pundits on both sides of the aisle, you might get the misimpression that Jihadists target America and America is viewed negatively in the Islamic world because of our support for Israel.
The problem with that line of thinking is that ignores some 1400 years of Islamic doctrine.
Each Jihadist terror organization around the globe has a specific goal in mind and that is the formation of an Islamic state ruled by Shariah.
This is very important to understand because this is a common goal of all the major Jihadist organizations across the world. It is shared by Al Qaeda, HAMAS, Lashkar e Taiba, Abu Sayyaf, Jemaah Islamiyah, Boko Haram, Al Shabaab and others and transcends any localized disagreements over borders and pure politics.
Israel could evaporate tomorrow and the overriding goal of the formation of Islamic states ruled by Shariah would not change a bit.
Those who blame Jihad on Israel need to ask themselves some important questions:
Did ISIS wage Jihad in Iraq and Syria to establish an Islamic state ruled by Shariah law because America supports Israel?
Did the Jihadist terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria kidnap 300 young girls this spring because America supports Israel?
Did the Taliban seize power in Afghanistan in 1996 to establish an Islamic state ruled by Shariah law because America supports Israel?
Did the Jihadist terrorist group Al Shabaab attack the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, in September 2013, killing 67 innocent civilians, because America supports Israel?
Did the Jihadist terrorist group Lashkar e Taiba launch terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India in 2008, killing 154 innocent civilians because America supports Israel?
Did the Jihadist terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah bomb resorts in Bali, Indonesia in October 2002, killing 202 innocent civilians because America supports Israel?
Did Chechen Jihadist terrorists massacre 334 people, mostly school children, in Beslan, Russia, because the US supports Israel?
Did Jihadist terrorists with the group Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) detonate a bomb in Marrakesh, Morroco in April 2011, killing 17 innocent civilians, because America supports Israel.
Of course, the answer to each and every one of these questions is no and the questions and answers prove a point. Jihad is truly global. Tragically, it is one of the most successful “exports” in the world over the past decade.
None of the regions mentioned above have a thing to do with Israel. Most don’t have anything to do with America.
The doctrine behind global jihad is over a thousand years old. In other words, the jihadist doctrine has been around far longer than America has even been in existence.
The Jihadists are not motivated only by our actions. They don’t just react to what we do. They have their own reasons for waging violent Jihad which have nothing to do with America, Israel or anything that you or I have any control over.
The quicker our politicians—both Democrat and Republican—gain a full understanding of this, the better.
The overwhelming majority of Muslims do not commit acts of violent Jihad, but that does not mean that there isn’t a doctrinal basis for it in Islamic scripture.
I am not talking about just a few violent verses in the Quran. The Islamic trilogy is replete with it: the Quran, the Hadith and the Sirah. (The Hadith are traditions and stories of the life of Muhammed and the Sirah is the biography of Muhammed). Moreover, in the Quran, the principle of abrogation bestows the most violent verses with the greatest strength as compared to earlier, peaceful verses.
These are facts, and if you read what the Jihadis themselves talk to each other about, EVERYTHING they do is based on contemporary interpretation of Islamic scripture.
We’re not talking about a fringe element here, folks. We’re talking about entire regimes (the Ayatollahs in Iran and Taliban Afghanistan are examples) and scores of violent Jihadist organizations around the world such as, Al Qaeda, HAMAS, Hezbollah, Lashkar e Taiba, Abu Sayyef, Boko Haram, Al Shabaab, Jemaah Islamiyah, Jaish-e-Mohammed, the Muslim Brotherhood…and many more.
To assign these beliefs to EVERY SINGLE Muslim of the 1.2 billion Muslims on the planet is wrong. But to deny the doctrinal basis in Islam for all of this violent Jihad is just as wrong and it is preventing the West from coming to grips with the global war with which we are faced, whether we want to believe it or not. There is a reason why we see Islamic terrorist organizations as well as individual Jihadis waging violent Jihad in places as geographically diverse as Boston, Los Angeles, Fort Hood, Little Rock, New York, Washington, Buenos Aires, London, Amsterdam, Toulouse, Madrid, Moscow, Beslan, Marrakech, Algiers, Benghazi, Damascus, Beirut, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Yaounde, Nairobi, Mogadishu, Timbuktu, Kaduna, Dar el Salam, Sana’a, Istanbul, Fallujah, Ramadi, Karachi, Islamabad, Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Mumbai, Amritsar, Dhaka, Hat Yai, Yala, Bali, and Mindanao.
In warfare, your enemy’s reality becomes your reality. To defeat him, you better understand him. You better understand his motivations and his goals. In short, you need to know what makes him tick. We understood what made the Nazis tick, we had Mein Kampf as a doctrinal guide. We understood what made the communists tick, we had The Communist Manifesto and other works as a doctrinal guide. But we REFUSE to even TRY to understand what makes the Jihadis tick because we fear that the reality will be too frightening. We are in willful denial: “The violence simply cannot have anything to do with Islam because there are too many peaceful Muslims in the world.”
That is missing the point entirely. The fact that the majority of Muslims do not know Islamic doctrine and thus do not adhere to it is not particularly remarkable or surprising. How many Catholics are truly highly familiar with the doctrinal aspects of their faith?
The fact remains that there are violent Jihadists around the world who commit acts of war and they both justify it on Islamic scripture and carry out these acts to promote Islam. The doctrinal basis is found in Islamic law, known as Shariah. The Jihadists’ goal is to impose Islamic law and Islamic law is the code which they follow. (If you are skeptical of this, go pick up a copy of the excellent work by Raymond Ibrahim, The Al Qaeda Reader, and read what the enemy writes and says.) To deny the doctrinal basis in Islam for violent Jihad is becoming more and more suicidal as a civilization with each new incident that we in turn deny.
The latest example is of course in Boston. Two Jihadis, perhaps members of a Jihadist organization, or perhaps so-called “lone wolf” actors, committed atrocious acts of violent Jihad, killing several innocents and wounding many more. Despite evidence on social media and YouTube, as well as accounts of the Jihadis’ devout Islamic beliefs, the simpletons in the news media and even in our own government are pondering aloud what their motivation could possibly have been. Hours and hours of TV coverage in the so-called “mainstream” media go by with nary a mention of the word “Islam.” The elephant in the room is being ignored.
Some “experts” are quoted as taking comfort in the belief that the two Tsarnaev brothers may not have had any operational connection with any known terrorist organization, such as Al Qaeda. This is 180 degrees out from reality and these “experts” completely miss the point.
The fact that the Tsarnaev brothers may have “only” been inspired to commit Jihad on their own is not cause for celebration or relaxation. It is cause for alarm and it would seem to be part of a disturbing pattern that has been emerging over the years:
• Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, aka Carlos Bledsoe, apparently acting on his own after receiving terrorist training in Yemen, shot two US Army soldiers outside a Little Rock, Arkansas recruiting office, killing one, Private William Long and wounding another.
• Major Nidal Malik Hasan, apparently acting on his own, after years of conversing with Al Qaeda Imam Anwar Al Awlaki, shot and killed 13 fellow US Army soldiers and wounded 39 more.
These types of attacks are indicative of a revolutionary critical mass in which centralized direction and control is no longer necessary. Jihadis around the world are now waging violent Jihad in Al Qaeda-like fashion after reading web postings and listening to sermons. This presents a whole new series of challenges for security services and makes the use of military force much less effective. Infiltrating organizations such as Al Qaeda and Hezbollah has been extremely difficult. But how does one infiltrate lone wolf actors like the Tsarnaev brothers? Who does the US military go after in the wake of the Boston attacks?
This new reality makes identifying and understanding the Islamic doctrinal basis of our Jihadist enemies all the more important, yet with each passing attack, we seem to be getting further and further away from doing so.
President Obama may say that Al Qaeda is defeated, or Al Qaeda is “on the run,” or that the “core” of Al Qaeda is in ruins and other political rhetoric, but the US State Department continues to issue advisories warning Americans traveling abroad that they need to realize that they are being targeted by Jihadists around the globe.
Of course, the State Department doesn’t actually use the term “Jihadists,” because we know that our Muslim Brotherhood “allies” might get upset if they did. And the exclusion of the term “Jihad” started under Condi Rice, not Hillary Clinton…just so you know…
It’s also instructive that to get the details of the State Department’s terrorism advisory, you need to go to the foreign media, because the US media doesn’t like to cover these topics any more. The report below comes to us from the Times of India.
The United States has issued a worldwide travel alert to its citizens including inSouth Asia where it said terrorist outfits like al-Qaida, the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba ( LeT) might harm them.“US citizens are reminded to maintain a high level of vigilance and to take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness,” the State Department said in a statement yesterday. Noting that current information suggests that al-Qaida, its affiliated organisations, and other terrorist outfits continue to plan terrorist attacks against US interests in multiple regions, including Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, the State Department said these attacks may employ a wide variety of tactics including suicide operations, assassinations, kidnappings, hijackings and bombings.
It said extremists may elect to use conventional or non-conventional weapons, and target both official and private interests.
Examples of such targets include high-profile sporting events, residential areas, business offices, hotels, clubs, restaurants, places of worship, schools, public areas, and other tourist destinations both in the United States and abroad where the country’s citizens gather in large numbers, including during holidays, the State Department said.
According to the State Department, anti-Western terrorist groups, some on the US government’s list of foreign terrorist organizations, have been active in India, including Islamist extremist groups such as Harkat-ul-Jihad-i-Islami, Harakat ul-Mujahidin, Indian Mujahideen, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e Taiba.
It is certainly worth noting that the State Department lists these Jihadist groups. This certainly runs counter to the narrative propagated by the Obama administration that the “enemy” is simply Al Qaeda.
It is also worth reminding readers that Lashkar-e Taiba was the group that pulled off the Mumbai massacre in 2008, which targeted Westerners and Jews in the Indian financial center. The reconnaissance and intelligence gathering for that operation was done by a US citizen from Chicago named David Headley.
UPDATE: We are not certain that the report linked below is accurate and valid, nor do we know, if accurate and valid, if it is related in any way to the State Department advisory. However, given the broad nature of the State Department advisory, covering the US and overseas and just about every type of target imaginable–AND the possible use of “non-conventional weapons,” the report below from the Crocodile’s Lament blog is worth at least a glance…
The internet has literally been littered with news reports about a new propaganda campaign being waged by the head of the Council on American Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) Chicago director.
The man’s name is Ahmed Rehab and his methodology has been to run advertising on buses to change the public perception of the word “Jihad.”
Rehab has chosen two of the most liberal cities in America in which to conduct his campaign so far: Chicago and San Francisco.
The name of the campaign is “MyJihad” and it aims to convince Americans that Jihad only means “to struggle” or, more specifically, an internal, personal struggle. Rehab claims that this is the “true” meaning of Jihad.
Unfortunately for Rehab, he is only partially correct and any campaign that claims that the term Jihad only means an internal, personal struggle amounts to disinformation. The dualistic nature of Islam, in this case as it applies to the meaning of “Jihad,” is well documented both in historical Islamic doctrine and in contemporary use of the term.
And Jihad definitely does not only mean an internal, personal struggle. In fact, the most widespread meaning of the term that is of particular interest to Westerners who are threatened by Jihad does in fact entail violence.
A false and misleading statement has been attributed to the San Francisco chapter head of CAIR, Zahra Billoo:
“A common misconception of the word jihad is that it means armed struggle or holy war, and that is something that has been perpetrated by many who’ve made careers out of pushing anti-Muslim sentiment.”
Such a meaning for Jihad has nothing to do with anyone with an “anti-Muslim sentiment.” It has everything to do with Islam itself.
Let us examine definitions of Jihad from two authoritative sources.
Jihad According to the Quran
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The first is the Quran itself. In this case, specifically The Noble Qu’ran, translated into English by two scholars: Dr. Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din Al-Hilali, PhD, professor of Islamic Faith and Teachings at the Islamic University, Al-Madinah Al-Munawwarah, Saudi Arabia and Dr. Muhammad Mushin Khan of the same institution. The Noble Qu’ran was published by Darussalam Publishers and Distributors, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It has been catalogued by King Fahad National Library. On page 818, in a glossary accompanying the text of the Quran, The Noble Qu’ran provides the following definition of Jihad:
“Jihad: Holy fighting in the Cause of Allah or any other kind of effort to make Allah’s Word superior. Jihad is regarded as one of the fundamentals of Islam.”
Can the Quran itself be promoting “anti-Muslim sentiment” as CAIR’s Zahra Billoo asserts?
Jihad According to Shariah
Our second source is Reliance of the Traveler: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law.
Reliance of the Traveler is one of the world’s most widely read manuals of Shariah law. It has been endorsed by a variety of Islamic authorities, including Al Azhar University in Cairo, IIIT (International Institute of Islamic Thought) in Herndon, Virginia, the Fiqh Council of North America, the Islamic Fiqh Academy in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the Mufti of the Jordanian Armed Forces andthe Imam of the Mosque of Darwish Pasha in Damascus, Syria.
These can hardly be termed as those pushing “anti-Muslim sentiment” as Billoo claims.
On page 599 of Reliance of the Traveler, readers can find the following passage:
o9.0 JIHAD
(O: Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the word mujahada, signifying warfare to establish the religion…
The scriptural basis for jihad, prior to scholarly consensus is such Koranic verses as:
(1) “Fighting is prescribed for you” (Koran 2:216);
(2) “Slay them wherever you find them” (Koran 4:89);
(3) “Fight the idolators utterly” (Koran 9:36);
and such hadiths as the one related by Bukhari and Muslim that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said:
“I have been commanded to fight people until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and perform the prayer, and pay zakat. If they say it, they have saved their blood and possessions from me, except for the rights of Islam over them. And their final reckoning is with Allah”;
and the hadith reported by Muslim,
“To go forth in the morning or evening to fight in the path of Allah is better than the whole world and everything in it.”
Jihad According to Terrorists
If Jihad truly means to “struggle” and not warfare to establish the religion, how does CAIR explain the names of all these terrorist organizations?
A 4-minute posthumous call to Jihad by American-born Anwar al Awlaki. Keep in mind that, before he became head of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Awlaki had been an Imam at mosques in San Diego, Denver and northern Virginia and was regarded as a great “moderate” who was a favorite show pony for “outreach” programs. He was invited to the Pentagon. He delivered sermons to the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association on Capitol Hill. Prominent CAIR officers, employees and members attended these sermons. At least one former CAIR employee who attended Awlaki’s sermons on Capitol Hill in Washington DC is now in jail on terrorism charges:
President Obama has selected one of the worst possible candidates imaginable to become Secretary of Defense. Chuck Hagel has a history of being weak on Jihad and terrorism, the greatest threat to American lives and national security today.
Hagel’s nomination should become a “teaching moment.” Just because someone served honorably in the uniform of the United States military or has an “R” instead of a “D” after his name, does not automatically mean that the person is strong on national security policy.
Chuck Hagel is as bad on the threat of Jihadist terrorism as anyone in America. Not only has he been on the wrong side of votes on the issue, but his votes demonstrate a lack of commitment on the issue, as well a tendency to enable Jihad:
• Wrong on Iraq
A graphic depiction of the impact of the surge on Al Qaeda in Iraq
Initially, then-Senator Hagel voted in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom to overthrow Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. But when the insurgency did not go so well, Hagel flip-flopped and called for a withdrawal of US troops in just 120 days back in 2007.
Had such a policy been implemented, Al Qaeda and other Jihadist elements would have emerged victorious in Iraq and the US would have been seen as clearly losing Iraq to Al Qaeda. This would have energized Al Qaeda and given it the biggest recruiting boost since the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States homeland. This would have essentially allowed the global jihad to morph at an accelerated rate.
Then, when the US announced the surge counteroffensive in Iraq, Senator Hagel said it would be “the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam, if it’s carried out.”
Hagel is clearly no military strategist. The surge broke the back of the insurgency, drastically reduced the violence in Iraq and allowed the US to draw down its force levels in a secure manner.
To be sure, Iraq is no utopia today, but violence levels there are no where near what they were during the insurgency and, most importantly, Al Qaeda was denied victory in Iraq due to the surge.
Wrong on Hezbollah
In 2006 Hagel was one of a just 11 senators who refused to sign a letter urging the European Union to designate Hezbollah a terrorist organization. Hezbollah not only killed 241 Marines, soldiers and sailors in Beirut, Lebanon on 23 October 1983, they also kidnapped and murdered US Marine Colonel William Higgins in 1988 when he was on UN Peacekeeping duty. More recently, Hezbollah was active in fighting US GIs in Iraq and Hezbollah members captured, tortured and killed US GIs in Iraq.
US Marine Barracks bombing–Beirut, Lebanon–23 October 1983. 241 Americans killed by Hezbollah Islamikaze bombing
Colonel William “Rich” Higgins, USMC–Kidnapped and murdered by Hezbollah in 1988.
Ali Mussa Daqduq: Hezbollah leader captured in Iraq in 2007. He planned a raid in which 4 US soldiers were captured, subsequently tortured and killed in Karbala, Iraq. He was captured by US Special Operations Forces, but was released from custody when President Obama refused to have him remanded to the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Wrong on Iran
Iranian “art” in Tehran
Chuck Hagel has a shamefully weak record on Iran, the world’s foremost state sponsor of Jihadist terrorism and a serial proliferator of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles.
His weakness on Iran goes way back to August of 2001 when he was one of just two US Senators to vote against renewal of the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. The Iran-Libya Sanctions Act was set up to punish entities for investing in Iranian or Libyan petroleum industries, aiming to prevent Tehran or Tripoli from gaining petroleum profits that could be used to develop or acquire weapons of mass destruction or to finance terrorism.
In September 2007, Hagel voted against designating the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist entity. 76 Senators voted for the bill in an overwhelming bipartisan vote.
In July 2008, Hagel voted in the Senate Banking Committee against legislation imposing sanctions on countries conducting certain business with Iran. The legislation passed 19-2.
In October 2008 Hagel single-handedly killed Senator Gordon Smith’s (R-Oregon) S.970 Iran Counter-Proliferation Act, a bill that had 71 co-sponsors, 36 Republican and 35 Democrat. This act would have strengthened the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (now referred to simply as the Iran Sanctions Act).
Chuck Hagel: Wrong for America
Leftist pundits are creating a straw man argument by promoting the meme that only the “Jewish lobby” is opposed to Hagel because of his record of not supporting Israel.
This dishonest tactic is merely meant as a smokescreen to mask Hagel’s shamefully weak, longstanding record on Jihad and terrorism primarily directed against the United States and its citizens.
Call and write your Senator and tell him/her to oppose the nomination of Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense. America cannot afford to have someone as weak on Jihadist terrorism as Chuck Hagel.
From our barely better late than never category, the US State Department last week finally got round to officially declaring the Haqqani Network a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
The US military has been pushing for this designation for years, but the limp wrists at Foggy Bottom have resisted because they didn’t want to offend our “allies” in Pakistan.
Despite what you may have seen/heard in the media, this is a largely symbolic designation at this point anyway. The State Department claims that this designation puts all sorts of economic, financial and diplomatic pressure down on the organization by making those who support it risk US sanctions. But if you look at how other terrorist organizations have managed to continue to exist under this same designation, the unmistakable conclusion that you come to is that the impact is limited. The Muslims around the world who train, supply and fund these types of organizations don’t care much about US designations.
The only scenario in which these types of designations can be helpful is when they are imposed very quickly after the organization is uncovered. In the case of the Haqqani Network, this offshoot of the Taliban was and is supported by the Pakistani ISI (their intelligence service) and the State Department was reluctant to offend the ISI, despite the fact that the ISI is complicit in killing American GIs…
…Incidentally, the Taliban has NEVER been designated a terrorist organization. After all, it would be “awkward” for Vice President Biden to be giving speeches declaring that the Taliban are “not our enemies” when they are on the terrorism list. It would also make Secretary of State Hillary Clinton look bad as she is keen on negotiating with the Taliban…
There was a time when it was considered necessary and proper to be concerned about possible foreign influences in US government and military service. Way back in 1981 when I first filled out forms as part of the process for joining the US military (it was a DOD form, I don’t remember the number) I had to answer a specific question regarding travel. The question asked if I had traveled to any of a list of nations after certain dates (all communist bloc countries) with a date listed by each nation (the date that each country had turned communist).
Anyone who joined the military in the Cold War era probably remembers this form and this question. If the answer to the question for any of the nations involved was “yes” you had to provide a complete explanation for the reason for the trip, when it took place, etc. Having never visited countries like Cuba, North Korea, East Germany, the Soviet Union, etc., I can’t say that I know what the process would have been had I answered yes.
But the point is, if you wanted to join the US military and you had even visited any communist countries, the Department of Defense wanted to know about it.
Fast forward to today. We are locked in a mortal struggle against a force not unlike communism. In fact, it has been called “communism with a god.” That force is Islam as defined by the Shariah doctrine which forms the basis for it. There are certain countries and organizations that are prominent in the enemy threat doctrine. Yet, to my knowledge, today we have no similar safeguards in place to what the DOD had during the Cold War years to check on the influence of foreign powers on American institutions. For instance, are any questions ever raised about travel to Iran, Syria or Sudan, three countries on the State Department’s list of terrorist sponsoring nations? For that matter, what about travel to Yemen, like Carlos Bledsoe did where he was indoctrinated to wage jihad in the USA by Anwar al-Alwaki? What about travel to the tribal areas of Pakistan, where the Times Square bomber traveled and received training? For that matter, how about travel to Saudi Arabia? After all, the Salafi strain of Islam that gave birth to Al Qaeda has its seat there and most of Al Qaeda’s cannon fodder seems to come from Saudi Arabia.
Then there is the whole present question of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood is best described as the forefather of all modern Jihadist terrorist groups. Its apologists and proponents claim that the Muslim Brotherhood has completely eschewed violence, yet the available evidence proves otherwise. HAMAS was founded as a Muslim Brotherhood wing and has been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the US State Department. HAMAS is one of the deadliest Jihadist organizations in the world, having carried out numerous Islamikaze bombings. And make no mistake, HAMAS has a large presence inside the USA.
There seems to have developed in recent years some romanticized view of the Muslim Brotherhood among certain naive political factions in the USA–and not just Democrats. Rather than being viewed as an organization in the political wing of a global insurgency, the Muslim Brotherhood is unfortunately being embraced in the West and the US. Senator John McCain, for instance, seems to have become smitten with the Muslim Brotherhood after meeting with them for a few hours in Egypt. But no one has embraced the Muslim Brotherhood quite like the Obama administration. The Obama administration has established close ties to Muslim Brotherhood organizations in the US and met with them at length and frequently. All indications are that the Muslim Brotherhood plays a prominent role in the Obama administration. Organizations like CAIR (the Council on American Islamic Relations) and ISNA (the Islamic Society of North America) were named unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation trial, the largest terrorism financing conviction in US history. (Attorney General Holder declined to prosecute these organizations when he came to office, despite intentions by others in the Justice Department to do so.) In the Holy Land Foundation trial, in documented evidence that was stipulated to by the defense, both CAIR and ISNA were identified as Muslim Brotherhood organizations.
And yes, a high-level member of the Clinton staff at the State Department, Huma Abedin, comes from a prominent Muslim Brotherhood family. Her father, her brother and her mother all have prominent positions in the Muslim Brotherhood apparatus. If during the Cold War such a person came from a family with extensive ties to the Communist Party of Romania or East Germany, there would have been ample reason to conduct a security investigation. But in today’s politically correct surreal world of Washington DC “go along to get along” culture, it seems that no questions can be raised. This is the same culture that looked the other way while a known Jihadist, Major Nidal Hassan, hid right out in the open in the US Army spouting Islamic Jihad doctrine, culminating in the terrible terrorist attack at Fort Hood.
Well, the Center for Security Policy DID raise questions. The Center produced a 10-part video course on the Muslim Brotherhood in America that every American should watch: http://www.muslimbrotherhoodinamerica.com. Among others members of Congress, Michelle Bachmann has written a letter to inspectors general of key Washington departments inquiring as to Muslim Brotherhood influence in Washington’s halls of power. For her trouble, the likes of Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Anderson Cooper and a host of Leftist media from the Huffington Post to the Los Angeles Times and MSNBC have attacked Rep. Bachmann.
They have all done so in a total vacuum of knowledge about the Muslim Brotherhood, the Holy Land Foundation trial and American fronts like CAIR and ISNA.
This all stems from a complete failure of our leadership to put America on a war footing in the wake of 9/11. Our leaders have failed to identify the enemy. They have failed to try to understand the enemy threat doctrine. In fact they have denied that an enemy threat doctrine even exists. As a result of this culture, an imperialist, nefarious organization with long-standing ties to terrorism and with goals identical to those of Al Qaeda itself, namely the Muslim Brotherhood, is treated as a friend, rather than as a foe. If you even suggest that the Muslim Brotherhood might be an enemy of America, Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Anderson Cooper will attack you as if you are a wild-eyed bomb-thrower. We are indeed through the looking glass.
Terror Trends Bulletin 