Is it cluelessness, or part of a pattern?
Posted by Richard on February 8, 2011
On Thursday, the Obama administration's Director of National Intelligence assured Congress that the Muslim Brotherhood is a "largely secular" organization that has "eschewed violence" (a "spokesman" is now backing away from those words in the most weasely way). Dr. Zudhi Jasser, founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy strongly denounced this nonsense:
"The Muslim Brotherhood is the antithesis of a secular organization as asserted today by James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence. Clapper's statement presents a significant concern that our primary Intelligence officer has a complete lack of understanding of an organization that presents the greatest threat to the security of the United States. The Director of Intelligence is either grossly naïve or covering up for an ideology that is in an ideological war with the United States and western society.
The Muslim Brotherhood is built on the ideology of political Islam which adheres to a belief in Islamic Supremacy. To be a secular organization the Brotherhood would have to completely disavow the very beliefs that define the organization.
Further, the Muslim Brotherhood is a threat to the political process in a post-Mubarak Egypt and throughout the middle-east. Thugs like Mubarak have created an atmosphere that has allowed the Brotherhood to thrive. The United States needs to be active within the country of Egypt countering the ideology of the Brotherhood helping the people of Egypt develop liberty-minded, democratic infrastructure to secure the country's future. We need to demonstrate to Egyptians that freedom does not come in the form of Islamic law or in the rule of theocratic clerics.
Our Intelligence community cannot afford to allow political correctness or this severally mistaken understanding of the Brotherhood to enter the conversation of how we will confront the changes in Egypt."
Last Saturday, I shared Natan Sharansky's cautious optimism about events in Egypt. Today, much of my optimism has evaporated. It's become clear to me that the Obama administration, rather than supporting the forces of liberty and democracy, is either flailing cluelessly or deliberately aiding the Muslim Brotherhood's efforts to hijack this revolt against tyranny for the purpose of imposing their own Islamist tyranny.
Jamie Glazov noted that this isn't the first time that Obama has cozied up to the Muslim Brotherhood, and he argued that it's no surprise coming from America's "radical in chief":
The list of examples of the leftists engaging in political romances with tyrants is infinite: Noam Chomsky traveling to Lebanon in May 2006 to embrace Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah; Academic Norman Finkelstein, a Jewish leftist, venerating Hamas and Hezbollah; Naomi Klein calling out in a column in The Nation for Muqtada al-Sadr's killing fields to come to New York; Tom Hayden reaching the next stage of his totalitarian high by meeting Klein's hero, al-Sadr, in London; and British Member of Parliament George Galloway visiting Syria in November 2005, prostrating himself before its despot and giving a speech at Damascus University in which he denounced America and Israel and extended his support to every possible enemy of the United States – from the terrorists in Iraq to Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez.
What Obama is pursuing with the Muslim Brotherhood, therefore, is simply to be expected. And in typical fashion, the left is clamoring behind him to indulge in its own romance with the Egyptian jihadist entity.
The deranged and delusional leftist support for the Muslim Brotherhood today is a replay of how the left supported the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran in 1979. And without doubt, the left's love affair with the Khomeini revolution, a well-known tragic – and grotesque – story, documented in works like David Horowitz's "Unholy Alliance" and in my own "United in Hate," served as a revealing – and horrifying – example of this progressive impulse to worship tyranny.
David Bryant said
”It’s become clear to me that the Obama administration, rather than supporting the forces of liberty and democracy, is either flailing cluelessly or deliberately aiding the Muslim Brotherhood’s efforts to hijack this revolt …”
I’ll vote for clueless. Didn’t you once tell me not to attribute to malevolence those actions that can be explained by simple stupidity?
A lot of fairly intelligent people are looking foolish in the wake of Mubarak’s resignation on Friday (11 Feb 2011). Peggy Noonan posted two “weekly” editorials on Friday — the headline switched from ”’Mubarak Misses His Moment”’ to ”’A Young Nation Triumphs as an Old Ruler Falls”’. When it rains, it pours.