Posted on 11/07/2015 7:18:02 AM PST by Isara
"The Muslim Brotherhood youth in Egypt reject any form of violence." So said Rachid Ghannouchi, who - you'll no doubt be stunned to hear - heads up the Muslim Brotherhood's Tunisian branch, Ennahda.
Naturally, Ghannouchi gave his Egyptian confederates a clean bill of health while speaking as an invited guest of the U.S. Institute for Peace in Washington. He is a master of the Brotherhood game, consulted by the State Department and a bipartisan Beltway clerisy ever on the hunt for that elusive "moderate Islamist." He is an Islamic supremacist who knows he can worm his way into Washington's heart by whispering sweet nothings about "democracy," "pluralism," and their seamless compatibility with sharia - Islam's authoritarian, discriminatory, and brutally punitive legal code and societal framework.
It is nonsense, but Ghannouchi knows it is precisely the nonsense our government wants to hear. We don't want to know about the Brotherhood, but man oh man do the Brothers ever go to school on us. Ghannouchi understands that if he chants "democracy" and "non-violence" enough times, there will be no inconvenient mention of his support of Hamas - the terrorist organization that is the Brotherhood's Palestinian branch. No one will bring up his 2009 call for the opening of a "third jihadist front" against Israel. No one will quote his proclamations such as "I bring glad tidings that the Arab region will get rid of the germ of Israel" or "There are no civilians in Israel. Men, women and children, they are all reserves soldiers and can therefore be killed" - or that the United States government is "the great Satan." Not a word will be uttered about his close alliance with Brotherhood eminence Yousef al-Qaradawi, the influential sharia jurist who calls for suicide bombings against the Jewish state and terrorist attacks against American soldiers in Iraq.
This week, finally, Ted Cruz decided enough is enough. The Texas senator and Republican presidential hopeful has proposed a bill to force the designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as what it actually is: a terrorist organization.
The legislation, Senator Cruz tells me, "is part of a larger effort to expose the various radical elements that are trying, both at home and abroad, to undermine our very way of life."
The menace that is Iran is clear to most Americans outside the Obama administration. The Brotherhood, though, is a "complicated case."
A parallel focus of this effort is Iranian aggression - manifested again this week with the regime's taking of yet another American hostage. Cruz has been a vigorous critic of the deal, negotiated by President Obama, that will make the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism a threshold nuclear power while materially supporting its terror promotion with over $100 billion in funding. The senator has also joined with colleagues in the House on a bill to apply the terrorist designation to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps - the elite regime force that orchestrated much of the terrorist insurgencies against American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, to say nothing of the 1995 bombing that killed 19 American airmen at the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia.
The menace that is Iran is clear to most Americans outside the Obama administration. The Brotherhood, though, is a "complicated case," Cruz acknowledges. They've managed to "convince the Obama administration they are a secular, political entity" that can be America's "moderate partner and assist in outreach to the Muslim world."
The proposed legislation corrects this dangerous misimpression by sketching the Brotherhood's history and the centrality of violent jihad to it. It details, for example, the instruction of Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna that "jihad is an obligation from Allah on every Muslim and cannot be ignored or evaded."
From its origins in the 1920s, Brotherhood doctrine has taught that jihad means "fighting the unbelievers," "including beating them, plundering their wealth, destroying their places of worship and smashing their idols." It has called for willing "martyrs" who understand the necessity of terrorism as "the art of death" - the route to ensuring Islam's global dominance by convincing enemies that Islamic forces "loved death more than life" and were willing to perform any atrocities necessary to prevail.
While Ghannouchi would have us believe he has no information connecting the Egyptian Brotherhood with violence, Cruz's bill recounts that, from its earliest days, the Egypt-based movement "established a terrorist wing, referred to as the 'secret apparatus', which conducted bombings and assassinations." The savage use of force continues to this day, spearheaded by Hamas (designated as a terrorist organization since the mid-1990s), the Kuwaiti Muslim Brotherhood (Lajnat al-Dawa al-Islamia - designated as a terrorist organization in 2001), and Brotherhood factions in Egypt that oppose the current government and torment Coptic Christians, torching scores of churches, businesses, and homes.
Cruz could not be more right in describing the Brotherhood as "the key foundation stone for radical Sunni terrorism that has spawned both al-Qaeda and ISIS."
Indeed, in 2010, the bill relates, the Brotherhood's "supreme guide," Mohamed Badie, "called on Arab and Muslim regimes to confront not just Israel but also the United States," declaring that "resistance is the only solution against the Zio-American arrogance and tyranny." The call to jihad followed the 2008 convictions of Hamas operatives in the Holy Land Foundation case. There, the Justice Department proved that the Brotherhood was the core of an elaborate conspiracy to support and finance Hamas - a conspiracy in which leading American Islamist organizations were complicit.
Cruz could not be more right in describing the Brotherhood as "the key foundation stone for radical Sunni terrorism that has spawned both al-Qaeda and ISIS." In fact, as the bill describes, there is a significant history of Brotherhood underwriting of terrorism. In addition, key al-Qaeda figures have been launched by immersion in Brotherhood ideology.
It should come as no surprise, then, that where the Brotherhood is active, ISIS and al-Qaeda thrive.
This is notoriously the case in Syria, headquarters of the ISIS "caliphate," where opponents of the Iran-backed regime are labeled "moderates" and "rebels" - a clear case of Washington straining to obscure the opposition's significant Brotherhood and jihadist elements. Top Cruz adviser Victoria Coates points out that several years and millions of dollars have been squandered because the Obama administration "refuses to see that the Brotherhood is every bit as hostile to America as Assad is."
Meanwhile, the Brotherhood is a prominent agitator in Libya, where al-Qaeda affiliates helped massacre Americans in Benghazi and where ISIS has established a beachhead. As Cruz's legislation relates, Brotherhood factions are now colluding with jihadist groups fighting with great success against the failed government.
The United States will not have success in this volatile region until we have a strategy based on reality. Cruz persuasively contends that reality begins with no longer allowing the Brotherhood "to perpetuate the fiction that they are somehow reasonable and should be advising the highest levels of our government."
To disastrous effect, the Obama administration has indulged the fantasy that American interests are served by making common cause with virulently anti-American Islamists who want Israel wiped from the map. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, has been an enthusiastic partner in the project to cultivate the Brotherhood. And too many Republicans have fallen prey to the illusion of a Middle East tamed by "sharia democracy" - an illusion that portrays enemies as friends and is continually surprised by the rising tide of jihadism.
Ted Cruz understands the threat and is distinguishing himself by charting a very different policy direction. It will serve him well. And it would serve the country well.
Islam is a terrorist organization.
I’ll send you a quarter to stay out of mine
obama..we are no longer a Christian nation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmC3IevZiik
Rachid Ghannouchi
Baba’s brother?
So is CAIR and Islam in general. None can be trusted at this point.
I’ll tell you what, this takes guts to call out the sitting President of the United States of America....
Good for Cruz!!! I am a Trump supporter 100% all the way, but when I see this happening, I have to comment on a job well done....
GOOD JOB CRUZ!!! He might not be your candidate, but to boldly go where no man has gone for a long time...wow...I have to give him kudos for standing up for America!!!
The Muslim Brotherhood is a Sleeper Cell which is out in the open for all who care to, to see.
And so is CAIR.
Cruz is my candidate .. but if Trump wins the Presidency, I’ll be happy to vote for him. I would, however, be really happy if Trump wins and chooses Ted to run with him.
I think the two of them are a real dynamite team.
Cruz has such a brilliant mind, he can surely help Trump to implement CONSTITUTIONAL changes .. to help America get back on her feet.
Trump supported TARP, auto bailout and Porkulus bill.
Trump's Record on Free-market Issue: (from the Conservative Review)
Trump has a terrible record on free market issues. The only bright spot is the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing, but this glimmer is countermanded by his repeated support for bailing out Wall Street and the auto industry, and increased stimulus spending. Of particular concern is Trump's belief that the government can use eminent domain powers to seize private property in the name of private economic development. This comes as no surprise, given his support for using eminent domain to profit his own company.
Trump supported the Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in Kelo v. City of London, allowing public authorities to seize private land for economic development by private investors; Trump said, “I happen to agree with [the decision] 100 percent.” (National Review) This is no surprise given Trump’s attempt to use eminent domain in his own line of work. (Institute for Justice)
Trump supported President Obama’s 2009 stimulus, saying: “The word stimulus is probably not used in its fullest…you know, certain of the things that were given weren't really stimulus. They were pork, as we call it, or they were gifts to certain people. But overall, I think he's [President Obama] doing very well. You do need stimulus and you do have to keep the banks alive.” (CNN)
Trump supported TARP, saying, "You had to do something to shore up the banks, because ... you would have had a run on every bank." (CNN)
Trump supported the 2008 auto bailout, saying, “I think the government should stand behind them 100 percent. You cannot lose the auto companies. They’re great. They make wonderful products.” He also said that the federal government could “easily save the companies.” (Daily Caller)
Trump criticized the Federal Reserve’s intervention in the debt market, saying quantitative easing creates “phony numbers” that mislead the marketplace and “will not ultimately benefit the economy. The dollar will go down in value and inflation will start rearing its ugly head.” (CNBC)
Donald Trump has a history of using eminent domain to complete business deals. Multiple times Trump has supported the use of government agencies to take possession of homes and businesses for use in his private business plans. Eminent domain seizures are reserved only for public use of property rather than abuse by the government taking property from one individual and giving to another. (Washington Post)
Donald Trump has sought and received crony capitalist tax breaks for his commercial properties in New York. These tax breaks, and even an abatement, force the property taxes of other property owners to rise at the expense of the connected. Special treatment for one business or industry over another with the tax code conflicts with free market principles. (National Review)
In 2009, Trump supported Barack Obama's call for limits on the pay of executives. (CNN)
I don’t know who Trump is going to get, I have noticed that they don’t attack one another and have stood up for each other, both Trump and Cruz have stood up for Carson, but this latest thing...I don’t know...
But anyone that stands to Make America Great Again has my vote...
There you go again, letting facts get in the way of feeling great from the Trump wrecking ball effect.
Cruz is really the ideal person to be President. He has the degrees, legislative, legal experience, and has proved that he can win elections.
He supports free trade and low taxes which causes economic growth. He has always been pro life a strong believer and supports traditional values.
Not sure if he can get elected, but he is the best guy I think.
Yes, of course it is. That’s why 0bama supports it.
Yes, indeed. And a traitorous one at that!
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