Before Obama's June 4 2009 speech in Cairo, his advance guard tried to get representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood invited to the grand hall of Al-Azhar University. Their Egyptian hosts demurred. Not least because the Brotherhood is banned in Egypt. So the attempt appeared ham-fisted and discourteous at the very least. Kind of like inviting Pastor Terry Jones to a Koran-reading session at the local Mosque (the one for Very, Very Moderate Extremists).
But it was more than just discourteous. It was also profoundly troubling.
Could it be that the White House, the State Department, the US Government, knew nothing of the Brotherhood? Knew not of its unsavoury history – including a stint as close Muslim-Brothers-in-Arms to the Nazis? As the middle-east representatives of the Nazis' Judeo-liquidation Division? And know nothing of its current stated, documented and unequivocal aim to destroy "Western civilization", no less?: [Muslim Brothers] 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 is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions.. [Ref]
Or could be ignorant of that fact that Hamas – a terrorist organisation by the US government’s own stipulation – is an offshoot of the Brotherhood? Article 2 of Charter of Hamas:
The Islamic Resistance Movement [Hamas] is one of the wings of Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine. Muslim Brotherhood Movement is a universal organization which constitutes the largest Islamic movement in modern times. [Article 2]
It seems nothing about the Brotherhood has been learnt in the eighteen months since the Cairo speech. Just as Obama "reached out" to the Brotherhood in Cairo, he's doing so again. The New York Times reports that Obama has said that the Muslim Brotherhood should be involved in the post-Mubarak Egypt.
I’ve argued before that the Brotherhood is going to be a part of post-Mubarak Egypt – that seems to me as near a certainty as the fact that New York snow-clearers are going to be “surprised” tonight by a forecast winter storm (“omigod, it’s that white stuff again”! Who owns the snow?).
But should the President call for the involvement of the Brotherhood? To know it's going to happen is one thing. To call for it -- and you're President -- is quite another. It doesn’t seem right to me.
One reason that Obama and his administration may not be fully read up on the Brotherhood and its egregious aims and policies is that the Brotherhood has had its front organizations working assiduously to anaesthetise concern, to scare critics into silence on pain of being slandered as Islamophobes or racists or worse. The fronts include the Council on Islamic American Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and the many Muslim Student Councils (MSC).
They have done their work well.
They have done their work well.
They must be cock-a-hoop seeing at seeing their hard work coming to fruition....
....the President of the United States of America shilling for their mother ship, their parent organisation, in the Arab World's most populous nation.
