The Brotherhood, the Blind Sheik and a Hot Arab Summer
(Editor’s Note: Andrew C. McCarthy was the prosecutor in the “Blind Sheikh” trials and has written about the Arab Spring extensively in his book, Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy. He has been writing extensively–on a daily basis–about everything happening in Egypt and Libya for National Review Online. For a very reliable source to all that’s happening in the Middle East, I highly recommend you subscribe to his newsletter via his website: http://andrewcmccarthy.com.)
Two stories came out within the past couple of weeks, but typically these days, these stories hardly made it to the lame stream media.
First, it was reported that Sheik Abdullah Bin Bayyah, vice president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) had a meeting at the White House on June 13th. The IUMS has historically supported Hamas; one of the top Hamas leaders is an IUMS member and also calling for Israel’s destruction.
Bin Bayyah’s website claimed that he met June 13 with senior Obama administration officials at the White House, and NSC senior director Gayle Smith confirmed that, showing that it was Obama’s administration who asked for a meeting with the Sheik. “We asked for this meeting to learn from you and we need to be looking for new mechanisms to communicate with you and the Association of Muslim Scholars…” Smith reportedly said.
Bin Bayyah went to the White House to ask for more US aid to Syrian rebels. It’s been reported numerous times that the rebels in Syria are Sunnis with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaida and other terrorist groups. Make no mistake; our government has been arming terrorists, the same groups whom our soldiers have been fighting against since September 11, 2001. People have claimed that Syrian President Assad is an evil tyrant, and needs to be over thrown. Yet Sunni rebels have been beheading Christian leaders, and have been murdering anyone who has shown any support to Assad and his regime. Assad is a Shiite Alawite. For more about Sunni and Shia, please read about the differences and how Obama has been supporting the Sunnis in every country who has had an “Arab spring“.
Bin Bayyah is a radical Sunni who supports terrorist organizations and has defended groups such as Hamas and has supported calls for Israel’s destruction. Bin Bayyah has previously met with White House envoy Rashad Hussain when Bin Bayyah participated in a July 2012 Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) conference. He is also a member of Egyptian cleric Yusuf Qaradawi’s European Council for Fatwa and Research and also the OIC’s International Islamic Fiqh Academy, which issued a resolution in January 2003 sanctioning Palestinian suicide bombings. Yusuf Qaradawi is considered to be the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, and has called for murders of Jews and Americans. He is so radical, that he’s banned from entering the US. He has called for attacks on US troops and civilians, death to all Jews, and for the collapse of the United States. Yet, this same guy is a mentor of Bin Bayyah’s, who was welcomed into the White House.
Bin Bayyah has referred to Qaradawi as “a mountain upon whose peak there is light” and as “a great reformer” who “spreads knowledge and wisdom” in a 2008 article published by Boston cleric Suhaib Webb. Qaradawi on Bin Bayyah replied, “The reality is that the more I have come closer to him and got to know him better, the more I have loved him…”
During an Al-Jazeera broadcast in 2010 on Palestinian violence as being acceptable under international law, Bin Bayyah replied in part, “So, that which says resistance, says kinds of resistance, including the use of weapons. So, international conventions do not stray too far from the interests Islamic Sharia oversees.”
This is also the same guy who endorsed Muslims attempts to get the UN to criminalize blasphemy against the Muslim prophet Muhammad and Islam, saying that it causes violence.
Why would this be considered important? In and of itself, it may not seem important that our government would throw out the welcome mat for someone such as Bin Bayyah, but taken in context of all the past few years events it could be very important.
The United States had its first major Islamic terrorism event on February 26, 1993 with the bombing of the World Trade Center. The mastermind of this attack on America was Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman also known as, ‘The Blind Sheikh’.
Egyptian President Morsi has repeatedly said he wants the release of Muslim Brotherhood’s Blind Sheikh. Morsi’s support for the blind Sheikh ties the Brotherhood directly to Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya (GIA) aka Armed Islamic Group, designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 1997 yet was delisted for some reason three years later in 2010.
On December 15, 2010 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delisted the GIA. The GIA is the military wing of The Muslim Brotherhood and The Blind Sheikh is its leader. Second in charge of the MB military wing was Ayman al-Zawahiri who later became Al-Qaeda’s #2 behind Osama Bin Laden.
This leads us to the second potentially huge story which was reported throughout the internet, again, mostly crickets from the mainstream alphabet news, that Morsi is the mastermind of a failed kidnapping plot of US Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens’ in order to secure the Blind Sheikh’s release. This has been speculated for months, ever since the attack on the compound in Benghazi where Stevens along with Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods were murdered. It has been reported that Stevens’ was in Benghazi to buy back weapons that went missing from the overthrown Qaddafi regime and send them via Turkey into Syria to arm the rebels working to over throw Assad. Now it has been reported that The Muslim Brotherhood, including Morsi was involved in the September 11 attack on Benghazi, Libya.
On June 26, several Arabic websites quoted a Libyan Intelligence document, which was prepared by Mahmoud Ibrahim Sharif, Director of National Security for Libya, and addressed, to the nation’s Minister of Interior. According to reports, it discusses the preliminary findings of the investigation, specifically concerning an “Egyptian cell” which was involved in the consulate attack. “Based on confessions derived from some of those arrested at the scene” six people, “all of them Egyptians” from the jihad group Ansar al-Sharia (“Supporters of Islamic Law), were arrested.
Supposedly during interrogations, these Egyptian jihadists “confessed to very serious and important information concerning the financial sources of the group and the planners of the event and the storming and burning of the U.S. consulate in Benghazi…. “ And among the names mentioned by cell members during confessions were: Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi; preacher Safwat Hegazi; and Saudi businessman Mansour Kadasa, owner of the satellite station, Al-Nas.
It was Mansour Kadasa’s station which aired footage of the You Tube video, which the Obama administration tried to blame the Benghazi attack on. Safwat Hegazi has publically stated that the Muslim Brotherhood will rule the world. As for Morsi, a video made during the Benghazi attack records terrorists speaking in Egyptian dialects, and one of them reportedly yells, “Don’t shoot!We were sent by Morsi’!”
This could be huge if true, and according to the evidence put forth in Walid Shoebat’s full article, it seems most likely. This would explain why Obama and his administration was so determined to direct the focus on a video, and why his administration did virtually nothing but watch as 4 Americans were murdered. It was Obama and Clinton who propped up Morsi in the first place, to overthrow a man who was seen by some as a brutal dictator, yet, who had at least a civil relationship with Israel, and with his own people. Mubarak only had another 9 months left before Egypt’s national elections, which the opposition Brotherhood could not seem to wait for.
Now we have the new uprising in Egypt, with the people and military removing Morsi. Like his ousted predecessor Mubarak, Morsi refused to step down–and like Mubarak, he ultimately had no choice. In a 2010 Gallup survey, more than 80 percent of Egyptians said they agreed with the statement “Moving toward greater democracy will help Muslims progress”. Those who were frustrated with Mubarak’s continuous regime were desperate for the promised “democracy”. What they received was the Sunni-led Muslim Brotherhood, who through Morsi has changed Egypt’s Constitution only so far as to say that the Brotherhood-controlled university and mosque in Cairo, Al Azhar, will have final say in interpretation of the Constitution. Al Azhar is where some of the world’s biggest Sunni terrorists have studied the Quran. By giving Al Azhar Constitutional powers to interpret Egyptian law, Morsi has enshrined a Sharia loving, terrorist supported power in the nation’s law making.
The Blind Sheik is among Al Azhar’s most prized graduates. It’s no coincidence that its leaders joined now-former President Morsi in seeking his release from U.S. prison. Al Azhar is also the alma mater of Sheik Yusuf Qaradawi, the Brotherhood member mentioned above, who is the mentor of the White House’s most recent Brotherhood visitor, who issued a fatwa during the Iraq war declaring it a religious duty for Muslims to kill U.S. soldiers and American civilians for jihad. When Washington banned Qaradawi from entering the U.S. Al Azhar scholars defended him and his fatwa.
Al Azhar teaches from a Shariah manual titled, “Reliance of the Traveller — A Classic Manual of Islamic Law.” Among other things, it teaches that Jihad means war against non-Muslims, the penalty for blaspheming the Muslim prophet Muhammad which is considered treason, is death and when a person who has reached puberty and voluntarily apostatizes from Islam, he or she deserves to be killed.
The Obama Administration has been welcoming members of the Brotherhood into the White House and into our government for a few years now. Outreach to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has been the mainstay of Obama’s and then Sec. of State Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy. The Obama Administration encouraged the Brotherhood’s participation in Egypt’s spring. Since they were considered still to be Islamic radicals, the Brotherhood leaders promised not to run for election. Remember, on the day before Mubarak resigned, the White House sent James Clapper to Congress to testify that the Brotherhood is a “moderate” and “largely secular organization” and has “no overarching goal, at least internationally.”
It is significant that neither Obama nor Clinton sided with protestors against Morsi, as they did with protestors against Mubarak. It all ties in with the Sunni Brotherhood, which Obama sides with, and as for Clinton, I have one name: Huma Abedin, who has been close confidant of Clinton for years and personal assistant when she was Sec. of State. Abedin is known for her family ties to the Brotherhood.
On June 30, it was reported that Obama’s administration, through US Ambassador, Anne Patterson, told Egyptian Christians not to engage in protests against the Muslim Brotherhood. This was right after Obama ordered U.S. troops to Egypt to help with protest control. According to the June 18th edition of Sadi al-Balad, lawyer Ramses Naggar, the Coptic Church’s legal counsel, during Ambassador Patterson’s June 17 meeting with Pope Tawadros, she “asked him to urge the Copts not to participate” in the demonstrations against Morsi and the Brotherhood. Now according to a leading opposition activist, the U.S. administration is now “the enmity of the Egyptian people.” Even Egyptian politicians see the US as an enemy of Egypt. Remember the Hot Mic incident when Ahamad Hussein, chairman of the Islamic Labor Party called the US and Israel enemies and called for war?
On July 1, the Egyptian military gave Morsi an ultimatum to meet the protesters’ demands of his stepping down within 48 hours. Today it was reported that Obama has now threatened the Military opposition with aid withdrawl if they continue to oppose Morsi. Today, July 5, Morsi follows in Mubarak’s footsteps and is no longer president of Egypt.
In an article for National Review, Andrew C. McCarthy summarized the ultimate problems in Egypt:
“Remember: Morsi was elected, he did not seize power. He also did not impose sharia – Egyptians voted overwhelmingly for it. The committee that drafted the sharia constitution was dominated by Islamic supremacists because the committee’s make-up was controlled by the parliament, three-quarters of whose seats were held by Islamic supremacists (about 50 percent for the Brotherhood and 25 percent for “Salafist” parties) because Egyptians voted them into power. Egyptians gave themselves the opportunity to do that by holding a referendum on constitutional amendments – Egypt’s first post-Mubarak, “democratic” election – in which the public gave Islamic supremacistsa smashing 78 to 22 percent triumph over the opposition.”
It looks as if Obama’s meddling on behalf of Sunnis in Libya, Egypt and Syria are approaching the boiling point. With the Obama administration’s habits of inviting known Brotherhood members to the White House, it could be that the Brotherhood will get an old promise made fulfilled after all: That the Islamic flag will fly over the White House.
