by Mohamed Elshinnawi
Source: voanews.com

By: Mohamed Elshinnawi

Source: VOA News

WASHINGTON — Almost a year after a Muslim Brotherhood candidate was elected president of Egypt, the United States is still trying to recalibrate its relations with a country that for decades has been one of Washington’s closest allies in the Middle East.

Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi won the presidency last June promising voters they would have more civil rights than under former president Hosni Mubarak, who was forced from office during the Arab Spring uprisings that shook the Middle East and North Africa.

But Morsi has not yet delivered on many of his promises and President Barack Obama’s administration is finding it increasingly difficult to stand by him while holding firm in its demands for freedom and human rights in Egypt. The result, say Middle East analysts, is an increasingly complicated relationship between Washington and Cairo.

Michael Wahid Hanna, a foreign policy expert with the New York-based Century Foundation, says the U.S. State Department is trying to adjust to Egypt’s new political reality.

Hanna says continued U.S. engagement in Egypt is essential, but that Washington must make clear to Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood that U.S. support is not a substitute for the support of Egypt’s own citizens.

Critical message

“This is a critical message for America’s undemocratic allies in the region, and this conditional engagement represents the only plausible path forward for the United States,” Hanna said.

Since the Muslim Brotherhood’s victory in Egypt’s first democratic elections in six decades, the once-banned Islamist group has been faced with the task of cleaning up the corruption and reversing the political repression that flourished under Mubarak.

Progress has been slow, at best. The State Department’s annual report on human rights says Egypt’s transition to democracy is beset by political turmoil as well as the breakdown of law and order and established social norms.

“This breakdown has had the largest effect on society’s most vulnerable elements, including women and minorities, who often became the target of violent attacks,” the 2012 report said.

James Zogby, president of by the Arab American Institute in Washington, says the Obama administration may be considering a tougher approach toward Cairo, and if it does, would have solid public support.

A recent poll by the Arab American Institute indicates just 13 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of the Muslim Brotherhood, while 53 percent do not believe the Brotherhood is committed to democracy.

Most significantly, 51 percent of Americans believe the U.S. government “should insist that rights be guaranteed for all citizens as a condition for any U.S. support.”

The Brotherhood’s rejection of equal status for women and the Coptic Christians, as well as its repression of opposition, have damaged its image, Zogby said.

He suggests restructuring U.S. aid to Egypt to be more sensitive to the facts on the ground. Such a change, Zogby said, would give policymakers flexibility.

U.S. leverage in Egyptian politics

The State Department has been pressing Congress to approve $450 million in direct aid to Egypt since last fall, but Congress is seeking to apply pressure on Cairo rather than provide unconditional support.

“Our approach is rather a measured approach of tying tranches [of aid] to results as it pertains to the peace treaty with Israel, to cooperation with respect to smuggling to Gaza, and with respect to economic reforms to guarantee civil rights and the rule of law within Egypt,” said Republican Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Both Republican and Democratic party members of Congress have proposed attaching conditions to the more than $1 billion in annual military assistance Washington gives Egypt.

During a recent visit to Cairo, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel urged Egypt’s Islamist-led government to press ahead with reforms to ensure continuing American support.

But Amr Darrag, Egypt’s newly appointed minister of planning, argues that putting conditions on U.S, aid is the wrong approach.

“The Egyptian-American relationship is a strategic one, but to sustain it, it has to be correct on equal footing and based on mutual interests, and the U.S. aid is an investment in U.S. interests,” he said. “If we start talking about conditionality, it would not be a healthy relationship.”

Naguib Sawiris, president of the “Free Egyptians” liberal party, recommends that Washington not interfere, but should remind Egypt now and then of its priorities.

“The U.S. should engage with the Muslim Brotherhood, show its support for the Egyptian people by constantly reminding whoever is governing Egypt to respect the rule of law, the judicial independence, civil rights of all citizens and maintain all basic freedoms,” Sawiris said.

And Hanna says the U.S. government should not assume that the Muslim Brotherhood will dominate Egyptian politics forever, and that it should reach out to the opposition because a new, viable leader may emerge from it.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of MuslimVillage.com.

Related posts:

Muslim Brotherhood: Egyptians approve new charter

The Muslim Brotherhood dilemma

Muslim Brotherhood likely to win in an election

Muslim Brotherhood candidate declared next president of Egypt

Article source: http://muslimvillage.com/2013/05/18/39358/us-adjusting-to-egypts-muslim-brotherhood/

In mid-April, an unusual exhibition was held in London, showcasing pictures of Muslims who saved Jews during the Holocaust. During the exhibition people saw love and harmony between people from different faiths, mainly Muslims and Jews. One month later, on May 15 the Palestinians marked the 65th anniversary of the Yaum Al-Nakba or the Day of Catastrophe. It was the beginning of a never-ending conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The conflict subsequently brought many Arab (Muslims) to the struggle and human lives were lost and unknown amount of assets were wasted. But on May 15 we didn’t find love and harmony, we saw clashes in the never-ending conflict.
These days, we see more efforts especially from the United States to bring the Palestinians and Israelis to the negotiating table. US Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent visits to the Middle East remind us of the shuttle diplomacy of the former American Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. But the conflict in the Middle East is getting more complex. The number of Palestinians in the refugee camps who were promised 65 years ago that one day they would go back to their homes has increased many times in the past 65 years.
They are still living in refugee camps while the Holocaust survivors and their children have become Nobel Prize winners and are most recognized people in the fields of science, medicine and modern-day inventions. And if the conflict in Syria continues, then the Arab world will end up seeing the number of Syrian refugees surpass the number of the Palestinian refugees and many of the Syrians recently have even ended up in Palestinian refugee camps. This is very ironic because it was the Syrians who kept promising the Palestinian refugees a quick return to their homes since 1948? So why did we see 65 years pass by and the parties involved couldn’t find a solid ground to negotiate and solve the conflict once and for all?
Strangely enough, in the past and present, we saw Muslims and Jews putting their hands together and solving many common issues without the media coverage or the involvement of politicians. So let us talk about how easy it is to get Muslims and Jews together.
During the 1990s, when the tough negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis were taking place under the supervision of US President Bill Clinton, Palestinians and Israelis couldn’t find common ground for negotiations. They disagreed more than they agreed. But around that time there were many friendly meetings between Muslim and Jewish religious figures in the United States who were putting their hands together to persuade a steel mill not to lubricate its machines with any fat that came from pigs. The Muslim and Jewish delegations were able to succeed in their joint efforts.
Later on, at a time when we saw more conflicts between Hamas in Gaza and the Israelis, we saw Muslim and Jewish religious scholars uniting in Germany few months ago when the German government was debating about banning male circumcision, which is only practiced by Muslims and Jews. So the world saw many Muslim scholars and Jewish religious figures holding meetings and standing together to persuade the German government not to ban circumcision.
To be honest, I read this piece of news with a smile on my face because we saw Muslims and Jews putting their hands together and uniting in Germany not to talk about a lasting peace in the Middle East, but to discuss the fate of a decision which involves what to do with the extra skin on a newborn baby boy’s private part! All it took to get the Muslims and Jews to be together was when they saw what they have in common instead of discussing the differences.
One of the most historically significant events that brought the Muslims and the Jews together was during the Holocaust, which was considered the most difficult times for Jews. People know about the German businessman in Poland who saved many Jews whose story was turned into a movie in the 1990s and directed by Steven Spielberg. But do people know that Muslims saved more Jews during the Holocaust than some allied countries that participated in WWII.
Some historians, including many Jewish scholars say that Muslims have protected and saved more Jews than the United States and the United Kingdom. An Israeli Rabbi Meir Lau has spoken very extensively about the tens of thousands who were saved by Turkish Muslims and some others from Albania and Bosnia. It was circulated that as many as 190 prominent Jews were saved by Muslims from Turkey. Those Muslims risked their lives in the process and some of these Muslims were diplomats in Europe.
And for the information of the readers, there were others who saved many Jews during the Holocaust such as the Japanese, Swedish diplomats and most notably Germany’s Oskar Schindler whose list was named Schindler’s list. So the Muslims had a list of Jews whom they saved during the Holocaust and the list as I have mentioned above was in the tens of thousands. The efforts of the Muslims to save the Jews were brought to light in last month’s exhibition in London. The event highlighted the role Muslims played in saving Jewish lives during the Holocaust. The Righteous Muslim Exhibition was launched at the Board of Deputies of British Jews in Bloomsbury, London.
During the Holocaust, it wasn’t Jewish lives that were saved by Muslims. The Sarajevo Haggadah, a 600-year-old manuscript, which was hidden from the Nazis, was given to a Muslim cleric to hide it. Interestingly, he kept it under the floor of a mosque until the war ended. All these events tell us that our creator had created us to help each other not hurt each other. And now, we saw 65 years of attacks and counterattacks and no peace is achieved. The Middle East is going through the most difficult times in its history and the longer we wait in bringing different parties together the more difficult it will be to solve anything. The Palestinians and the Israelis must take every initiative for the sake of the future generations. History taught us that conflicts no matter how complicated they are can always be solved at the negotiation table not in the battlefield.

almulhimnavy@hotmail.com

Article source: http://www.arabnews.com/news/452018

BY RUMMANA HUSSAIN
rhussain@suntimes.com

May 17, 2013 7:34PM

Rummana Hussain

Updated: May 17, 2013 7:43PM

On my birthday 18 years ago, a man I admired endorsed pounding missiles over a certain group of people solely based on his misguided rage and suspicion.

“I would have no objection if we picked out a country that is a likely suspect . . .,” Mike Royko wrote in an April 21, 1995, column, green-lighting the bombing of overseas Muslims in retaliation for the Oklahoma City bombing. “If it happens to be the wrong country, well, too bad, but it’s likely it did something to deserve it anyway.”

When authorities identified Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols as those responsible for the carnage at the Murrah Federal Building — and not the Middle-Eastern-looking men reportedly glimpsed fleeing from the scene — the passionate, patriotic cries of vengeance were swallowed by the mass confusion and shock over the bland “Americanness” of the culprits.

No one, if I can recall correctly, cheered “USA, USA” when McVeigh and Nichols were arrested, as they did after brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev — an American citizen — were apprehended after the heinous Boston Marathon attack last month.

I’d like to think some of my fellow citizens have risen above limiting their definition of an American to the faces they see in the mirror and the folly of relegating all Muslims, here or abroad, as the enemy. But I’m afraid a post-9/11 world has given the bigots carte blanche in spreading verbal bile that’s just as poisonous as the rhetoric on the YouTube videos that authorities said pushed the Tsarnaev brothers to murder and maim.

Like a broken record, even before the FBI released images of the Tsarnaevs or described them as having ties to Islam or Chechnya, a Saudi national running from the chaos was erroneously labeled as a suspect.

(A missing Brown University student of South Asian descent who turned up dead also was misidentified as a bomber on social media.)

“Muslims” began trending on Twitter.

“Yes, they’re evil,” Fox News contributor Erik Rush Tweeted of Muslims, a proclamation he later brushed off as sarcasm. “Let’s kill them all.”

Just three weeks ago, a county commissioner in Tennessee posted on his Facebook page a picture of a squinting man with a double-barrel shotgun, with the caption “How to wink at a Muslim.”

Real. Funny.

I don’t want to equate the pain and struggle of having a leg amputated or a loved one killed as the result of hate-fueled violence to the anguish many law-abiding American Muslims feel when fingers are pointed at them for something they didn’t do.

But when some people insist on treating you as a pariah in the very country you call home, the sadness is debilitating.

How are these leaders and pundits’ “jokes” calling for the annihilation of Muslims any different from a fiery cleric urging the slaughter American civilians (including Muslims) as payback for the innocent lives lost in countless U.S. drone attacks and in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars?

Some have the gall to say that the threat of Islamophobia is exaggerated. They must not know too many Muslims or anyone who has had the misfortune of being mistaken for one. Ask the president.

Yes, many Muslims pray five times a day, go to the mosque and often use Arabic phrases, just as the Tsarnaevs reportedly did as part of their faith-based transformation. But these actions in themselves are not red flags, nor do they scratch the surface of whatever it was that pushed the brothers toward radicalization. I don’t doubt that religious extremism, coupled with a distaste for U.S. foreign policy, played a part in the siblings’ alleged actions. But alienation and thwarted dreams also surely factored in.

I suppose no matter how many times the vast majority of Muslims condemn terrorism, they will in some minds remain guilty by mere association. And no matter that Muslim lives have been lost, as well, in terror plots worldwide, including 9/11.

I may be like the Tsarnaevs in that I have felt marginalized and, yes, I do sympathize with the countless innocent foreign victims who have been killed and brushed off as collateral damage in the “War on Terror.”

But the similarities end there.

My heart goes out to those who were maimed or perished in April’s Boston massacre.

Krystle Campbell could have been my friend cheering me on in a race, albeit a less ambitious 5K.

Sean Collier reminded me of the jovial rookie cops I encountered during my first job as a police reporter at City News Bureau.

Lu Lingzi was no different from my young immigrant parents, so full of hope and promise when they first set foot in their adopted homeland.

And in the big brown eyes of 8-year-old Martin Richard, I can’t help but think of my nephews.

From what investigators have said, the suspected bombers viewed the world as black and white, embracing an ideology that allowed them to empathize only with people and groups just like them and dehumanize all others.

Us. And. Them.

There are a lot more people in this country who think along the same lines these days.

They just aren’t Muslim.

Rummana Hussain is the criminal courts reporter and a metro editor at the Sun-Times.

Article source: http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/20157869-452/treating-muslims-as-pariahs.html

WASHINGTON, May 17, 2013 — /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, said today that it plans to file a complaint against a Minnesota judge who inappropriately questioned defendants on their religious beliefs and equated mainstream Islamic principles with terrorism.

Before sentencing two Muslim women to lengthy prison terms yesterday, U.S. District Judge Michael Davis asked each woman if she supported “jihad, suicide bombings and Sharia law.” Judge Davis also asked, “Does she understand there are some Muslim women who wear dresses or short skirts?” Davis said he was trying to decide whether the defendants would “support terrorist causes” when they are released from prison. The questions reportedly drew audible reactions in a courtroom packed with Muslim spectators.

SEE: 2 Minnesota Women Sentenced in Somali Terror Case (MPR) http://tinyurl.com/beoe75k  

“It is misguided and unethical for a judge to reference an individual’s general support of mainstream Islamic principles, known as Sharia, during sentencing to determine a defendant’s future dangerousness,” said CAIR Staff Attorney Gadeir Abbas. “By also linking modest dress to a propensity for violence, the judge revealed a disturbing bias that may have impacted his decisions in this case and his sentencing of the defendants.”

Abbas said CAIR would file a complaint based on the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act of 1980, 28 U.S.C. §§ 351-364, and Rules for Judicial-Conduct and Judicial-Disability Proceedings, 248 F.R.D. 674 (2008).

He added that CAIR’s complaint will not deal with the specifics of the cases or the charges against the defendants, but with the action of the judge in inappropriately questioning the defendants on their views about Sharia and modest attire, both of which are irrelevant to their cases.

SEE: Filing a Complaint of Judicial Misconduct http://media.ca8.uscourts.gov/files/howtofile_jdc.pdf

CAIR is America’s largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.

CONTACT: CAIR Staff Attorney Gadeir Abbas, 720-251-0425, gabbas@cair.com; CAIR-MN Executive Director Lori Saroya, 612-327-6700, lsaroya@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com

SOURCE Council on American-Islamic Relations

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Article source: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/05/17/5429294/cair-to-file-complaint-over-mn.html

WASHINGTON – A group of North America Evangelical Christians has released a DVD series aiming at proselytizing American Muslims disaffected by the cultural differences and suffering rising hate after Boston marathon bombing.

“Suddenly when they come here they change,” Wadi Iskander, a former Muslim from Sudan told CBN on Thursday, May 16, referring to the cultural shift Muslim immigrants face in the US.

“They become very liberal or, when they come here, they change to be fanatic.”

Called “Truth Unlocked”, the new DVD series is directed at educating Christians on methods of proselytizing Muslims.

The new Christian DVD is a missionary program that provides an educational approach on how to gain the Muslim confidence before trying to Christianize them.

“A man and his wife are welcoming a couple into their home, and the man of the house would extend his hand to shake the hand of the wife,” Amani Mostafa, Al Hayat woman’s talk show host who is a former Muslim, said.

“Instantly she is offended because she’s veiled and she’s not supposed to be shaking a man’s hand. Right there he broke a rule. So, it takes us a while to correct these things,” she added.

Though there are no official figures, America is believed to be home to a Muslim community of between six to eight million.

The United States is the world’s largest source of Christian missionaries with a reported 46,000 proselytizers worldwide followed by South Korea.

Evangelization by Pentecostal and evangelical missionaries, traditionally eyeing troubled and disaster-stricken Muslim areas, has long angered Muslims.

Targeting Kids

The missionary problem also instructs evangelicals to target young Muslim kids at schools.

The DVDs “came about with just kids interacting with other Muslim kids within their school and felt very ill-equipped and ignorant towards another culture that had moved in,” Tim Clemens, co-producer of “Truth Unlocked,” said.

Clemens said a follow-up DVD called, “Far from Home: A Different West,” will be available in the near future.

“The big difference is, one is designed for Joe average in the North American pew; the other is designed specifically to give to a Muslim but also a tool to reach Muslims around the globe,” Clemens said.

Muslims believe in Jesus as one of the great Prophets of God and that he is the son of Mary but not the Son of God. He was conceived and born miraculously.

In the Noble Qur’an, Jesus is called “Isa”. He is also known as Al-Masih (the Christ) and Ibn Maryam (Son of Mary).

As for his crucifixion, Muslims believe that Jesus was not crucified but was lifted up to heaven.

Muslims believe that Jesus will come back to earth before the end of time to restore peace and order, fight the Anti-Christ (Al-Masih Al-Dajjal) and bring victory for truth and righteousness.

The true followers of Jesus will prevail over those who deny him, misrepresent him and reject him.

Article source: http://www.onislam.net/english/news/americas/462739-christian-proselytizers-target-us-muslims.html

It’s 11.30 p.m. on election day, May 11, at PML-N’s imposing headquarters in Model Town, Lahore. As hundreds of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supporters gather around to greet their leadership, “Budhon, kamzoron ka sahara, puri qaum ka ek hee nara… Sher hamara, sher hamara (Champion of the old and weak, the entire nation’s slogan: Our lion, our lion)” starts echoing in the background. A beaming Nawaz Sharif comes out on the balcony, as if to greet his loyal subjects. As daughter Maryam and brother Shahbaz nod approvingly, the prime minister-designate of Pakistan sounds suitably humble. “If anyone has abused me, abused Shahbaz Sharif, abused our party… we forgive them.” With its victory, PML-N has silenced the moaners, groaners and doomsayers by sweeping Punjab and even emerging among the top three successful parties in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan in Pakistan’s first-past-the-post system. According to the Election Commission of Pakistan’s website, PML-N currently holds 124 National Assembly seats out of the 272 meant for direct election (70 are reserved for women and religious minorities).

With most independent candidates flocking to PML-N, its tally is expected to increase after official results come in. Nawaz seems to be the best choice for Pakistan right now because he has spent time understanding issues related to infrastructure, economy and governance with his team in the past five years. “There appears to be a consensus in political circles that Nawaz has outgrown his dictatorial roots and matured into a democratic, statesman-like figure,” says political analyst Umair Javed. “One hopes that Nawaz and his party can resolve Pakistan’s plethora of economic problems and, importantly, build on some of the good work done by the previous government on issues of federalism, cultural expression, women’s rights and media freedom.”

Hunter becomes hunted
Much-fancied Imran gets a rude shock

As results streamed in on May 11, Lahore’s roads were full of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) supporters chanting slogans, but by 10 p.m., voting trends in Punjab, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa became clear. PML-N had swept the polls in Punjab. Caravan after caravan of jubilant PML-N supporters filled the streets of Lahore. “Dekho dekho kaun aaya, sher aaya sher aaya (Look who’s here, the lion is here)” reverberated across every nook and cranny of Punjab.

Taking a dig at Imran Khan’s “Sher ka shikaari (Lion hunter)” slogan, young PML-N supporters played the Bollywood song ‘Jawani Jaaneman’, with the lyrics “Shikari khud yahaan shikaar ho gaya, yeh kya sitam hua, yeh kya zulam hua, yeh kya ghazab hua, yeh kaise kab huva… Na jaanoon mai, na jaane woh… Aaha (The hunter himself has been hunted. Why this atrocity, why this oppression, why this surprising turn of events, how and when did this happen? I don’t know, nor does he… )!” PTI supporters were left baffled by the turn of events.

All hopes of a phainta (beating) to electoral opponents promised by Khan’s bat vanished. Nawaz’s biggest challenge is the country’s economic revival. After the election results, Standard and Poor’s (SP) Ratings Services has shown relative confidence in Pakistan’s economic situation by declaring that the country is set for the longer-term stability of a ‘B-’ sovereign credit rating. Pakistan’s stocks skyrocketed to new highs. Nawaz has not just been business-friendly but has also worked with multinational donor agencies. He has hinted he will get the International Monetary Fund on board to address the fiscal crunch because Pakistan’s balance of payments is already under stress. The question is whether he will take tough and unpopular decisions to raise the tax-GDP ratio by adopting the reformed general sales tax proposed by the previous regime.

On the energy front, the biggest challenge will be the 870 billion Pakistani rupees of circular debt and the huge shortfall in utilising the installed capacity. In this backdrop, Nawaz’s younger brother Shahbaz Sharif, famous for his management skills, was tipped to be the minister for water and power but the plan has been altered. Shahbaz will most likely become chief minister of Punjab for another term. Power outages will indeed remain a headache for the next government but Nawaz hopes to get a deferred oil pay-ment facility from the Saudis. It remains to be seen whether he will continue with the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project opposed by the US and Saudi Arabia.

The Terror Threat
Peace overtures won’t woo the Taliban

Pakistan’s economic stability is directly linked to the law and order situation. With the threat of terrorism looming large, investors are wary of the country. While Nawaz has firmly stated that Pakistani territory will not be used against any country, it all depends on his ability to rein in certain non-state actors. While he rejects the idea of backing any proxy war in Afghanistan in pursuit of strategic depth, he seems serious about offering an olive branch to Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. Experience shows that no peace agreement with the Taliban has worked, so Nawaz will have to deal with terrorism firmly at one point or another.

Newsweek Pakistan’s Khaled Ahmed says Nawaz does not expect the Taliban to deliver what he really wants-lots of money to strengthen the economy-so he will adjust realistically to the Americans. “The Americans have actually abandoned Pakistan. Nawaz will make efforts to reconnect with them,” says Ahmed. At a briefing for foreign media held at his palatial family estate in Raiwind, near Lahore, Nawaz mostly focused on relations with India, the US and an Afghan withdrawal. His relationship with the US will determine the course of history. Ahmed Rashid, best-selling foreign policy author of several books, feels Nawaz will be extremely practical despite the anti-American rhetoric most parties used during the election campaign because it was a popular line to take. “He will facilitate the American withdrawal from Afghanistan and down the road, if he gets a good working relationship with the army, he can even promote a dialogue between the Americans and the Taliban,” says Rashid. “The Americans are not going to stop using drones and Pakistan cannot make them stop at will. What Pakistan can do is to have a more engaging discussion about drones, so they share responsibility and intelligence, something that existed at the start of the Musharraf regime. Nawaz would want to work well with the Americans because his main thrust will be on economic revival, for which he will need American help.

India on the Mind
The national consensus favours peace

Policy analyst Mosharraf Zaidi warns Pakistan of getting over-involved in Afghanistan. “The real challenge for Pakistan would be that it doesn’t get stuck with the failings of the Afghan process so that the instability in Afghanistan doesn’t affect Pakistan,” he says. Zaidi thinks Nawaz’s policy towards India is brilliant. “A lot of traditional foreign policy analysts and watchers have questioned his wisdom of coming on the front foot but when you know the game is moving towards a draw, you have to shake things up a bit. Pakistan has been doing that consistently during the last two years,” says Zaidi. “In fact, Nawaz’s desire to have peaceful relations with India is in itself an expression of a national consensus.

Every major political party in Pakistan has a clear view of what the future holds and what the future of South Asia should look like: Trade and free travel in order to expand the opportunities the region affords us. The way forward is not to get stuck on the things that we do not agree on,” he says.

Underpinning all these issues is the civilmilitary relationship. According to some analysts, Nawaz is impressed by the Turkish model and wants to emulate it. To challenge the authority of the mighty military establishment, he first needs to deliver on the economic front. In six months, it will be known where his government is heading.

If he cannot successfully deal with all these issues, his government may not last five years. The military has directly kept out of politics in the past five years while keeping its hold on the security policy. Nawaz would like to assert his authority and has already said there would be no more Kargils, no more Mumbais. The army chief in his recent Martyrs’ Day address stated the army’s official position on terrorism, which provides the basis for an understanding between the army and the next prime minister.

Wresting control of foreign policy from the military may be his desire but many analysts believe Nawaz has learnt from his mistakes and may not take on the military directly. “If the military feels threatened or if he undercuts it by crossing some red lines, the military will not like it. The way forward is for both the civilian and military camps to work together,” says Moeed Yusuf, political analyst and senior Pakistan expert at the US Institute of Peace. “The military establishment understands the standoff with India is untenable.”

The Punjab Problem
Sectarianism needs to be stamped out

Yusuf feels Nawaz understands that terrorism is a major threat. “PML-N probably feels that if the establishment is not going to take any concrete action against the militants in Punjab, they’d rather stay away from it as it is a hornet’s nest which, if they touch it, will come back to bite them. Thus, they’ve taken a backseat on this issue.” It may be recalled that the Sharifs had come down heavily on extremist groups in the 1990s but had to back down after the establishment refused to play ball.

On PML-N’s electoral hobnobbing with sectarian outfits such as Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), a front for banned terrorist organisation Sipahe-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), Nawaz had to respond to widespread criticism by supporting anti-SSP candidates in Jhang and bringing in some Shia candidates during the election.

“Overall, my sense is that PML-N is not ideologically aligned to these groups-it’s not Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal,” says Yusuf. “It is electorally convenient to align with groups like ASWJ but Nawaz realises ultimately it may turn against him. Also, if he has to improve ties with India, he has to deal with Punjabi terrorism. He will not authorise major use of force against them. He might instead put into place some mainstreaming agenda or an incremental process that involves socioeconomic mainstreaming, payoffs, etc,” says Yusuf.

Clarity shows Commitment
Nawaz has hit the right notes so far

After the first full round of democratic transition, Pakistan will need more to consolidate the democratic system. Congratulatory messages and phone calls from world leaders have poured in, including from Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, US President Barack Obama and Saudi King Abdullah. By visiting Imran Khan in hospital, where he congratulated the PTI chief on his party’s electoral success in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and offered to play a friendly cricket match once Khan recovers, Nawaz proved his political acumen.

Imtiaz Alam, secretary general of South Asian Free Media Association, thinks Nawaz will have a very effective defence committee of the cabinet to take charge of security policies. “Given his bitter experience of Kargil, the PMelect is setting the rules for his premiership to assert his authority as a powerful chief executive,” says Alam. “He has been received well in the region- more so than any other leader-and has committed more than any other leader not to let Pakistani territory be used against any country. Unfortunately, he will not have a confident interlocutor in New Delhi until after the elections in India.”

From foreign policy to domestic issues, Nawaz has made all the right noises so far. He understands that civilian supremacy is a must if democracy is to survive in a country that has had more than three decades of direct military rule. He has been critical of the army meddling in politics but has not taken on the army as an institution.

He understands that confronting the army does not bode well for any civilian government, no matter how powerful. Most likely, he will try and work alongside the army. He has indicated that the real chief executive is the prime minister and the army has to be subservient to him. How that evolves is yet to be seen.

Article source: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/pakistan-polls-prime-minister-nawaz-shariff-economic-crisis-islamic/1/271636.html

Updated: 20:41, Friday May 17, 2013

Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wrote a note before his capture in which he called the victims ‘collateral damage’ for US action in Afghanistan and Iraq, US local media reports say.

‘When you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims,’ Tsarnaev also scribbled on the inside wall of the boat where he hid from police during a massive manhunt in the days after the April 15 blasts, according to CBS News.

The twin explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon killed three people and wounded more than 260.

Citing unnamed sources, CBS News said the note claimed the bombings were payback for US military action in Afghanistan and Iraq and referred to the victims as ‘collateral damage’.

Dzhokhar also said he did not mourn the death of his older brother Tamerlan, saying he was a martyr after being killed in a shootout with police.

Federal prosecutors have charged Dzhokhar with using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction, as well as the malicious destruction of property by means of deadly explosives.

He faces the death penalty if found guilty.

FBI agents, meanwhile, have searched the home of a former Chechen rebel fighter living in the United States who admits he met with Tamerland Tsarnaev less than a month before the bombings, Voice of America reported.

Musa Khadjimuradov, 35, told VOA that agents took his computer hard drives during a search of his home in Manchester, New Hampshire, along with DNA samples and fingerprints.

Khadjimuradov, who was granted asylum in the United States in 2004, said the FBI told him he was not a suspect in the case.

He denied any involvement but told VOA: ‘I believe they (were) thinking like he (was) up in New Hampshire (and) like I tried to help him or do something, you know, like that.’

The case also allegedly involves three young students, two from Kazakhstan and an Ethiopian-American.

The Kazakhs – Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov – are being held on charges of covering up for the Tsarnaev brothers.

According to prosecutors, the two went to Dzhokhar’s dorm room at the University of Massachusetts, where they were all studying, and took his backpack and laptop and threw them away.

The third friend of the younger Tsarnaev, Robel Phillipos, was accused of lying to investigators after the blasts.

He was ordered free on $US100,000 ($A102,325) bail on May 6 as he awaits trial.

A lawyer for Tazhayakov said his client denies the charges against him.

‘As far as where the case is going, the government alleges that my client gave consent for another defendant, Kadyrbayev, to enter the dorm room, which somehow created a conspiracy,’ Arkady Bukh said.

‘We are trying to get more evidence in order to intelligently assess the case. At this time, my client is denying any involvement in the crime.’

A hearing scheduled for the two Kazakhs was cancelled on Tuesday to give the parties more time to prepare.

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Article source: http://www.skynews.com.au/topstories/article.aspx?id=872794

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Article source: http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/15/muslims-to-tea-party-welcome-to-our-world/

Editor’s note: Below is the video and transcript of Congressman Louie Gohmert’s speech at the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s Texas Weekend. The inaugural event took place May 3rd-5th at the Las Colinas Resort in Dallas, Texas.

Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-TX 1st District) from DHFC on Vimeo.

Frank Gaffney:  I’m very pleased to present to you all tonight a great American, a great Texan, one of my personal heroes and a man I’m very proud to call a great friend, Congressman Louie Gohmert.

(Applause)

Louie Gohmert:  Oh, gosh.  Thank you.  Well, I’m so glad you did that before I talked.  That’s really good.  Now, I don’t know what you’ll do when I finish.

You’ve heard from three of our best experts earlier today, and then the ultimate expert did the introduction of me tonight.  Boy, what a juxtaposition that was.  But thank you, Frank, and I appreciate your kind comments.  You know, I’m not a household name other than with people that work at the Huffington Post –

(Laughter)

– and I tell my family, “Just don’t Google my name.  You won’t recognize what you see.”

Back in East Texas, all three networks have stations in my hometown of Tyler, and for a town that small, 85,000, to have all three networks, they all have their own news programs, six and 10, and they’re always looking for news.  Back when I was a judge, they were constantly coming to the courthouse and asking for comments.  Yeah, Andy is an ultimate expert, having prosecuted the blind sheik that we really need to let go …

(Laughter)

… or at least that’s what the people visiting the White House on a regular basis have been saying.

But anyway, so in East Texas, I’m better known. You spend a couple million dollars running for Congress, people get tired of seeing your face.  And I was coming home back to Tyler one night, stopped at a — it was about two-thirty in the morning.  I stopped at one of the fast fuel places.  I like to travel in jeans because I don’t want to wallow around in my suit, you know?  They cost too much.  Jeans are comfortable.  So I had on my jeans.  I had my shirttail out.  I prefer boots except I’ve got some Brookstone moccasins that are so great to drive in.

And so it’s two-thirty.  I shuffle into this place, and I go get my Dr. Pepper and some chocolate, and I see a girl like in her 20s go over to an elderly man who was back stocking something, and she kind of pointed in my direction.  Obviously seen the commercials.  And I put my stuff on the counter, and she says, “Can I ask you something?”  I said, “Sure.”  And she said, “Are you James Taylor?”

(Laughter)

And so I started to try to sing “Sweet Baby James,” but it wasn’t any use.  I couldn’t pull it off, not talking like that, but I thanked her.  But anyway, so you never know.

You know, I’m so envious of Frank’s beard.  He looks so distinguished.  I grew a beard one time for about six weeks before I was a judge or chief justice, and I got ready to try a case in federal court, and I was going to pick the jury that Monday.

My daughter was five.  Heard me tell my wife that in East Texas, there’s some people that don’t like beards.  So I was going to shave my beard before I went to pick the jury, and anyway, I was tucking our five-year-old daughter in, and she said, “Daddy, are you really going to shave your beard?”  And I said, “Yeah, you like it?”  And she said, “Yeah, it helps you not look like a clown.”

(Laughter)

So, Frank, you don’t look like a clown, buddy.  You look really distinguished, and I appreciate that so much.

But anyway, all of those lessons are still muddled around in my mind. I talked to Andy earlier about the things that had been discussed because you’ve had ultimate experts before you.  But you hear all the talk about the Muslim Brotherhood, and sometimes — well, I’ve run into so many people that say, “When did it get started?  What was it about?”  And some of you may have heard me challenged in some of the small networks, you know, those that you add up all of their ratings and they don’t quite add up to Fox News viewers.  But when you don’t have as many viewers as C-SPAN, it’s time to check it in.  But CNN, MSNBC, they’re still hanging in there.

But anyway, they raised some cane back when I said, “This president has really jumpstarted a new Ottoman Empire.”  Now, I don’t know why they had never heard about the Ottoman Empire before.

(Laughter)

Most people that study world history have at some point.  But when I was challenged by some of the reporters, I just pointed out, “Had you looked at a map?  Look at a map of the Mediterranean area and then go look up Ottoman Empire.”

But when you have a president of the United States pushing for Mubarak to be gone so that the Muslim Brotherhood can take over that country and when you have a president that not only pushes but uses bombs and planes to drive out Gaddafi — he did have blood on his hands, but as of 2003, the man had opened up everything.  It so scared him when we went into Iraq that he opened up. “All right, no more pursuit of nukes, whatever you want to see.”  And he was providing us substantial amounts of information on radical jihadist terrorists.

And this president — this president had agreements with him.  I’d met Gaddafi’s son at one time.  They said he was there on behalf of his dad, that they’d meet with, worked with the White House.  I mean there were relationships there.

Lindsey Graham and John McCain, who we’re hoping will be nominated again for president next time –

(Laughter)

I love you all, you know?  So many times people don’t get sarcasm, but y’all are right on top of it. I was on Hannity one night, and I said, “Well, you know, we know that there were more people killed last year with hammers than with the so-called assault weapons, so I’m working on a bill to prohibit or ban hammers because they’re so lethal.”

(Laughter)

I’m walking across the street this year by the Cannon building and some lady yells, “Congressman Gohmert!”  I thought, “Oh, a fan.  I’d sure want to see that one.”  And so I turn around to wave, and this lady screams, “You leave my hammer alone.  I need my hammer.  Don’t you dare try to take my hammer!”  “Okay, all right.  Your hammer will be safe. We’ll leave it alone.”

(Applause)

So I love you guys.  You know, you all get the sarcasm.

(Laughter)

Sorry, I’m sarcastic again.  But anyway, it is important to know — so just a little one, two, threes.

The Muslim Brotherhood was created to help reestablish a global Islamic caliphate after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire about 100 years ago.  That’s where they come from.  That is their goal.  And there are parts of the Muslim Brotherhood that — especially right now in the United States — that are going, “Have you looked at how intrusive we have gotten into this government?  We’re calling the shots.”  We’re setting up the state department offices.  They’ve got us hiring people.

Al-Amoudi in the Clinton administration was vetting Muslims that they should hire.  Al-Amoudi — name may not ring a bell.  He went in and out of the country, had close ties with Republicans and Democrats, but he was arrested at Dulles Airport, and he’s now doing 23 years for raising money for terrorism, and he was vetting people back in the late ’90s.  So this has been going on a while.

And the goal of the Muslim Brotherhood is to establish that global caliphate, and there are those in the country who say when you look at how much in the way of inroads we have made into this government, let’s hold off on the violence for now.  Violence has its place, but let’s hold off for now.

And I’m sure some of those people were deeply upset by the Boston bombing because they know they’re getting control in this country. They have the ear of the president whenever they want it.

If Netanyahu is coming over, as he was in May of 2011 to give a speech, then Imam Magid, the president of the Islamic Society of North America, one of the two largest Muslim Brotherhood front organizations in America, he advises the president on what his speech should be that he gave at the State Department, where in the inner sanctum of the State Department Imam Magid was, and you could find a video of him giving a critique of the president’s speech, and he thought it was wonderful.  Yeah, he helped with it.

And so if you were surprised by the president saying everybody agrees we should go back to the pre-’67 borders and you know Imam Magid was helping him with that speech, it makes a little more sense, right?

So those kind of things, it should be understood.  Now, in the United States, the Muslim Brotherhood early on was rooting itself in college campuses.  That continues.  They have made great strides at college campuses all over the country.

But it’s also important to note when we talk about the term Islamophobia — does anybody know who was the first to coin the word Islamophobia?

Unidentified Audience Member:  Rick Santorum.

Louie Gohmert:  Rick Santorum, no, no.

(Laughter)

It was the Organization of Islamic Council, the OIC.  They’re composed of 57 states — or is it — or it may be 50.

(Laughter)

One of us has 50 and one of us has 57, but I can’t — I get confused.  I don’t remember which is which.  But one of us has 57.  They may have 50 and we have 57.  I get confused.

But anyway, yeah, they have 57 states because they include the Palestinians, and so they’re the ones that coined the phrase Islamophobia.  And what a boon to them.  And they began — because we pay so much money to the Middle East for oil, they have all this money coming in, so they say, “Hey, Ivy League schools.” Even at my own alma mater, Texas AM, one of the most conservative public schools, maybe the most conservative public school in the country, they fund programs.  They will give money.  But you need to do a course on Islamophobia, you need to do a seminar on Islamophobia, and it’s catching on.  And the media loves to talk about Islamophobes.

Well, let me tell you, I’m not an Islamophobe.  And if you had seen me in Afghanistan last year being hugged as some of the Northern Alliance leaders came out of Massoud’s home there and were rushing out to hug me, it kind of scared — Michele Bachmann was with me, and because she had not met these people, and one of them was General Dostum.  He was the leader of the Northern Alliance that led the Northern Alliance in defeating the Taliban within three or four months.  By early 2002, they were routed, and the last battle saw the Northern Alliance, led by General Dostum — you talk about leading from the front — leading from the front, riding their horses uphill into the stronghold — the last stronghold fortress of the Taliban, being fired at with bullets and RPGs, and they were relentless.  They did not give way no matter who went down, how many went down, and they routed them, and that was the last big battle.

And then they were told, “Okay, Taliban’s been routed.”  Y’all remember in early 2002, we were going, wow, that is the way to win a war in that part of the country.  And even for much of Iraq, people were saying — you know, Afghanistan, that is the way you fight a war.  We had less than 500 American service members and intelligence members there embedded with the Northern Alliance, so they let them do the fighting.

Now, how do we regard those heroes who routed the Taliban originally?  Well, now this administration calls them war criminals.  They fought the Taliban the way the Taliban fought.  Now, we did give them aerial support.  You can read accounts of one of our intelligence or special ops guys.  Dostum says, “See that bunk?  See that hump over on that other ridge?  That’s a bunker, has hundreds of Taliban in there.”  Guy pulls a sat phone, orders a bomb to be released from the plane.  Zeroes it in on the bunker, and then they ride up and kill what comes crawling out of the bunker.  That’s how they defeated them.

And so anyway, we told them to give back the weapons we’d given them to use to fight the Taliban.  They did, most of them.  They said they kept a few.

(Laughter)

But anyway, but these guys are going to be killed as soon as we pull out because we put our allies in the position of being thrown under bus.  We are trying to negotiate with the Taliban.  We’re offering them to buy offices in Qatar and we’ll release some of your murder stugs if you will simply just sit down — with no pre-condition — just sit down and talk to us.

And that’s why one of the people this administration released from Guantanamo Bay, a very helpful prison.  I’ve been there, I think, three times, but it’s better than prisons in Texas, I can tell you.  If you’ve got a choice, go to Guantanamo Bay.  It’s a lot better.

(Laughter)

Well, you get more movie time at Guantanamo Bay.  And you think I’m kidding, but if you throw body waste on a guard, you may lose up to half of your movie-watching for the day.  And only one person has lashed back, and that person was given an Article 15 and punished for doing so.  I mean these guys are not being mistreated at Guantanamo Bay, but it’s important not to bring them on our soil.

So we released — the administration released one of the Taliban for humanitarian purposes.  You’ll be glad to know he’s back in Afghanistan, and Massoud tells me he’s on national television, and he has made statements that are consistent with Sharia law, which says if you have not been supportive of us — you know, everybody knows the Americans have laws.  That’s why they’re begging us to negotiate, but we’re not going to, and everybody knows they’re going to be out next year.  So if you will come and apologize to us and beg forgiveness and ask for our protection under Sharia law, they’re supposed to provide it and they say they will.  But if you do not come beg forgiveness and ask for our protection, we’ll wipe you out as soon as the Americans leave and we’re back in charge.

So much for the humanitarian purposes.  I guess humanitarian — this administration thinks to kill our allies, former allies.

So you look around at what we’ve done.  Oh, by the way, you understand, and I understand it’s been talked about, but it is important to know your enemy, and we have been blinded to our ability to see our enemy.  And I’ve used the graph on television — on C-SPAN, but the 9/11 Commission Report referred to Islam 322 times, referred to Muslim 145 times, referred to jihad 126 times.

The current FBI counterterrorism lexicon, the language they can use, does not include jihad, does not include Muslim, does not include Islam.  It includes violent extremism many times, but it doesn’t include Sharia.  It doesn’t include al Qaeda even, Hezbollah, [Hamas].  And even the National Intelligence Strategy 2009 doesn’t include reference to jihad, Muslim, Islam.

Now, we know, thank goodness, that of the 1.5 billion or so Muslims, most of them don’t want to kill us; they just want to be left alone.  And that’s true of the Northern Alliance.  They appreciated us helping them get rid of the Taliban.  That’s why I will embrace them.

The friend of us can also be the enemy of our enemy.  They’re the enemy and the very effective enemy of our enemy when we don’t abandon them and set them up to be slaughtered.  They’re not going to go down without a fight.

But we could make a difference if we just let the world know our friends stay our friends and our enemies will remain our enemies until they say, “We’re sorry.  We’ll leave you alone.”  That’s how you handle it.

(Applause)

So the Muslim Brotherhood internal documents show they’re committed to civilization jihad.  Many believe the way to do it is to destroy Western civilization from within, but even some of those in the Muslim Brotherhood who have been saying, “Let’s stay away from violence.  We’re making great inroads,” have now said, “Maybe it’s time.  Maybe we’re approaching the Medina period where we turn to violence to ultimately achieve our goal.”

Thank goodness most don’t think that needs to be done.  I got a call two weeks ago, a reporter demanding to know again — you would’ve though if they’d just do the homework, read the five letters we sent to five different departments — Frank’s so familiar with it — it just set out facts.  There’s nothing that wasn’t factual.  Nobody could point to a specific thing in our five letters because they were each different and say, “That is a lie.”

So instead, I think Senator McCain had not read my letter when he went to the floor, and Michele — Michele’s taken the biggest beating over those letters, and then she’s a patriot.  She knew these were problems and they need to be dealt with.

(Applause)

But anyway, there’s an Egyptian magazine article this year.  The article itself points out that the — this is Egypt’s Rosalyousef magazine — and the story points out that six individuals turn the White House from a position hostile to Islamic groups and organizations in the world to the largest and most important supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In the article, they point to people, specifically Arif Alikhan, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Policy Development; Mohamed Elibiary — he’s from Plano, just near here — a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council.  Secretary Napolitano gave him a secret security clearance.  There’s no way there was proper vetting, or she would’ve seen that he has defended in writing [Kutub], the Egyptian so-called martyr who wrote the treatise milestones that Osama bin Laden said helped turn him radical.  Anyway, he was a featured speaker at the Ayatollah Khomeini Man of Vision of the 20th Century, a big program, but it was sealed, and so we don’t know what was said.  He said he didn’t realize what it was when he went in to speak.

(Laughter)

So anyway, that alone would be a reason not to have him on the Advisory Council, Homeland Security.  You’re a featured speaker and you go and you didn’t even know it was paying tribute to Ayatollah Khomeini?

Also, Rashad Hussain, the US Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Council — or Conference; Salam al-Marayati, Co-Founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council or MPAC; Imam Mohamed Magid, President of the Islamic Society North America; and [Abu Gratell], a member of President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-based Neighborhood Partnerships.  Partnerships is an operative word.

I’ve asked Director Mueller before about the letter that his assistant sent in 2009 to CAIR, Council on American-Islamic Relations.  ISNA and CAIR were cited by the federal court here in Dallas, and it was repeated and made more affirmative by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in their opinion, that they are the two largest Muslim Brotherhood front organizations in America.

In the FBI letter in 2009, the FBI says, because of evidence that came out at the Holy Land Foundation trial, we’re going to need to suspend our partnership. Some of you have commented before about seeing the video, but when I was asking Director Mueller, my questioning came right after he had said that no, the Muslim communities are like every other community in America, and they have a direct outreach program to Muslim communities in America.

And so I asked him, “How was his outreach program,” — since we know they’re just like every other community — “How were the outreach programs going with the Buddhists and the Baptists and the Jewish communities?”  And he didn’t understand the question of, “Well, you know, you said it’s just like every other community, so I’m sure…”  Oh, well, they have one program for everybody else in America, an outreach program, and then they have an outreach program for the Muslim community.  It’s not just like every community when the FBI has to have a special partnership program in those areas.

And so anyway, so Egyptian Magazine was one we cited him to, and in the letter, of course, the most guff was made.  Senator McCain went to the floor, as I was alluding to, and he blasted us for making wild accusations about Huma Abedin, the person that started out as the intern.  She went to work for the Clinton Administration as the intern or assistant for Hillary Clinton back in ’96.  And, boy, we had no idea the stuff — the research that people have done, including folks you’ve got here, on Huma Abedin after we raised the issue.  I had no idea some of the direct ties she had.

But anyway, we pointed out in the letter — this is all it says — “For example, according to the Muslim Brotherhood in America, the Enemy Within, a product of the Center for Security Policy, the Department’s deputy chief of staff, Huma Abedin, has three family members — her late father, her mother, and her brother — connected to the Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations.  Her position affords her routine access to the secretary and to policy making.”

We go on to ask — and we set out a number of things that indicate this had to have had some kind of Islamic influence to make decisions that they did — so just investigate.  We’re not asking for an indictment.  Just investigate the extent of the Muslim [Brother] influence.

So they didn’t challenge anything we said factually.  Senator McCain goes to the floor and accuses us of making these crazy allegations against this wonderful person.  Fine, but he has traveled with her.  He knows her to be wonderful.  But he, obviously, had not read our letter.  He must’ve gotten a call from somebody that said, “You know who.  They’re calling her all kinds of names.”  And for whatever reason, he rushes to the floor and condemns us without even reading the letters.  It was very clear.

I said, “I just wish all of these people who were making allegations against us would read the letters before they make their allegation.”

(Laughter)

But anyway, you can go on my website, Gohmert.House.gov, and you can go to press releases back by summer and you can find all five of these letters.  They’re very specific, and there is nothing untrue about any of them.

But how about Anwar al-Awlaki?  You know, he gets bombed in Yemen, a drone strike.  So we debate, “Should we be bombing people with drones or not?”

Well, I would submit a question to you.  If somebody is worthy of being bombed in Yemen from a drone, should they have been leading prayers for congressional staff members who were Muslim on Capitol Hill?  And I asked that question of Homeland Security because I want to know is it okay? Do they feel like it’s okay to bomb someone? Obviously, the president okayed the order to take him out in Yemen, but my question is, is that still good?  If he had managed to do what [Al-Amoudi] did on a regular basis, come back and forth. We know that al-Awlaki had come back many times, back and forth. Would that order, if he’d got back in the US, still [be] a good order?  Because if it was, I want to find out where he’s leading prayers on Capitol Hill and make sure I’m not in that building.

(Laughter)

So it’s important to know if that order’s still good.  But we still haven’t gotten a good answer on that.

And in the same video, where you can see al-Awlaki leading congressional staff members in Muslim prayers, you also find a guy named Randall Royer.  He’s doing 20 years in prison now for his role in the Northern Virginia terrorist training plot to recruit, train, and send jihadists to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan.

His employer is a group called the Council on American Islamic Relations, CAIR.  They were his employer when he was doing the things he’s doing 20 years for.

CAIR is the same entity that joined forces with ACLU to make some Freedom of Information requests.  They requested information because they want to know all the words that were used.  They want to even know the words that are used to train our undercover agents.

Now, you have to think about it a little bit.  But if they — I’d heard from inside that they were considering granting that information.  If they grant the information on what our undercover people are taught about radical Islam, that includes which author, which writer they admire his works, which ones they don’t, which ideas they hold to most firmly.

If they know what we have taught our undercover people, they can identify them immediately and kill every one of them.  So it’s not just an innocent Freedom of Information Act.  This is really salacious the things that are going on, and you need to understand.  And when you hear things — the old saying in Washington is, “No matter how cynical you get, it’s never enough to catch up.”

(Laughter)

So keep in mind there really may be problems we need to deal with.

And, also, you ought to be aware — Carlos the Jackal wrote from his Spanish prison, quote, “Only a coalition of Marxists and Islamists can destroy the United States.”  So that is a goal.

You wonder, how could socialists, true socialists work with Islamists?  Because if those Islamists take over, the first thing they’re going to do is kill the socialists.  Well, they hadn’t gotten that far.  It is a problem for them not thinking past, helping them get in power.  But it will be a problem for them in their lives if that happens.

But Israel understands the problem.

(Applause)

How difficult must it be for Israel having the intelligence they do and giving us information when they know we’re not using it properly?  And the Washington Post called yesterday the office in Washington and demanded to know about why I was saying that FBI didn’t use the word jihad.  Well, I don’t know.  I hadn’t looked in a long time, but you used be able to find their lexicon online.  It does not include the word jihad.  And there are other things I’ve been told by people in the Justice Department about how they don’t want you using those words.

So you’re in the FBI.  You know how the orders have come down about not being so offensive by using words like jihad.  You get information from the Russians that a guy’s been radicalized and is a threat to us.  So you’re sent to interview him, but you can’t talk about jihad, so you’re going to have to try to figure out if he’s a threat without getting into detail about his religious beliefs.  I’m sorry, it cannot be done unless you can talk to him, “What do you think if Qutb?  You know, the one that Elibiary thinks is so great, that Osama bin Laden thought.  What do you think of his writing Milestones?”

Unless you can talk about the details and understand your enemy, you can’t make proper decisions, and obviously we’ve got dinner and you’ve got dessert with a better speaker, Ted.

(Laughter)

The first time I heard Ted speak was in the Supreme Court.  There were 12 lawyers.  Two cases were combined, and I went, “Wow, he was the best lawyer of all 12.”  He was far and away the best.  So we’re blessed in Texas for sure.

(Applause)

So you’ve got that to look forward to.

But it is important to know your enemy.  Now, if you don’t study what your enemy believes — and I love the old movie Patton.  There was a scene where he’s in there, “[Ramul], you magnificent fatherless child,” –

(Laughter)

“I read your book!”  That’s how you defeat an enemy.  You read their book.  You understand them, what they think, how they think.  You’ve got to know that.

And if you don’t know that a believer that the 12th Imam will return — some say already has — getting ready to make his appearance publicly, if you don’t understand what 12ers believe, and that includes the Ayatollah Khomeini and Ahmadinejad, who’s having some of his own problems now, but you understand, you study what they believe.

Now, they believe the 12th Imam will come, will return, and he will come to the tiny town of Kufa.  Well, nowadays, Kufa is in Iraq.  He can’t come back to Kufa if infidels occupy the area.  If you know that and you know that Iran is exerting all the influence they can on Iraq and you know that you want a Status Of Forces Agreement with Iraq, that we set this government up that they’ve got, we’re the ones that allowed Maliki to be elected by the people.  If you know that and you understand what the 12ers in charge of Iran believe, you will understand Iran will do everything they possibly can to keep a Status Of Forces Agreement from being made.

Mitt Romney raised it in the debate.  “Well, you wanted a SOFA agreement or a status of force agreement. You couldn’t get it done.  That just shows weakness.”  It shows he did not understand who was really putting pressure because Maliki knew — of course, he’s thrown me out of the country, me and Dana Rohrabacher, but I’ve been thrown out of better places.

(Laughter)

But we know.  Maliki knew that we were leaving the country, and he knew that Iran had people all over the place, and once we have gone, he would either be a dead man or he’d work with Iran.  So guess what he did?  He said hostile things about us to try to ingratiate himself, and from the American standpoint, we saw people constantly being killed with IEDs.  Guess where most of those were coming from?  Iran.

If you understand your enemy, you can anticipate that and you can shut that border down or you can take action.  But this administration does not, will not, refuses to understand that.

So let me just finish by telling you — oh, by the way, you know how al-Awlaki was able to come in and out of the country so easily any time he wanted to?  His father and mother came over.  He went to college here for a bit, and she had al-Awlaki when they were here on a visa, returned, he’s radicalized, he comes back supposedly radicalized or helped radicalize the Times Square bomber.

There are consequences to giving citizenship and to letting anybody in. I asked officially of the State Department a couple years ago how many people have come over on visas and had babies while they were here on the visas.  The answer we got was, “We don’t know.  We don’t keep track of that.  We don’t ask on the form if somebody’s pregnant.  That would be inappropriate.”

Well, how about asking, “Do you anticipate having hospitalization while you’re here,” because we’re going to pay for it, and we have.  What’s wrong with asking that?  And they said if I really want to know how many people were born to Muslim Brotherhood foreigners whose mom was here on a visa, I will need to go to every county, parish in America, check their birth records, and check them against Muslim Brotherhood influence.  That’s our State Department.

Folks, it’s time we hold some people accountable.  It’s time we force the Republican leadership to hold people accountable.

(Applause)

And let’s get a clean slate in Washington.  Thank y’all very much.

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Article source: http://frontpagemag.com/2013/frontpagemag-com/congressman-louie-gohmert-the-islamist-enemy-within/

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