Political News & Info

Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy joins the Center for Security Policy in saluting NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly at the Center’s 2012 Mightier Pen Award in New York City. Commissioner Kelly has kept New York City safe from jihadist terror attacks for decades, beginning with his investigation of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing (the perpetrators of which McCarthy later prosecuted). The rousing thanks to Commissioner Kelly and the NYPD for vigilant, non-politically correct counterterror measures comes amid efforts by the Muslim Brotherhood-linked CAIR, leftist journalists and other activists to undermine the City’s security. For his efforts, Kelly deserves praise and defense from all Americans, not only New Yorkers. In fact, Dr. Zuhdis Jasser’s American Islamic Forum for Democracy and the American Islamic Leadership Coalition (AILC) will lead a demonstration in support of the NYPD, Commissioner Kelly and Rep. Peter King on Monday, March 5 in New York City . The gathering– in front of 1 Police Plaza– is an important show of support from the pro-American Muslim community. For more information about the event, see the AIFD website . In his tribute, McCarthy asks the rhetorical question: We have to make up our minds–in terms of protecting American national security–whether we want our security managed by the Associated Press and CAIR or whether we want it managed by Ray Kelly. Most Americans, I think, would prefer Kelly.

See more here:
Do We Want Counterterror Managed by CAIR and the AP or by NYPD’s Ray Kelly?

On Hugh Hewitt’s nationally syndicated program yesterday, GOP frontrunner Rick Santorum said that the United States should arm the Syrian rebels: Here’s the transcript, in relevant part (beginning at 6:21): SANTORUM: We’d be aiding the rebels. We’d be aiding the new Syrian army, the opposition Syrian army with whatever weapons that we could get into that country through a variety of different avenues. And we’d be supporting them, not in any kind of direct military way, but indirectly through supporting them, as I said, with arms, ammunition, and other kinds of support. Hewitt asks whether the Syrian regime protects Christians, and asks Santorum about claims that Syria could go Islamist.  Santorum responds: SANTORUM: This is a regime that is a puppet regime of Iran, and Iran is a much greater threat to not just the Christian community but to the entire region and the world, and to our national security, and that relationship trumps any concern I would have that this new regime, which will essentially be an anti-Iranian regime – it will have to be because they know that Iran is the one who is killing them indirectly through Assad – I think you create at least an opportunity for a much friendlier, more pro-Western group in Syria than what you have today, and that gives me some hope that the Christian population there will be safe.

Read more:
Santorum: Arm Syrian Rebels

In the midst of Egypt’s supposed transition to democracy, nineteen Americans will face trial for promoting democracy. They are being prevented from leaving Egypt, and 14 of them are described by Egyptian authorities as “fugitives.” A more accurate term would be “hostages,” and though the U.S. government is warning Egypt that it could lose $1.5 billion in aid, Egypt’s Islamists are threatening to end peace with Israel in retaliation. The “Egyptian Hostage Crisis”–which began 25 days ago, on Jan. 26– is just as troubling, and as dangerous to U.S. security, as the Iranian Hostage Crisis of 1979. The parallels are striking. The Carter administration first protected the Iranian shah, then tried reaching out to the revolutionary government, only to find it was more interested in confrontation. Similarly, the Obama administration first protected Mubarak, then embraced the revolutionaries, and now face their wrath. The stakes are just as high today, with the son of a Cabinet-level official–Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood–among the Americans detained in Egypt. The Egyptian authorities, like the Iranian regime 33 years ago, are not just threatening local U.S. interests, but American power in the Middle East. And like the Shia revolution before them, the new Sunni revolutionaries intend to impose their own will on the region. It is unclear how President Barack Obama–who shares the anti-colonial left’s critique of American power–will attempt to resolve the Egyptian Hostage Crisis. What is clear is that hardly anyone is demanding that he do so–not the media, not the congressional opposition, not the international community. (Ironically, Obama’s rival for the presidency in 2008, Sen. John McCain, is the only American leader playing a visible role, visiting Cairo today for talks with authorities.) There may be good reasons to downplay the crisis, but Obama’s desire to avoid Jimmy Carter’s political fate is not one of them.

Read more from the original source:
The Egyptian Hostage Crisis: 1979 Revisited?

Fred Grandy goes inside the Cloakroom with Representative Sue Myrick in order to drill down on the failure of both the DOD and DOJ in adequately providing clarity to Congress as to their training practices. The president has made it clear he does not want the US government to use any terminology that might offend the Muslim community, but how can we train our agents to combat a threat if we cannot openly and truthfully talk about the threat? Are our agents getting the proper training and if so how come Attorney General Holder and Secretary Panetta wont come clean as to how their agents are being trained? Congress controls the purse strings, not the president; therefore, his ideas for future aid to Egypt, even in light of the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, can only be allocated by Congress who is less willing to give taxpayer money to promoters of Sharia law. You can hear the rest of Congresswoman Myrick’s interview with Fred on our Podbean page.

Go here to read the rest:
Sue Myrick: DOD and DOJ Anti-Terror Training Censored to Pacify Muslim Activists

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and his Department of Justice don’t have a particularly strong track record of enforcing all existing American law – but the U.S. group Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is pressuring Holder to do his job in relation to Palestinian terrorists with American blood on their hands. Calls for extradition of specific Palestinian terrorists arose after Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped by terror organization Hamas, was released in exchange for Israel’s release of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners. Reports indicate that at leas t 15 of these 1,027 prisoners are responsible for killing or wounding Americans. Among those 15 criminals is the driver of the 2001 Sbarro pizza bombing, Ahlam Tamimi. To say Tamimi has expressed no remorse for her actions is almost an understatement. In fact, she has made clear that she would commit acts of terror again. In a recorded interview, Tamimi also grinned and laughed about the fact that her terror attack resulted in the death of 15 civilians, 2 Americans, and 8 children. The two American victims, by the way, were a 15-year-old named Malki Roth, and a woman named Judith Hayman, pregnant with her first child. Their lives ended suddenly in that pizzeria back in 2001 – while Tamimi now lives as a free woman in Jordan, where she is revered as a hero. So what could Holder and the DOJ do about it? According to the 1991 Anti-Terror Act, the United States may prosecute those who commit acts of terror overseas against Americans, with written permission from the Attorney General. However, despite the fact that a significant number of American citizens have been victims of terror attacks committed by Palestinians, the United States has to date never extradited any terrorists. This is especially bewildering in light of the fact that there is an entire division within the U.S. Justice Department specifically tasked with tracking down perpetrators of these types of attacks, as even its name makes crystal clear: The Office of Justice for Victims of Overseas Terrorism. In a press release discussing this matter, ZOA states , “If the Justice Department does not go after the Palestinian Arab terrorists who were recently released and now living in freedom, then it is sending a dangerous and appalling message to victims and their families… that the United States does not value the victims and their families enough to ensure that these criminals are punished and justice is served.” Serving justice is Holder’s job. By ignoring these attacks, he and his DOJ do the families of the American victims of Palestinian terror a great disservice. Why is the American Attorney General so unwilling to enforce American law? The ZOA is precisely right about this: It is not only in the interest of justice to extradite these terrorists, but also in the interest of U.S. foreign policy, in order to demonstrate that the United States will stand up for the rights of American citizens wherever they are. That is an assurance all Americans should not have to question. However, seeing as how Holder seems to have a difficult time holding anyone accountable  within the United States (Fast and Furious, anyone?), it would be quite surprising to see him take appropriate action for the disturbing acts of violence outside the United States. Let’s hope for the sake of those American lives lost to Palestinian terror that we are indeed pleasantly surprised.

Read more from the original source:
Holder & DOJ Fail to Prosecute Palestinian Terrorists who Kill Americans Overseas

After forcing the FBI and CIA to purge their counterterrorism training programs of all references to “Islam” in “Islamic terrorism,” the Muslim Brotherhood in America has turned its sights on the New York Police Department (NYPD). Image credit: Reuters Writers from the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law have posted op-ed pieces in the New York Times criticizing NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly for appearing in “The Third Jihad” and authorizing its screening in NYPD training courses. The critically-acclaimed documentary is narrated by devout American Muslim and Navy veteran, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser (President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy), and presents a factual look at the published mission of Muslim Brotherhood front groups and affiliates “ in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within .” For those who have actually watched “The Third Jihad ,” it is clear that the film is not about all Muslims or even all American Muslims. It is about that minority of Muslims who are actively engaged in subversion to replace the U.S. Constitution with Islamic law (shariah). The Brennan Center is actually providing a living case study of exactly what The Third Jihad is all about. Under Islamic law, speaking criticism of Islam or Islamic law is expressly forbidden. Such criticism—especially by non-Muslims—provides the justification for attack. In their latest NYT hit piece , published January 29, 2012, Brennan Center affiliates Faiza Patel and Elizabeth Goitein attack against the NYPD and Commissioner Kelly.  And in their mission to censor the tools used by New York’s finest to deal effectively with Islamic terrorism, they actually call for the appointment of a presumably Muslim-sensitive Inspector General (IG) to oversee the NYPD. What the Times fails to mention is that the Brennan Center in 2009 received the “ Safe While Free Award ” from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR).  CAIR was named by the Department of Justice as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation Hamas terror funding case . CAIR was founded by Hamas members and operates in the U.S. as a support group for the Muslim Brotherhood. In other words, groups with ties to Hamas are now telling the NYPD how to manage its counterterrorism training.  Worse, they shamefully call for the Commissioner’s resignation and the appointment of an inspector to investigate how the NYPD has been so successful at keeping New York safe from terror attacks since 9/11. The only thing more shameful is NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly capitulating. Kelly and his police force are champions in the war to keep America safe. Their showing of The Third Jihad should be praised as an important element of their success in uncovering and defeating numerous terrorist plots. In The Third Jihad, Ray Kelly joins former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, former CIA Director R. James Woolsey, and others to explain the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in conducting homegrown jihad and threatening our Constitutional liberties and the American way of life. Aside from apologizing for defending New Yorkers, Kelly has nothing to be ashamed of and neither does the NYPD. The Muslim Brotherhood has no business dictating counterterrorism policy to the NYPD—and the NYPD has no business taking its training directives from a group whose motto remains: Allah is our objective The Prophet is our guide The Qur’an is our law Jihad is our way And dying in the way of Allah is our highest aspiration. The Brennan Center offensive against the NYPD is a real-time demonstration of The Third Jihad’s key theme: how Muslim Brotherhood supporters work assiduously to undermine America’s counterterrorism defenses through infiltration, intimidation, and subversion of this country’s most important law enforcement and national security organizations. Clare M. Lopez is a Senior Fellow at The Clarion Fund and a distinguished member of Team B II, which produced the “Shariah: The Threat to America” study in 2010. She is interviewed in The Third Jihad, which may be viewed for free at www.thethirdjihad.com .

Continued here:
Muslim Brotherhood Trying to Police the NYPD

Every four years, during the presidential debate season, the Islamic Republic of Iran re-enters the American political spectrum.  Conservatives are pressuring the President to act to in order to disrupt the rekindling Iranian nuclear capability.  It is prudent to review the history of the Iranian regime to properly understand the situation we now face, and the dangers of callous actions. Founded in 1979, the former Persian Empire became an anti-American theocratic regime under the rule of Ayatollah Khomeini, and a handful of mullahs, when the Iranian people overthrew the monarch Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who in 1953 had been installed as Prime Minister to continue providing cheap oil to the British, Iran’s former colonial ruler. Iran was further aggravated by American support of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during the eight-year Iraq-Iran War.  Fifteen years later, as the world’s largest Shiite nation, Iran was emboldened by the American toppling of the Sunni Ba’athist Party during the 2003 Iraq War. Since 2004, Iran has appeared to be the imminent national security threat, as it has led a “Shia Revival,” extending to Hezbollah in Lebanon.  Violent Islamism – and the vehement Anti-Semitic language that accompanied it – did not sit well with the Iranian people:  In 2009, the moderate Iranian public showed their disdain for their extremist regime by protesting the fraudulent presidential election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  Some protestors gave their lives in the struggle. During this period of opportunity, American officials largely sat silent. Today, America faces a renewed threat, with a more desperate Iranian regime. Although Iran has not initiated a military strike against another nation since it was under British rule, given the recent plot to kill the Saudi Ambassador on US soil, last month’s hijacking of a US Drone, and the likely Iranian assassination of a Houstonian student last week, the threat is real.  Our actions today, however, are counterintuitive to toppling the regime; furthermore, conservatives are making critical errors in pushing Obama to action with Iran. Our first mistake is imposing massive economic sanctions, crippling not the regime, but the entire nation.  The EU recently joined the US in these efforts, with the EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton saying:  “The pressure of sanctions is designed to try and make sure that Iran takes seriously our request to come to the table.” The financial embargo is destroying Iran’s currency, and their gasoline imports have been cut in half.  These actions do not accomplish the goal of stopping the Iranian regime; in fact, we are arbitrarily turning those moderates who protested Ahmadinejad toward their regime, and away from us.  When an embargo becomes a blockade, sanctions become an act of war.  Make no mistake:  Forced starvation will lead to aggression.  We are essentially radicalizing an enemy. Our second mistake is confusing what is acceptable from the Iranians, and what is not.  Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has explicitly stated the Iranians are not developing a nuclear weapon, but are pursuing a nuclear capability.   It is understood that an Iranian nuclear capability could pose a threat to Israel, but we have not specified whether or not Iran’s return to nuclear energy – which they had until 1979 – is acceptable.  A nuclear weapon in the hands of this particular regime would be a threat to our national security, whereas nuclear power is not. Furthermore, Iranian naval exercises in the Persian Gulf have riled Defense officials. In direct retaliation against sanctions, the Iranian regime – as of this writing – has sworn to “definitely” block traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.  I understand the seriousness of the situation; in the US Navy, I drove a $5 billion warship through that Strait, was followed by the Iranian missile silos ashore, P-3 aircraft overhead, and coastal patrol vessels afloat, and can attest it is a contentious area, through which roughly 25 percent of the world’s oil flows. Iran’s closing of the Strait in response to a blockade would indeed be an act of war, and would require action.  A hasty counterstrike, however, would lead to an asymmetric and chaotic naval war.  The Revolutionary Guard commander Brigadier General Jafaari has threatened: “The enemy is far more advanced technologically than we are, we have been using what is called asymmetric warfare methods… our forces are now well prepared for it.” Irregular war with Iran poses the largest threat to our ally Israel.  While the Arab Spring was promoted by the Obama Administration – and emboldened the Administration’s circumvention of the Congress in warfare – it destabilized Israel.  Defense Secretary Panetta has warned an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites would be “catastrophic” to the region.  I disagree.  A true friend to Israel would back off and let Israel take care of itself.  With over 300 nuclear warheads of its own and the best intelligence agency in the world, Israel should be allowed to act in sovereignty and in accordance with its own national security. It is unclear whether the United States has the resources, or if the American public has the willpower, to escalate to another war, without being struck first.  It is clear, however, that our federal government is actually inviting war with Iran; that is why we deliberately confuse our “red lines.”  That is why we restrain Israel.  That is why we are provoking Iran, to incite them to act first, in order to generate instant American support for another war. Why would our government want a war with Iran? The reasons are simple. When asked what the greatest threat to American national security is, former JCS Chairman ADM Mike Mullen said not Iran – nor any other nation – but our national debt.  Because the federal government lacks both the willpower to cut government spending and the capacity to tax the American public any further, it is preparing to hyperinflate our way out of this financial mess.  Doing so will destroy what is left of the US Dollar, which is in a downward spiral, as the world slowly gives up on it as reserve currency, the US Dollar. This week, India dumped the US Dollar for gold in purchasing Iranian oil; a week earlier, Russia did the same.  To understand why the world is abandoning the Dollar, it is critical to note that while the price of a barrel of oil is high, it has remained constant compared to the position the US Dollar holds to gold.  The Dollar has been devalued by 95 percent since the 1913 advent of the Federal Reserve, which now holds the majority of US Treasury bonds. Engaging in war with Iran would shroud the Fed’s actions while the maturation of these bonds destroys that final 5 percent, enabling a transition to a global currency and monetary standard progressives have wanted for decades. If you are still not convinced the federal government would welcome war with Iran, consider this:  Since James Madison, no wartime President has lost reelection.  War with Iran ensures four more years of President Obama’s social control and class warfare.  Obama will pretend as though he doesn’t want war with Iran, up until the point he must act, which I would wager to guess would be around October of 2012. History teaches that free trade and the advancement of ideas would spur the people of Iran to topple their own regime.  Irregular war with Iran would come at the expense of the American soldier and the Iranian citizen, while the Iranian regime could escape unscathed.  Conservatives must consider the consequences of pushing the President to reelection and plunging the nation into another war.

See original here:
America’s Long History of Mistakes with Iran Unlikely to Reverse

From Reuters: The line dividing Christians from Muslims that runs along a rocky valley in the central Nigerian town of Jos may not be visible to the eye, but it burns in the minds of local people. The mosque lies barely 200 meters (yards) from the main church in the Congo-Russia neighborhood, a huddle of tin-roofed homes winding up a hill, and on its sandy pavements women in Muslim headscarves politely greet men wearing shiny crucifixes. Jos, in Nigeria’s volatile “Middle Belt,” is historically a religious and ethnic tinderbox in the country’s sensitive North-South divide between Muslims and Christians. Deadly Christmas Day bomb attacks by shadowy Islamist sect Boko Haram – suspected of links to al Qaeda and with ambitions to impose Islamic sharia law in Nigeria – have stoked fears again of sectarian conflict in Africa’s top oil producer and most populous state. “Over there’s the dividing line,” said trader Anthony Baya, 30, nodding at some houses cloaked in a haze of windborne dust. “You can’t just go over to that place as a Christian. The Muslims can kill you,” he said, describing how six youths were hacked to death with machetes and dumped down a well during Jos’s last bout of inter-communal violence in November. Nigeria’s 160 million people are roughly divided between Muslims and Christians, who mostly live side by side in peace. But towns like Jos, where ruined buildings with charred walls sprouting weeds testify to past violence, and other flashpoints bear the material and mental scars of bouts of sectarian strife that have periodically bloodied Nigeria since its independence from Britain in 1960. The Congo- Russia neighborhood itself is named after the Congolese and Russian U.N. peacekeepers who kept the two communities from each other’s throats during Nigeria’s civil war in the 1960s. Boko Haram claimed three bomb attacks on churches on Christmas Sunday, including one that killed 27 worshippers in a Catholic church just outside the capital Abuja, and one in Jos without fatal victims. The coordinated strikes by the northern-based Islamist group, whose name translates as “Western education is sinful” in the Hausa language of the region, appeared aimed at prizing open Nigeria’s religious faultline in a direct challenge to the government of President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian southerner. “Boko Haram is seeking to provoke retaliatory attacks on Muslims in predominantly Christian parts of the country,” said former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria John Campbell, who is the Ralph Bunche senior fellow for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York. Read the rest of the story here.

See the original post:
Islamist Attacks Strain Nigeria’s North-South Divide

The Muslim regimes in the Middle East have never held any real intentions of formulating a peace process with Israel. There just isn’t any money and power in doing so. The Jewish presence is a wonderful distraction for Arab regimes to take attention away from their own corruption and incompetency. In fact, one could argue convincingly that Israel is a wonderful motivation for peace among Muslim nations. For without Israel to hate, Muslim nations would have to go to war with one another. Instead, the hatred for Jews shared among all Muslim nations is a useful prop for radical Islamists movements like the so-called Arab Spring, which was nothing more than exercise of radicalization. The Islamic groups that had been historically pushed to the fringes in countries like Egypt, Libya, and Syria (that story has yet to be played out) are now running the asylum. Continuously, Israel is passed off as the boogeyman in the west and provides the source for the collection of third-world countries called the UN to revile. If only Israel would just “get to the table,” as Leon Panetta recently said, all would work out well. However, sitting at any table with the current collection of Arab countries would be like sitting at a table with snakes. The truth is very simple. The Arab world uses a loose play on history and Palestine as a PR campaign to weaken Israel internationally, while using the west’s hyper-inflated sense of injustice to delegitimize Israel as a lawful nation. All the while, their true motives are displayed with every move on the board until the time comes when they can say checkmate. For Israel to simply claim peace at all costs would be tantamount to national suicide. The climate in the Middle East is not one of peace but rather a real-time display of collective unison to topple the Jewish nation. Sadly, yet predictably, the long coveted initiative is coming to fruition. Ynetnews | Muslim Brotherhood: Hamas is our role model Daily Mail | Israel warns Middle East peace process could be in jeopardy if PLO forms truce with ‘terrorist’ Hamas

Read more from the original source:
Why the Middle East Peace Process Is a Farce

This week, Egyptian political activist Cynthia Farahat testified before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in the House of Representatives. Reps. Frank Wolf and James McDermott presented Under Threat: The Worsening Plight of Egypt’s Coptic Christians . Ms. Farahat spoke about her experiences as an activist and co-founder of the Liberal Egyptian Party in 2006, while in her twenties– the platform of which argued for “secularism, human rights, capitalism, the rule of law, and rejection of pan-Arabism and Islamic imperialism,” not to mention the rejection of Shariah. In her emotional and inspiring testimony, she outlined the greatness of America and its founding principles– and then described the massacre at Maspero and the jihad against the Christians of Egypt. Watching the testimony, I’m struck by how vital it is that Congress halt its $1.3 billion in annual funding to the Egyptian regime that’s engaged in such war crimes. The ideas I dedicated my life to promoting are articulated best in America’s founding documents, in the writings of Thomas Jefferson, and in the Enlightenment works that, in turn, inspired them. The regime’s opposition to these concepts– summed up in a word, liberty – also unlocks the reasons for the persecution of Copts. The large and educated minority of Copts in Egypt is the biggest obstacle for Islamists to turn Egypt into another Iran or another Saudi Arabia. Through propaganda and acts of state violence the governing body of Egypt, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), has attempted to manufacture a violent conflict between Coptic Christians and Muslims. With the full power of the state, media and the military at their disposal, however, any such “civil war” will be a one-sided tragedy; it will be a massacre of Christians at the hands of the state, its vast paid militia and Salafis sympathetic to the cause. She’s also got some harsh words for the Obama administration, lecturing the president and his Secretary of State to “stop supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.” Here is Ms. Farahat’s transcribed testimony for the record. More here at the Center for Security Policy’s website. TESTIMONY OF CYNTHIA FARAHAT TOM LANTOS HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION Thank you Chairman Wolf and Chairman McGovern for organizing this important hearing. I am very pleased to have the honor of testifying in front of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission today about the current status of Copts in Egypt. I am an activist and writer in Egypt, and have been involved in the political process for nearly a decade. I am a Copt. I addressed the crowd at last year’s protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and have participated in Coptic demonstrations in Maspero. With my colleagues I helped found two political parties: first, the Masr El-Om (Mother Egypt) Party in 2004, and then the Liberal Egyptian Party in 2006. Both were dedicated to the values of secularism, human rights, capitalism, the rule of law, and rejection of pan-Arabism and Islamic imperialism. This platform was controversial with the Mubarek regime for many reasons, but the most important was the conscious rejection of the application of Islamic law and jurisprudence, shariah and fiqh , in the state’s affairs. The Liberal Egyptian Party was rebuffed by the regime and rejected as a legal entity twice in court, putting these important ideas outside legal discourse in the country. As a consequence of my activism, I have been living in fear and under constant threat and harassment, from the Mubarek regime and its subsequent military junta and from Salafist jihadists who were as threatened by classical liberalism and freedom as the rulers themselves. The ideas I dedicated my life to promoting are articulated best in America’s founding documents, in the writings of Thomas Jefferson, and in the Enlightenment works that, in turn, inspired them. The regime’s opposition to these concepts-summed up in a word, liberty -also unlocks the reasons for the persecution of Copts. The large and educated minority of Copts in Egypt is the biggest obstacle for Islamists to turn Egypt into another Iran or another Saudi Arabia. Through propaganda and acts of state violence the governing body of Egypt, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), has attempted to manufacture[1] a violent conflict between Coptic Christians and Muslims. With the full power of the state, media and the military at their disposal, however, any such “civil war” will be one-sided tragedy; it will be a massacre of Christians at the hands of the state, its vast paid militia and Salafis sympathetic to the cause. At present, SCAF has imprisoned 12,000 civilians in military court for political crimes. Meanwhile, the regime has freed of hundreds of convicted terrorists from prison, like Col. Aboud al-Zomor,[2] the mastermind behind the Sadat assassination, and Badr Makhlouf,[3] the Emir of al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya of Qena that was convicted with murdering tourists in a 1993 terrorist attack. This double standard sends a message that advocating for freedom and equality for Copts and other minorities in Egypt will have severe consequences. MASPERO & THE WAR ON THE COPTS In contrast to the terrorists released, among those imprisoned were liberal dissidents like Maikel Nabil Sanad, a Coptic blogger and political activist, and Alaa Abdel-Fattah, a secular Muslim pro-freedom blogger who was previously imprisoned by Mubarak’s regime in 2006. He has been our ally for years, and has written hundreds of posts on his blog to support freedom of speech and religion for Copts and Bahai’s. As a secular Muslim, Abdel-Fattah was a more serious target of the regime. Under the dictates of shariah , he is considered a traitor and apostate from Islam, and the appropriate punishment is death. Abdel-Fattah was at the protests in Maspero on behalf of equality for Copts. Outrageously, he might be facing murder and terrorism charges-as the regime is trying to frame the massacre of dozens of Copts in Maspero on him. Michael Mosad was, like myself, a liberal Coptic political and human rights activist. I knew him well. He was one of the people killed by the Egyptian military at Maspero on 9 October 2011. He was at the protest with his fiancé, Vivian, and the newly engaged couple was terrified. Suddenly, she said she did not feel Michael’s hand in hers. She then saw him caught in the wheels of a military vehicle that drove onto the pavement and ran him over. His skull was fractured and his legs were nearly severed from his body. As she sat next to him crying and calling for help, soldiers gathered around Michael, brutally beating and kicking his motionless body. Vivian threw her body over his to protect him. She begged them to stop, but military officers beat and cursed her; they called her an infidel, “Christian sons of dogs,” and worse. Nawar Negm, a Muslim political activist who was in the protest to support Copts said the peaceful protestors were being randomly shot at, and that organized mobs in civilian clothes started attacking Christians.[4] The mobs were backed by soldiers whom she saw checking the hands of protestors for crosses before brutally beating them, as many Egyptian Christians tattoo crosses on their hands. Another Muslim photographer, Ali Khalid, who was at the site and was shot in the face said, “I have seen death with my own eyes, at the hands of the people who claim to be the protectors of the country.”[5] Bothayna Kamel, another courageous Muslim woman, and a prominent TV presenter and journalist in Egypt who was among the protestors, witnessed the horror herself. She said: As the attack on the protest started I went to hide with a priest and Muslim and Christian protestors inside a nearby building where Al-Hurra TV station’s office is located. We hid inside the office, and I could hear the police and army soldiers attacking the building as they were screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’ and dragging protestors inside the building. Don’t tell me these were Islamic organizations or Salafis; the military and police have the same bigoted minds. After they left the building and we felt it was safe to leave the office, we saw the blood of protesters who were beaten by soldiers screaming ‘Allahu Akbar,’ covering the floors and stairs of the building. To get out of the building safe, you had to tell the police and the army, ‘I’m a Muslim who believes in one God’-otherwise they attack you.[6] This was happening as the military police attacked the Jan25 television station and terrified the broadcaster, who screamed hysterically on air as they confiscated the video footage that was shot of the protests[7]. Minutes later, an extremely gruesome video[8] of murdered Copts in the entrance of Jan25 station emerged on YouTube. Some of the protestors were dead; others were dying. Even after the killings, the SCAF and its media machine was intent on flaring tensions. That evening, the regime’s state-run television incited Muslims to converge on Maspero and ‘defend’ the Egyptian army against the gathering of unarmed Christians: “The Egyptian army is under attack from Coptic protestors, and we urge the honorable citizens to go to Maspero and aid the army.” [9] In order to justify their war crime against the Copts, Egyptian officials later claimed [10]to CNN that Copts killed 12 army troops. This propaganda was also repeated by official state TV as the army was massacring Christians in the street. Not only didn’t he army not convict the criminals responsible for the murder and torture of Copts at Maspero, the Egyptian army held a press conference claiming their soldiers were not armed, and that the armored vehicle used to crush Copts beneath its treads was stolen by a protestor. In other words, the regime’s spin amounted to a theory in which Coptic protestors stole an armored vehicle, ran themselves over, and shot themselves. I’m sure the regime would also give credence to the farcical possibly floated by the Al-Fagr newspaper, blaming the massacre on Israelis.[11] The Coptic Christians at Maspero were killed with live ammunition, and with weapons the military probably acquired through its average of $2 billion in annual military aid from the United States.[12]  A massive shipment of 21 tons of tear gas was just sent to Egypt from the US before the elections.[13]  These weapons are not used by the military against militant Islamists who are trying to subvert and destroy our country, institute shariah law, and inflame the broader Middle East; these weapons are used against the allies of the United States of America, the Copts and the secular moderate Muslims. Like the regime’s hostility toward classical liberalism, the persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt is deeply embedded in the ideological foundation of the current military oligarchy, which shares history, doctrine and personalities with the Muslim Brotherhood. While the Muslim Brotherhood does not formally or organizationally rule Egypt, its ideas have ideologically controlled the country for nearly sixty years since the overthrow of the monarchy by the July 1952 coup d’état (euphemized as the “July Revolution”). The fear of Islamists seizing power in Egypt and the situation worsening for Copts and the whole region, assumes that the Muslim Brotherhood does not already wield power yet may be able to hijack the current political unrest. In fact, this situation already exists; both the Mubarak regime and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) have subtly colluded with Islamists against Copts for decades. The real question, then, is not whether the Muslim Brotherhood and other militant Islamic groups will seize power but whether it will continue to hold it, either directly or by proxy. In 2005, Mubarak allowed eighty-eight Muslim Brotherhood members into parliament as a useful tool for scaring the Western governments into thinking that democracy in Egypt would inevitably bring the Islamists to power. THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD & THE EGYPTIAN REGIME[14] Not only does the Egyptian constitution since 1971 make the shariah “the principal source of legislation,”[15] but the Free Officers (as the perpetrators of the 1952 putsch called themselves) were closely associated with both the Muslim Brotherhood’s military wing or “secret apparatus” ( Nizam al-Khass ) and the Young Egypt Society ( Misr al-Fatat ), a nationalist-fascist militia established in 1929 by religiously-educated lawyer Ahmad Hussein. Both Egyptian presidents hailing from the Free Officers-Gamal Abdel Nasser (1956-1970) and Anwar Sadat (1970-1981)-received their early political schooling in the Young Egypt Society. The Young Egypt Society transformed into the National Islamic Party in 1940. The Muslim Brotherhood spread its xenophobic and militant ideas through its magazine, al-Sarkh’a (Scream), which combined vicious attacks on Western democracy with praise for Fascism and Nazism and advocacy of the implementation of shariah rule. In a famous letter, Hussein invited Hitler “to convert to Islam.” This outlook was shared by the Muslim Brotherhood’s publication, al-Nazir , which referred to the Nazi tyrant as “Hajj Hitler.” The Brotherhood’s founder, Hassan al-Banna, was also an unabashed admirer of Hitler and Mussolini. As late as 1953, Anwar Sadat, whose pro-Nazi sympathies landed him in prison during World War II, wrote an “open letter”[16] to Hitler in a leading Egyptian newspaper. He applauded the genocidal tyrant, pronouncing that the leaders of the Axis Powers, “guided their peoples to unity, order, regeneration, power, and glory.” The Young Egypt Society’s attempted assassination in 1937 of Egypt’s democratically-elected liberal prime minister, Mustafa Nahhas, got the organization banned. In the 1940s, the officers took their radicalism a step further by collaborating with the Muslim Brotherhood’s military wing. Some even joined the Brotherhood themselves; Nasser himself reportedly joined in 1944. In his memoirs, Khaled Mohieddin , a fellow Free Officer claimed that Banna had personally asked Nasser to join the Brotherhood, recounting how he and Nasser swore allegiance on a gun and a Qur’an.[17] This background has continuing relevance because it forms the DNA of the regime that has ruled Egypt from 1952 to the present day; this military oligarchy has pursued means and goals that originated in the Muslim Brotherhood and the Young Egypt Society. Moreover, the Young Egypt Society’s Islamic-socialist and fascistic ideas are very much alive and well today. In 1990, the party was reestablished and granted a license to work as a legal entity by Mubarak’s regime that has long been considered an ally of the west. This organization’s approval by the state could not be in starker contrast to the rejection of my own Liberal Egyptian Party and its pro-freedom platform. Following Hassan al-Banna’s murder on February 12, 1949, by government agents in retaliation for the assassination of Prime Minister Nuqrashi Pasha a few weeks earlier, the military and civilian wings of the Muslim Brotherhood split. Nasser proceeded to form the Free Officers movement, which mounted the 1952 coup. In the coming decades, the military regime and the Brotherhood would maintain a strenuous relationship interrupted by occasional outbursts of violence and terrorism-notably a 1954 attempt by the Brotherhood on Nasser’s life-and repressive countermeasures by the regime including mass arrests and sporadic executions. But this should be understood not as a struggle between an autocratic, secular dictatorship and a would-be Islamist one but a struggle between two ideologically similar, if not identical, rival groups, hailing from the same source. Indeed, the symbiotic relationship between the jihadist ideologues and the current regime continues, as it has from 1952. For example, the SCAF has revealed alarming extremism last summer when they publically consulted with Salafi jihadist Mohammed Hassan on how to deal with Copts instead of prosecuting their attackers. Hassan is known in Egypt for inciting Mujahedeen in Gaza to kill Israelis before killing themselves in suicide attacks.[18] A WELL-EXECUTED DRAMA: USING THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD AGAINST THE WEST Given the shared history and entwined ideological affinities of the Muslim Brotherhood and the military regime that has ruled Egypt since 1952, it is hardly surprising that both Mubarak’s regime and the SCAF would persecute the Coptic community with religiously motivated enthusiasm. The world often wonders why secularists, liberals and Copts are unorganized in Egypt; this situation exists because we-not the Brotherhood-were under daily threats and state security surveillance, and our parties banned from politics. Meanwhile, the regime cynically empowers the Brotherhood and other Salafi jihadist groups against which it can play out a drama meant to both oppress moderate and liberal opposition internally, and to frighten western governments from the prospect of a peaceful transition of power to a civilian government. This well-executed drama is not new, and its contours should be familiar to all Americans in two different contexts: the United States’ relationships with Pakistan and the Palestinian Authority. In both these cases, “moderate” leaders pose as allies, using the threat of a more radical replacement to coerce the US for support and funding. In both countries too, there exists a seamless spectrum of potential coercion-from “radical” to “moderate” to “ally”-that is based on political expediency rather than on ideology. And the constant refrain is the demand for more American money and support. Broadly speaking, the template with which these nations play the US is based on the decades-long the myth of the secular Turkish military’s ability to maintain constitutional, secular and pro-west governance in that country amid threats from Islamist groups. The failure of the Turkish military to stem the tide of the slowly encroaching Islamism of the AKP owes to the fact that, over time, the sympathies of the military will invariably shift; there is no guarantee subsequent generations will feel the same commitment to secular rule that their predecessors had. In Egypt, the situation is even worse. As we have seen, the military regime since 1952 is ideologically committed to oppose secularism and is bound by shariah , specifically as it relates to the treatment of minorities or dhimmis . There is overwhelming evidence that Egypt’s military is, at present, enacting this play at American expense. Last week, former Ambassador Marc Ginsburg reported that the SCAF has been directly funding the Muslim Brotherhood’s efforts in the current parliamentary elections. As the regime receives billions in military aid and assistance from the United States, this collusion between so-called “allies” and the Muslim Brotherhood is a deeply cynical act, and one that betrays the true intentions of the regime. The thought that the empowerment of the Muslim Brotherhood is occurring, albeit indirectly, through the largess of the American taxpayer is shocking, and should cause a re-evaluation of these transfer payments. As Ambassador Ginsburg also points out, The military leadership has not only channeled financial support to the Islamists, it has also secretly collaborated with Salafists who have attacked Copts throughout Egypt in a show of support for more punitive discriminatory acts against Egypt’s Coptic minority to curry further favor with Salafists.”[19] CONCLUSION In conclusion, three things must happen in order for the Coptic Christians to stand a chance of seeing their present human rights situation in Egypt improve significantly: First, the United States should cease all American aid to Egypt until there is demonstrable, verifiable evidence that the Egyptian government is allowing non-Muslim religious minorities in Egypt to exercise the freedom of speech and religion without fear of intimidation or reprisal. Second, the Obama administration should explain and possibly reevaluate its vetting process for foreign national employees of or advisors to American embassies, particularly in Egypt, where Egyptian nationals loyal to the military regime have used their embassy positions to deny Coptic religious asylum requests to the United States. Third and finally, the United States must avoid legitimizing the joint effort by the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt’s ruling military regime to use “blasphemy” laws against non-Muslim minorities in Egypt, and therefore should decline to meet with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to discuss any agenda to apply “blasphemy” laws globally under the guise of confronting “Islamophobia.” [1] http://www.danielpipes.org/9388/copts-pay-the-price [2] http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/7445/Egypt/Politics-Aboud-and-Tarek-ElZomor-amongst-released-prisoners.aspx [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_Egypt [4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo51tpAWg [5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWuC3N9Vpvg [6] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbo-IhyxODE [7] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvPWB-ThuhI [8] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41PzqZ49kbE [9] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7m08JJdxao [10] http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/09/world/meast/egypt-protest-clashes/index.html?hpt=hp_t2 [11] http://www.elfagr.org/Detail.aspx?nwsId=68173&secid=1&vid=2 [12] http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/29/us-egypt-usa-aid-idUSTRE70S0IN20110129 [13] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/egypt-dock-workers-protest-us-tear-gas-shipments-to-egypt/2011/11/30/gIQACr4gCO_blog.html [14] A more in-depth treatment of the relationship between the Egyptian military regime and the Muslim Brotherhood can be found in “The Arab Upheaval: Egypt’s Islamist Shadow,” Middle East Quarterly , Summer 2011. http://www.meforum.org/2887/arab-upheaval-egypt-islamist [15] http://www.egypt.gov.eg/english/laws/constitution/chp_one/part_one.aspx [16] Open letter from Anwar Sadat to Adolf Hitler, al-Musawwar (Cairo), Sept. 18, 1953. [17] Khaled Mohieddin, Memories of a Revolution (Cairo: American University of Cairo Press, 1995), p. 45. [18] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1odMl2_wBBs [19] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amb-marc-ginsberg/unholy-alliance-egypts-mi_b_1109534.html

Read more:
Cynthia Farahat Testifies to Congress on Jihad and the War on Egypt’s Coptic Christians