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Texas and Florida have designated the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, and the Trump administration is considering doing the same for a few Muslim Brotherhood chapters in other countries, which is a start, but doesn’t really get to the heart of the crisis inside the United States. The Muslim Brotherhood and its various front and allied organizations have been advancing in the United States for years with very little pushback.
Anyone who wonders how the situation has gotten as dire as it is today without anyone trying to call a halt to the Brotherhood’s advance should be aware that attempts were made in the past to stop the Brotherhood, but its “Islamophobia” strategy proved to be overwhelmingly effective among both patriots and leftists.
As far back in July 2012, a Republican congresswoman of the day, Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, along with and four other U.S. representatives, sent letters to five U.S. defense, diplomatic, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies, calling for investigation of a “deep penetration in the halls of our United States government” by Muslim Brotherhood operatives.
Instead of bringing attention to the Brotherhood’s activities of subversion and infiltration, however, the whole thing immediately became a case of “Islamophobia.” The focus became Bachmann herself, rather than the possible Muslim Brotherhood infiltration. Christina Warner, director of an interfaith organization known as Shoulder-to-Shoulder, said that “asking for investigations of American Muslims are cause for concern and give an undeserved and harmful platform to fringe accusations.”
Rabbi David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism declared that the accusations “reflect a general pattern of Islamophobia that touches too many areas of our society. Allegations such as these by members of Congress add legitimacy to this distressing trend.”
When asked about the allegations, Counterterror chief John Brennan, according to the online magazine Salon, “chuckled lightly, rolled his eyes, and replied, ‘I would refer you to the five members of Congress who made that remark. I have no idea of what it is that they are making reference to, and I’m not even going to try to divine what it is that sometimes comes out of Congress.’”
Others were more angry than amused, or at very least not interested in pretending to be amused. Salon excoriated Bachmann for what it called her “Muslim witch hunt,” and the national executive director of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Nihad Awad, wrote to the congresswoman: “We remain eternally grateful that, like Sen. Joseph McCarthy before you, your power is limited, enumerated and constrained by our nation’s constitution. Your letters challenging the loyalty of patriotic American Muslims based on discredited anti-Muslim conspiracy theories can only be described as devoid of a sense of decency.”
Awad went on to defend those Bachmann had named as possible Muslim Brotherhood operatives: “Among those you accuse, Mrs. Huma Abedin helps the Secretary of State represent the best interests of our nation overseas. The Society of Former Special Agents last year honored Mohamed Elibiary for his ‘extraordinary contributions to specific cases in support of the FBI’s counterterrorism mission.’ Dalia Mogahed was appointed to the president’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and has advised the Department of Homeland Security. Imam Mohamed Magid enjoys widespread interfaith respect and has also advised the Department of Homeland Security. The honorable public service of these individuals deserves better treatment than political theatrics characterized by half-truths, overblown accusations and guilt by association.”
All of that was beside the point. None of it established that the people Awad named were not tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. The questions swirling around Elibiary, a Department of Homeland Security official, were a case in point. Bachmann’s letter to the DHS’s inspector general stated that Elibiary has “extensive ties to the Muslim Brotherhood” and “sympathy for Islamist causes,” and accused him of “gain[ing] access to classified documents.”
Nevertheless, those who sounded the warning about “Islamophobia” carried the day. Bachmann’s call for an investigation of the Muslim Brotherhood came to nothing, and meanwhile, Brotherhood operatives continued to advance in government and the private sector. Fourteen years later, the same scenario is playing out yet again: patriots are calling attention to the subversive aspects of the Brotherhood, and are being smeared as “Islamophobes” for their pains. And the Brotherhood continues to advance.
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
