Following the uprising in Egypt, David Axelrod initiated a rewrite of history to try to thwart the truth.
TAPPER: Hosni Mubarak is not a good guy and that government tortures, is repressive, doesn’t believe in the same freedoms we do and they’re also one of our closest allies in the Middle East.
AXELROD: Obviously these are the challenges of the presidency in a very difficult world. And, but the way he’s confronted it, is he went to Cairo and talked about the need, the universal human rights of people. He’s — on several occasions directly confronted Pres. Mubarak on it. And pushed him on the need for political reform —
TAPPER: To get ahead of this.
AXELROD: — in his country. Exactly to get ahead of this. This is a project he’s been working on for 2 years and today the president is working hard to encourage restraint and a cessation of violence against the people of Egypt.
If one searches for “Obama confronts Mubarak” for the last two years, one finds little to nothing. As of January 19 of this year, Obama was thanking Mubarak.
President Barack Obama spoke with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Tuesday about the U.S. desire for calm in Tunisia and thanked him for Egypt’s support for a U.N.-backed tribunal set up to try the assassins of Lebanese statesman Rafik al-Hariri.
It was suggested a couple of years ago that Obama confront the democracy issue but that was left to die on the vine.
Now a series of events has begun to crystallize into an understandable and recognizable pattern.
A year ago the US lifted the ban on Tariq Ramadan, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and late of the United Nations, blasted both Hosni Mubarak and the United States.
El Baradei himself is associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Egypt’s new opposition leader, former International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei, has formed a loose alliance with the Brotherhood because he knows it is the only opposition group that can mobilize masses of Egyptians, especially the poor. He says he can work with it to change Egypt. Many scholars of political Islam also judge the Brotherhood is the most reasonable face of Islamic politics in the Arab world today.
The Muslim Brotherhood announces it will support El Baradei.
The Muslim Brotherhood made it clear that they want nothing to do with anyone who favors the US.
The leader of Jordan’s powerful Muslim Brotherhood warned Saturday that unrest in Egypt will spread across the Mideast and Arabs will topple leaders allied with the United States.
Hammam Saeed’s comments were made at a protest outside the Egyptian Embassy in Amman, inspired by massive rallies in neighboring Egypt demanding the downfall of the country’s longtime president, Hosni Mubarak.
About 100 members of the fundamentalist group and activists from other leftist organizations and trade unions chanted “Mubarak, step down” and “the decision is made, the people’s revolt will remain.”
Elsewhere, a separate group of 300 protesters gathered in front of the office of Jordanian Prime Minister Samir Rifai, demanding his ouster. “Rifai, it’s time for you to go,” chanted the group.
The Muslim Brotherhood is the parent of Hamas. The Muslim Brotherhood allegedly denounced violence but believes firmly in “Civilization Jihad.”
Under shariah, civilization jihad – a “pre-violent” form of jihad – is considered an integral, even dominant element of jihad that is at least as obligatory for shariah’s adherents as the violent kind.
Such tactics are ostensibly “non-violent” (and therefore “moderate”) not because the Muslim Brotherhood eschews violence out of principle, but because it has decided that this phase of battlefield preparation is better accomplished through stealthy means. Hence civilization jihad can be considered “stealth jihad.”
Civilization jihad is a form of political and psychological warfare that includes multi-layered cultural subversion, the co-opting of senior leaders, influence operations, propaganda and other means of insinuating shariah gradually into Western societies.
The plan is to grow a population within the United States and eventually force it into Sharia.
The Explanatory Memorandum (click here for the original document in Arabic) explains that the Muslim Brotherhood-organized “Islamic Movement” in the US is a “settlement process” to establish itself in the United States and, once entrenched, to undertake a “grand jihad” characterized as a “civilization jihadist” mission under Muslim Brotherhood direction.
Specifically the document describes the “settlement process” as a “grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated.”
The Muslim Brotherhood is relying on non-Muslims in America to aid it, usually inadvertently, to destroy America from within.
Over at Gateway Pundit Ari observes that Egypt is the new Iran.
How is Obama handling such a crisis in order to not let it go to waste? The exact same way that Jimmy Carter let the congruent 1979 situation in Iran go to waste.
First he criticized the weakened leader of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak. Next Obama threatened to emasculate Mubarak’s standing with the Egyptian military by reducing US financial aid if Mubarak didn’t allow the protests and revolution in the streets to continue.
Obama followed up by tacitly signaling that he supports the violent Islamic protests which are backed by the Shariah-compliant extremists of the Moslem Brotherhood, which is the only real opposition party in Egypt to the thirty-year dictator Mubarak. After that, like Carter, Obama showed constant indecision and weakness, which is having the result of undermining our allies and empowering the forces of insanity and evil on the ground in Egypt and other destabilized countries in the region like Tunisia, Lebanon and Jordan.
Just like Carter, Obama got us to this point by undermining our only ally in the area, Israel, and empowering all of her regional enemies for the first two years of his presidency. That undermining has led us directly to these out of control events.
Bush overthrew the Saddam regime (and let’s remember again that regime change in Iraq was the official policy of the United States and became so in 1998 under Bill Clinton and under the direct supervision of Tom Daschle) and replaced it with an Islamic democracy.
It has been reported that Obama has been backing efforts to overthrow Mubarak.
If and when Mubarak goes, it appears likely that ElBaradei will assume a leadership role, but the real question is, for how long? Bruce Reidel at the The Beast tells us that we can put on our rose colored glasses but there writes not one word about Civilization Jihad.
What I find curious is that Barack Obama abandoned democracy in Iran but in Egypt he is backing Civilization Jihad.
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
More on the Muslim Brotherhood:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/258419/fear-muslim-brotherhood-andrew-c-mccarthy?page=1
You know, it’s funny how the media never mentions that El Baradei was the head of the IAEA – the U.N. organization that appeased and enabled Iran’s nuclear weapons program all those years.
The only viable solution is to send our most experience leaders to Egypt to help them get out of this mess. Obama, Pelosi and Read could solve their problems in a second. Just look how quickly they cleaned up the Bush mess here.
As the Egyptian military goes, so will go Egypt.
The Egyptian military is almost totally funded and armed by the USA.
The Egyptian army surrounds all of the Egyptian population centers.
The Egyptian army has made no move against the people of Egypt.
The Egyptian army has been responsible for keeping weapons out of Gaza, arresting money-mules headed into Gaza, poisoning tunnels to Gaza, keeping that 8-mile border and the desert on the one side and the water on the other side free from inroads by Hamas.
Whoever ”rules” Egypt is moderated by this Egyptian army.
Without American support the Egyptian army starves.
It will not allow that.
Egypt is a very poor country.
Without American support (which only comes with Egypt’s respecting of their treaty with Israel) the Egyptian army falls.
I noticed that the Saudis (and any other moneybags in the ME) are showing no interest in supporting Egypt as a replacement for US cash ($1.3 billion/year).
The Iranians are all talk, but are broke.
That won’t cut it….with the Egyptian military.
Up until Obama, the USA always kept Lebanon from going over to the dark side (Hezb’allah).
Obama has allowed this.
The rest of the ME took note.
Some in Egypt might want a more Islamist government than the Egyptian army does.
They would need deep pockets to really ”win.”
Just my $.02
It is my understanding Iran is ecstatic about the coming regime change in Egypt. If so, what does this do to the region? It in fact puts another knife at Israel’s throat along with another one aimed squarely at the U.S. which we know for sure will threaten oil supplies and therefore raise oil prices thus causing more economic problems. And for one to be “surprised that the Anti-Israel rhetoric has started to emanate from the Egyptian protesters only shows how far up their rears they have their heads stuck! Combine that with El Baradei, another poster boy from Iran and one has to expect the worst case scenerio.
Off topic. Apropos of nothing.
It suddenly occurs to me that Michelle Obama is going to run for office at some point in the future, after the Obama presidency is over. Probably Senator from Illinois. The weird thing is, she really isn’t any more classless, stupid, and ignorant than senators we already have. All she’ll have to do is be a reliable agent for special interests, and show up for votes on legislation she hasn’t read.
I don’t find Reidel’s opinion all that “rose-tinted” at all. The Muslim Brotherhood’s history is not all pure black and white; and it’s true that they have been at odds with bin Laden and Zawahiri and violent transnational jihadism. Other than the fact that we don’t like Islam, what is so boogeyman-scary about “civilization Jihad” anymore than the LA Church of Christ trying to convert us all, or scientologists, or any other religious group so long as they push their ideas through non-violent means?
And in the war of ideas….how realistic do you think the chances of this happening really are?
Like Islamist parties in Turkey and Morocco that made the transition from banned groups to legitimate political entities with a stake in the government, the Muslim Brotherhood has tried to work with the Egyptian government and participate in the political process rather than the earlier tact of working against it from without. Rather than try and turn Egypt into a theocracy as fearful Arab rulers warned, members did try the civilized route of participating in government, working with liberal intellectuals and secularists within parliament. Was it because of fear of religious extremism or because he saw a legitimate political force growing in the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence in Egyptian politics that Mubarak turned the police force against them? And what does this say about the democratic process?
I’ve often sided with those who see American foreign policy as a choice between the lesser of two evils, where we side with a brutal dictator to avoid something worse (and I am a strong believer in American exceptionalism); however, nothing is black and white and we now find ourselves in a quandary where the Egyptian people have legitimate grievances against us for supporting their oppressor. And we look like hypocrites when it comes to preaching about the virtues of democracy and human rights…
We choose Mubarak because we fear the alternative of a Sunni version of Iran rising to power; however, when his people are living in poverty and oppression, is it any wonder when the people turn to the Muslim Brotherhood for relief (how much influence do they actually hold today and in the current movement?)? Egyptian Islamic Jihad? Find solace and inspiration in the writings of Sayyid Qutb as an answer?
If the Mubarik governement falls the US needs to do one of two things, recover all of the arms we have given to the egyptians over the years or destroy those arms so they can’ t be used against us or Israel. With JCII in the White House nothing like that will ever happen, he will sit there and wait to see what happens and just like the original Carter if he actually has to do something it will fail. On purpose most likely just to seem like he is actually doing something.
Learn a new word, folks:
Bak’-sheesh
Arabic for “BRIBE US or forget about it.”
200 Canadians are in the first group to have escaped the chaos in Egypt in a plane chartered by the Canadian government. But before they could board in Cairo, they were asked to pay the airport a baksheesh.
In US dollars it came to $2,000.
It went down like this:
http://ottawa.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110131/ottawa-evacuate-cairo-110131/20110131/?hub=OttawaHome
Wordsmith writes: “And in the war of ideas….how realistic do you think the chances of this [Sharia being forced upon Americans] happening really are? ”
Well let’s see…Americans have been forced to pay for Muslim footbaths in schools (U of Mich) and airports (Indianapolis), and Muslims are trying to force employers to give Muslim employees time off to pray at sunset (Dell).
…and we don’t even want to discuss England, where Sharia law is supplanting English Common Law.
Obama contributes $75,000.00 to CAIR (tax return), CAIR supports the Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim Brotherhood supports Hamas. Do the math. Obama might just be a tad anti Israel. Israel will not tolerate Muslim Brotherhood running Egypt. Should that happen expect WWIII in the ME. Should hope Egyptian Army ends up ruling the day. Oh and Obama might just be a tad bit muslim to compliment his Marxism.
Minuteman, I disagree…..only with this part:
Israel is pretty realistic about tolerating who-runs-what all around them.
It is when acts of terrorism or war begin against them that Israel acts.
When Hamas’ head Sheikh Ahmed Yassin began ordering terrorist attacks inside Israel the Israeli’s responded by literally blowing him out of his wheelchair.
The missile left a hole right through him and the bottom of his chair!
Hamas didn’t take over Gaza legally until 2 year later.
And whenever Hamas was content with a hudna (temporary cease-fire in order to re-arm) Israel left them alone.
But when Hamas began making rockets into Israel an everyday thing Israel finally reacted.
So, Egypt, too, could be led by any faction…..or coalition of factions.
But until Egypt acts against Israel, the Israelis will tolerate their neighbors.
One other thing: Israel does not tolerate WMD’s on its borders very well.
It pre-emptively destroyed at least two nuclear places nearby illegally.
@Wordsmith: Reidel said there’s nothing to worry about. Islamists plan in generations, not years. I think we have to pay attention.
“And in the war of ideas….how realistic do you think the chances of this happening really are.”
See: Britain and Minnesota.
Was listening to talk radio tonight and Jason Lewis, Libertarian talk show host began his usual rant about America trying to “micro-manage” affairs in the Middle East. I agree with quite a bit of what Lewis says, but in his views of foreign affairs, he is woefully wrong. He actually said that ElBaradei is a “moderate” and that the Muslim Brotherhood had given up their theocratic aspirations in Egypt by backing ElBaradei.
A few things are wrong with his statement:
First, ElBaradei is not a moderate. He turned a blind eye when head of the IEAA concerning Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
Second, ElBaradei is the perfect foil for the Muslim Brotherhood to prop up as leader of Egypt. He would be easy to manipulate or if the need arose, to topple.
Lastly, the Muslim Brotherhood will NEVER give up their theocratic aspirations.
A few points about the Muslim Brotherhood:
* “The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928. Its express purpose was two-fold: (1) to implement shariah worldwide, and (2) to re-establish the global Islamic State (caliphate).
* “Therefore, Al Qaeda and the MB have the same objectives. They differ only in the timing and tactics involved in realizing them.
* “The Brotherhood’s creed is: ‘God is our objective; the Koran is our law; the Prophet is our leader; jihad is our way; and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations.’”
* It is evident from the Creed, and from the Brotherhood’s history (and current activities)…that violence is an inherent part of the MB’s tactics. The MB is the root of the majority of Islamic terrorist groups in the world today.
* The Muslim Brotherhood is the ‘vanguard’ or tip-of-the-spear of the current Islamic Movement in the world. While there are other transnational organizations that share the MB’s goals (if not its tactics) – including al Qaeda, which was born out of the Brotherhood – the Ikhwan is by far the strongest and most organized. The Muslim Brotherhood is now active in over 80 countries around the world. – Source
The danger of adopting the liberal, multi-cultural, PC mindset is that it allows the infiltration into our society those whose plans for America are anything but liberal, multi-cultural or PC.
The ‘Green revolution in Iran was not useful to Obama; it doesn’t border his enemy Israel-Eqypt does. Must be payback time to Bibi, since Obama couldn’t browbeat him into submission.
Smart power on display like 1979!
@Wordsmith: Word, you might want to read this:
Muslim Brotherhood: ‘Prepare Egyptians for war with Israel’
@John Cooper:
El Baradei and the UN also helped keep Saddam in power in Iraq….and helped him keep his foot on the Shia an Kurds for decades. Where was he then??? when they wanted their revolution??