Egypt’s “moderate” and “largely secular” Muslim Brotherhood sides with Bin Laden
[Posted by Karl]
Another bonus to the killing of Osama bin Laden is that it helps tell Americans who their friends are. That group does not include Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, which may dominate the nation’s next parliament:
Most of yesterday’s headlines proclaiming the death of Osama bin Laden used epithets like “terror mastermind” or “bastard” to refer to the internationally feared mass murderer. (That latter headline is from the New York Post.) But in its first public statement on the killing of bin Laden, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood used the honorific term “sheikh” to refer to the al-Qaeda leader. It also accused Western governments of linking Islam and terrorism, and defended “resistance” against the U.S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan as “legitimate.”
The Muslim Brotherhood’s response to bin Laden’s death may finally end the mythology — espoused frequently in the U.S. — that the organization is moderate or, at the very least, could moderate once in power.
The Atlantic has highlights from the statement:
“The whole world, and especially the Muslims, have lived with a fierce media campaign to brand Islam as terrorism and describe the Muslims as violent by blaming the September 11th incident on al-Qaeda.” It then notes that “Sheikh Osama bin Laden” was assassinated alongside “a woman and one of his sons and with a number of his companions,” going on to issue a rejection of violence and assassinations. It goes on to ominously declare that the Muslim Brotherhood supports “legitimate resistance against foreign occupation for any country, which is the legitimate right guaranteed by divine laws and international agreements,” and demands that the U.S., the European Union, and NATO quickly “end the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, and recognize the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.” It closes by demanding that the U.S. “stop its intelligence operations against those who differ with it, and cease its interference in the internal affairs of any Arab or Muslim country.”
Read the whole thing to catch the obligatory references to “The Jews and the Zionist lobby” being responsible for 9/11. These sorts of statements don’t jibe with Obama Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s description of the group as “largely secular,” do they? Clapper walked back that gaffe, but not his claim that the Brotherhood has no violent agenda internationally.
These oh-so-moderate supporters of bin Laden have launched a political party that will contest half of the seats in Egypt’s parliamentary elections in September, and is widely expected to win at least a third of the vote. Combined with the more overtly radical Salafist parties and a few fringe Islamist groups, the Brotherhood could well lead Egypt’s next parliament. The violent Salafists may or may not be doing the “dirty work” of the Brotherhood, but the results will be the same either way.
Bin Laden’s death ends a chapter in our post-9/11 history and Pres. Obama deserves his share of the credit for helping write it, primarily in choosing a method that would confirm that death. But with Egypt, Obama has tended to play a bad hand badly. Iran, Libya and Syria remain very much open chapters. Afghanistan grinds on and with Pakistan, Obama is stuck with the choice between a regime that to all appearances harbored bin Laden and possibly destabilizing it in favor of even more radical elements who would like to get their hands on the nation’s nukes. The conventional wisdom at the moment seems to be that killing bin Laden takes national security off the table as an issue in 2012. But the conventional wisdom last month would not have bet that bin Laden would be dead today.
–Karl
When Osama bin Laden died, he was met at Pearly Gates by George Washington, who slap him across face and yell, “How dare you try destroy the nation I help conceive!”
Patrick Henry approach, punch him in the nose and shout, “You want to end our liberties but you fail.”
James Madison follow, kick him in groin and say, “This why I allow our government to provide for the common defense!”
Thomas Jefferson was next, he beat Osama with long cane and snarl, “It was evil men like you who inspire me to write Declaration of Independence.”
The beatings and thrashings continue as George Mason, James Monroe and 66 other early Americans unleash anger on the terrorist leader. As Osama lay bleeding and in pain, an Angel appear. Bin Laden weep and say, “This not what an angel promise me.”
The Angel reply, “I tell you there would be 72 Virginians waiting for you in Heaven. What you think I say?”
ColonelHaiku (cdd0f9) — 5/3/2011 @ 7:16 pmGolly, remember when the American press were all telling us that the Muslim Brotherhood played no part in the Egyptian riots and were just a small minority of Egyptians and would not play a part in the creation of a new Egyptian government?
Gee, do you think the American press would lie to us?
Obama’s foreign policy, starting with Honduras, is to bet on the wrong horse. Mubarak must go, Mubarak can stay, no, he has to go; Assad is a reformer bringing democracy to his nation, Assad is a good guy, no, Assad has to go, wait, no he can stay, he was so nice to Nancy Pelosi when she was in Syria; Qdaffy can stay, he must go, we are not trying to kill him, but we kill his kids and grandkids, we are not going to bomb his headquarters, ooops, yes we are.
What the hell is the Obama foreign policy anyway? Does he wake up every morning with a different one? We are backing the Libyan rebels but we don’t know who they are except a few who we do know are former Gitmo detainees or AQ.
Two more years and the whole Middle East should be lost to radicals that we will have to worry about, not to mention creating immense problems for Israel.
Thank you, Obama. You have lived up to my expectations of you and that was that you would be the most imcompetent, inept president in our modern day.
retire05 (2d538e) — 5/3/2011 @ 7:28 pm__________________________________________
An observation I made of a person in my workplace, who is of the left: He was rather enthusiastic the day after news broke that Hosni Mubarak had been pushed out of the presidency of Egypt. The liberal in question cited that bit of news to me in a way reminiscent of someone saying, “hey, about them Lakers!”
On Monday, following news of the death of Bin Laden, this same “progressive” was rather muted and made no effort to talk about the event.
Yes, I realize a certain percentage of liberals have responded in the opposite way, and some conservatives may have reacted in a way not too different from the aforementioned “leftie.” But I bet way more people with the screwed-up mentality of a Jeremiah Wright (ie, an uber-liberal) definitely mirror the ass-backwards sentiments described above.
Mark (411533) — 5/3/2011 @ 7:48 pmWell thank God these people aren’t going to be running a country important to our interests in that region…
Wait…
Well f**k…
Scott Jacobs (d027b8) — 5/3/2011 @ 7:50 pmStop picking on Obama. He’s going to make war a lot more fashionable with the lefties.
Arizona Bob (aa856e) — 5/3/2011 @ 7:55 pmArizona Bob, the only place Obama wants to go to war is in Arizona, only he’ll let Eric Holder do his dirty work. Oh, and Texas. 2,000,000 acres burned, over 900 homes lost, 2 dead firemen, and still no “disaster” declaration from Obama. Not to mention shutting down our oil drilling because of a lizard.
retire05 (2d538e) — 5/3/2011 @ 8:11 pm