Steven Gaal Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 Unmasking the Muslim Brotherhood: Syria, Egypt, and Beyond By Eric Draitser Global Research, December 12, 2012 StopImperialism.com The complexities of the Arab Spring and the struggle for political freedom throughout the Arab world should not obscure what has now become an absolutely essential understanding for all anti-imperialists: the Muslim Brotherhood is one of the most powerful weapons of the Western ruling class in the Muslim world. While that may be a difficult pill for some to swallow for emotional or psychological reasons, one need look no further than the insidious role the organization is playing in Syria and the abuses of power and human rights of the government of Egypt. In the US-NATO sponsored war against the Assad government, the Muslim Brotherhood has emerged as the leading western-sanctioned force, the avant-garde of the imperialist assault. While, in Egypt, President Morsi and the Brotherhood government seek to destroy what had been, little more than a year ago, the promise of the revolution. Muslim Brotherhood in Syria This week’s establishment of the Supreme Military Command, in charge of all military aid and coordination to the rebels, demonstrates unequivocally the leadership role of the Muslim Brotherhood in the drive for regime change in Syria. As Reuters reported, “The unified command includes many with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and to Salafists…it excludes the most senior officers who have defected from Assad’s military.”[1] This command structure, formed at the behest and under the sponsorship of the US, UK, France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey among others, does not simply include members of the Muslim Brotherhood, it is, in fact, dominated by them. Is it possible that the Western imperial powers simply did not notice that the group they were forming was comprised of these elements? To suggest so would be to accuse some of the leading “statesmen” of the world (Hillary Clinton, William Hague, Laurent Fabius, Ahmet Davutoglu, etc.) of being stupid. Alas, they are not so. Instead, these individuals have collaborated to create a Muslim Brotherhood proxy force in Syria, one that can be controlled and depended on to do the bidding of the West. However, it is not enough to say that the Muslim Brotherhood is heading this new military structure, for that would be to imply that they have not been playing a critical role all along. Rather, the organization has been central to the destabilization of Syria since the beginning of the armed conflict. The Syrian National Council, originally the face of the Western-backed “opposition” was itself dominated behind the scenes by the Muslim Brotherhood. As former Muslim Brotherhood leader Ali Sadreddine stated regarding the SNC, “We chose this face, accepted by the West…We nominated [former SNC head Burhan] Ghalioun as a front for national action. We are not moving now as the Brotherhood but as part of a front that includes all currents.”[2] Essentially then, we see that the organization has, from the very beginning, maintained a large degree of control of the foreign-based opposition, as distinctly different from the indigenous opposition of the National Coordinating Councils and other groups. The Muslim Brotherhood, an international political and paramilitary machine, has come to lead the battle against Assad government. In fact, the Muslim Brotherhood has provided many forms of leadership and assistance to the foreign-based, foreign-backed opposition beyond simply direct leadership. From providing diplomatic and political cover, to on-the-ground tactical support such as weapons smuggling, fighter recruitment, and other necessary responsibilities, the organization has come to permeate every aspect of what we in the West conveniently refer to as the “rebels”. As early as May 2012, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the center of the organization, was already providing the political and diplomatic support the rebels needed to topple the Assad regime. As they were poised to win the Egyptian elections, the Brotherhood was busy making public comments about the need for Western military intervention in Syria. The organization’s spokesman, Mahmoud Ghozlan stated, “The Muslim Brotherhood calls on Arab, Islamic, and international governments to intervene…to bring down the [Assad] regime.”[3] This brazen public statement flies in the face of all arguments which claim that the Muslim Brotherhood is somehow anti-imperialist, that they stand in opposition to Western dominance of the Arab world. On the contrary, though they may posture themselves as opposing the West, they are, in fact, tools of the imperial powers used to destroy independent nations which stand in opposition to US hegemony in the Middle East. This political and diplomatic backing is merely one aspect of the Brotherhood’s involvement in the destruction of Syria. As the New York Times reported in June of 2012, “CIA officers are operating secretly in Southern Turkey helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms…by way of a shadowy network of intermediaries including Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood.”[4] The use of the Muslim Brotherhood to smuggle arms to the rebels in Syria should come as no surprise considering the fact that it is the Sunni monarchies of the region (Saudi Arabia and Qatar primarily) who have been the most vociferous voices championing regime change in Syria by any means necessary. The relationship between these monarchies and the Muslim Brotherhood is self-evident: they share similar religious convictions and are avowed enemies of all forms of Shiism. Moreover, they have been part and parcel of the system of US hegemony that has kept the entire region under its vice grip for decades. Many have argued in the past that, though they share identical ideologies and “brand”, the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood is somehow independent of the Muslim Brotherhood proper. This preposterous claim is countered by the simple fact that every public position the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood has taken has been in direct alignment with the public statements from Cairo. As the Carnegie Middle East Center’s article The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria demonstrates, Since the beginning of the revolution, the Brotherhood has maintained that foreign intervention is the only possible solution to the crisis in Syria. In October 2011, it also called on Turkey to intervene and establish protected humanitarian zones in Turkish territory.”[5] When two entities bear the same name, have the same sponsors, and take the same positions, it is an exercise in willful ignorance to argue that they are somehow not the same entity or, as is more accurate, taking orders from the same masters. But who are these masters? The Powers Behind the Muslim Brotherhood In examining the utterly insidious role that the Muslim Brotherhood is playing in Syria, one must begin with an understanding of the historical relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood and Western imperialism. The organization was founded by Hassan al-Banna in 1928 with the intention of reestablishing a purer form of Islam as had existed centuries before. However, this was merely the religious veneer that was created to mask the political intentions of the organization. As explained in the Mother Jones article entitled What is the Muslim Brotherhood and Will It Take Over Egypt?, the author explains that, “The Muslim Brotherhood served as a battering ram against nationalists and communists, despite the Brothers’ Islam-based anti-imperialism, the group often ended up making common cause with the colonial British. It functioned as an intelligence agency, infiltrating left-wing and nationalist groups.”[6] This indisputable fact, that the Muslim Brotherhood functioned, even its early days, as a de facto arm of Western intelligence, is critical to understanding its development and current political power. However, there are those who argue that, despite this “coincidence” of objectives and agendas, the Muslim Brotherhood could never be tied directly to the intelligence community. However, as Robert Dreyfuss, author of the Mother Jones article clearly points out, there is ample evidence tying the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood directly to the CIA: By then [1954], the group’s chief international organizer and best-known official was Said Ramadan, the son-in-law of Hassan al-Banna. Ramadan had come to the attention of both the CIA and MI-6, the British intelligence service. In researching my book … I came across an unusual photograph that showed Ramadan with President Eisenhower in the Oval Office. By then, or soon after, Ramadan had likely been recruited as a CIA agent. Wall Street Journal reporter Ian Johnson has since documented the close ties between Ramadan and various Western intelligence services … Johnson writes: ‘By the end of the decade, the CIA was overtly backing Ramadan.’”[7] The fact that the central figure in the international organization was a known CIA agent corroborates the assertions made by countless analysts and investigators that the Brotherhood was used as a weapon against Nasser and, in fact, all Arab socialist leaders who at that time were part of a rising tide of Arab nationalism which sought, as its ultimate goal, independence from Western imperial domination. In order to fully grasp just how the Brotherhood developed into the organization we know today, one must understand the relationship between it and the royal family of Saudi Arabia. In fact, the Saudis have been the key financiers of the Brotherhood for decades for the same reasons that the United States and the Western powers needed them: opposition to Arab nationalism and the growing “insolence” of Shiite states. Dreyfuss writes, “From its early days, the Brotherhood was financed generously by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which appreciated its ultra-conservative politics and its virulent hatred of Arab communists.”[8] Essentially, as the United States began to exert its post-war might throughout the region, the Muslim Brotherhood was there to be a willing beneficiary and humble servant sowing the seeds of hatred between Sunni and Shia, espousing a hate-filled Salafist ideology that preached conflict and inescapable war between the branches of Islam. Naturally, all to the benefit of Western powers who cared little for the ideology and more about the money and resources. A Tool of the Western Powers Today? It is often argued that, though the historical record unequivocally shows the Brotherhood as intimately connected to Western intelligence, somehow the organization has changed, that it has become a peaceful force for political progress in the Arab world. As recent events in Egypt have shown, nothing could be further from the truth. With the undemocratic attempted power grab by Egyptian President Morsi, the scaling back of civil liberties, the rights of women, and religious and ethnic minorities, the Muslim Brotherhood has shown itself to be little more than a reactionary political force parading itself as a form of “progress”. If one had any doubts as to the true intentions and motivations of the Muslim Brotherhood once in power in Egypt, one needed look no further than its position on the institutions of global finance capital, particularly the International Monetary Fund. In one of the first decisions taken by Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood government, Cairo established that it would, in fact, welcome conditional loans from the IMF[9] to rescue itself from the prospect of a continued economic crisis. However, as part of the conditions of the loan, Morsi’s government would have to drastically reduce subsidies, regulations, and other “market restrictions” while increasing taxes on the middle class. Essentially, this meant that the Brotherhood consented to the usual cocktail of austerity medicine that had been administered by the agents of finance capital so many times all over the world. This, naturally, begged the question: Was this the end of the revolution? Indeed, many in the streets of Cairo are asking themselves this same question. Or, to put it more accurately, they already know the answer. In Egypt, as in Syria, the Muslim Brotherhood has made itself into an appendage of the Western imperialist ruling class. It has dutifully served these interests over the course of decades, though the names, faces, and propaganda have changed over the years. As we watch the tragic images coming from Syria or the tens of thousands in the streets of Cairo, we must question why it has taken so long for this perfidious organization to be exposed or even understood. The answer is, as usual, because it serves the interests of global capital to keep the rest of the world confused as to who the enemies of progress really are. By revealing their true nature, the real forces of peace and progress around the world can reject the Muslim Brotherhood and the imperial system in all its overt and covert forms. Eric Draitser is the founder of StopImperialism.com. He is an independent geopolitical analyst based in New York City. He is a regular contributor to Russia Today, Press TV, GlobalResearch.ca, and other media outlets. You can reach him at ericdraitser@gmail.com. Notes 1] http://news.yahoo.com/rebels-circle-damascus-airport-russia-u-downbeat-013515100.html [2] http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/06/us-syria-brotherhood-idUSBRE84504R20120506 [3] http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/egypts-brotherhood-calls-intervention-syria [4] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/middleeast/cia-said-to-aid-in-steering-arms-to-syrian-rebels.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 [5] http://carnegie-mec.org/publications/?fa=48370 [6] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/what-is-the-muslim-brotherhood [7] Ibid. [8] Ibid. [9] http://www.albawaba.com/business/morsi-egypt-imf-loan-432065 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len Colby Posted December 15, 2012 Share Posted December 15, 2012 I'm no fan of the MB but the notion they are CIA tools is absurd, like a typical crank the author above ignored all the evidence that contradicts his theory. Though they turned against Nasser they initially backed him and they backed Sadat until he started negotiating a peace treaty with Israel after which they adamantly opposed him. If one actually reads Draitser'a sources one will see they do NOT back his theory Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Gaal Posted December 16, 2012 Author Share Posted December 16, 2012 (edited) The Real Ayman al-Zawahiri Aangirfan Blog| August 5 2005 From The Guardian: Rory McCarthy in Islamabad and Luke Harding in Kabul Monday February 18, 2002 Ayman al-Zawahiri, has been captured and jailed in Tehran, a leading Iranian newspaper reported yesterday. Zawahiri, the founder of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, was arrested several days ago and has been imprisoned in the city's Evin jail, where political prisoners are usually held, the Hayat-e-Nou newspaper said. The paper is regarded as reliable and is run by Hadi Khamenei, a leading legislator and the brother of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. http://www.nogw.com/cia.html In case you weren't paying attention... Members of the Moroccan terror group Salafi Jihadi fought for the CIA in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Dagestan, Bosnia and Kosovo USS Cole Bomber Jamal al-Badawi fought for the CIA in Bosnia Zacarias Moussaoui fought for the CIA in Chechnya Khalid Sheikh Mohammed fought for the CIA in Afghanistan Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman fought for the CIA in Afghanistan Head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad Ayman al Zawahiri, fought for the CIA in Bosnia His brother Zaiman al-Zawahiri fought for the CIA in Kosovo Abdullah Azzam, "one of the ideological founders of Hamas" fought for the CIA in Afghanistan ~ http://homepage.mac..../911file02.html Who is Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, whose brother Zaiman is running terrorist camps under NATO protection in the U.S. zone in Kosovo? As the London Guardian wrote recently: "Even to say he is bin Laden's right-hand man may understate his importance." He is considered by many to be the real head of what is known as the bin Laden group. "Some analysts believe that in his current role in Afghanistan, al-Zawahiri has taken over control of much of bin Laden's terrorist finances, operations, plans, and resources," wrote the Guardian. His known terrorist career started no later than 1981, with his involvement in the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat; it includes the massacre of 70 people on a tourist bus in 1997 Luxor, Egypt, and the assassination attempt against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 1995. Strangely enough, according to January 2000 U.S. Congressional testimony, al-Zawahiri was granted U.S. residence by the Immigration and Naturalization Service - something almost impossible for many legitimate immigrants to obtain. Should we be surprised that one of the centers of operation for al-Zawahiri was London, where one of his closest relatives resided? President Mubarak is believed to have referred to him when, after the Luxor massacre, he stated: "There are people who carried out crimes and who were sentenced [in Egypt] and live on British soil." ######################################## 1954-1970: CIA and the Muslim Brotherhood Ally to Oppose Egyptian President Nasser In 1954, Egyptian President Gamal Abddul Nasser’s nationalist policies in Egypt come to be viewed as completely unacceptable by Britain and the US. MI6 and the CIA jointly hatch plans for his assassination. According to Miles Copeland, a CIA operative based in Egypt, the opposition to Nasser is driven by the commercial community—the oil companies and the banks. At the same time, the Muslim Brotherhood’s resentment of Nasser’s secular government also comes to a head. In one incident, Islamist militants attack pro-Nasser students at Cairo University. Following an attempt on his own life by the Brotherhood, Nasser responds immediately by outlawing the group, which he denounces as a tool of Britain. The following years see a long and complex struggle pitting Nasser against the Muslim Brotherhood, the US, and Britain. The CIA funnels support to the Muslim Brotherhood because of “the Brotherhood’s commendable capability to overthrow Nasser.” [baer, 2003, pp. 99; Dreyfuss, 2005, pp. 101-108] The Islamist regime in Saudi Arabia becomes an ally of the United States in the conflict with Nasser. They offer financial backing and sanctuary to Muslim Brotherhood militants during Nasser’s crackdown. Nasser dies of natural causes in 1970. [Dreyfuss, 2005, pp. 90-91, 126-131, 150] ========================== March 10, 2004: Radical London Imam Bakri Says Many Militants in Britain Are Monitored or Manipulated by British Intelligence Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, leader of the Britain-based Al-Muhajiroun militant group, is interviewed. He says, “I believe Britain is harboring most of the Islamic opposition leaders of the Muslim world.… Because the British elites are very clever, they are not stupid like the Americans. Remember these people used to rule half of the world.… The British are not like the French and the Germans, they don’t slap you in the face, they stab you in the back. They want to buy some of these Islamic groups.” Asked if there ever has been “a secret deal between some Islamists and British security whereby radical Muslims would be left alone as long as they did not threaten British national security,” Bakri replies: “I believe all the people referred to as ‘moderate’ Muslims have at one time or another struck deals with the British government. But the British have been unable to corrupt radical groups” like Bakri’s group. He then defines moderate Muslims as “The Muslim Brotherhood in [britain], UK Islamic Mission, Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, Iranian opposition groups, [and] the so-called [iranian] Ahlul Bait groups.” Bakri also says, “I think everything I say and do is monitored.” He admits to being questioned by British intelligence “on at least 16 occasions,” but denies helping them. He says that the authorities have attempted to penetrate his organization, “as the British are desperate to buy intelligence.” Speaking about British intelligence agencies, he says: “their understanding of Islam is poor. But I believe the really clever people are the elites in this country, as they know how to divide Muslims.” [spotlight on Terror, 3/23/2004] Bakri’s comments will take on new meaning when it is later revealed that he was an active informant for British intelligence (see Spring ========================== http://www.historyco...ligence_service Edited December 16, 2012 by Steven Gaal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len Colby Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 The Real Ayman al-Zawahiri Aangirfan Blog| August 5 2005 From The Guardian: Rory McCarthy in Islamabad and Luke Harding in Kabul Monday February 18, 2002 Ayman al-Zawahiri, has been captured and jailed in Tehran, a leading Iranian newspaper reported yesterday. Zawahiri, the founder of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, was arrested several days ago and has been imprisoned in the city's Evin jail, where political prisoners are usually held, the Hayat-e-Nou newspaper said. The paper is regarded as reliable and is run by Hadi Khamenei, a leading legislator and the brother of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. LOL the account was obviously incorrect or the Iranians released him. http://www.nogw.com/cia.html In case you weren't paying attention... Members of the Moroccan terror group Salafi Jihadi fought for the CIA in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Dagestan, Bosnia and Kosovo USS Cole Bomber Jamal al-Badawi fought for the CIA in Bosnia Zacarias Moussaoui fought for the CIA in Chechnya Khalid Sheikh Mohammed fought for the CIA in Afghanistan Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman fought for the CIA in Afghanistan Head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad Ayman al Zawahiri, fought for the CIA in Bosnia His brother Zaiman al-Zawahiri fought for the CIA in Kosovo Abdullah Azzam, "one of the ideological founders of Hamas" fought for the CIA in Afghanistan In case you weren't paying attention, NOGW is a Holocaust denying Website (much like WhatReallyHappen which you also like to cite) and the link is to a white supremacist forum that has been offline since March 3, 2012 at least. http://www.nogw.com/dark_history.html#holohoax http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1799235/pg1 http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3167459 http://homepage.mac..../911file02.html Who is Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, whose brother Zaiman is running terrorist camps under NATO protection in the U.S. zone in Kosovo? As the London Guardian wrote recently: "Even to say he is bin Laden's right-hand man may understate his importance." He is considered by many to be the real head of what is known as the bin Laden group. "Some analysts believe that in his current role in Afghanistan, al-Zawahiri has taken over control of much of bin Laden's terrorist finances, operations, plans, and resources," wrote the Guardian. His known terrorist career started no later than 1981, with his involvement in the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat; it includes the massacre of 70 people on a tourist bus in 1997 Luxor, Egypt, and the assassination attempt against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 1995. Strangely enough, according to January 2000 U.S. Congressional testimony, al-Zawahiri was granted U.S. residence by the Immigration and Naturalization Service - something almost impossible for many legitimate immigrants to obtain. Should we be surprised that one of the centers of operation for al-Zawahiri was London, where one of his closest relatives resided? President Mubarak is believed to have referred to him when, after the Luxor massacre, he stated: "There are people who carried out crimes and who were sentenced [in Egypt] and live on British soil." ######################################## Another dead link you obviously don't even bother to check the stuff you cut'n'paste here. Found it on the Internet Archive, no citations. 1954-1970: CIA and the Muslim Brotherhood Ally to Oppose Egyptian President Nasser In 1954, Egyptian President Gamal Abddul Nasser’s nationalist policies in Egypt come to be viewed as completely unacceptable by Britain and the US. MI6 and the CIA jointly hatch plans for his assassination. According to Miles Copeland, a CIA operative based in Egypt, the opposition to Nasser is driven by the commercial community—the oil companies and the banks. At the same time, the Muslim Brotherhood’s resentment of Nasser’s secular government also comes to a head. In one incident, Islamist militants attack pro-Nasser students at Cairo University. Following an attempt on his own life by the Brotherhood, Nasser responds immediately by outlawing the group, which he denounces as a tool of Britain. The following years see a long and complex struggle pitting Nasser against the Muslim Brotherhood, the US, and Britain. The CIA funnels support to the Muslim Brotherhood because of “the Brotherhood’s commendable capability to overthrow Nasser.” [baer, 2003, pp. 99; Dreyfuss, 2005, pp. 101-108] The Islamist regime in Saudi Arabia becomes an ally of the United States in the conflict with Nasser. They offer financial backing and sanctuary to Muslim Brotherhood militants during Nasser’s crackdown. Nasser dies of natural causes in 1970. [Dreyfuss, 2005, pp. 90-91, 126-131, 150] The US backed Stalin and co-operated with Tito, Mao and Ho during WWII, that doesn't mean they were American tools, the MB initially backed Nasser while the US never did, they initially backed Sadat at a time when the US was hostile to him, they turned against him at the same time the US turned toward him, after he approached Israel, they opposed Mubarak who was a close US ally until shortly before his fall. ==========================March 10, 2004: Radical London Imam Bakri Says Many Militants in Britain Are Monitored or Manipulated by British Intelligence Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, leader of the Britain-based Al-Muhajiroun militant group, is interviewed. He says, “I believe Britain is harboring most of the Islamic opposition leaders of the Muslim world.… Because the British elites are very clever, they are not stupid like the Americans. Remember these people used to rule half of the world.… The British are not like the French and the Germans, they don’t slap you in the face, they stab you in the back. They want to buy some of these Islamic groups.” Asked if there ever has been “a secret deal between some Islamists and British security whereby radical Muslims would be left alone as long as they did not threaten British national security,” Bakri replies: “I believe all the people referred to as ‘moderate’ Muslims have at one time or another struck deals with the British government. But the British have been unable to corrupt radical groups” like Bakri’s group. He then defines moderate Muslims as “The Muslim Brotherhood in [britain], UK Islamic Mission, Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, Iranian opposition groups, [and] the so-called [iranian] Ahlul Bait groups.” Bakri also says, “I think everything I say and do is monitored.” He admits to being questioned by British intelligence “on at least 16 occasions,” but denies helping them. He says that the authorities have attempted to penetrate his organization, “as the British are desperate to buy intelligence.” Speaking about British intelligence agencies, he says: “their understanding of Islam is poor. But I believe the really clever people are the elites in this country, as they know how to divide Muslims.” [spotlight on Terror, 3/23/2004] Bakri’s comments will take on new meaning when it is later revealed that he was an active informant for British intelligence (see Spring ========================== http://www.historyco...ligence_service So Bakri's a reliable source? I'm not so sure but he contradicts you more than he helps you because he only indicated it was possible that there was 'a secret deal between some Islamists and British security whereby radical Muslims would be left alone as long as they did not threaten British national security'not that they controlled themandhe did not think the US was doing such things they were too “stupid” to make such deals. He also indicated that 'uncorrupted' radical Muslim groups attacked Western (American etc.) targets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Gaal Posted December 19, 2012 Author Share Posted December 19, 2012 On 9-12 I found the following story on the net. IN Cario the press went to the family house of Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri baging on the front door. A second floor window opened up and a woman appeared. She stated that Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri had spent ," .. lost time in Kosovo." I have already posted on other threads info about Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri brother working in KOSOVO in CIA operations. I even posted a video showing OBL in Kosovo reviewing anti-Serb troops. On 9-13 I posted the womans statement on the old Dellarosa JFK site. I havent been able to find said info on the net about the womans statement. I even offered 120 $ to Egyptians for them to ask a relative to do Egypt newspaper search. (I live next to Coptic Church). I got no takers. IMHO Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri is an asset and OBL was the useful idiot. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Britain and the Muslim Brotherhood: Collaboration during the 1940s and 1950s 18Dec10 An edited extract from Mark Curtis’ latest book, Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam (Serpent’s Tail, 2010) The Second World War witnessed the continuing growth of the Muslim Brotherhood, which developed under Hassan al-Banna’s leadership into an Islamist mass movement. It had become the largest Islamic society in Egypt and had set up affiliates in Sudan, Jordan, Syria, Palestine and North Africa. Aiming to establish an Islamic state under the slogan ‘The Koran is our constitution’, the Brotherhood preached strict observance of the tenets of Islam and offered a religious alternative to both the secular nationalist movements and communist parties in Egypt and the Middle East – forces which were becoming the two major challengers to British, and US, power in the region. Britain had regarded Egypt as a linchpin of its position in the Middle East ever since it declared a ‘protectorate’ over the country at the beginning of the First World War. British firms dominated foreign investment and the commercial life of the country, while the British military base in the Suez Canal Zone had become the largest in the world by the time of the Second World War. British dominance of the country was, however, increasingly challenged both by a growing nationalist movement and by the religious forces of the Muslim Brotherhood, while London’s ultimate ally in the country was its ruler, King Farouk, who assumed the throne in 1936. The Brotherhood had called for jihad against Jews in the 1936–9 Arab Revolt in Palestine, and had sent volunteers there after an appeal from the mufti; it had also been assisted by German officers in constructing its military wing. The organisation regarded the British as imperialist oppressors in Egypt, and agitated against the British military occupation of the country, especially after the Palestine rebellion. During the early years of the Second World War, British strategy towards the Brotherhood in Egypt mainly involved attempts to suppress it. Yet at this time the Brotherhood, which was allied to the political right, also enjoyed the patronage of the pro-British Egyptian monarchy, which had begun to fund the Brotherhood in 1940. King Farouk saw the Brothers as a useful counter to the power of the major political party in the country – the secular, nationalist Wafd Party – and the communists. A British intelligence report of 1942 noted that ‘the Palace had begun to find the Ikhwan useful and has thrown its aegis over them.’ During this time, many Islamic societies in Egypt were sponsored by the authorities to oppose rivals or enhance the interests of the British, the palace or other influential groups. The first known direct contact between British officials and the Brotherhood came in 1941, at a time when British intelligence regarded the organisation’s mass following and sabotage plans against the British as ‘the most serious danger to public security’ in Egypt. That year al-Banna had been jailed by the Egyptian authorities acting under British pressure, but it was on his release later the same year that the British made contact with the Brotherhood. According to some accounts, British officials offered to aid the organisation, to ‘purchase’ its support. Theories abound as to whether al-Banna took up or rejected the offer of British support, but considering the relative quiet of the Brotherhood for some time after this period, it is possible that British aid was accepted. By 1942 Britain had definitely begun to finance the Brotherhood. On 18 May British embassy officials held a meeting with Egyptian Prime Minister Amin Osman Pacha, in which relations with the Muslim Brotherhood were discussed and a number of points were agreed. One was that ‘subsidies from the Wafd [Party] to the Ikhwani el Muslimin [Muslim Brotherhood] would be discreetly paid by the [Egyptian] government and they would require some financial assistance in this matter from the [british] Embassy.’ In addition, the Egyptian government ‘would introduce reliable agents into the Ikhwani to keep a close watch on activities and would let us [the British embassy] have the information obtained from such agents. We, for our part, would keep the government in touch with information obtained from British sources.’ It was also agreed that ‘an effort would be made to create a schism in the party by exploiting any differences which might occur between Hassan al-Banna and Ahmed Sukkari,’ the two leaders. The British would also hand over to the government a list of Brotherhood members they regarded as dangerous, but there would be no aggressive moves against the organisation. Rather, the strategy decided upon was that of ‘killing by kindness’. Al-Banna would be allowed to start a newspaper and publish articles ‘supporting democratic principles’ – this would be a good way of, as one of the attendants put it, ‘helping to disintegrate the Ikhwani’. The meeting also discussed how the Brotherhood was forming ‘sabotage organisations’ and spying on behalf of the Nazis. It was described as ‘a narrow religious and obscurantist organisation’, but one which ‘could bring out shock troops in a time of disturbance’, including ‘suicide squads’. With an estimated 100–200,000 supporters, the Brotherhood was ‘implicitly anti-European and in particular anti-British, on account of our exceptional position in Egypt’; it therefore ‘hoped for an Axis victory, which they imagined would make them the dominant political influence in Egypt.’ By 1944, Britain’s Political Intelligence Committee was describing the Brotherhood as a potential danger, but with a weak leadership: al-Banna, it felt, was the ‘only outstanding personality’, without whom ‘it might easily crumble away’. This rather dismissive analysis of the Brotherhood would be revised in the years to come, as the British cultivated and collaborated with it in the face of growing anti-colonialism in Egypt. Thus, by the end of the Second World War Britain already had considerable experience of colluding with Muslim forces to achieve certain objectives, while officials also realised that these same forces were generally opposed to British imperial policy and strategic objectives: they were temporary, ad hoc collaborators to achieve specific goals when Britain lacked other allies or sufficient power of its own to impose its priorities. This policy of British expediency would significantly deepen in the postwar world as the need for collaborators increased in a much more challenging global environment. After the end of the Second World War, the Brotherhood was one of two mass-based political parties in Egypt, alongside the Wafd Party of moderate nationalists, and King Farouk continued to find the Brotherhood useful as a bulwark against radical economic and social ideas. The Brotherhood is known to have passed information to the government to help in its continual round-ups of real and suspected communists, especially in the unions and universities. It was, however, always an uneasy co-existence amidst increasing opposition to the British presence and a stream of violence which shook Egypt after 1945. Confrontation soon escalated between the Brotherhood – bent on expelling the foreign ‘occupier’ and ultimately seeking the establishment of an Islamic state – and the British and the palace. In the Suez Canal Zone, bomb attacks against British troops were common, and the authorities regularly claimed to have uncovered Brotherhood arms caches. The Brothers also attempted various assassinations: between 1945 and 1948, two prime ministers, the chief of police and a Cabinet minister were among those who died at their hands. In December 1948, following the authorities’ alleged discovery of Brotherhood arms caches and a plot to overthrow the regime, the organisation was dissolved, a decision the British had apparently requested the Egyptian government to take in order to clamp down on their anti-British activities. Three weeks later, Prime Minister Mahmud al-Nuqrashi, who had given the dissolution order, was assassinated by a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s ‘secret apparatus’, its paramilitary, and terrorist, unit that carried out bomb attacks against the British in the canal zone. By January 1949, the British embassy in Cairo was reporting that King Farouk ‘is going all out to crush’ the Brotherhood, with a recent sweep rounding up and arresting over 100 members. The following month Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna himself was assassinated. Although the killer was never found, it was widely believed that the murder had been carried out by members of the political police, and either condoned or planned by the palace. An MI6 report was unequivocal, stating that: The murder was inspired by the government, with Palace approval … It was decided that Hassan el Banna should be eliminated from the scene of his activities in this way since, so long as he was at liberty, he was likely to prove an embarrassment to the government, whereas his arrest would almost certainly have led to further troubles with his followers, who would have no doubt regarded him as a martyr to their cause. Yet the alibis were already being spun. Three days after the murder, the British ambassador, Sir Ronald Campbell, met King Farouk and recorded that ‘I said I thought the murder might have been done by Hassan al-Banna’s own extreme followers out of fear or suspicion that he was giving things away’. King Farouk, for his part, also concocted a tale of responsibility lying with the ‘Saadists’ (a breakaway group from the Wafd Party, named after Saad Zaghoul, a former party leader and prime minister). Britain’s senior diplomat in Egypt was clearly conniving with al-Banna’s murderers to cover it up. In October 1951, the Brotherhood elected as its new leader the former judge, Hassan al-Hodeibi, a figure not publicly associated with terrorism, who made known his opposition to the violence of 1945–9. Hodeibi was unable, however, to assert his control over the organisation’s sometimes competing factions. The Brotherhood renewed its call for a jihad against the British, calling for attacks on Britons and their property, organised demonstrations against the occupation and tried to push the Egyptian government to declare a state of war with Britain. A British embassy report from Cairo in late 1951 stated that the Brotherhood ‘possess[es] a terrorist organisation of long-standing which has never been broken by police action’, despite the recent arrests. However, the report otherwise downplayed the Brothers’ intentions towards the British, stating that they were ‘planning to send terrorists into the Canal Zone’ but ‘they do not intend to put their organisation as such into action against His Majesty’s forces’. Another report noted that although the Brotherhood had been responsible for some attacks against the British, this was probably due to ‘indiscipline’, and it ‘appears to conflict with the policy of the leaders’. At the same time, in December 1951, the files show that British officials were trying to arrange a direct meeting with Hodeibi. Several meetings were held with one of his advisers, one Farkhani Bey, about whom little is known, although he was apparently not himself a member of the Brotherhood. The indications from the declassified British files are that Brotherhood leaders, despite their public calls for attacks on the British, were perfectly prepared to meet them in private. By this time, the Egyptian government was offering Hodeibi ‘enormous bribes’ to keep the Brotherhood from engaging in further violence against the regime, according to the Foreign Office. Then, in July 1952, a group of young nationalist army officers committed to overthrowing the Egyptian monarchy and its British advisers seized power in a coup, and proclaimed themselves the Council for the Revolutionary Command (CRC), with General Muhammad Naguib as chairman and Colonel Gamal Abdal Nasser as vice-chairman. The so-called ‘Free Officers’ removed the pro-British Farouk and swept aside the old guard, promising an independent foreign policy and widespread internal change, notably land reform. A conflict between Naguib and Nasser gradually led to Naguib’s deposition in late 1954 and Nasser’s assumption of full power. The Muslim Brotherhood, pleased to see the back of the King’s pro-Western regime, initially supported the coup, and indeed had direct links with the Free Officers. One of them, Anwar Sadat, later described his role as the pre-coup intermediary between the Free Officers and Hassan al-Banna. ‘He was clearly one of the Free Officers on whose association with them the Brethren counted to help further their political aims,’ Britain’s ambassador to Cairo, Sir Richard Beaumont, later wrote, after Sadat had succeeded Nasser as president in 1970. The Brotherhood leant the revolutionary leaders important domestic support, and good relations were maintained for the rest of 1952 and throughout most of the following year. In early 1953, British officials met directly with Hodeibi, ostensibly to sound him out on his position regarding the forthcoming negotiations between Britain and the new Egyptian government on the evacuation of British military forces from Egypt; the twenty-year agreement signed in 1936 was shortly due to expire. Since some of the British files remain censored, it is not known precisely what transpired at these meetings, but Richard Mitchell, the principal Western analyst of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, has documented what the various parties – the British, the Egyptian government and the Brotherhood – subsequently said about them. Mitchell concludes that the Brotherhood’s entrance into these negotiations was at the request of the British and presented difficulties for the Egyptian government negotiators, providing ‘leverage for the British side’. The British, in seeking out the views of the Muslim Brothers, were in effect recognising their voice in the affairs of the nation, and Hodeibi, in agreeing to the talks, was perpetuating that notion and thus weakening the hand of the government. The Nasser regime condemned the meetings between the British and the Brotherhood as ‘secret negotiations … behind the back of the revolution’, and publicly accused British officials of conniving with the Brothers. They also charged Hodeibi with having accepted certain conditions for the British evacuation from Egypt which tied the hands of government negotiators. From the limited information available, British strategy appears to be traditional divide and rule, aimed at gaining ‘leverage’ over the new regime in pursuit of its own interests. The British cultivation of the Brotherhood could only heighten tensions between the regime and the Brotherhood and strengthen the latter’s position. Internal British memos indicate that British officials told Nasser about some of their meetings with Hodeibi and other members of the Brotherhood, naturally assuring him that London was doing nothing underhand. However, the very fact that they were taking place surely instilled doubt in Nasser’s mind over the trustworthiness of the Brotherhood. At this time, British officials believed that the Brotherhood and its paramilitary groups were ‘at the disposal of the military authorities’ and that the Brotherhood wanted to make the regime pay some kind of price for its support for it, such as introducing an ‘Islamic constitution’. The files also contain a note of a meeting between British and Brotherhood officials on 7 February 1953, in which an individual by the name of Abu Ruqayak told the British embassy’s oriental counsellor, Trefor Evans, that ‘if Egypt searched throughout the world for a friend she would find none other than Britain’. The British embassy in Cairo interpreted this comment as showing ‘the existence of a group within the Brotherhood’s leaders who were prepared to cooperate with Britain, even if not with the West (they distrusted American influence).’ One handwritten note on this part of the embassy’s memo reads: ‘The deduction … seems justified and is surprising.’ The memo also notes that the willingness to cooperate ‘probably stems from the increasing middle class influence in the Brotherhood, compared with the predominantly popular leadership of the movement in the days of Hassan al-Banna.’ The apparent willingness of the British and the Brotherhood to cooperate with each other would become more important by late 1953, by which time the Nasser regime was accusing the Brotherhood of resisting land reforms and subverting the army though its ‘secret apparatus’. In January 1954, government and Brotherhood supporters clashed at Cairo University; dozens of people were injured and an army jeep was burned. This prompted Nasser to dissolve the organisation. Among the long list of accusations against the Brotherhood in the dissolution decree were the meetings the Brotherhood had held with the British, which the regime later elevated to amounting to a ‘secret treaty’. In October 1954, by which time the Brotherhood was seeking to promote a popular uprising, its ‘secret apparatus’ attempted to assassinate Nasser while he was giving a speech in Alexandria. Subsequently, hundreds of Brotherhood members were arrested and many tortured, while those who escaped went into foreign exile. In December, six Brothers were hanged. The organisation had been effectively crushed. One of those arrested, and horribly tortured, was Sayyid Qutb, a member of the Brotherhood’s Guidance Council, who was sentenced to twenty-five years hard labour, and who would by the 1960s become one of radical Islam’s leading theorists, writing from Nasser’s jails. After the failed assassination attempt against Nasser, Prime Minister Winston Churchill sent a personal message to him saying: ‘I congratulate you on your escape from the dastardly attack made on your life at Alexandria yesterday evening.’ Soon, however, the British were again conspiring with the same people to achieve the same end. Three years into the new regime, Nasser’s domestic reforms included widespread land redistribution benefiting the rural poor, and moves towards enshrining a constitutional form of government to replace arbitrary rule. In July 1955, the outgoing British ambassador to Cairo, Sir Ralph Stevenson, noted that the regime was ‘as good as any previous Egyptian government since 1922 and in one respect better than any, in that it is trying to do something for the people of Egypt rather than merely talk about it.’ Stevenson argued to Harold Macmillan, foreign secretary in Anthony Eden’s new government, that ‘they [the Egyptian leaders] deserve, in my view, all the help that Great Britain can properly give them’. Nine months after this memo was written, the British decided to remove Nasser. The British and Americans were by now involved in a variety of coup plots against Syria and Saudi Arabia, as well as Egypt, as part of a much bigger planned reorganisation of the Middle East to counter the ‘virus of Arab nationalism’. According to a top secret Foreign Office memo, US President Eisenhower described to the British the need for ‘“a high class Machiavellian plan to achieve a situation in the Middle East favourable to our interests” which could split the Arabs and defeat the aims of our enemies’. In March 1956 Jordan’s King Hussein removed the British General John Bagot Glubb as commander of the Arab Legion, a move which Eden and some British officials put down to Nasser’s influence. It was then that the British government concluded that it could no longer work with Nasser and that serious British and US planning to overthrow the regime began; Eden told his new foreign secretary, Anthony Nutting, that he wanted Nasser ‘murdered’. This was before the latter’s decision to nationalise the Suez Canal in July 1956, an act which ‘would inevitably lead to the loss one by one of all our interests and assets in the Middle East,’ Eden explained in his memoirs, fearing the possible domino effect of Egypt’s action. ‘If we allowed Nasser to get away with his Suez Canal coup the consequence would be to put an end … to the monarchy in Saudi Arabia,’ explained the permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office, Ivone Kirkpatrick, fearing that nationalist forces there would be inspired by Nasser’s successful defiance of the West in Egypt. Many British files on the ‘Suez crisis’ remain censored but some information has crept out over the years on the various British attempts to overthrow or murder Nasser. At least one of these plans involved conniving with the Muslim Brotherhood. Stephen Dorril notes that the former Special Operations Executive agent and Conservative MP, Neil ‘Billy’ McLean, the secretary of the ‘Suez group’ of MPs, Julian Amery, and the head of the MI6 station in Geneva, Norman Darbyshire, all made contact with the Brotherhood in Switzerland around this time as part of their clandestine links with the opposition to Nasser. Further details about these Geneva meetings have never emerged, but they may well have involved an assassination attempt or the construction of a government-in-exile to replace Nasser after the Suez War. In September 1956, Ivone Kirkpatrick was in contact with Saudi officials in Geneva who told him of ‘considerable underground opposition to Nasser there’; indeed, his fear was that Nasser’s take-over of the Suez Canal would ‘put an end to the Egyptian resistance’, likely to mean the Muslim Brotherhood. Certainly, British officials were carefully monitoring the anti-regime activities of the Brotherhood, and recognised it as capable of mounting a serious challenge to Nasser. There is also evidence that the British had contacts with the organisation in late 1955, when some Brothers visited King Farouk, now in exile in Italy, to explore cooperation against Nasser. King Hussein’s regime in Jordan gave Brotherhood leaders diplomatic passports to facilitate their movements to organise against Nasser, while Saudi Arabia provided funding. The CIA also approved Saudi Arabia’s funding of the Muslim Brotherhood to act against Nasser, according to former CIA officer, Robert Baer. In August 1956, the Egyptian authorities uncovered a British spy ring in the country and arrested four Britons, including James Swinburn, the business manager of the Arab News Agency, the MI6 front based in Cairo. Two British diplomats involved in intelligence-gathering were also expelled. They had, as Dorril notes, apparently been in contact with ‘student elements of a religious inclination’ with the idea of ‘encouraging fundamentalist riots that could provide an excuse for military intervention to protect European lives’. In October, Britain, in a secret alliance with France and Israel, launched an invasion of Egypt to overthrow Nasser, but was stopped largely by the US refusal to support the intervention. The invasion was undertaken in the British knowledge that the Muslim Brotherhood might become the primary beneficiary and form a post-Nasser government; memos indicate that British officials believed this scenario a ‘possibility’ or ‘likely’. Yet, in an echo of their assessment of Kashani’s potential as a leader in Iran, British officials feared that a Muslim Brotherhood takeover would produce ‘a still more extreme form of government’ in Egypt. Again, this did not stop them using these forces. A few months after the British defeat by Nasser, in early 1957, Trefor Evans, the official who led the British contacts with the Brotherhood four years earlier, was writing memos recommending that ‘the disappearance of the Nasser regime … should be our main objective’. Other officials noted that the Brotherhood remained active against Nasser both inside and outside Egypt, especially in Jordan, from where a ‘vigorous campaign of propaganda’ was being mounted. These memoranda suggest that Britain would continue to use these forces in the near future – and indeed they would. For references, see Chapters 1 and 3 of Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam http://markcurtis.wordpress.com/2010/12/18/britain-and-the-muslim-brotherhood-collaboration-during-the-1940s-and-1950s/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Deep backgrond Muslim Brotherhood. A MOSQUE IN MUNICH: NAZIS, THE CIA, AND THE RISE OF THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD IN THE WEST http://www.naderlibrary.com/lit.johnsonamosqueinmunich.inside.htm ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len Colby Posted December 21, 2012 Share Posted December 21, 2012 On 9-12 I found the following story on the net. IN Cario the press went to the family house of Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri baging on the front door. A second floor window opened up and a woman appeared. She stated that Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri had spent ," .. lost time in Kosovo." I have already posted on other threads info about Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri brother working in KOSOVO in CIA operations. I even posted a video showing OBL in Kosovo reviewing anti-Serb troops. On 9-13 I posted the womans statement on the old Dellarosa JFK site. I havent been able to find said info on the net about the womans statement. I even offered 120 $ to Egyptians for them to ask a relative to do Egypt newspaper search. (I live next to Coptic Church). I got no takers. IMHO Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri is an asset and OBL was the useful idiot. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ What is this babble? There are not citations, even IF al-Zawahiri and OBL fought in Kosovo that wouldn’t prove anything. The US directly aided Stalin during WWII, that doesn’t mean they were allies after that war was over let alone that one controlled the other. Britain and the Muslim Brotherhood: Collaboration during the 1940s and 1950s 18Dec10 An edited extract from Mark Curtis’ latest book, Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam (Serpent’s Tail, 2010) Did you actually read this? Even if all the author's claims are correct it seems that despite their best efforts the Brits never ever really fully controlled the MB, it seems more like an alignment of interests. And echoing Bakri’s comments such cooperation did NOT extend to the US. The excerpt ended in late 1956 with the Brits neither controlling or fully trusting the organization. That was over 50 years ago, things change. In 1945 the US was allied with the USSR and cooperating with Tito, Mao and Ho against Germany. By 1946 things were very different. Some choice excerpts: By 1942 Britain had definitely begun to finance the Brotherhood. On 18 May British embassy officials held a meeting with Egyptian Prime Minister Amin Osman Pacha, in which relations with the Muslim Brotherhood were discussed and a number of points were agreed…The meeting also discussed how the Brotherhood was forming ‘sabotage organisations’ and spying on behalf of the Nazis…the Brotherhood was ‘implicitly anti-European and in particular anti-British, on account of our exceptional position in Egypt’; it therefore ‘hoped for an Axis victory, which they imagined would make them the dominant political influence in Egypt.’ Confrontation soon escalated between the Brotherhood – bent on expelling the foreign ‘occupier’ and ultimately seeking the establishment of an Islamic state – and the British and the palace. In the Suez Canal Zone, bomb attacks against British troops were common, and the authorities regularly claimed to have uncovered Brotherhood arms caches. The Brothers also attempted various assassinations: between 1945 and 1948, two prime ministers, the chief of police and a Cabinet minister were among those who died at their hands. In December 1948, following the authorities’ alleged discovery of Brotherhood arms caches and a plot to overthrow the regime, the organisation was dissolved, a decision the British had apparently requested the Egyptian government to take in order to clamp down on their anti-British activities. Three weeks later, Prime Minister Mahmud al-Nuqrashi, who had given the dissolution order, was assassinated by a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s ‘secret apparatus’, its paramilitary, and terrorist, unit that carried out bomb attacks against the British in the canal zone. By January 1949, the British embassy in Cairo was reporting that King Farouk ‘is going all out to crush’ the Brotherhood, with a recent sweep rounding up and arresting over 100 members. The following month Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna himself was assassinated. Although the killer was never found, it was widely believed that the murder had been carried out by members of the political police, and either condoned or planned by the palace. An MI6 report was unequivocal, stating that: […] In October 1951, the Brotherhood elected as its new leader the former judge, Hassan al-Hodeibi, a figure not publicly associated with terrorism, who made known his opposition to the violence of 1945–9. Hodeibi was unable, however, to assert his control over the organisation’s sometimes competing factions. The Brotherhood renewed its call for a jihad against the British, calling for attacks on Britons and their property, organised demonstrations against the occupation and tried to push the Egyptian government to declare a state of war with Britain… […] At the same time, in December 1951, the files show that British officials were trying to arrange a direct meeting with Hodeibi. Several meetings were held with one of his advisers, one Farkhani Bey, about whom little is known, although he was apparently not himself a member of the Brotherhood. The indications from the declassified British files are that Brotherhood leaders, despite their public calls for attacks on the British, were perfectly prepared to meet them in private. By this time, the Egyptian government was offering Hodeibi ‘enormous bribes’ to keep the Brotherhood from engaging in further violence against the regime, according to the Foreign Office. Then, in July 1952, a group of young nationalist army officers committed to overthrowing the Egyptian monarchy and its British advisers seized power in a coup… The Muslim Brotherhood, pleased to see the back of the King’s pro-Western regime, initially supported the coup, and indeed had direct links with the Free Officers. One of them, Anwar Sadat… The Brotherhood leant the revolutionary leaders important domestic support, and good relations were maintained for the rest of 1952 and throughout most of the following year. […] … The British embassy in Cairo interpreted this comment as showing ‘the existence of a group within the Brotherhood’s leaders who were prepared to cooperate with Britain, even if not with the West (they distrusted American influence).’ … […] In October [1956], Britain, in a secret alliance with France and Israel, launched an invasion of Egypt to overthrow Nasser, but was stopped largely by the US refusal to support the intervention. The invasion was undertaken in the British knowledge that the Muslim Brotherhood might become the primary beneficiary and form a post-Nasser government; memos indicate that British officials believed this scenario a ‘possibility’ or ‘likely’. Yet, in an echo of their assessment of Kashani’s potential as a leader in Iran, British officials feared that a Muslim Brotherhood takeover would produce ‘a still more extreme form of government’ in Egypt. Again, this did not stop them using these forces. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Deep backgrond Muslim Brotherhood. A MOSQUE IN MUNICH: NAZIS, THE CIA, AND THE RISE OF THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD IN THE WEST http://www.naderlibr...nich.inside.htm ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Did you read beyond the title? The text does not really help your case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Gaal Posted December 22, 2012 Author Share Posted December 22, 2012 How the CIA Helped The Muslim Brotherhood Infiltrate the West by Jerry Gordon (August 2011) Muslim Brotherhood and founder Hasan al-Banna In April of 2007, then House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer had an encounter with Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood representatives in Cairo. Fox News reported: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer met with the Muslim Brotherhood’s parliament leader, Mohammed Saad el-Katatni, twice on Thursday — once at the parliament building and then at the home of the U.S. ambassador to Egypt, said Brotherhood spokesman Hamdi Hassan. U.S. Embassy spokesman John Berry would only confirm that Hoyer, who represents Maryland, met with el-Katatni at U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone’s home at a reception with other politicians and parliament members. [. . .] But Berry said U.S. government policy does not bar meetings with Brotherhood members of parliament and Hoyer's talks with el-Katatni were not a change in U.S. policy toward the group. "It's our diplomatic practice around the world to meet with parliamentarians, be they members of political parties or independents," Berry said. "We haven't changed our policy with regard to the Muslim Brotherhood as an organization." This encounter with the Muslim Brotherhood, who controlled upwards of one fifth of the seats in Egypt’s Parliament as so-called independents, was not sanctioned by Bush Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. She had allegedly refused to meet with Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Representatives. Lori Lowenthal Marcus, founder of Z Street commented to us in an Iconoclast blog post: The Muslim Brotherhood is evil incarnate: This is their motto: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) was founded by fundamentalist Egyptian school teacher, Hasan al Banna in 1928. He advocated violent Jihad and the replacement of secular governments with a worldwide totalitarian Caliphate governed under strict Islamic Shariah law. Banna became a devotee of Adolf Hitler, who was himself an admirer of Islam and militarist Jihad conquest. Despite Banna’s assassination by Egyptian authorities under King Farouk in 1949, the MB succeeded in establishing branches throughout the Middle East, such as Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, Jordan and Syria. There are even branches in Europe and America. The Hamas Charter of 1988 seeks the obliteration of the Jewish State of Israel. Among MB fronts in the US are: Council of American Islamic Relations; Islamic Society of North America; Islamic Circle of North America; Muslim Students Association; Muslim American Society; International Institute for Islamic Thought; and, Muslim Public Affairs Council. These MB fronts were identified as unindicted co-conspirators in the Federal Holy Land Foundation trial with convictions in 2008, involving the funneling of upwards of $36 million to Palestinian MB affiliate Hamas in Gaza. Uncovered in the HLF trial was a 1991 strategy plan of the MB in the US to overthrow our Constitution and form of government via ‘stealth Jihad’ and replacing it with a Shariah–ruled Caliphate. The Arab Spring and US Relations with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood President Obama at al-Azhar University Cairo, June, 2009 “A New Beginning” Speech With the election of President Obama in November 2008 and his Muslim Outreach initiative, exemplified by his Cairo “A New Beginnings Speech” at al Azhar University, the Obama administration extended a welcome to the MB. Investor’s Business Daily noted the ensuing chronology of events, punctuated by the overthrow of the Mubarak regime in Egypt during the Arab Spring of 2011 that swept the heartland of the Muslim ummah. 2009: The White House invites ISNA’s president to President Obama’s inauguration ceremonies, even though the Justice Department just two years earlier had blacklisted the Brotherhood affiliate as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land trial — the largest terror-finance case in U.S. history. 2009: Obama delivers his Cairo speech to Muslims, infuriating the Mubarak regime by inviting Brotherhood leaders to attend. 2009: The White House dispatches top presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett to give the keynote speech at ISNA’s annual convention. 2009: Obama appoints a Brotherhood-tied Islamist — Rashad Hussain — as U.S. envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which strongly supports the Brotherhood. 2010: Hussain meets with the Brotherhood’s grand mufti in Egypt. 2011: White House sends intelligence czar James Clapper to Capitol Hill to whitewash the Brotherhood’s extremism. Clapper testifies the group is a moderate, “largely secular” organization. 2011: The Brotherhood’s spiritual leader — Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi — is given a hero’s welcome in Tahrir Square, where he raises the banner of jihad. Qaradawi, exiled from Egypt for 30 years, had been calling for “days of rage” before the rioting in Egypt. Before Obama’s Cairo speech, Qaradawi wrote an open letter to the President arguing [islamic] terrorism is a direct response to U.S. foreign policy. 2011: The Brotherhood vows to tear up Egypt’s 30-year peace treaty with Israel. Since Mubarak’s fall, it has worked to formally reestablish Cairo’s ties with Hamas and Hezbollah. 2011: Obama gives Mideast speech demanding Israel relinquish land to Palestinians. 2011: White House security adviser gives friendly speech at Washington-area mosque headed by ISNA’s new president. 2011: Justice Department pulls plug on further prosecution of Muslim Brotherhood front groups identified as collaborators in conspiracy to funnel millions to Hamas. What is not well known is that the spread of the Muslim Brotherhood to the west was facilitated by the CIA during the Cold War Era as part of an anti-Soviet, anti-Communism initiative during the Eisenhower Administration. The creation of an Islamic Center in Munich, involved an ex-Nazi Turkologist, and former Nazi Muslim veterans from the Soviet Muslim satellites which were captured by advancing German forces during WWII in the Caucasus and Crimea. The CIA funded Hasan al Banna’s son-in-law to advance the MB cause via the World Muslim League. This resulted in an MB beachhead in the US launched from the Munich Islamic Center. The Muslim Brotherhood Mosque in Munich In an interview in the New English Review, Sam Solomon had this comment about the functions of a Mosque: A mosque is a seat of government. A mosque is a school. A mosque is a court. A mosque is a training center. A mosque is a gathering place, or social center. It is not a place of “worship” per se as understood and as practiced in Western societies. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Ian Johnson illustrates that conclusively in his investigative book, A Mosque in Munich: Nazis, CIA and the Rise of The Muslim Brotherhood in the West. Johnson earned his Pulitzer for a Wall Street Journal series about the Chinese religious group, Fulan Gong. He has been a long time resident in Germany and until early in 2010, was the Berlin Bureau Chief for the Wall Street Journal. His book is about how an accidental discovery of a map in a “Londonistan” extremist Muslim bookstore, where he had been a regular customer, triggered five years of research into the MB mosque in Germany that led to his book. Johnson notes the accidental discovery: Wandering the aisles, I noticed a peculiar map of the world. [. . .]Famous mosques decorated the edge of the map- the Grand mosque in Mecca, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the wondrous Blue Mosque of Istanbul and the Islamic Center of Munich. Johnson goes on to note: Almost all of the Brotherhood’s activities in the West originated among the small groups of people who ran the Mosque. Munich was the beach-head from which the brotherhood spread into Western society. But he notes the cautionary aspect of this tale: The parallel between the 1950’s and today are striking. [. . .]. Now like a half century ago in Munich, western societies are seeking Muslim allies . . . Munich shows the danger of doing so without careful reflection and scrutiny. To which we would add the dangers of an intelligence community thoroughly mis-informed about basic Islamic Jihad doctrine. A doctrine that most post WWII administrations in Washington have evaded acknowledging as the primary threat facing this county and the West in the 21st century. Watch this You Tube Video by author Ian Johnson at the New American Foundation discussing his book, A Mosque in Munich. Gerhard von Mende, ex-Nazi Turkologist The mosque in the Munich saga begins with the seminal role played by ex- Nazi Turkologist and antisemite Gerhard von Mende, an ethnic German, born in Riga, Latvia. He held a PhD in Soviet Studies and Economics from Berlin University and ultimately became a full professor there. Von Mende was a talented linguist, spoke Turkish and several Central Asian variants, Arabic, Russian, French, English and even Norwegian, his wife’s native language. Von Mende also wrote blatant antisemitic tracts. Johnson notes this from a von Mende book, The Peoples of the Soviet Union: "Bolshevism has given a push to the expansion of those Jewish circles, which reject all alliances except for a blood-defined cliquish confederacy . . . It seems that the main danger of Judaism for other peoples lies in the fact that it is a unit not comparable to a nation, but in its unity it surpasses the unity of some nations." Johnson notes that von Mende engaged in such screed because: ". . . his reason for hating Jews was exactly his reason for embracing Soviet Muslims. He rejected Jews because of their extra-national links, yet he advocated the use of Soviet Muslims precisely because of their lack of allegiance to the Soviet state." Von Mende, while at Berlin University, wrote extensively about Muslim irredentism in the Soviet Caucasus, Crimea and Central Asian republics, the latter referred to as Turkistan. Pre-war books by von Mende predicted the rise of independent Muslim states if a "severe shock" to the Soviet Union occurred either by invasion, akin to the failed German attack during WWII, or what occurred in the wake of the fall of the Soviet empire and its break up in 1991. When Nazi Germany launched Operation Babarossa, the invasion of Soviet Russia in June, 1941, von Mende joined the Hitler-era Ostministerium – the bureaucracy for administering the occupied territories in the East - to build an initiative aimed at cultivating irredentist Muslim movements in overrun Soviet territory. Von Mende was one of the mid-level bureaucrats who participated in the Wannsee conference in January 1942. The Ostministerium oversaw the implementation of the Final Solution of the Nazi Holocaust of European Jews. Despite SS engineered overhauls in 1943 of the Ostministerium, von Mende survived to become overall head of the Foreign Peoples Division, with overall responsibility for dealing with irredentist Muslim communities in Soviet areas overrun by the German army. In the initial Nazi invasion of Russia hundreds of thousands of Soviet Muslim soldiers were captured. These Muslim Soviet POWs were initially maltreated. A German officer and Uzbek ex-pat living in Germany, Veli Kayum, entered the camps and enlisted their aid in forming fighting military units to combat their former Soviet masters. Kayum ultimately becomes head of a Turkestan National Liberation Council. Another Uzbek and von Mende protégé, Baymirza Hayit, became liaison to the German High Command. Several hundred thousand former Soviet Muslim POWs joined this effort and formed Waffen SS units akin to those in the Balkans, like the Bosnian Handshar or Dagger Division. One such Caucasian unit had regular German uniforms with a distinctive patch (Biz Alla Bilen – “God With Us”). These Soviet Muslim cadres in German units were used in the unsuccessful relief of Stalingrad and as special ops units in Operation Zeppelin. That operation involved the parachuting of Soviet Muslims into Russian territory equipped with maps and radios as pathfinders and possible saboteurs of petroleum complexes in Grozny and Azerbaijan in the Caucasus. Other former Soviet Muslim POWs become functionaries at the Ostministerium in Berlin and were organized into national liberation desks engaged in propaganda broadcasts –a model for post WWII CIA-funded efforts at Radio Liberty. One of those who figures in post-WWII activities with the CIA funded Radio Liberty is Tatar, Garip Sultan, who held the Tatar liberation desk at the Nazi Ostministerium. Sultan was promoted to military governor of the Tartar provisional government by the Nazis. One of von Mende’s initiatives bore significant results when over 20,000 Tatars joined Waffen SS auxiliaries after the Nazis took the Crimea. Von Mende reached out to Grand Mufti Haj Amin al Husseini and asked him to consider taking the post of Mufti for the conquered Crimea. Von Mende wrote Husseini: “The Islamic world is a whole . . . German action towards Moslems in the east must be such as not to prejudice Germany’s standing among all Islamic Peoples.” Hitler, when queried about the Waffen SS formation of these Soviet POW Muslims, considered them as "safe." As we know from the biography of his munitions chief Albert Speer, Hitler was an admirer of Islam and Jihadism. However the rollback by Soviet forces in 1944 put a stop to that effort. With the collapse of the Nazi eastern front, von Mende arranged for Muslim units to be transferred to the Western front so as to fall into British and US hands. These units were fighting for the national liberation of their Muslim homelands and attempting to practice their faith. He thought might appeal to the Americans in particular. HIs thinking may have been the result of an encounter with fabled OSS agent “Ruppert” during the late stages of WWII in Germany when he interviewed von Mende about the anti-Soviet Muslim national liberation activities and contacts at the office he headed in the Ostministerium. Von Mende sought possible refuge by crossing into Switzerland, only to be returned to Germany as the War in Europe came to a close. In October, 1945 Von Mende made contact with the British who appeared to be interested in his Ostministerium network because of the Promethean League members who were anti-Soviet émigrés. Some Muslim units interviewed by US Army CIC evaded return to ultimate imprisonment and death in a Soviet Gulag under the terms of Yalta agreement. As Johnson notes, perhaps upwards of a few thousand of these ex-Nazi Muslim soldiers end up in Displaced Persons Camps near Munich, the largest city in the American sector of post-war Germany. Von Mende, despite his Nazi background, was interviewed by the CIA, given the code name Capriform and received a position at the University of Munich, as cover. The CIA was very interested in inserting agents into Soviet territory. Ultimately, however, the CIA rejected his suggested approach to information gathering and covert propaganda warfare. Nevertheless, von Mende ultimately thrived by running an independent consultancy in Dusseldorf until his death in 1963. That consultancy was supported initially by British Intelligence and later, with the formation of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949, by BND Intelligence, Refugee Programs and the Foreign Ministry to monitor Muslim émigrés. Those new émigrés included wartime Caucasian and Central Asian Muslim Waffen SS alumni. Among them were Garip Sultan, Ibrahim Gacoglu, and Nurredin Namangani, an Uzbek Imam of an SS division who survived a term in a Soviet gulag. Some became involved in CIA covert anti–Soviet activities during pilgrimages to Mecca. Namagani figures prominently in the failed attempt by these ex-Nazi Muslim soldiers to take control of the Munich Mosque as sought by von Mende. His legacy lived on in the CIA-backed Radio Liberty in Munich with its national liberation desk organization based on his Ostministerium experience, replete with members from the ex-Muslim soldiers’ network. Several of these former Nazi Muslim soldiers were employed by CIA operatives at the American Committee of Liberation’s (Amcomlib) Munich–based Radio Liberty. PICTURE NOT UPLOADED President Eisenhower with the Princeton Islam Seminar Delegation at the White House, July 1953. Said Ramadan is the second on the right. Enter Said Ramadan the son-in-law of Muslim Brotherhood Founder, Hassan al-Banna Johnson notes that at one point AMCOMLIB CIA officers Eric Kuniholm and Robert Dreher, the latter based in Munich, provided funding for Dr. Said Ramadan. Ramadan with the connivance of Haj Amin Al Husseini spread the political Islamic doctrine of the MB via the World Muslim League. The League was co-founded by the Grand Mufti, al Husseini, and Ramadan. The core of the MB doctrine was the restoration of the Caliphate which had ended with establishment of modern Turkey in 1924. The Caliph would enforce strict Islamic Law in the ummah - the community of believers. Ramadan married one of daughters of Egyptian MB founder Hassan al-Banna, who was assassinated in 1949 by Egyptian authorities under King Farouk. Gamal al-Banna, brother of the MB founder, thought Ramadan could “have been the foreign Minister of the MB. He was an eloquent orator and spoke English. He had many contacts overseas.” Ramadan and the Grand Mufti held a meeting in Karachi during the World Muslim Congress in 1951. Ramadan was then elected as a secretary of the Congress. Ramadan was also with the Grand Mufti in the Jerusalem-based Islamic General Congress. Among his colleagues in the MB was Sayyid Qutb, the MB’s principal modern theorist and author of the tract Milestones. Qutb propounded the view that those who disagreed with these Islamic principals were apostates and therefore subject to a death. Despite viewing the West as degenerate, Said Ramadan viewed Soviet Communism as the foremost enemy of Islam. In this he was following the line laid done by the Grand Mufti. As early as 1946, the US War Department observed that the Mufti had informed his followers that Communism violated Koranic doctrine. That made him an influential Muslim anti-Communist. However, the Mufti was viewed as tainted goods by the CIA given his Nazi-past and sojourn in Berlin as Hitler’s house guest during WWII. Ramadan, on the other hand, had so such baggage. The stage was set for an encounter with President Eisenhower at a 1953 Princeton University Islamic Colloquium. Johnson noted: Abbott Washburn deputy director of the US Information Agency . . . recalled the high priority that Eisenhower gave to religion in his personal life and in geopolitical strategy. Washburn sent a note to Eisenhower’s psychological warfare whiz, C.D. Jackson. That [the Princeton Islamic Colloquium] might achieve a hoped for result that the Muslims will be impressed with the moral and spiritual strength of America. These individuals can exert a profound and far-reaching impact upon Muslim thinking. Their long-term influence may well outweigh that of the political leaders of their countries. As articulated in a confidential memo by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, the hope was “this psychological approach might make some important contributions to both short and long term US political objectives in the Moslem area.” The objectives were to “guide and promote the Islamic Renaissance," meaning the MB. (However, the MB had a political rather than a cultural objective.) That led the US government to reach out to US-Saudi oil conglomerate ARAMCO to underwrite the travel grants for this Princeton program. In July 1953, the US Embassy in Cairo invited Ramadan to the 10-day Princeton program. Ramadan and other participants then traveled to Washington for a photo-op with President Eisenhower in the White House. The CIA subsequently did an analysis of Ramadan at the Princeton conference and concluded that “Ramadan seems to be a fascist, interested in . . . power. He did not display many ideas except for those of the [MB].” The CIA Encourages Support of the MB in Eisenhower’s Second Administration Dr. Said Ramadan, Circa 1960 The encounters with Ramadan at Princeton in 1953, despite skepticism, nonetheless encouraged the Eisenhower Administration during his second term to provide support for the MB. This was viewed largely as a response to Soviet influence in Egypt under Nasser. In a letter to Presbyterian Church leader Edward Elson, Eisenhower wrote: “I assure you that I never fail in any communication with Arab leaders, oral or written, to stress the importance of the spiritual factor in our relationships. I have argued that belief in God should create between them and us the common purpose of opposing atheistic communism.” The real motivating factor was th possibility of jihad against Communism. Eisenhower spoke about this in a memo summarizing discussions with the CIA covert ops chief, Frank Wisner who figures in Obama’s Arab Spring scenario in 2011, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The memo notes: The President said . . . we should do everything possible to stress the ‘holy war’ aspect. Mr. Dulles commented that if Arabs have a ‘holy war’ they would want it to be against Israel. The President recalled, however, that [King Ibn] Saud . . . had called on all Arabs to oppose Communism. The ad hoc Working Group on Islam, including officials from the US Information Agency, State Department and the CIA created an “Outline of Operations.” The major push was to back the "reformists," meaning the MB, versus so-called "reactionary groups." The CIA’s Office of Policy Coordination was the paymaster for this plan. They relied on Dreher the CIA agent at AMCOMLIB in Munch to set up the flow of funds to Muslim émigré groups. The focus in the mid-1950’s was on the series on non-aligned Nation Conferences at Bandung in Indonesia. The CIA used Said Shamil, a wealthy Dagestan Muslim, to badger delegates with petitions against Soviet suppression of Islam. Another émigré accomplice was Rusi Nasar, an Uzbek who had previously gone on pilgrimages to Mecca for AMCOMLIB and who directly attacked the Soviet delegation at the Second Bandung conference. But the emphasis was on supporting Ramadan, a major figure in the Muslim ummah. In the late 1950’s, a West German intelligence report surfaced that accused the US of being involved in securing Ramadan’s Jordanian passport, while Swiss intelligence said he was a US agent. Ramadan’s base had clearly shifted to Europe. In 1959 he left the Sudan, and made Geneva his permanent home. Ramadan, with covert CIA help, reached the pinnacle of his influence with the assumption of leadership of the World Muslim League in the 1960’s. In 1963, he gave King Saud the official proposal to found the League and was granted a diplomatic passport as Ambassador-at-large for the League. Ramadan, however, rejected Saudi funds and ended up traveling the world on a Pakistani passport. Ramadan was always contemptuous of US intelligence. As one report noted: Ramadan held no hatred for the American people, only amazement at the incompetence of the American intelligence community and its seemingly endless reliance on corruption to get what it wanted. Ramadan’s Role in Taking Over the Munich Islamic Center for the MB Ramadan, while continuing to be a person of interest to the US, had problems given his virulently anti-Israel views. He told US diplomats in Rabat, Morocco in 1956 that “Jews must be expelled from Palestine,” a precursor of the MB affiliate Hamas Charter of 1988. With an attempted 1954 assassination plot by the MB on the life of Egyptian strongman Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ramadan fled Egypt for Saudi Arabia. He and other MB conspirators were charged with treason and stripped of their Egyptian citizenship. Jordan gave him a diplomatic passport and even “sent him to West Germany as Ambassador-at-large.” Ramadan eventually received asylum status in Switzerland. Given his new home in Geneva, Ramadan completed his doctorate in Islamic Law (Shariah) at a German University while traveling around the Muslim ummah on behalf of the World Muslim Congress. On Christmas Day in 1958 he met with the ex-Nazi Muslim soldiers and several Muslim students seeking to establish an Islamic Center in Munich. According to Muhammad Abdel Karim Grimm, a German convert and Muslim activist, “the students were all well-educated, they had all learned the lessons of Hasan al-Banna.” Mahdi Akef Supreme leader of Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood While first welcomed as a respected figure in the Muslim ummah, Ramadan fomented infighting over who would lead the Islamic Center in Munich. That resulted in the seizure of control from von Mende’s ex-Nazi Muslim soldiers by Ramadan and a group of Muslim students. The students in turn were replaced by a succession of MB figures including Ghaleb Himmat, a Syrian businessman, who headed the Islamic Center for over 30 years from his base in Lugano, Switzerland. He was assisted by Egyptian businessman Youssef Nada who secured funds mainly from Libya (both pre and post Gaddafi takeover) to complete the construction of the Munich Islamic Center which opened in 1973. Mahdi Akef, current supreme leader of the Egyptian MB. headed the Munich Islamic center for four years from 1984 to 1987. Ramadan’s Assassination Plots in Egypt and Washington Ramadan wasn’t finished by any means. In 1965, Ramadan was once again involved with MB underground teams in Egypt from his base in Geneva plotting to assassinate Gamal Abdel Nasser. This time the plot was foiled by a tip from King Hussein’s Jordanian intelligence service. An MB operative in President Nasser's personal Honor Guard was poised to assassinate him. News of the plot resulted in Egyptian security detaining more than more than 6,000 conspirators. Perhaps in revenge for this attempt by the MB, Nasser had MB theoretician Sayyid Qtub executed in 1966. Although Ramadan was a neo-Salafist Sunni, that did not, dissuade him from reaching out to Shia Mahdists like Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, as they shared many of the same objectives, including the destruction of Israel. Because of his trips to Washington, DC. Ramadan made the acquaintance of disaffected African American ex-military who had converted to Islam. These Muslim converts engaged in a series of actions against Iranian ex-pat supporters of the late Shah who were planning a counter-coup against the new Islamic regime in Tehran. Ramadan thought this information might of use to Khomenei who was preparing a revolution in Iran from his base in Paris. The Ayatollah convened his Islamic Council in Paris, whereupon upwards of $5.0 million was provided to recruit African-American converts to his cause. An Iranian naturalized American citizen, Bahram Nahidian, who was a rug merchant and supporter of the Ayatollah in Washington, DC became Ramadan’s recruiter of these converts for operations against supporters of the late Shah. An Afro American Islamic convert, David Belfield, a.k.a. Dawud Salahuddin was recruited for the assassination of Ali Akbar Tabatabai’e, a counter-coup plotter and coup organizer. Tabatabai’e was shot at point blank range by Salahuddin disguised as a US postal worker at Tabatabai’e’s residence in Bethesda, Maryland on July 22, 1980. Salahuddin fled the US to Geneva, where Ramadan gave him temporary refuge. Despite initial objections by the Iranian Embassy in Switzerland, Salahuddin was cleared and fled to Tehran where he obtained sanctuary under Ayatollah Khomenei. Professor Tariq Ramadan Son of Said Ramadan and Grandson of MB Founder Hasan al-Banna One of Ramadan’s two sons is controversial professor Tariq Ramadan of Oxford University in the UK. The younger Ramadan was denied entry to the US by the Bush State Department because of his charitable contributions to Hamas, an MB affiliate. Federal court decisions in 2008 led to Tariq Ramadan being granted a visa. Said Ramadan died in Switzerland in 1995. The Munich Islamic Center Spawns MB Affiliates in the US Youssef Nada, Egyptian Financier of MB in US The Munich Islamic Center has spawned a number of MB affiliates in America. After a Lugano, Switzerland conference in 1977 at which exiled MB preacher and spiritual figure Egyptian Yusuf Qaradawi attended, they created the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) to nurture and spread the neo-Salafist doctrine of Qutb and others. After a 1978 meeting in Saudi Arabia, the MB leaders decided strategically to locate the IIIT in the US. Initially the Institute was opened in Philadelphia, lead by Dr. Ismail Faruqi, who was on the faculty at Temple University. Later the IIIT would move to its present site in Fairfax County, Virginia. International Institute Islamic Society of North America Of Islamic Thought Two attendees at the Lugano meeting were Dr. Jamal Barzinji and Ahmed Tontonji. Barzinji signed the incorporation papers for the opening of the IIIT in the US in 1980. Another MB functionary was Dr. Hisham Altallib. He became a voting member of the Munich Islamic Center in 1978. The trio of Tontonji, Barzinji and Altallib, after study in Britain, left for the US in the 1960’s. In 1962, Tontonji formed the oldest MB front in the US, the Muslim Student Association. The first MSA National chapter was formed in 1963 at the campus of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which launched ISNA. The National MSA has grown to more than several hundred chapters on high school, college and university campuses throughout the US and Canada. Perhaps the most notorious of which is the Muslim Student Union at U.C. Irvine in Orange County, California whose members were indicted for disrupting the speech of Israeli Ambassador to the US, Hon. Michael Oren in February, 2010. The Lugano trio of three Iraqis, Totonji, Barzinji and Altallib, settled in Indianapolis. They were joined by benefactor Nada who lived there between 1978 and 1982. They used Saudi money to build a national headquarters on a 42 acre site in the community of Plainfield, Indiana. There they created several MB fronts: the North American Islamic Trust, used to provide Shariah compliant mortgages for mosque construction and expansion, the Muslim Student Association and the largest Muslim advocacy group in the US, the Islamic Society of North America. As noted in the Militant Islam Monitor the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) in Northern Virginia chairman Ahmed Tontonji is: "... an Iraqi-born citizen of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and a key target of Operation Green Quest. Totonji was also named as a defendant in a $1 trillion lawsuit filed by more than 600 relatives of people who died in the 9/11 attacks. He acted as a co-founder and officer of the Saudi-founded/Saudi-funded (and now defunct) SAAR Trust. Additionally, he served as Vice President of the Safa Group and the International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT). Officials have linked the non-profit IIIT to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda..." In Conclusion What we have learned in this cautionary tale of early US involvement with the MB during the Cold War era, is how myopic this country’s leaders have been about the international political agenda of the Ikhwan. Hopes to use the MB in a "holy war" against Soviet Communism backfired. Consider too the feckless nature of the CIA during the secret war in Afghanistan with Saudi partners against Soviet forces, the so-called Charlie Wilson’s War of the 1980’s. That effort was spawned by National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski under President Carter in 1979 and was another anti-Soviet attempt to use a "holy war," along with billions from the US, the Saudis and the corrupt Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence service, to weaken the USSR. After the Soviet 40th Army retreated from Afghanistan in 1989, al Qaeda, followers of the MB Islamic doctrine of Qutb, arose to afflict us with global Islamic terror. The Bush Administration while feigning refusal to meet with the MB in Egypt, nevertheless cultivated the successor to the World Muslim League founded by Said Ramadan, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), a virtual Caliphate composed of 57 Muslim nations. In 2007, President Bush appointed the first special envoy to the OIC, giving it embassy status in Washington, DC. In the wake of the Arab spring in Egypt, the Obama Administration has reached out to the Egyptian MB that might become the ruling party if, as expected, their new Freedom and Justice Party receives a plurality in the coming elections this fall. What is that careworn French expression? Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, “the more things change the more they stay the same.” Said Ramadan must indeed be smiling at these developments. However remote, the enticement of a worldwide Caliphate, long sought by the Muslim Brotherhood, now looms large, threatening the West and the Muslim world, as fanatics regain a concrete goal upon which to fasten their grandiose schemes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len Colby Posted December 22, 2012 Share Posted December 22, 2012 Yawn, this comes from an obscure Far- Right Islamaphobic site, references are scarce. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Gaal Posted December 24, 2012 Author Share Posted December 24, 2012 Yawn, this comes from an obscure Far- Right Islamaphobic site, references are scarce. // END COLBY +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ At this time Gordon represents the mainstream of Jewish journalism for Israel. ============= Jerry Gordon From SourceWatch Jerry Gordon is a vice president of Boycott Watch and "appears weekly on Alan Nathan's Battle Line World Debate on Radio America as Middle East Affairs analyst for American Congress for Truth" [1]. A "former U.S. Military Intelligence officer," Gordon is "a Graduate of both Boston University (BA) and Columbia University (MBA). He has appeared on national talk radio programs such as the John Batchelor Show on ABC radio, Israel National News, WNWR.com's Middle East Report, Alan Nathan's Battle Line on Radio America. Articles authored by Mr. Gordon have appeared in The Jewish Press, Front Page Magazine and the American Thinker. He is a regular contributor to IsraPundit. Mr. Gordon resides in Connecticut." [2] According to Lee Kaplan, Gordon is "an activist with several Connecticut Jewish organizations" [3]. The Jewish Federation, Inc. (CT) describes Gordon as a "Mover and shaker in the Jewish community." [4] ProfilesBio: Jerry Gordon, Israpundit. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- exampled writings http://www.jewishpressads.com/pageroute.do/15866 http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_category.cfm/cat_id/139 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len Colby Posted December 28, 2012 Share Posted December 28, 2012 Yawn, this comes from an obscure Far- Right Islamaphobic site, references are scarce. // END COLBY +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ At this time Gordon represents the mainstream of Jewish journalism for Israel. ============= Jerry Gordon From SourceWatch Jerry Gordon is a vice president of Boycott Watch and "appears weekly on Alan Nathan's Battle Line World Debate on Radio America as Middle East Affairs analyst for American Congress for Truth" [1]. A "former U.S. Military Intelligence officer," Gordon is "a Graduate of both Boston University (BA) and Columbia University (MBA). He has appeared on national talk radio programs such as the John Batchelor Show on ABC radio, Israel National News, WNWR.com's Middle East Report, Alan Nathan's Battle Line on Radio America. Articles authored by Mr. Gordon have appeared in The Jewish Press, Front Page Magazine and the American Thinker. He is a regular contributor to IsraPundit. Mr. Gordon resides in Connecticut." [2] According to Lee Kaplan, Gordon is "an activist with several Connecticut Jewish organizations" [3]. The Jewish Federation, Inc. (CT) describes Gordon as a "Mover and shaker in the Jewish community." [4] ProfilesBio: Jerry Gordon, Israpundit. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- exampled writings http://www.jewishpre...eroute.do/15866 http://www.newenglis....cfm/cat_id/139 Yawn, this comes from an obscure Far- Right Islamaphobic site, references are scarce. // END COLBY +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ At this time Gordon represents the mainstream of Jewish journalism for Israel. ============= Jerry Gordon From SourceWatch Jerry Gordon is a vice president of Boycott Watch and "appears weekly on Alan Nathan's Battle Line World Debate on Radio America as Middle East Affairs analyst for American Congress for Truth" [1]. A "former U.S. Military Intelligence officer," Gordon is "a Graduate of both Boston University (BA) and Columbia University (MBA). He has appeared on national talk radio programs such as the John Batchelor Show on ABC radio, Israel National News, WNWR.com's Middle East Report, Alan Nathan's Battle Line on Radio America. Articles authored by Mr. Gordon have appeared in The Jewish Press, Front Page Magazine and the American Thinker. He is a regular contributor to IsraPundit. Mr. Gordon resides in Connecticut." [2] According to Lee Kaplan, Gordon is "an activist with several Connecticut Jewish organizations" [3]. The Jewish Federation, Inc. (CT) describes Gordon as a "Mover and shaker in the Jewish community." [4] ProfilesBio: Jerry Gordon, Israpundit. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- exampled writings http://www.jewishpre...eroute.do/15866 http://www.newenglis....cfm/cat_id/139 he hardly seems to "represent the mainstream of Jewish journalism for Israel" he co-authored one Op-Ed for the Jewish Press, the rest of his writing seems to only appear in far right websites. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Gaal Posted December 29, 2012 Author Share Posted December 29, 2012 Politics is an ever moving target. Israel moves right,right,right. Jerry Gordon now mainstream..............mainstream........ not as Colby asserts FAR-RIGHT. (SEE POST # 7) Jewish Home Surges in Polls: Israeli Politics Heads Even More Rightward Likud-Beiteinu Struggling to Hold Off Challenges By Jason Ditz Global Research, December 28, 2012 Antiwar.com 27 December 2012 =================================== A new round of polls shows the Jewish Home (Habayit Hayehudi) continuing to surge as an even farther-right alternative to the Likud-Beiteinu list, and leaving little doubt that Israel’s already far-right voter base is continuing to shift. The surge in Jewish Home is led in no small part by former Netanyahu aide Naftali Bennett, who is scoring big both as a multi-millionaire business mogul and as a religious far-right ideologue who condemns the notion of Palestinian statehood on general principle in favor of a Greater Israel. This is problematic for Netanyahu on a number of fronts, as he has already alienated the religious right by throwing his lot in with Avigdor Lieberman, whose star is falling as his legal troubles mount, and is struggling to keep the joint list just barely palatable to the international community while facing accusations of being “soft” for not taking as sociopathic of a hard-line as his newfound rivals. Likud-Beiteinu has scrapped any endorsement of a two-state solution in its platform, but with “moderate” Likudniks already uneasy about their alliance with Lieberman and with the expulsion of their more moderate MPs, it will be difficult for them to go a step farther and scorn the idea of peace the way Bennett’s bloc is. This is costing them the extreme hawkish vote in the polls, while Home is scooping up votes from the fashionable religious right as well as the fringe. This should leave them a force to be reckoned with after the election, but leaves the path to majority government even less clear, as Likud-Beiteinu seems unlikely to partner with them or the center-left, and the really-far-right doesn’t appear to have enough seats to govern without Lieberman and Netanyahu. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len Colby Posted December 30, 2012 Share Posted December 30, 2012 Huhh? Yourown source classifies the party as far-right according to one poll they will get 15% of the vote in the next election. How does that make Gordon mainstream? An even if he were he cited no sources. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Gaal Posted December 31, 2012 Author Share Posted December 31, 2012 An even if he were he cited no sources.// END COLBY +++++++++++++++++++++ Israel moving ever rightward ........ IN ARTICLE POSTS LIGHT BLUE UNDERLINED WORDS ARE LINK TO SOURCES ...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len Colby Posted January 4, 2013 Share Posted January 4, 2013 Did you even bother to check those links? Most don't support the claims, the rest are to questionable sources. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Gaal Posted January 14, 2013 Author Share Posted January 14, 2013 (edited) The International Journal of INCLUSIVE DEMOCRACY, Vol. 8, No. 1/2 (Winter/Summer 2012) The Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic “democracy” in Egypt as part of the New World Order TAKIS FOTOPOULOS Abstract The aim of this article is to show that the Muslim Brotherhood’s rise to power in Egypt (as well as in Tunisia before it) has been engineered by the transnational elite, with the help of the local elites and the US-dependent local armies, since the previous client autocratic regimes were politically bankrupt and clearly incapable of imposing the “economic restructuring” required by neoliberal globalization without the occurrence of serious social turbulence. The Muslim Brotherhood’s rise to power will secure the integration of the countries concerned into the New World Order of neoliberal globalization and representative “democracy” in a new form of more sophisticated client regime based on Islamic “democratization,” whereby all the rituals and paraphernalia of “democracy” are present. The first part of this article deals with the Muslim Brotherhood’s rise to power and attempts to explain why it was chosen as the main instrument of the New World Order in the Middle East. The second part puts forward the case that the Muslim Brotherhood’s rise to power represents a new form of “democratic” client regime in the Middle East, in place of the autocratic client regimes which had been dominant in the area since the end of the Second World War. Go to Part II:Towards a New Form of a Client Regime PART I: THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD’S RISE TO POWER The “democratic” rise to power of the Islamists http://www.inclusive...hood_part1.ht ################################################################################# British Creation: Muslim Brotherhood - UK's Love Affair With Radical Islam - al Nursa Mercenary Interview - Radicalized Outside of Syria - 95 Percent Are Foreign Mercenaries In Syria Monday, December 17, 2012 By Mark Curtis Global Research, July 07, 2010 Guardian 5 July, 2010 UK’s collusion with radical Islam: Bin Laden, the Taliban, Zawahiri: Britain’s Done Business With Them All Five years after the 7/7 bombings in London see below http://www.abeldange...erhood-uks.html Edited January 17, 2013 by Steven Gaal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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