The political madness surrounding anything to do with the Muslim Brotherhood in the US shows no sign of abating. Yesterday, the GMBDW posted on the vile allegations made by a long-time confidante and advisor to Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump against Khizr Khan, the father of slain US Army Captain Human Khan who in 2005 was killed in Iraq a suicide bomber. Based on a website known for its incomprehensible ravings and dubious sources, Roger Stone alleged that Khizr Khan is a “Muslim Brotherhood Agent.” In the face of withering criticism, Stone yesterday attempted to alter his allegation, this time tweeting:
CORRECTION- Mr. Kahn is not an agent of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. His association is with Saudi Jihadi and Omar Naseef #9/11funder
If anything, this latest allegation is even more nonsensical as we have no idea how it is possible to confuse Abdullah Omar Naseef, who we first reported on in 2008, with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. More importantly, Stone presents no evidence for the latest charge against Mr. Kahn which presumably has something to do with the report carried on the above website that Khan spent an unidentified amount of time in Saudi Arabia and that he once worked for a law firm that does work for the Saudi Embassy and that donated $50,000 to the Hillary Clinton Campaign. Presumably since Naseef is a Saudi, this is enough for Stone to link Mr. Khan to Naseef or perhaps he is constructing yet more tortured logic involving Huma Abedin, the long-time aide to Hillary Clinton whose family had ties to organizations where Naseef is a leader.
This latest and sordid affair is symptomatic of what we have already described as the political madness surrounding anything to do with the Muslim Brotherhood in the US and which seems to be escalating in this already fractious US Presidential campaign. The GMBDW reviewed our postings on this subject over the last months which demonstrate that neither the Democrats or the Republicans can claim any kind of sanity in this area. In June, we posted on the close relationship enjoyed by Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate Tim Kaine with the Muslim American Society (MAS), a part of the US Muslim Brotherhood closest to the Egyptian organization. As noted at that time:
The selection of Tim Kaine as the Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate appears to be the continuation of what the GMBW considers to be the exceeding ill-advised history of engagement with and/or support for the Global Muslim Brotherhood on the part of major Democratic political leaders. This history dates back to at least December 1995 when Maher Hathout, the late leader of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), was invited to the White House to discuss the Bosnia peace agreement with senior administration officials.
In that post, we also discussed further relationships between then President Bill Clinton and the Global Muslim Brotherhood including the formation of an organization representing a cooperative effort between the US Muslim Brotherhood and the US State Department, the showcasing of the former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi at the closing session of the 2012 meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, and our exclusive reporting that Gehad El-Haddad, the son of an important Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader and a leader in the group in is own right, was the City Director in Egypt for the William J. Clinton Foundation.
Our post also noted that the GMBDW has been in the forefront of reporting on high profile individuals in the Obama Administration that are tied to the Global Muslim Brotherhood including former Obama campaign advisor Mazen Asbahi, Hillary Clinton’s now notorious aide Huma Abdedin, and the US OIC envoy Rashed Hussein. We also reported that this abysmal record of the Obama Administration was capped in June of this year when the White House appointed the grandson of one of the most important US Muslim Brotherhood leaders as the new liaison to the Muslim American community under the White House Office of Public Engagement.
On the Republican side, in March of this year we reported that the virulently Islamophobic rhetoric of the front-running Republican candidates was handing the US Muslim Brotherhood arguably their greatest public relations victory since we began the GMBDW in 2007. As we wrote then, one of the best known of the Republican advisors had been recently be widely criticized for what are said to be his “insane” conspiracy theories which were identified by one publication as including the following:
- that Muslims are trying to impose Sharia (Islamic religious law) on America.
- that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the federal government and has called for a new version of the House Un-American Activities Committee, the inquisition into communism in the 1950s, to examine and “root out” its activities.
- that Obama “not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself.”
- that Huma Abedin, an aide to Hillary Clinton who worked closely with the then-secretary of state, was connected to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Without repeating our analysis contained in that post, we concluded that with the exception of the patently absurd notion that President Obama is a secret Muslim:
…while theories such as those listed above may be fanciful and extreme, they often contain more than a degree of truth which is why the GMBDW originally reported on them. That said, the degree to which the current Republican candidates and their advisors have espoused them only allows the US Muslim Brotherhood to discredit them in their entirety which is why we opened this post citing what we labeled the great PR victory being handed to such groups such as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR).
Given these two extremes, it would seem that the US media would be the most appropriate venue for helping US voters through this morass. Unfortunately, our recent reporting on the media in this regard gives us no reason for optimism. The GMBDW is aware of no US major media reporting on the subject of the US Muslim Brotherhood and/or Hamas infrastructure since Rod Dreher was reporting on the 2007 Holy Land Foundation trial for the Dallas Morning News. Before that, we are aware of only two major media articles on the subject both from 2004- the Chicago Tribune article on the Bridgeview Mosque and the Washington Post article on the Muslim Brotherhood in the US as well as elsewhere in the world. Since 2007, there has been a deafening silence from the US media on the Muslim Brotherhood in the US with the exception of pieces such as the recent Huffington Post article that attempted to ridicule the extensive evidence of ties between two Muslim Congressmen and the US Muslim Brotherhood and a Washington Post article from yesterday that debunked claims that the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) was connected to the Khizr Khan but, following the practice of all major US media, fails to even once identify the ties of CAIR to both the US and Global Muslim Brotherhood.
It would appear then that the US political system has completely broken down with respect to anything to do with the Muslim Brotherhood in the US. US voters are faced with a Democratic Party whose leaders have long been cozy with the Global Muslim Brotherhood and a Republican Party that criticizes those relationships in such a heinous and unprincipled manner that they destroy the ability of serious analysts to address the question. Into the fray comes the US media which either refuses to address the issue or spends all of its time throwing the baby out with the bathwater in its attempts to combat Republican rhetoric.
The situation in the US can be contrasted with the United Kingdom where the government has held two serious inquires on the Muslim Brotherhood, both domestically and internationally and where the GMBDW editor was invited to submit testimony. In addition, the major UK media is unafraid to do serious work on the issue and has generated a large number of serious articles on the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK, including some featuring the work of the GMBDW Editor. The GMBDW sees no possibility of anything similarly happening in the US into the foreseeable future and it therefore is highly unlikely that a sane political conversation on this issue will happen anytime soon. In the meantime, the GMBDW will do its best and as long as possible to help readers come to a reasonable, fact-based understanding of the Muslim Brotherhood, both in the US and around the world.