The Brotherhood: America's Next Great Enemy (28 page)

Read The Brotherhood: America's Next Great Enemy Online

Authors: Erick Stakelbeck

Tags: #Political Science / Political Ideologies / Conservatism & Liberalism

7) Membership in Brotherhood superstructures. While official umbrella organizations (like the Brussels-based Federation of Islamic Organisations in Europe) are more common in Europe, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) serves that role in the United States.
13
These seven common traits are shared by, among others, the largest American Muslim organization, ISNA, and the loudest, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). One additional trait I would add to the list is that Western Brothers uniformly support Hamas and do not recognize Israel’s right to exist. A favorite tactic of these groups is to respond to Arab terror attacks against Israelis with statements condemning “terrorism in all its forms.” These statements conveniently avoid naming or condemning any specific group, whether Hamas, Hezbollah, or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and simply decry “terrorism.” They are purposefully vague, and by including the phrase, “in all its forms,” the Western Brothers cannily include supposed Israeli terror against Palestinians on the list.
Remember, the Brotherhood considers Palestinian suicide bombings against Israelis not as terrorism, but as legitimate resistance against illegal occupation. Still, the Western Brothers know that to keep up their moderate façade and remain in the good graces of Western media and governments, they need to feign some sort of public opposition when a Jewish child is blown to bits by a Hamas suicide bomber or rocket barrage. Invariably, their insincere, carefully parsed condemnations of “terrorism in all its forms” are more than enough to satisfy their many non-Muslim, Western supporters.
Although the covert nature of the Western Brotherhood organizations hearkens back to the founding principles of the Ikhwan in Egypt, the chief reason they continue in secrecy today is because of their mission to overturn governments, impose sharia law, and revive the global caliphate. At no time have these Western Brothers ever stopped supporting Islamic terrorist movements around the world, and when they’ve been caught doing so (for instance, via so-called Islamic “charitable organizations” that have been shut down by the U.S. government), they’ve quickly adapted their methods to continue providing that support.
Indeed, the Brotherhood has found the West useful territory for exporting global jihad. The United States, in particular, offers untold freedoms for an enterprising Islamist to exploit, all enshrined under the Constitution. America’s general affluence also provides ample funding sources and a large pool of high quality, college-educated recruits for the Brotherhood to mine via the Muslim Students Association (MSA) and other MB fronts. As the saga of Salah Sultan shows, this phenomenon is not limited to large coastal cities with significant Muslim populations, like New York City or Los Angeles. In my 2011 book,
The Terrorist Next Door
, I described how Brotherhood-linked organizations are establishing networks throughout the Bible Belt and Midwest—intentionally burrowing into the very fabric of America’s Judeo-Christian society with the intention of undermining it from within.
Clearly, we’re not in Kansas anymore when it comes to the Brotherhood in America. Or maybe we are. In 2007, Major Thomas Dailey of the Kansas City Police Department’s Counterterrorism Division offered stunning—and virtually unnoticed—testimony before Congress about Brotherhood infiltration in his heartland city:
In Kansas City, we face a silent, careful enemy. Disguised as legitimate Islamic organizations and charities we find the threads leading to Violent Islamist Extremism. Hidden within these groups are facilitators, communications, pathways for radicalization and funding sources for terrorism.... The possibility now exists that members of terrorist organizations and those posing as family members now reside in our community. . . . Areas of concern in Kansas City include an environment created for the support of terrorism through fundraising.
14
 
While Dailey’s testimony undoubtedly shocked our Ikhwan-illiterate Congress, it came as no surprise to anyone who’s been following the Brotherhood’s movements inside the United States. Indeed, Kansas City has long been a hub for MB activity, and some of the earliest conferences in the United States featuring known terrorist leaders and operatives were held there. According to the
Kansas City Star
:
Islamic extremists from around the globe flocked to Kansas City’s Bartle Hall to bond in prayer, song and dance, and ominous appeals for bloodshed. They came by the hundreds to promote jihad, or holy struggle, at two conventions during a pivotal time for radical Islam—December 1989 and again the next winter. At the first meeting a masked terrorist from the Palestinian group Hamas spoke in Arabic for an hour. He pledged “oceans of blood” would oust Israelis from his homeland.
15
 
The article confirmed that Muslim Brotherhood leaders were present at the 1990 Kansas City event. One Brother was captured on tape telling the audience that the borders of Jordan should be opened, “to Muslim youth so they may confront the Jews and the Americans at once.” Wait, did he say confront
Americans
? But I thought the Muslim Brothers were our friends? That’s no way for friends to treat each other!
No, Dorothy, despite the Obama administration’s protestations to the contrary, the Brotherhood is most certainly not America’s friend—far from it. Nevertheless, the Brothers have been here chipping away at our foundations for quite a while, with successive administrations, Democrat and Republican alike, apparently unconcerned. The organization first laid roots in the United States in 1963 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with the formation of the Muslim Students Association (MSA) by Brotherhood members. The MSA has a long history of turning out terrorists from its ranks. It served as the American launching pad for the Ikhwan, which was comprised mostly of university students for the first two decades of its existence on U.S. soil.
A U.S. Brotherhood leader named Zeid al-Noman outlined the MB’s past and future trajectories during a speech that federal authorities believe he delivered in—where else—Kansas City during the early 1980s. In the speech, he repeatedly emphasized the importance of establishing “fronts” to further the MB’s agenda (a goal that would come to fruition with the formation of ISNA, CAIR, and many others) and revealed that the American Brotherhood, though loosely connected in some respects, has a formal organizational structure and Shura Council that guide its overall direction. Al-Noman, in fact, was introduced as Masul (“official”) of the Executive Office of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.
16
Al-Noman said that one of the Brothers’ major goals in America was to move from being a “students Movement” to a “Movement of the residents.” The problem with being largely student-based, al-Noman explained, was that students were often transient, and “all the Ikhwans in one city might leave it or . . . the fundamental people the Movement relies on in this [particular] city might collectively leave,” he said. “And, thus, leaving a sort of a vacuum behind them; a vacuum in work and also a vacuum in planning.”
The Brotherhood needed a permanent and mature presence in America in order to really begin making headway. That’s why al-Noman was encouraged that many of the students had begun to establish Islamic centers in their respective cities—a tactic that the Brotherhood developed in ensuing years:
. . . the presence of an Islamic center means the presence of residents, means the existence of contacts between students and the residents, means recruitment of the residents and winning them to the ranks of the Dawa’a, means forming permanent foundations in these cities.
17
 
One of the places that the Brotherhood laid a “permanent foundation” was Plainfield, Indiana—once again, smack dab in the middle of the American heartland. Plainfield is the national headquarters of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which became the MB’s most important American organization shortly after it was created in 1982—fulfilling al-Noman’s vision of the U.S. Brotherhood moving past being a mostly student-centric enterprise.
It was a vision the Brotherhood actually laid out a few years before al-Noman’s speech, during a 1977 MB conference in Lugano, Switzerland. During that gathering, a task force comprised of senior Muslim Brotherhood leaders was created to move the Brothers beyond American college campuses and into the American mainstream. The eventual result of this task force would be the formation of ISNA, which is now the largest Islamic umbrella group in the United States and the preferred outreach partner for the U.S. government (despite ISNA’s being named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror financing trial).
Zeid al-Noman’s address not only gave a fascinating glimpse inside the Brotherhood’s formative years in the United States, but also shed light on an aspect of the Ikhwan’s U.S. operations that the group’s media and government allies would surely rather ignore. During the question-and-answer session that followed al-Noman’s remarks, some audience members—all of them undoubtedly peace-loving moderates—seemed to have a strange preoccupation with violence:
Unidentified Male:
By “Securing the Group”, do you mean military securing? And, if it is that, would you explain to us a little bit the means to achieve it.
 
 
Zeid Al-Noman:
No. Military work is listed under “Special work.” “Special work” means military work. “Securing the Group” is the Groups’ security, the Groups’ security against outside dangers. For instance, to monitor the suspicious movements . . . which exist on the American front such as Zionist, Masonry... etc. Monitoring the suspicious movements or the sides, the government bodies such as the
CIA, FBI
. . . etc, so that we find out if they are monitoring us, are we not monitored, how can we get rid of them. That’s what is meant by “Securing the Group.”
18
Two quick thoughts here: first, wouldn’t it be nice if the Department of Homeland Security, rather than drawing up memos warning about Tea Partiers and pro-life activists, devoted resources to investigating the Muslim Brotherhood’s “military work” on American soil? Second, if the U.S.-based Brothers aren’t doing anything illegal and have the country’s best interests at heart, as they assure us time and again, why are they so concerned about “ridding” themselves of monitoring by the CIA and FBI?
Al-Noman gave an indication why as the Q and A session rolled on, declaring, “while here in America, there is weapons training in many of the Ikhwans’ camps. . . .” The camps, he said, often included shooting ranges. He elaborated further that the Brothers had established a camp in Missouri, but avoided Oklahoma because of “harassments” by (rightly) suspicious local authorities. According to al-Noman, these MB camps were so important that if the wife of a Muslim Brotherhood member had just given birth, she would implore her husband to go to the camp rather than stay home and help tend to the newborn baby.
19
What is clear from al-Noman’s comments is that, as far back as the early 1980s, the Muslim Brotherhood—an organization which declares jihad its way and martyrdom its highest hope—was engaging in weapons training inside the United States. This should have been front-page news from coast to coast—but it wasn’t. In fact, although al-Noman’s speech was introduced as evidence by federal prosecutors in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial of 2008 (which saw five Amerikhwan convicted for funding Hamas), I’ll wager this chapter is the first time many readers have ever heard about it. The U.S. government, on the other hand, has had al-Noman’s speech in its possession for nearly a decade. And as we saw in Chapter Two, al-Noman’s revelations aren’t even the biggest ones to emerge from the Holy Land Foundation trial regarding the Brotherhood’s nefarious intentions toward the United States. Sadly, instead of using these smoking guns to smash the Brotherhood’s U.S. network, we have aimed the guns at our own heads by actively courting America’s Next Great Enemy.
The Ikhwan’s operations in the United States are not just some passing diversion—indeed, they have been directed at the highest levels of the international Muslim Brotherhood, dating at least as far back as 1977. That was the year of the aforementioned Lugano conference—held at the luxurious villa of Muslim Brotherhood “foreign minister” Youssef Nada—and featuring thirty top Islamist leaders from all over the world, including the Brotherhood’s hugely influential spiritual guide, Yusuf al-Qaradawi. A senior Brotherhood official later told American authorities that he believed the conference provided a “blueprint” for the worldwide activities of the Muslim Brotherhood for most of the 1980s.
20

Other books

Corey McFadden by Deception at Midnight
Her Perfect Stranger by Jill Shalvis
Welding with Children by Tim Gautreaux
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Tek Kill by William Shatner
Sunset Boulevard by Zoey Dean
Korea Strait by David Poyer