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THOSE WHO favor the United States designating the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization, a move being considered by the Trump administration and advanced by a few members of Congress, think it will strike a singular blow against violent extremism. But they labor under an illusion. The Muslim Brotherhood is not a single, cohesive unit, but rather a sprawling organization. It does not systematically engage in terrorism, although some parts of it have turned to violence. A blanket designation would be a mistake.
Any organization that supports or promotes Islamic values is a major threat to non Muslims anywhere in the world. That includes the screwed up Islamic apologists who preach equality day and night for women, yet fully support Islamic values.
Obama and Clinton in 2010 then outlined their new and untested approach to Middle East policy in the document titled Presidential Study Directive-11. In an op-ed dated March 6, 2011, David Ignatius with The Washington Post helpfully delves into PSD-11. He writes, "This is the president as global community organizer — a man who believes that change is inevitable and desirable, and that the United States must align itself with the new forces shaping the world."
Obama then announced America's new policy during a global apology tour that U.S. protocol in the Middle East and with the Muslim world would change dramatically.
The United Arab Emirates-based publication, Middle East Briefing, in an analysis of Freedom of Information Act documents and other sources, found that under PSD-11 the State Department would lead an effort to build "civil society" — particularly nongovernmental — organizations to alter the internal politics of targeted countries.
Under PSD-11, the Obama administration deliberately pivoted from a strategy that focused on maintaining stability in the Middle East to a strategy emphasizing U.S. support for regime change — regardless of the impact it might have on the region's stability. That is why we have gone from a general state of stability in the region in 2009 to the Middle East chaos we have now. Officials did not concern themselves with questions over whether new regimes would be allies or foes of the U.S. – or U.S. intelligence agency warnings about the jihadist chaos such regime change might unleash. They chose to believe the few rosy sunglass analyses.
Ignatius referred to intelligence analysts who said at the time, "…Islamic extremists don't seem to be hijacking the process of change." He quotes one intelligence analyst who discounted the threat from the Muslim Brotherhood. The West had previously ostracized the movement over its violent tendencies.
Individuals who reviewed documents released under FOIA concluded that State believed "that the Muslim Brotherhood was a viable movement for the U.S. to support throughout North Africa and the Middle East." As a result, "American diplomats intensified contacts with top Muslim Brotherhood leaders and gave active U.S. support to the organization's drive for power in key nations like Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Syria…" It represented a major shift in decades long U.S. policy.
In the ensuing months, the Obama-Clinton administration then abandoned Iraq and prioritized promoting regime change in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Syria above stability in the Middle East. It engaged with the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaida elements and other syndicates that it naively considered harmless and erroneously believed would foster democratic reforms.
Today the countries that America deserted or knocked over — Iraq, Yemen, Libya and Syria — are failed states. Tunisia remains a work in progress, and Egypt is slowly recovering from its disastrous experiment with Muslim Brotherhood leadership.
PSD-11 and the resulting decisions based upon it reshaped the Middle East substantially. Its flawed and naive analysis and the policies that sprang from it created conditions that fostered the rapid expansion of Islamist terror, specifically ISIS, and have sent the Middle East into barbaric turmoil.
Trump must criticize the handling of Khashoggi - then declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. No member can immigrate to the US, get a visa, etc.
declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. No member can immigrate to the US, get a visa, etc.
Saint Jamal is portrayed romantically getting a document that he needed in order to get married to his fiancee. Hardly anyone mentions why:
THOSE WHO favor the United States designating the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization, a move being considered by the Trump administration and advanced by a few members of Congress, think it will strike a singular blow against violent extremism. But they labor under an illusion. The Muslim Brotherhood is not a single, cohesive unit, but rather a sprawling organization. It does not systematically engage in terrorism, although some parts of it have turned to violence. A blanket designation would be a mistake.
Founded in 1928 in Egypt as a religious, social and political organization, the Muslim Brotherhood has evolved over subsequent decades. After endorsing the use of violence in its early years, the Egyptian branch of the Brotherhood disowned it in the 1970s in exchange for the freedom to organize politically and socially. Following the Arab Spring uprising in Egypt, the Brotherhood moved into politics and one of its members, Mohamed Morsi, was elected president in 2012. His faltering performance led to mass protests, and he was deposed by the military a year later. Gen. Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, now Egypt’s president, has outlawed the Brotherhood, arrested its leaders and members, and pressed hard for Washington to impose the foreign terrorist designation.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-terrorism-label-that-would-hurt-more-than-help/2017/02/09/35978c90-ee35-11e6-b4ff-ac2cf509efe5_story.html?utm_term=.911e49ef66a7
The article goes on. It doesn't mention what happened with the Muslim Brotherhood in early 90s Algeria, and Khashoggi's first attempt at forming a "Democratic Activist Front". Strangely, Algeria and Al Qaeda is not mentioned.
Just so you can see the WP is sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood.