The Muslim Brotherhood's Lackeys Strike Back!

A few weeks ago I had an article published at FrontPage, "Mainstreaming the Muslim Brotherhood" (blogged on it here), which critiqued an article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs by Robert Leiken and Steven Brooke, "The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood". Well, this morning the pair launch a counter-strike, "A Response to Patrick Poole's 'Mainstreaming the Muslim Brotherhood'".

Having done just a quick read-through, it seems that Leiken and Brooke are determined continue their policy of outrageous falsehoods and outright duplicty to get us to "ignore the man behind the curtain" regarding the MB.

Here are just a few quick thoughts:

• Yet again, any evidence that flatly contradicts their argument about the Muslim Brotherhood's "moderation" is either ignored or immediately discounted and quickly explained away. Anyone within the Brotherhood that has said or done something that betrays something other than "moderation" -- even if it is the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, the top ranking officer of the organization -- is attributed to "hard-line" and "controversial" figures, and out-of-step with the supposed majority "reformist" elements of the MB. And to make sure they cover all their bases, I have "ripped everything out of context".


• They ignore the analysis I gave of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's 2004 Reform Initiative, where the Brotherhood outlined their vision of "democracy" and detailed their plans for an Islamic state governed by shari'a, where non-Muslims will be prohibited from holding public office with any substantive authority. But remember, they're moderate!


• They ignore as well the role that the Muslim Brotherhood's extensive financial networks have played in financing virtually every Islamic terrorist organization in the world, including Al-Qaeda (putting the lie to their repeated claims that the MB rejects Al-Qaeda's "global" jihad). Much like the monster under the bed, if you ignore it, it will go away.


• Once again HAMAS, the terrorist organization that is the Palestinian affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood, is virtually non-existent in their analysis (two paragraphs of their response). And they explain, since HAMAS is only killing Jews in Israel, instead of Americans (even though they do kill Jewish Americans every now and then, which they apparently expect us to forgive and forget), all is well. And they assure us that the relationship between the Palestinian and Egyptian branches are "more strained than Poole believes" (and they make sufficiently clear that they are also experts about what I believe).


• They quibble over the definition of "rejecting jihad" and "rejecting global jihad", which when you're getting your head cut off, or your children are being blown to bits in the market square, makes all the difference in the world.


• They completely fabricate that I believe that the Egyptian government is only cracking down on Muslim extremists, and that I am ignoring the plight of bloggers, journalists, etc. under the Mubarak regime. Where exactly did they get this?


• They accuse me of manufacturing claims that the Brotherhood incites violence against the Coptic community, which I'm sure that the Copts will be glad to hear that it's all just a figment of my imagination!

This "response" by Leiken and Brooke is as flatly dishonest as the response they recently offered to Douglas Farah and other critics of their Foreign Affairs article (Farah offers a detailed response at his blog) two weeks ago.

And I would direct your attention to a must-read entry yesterday at Counterterrorism Blog by Bill West ("Some US Diplomats & Politicians Think MB = “Moderate” Brotherhood - They Should Think Twice") taking note of an Adnkronos International (AKI) report that HAMAS has now opened up operations against the US in Iraq as "Iraqi HAMAS". I'm sure that Leiken and Brooke will remind us next how strained the relations are between the moderates and the new Iraqi HAMAS branch. Needless to say, a more detailed rejoinder to their response will be forthcoming.

Finally, let me also direct you to my headline article today at FrontPage on "Mortgage Fraud Funding Jihad".

UPDATE: Following up on a point I made above, the picture below taken in 2005 shows a crowd of the Muslim Brotherhood faithful demonstrating their friendship to the Copts with rocks, bottles, sticks and machetes. With friends like these...