You might recall that over the past few weeks I've been having a bit of a debate with Robert Leiken and Steven Brooke of the Nixon Center following the publication of their article in the last issue of Foreign Affairs, "The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood", where they claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood, which has spawned virtually every single terrorist organization in the world, had "rejected jihad" and "embraced democracy".Startled by those outrageous claims, I responded at FrontPage with a critique, "Mainstreaming the Muslim Brotherhood", (blogged on it here) where I remarked:
As the worldwide jihad has grown in intensity in recent years, the Brotherhood’s supporters in the US are trying to capitalize on the upward trend of Islamic radicalization to paint the organization as “moderate” on this shifting scale. This is precisely the methodology employed by Leiken and Brooke, who attempt the Herculean task of cleaning out the Augean Stables of the Muslim Brotherhood’s long involvement in terrorist activity through misrepresentation and outright fabrication.A few weeks later, Leiken and Brooke attempted to respond to my critique, "A Response to Patrick Poole's 'Mainstreaming the Muslim Brotherhood'", engaging in a shameless attempt at doublespeak by claiming that there was some kind of distinction to be made between the Brotherhood's support for terrorism in the name of "defensive jihad" against innocent Israeli civilians and American troops serving in the Middle East and the "global jihad" against "Jews and Crusaders" proclaimed by al-Qaeda.
The Muslim Brotherhood so enthusiatically welcomes Leiken and Brooke's reponse to me that they reprinted it on their English-language website.
What they didn't expect, however, was less than a week later I would begin a devastating 3-part rejoinder to their demogoguery, "Showdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, Part 1" [Part 2] [Part 3] (see my blog entry, "A Rejoinder to the Muslim Brotherhood Lackeys")
Once again, Leiken and Brooke rely on evasion, duplicity and outright lies (I’ll discuss one glaring example of this latter tactic in relation to statements they made regarding the Brotherhood’s Jordanian affiliate) – methods not dissimilar to those used by the Muslim Brotherhood itself – to avoid answering the hard questions posed not just by myself, but by analysts from all across the political spectrum, about the organization’s deep and long-time connections to terrorism, their supposed disavowal of violence, and the genuineness of their claims to be favorably inclined towards democratic activity.Since that time, I've been receiving regular visits from the Nixon Center to this blog, but they either haven't found the courage or the time to respond.
So what do I make of their new-found interest in my writings? It seems rather than respond to the substance of my arguments (my rejoinder came out to a full 54 pages and cited 50+ scholarly papers, government reports and journalistic works contradicting their claims) they are planning a full-frontal ad hominem attack - the last refuge of scoundrels left without any substance to their arguments.
Honestly, I feel sorry for the Nixon Center intern that they are probably forcing to go through all of these blog posts searching for something they can twist out of context and attack me with. but I hope they don't forget to include in their literature review some of my previous work (most of which I link to in the sidebar), such as my translation of Sixteenth Century Reformation-era political works, my previous public policy reports, the articles I've done for other publications (WorldNetDaily, American Thinker, etc.), or my worldview essay series for Christianity & Society.
Who knows? While they are already on ideological lockdown on the issue of the Muslim Brotherhood, they might nonetheless (or at least the Nixon Center intern) might learn a few things.
UPDATE (05/02/07): Welcome again to everyone joining us today from the Nixon Center!
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