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[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 118 (Friday, August 3, 2012)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1416-E1418]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

                       MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD PROBES

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. TRENT FRANKS

                               of arizona

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, August 2, 2012

  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker. I submit the Politico article 
titled ``In defense of Michele Bachmann, Muslim Brotherhood probes'', 
dated July 29, 2012, and authored by former Speaker Newt Gingrich.

       The recent assault on the National Security Five is only 
     the most recent example of the fear our elites have about 
     discussing and understanding radical Islamists.
       When an orchestrated assault is launched on the right to 
     ask questions in an effort to stop members of Congress from 
     even inquiring about a topic--you know the fix is in. The 
     intensity of the attack on Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) as 
     well as Republican Reps. Trent Franks of Arizona, Louie 
     Gohmert of Texas, Tom Rooney of Florida and Lynn Westmoreland 
     of Georgia is a reminder of how desperate our elites are to 
     avoid this discussion. Yet consider this rush to silence 
     questions in light of our history of unpleasant surprises 
     during the Cold War.
       Given all the painful things we learn about people every 
     day and the surprises that shock even the experts (the head 
     of the FBI anti-spy effort was a Russian spy, for example), 
     you have to wonder why people would aggressively assert we 
     shouldn't ask about national security concerns.
       Remember the shock in 2001 when we learned that FBI agent 
     Robert Hanssen had been spying for 22 years--first for the 
     Soviet Union and then the Russian Federation. This disaster 
     came just seven years after the 1994 arrest of Aldrich Ames, 
     a CIA counterintelligence officer who was a Soviet spy for 
     eight years.
       Why should we assume we're in better shape today, when 
     political correctness is passionately opposed to tough 
     counterintelligence screening? It's as though our

[[Page E1417]]

     leaders have forgotten every lesson of the 1930s about 
     fascism, Nazism and communism and every lesson from 1945 to 
     1991 about communism. We have replaced tough mindedness about 
     national security with a refusal to think seriously and 
     substituted political correctness and a ``solid'' assurance 
     that people must be OK because they are ``nice'' and ``hard 
     working'' for the systematic, intense investigations of the 
     past.
       I'm not suggesting that our primary threat is espionage. 
     Our greatest problem is getting the wrong analysis, advice 
     and policy proposals. It is the bias of the advisers and the 
     disastrous policies they propose that are our gravest danger 
     at this stage of the long struggle with radical Islamists. 
     Our elites refuse to even consider that the advice they are 
     getting is biased, tainted, distorted--or just plain wrong.
       The underlying driving force behind this desperate desire 
     to stop unpleasant questions is the elite's fear that an 
     honest discussion of radical Islamism will spin out of 
     control. They fear if Americans fully understood how serious 
     radical Islamists are, they would demand a more 
     confrontational strategy.
       Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned last week, 
     ``The West is asleep on this issue.'' Islamist extremists, 
     Blair asserted in an interview with The Telegraph, seek 
     ``supremacy, not coexistence.'' A young John F. Kennedy wrote 
     ``Why England Slept'' to try to understand how the leadership 
     of a nation could ignore, repress and reject warnings about 
     Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. A future JFK may write ``Why 
     Washington Slept'' to explain our current period. The case of 
     the National Security Five would be a good chapter on the 
     desperation of the elites to avoid reality and their 
     determination to smother any wake-up call, which might make 
     them come to grips with Blair's warning.
       This desperate avoidance of reality is not new. After Maj. 
     Nidal Hasan shouted, ''Allahu Akbar'' (``God is great'') in 
     Fort Hood, Texas, and killed 12 soldiers and one Army 
     civilian while wounding 29 others, there was pressure to 
     avoid confronting his acts as inspired by his support for 
     radical Islamism. An American of Palestinian descent, Hasan 
     had been in touch with a radical American cleric in Yemen, 
     Anwar al-Awlaki. He declared Hasan a hero. Al-Awlaki was 
     himself declared a ``specially designated global terrorist'' 
     and, with presidential approval, was killed by a predator 
     missile. Yet, despite the evidence, Wikipedia reports, ``One 
     year after the Fort Hood shooting, the motivations of the 
     perpetrator were not yet established.''
       It did offer suggestions about motivation, however. For 
     example, ``A review of Hasan's computer and his multiple 
     email accounts has revealed visits to websites espousing 
     radical Islamist ideas.'' Talking about Islam, he said, 
     ``Nonbelievers would be sent to Hell, decapitated, set on 
     fire and have burning oil poured down their throats.''
       A rational person would have some hints about what 
     motivated a terrorist killing spree. If even Wikipedia could 
     reach some conclusion about motivation, you would think the 
     national security system could do the same. Not so. The 
     Defense Department official report instead focused on Hasan's 
     actions as though they were ``workplace violence'' rather 
     than terrorism. President Barack Obama, in his speech at Fort 
     Hood, described the attack as ``incomprehensible.''
       Despite every effort by our enemies to communicate why they 
     hate us and why they want to replace our world with theirs, 
     our leaders find their motives ``incomprehensible.'' Clearly, 
     Obama hasn't understood Blair's warning.
       An even more bizarre example of ignoring reality was New 
     York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's initial response to news that 
     a car bomb had been found in Times Square. Bloomberg is mayor 
     of the city attacked on Sept. 11--so did he shrewdly identify 
     the probable perpetrator? Of course not. Bloomberg opined it 
     was a ``homegrown, maybe a mentally deranged, person or 
     someone with a political agenda that doesn't like the health 
     care bill or something. It could be anything.''
       Just as Bloomberg was desperately avoiding blaming radical 
     Islamists, the New York Police Department noted the 
     similarities to a 2007 jihadist car bombing in London. A 
     Taliban video from Pakistan claimed responsibility for the 
     car bomb. The person being looked for was a U.S.-naturalized 
     citizen from Pakistan.
       Given that evidence, Bloomberg's will to hide from the 
     truth illustrates the challenge that the National Security 
     Five face in raising appropriate and even frightening 
     questions.
       The case of the Pakistani-American car bomber has yet 
     another lesson for those willing to learn it. At his 
     sentencing, Faisal Shahzad asserted, ``If I'm given 1,000 
     lives, I will sacrifice them all for the life of Allah.'' He 
     had apparently planned to build another car bomb in the 
     next two weeks. The Pakistan Taliban had given him $15,000 
     and five days of explosive training just months after he 
     became a U.S. citizen.
       As Fox News reported: ``The judge cut him off at one point 
     to ask him if he had sworn allegiance to the United States 
     when he became a citizen last year. `I did swear' Shahzad 
     answered, `but I did not mean it.' ''
       Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum clearly understood the 
     threat. She stated in sentencing: ``The defendant has 
     repeatedly expressed his total lack of remorse and his 
     desire, if given the opportunity, to repeat the crime.'' 
     Shahzad was not some desperate representative of poverty or 
     repression. His father had been vice chief of the Pakistani 
     Air Force. This was the bomber Bloomberg was confused about.
       The reaction to the National Security Five and their 
     request for investigations by the inspectors general must be 
     seen in this context of willful avoidance and denial. In 
     fact, there is a good deal in the Obama administration's 
     national security and foreign policy to ask about. One theme 
     of the inspectors general letters is the administration's 
     courting of individuals viewed as leaders by the U.S.-based 
     Muslim Brotherhood. A recent terrorist finance trial produced 
     80 boxes of evidence related to the activities of the Muslim 
     Brotherhood network in North America over the past 40 years.
       Unlike the Cold War, the primary focus of concern in 
     government today is not espionage but influence. In the Cold 
     War, there was value to learning secrets. The right spy at 
     the right place could give one side or the other a big 
     advantage.
       This long war with radical Islamists is a very different 
     struggle. There are many nuances and long-term developments. 
     Much of the struggle involves ideas and language alien to 
     most American leaders and unknown even to most of the State 
     or Defense Department professionals.
       So the right or wrong adviser can be enormously powerful. 
     Getting the right advice can be everything. Therefore, whose 
     advice we rely on becomes central to national security. 
     Asking who the advisers are, what their prejudices are and 
     what advice they give is a legitimate--indeed, essential--
     part of any serious national security system.
       It was this question that the National Security Five 
     focused on. They were right to do so and it weakens national 
     security for them to be attacked for simply asking basic 
     questions. One clear example of the Obama administration's 
     indefensible bias is its decision to co-sponsor the Global 
     Counterterrorism Forum, which explicitly excluded Israel. 
     Launched on Sept. 22, 2011, by Secretary of State Hillary 
     Clinton and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, this 
     forum brought together 29 countries and the European Union. 
     Yet it excluded the country that has been the most frequently 
     attacked and has the most experience defeating terrorism.
       On June 7, 2012, Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Mark 
     Kirk (R-I11.) condemned the U.S. government for giving in to 
     demands to exclude Israel.
       To make matters worse, Maria Otero, the undersecretary for 
     civilian security, democracy and human rights, gave a speech 
     ``in which she notably failed to mention Israel and Israelis 
     as victims of terrorism.''
       Isn't it legitimate to ask: Who advised Clinton to launch a 
     counterterrorism initiative that excluded Israel? Isn't it 
     also legitimate to ask: Who advised Otero to give a major 
     speech on terrorism and ignore the attacks on Israel and 
     Israelis?
       The anti-Israeli bias in the Obama administration shows up 
     in strange ways. Daniel Halper of The Weekly Standard 
     reported in August 2011 that the ``White House has apparently 
     gone through its website, cleansing any reference to 
     Jerusalem being in Israel.'' It seems the Obama 
     administration even went back to public documents from 
     earlier administrations to pretend this White House's 
     rejection of Jerusalem as part of Israel had been prior 
     administrations' policies. This is the Orwellian nature of 
     the Obama system.
       Its hostility to the city of David being considered 
     Israel's capital was displayed as recently as Thursday in the 
     following colloquy between reporters and Jay Carney, White 
     House press secretary:
       Reporter: ``What city does this administration consider to 
     be the capital of Israel? Jerusalem or Tel Aviv?''
       Carney: ``Um . . . I haven't had that question in a while. 
     Our position has not changed. Can we, uh . . .''
       Reporter: ``What is the capital [of Israel]?''
       Carney: ``You know our position.''
       Reporter: ``I don't.''
       Lester Kinsolving, World Net Daily: ``No, no. She doesn't 
     know, that's why she asked.'' Carney: ``She does know.''
       Reporter: ``I don't.''
       Kinsolving: ``She does not know. She just said that she 
     does not know. I don't know.'' Carney: ``We have long, let's 
     not call on . . .''
       Kinsolving: ``Tel Aviv or Jerusalem?''
       Carney: ``You know the answer to that.''
       Kinsolving: ``I don't know the answer. We don't know the 
     answer. Could you just give us an answer? What do you 
     recognize? What does the administration recognize?''
       Carney: ``Our position has not changed.''
       Kinsolving: ``What position?''
       Carney then moved on to another question.
       Isn't it legitimate to ask: Who advised the Obama 
     administration to erase Jerusalem from Israel? Isn't it fair 
     to ask: Who went back and forged public documents and who 
     told them to do it?
       Another example of these legitimate questions, consider the 
     strange case of Louay

[[Page E1418]]

     Safi. Safi ran the Islamic Society of North America (an 
     unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas 
     financing case) and who was himself an unindicted co-
     conspirator in the Sami Al-Arian terrorism case (involving 
     Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist org). As Andy McCarthy, a 
     former federal prosecutor in terrorism cases, explained, ``So 
     what happens? Pentagon hires him as expert to teach Islam to 
     our troops before they deploy from Fort Hood! And now, of 
     course, he is the leader of the [Muslim] Brotherhoods' 
     government-in-waiting for Syria. You just can't make this 
     stuff up!''
       Isn't it appropriate to ask: Who were the Muslim chaplains 
     approved by this extremist? How did he get chosen to be in 
     such a key position? What system of checking for extremism 
     broke down so badly, or is so biased, that it allowed members 
     and allies of radical Islamist organizations to play key 
     roles in the U.S. government?
       Part of the reaction to the National Security Five raising 
     questions about the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood has 
     come from a deliberate effort to deny the importance and the 
     radicalism of the Muslim Brotherhood as a worldwide network. 
     The level of self-deception necessary to misunderstand the 
     Muslim Brotherhood verges on a psychosis. The organization's 
     motto is ``Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. 
     The Quran is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of 
     Allah is our highest hope.'' Our elites discount all these 
     words--and refuse to take them seriously.
       Yet doesn't the lesson of Munich in 1972, New York City on 
     Sept. 11, Hasan at Fort Hood, the Times Square car bomber, 
     the bombings in Iraq this week--the list is endless--show 
     that these words matter?
       Consider clause seven of one branch of the Muslim 
     Brotherhood--Hamas. Perhaps no one in our elites wants to 
     read the Hamas Charter's clause seven because it is too 
     horrifying. Consider: ``The Day of Judgment will not come 
     until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind 
     the stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, ``O 
     Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill 
     him.'' Apologists for Hamas insist this clause has no 
     meaning. But the Hamas leaders claim they cannot remove it 
     from their charter.
       The Muslim Brotherhood, in a 1991 document called the 
     ``Explanatory Memorandum,'' explained to its own supporters 
     that its goal was ``a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and 
     destroying Western Civilization from within and `sabotaging' 
     its miserable house by their hands and the hands of believers 
     so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made 
     victorious over all other religions.''
       This memo cited 29 different allied groups, including the 
     Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim Students 
     Association and the Islamic Association of Palestine. Leaders 
     in some of these allied groups founded the Council on 
     American-Islamic Relations. Just Friday, the Dubai chief of 
     police warned about a Muslim Brotherhood effort to take over 
     the emirates and seize their oil and natural gas wealth.
       The Muslim Brotherhood is a serious worldwide organization 
     dedicated to a future most Americans would find appalling. 
     Seeking to understand its reach and its impact on the U.S. 
     government is a legitimate, indeed essential, part of our 
     national security process.
       The National Security Five were doing their duty in asking 
     difficult questions designed to make America safer. Their 
     critics represent the kind of willful blindness that 
     increasingly puts America at risk.
       If we do not want a book to describe ``Why Washington 
     Slept,'' we will have to encourage elected officials to 
     follow the advice of a later Kennedy book and exhibit 
     ``Profiles in Courage.''
       Bachmann, Franks, Gohmert, Rooney and Westmoreland are 
     showing a lot more courage than the defenders of timidity, 
     complicity and passivity.

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